James Dobson, who is this year supporting Donald Trump, voted for Howard Phillips instead of the GOP nominee Bob Dole in 1996. This year various Christian leaders want all Christians to fall in line behind Donald Trump. Janet Porter is the latest far right crusader who exhorts Christians to vote for Trump.
Theology professor Wayne Grudem told us voting for Trump is a moral choice. In 1998, Grudem raised a standard for elective office that he has now repudiated. This year Dobson isn’t protesting but it was okay in 1996.
Why isn’t it an acceptable choice for evangelicals to protest vote in 2016?
Of course, it is acceptable, even honorable to vote one’s conscience. Between now and election day, Christians will be pressured to fall in line with the GOP. We should vote our convictions. My conviction is not to vote for someone who is unfit. In my mind, that conviction eliminates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Oddly enough, I am on the same team as Glenn Beck in this matter. I wonder if he minds having a “liberal bastard” on his team.
I am still exploring options but have no plans to vote for either of two majors.
In my mind, the two party system hasn’t served the people well. I think it is time to invest in alternative parties and even if I vote GOP in the future, I will not discourage anyone from expressing their freedom of conscience in a third party way.
7 thoughts on “What's Wrong with a Protest Vote?”
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Trump “unfit” for the office?
I’d like to know what your holier-than-thou standards are.
Trump is qualified by Constitutional standards. He is much more qualified than his predecessor. His morals are little different than the average American.
Your protest vote is a wasted opportunity.
When you vote for Mr. Ideal candidate who has no hope of winning, your worst nightmare of a candidate will win.
You have Not voted your values or your conscience when you cast a wasted vote which gives your worst enemy a victory.
If you think they are both evil, you need to vote for the least evil one – or waste your vote.
A Protest Vote is a stupid idea. No newscaster will look back and speak for one second on all of the Values Votes that So-and-so got. No policies will be changed. No minds will be changed.
No One Will Care about your silly vote of conscious. On Judgment Day you may well be asked “Why did you let that Jezebel Hillary win?”
You’re a little late.
Not late for 2020 and every other upcoming election. Some ideas are timeless.
Ah, true.
Disagree or not, I think my points remain true as well. I refuse to vote for a person who lies to the American people on a nearly daily basis. There are many more reasons but I am pretty sure we will never agree.
Ah, then I assume you did not vote for either Obama or Hillary.
Correct, although I don’t believe Obama lied on a daily basis. I do think Trump does.
It would appear that you may have a bias, to believe such a thing about Trump.
Now Obama may not have lied daily but on a weekly basis he was dead set on undermining the Constitution and snubbed his nose at anyone who objected. He was a law unto himself.
As to the original topic; Let’s say that you had the deciding vote as to whether or not a group of 100 innocent children should be brutally murdered or a second group of 1,000 innocent children should be brutally murdered. Would you refuse to vote because you believe that no children should be murdered and leave the decision to their captors?
If the group of 1000 were killed, you would have the blood of 900 children on your hands.
Likewise, in an imperfect society, if you spend your vote on something which makes no appreciable change and prevents no evil but rather allows for greater evil, your opportunity to lessen the influence of evil in our society has been squandered.
The moral decision or vote would be for the lesser of two evils.