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This is from a private Facebook thread, so I can\u2019t cite others (too bad), but I wrote a lot there, and so would like to preserve it on my blog. It may be regarded as follow-up comments to my article, \u201cDavid French\u2019s Hit-Piece on Franklin Graham & Trump\u201d<\/a> (4-28-19).<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n I\u2019m only describing what we see every day, and only one aspect of the Never Trumper: how they view Trump. It\u2019s pretty much 100% negativity. That\u2019s not judging the whole person (as Trump is judged by them).<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Yeah, I supported Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich [during the primaries]. I didn\u2019t vote in the primaries, but I was gonna vote for Kasich. Then when Trump got it, it was a no-brainer to select him over Hillary Clinton: Planned Parenthood\u2019s crowned \u201cChampion of the Century.\u201d This is how democracies and republics work. Political candidates are not saints. But I don\u2019t vote for babykillers.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s pro-life record while in office has been nothing short of breathtaking.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n It\u2019s amazing how you can conclude that [a lack of concern for the pro-life cause] by someone voting for a pro-lifer over against a rabid babykilling advocate.<\/p>\n It was not St. Hillary vs. St. Donald. Pro-life Democrats (the few that even exist anymore) always say they\u2019re not really voting for the pro-abortion policies of their Dem folks that they want to vote for. Likewise, we are not voting for anything we disagree with in Trump, in his personal life. We\u2019re voting for his policy over that of the alternative. I would have loved to have someone like a Rick Santorum. But when he ran, Romney divided him against Gingrich and won, in 2012.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n [How could we vote for Trump?] Because he was willing to fight the radically secular babykilling advocate liberals and enact the policies we want: the exact opposite of McCain and Romney. We were so sick of losing that we chose the candidate who would win, even though he was highly flawed. We were tired of voting for RINOs.<\/p>\n He was my second-to-last choice in the beginning (only pro-abort Pataki was lower), and my 4th during the primary, but when he got it, he had my vote because I am a pro-lifer.<\/p>\n And it has been a spectacular record since he took office.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n [turning the tables on another\u2019s critical comments \u2014 using their phraseology \u2014 directed towards Trump voters] I am always baffled when people claim to be pro-life but don\u2019t fathom the absurdity of supposedly voting pro-life by voting for a babykiller who habitually treats preborn children badly. It\u2019s as if the human products of \u201ccrisis\u201d (or any) pregnancies are irrelevant to them\u2026.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I think it depends on who is winning the primaries as it goes along. At a certain point, folks decide that it looks like it is going a certain way and so they get on that bandwagon.\u00a0He won primary elections. That\u2019s it. This is not rocket science. We were tired of wimps and RINOs.<\/p>\n He started winning, and we knew he would stand up to the liberals, in a way that we have rarely seen. This perception has been amazingly verified by his behavior in office. And that\u2019s what we wanted.<\/p>\n Usually, we don\u2019t get our first choice. Mine\u00a0was Gingrich and Santorum in 2012. We got Romney instead. I voted for him as infinitely superior to Obama. But he\u2019s a RINO. It\u2019s far more objectionable voting for him than for Trump. And he was not a Christian at all, to boot.<\/p>\n Yeah, I liked Carson and Fiorina too [and many others, too]. It was an amazing field of GOP candidates in 2016.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n [on being totally pro-life and pro-woman] Sorry to hear of your [pregnancy] troubles. It\u2019s not unknown to us, either. My wife Judy had six miscarriages and four successful births: serious bed rest for the last one. Our third almost died during delivery. He had colic for two years and she\u00a0also developed serious post-partum depression (up to being suicidal at times) after our third. She was unsuccessfully on Zoloft for seven years due to that. We only resolved that when I came up with a simple natural remedy for her depression (with the approval of our doctor). She has had no depression since then (2000).<\/p>\n My good friends Al & Sally Kresta started crisis pregnancy centers in the Detroit area in the early 80s. We\u2019ve always had a high concern for women in the pro-life movement here.<\/p>\n Trump is anti-abortion<\/em><\/strong>, Hillary was pro-abortion<\/em><\/strong> (up till birth). Pro-lifers vote for the ones who will lower the numbers of abortions. Duh!