First of all, let’s stipulate that Hillary Clinton is a terrible candidate. If she had any charisma, if she weren’t so obviously cynical and corrupt (though see here), she would be light years ahead of the Republican nominee. And, yes, she’s very liberal. More so, I think, than her husband, who was always something of a pragmatist.
I’ve been a libertarian-leaning conservative since I was old enough to hold political views. It astonishes me that I now view the likely election of Mrs. Clinton with resigned indifference. But I do.
And that’s because the Republican Party nominated Mr. Donald J. Trump, a man whom I regard as utterly unfit for the presidency. Not merely because he’s crass, vulgar, unprincipled, and immoral, but because he’s ignorant and thoughtless, because he’s not a conservative but an authoritarian populist demagogue, because he proposes massive government intervention in free markets, because he’s appealed quite consciously (in my judgment) to an angry strand of “alt-right” zealots who reek of xenophobia and white nationalism and religious bigotry, because he’s advocated war crimes, because he’s shown utterly no interest in limited-government constitutionalism, because he’s expressed admiration for thugs such as Vladimir Putin and the rulers of Beijing and the Kims of North Korea, because he’s idly toyed with the idea of destroying our treaty-relationships with long-term allies and even with the use of nuclear weapons, because his attacks on other Republicans and conservatives have gravely damaged both the Party and the conservative movement, because he shows a blithe indifference to nuclear proliferation, and because I strongly suspect that he’s psychologically unstable. His weird late-night tweets, his obsessive pursuit of revenge against any and all criticism, even when it’s from little people like the family of a slain Muslim soldier or a former beauty queen, his continual threats of lawsuits, his juvenile personal insults (“Crooked Hillary,” “Little Marco Rubio,” “Lying Ted,” and on and on and on and on) suggest to me a curiously adolescent narcissism. I think he would be easily manipulated by clever operators such as Mr. Putin.
I cannot vote for Donald Trump.
When people tell me that he’s a brilliant businessman, I want to know where the evidence for that claim might be. I’ve seen nothing. Various examinations of his wealth have indicated that, given the amount of money he inherited from his father, he would have more today had he simply put his inheritance in the bank. That demonstrates no financial genius.
Others tell me that the Supreme Court is the real issue. This is the one argument for Trump that has ever impressed me even slightly. But it doesn’t impress me very much. Why not? Because I don’t take him seriously on the subject. 1) First of all, the most he did was to indicate that, should he acquire the White House, he would nominate people “like” those on a list provided to him by the Heritage Foundation. That’s not very strong. 2) When, prior to this presidential campaign, did he ever — ever — demonstrate any real commitment to a conservative position on any significant public issue? (Until remarkably recently, he was a pro-choice Democrat and a contributor to the Clintons.) 3) When has he ever demonstrated any actual commitment to keeping promises? (Ask his wives.) 4) What reason do we have to believe that he would expend significant political capital on an inevitably bruising battle (think of previous instances, such as Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas) to put a conservative justice on the Court? 5) How can we take him seriously on this matter when, by repeatedly attacking the very Republican senators whom he would need in order to confirm his hypothetical conservative nominees — including some senators who are currently fighting for reelection — he’s shown no seriousness himself?
When people tell me (and, lately, scream at me) that, although Trump is bad, Hillary is much worse, I simply don’t see it. Clinton and Trump are just bad in different but overlapping ways. (I like the formulation of the conservative humorist P. J. O’Rourke, who announced many months ago that he was planning to vote for Mrs. Clinton. Why? Because, he said, at least she would be bad “within normal parameters.”)
I honestly can’t choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. So I won’t.
I considered simply not voting for the presidency. But that was unsatisfying.
So I’ve turned to voting third party.
I won’t go through all the options, but I’ll mention my serious thought about voting for Gary Johnson. I regard Johnson as something of a flake, and, on some issues (e.g., religious liberty), not much of a libertarian. Still, I would be happy to see the Libertarian Party rise in importance. I believe in a strongly competitive political culture, and I think that Utah is the worse for not having, in most races, vigorous opposition to Republican rule. Any party or politician will grow complacent without continual challenges. But I would be delighted, in Utah, to have the two dominant parties be the Republicans and the Libertarians. That way, the Republicans would be continually drawn rightward, toward free-market solutions and smaller government, rather than in the opposite direction. (I left the Republican Party on the night that Donald Trump accepted the Party’s nomination in Cleveland; currently, I’m an independent, but I’ve flirted with the idea, despite my reservations about portions of its typical platform, of joining the Libertarian Party should the Republicans fail to de-tox themselves after November.)
