Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
A Catholic for Trump
Hadley Arkes on The Catholic Thing:
[T]he House of Representatives last September voted 248-177 to punish surgeons who kill babies who survive abortions. All 177 votes in opposition came from Democrats….Even if the candidate of the Left were winsome and squeaky clean, an Administration of the Left would be unrelenting in its war to make Catholic institutions fund abortions and contraceptives and recede from any moral objections to same-sex marriage.
We would see an extension of the same drive to detach Executive orders ever more from the statutes that supply, at once, their authority – and their limits. A “rule of law,” now teetering at the very edge, would pass well over that edge, not merely disfranchising us, but diminishing us all.
Mr. Trump is a wild card, but he is likely to sign pro-life measures, and he is seeking advice now from the right people to appoint a plausible successor to Justice Scalia. In this Guide for the Perplexed, we may find reason to bite our lips and take the Wild Card over the brutal Sure Thing on the other side.
Support the Wild Card over the brutal Sure Thing. That might indeed be the best that we can do, mightn’t it?
Published in General
Who are these “right” people advising trump she speaks of? Reads like some illogical rationalization of a bad option into a better option.
Yes, that is the best option. And lots and lots of prayer.
Peter, if you keep on trying to rationalize voting for Trump I will delete my account. After all your talk of principle and championing of the Reagan legacy over the years, if you back this vile excuse for a candidate you will undermine any credibility or pretense to integrity you’ve ever earned.
If that wasn’t enough (and it is for me), there’s the end of the First and Second Amendments and a weaponized IRS.
I think the analysis is correct .
There is absolutely no doubt what Hillary will do in office. Every left wing, communist, feminist dream brought to life in the oval office.
Trump is the wildest card and could easily be worse than Hillary and could also be better. The problem is he is much more into playing crowds and cable news reporters than he is leading a nation.
That isn’t an endorsement to vote for the devil we do not know versus the one we do. I just think that is a succinct way of breaking it down.
It’s not just Catholics. This is a war on all faithful Reformation churches too.
There’s just one more piece to this I don’t hear about very often. Trump will face opposition for any hair-brained schemes — within his own party!!
Clinton? Not so much.
In fact, if the last seven and a half years are any indication, there won’t even be much resistance from Republicans to the historic first woman president. They might be accused of being sexist, or of wanting to deprive retirees of their SS checks in a government shutdown, or of wanting to force Caitlyn Jenner to use the men’s room. Can’t have that. Might damage the party.
Bwwahahahaha!!
There was rarely any doubt in my mind that Trump is better than Hillary. This is the single biggest reason right here.
The only questions I have are whether Trump has crossed any lines making a vote for him inexcusable, and whether a Trump victory is so bad for the conservative movement that (in the long run) it’s even worse for the country than Hillary.
Five non-negotiables for Catholics: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and SSM.
Clinton gets a perfect (intolerable) score. I don’t think Trump is ideologically committed enough on anything to know for sure what his stance is on these five issues. I’ll take Trump.
I agree. A Hillary Clinton win guarantees Supreme Court justices who will support all leftist proposals that “would be unrelenting in its war to make Catholic institutions fund abortions and contraceptives and recede from any moral objections to same-sex marriage.” There are worse things that can happen if Trump is not elected and either Hillary or Bernie are.
My exact words earlier today. But as I argued there, I do believe Trump could be worse than Clinton as well. That is why I am undecided about November.
Either way, voting 3rd-party or abstaining is a long-term strategy that cannot help our country in the near term. None of us knows what American circumstances will look like after 4 years of a Clinton or Trump presidency. A long-term strategy relies on assumptions about even less predictable circumstances further down the line.
T vs. C. aside, I’m not sure I trust the theological instincts of someone who chose “an eye for an eye” as his favorite Biblical maxim, believing it to be a justification for retribution.
What evidence is there for this assertion?
No, it Mightn’t.
Peter, I know you are an eternal optimist, and I fear that you will be among those who delude themselves because the alternative is a painful reality. That’s how many have justified supporting Trump in the first place, but it is a false hope, and the only way to arrive at it is to ignore what you know to be true.