<\/em><\/strong> It\u2019s not rocket science. Many thousands of babies are alive today who would not have been because of that choice we made. If that<\/em> is not pro-life, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I don\u2019t see many positive appraisals from [Never Rational Never Trumpers]. Instead, they can\u2019t admit that they were dead-wrong about things like his pro-life record in office.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been through all this 100 times:<\/p>\n Trump & Reagan: Shocking Similarities<\/a>\u00a0[1-15-16]<\/p>\n Is Trump a Conservative; Even \u201cReaganesque\u201d?<\/a>\u00a0[3-9-16]<\/p>\n Trump is a Slimeball, Moron, & Scumbag<\/a>\u00a0[5-27-16]<\/p>\n \u201cHow Can a Catholic Vote for Trump?!!?\u201d<\/a>\u00a0[5-28-16]<\/p>\n On Trump & the \u201cSupreme\u201d Pro-Life Cause<\/a>\u00a0[8-16-16]<\/p>\n \u201cLessen Evil\u201d Votes for Hillary?<\/a>\u00a0(vs. Mark Shea) [4-7-17]<\/p>\n Good Christians Can Support Trump (Amazingly Enough)!<\/a>\u00a0[7-21-18]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n I agree that a President\u2019s moral character is a\u00a0highly<\/em>\u00a0relevant issue. So does Franklin Graham.<\/strong> But we also were forced to make a choice between Trump, with all his faults, including likely much sexual sin, and the radical pro-abort with a long string of dubious [il]legal activities, Hillary Clinton. That choice was very clear for any Christian voter (I submit). Personally, I never\u00a0ever<\/em>\u00a0vote for childkillers, if there is a pro-life choice on the ballot. It\u2019s a dealbreaker, in the way that being a Nazi or KKK member also would be. On the other hand, votes do not suggest or imply absolute approval of everything in a candidate\u2019s policies or life. Anyone who thinks they\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0is an unthinking idiot.<\/strong><\/p>\n Lastly, one can take different views as to how much to probe a President\u2019s personal life. In JFK\u2019s and LBJ\u2019s times (no saints: either of them) it simply wasn\u2019t done at all.\u00a0 Democrats are the ones who blasted into public consciousness the notion (during the Clinton Monica Lewinsky fiasco) that one\u2019s (even a President\u2019s) private sexuality was absolutely irrelevant. And so the public largely now applies that empty-headed libertarian approach to President Trump. If Clinton\u2019s sexual sins were irrelevant, so are Trump\u2019s, whatever they may be (so they reason). I do\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0think they are irrelevant, in either case.<\/strong> But that is the societal norm the Democrats blessed us with. You make\u00a0the\u00a0bed you lie\u00a0in . . . [bolding added presently]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s beyond naive (flat-out simplistic) to believe that we are talking about holy, saintly people at this high of a level in the political arena.<\/p>\n Often, given this reality, in voting it comes down to \u201cthe lesser of two evils\u201d. My friends on the Catholic left (legion at Patheos, where I blog) are well aware of this, since they routinely justify voting for pro-abort candidates as morally superior to the alternative. We even see (what I regard as utterly ludicrous) opinions that the pro-abort candidate is, in fact, more pro-life than the stated pro-life candidate.<\/p>\n My immediate point is that those who are now saying any Trump \u201csupporter\u201d is a rank hypocrite, engage in the same sort of \u201clesser of two evils\u201d approach all the time in their own political votes.<\/p>\n That<\/em><\/strong> is how someone (like myself) can plan on voting for Trump, as the lesser of two evils. We were never deluded at any time (at least I wasn\u2019t) into thinking that he was a saint. We\u2019re fully aware of his past. This new \u201ctape\u201d doesn\u2019t fundamentally surprise me because I knew that Trump was a Clinton and JFK type in that<\/em>\u00a0respect. The particulars of it are highly disturbing, but we all knew that Trump is not a choirboy. We all know that Billary Clinton is not a choirgirl, either, but nobody gives a damn about that. Democratic candidates are always given a pass. They can do anything (even commit felonies) and no one cares.<\/p>\n All I\u2019m doing is what all but two (Kasich and Jeb Bush) of the original 17 Republican candidates did: pledge to support whomever was on the eventual ticket as the nominee. I did so based on the life and Supreme Court issue. And I\u2019ve also liked most of the policy positions that Trump has laid out (rightly understood). . . .<\/p>\n When folks are disgusted over Trump\u2019s remarks and behavior in 2005, I\u2019m with them 100%. I\u2019m not with them, however, if there is any hint that Clinton is morally or politically superior to Trump. She\u2019s no canonized saint, either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n I think if God made an eternal covenant with King David, knowing that he was to commit murder and adultery, we can vote for a candidate who has committed adultery, since the alternate is a bloodthirsty childkilling advocate, who favors killing children at full term.