So I almost decided to vote for Gary Johnson.
In the end, though, I’ve decided to vote for Evan McMullin.
I do so not because he’s a fellow Mormon — I’ve voted mostly for non-Mormons all of my life — but because he has an actual chance (perhaps receding a bit now, but still a possibility) of taking Utah’s six electoral votes. That is a statement that I would dearly love my adopted state to make. While Evangelical Protestants have fallen all over themselves in their eager haste to abandon their principles in support of Mr. Trump, Latter-day Saints have drawn international attention for their reluctance to do so. That has greatly pleased me. And even if, as seems likely, Trump takes Utah, the combined non-Trump vote here will still probably outnumber his supporters. If that’s the outcome, it will be a weaker statement than I would have liked, but I’ll still take it and take pleasure in it.
Some say that we haven’t vetted Evan McMullin, that we know too little about him to elect him president. What leadership experience has he had? Well, who cares? The odds of his actually being elected are microscopic. Besides, there are several people on my block that I would prefer to see as president — seriously, there are — instead of Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton. We know a lot about Clinton and Trump and, personally, the more I know about them, the less I like them. I would support an intelligent person from my neighborhood, someone who knew he or she needed help from competent advisors and who took the job seriously and really wanted to serve, over either of the two major-party nominees. In a heartbeat.
Beyond voting for Evan McMullin, I intend to cast my ballot for Senator Mike Lee, whom I’ve respected over the years for many reasons, including his principled stand against the Republican presidential nominee. (For the record, although I’m more conservative/libertarian than he was, I also liked and admired former Senator Bob Bennett, a very good man.) I’ll also vote for Jason Chaffetz, with whom I generally agree (despite my disappointment at his support for Trump, muted and reluctant as it has been). I’m sorry that I can’t vote for Mia Love, who is evidently in a tight race for reelection. But I don’t live in her district. On the whole, in this distressing and even repulsive election year, it’s urgently important that we conservatives make every effort to maintain Republican control of the House and the Senate. (The odds of the former are good. The chances of the latter are much poorer, alas, in substantial part owing to the self-absorbed and divisive campaign waged by the Republican Party’s horrible presidential nominee.)
I’m grateful to live in a country where we have the opportunity to choose our leaders. I will not break fellowship or cut off friendships with those who view this election differently than I do. While I cannot support Hillary Clinton, I know many good people — members of my church and non-members — who do. I also understand those, including life-long Republicans, who find Donald Trump so toxic that they’re supporting Mrs. Clinton in order to block him from the presidency. I sympathize. And, while I cannot support Donald Trump, I understand those who find Hillary Clinton so objectionable that they’re holding their noses to support Mr. Trump. (I confess to having a much more difficult time understanding those who supported Trump from the start, when there were good alternatives among the Republican candidates.) I hope that our common bonds as citizens of the United States (and, in many cases, as fellow-citizens of the Church and Kingdom of God) will withstand the stresses and strains created by the political passions of this supremely ugly election.
Finally, a word to my fellow Latter-day Saints on “throwing one’s vote away” on a third-party candidate. Some have suggested to me that it’s essentially immoral to do so.
Joseph Smith wouldn’t have agreed.
When none of the leading candidates for the 1844 presidential race — a group that included the titans Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, as well as the lesser figure, Martin Van Buren, who eventually won — proved satisfactory, Joseph himself launched a campaign for the White House. Did he have any realistic chance of winning? No. He didn’t. The chances of his reaching the White House were extremely low. (And, as it happened, he was martyred before the election took place.)
Andrew Sargent helpfully reminds me of a statement — directly relevant to “throwing votes away” on third-party candidates who probably won’t win — that has been attributed to Joseph Smith himself, although it may actually come from John Taylor or someone else high in Church leadership in Joseph’s day. Certainly its sentiments are consistent with Joseph’s actual undertaking of an independent presidential bid:
“One great reason that we have for pursuing our present course is, that at every election we have been made a political target for the demagogues in the country to shoot their loathsome arrows at. . . . We refuse any longer to be thus bedaubed for either party. We withdraw. Under existing circumstances, we have no other alternative; and if we can accomplish our object, well: if not, we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that we have acted conscientiously, and have used our best judgment. And if we have to throw away our votes, we had better do so upon a worthy rather than an unworthy individual, who might make use of the weapon we put in his hand to destroy us.” (From B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church, 2:208-209)
May God bless America.
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