As the election approaches, a recent topic of frequent discussion has become how each of us will vote. The topic is particularly revealing and angst-ridden for those of us who are independent, non-Trump-aligned conservatives. With no conservative candidate and no conservative party, our voting plans can become a Rhorshach test for how we view politics, the country, and the world.
David French recently penned an op-ed in which he revealed that he has decided to vote for Kamala Harris even though he is a Christian conservative. French notes that Trump’s dishonesty and cruelty have become epidemic throughout the Republican Party and argues that the only way to save Reaganite conservatism is by delivering an electoral rebuke to Donald Trump.
“The only real hope for restoring a conservatism that values integrity, demonstrates real compassion and defends our foundational constitutional principles isn’t to try to make the best of Trump, a man who values only himself,” French writes. “If he wins again, it will validate his cruelty and his ideological transformation of the Republican Party. If Harris wins, the West will still stand against Vladimir Putin, and conservative Americans will have a chance to build something decent from the ruins of a party that was once a force for genuine good in American life.”
On the other side of the spectrum is Erick Erickson, my old boss at The Resurgent. Erickson takes exception to French’s decision, as many on the right do. French’s objectivity and nuanced takes on politics are not popular with partisan Republicans, and his decision to vote for Harris won’t help matters.
Erickson embraces a strategy that I’ve heard from a lot of Trump skeptics, saying, “The better option for evangelicals and conservatives is to show up and vote and leave that line blank. That registers your disgust and makes you a meaningful demographic that both parties will want in order to win. That will force change. Voting for a pro-abortion candidate who will advance far-left positions just because you think the other side is bad will only ensure the side you vote for keeps moving left. They’ll treat your vote not as a vote against Trump but as an endorsement. You’ll be their cheap date.”
I’ll note that Erickson has an ulterior motive here. He endorsed Trump early for the 2020 election and I’ve seen no indication that he won’t vote for Trump this year. I’m pretty sure that Erick wants Trump to win so he has a reason for urging Never Trump conservatives to avoid voting for Harris. (To be fair, Jonah Goldberg, who does not seem to be a closet Trump supporter, has also endorsed the write-in strategy.)
Joining this storied company is my friend and Racket News co-writer, Steve Berman. Steve is not a Trump supporter, but recently opined, “My vote will not be cast to anyone who demands it. It will be given to someone who earns it. Even if that someone is no one at all.”
My own opinion on how to vote has changed over the years. Prior to 2016, I was a straight-line Republican. That year, I couldn’t vote for Trump, but I also wasn’t ready to vote for Hillary. I cast my ballot for Evan McMullin, an independent conservative.
Looking back, I think it would have been better for the country if Hillary had won. Hillary’s damage would have been limited by a strong, united opposition, and Trumpism would have been squashed before it could take root. Hillary would have likely been defeated by a conservative Republican in 2020.
Over the next couple of years, I thought seriously about voting for Trump for re-election. His first year wasn’t all that bad, but then the adults in his Administration were forced out and Trump became a loose cannon. By the time 2020 approached, I had decided that Trump needed to be fired and my vote was needed to help in that process. I voted for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in my life.
Nothing I have seen since then has made me regret that choice, even though I knew I’d disagree with a lot of what Biden did and said, or convinced me that an unrepentant Donald Trump is once again ready to assume control of the government.
Let me qualify what I’m about to say. For most of you, your presidential vote does not matter. If you live in one of about 45 states, you can be assured that your vote won’t make a difference. The partisan mix of your state is so lopsided that the outcome is assured. If your state is in play and it’s not a normal swing state then the election is already decided.
But vote anyway. As I’ve written in the past, even though your vote for president doesn’t matter, your vote for down-ballot races does. The smaller the jurisdiction, the more your vote matters. You’re one of millions in a statewide race but possibly one of hundreds or even tens in a city or county election. Do your due diligence on the candidates and cast your ballot in these low-on-the-ballot races.
On the other hand, if you live in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, your vote does matter. (I’m aware that this list doesn’t dovetail perfectly with “about 45” nonswing states. The list of swing states varies, that’s why I said “about.”) Your one vote probably won’t decide the election like Kevin Costner in the 2008 movie, “Swing Vote,” but the margins will be close and a few hundred or thousand votes can make a difference.
Having said all that, I do think that voting is a civic duty. I think that casting a meaningful vote is a civic duty. Let’s look at the different options.