<\/p><\/div>\n Those who vote for Democrat pro-aborts while saying they (i.e., the voters) are\u00a0pro-life do exactly the same. They are voting for reasons other than abortion. Or they say (ridiculously, in my opinion) that a pro-abort will actually lower rates of abortion more than a pro-life candidate. But they overlook the stated pro-abortion position of the candidate.<\/p>\n Why the double standard? How come a liberal<\/em> can vote for a candidate and not agree with everything in their views (or personal life: even up to and including the grave sin of advocacy of abortion), but conservatives can\u2019t<\/em>?\n<\/p><\/div>\n This is from a private Facebook thread, so I can\u2019t cite others (too bad), but I wrote a lot there, and so would like to preserve it on my blog. It may be regarded as follow-up comments to my article, \u201cDavid French\u2019s Hit-Piece on Franklin Graham & Trump\u201d (4-28-19). ***** I\u2019m only describing what we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":32222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,289],"tags":[2768,2769,2776,2423,1015,2896,2895,1826,2424,746,8474,2897,5606],"class_list":["post-32219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-issues","category-political-ethical-moral-issues","tag-2016-presidential-campaign","tag-american-politics","tag-american-presidential-election","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-catholic-social-teaching","tag-catholics-trump","tag-catholics-and-presidential-election","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-pro-life","tag-pro-lifers-trump","tag-supreme-court-abortion","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n\nIt\u2019s a flat-out lie to claim that that Trump voters and supporters (including myself) don\u2019t give a fig about character issues. I just stated exactly the opposite in my defense of Franklin Graham<\/a> against attacks:
\n<\/span><\/span>\nI wrote in my \u201cStatement on Donald Trump\u2019s Despicable, Outrageous \u2018Lewd\u2019 Comments\u201d<\/a> [Facebook, 10-8-16]:<\/div>\n\n
What Trump said and what it implies is indefensible. I agree with all criticism of it along those lines, and with what Jonah Goldberg, conservative and longtime Trump critic wrote: . . .<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nNow the question is (I can just hear it), \u201chow can you support such an immoral man for President?\u201d Glad to answer it: it depends on what one means by \u201csupport.\u201d My position has been perfectly consistent all along. I support the GOP candidate, whoever it is, over against the Democratic candidate, and primarily (but not solely) due to the life issue, which is the paramount ethical issue of our time. . . .<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nI have never seen a single person who is a thoughtful pro-lifer or conservative say anything remotely like, \u201cI couldn\u2019t care less about Trump\u2019s sexual sins. He can do whatever he likes.\u201d As my repeated comments make clear, I have not put character aside at all. It was a question of pro-life Trump vs. radically pro-abort Hillary, and that\u2019s a no-brainer. Politicians are not saints. No one ever thought they were until now (amazingly so, in the post-JFK, post-Nixon, post-Clinton era). I condone nothing whatsoever in Trump that is a sin.<\/div>\n*<\/div>\nAnd so the stupid debate-that-isn\u2019t-actually-a -debate goes on and on. The Never Rational Never Trumpers are no closer to understanding either Trump or why pro-lifers and Christians would vote for him than they ever were. And pride (smarting and spectacularly embarrassed after the Mueller nothing-burger fiasco) will dictate that they likely never will, or won\u2019t till Trump is long out of office (like liberals who now praise Reagan, but hated his guts during his time in office).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n***<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSomeone in this thread stated that Trump has never apologized for his sexual misdeeds. I saw him apologize at one of the presidential debates about the 2005 tape that Hillary released to the public. He said he was \u201cashamed\u201d of it. Then I saw Melania say that they talked about it; he apologized, and they \u201cmoved on.\u201d\n<\/div>\n***<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[Conservatives have not tarnished their credibility], as I have argued in great depth, because a vote for a person is not identical to absolute approval of every jot and tittle about a person.\n***<\/div>\n<\/div>\nPhoto credit:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0DonkeyHotey<\/a>\u00a0(8-27-16)<\/span> [Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/\u00a0Creative Commons<\/a>\u00a0Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic<\/a>\u00a0license]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n***<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"