Thrice No
You Also Have Permission to Abstain
“I think it's so cute and I think it's so sweet /How you let your friends encourage you to try and talk to me / But let me stop you there / oh, before you speak/ My name is no, my sign is no, my number is no; you need to let it go.” —Meghan Trainor
Dear Friends,
The Presidential primary contest was over at the sound of the starter’s pistol. As I am writing this, everyone except Nikki Haley has thrown in the towel and kissed the ring of Donald Trump and he is doling out compliments and favors in return. And, make no mistake, she won’t be far behind.
Now begins the full-court press: the cajoling, the scolding, the emotional appeals, the fear-mongering, the guilt-manipulation, the demands to unify the party, get in line, and support the Republican nominee. After all, that’s what the cool kids are all doing, even very cool friends of mine.
I hope to only write this once for the remainder of 2024, so consider this a one-stop, go-to post to clear up any confusion:
No.
Hopefully that clears up any possible misunderstanding about what I think about the upcoming election. We are faced with two candidates who are both unfit for the office, and neither will get a stamp of approval from me. And I trust there is little need to bore you by telling you why both of these men are unfit.
The only argument—and I do mean only—for voting for Donald Trump is some variation of “We gotta stop Joe Biden!” In other words, the only argument is that because Biden is such an existential threat to our country, to conservatives, to Evangelical Christians, we are duty-bound to hold our noses and vote for his opponent. Let me just clear this up again:
No.
Joe Biden is the head of one branch of a three-branch government designed to place checks and balances on his aims. And he has been in office for nearly four years and I don’t know if you have noticed, but he has accomplished very little of his agenda. We’ve been managing the “prospect” of a Biden Administration for some time now. The sky has not fallen. “Flight 93” did not crash and burn. We are still here. We’ve got major problems, to be sure, but as I see it the best-case scenario is to continue managing for the foreseeable future. Congress, as it has been for the last few cycles, is the bulwark: deprive Joe Biden (or whoever runs in his place, ahem) of a unified government.
But the demagogue (not an insult; just the proper word) who tried to get his Vice President to violate his oath of office in order to overturn the Electoral College, who believes there are no meaningful checks and balances, that he is entitled to complete and total immunity under the law, who has no governing principles except his immediate appetites, demands loyalty from everyone but gives none, praises dictators abroad, calls “heartbeat” bills “terrible,” vilifies half of the country’s law-abiding citizens as “traitors” and “enemies,” and—oh yeah, is facing criminal indictments (of which one, by the way, he is obviously guilty of), is not a viable alternative. So, if that’s confusing:
No.
Everybody knows that Donald Trump is an odious character who turns off many of you, as well as me. That is why so many, especially Evangelical Christians (like my friend mentioned above), are busy writing think-pieces to provide you permission to vote for him in spite of his obvious liabilities. “It’s okay. He did some good things. He’s not that bad. He’s our best hope!”
Well, guess what? I get to write an essay giving you permission to not vote for him. You have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to cast your vote for Donald Trump. Let the scorn and the shame and the fear-and-guilt-mongering roll off you like water off a duck’s back. It’s your vote, and nobody is entitled to it.
If you live in a hotly contested swing state and your conscience leads you to hold your nose and vote for Trump, you’re free to do so. But don’t do so because somebody bullied or guilted you into it.
I will be voting for down-ballot Republicans in a House and Senate race and the top of the ballot will read, for the second straight cycle, “Benjamin Eric Sasse.” Below that, in the Vice President slot, it will read “Erick-Woods Erickson.”
The Party has spoken. And the Party deserves everything coming.
Thanks for reading The Quarter Inch! Have a terrific rest of your week.
Thank you for that piece. 2024 will also be my third No. When family members asked in 2016 "Why?" I answered, "I will not vote for anyone I cannot trust my daughters with." Still true.
Well said. I wish more Christians were saying it.
We also have permission to vote third party, and we might do more to think about whether as a matter of principle we should be working to that end. The Netherlands, beneficiary of the Calvinism of Abraham Kuyper, has a number of parties that are explicitly Christian.
Our system, of course, is not conducive to third parties. But that could be changed. One concrete step would be to implement ranked choice voting (RCV). I live in Virginia, where RCV was used in the 2021 Republican gubernatorial primary. Glenn Youngkin faced six other contenders for the nomination. In the first round of voting, he received only 22% of the vote, but as the low vote getters were eliminated through the rounds of vote counting, he reached over 50%. The primary thus allowed several candidates to run, but the winner ended with a solid mandate.
RCV allows you not to worry about "wasting" a vote -- thus encouraging third parties -- and also requires candidates to woo a larger group of voters in order to pass the 50% threshold. No plurality wins, and in this context, no worrying about splitting the "never Trump" vote. It is a reform that deserves much more attention than it has received.