Writing in the name of someone who isn’t running is a popular option. Jonah Goldberg seems to think that it sends a message to the parties that they are unhappy with the options. But that write-in vote may not be counted, depending on the state. If you write in “Mitt Romney” or “Mickey Mouse,” the powers-that-be in the parties may never know about it. That candidate certainly has no chance of winning.
What about leaving the race blank? In recent presidential elections, many voters did not vote in the presidential race but still supported down-ballot Republican candidates. I think that this may be a better option. Party leaders can see the difference between statewide vote totals in statewide races like senator and governor and the presidential race. Undervoting statistics are easy to find. They know that people avoided voting for Trump while still supporting Republicans in Congress.
Similarly, you can cast a protest vote for a third-party candidate such as a Libertarian. I’ve voted Libertarian several times in recent years rather than voting Republican or Democrat.
The problem here is that the Libertarian Party is not a serious party. I can’t get past that a Libertarian convention delegate did a striptease onstage in 2016 when the party had a chance to make a difference. Their candidates and leaders seem to be increasingly out of touch, conspiracy minded, abd radical. Official Libertarian social media accounts are often transparently pro-Putin and anti-Semitic. I don’t want to reward Libertarians for bad behavior and off-the-wall policy proposals either.
These strategies have not made a difference. Most state Republican parties are still beholden to Donald Trump, and Donald Trump is still the nominee again this year.
The only thing that political parties seem to understand is losing. And Republicans under Trump don’t even understand that because they don’t understand that he lost.
Your strategy for voting depends a lot on what you hope to accomplish with your vote. In the past, a lot of people thought that I didn’t want to vote for Trump out of principle but that I really wanted him to be president. Not true, even though I do know people like that. I’m reminded of a Facebook friend who claimed to be an independent Never Trumper yet who was really upset when Trump lost to Biden. A lot of these people place a higher emphasis on culture war issues than on Trump’s corrupt record. I have encountered many people who claim to not like Trump but are among his most ardent defenders.
I am not one of these people.
My objective in 2024 is to keep Donald Trump as far from the Oval Office as possible. If I could ban him from White House tours, I’d do that as well.
I don’t believe that skipping the presidential race or writing in a noncandidate is a principled option. In fact, I’d call it moral relativism.
In reality, the election only has two possible outcomes. Either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will become our next president. If you don’t want Donald Trump to be president, there is only one logical option. That is especially true if you live in a swing state. Conservatives shouldn’t abdicate their duty to make a choice just because they don’t like the choices.
Our options are not equally bad. While I oppose much of the Biden-Harris-Walz platform, those objections pale in comparison to a candidate who is willing to tear down constitutional guardrails for his personal benefit. In 2016, I remember people (approvingly) saying that Trump was prepared to “burn it all down,” and he is. He’s willing to destroy any institution that gets in the way of his obtaining and maintaining power. We’ve seen it time and again by now.
That’s not the way to make America great again. That’s an existential threat to America’s continued survival as a constitutional republic.
It’s also an existential threat to Ukraine, Europe, and Taiwan. MAGA isolationism and pro-Putin policies would endanger Ukraine’s survival in the near term. It would also embolden China to take action against Taiwan. This isn’t an issue of lofty principles or culture wars, it’s an issue of real world realpolitik.
The threats from the two parties are not the same.
In the past, I’ve described the difference between MAGA and the Democrats as the difference between a heart attack and cancer. Both will kill you, but one is a much more immediate threat. A principle of medical treatment is that immediate threats are prioritized for faster treatment. At this point, I might change the analogy to call MAGA a brain-destroying zombie virus, but other than that, the comparison holds up.
I’m a fan of David French, but with all due respect, I think he’s at least partly wrong here. I don’t think voting for Harris will move the GOP back in a conservative direction. That ship has sailed. If Trump had lost in 2016, that might have been a possibility. At this point, MAGA has metastasized throughout the Republican Party. There’s no going back.
I think that the best choice for conservatives is going to be to divorce themselves from both parties and become true independents. And true independents are swing voters, not reliable Republican voters who don’t like the Republican label.
Since 2016, I’ve found freedom in not being tied to either party. It’s liberating to be able to call them like I see them and not have to view everything through a partisan lens.
“Come on in, boys (and girls), the water is fine.”
There’s another option as well. There was once a conservative faction in the Democratic Party. As conservatives vote Democrat in increasing numbers, the party may find itself moving to the center. This may already be happening as primaries cut a swath through the Squad. I would be happy to see the growth of a Red Dog Democrat faction that could help offset the progressive left. Contrary to what Erickson says, an influx of conservatives into the Democratic Party could move the needle on policy.
