{"id":6244,"date":"2016-09-06T11:47:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-06T11:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/06\/why-a-conservative-should-vote-for-trump\/"},"modified":"2016-09-06T11:47:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-06T11:47:34","slug":"why-a-conservative-should-vote-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/06\/why-a-conservative-should-vote-for-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a Conservative Should Vote for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dennis Prager makes the case<\/a>.  He concludes (emphasis added):<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Therefore, with another four years of Democrat-left rule — meaning a nearly permanent left-wing Supreme Court and left-wing-controlled lower courts; the further erosion of federalism; an exponential growth in the power of the federal government; further leftist control of education; and the de-Americanization of America in part by effectively eliminating its borders, in part by substituting multiculturalism for American identity and in part by giving millions of illegal immigrants citizenship — America will not be America.<\/span><\/p>\n

We conservatives who will vote for Trump understand that he is the only vehicle we have to prevent this<\/strong>. We recognize that though there are some fine individuals who hold left-wing views, leftism is a terminal cancer in the American bloodstream and soul. So our first and greatest principle is to destroy this cancer before it destroys us. We therefore see voting for Donald Trump as political chemotherapy needed to prevent our demise. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How might a NeverTrump conservative  counter this line of argument?<\/span><\/p>\n

A.  One might argue  that 4-8 years of Hillary & Co. won't make the country much worse than it is now and won't appreciably strengthen the leftist grip on our institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n

B.  One might argue that 4-8 years of Hillary & Co. will make the country worse, but that all the damage can be undone by a succeeding Republican administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

C.  One might argue that Trump is just too dangerous and mercurial to be trusted with the presidency.  He might, for example, start a nuclear war.  Better red than dead!<\/span><\/p>\n

D.  One might argue that Trump and Hillary are both evil and that one must never vote for an evil candidate.  To vote for either would be like voting for Caligula or Nero, or for Stalin or Hitler.<\/span><\/p>\n

E.  One might argue that (i) Trump cannot be trusted to do anything he promises to do, so that policy-wise there will be no real difference between a Trump and a Hillary administration, and that (ii) Trump is character-wise worse than Clinton.  Therefore one ought to either vote for Hillary or abstain.  Someone who takes this line might urge that the much-touted Great Wall of Trump is just so much hot air:  there never will be any such wall.  Trump will back off from that in the way he has backed off (quite reasonably!) from talk of the deportation of the supposed 11 million illegal aliens in our midst.  NeverTrumper David French a while back referred to Trump's wall as a "pipe dream."<\/span><\/p>\n

At the moment I can't think of any other counterarguments.  The only one that has any merit is (E).  But it too is pretty lame.  My response is that while we KNOW what Hillary will do, and that what she will do will be disastrous, there is some chance that Trump will accomplish some of what he proposes.  There is zero chance that Hillary will do anything good for the country by conservative lights, while there is, say, a 30% chance that Trump will do 30% of what he proposes.  So I reject (i).  I also reject (ii).  Both candidates are awful, but I don't see how you could say that Trump is morally worse than Hillary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump is all we've got.  Conservatives must vote for him.  (I warmly recommend that liberals vote for Jill Stein.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Related articles<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>Crime as Politics<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>'Contemporary Liberals'<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Decline of the Culture of Free Discussion and Debate<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Left's Biggest Lie?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Civil Courage<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Democrats Have Moved Farther to the Left than the Republicans to the Right<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Leftists Call Angel Moms a Hate Group<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dennis Prager makes the case.  He concludes (emphasis added): Therefore, with another four years of Democrat-left rule — meaning a nearly permanent left-wing Supreme Court and left-wing-controlled lower courts; the further erosion of federalism; an exponential growth in the power of the federal government; further leftist control of education; and the de-Americanization of America in … Continue reading “Why a Conservative Should Vote for Trump”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}