Although this is the first presidential election I'll be
able to vote in (I was 17 in 2012), I've followed politics for years.
Ordinarily, I would not be one to support another candidate besides the
Republican nominee. This isn't because I'm strictly partisan, but rather
because for decades it's been the Republican vs. the Democrat, with no one else
having a chance. So even though I didn't care for John McCain or Mitt Romney, I
still would have voted for them in the general election because they were
significantly better options for a conservative than Barack Obama.
Which hopefully makes my different stance this cycle hold
more weight. I'm not convinced Donald Trump is anything close to conservative.
His values in many ways run contrary to mine, his track record of liberal
support is clear, and many of his ideas, at least those that are actually
coherent, are alarming.

Now there would be many (if not all) Trump supporters that
would tell me a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for Hillary Clinton.
I can see their reasoning; as I said before, I’d tend to support the Republican
candidate in an election. However, I believe I and all Christians should be
good stewards of our vote, and we will be called into account for how we vote.
I hope it’s obvious that Hillary Clinton’s policies run contrary to Christian
values. But so do Donald Trump’s. Again, we face a bleak reality. Looking at
the race when there were over 20 candidates between the two parties, this was
the worst outcome imaginable.
As Matt Walsh posed, how will Trump be able to criticize a
woman whose campaigns he has supported for years? How can he expect us to
believe he has changed his beliefs so radically from his support of Barack
Obama in 2012? How will he be able to stand up to Clinton when she can rightly
call him on his reprehensible
treatment of women (take the Huffington Post with a grain of salt),
bragging about his adultery and accusing Megyn Kelly of being on her period and
calling her a “bimbo” because she dared to question him on the subject?
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One of a large number of tweets in which Trump trolled Kelly by tagging her and then berating her in the 3rd person |
But it’s okay, because as he said, “It doesn’t really matter
what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of a*s.”
What mature candidate talks about his penis during a debate
and mindlessly berates other candidates with nicknames like “Little Rubio” and “Lyin’
Ted”? What conservative would make
plans to censor his opposition? Who actually states on social media, “I
love Hispanics!”? Why would we believe he is a Christian when he shows no proof
whatsoever in his life?
And what Christian could actually support him?
I think there are two camps among evangelicals, and really
anyone under the umbrella of Christianity, which support Trump. There are those
that have supported him all along. We’ll call this the Delusional Camp. These
individuals are probably too far gone, as they have followed the man with the
shady and immoral résumé over other true conservative and Christian
candidates. I won’t make that a 100% assumption, but if someone has for months
made excuses for the inexcusable, I don’t hold out much hope.
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There's a well-documented and nauseating support for Trump by evangelicals, notably Liberty University and its president, Jerry Falwell, Jr. |
The other camp is comprised of people who would have
preferred another Republican nominee, but now are supporting Trump in an
attempt to stop Hillary Clinton. I can sympathize with this position, and so
I’d like to think they are more willing to consider their position.
I want to take a lesson from the history of presidential
politics in the United States. America has not always had such a clearly
defined two party system. (For the record, there is nothing in the Constitution
about how many political parties there have to be. So when people say, “We need
more than two political parties,” I’d tend to agree, but it’s not as if we just
pass a law and make the U.S. have more political parties. It has to be a
grassroots effort.) Nor has the political system always been Republicans and
Democrats. The Democratic Party is older, but has changed quite a bit in the
last half century. The Republican Party came to be from a mix of several other
parties – most notably the one I wish to examine.
The Whig Party’s roots are in the presidency of Andrew
Jackson. (I love Andrew Jackson as a character but dislike many of his
policies.) Jackson was a Democrat who easily won his first election against
Henry Clay of the dying National Republican Party. Three different small
political parties merged to form the Whig Party, which was named after the wigs
worn by the patriots of the Revolution; this was done due to the perceived
tyranny of Jackson’s administration.
Back then, presidential elections were different. The
Electoral College had more freedom, and there were more elections with over two
major candidates. In 1836 the Whig Party realized it was not strong enough to
run a single candidate and expect to defeat Democrat Martin Van Buren. They
developed a brilliant plan: run four different candidates to appeal to
different regions, take away enough electoral votes from Van Buren, and send
the election to the Whig-controlled House of Representatives. They came less
than 4300 votes short of winning Pennsylvania, which would have allowed their
plan to succeed.
Four years later, the Whig Party elected candidate William
Henry Harrison. Unfortunately, Harrison died just 31 days after his
inauguration. The new president, John Tyler, went against the party in his
policies and was expelled from the Whigs. In 1844 they lost a close election.