If Democrats become more centrist, they’re likely to become more successful as well. That’s especially true if Republicans continue to embrace extreme right-wing nuttery.
If you think that moving the Democratic Party to the right is a long shot, you’re probably right, but it’s also fair to point out that conservatives haven’t been able to stop the extremist populist drift of the GOP. Continuing to vote for Republicans has only earned conservatives a giant FU from MAGA in the form of more extreme behavior and policies and the elevation of people like JD Vance, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert. With all due respect to Erickson, Republicans have found conservatives to be cheap dates because they know most conservatives and white evangelicals will continue to vote Republican over the “Demonrats” no matter how badly Republican candidates stink.
If either party ever decided to reject their extremists rather than cater to them, that party would have a long-term majority. But it’s doubtful that either will adopt this strategy. (I blame primaries.)
However, for now at least, I’m happy to remain an independent. And this independent conservative is going to vote against Donald Trump, even if it means voting for Kamala Harris.
I hope that other conservatives will think about this and get off the fence. Even if you aren’t in a swing state, Republicans should pay attention to expanded margins in blue states or near losses in red states. Conservatives are a large enough block that we can make a difference, but it won’t work if we leave races blank, cast our ballots for Mickey Mouse, or refuse to consider voting Democrat when Republicans put up a bad candidate (or Democrats put up a good one). Threatening to leave the GOP won’t work unless it’s a credible threat.
I’ll consider Republicans in other races, but my hierarchy puts conservatives at the top and MAGA below the Democrats. In my congressional district, a new MAGA Republican running this year won’t get my vote even though I voted for his Republican predecessor.
For more than eight years now, Americans have been telling Republicans that we don’t want Donald Trump. Even when he won in 2016, about three million more Americans voted against him than for him.
The Republican response has always been, “You know what you need? More Trump! Just drink the kool-aid and get to know him!”
There is only one possible way to make Republicans listen. That is by delivering repeated and convincing rejections of MAGA candidates. We’ve been doing that for six years. They can keep losing until they start to pay attention.
A vote against Trump is necessarily a vote for Harris. That may or may not help put the Republican Party back on the straight and narrow, but it is the best thing for America.
A WORD ON ABORTION: Some readers may finish my thoughts above and say, “But Dave, what abortion? I will not vote for any candidate who is pro-choice.”
If that’s a hard line for you, so be it. I used to feel the same way. I’m still pro-life, but I’m not going to allow a corrupt and dangerous leader to take the reins of the country just because he hides behind a pro-life fig leaf.
Before you vote Trump (or don’t vote Harris) based on abortion, consider this:
First, the federal abortion battle has been won. Harris might favor a national law that enshrines Roe but she doesn’t have the votes. It’s not going to happen. There is also not going to be a national abortion ban no matter what some Republicans tell you. Since the Dobbs decision, abortion rights have won every major electoral contest where they have been on the ballot.
The battle over abortion is going to be at the state level now, and most of those important battles are probably over as well. We are going to have to coexist as pro-life and pro-choice states.
Second, it’s going to get harder and harder to find pro-life Republicans. Trump and others are already distancing themselves from the pro-life cause because it is no longer an electoral winner.
Third, building a pro-life faction within the Democratic Party would break the Republican stranglehold on the issue and help to moderate Democratic positions on abortion. Making abortion a partisan issue has been good for Republicans but not so good for the pro-life movement.
What’s more, party control has not been indicative of the abortion rate. Even though Clinton and Obama were staunchly pro-choice, they (along with George W. Bush) presided over a long decline in US abortions. That trend changed and began to increase under Donald Trump. It may be Trump’s unpopularity or the Dobbs fallout, but support for pro-choice climbed sharply while Trump was president, and pro-life support took a nosedive.
Finally, I’m going to repeat what I’ve said in the past. I’m pro-life but being pro-life doesn’t stop at birth. If state governments are going to force babies to be born, then I think they also have a responsibility to provide access to birth control and to help low-income families feed and care for their children. It is not pro-life to say that if you can’t afford babies, just don’t have them. That’s especially true if your state just banned abortion.
BREAKING as I prepared this for publication was the news that prominent conservative legal scholar and federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig has endorsed Kamala Harris.
“In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own,” Luttig writes, “but I am indifferent in this election as to her policy views on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.”
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