This is the year for sitting one out, and reorganizing. Remember that with a Hillary victory, we’ll have some semblance of credibility (though not much) and the ability to try again in 4 years. Even if hesitant republicans such as yourself rally around Trump, he will still go down in flames, and you will have neither credibility nor dignity.
It’s also quite possible a Hillary presidency could bring about the forced shutting down of colleges like Thomas Aquinas College in California.
At least it’s Biblical. Hillary’s hostile to the entire book. (Her preferred alternative to “an eye for an eye” is “I’ll destroy your very existence if you so much as look at me wrong.”)
exactly.
Trump will destroy conservatism.
Hillary will destroy the country, temporarily, and conservatism will remain our best chance to come back.
I’ll take the war over the battle, thank you.
That reminded me of that funny scene in “A Fish Called Wanda” in which someone had to explain to Kevin Cline’s character that the central tenant of Budism isn’t “every man for himself”
No more credibility than we have after eight years of Obama.
But even if Hillary in office did give us some sort of “credibility,” you think our righteous creds are somehow going to outweigh three Eric Holders on the Supreme Court? Or an IRS persecuting conservative and religious groups with impunity?
Why should we expect them to oppose Trump anymore than Hillary?
Just read Ricochet. A lot of Republicans despise Trump with far more fervor than Hillary (or Obama or any other Democrat for that matter).
We can be assured Hillary will continue the progressive’s destruction of our country. Trump is a wild card but I’ll take that chance.
This is all grasping at straws.
Trump is indefensible in and of himself.
All I am hearing is variations on the coercive theme that we must support him in order to oppose Hillary.
No. We. Don’t!
You wanted him, you got got him. Win with him or lose with him. I will not make common cause with the thugs and bigots in his camp. Period.
The GOP is becoming a White Identity Party and her standard bearer is a hateful mentally ill thug.
Do not think for a moment that those of us who find him repulsive and unfit for office see him in any other light juxtaposed with Hillary.
Seriously? You think Republicans will sign off on a new Smoot-Hawley because Trump is a “Republican” president? Well, then. We should just pack it in. Trump isn’t the only unprincipled Republican.
Those in Washington don’t seem to.
They eventually signed off on Obamacare. Why not a new Smoot-Hawley?
I only hope that before the election everyone here in Ricochet, and everywhere else for that matter, decides which of the major party candidates they wish to vote for and speaks up in defense of that choice.
I hope they all recognize that not voting for anyone or voting for some hopeless third party candidate (whom they themselves do not believe has a chance to win) is sanctimonious. I suspect those who do choose “neither of the above” will wear their choice on their sleeve – perhaps they’ll mark it in ashes on their foreheads. “I could not compromise my purity by marking the ballot for either of these flawed individuals.” Puhleez.
I wonder if voter perspectives on this dilemma are influenced by whether we are entering a horrible time or escaping one.
Imagine we are living in the Soviet Union. We are faced with a choice betwen Khrushchev, who scares the heck out of us, and Gorbachev, who is less scary but isn’t a freedom-loving guy either. Both represent evil oppression. Does that mean a vote for the lesser oppressor is dishonorable support for evil? Or is it a respectable step toward milder tyranny and, eventually by the grace of God, genuine freedom?
Assuming both Clinton and Trump would be destructive and unjust, is a vote for the lesser evil encouragement of that evil or is it just playing for time?
Refusing to vote for Trump is not sanctimonious or an act of purism any more than refusing to give your permission to the man who is trying to to con you is. Trump is a fraud and a charlatan whose entire career is marked by bilking both customers and business partners as well as buying politicians and abusing the legal system. He is a proven deceiver and double dealer. This isn’t conjecture or a projection. It is proven fact. Trumps character and MO are well known, as are his very recent associations and support for all manner of leftist and illiberal abuses of liberty and the rule of law. Trump is no wild card. He is an indisputable shyster by any measure.
Okay, fine. So choose Hillary.
I did not say it was sanctimonious to not vote for Trump. I said it was sanctimonious to (for some reason other than sloth) not vote for either candidate that can win. The future is A or B. Evaluate as best you can – for your children if not for yourself – and make a choice.