The next time they were able to elect Zachary Taylor – despite the fact, mind
you, that the Free Soil Party cost them several states. After Taylor’s death,
his successor Millard Fillmore was able to push through the Compromise of 1850.
The Compromise of 1850 was the end of a stalemate between
those pushing the expansion of slavery and those opposing it. Taylor had avoided it altogether.
The Compromise admitted California as a free state, allowed territories to
decide the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty, abolished the slave trade
in the District of Columbia, and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act.
Slavery destroyed the Whig Party. Northeastern Whigs were
indifferent about it. Southern Whigs, many of whom lived in Border States, supported
the Compromise of 1850 due to its strengthening of the ability to recapture
fugitive slaves. Northern Whigs, on the other hand, opposed the Compromise due
to it lacking the “Wilmot Proviso”. The Wilmot Proviso would have banned
slavery in the territories rather than leave it to popular sovereignty. It was
left out of the final bills. Following the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 that
opened up slavery to new territories, many northern Whigs left the party for
the new Republican Party. Nativist Whigs joined the Know-Nothing Party. The Whig Party's final presidential election in 1852 was a landslide victory for the Democratic
candidate.
What followed the breakup of the Whig party was an 1856
election that split the vote and allowed the Democratic candidate, this time
James Buchanan, to win. The Republican and American Parties together received
54.6% of the popular vote to Buchanan’s 45.3%.
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The Republican Party emerged rather quickly from the fracturing of the Whig Party over slavery. |
What lesson can we learn from the Whig Party? It is possible
that the modern Republican Party might be “going the way of the Whigs”. While
the Democratic Party has polarized itself farther left, the Republican Party has
pushed more towards the center. Moderate Republicans have recently faced
primary battles from “Tea Party” candidates and other conservative Republicans
as a strain develops in the party. The gap of ideals has grown to the point
that cooperation is difficult. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner called
conservative presidential candidate Ted Cruz “Lucifer in the Flesh” and a
“Miserable Son of a B***h”. The last two presidential elections, won by Barack
Obama, saw moderate Republican candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney,
respectively, gain the nomination, much to the chagrin of conservative
Republicans, including myself.

This is the valley of decision. Where will we draw the line?
Donald Trump is the “slavery” of the Republican Party. There are seemingly
irreconcilable differences between its members that are spelling its demise. It
is noble to desire to stop Hillary Clinton, which at this point seems only
possible if she is rightfully indicted on federal charges for allowing four
Americans to die in an embassy and then cover it up. (Though her supporters
also appear to be drunk on Kool-Aid; who could support a criminal with a past
such as hers? But I digress.) However, we have to be careful how this situation
is handled. Yes, there was the election of 1856 that split the votes and
allowed the Democratic candidate to win. No, I don’t want that to happen. But
I’ve seen little that makes me believe Trump is a significantly better
candidate. Remember, he has supported Clinton. I, barring any major improvement
in the general election, refuse to authenticate the immature decision to make
him the candidate. I won’t endorse him simply because he’s the Republican
nominee. I’ve always been a conservative first, and a Republican if that
follows. (I’m pretty sure that’s in my Facebook profile.) So the vote might be
split between Trump and a more conservative candidate. But as the Democratic
Party left Ronald Reagan, so the Republican Party has left me. If it takes a
trial by fire to purge it or destroy it and make way for a new conservative
party, so be it.
If we’re really wanting change in the political structure,
if we’re really wanting our voices heard, then we have to be the ones to begin
it. A party isn’t changed by simply accepting whatever it decides to do. We
must dictate the party, not the other way around. A vote for a Darrell Castle
or even a write-in of a Ted Cruz is not a vote for Hillary Clinton. It’s a vote
against both Clinton and Trump, for both their policies would be harmful to our
nation. We have to show that. Don’t simply refuse to vote. Vote for a true
conservative. No, I don’t expect them to win. Yes, I realize that could aid
Hillary Clinton. But when I answer for my vote, I don’t want to say that I
supported the two front runners. I choose the third option.
Just remember, in the election of 1860, the young Republican
Party elected an Illinois lawyer who had left the Whig Party after becoming
disenchanted with its stance on slavery. I’d say he did pretty well.
Sadly, I don’t really expect a similar result. America’s
moral bankruptcy is increasing exponentially. But when the dust settles, I want
to be able to say I did all I could to prevent it from sliding into irrelevancy.
My vote this November is a part of that testimony.
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