Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me? My conservative friends are fighting amongst themselves. Granted, it’s been four years of arguing, mostly on a low boil but with occasional pops and flashes of intense heat. The best you can do as an anti-Trump Republican is make your case and hope you have a few friends left post-election.
As both parties have yet again refrained from nominating a presidential candidate I can support in good conscience, I plan to write one in. Since neither major candidate passes my threshold tests of political morality, the question of which is preferable is practically irrelevant. But it appears that refusal to vote for Trump is simply not enough for many of my fellow Never Trumpers: I’m now expected to demonstrate my seriousness by voting a straight Democratic ticket this fall.
By and large, this is not a serious thing to expect principled conservative voters to do. There are certainly exceptions: Jo Rae Perkins, the QAnon candidate for Senate from Oregon, comes to mind as a down-ticket Republican that conservatives and independents, indeed, all sentient beings, should vote against. But demanding that Republican and independent voters fed up with Trump vote a straight Democratic ticket will have the same effect as any other purity test in politics: a contraction of potential support. If anti-Trump forces are actually interested in persuading more Republicans and independents to oppose Trump’s reelection, they should knock it off.
I understand the burn-it-down impulse. There have been many moments when I’ve cursed every last Republican officeholder who has provided cover for the president and bemoaned their complicity in supporting Trump’s worst policies. I’ve carried on about their strategic silence during moments that called for principled rebellion.
But does that mean that I want a President Joe Biden to have a Democratic Senate? Absolutely not.
I’m a conservative, after all. I don’t — I can’t — support taxpayer-funded abortion, a diminution of religious liberty, and massive increases in entitlement spending. People who favor this agenda or think it worth tolerating are free to argue against this view. What strikes me as absurd is their saying that, on principle, I have to vote for people whose principles I don’t support.
My main objection to Trump is and always has been that he is unfit for the presidency. If Biden wins while Republicans retain control of the Senate, Trump will no longer disgrace the White House, and Biden will not have the ability to jam a liberal agenda through Congress. Never Trumpers ought to consider that outcome plenty to cheer.
I have disagreed with some important votes by Sens. Cory Gardner and Ben Sasse. But they are hardly threats to the Republic, especially if Biden is to be president. However imperfect, they’re the best we’ve got. And any effort to build a post-Trump conservative coalition is going to require their support.
Those of us who vote our consciences in November will not have a set of perfect choices. It’s certainly true that many candidates, including the president, are not deserving of support. But that doesn’t mean that their rivals are, either.
April Ponnuru works in public affairs. She was previously a senior aide on Capitol Hill and a senior aide on a presidential campaign.
