Recently, some prominent and respectable conservatives who dislike Trump have issued statements about voting in November.
George Will wrote in June that the GOP should be voted out of office and reduced to ashes for its complicity in the current state of affairs in America.
David French wrote that he prefers a more measured, thoughtful approach, judging each candidate’s individual merits.
The sad truth is I see very little difference in outcome regardless of which of those two approaches I embrace.
I’m no conservative, and definitely not a Republican. In a better time, I would definitely prefer French’s approach to the election. One of the stated tenets the GOP platform has been that people should be judged as individuals, not as part of a group. (I see monumental hypocrisy in execution, sure. But in an ideal world, that would be, in my own mind, how we should always view others.)
However, I see a couple of flaws with French’s argument.
First, it is fair to judge people, at least partially, on the company they keep. The modern GOP is neither conservative, politically, nor admirable in any way I see. In defense of President Trump, too many Republicans have paraded around embarrassingly false and ridiculous assertions. Those people are the “voice” of the Republican Party.
Second, there are so few Republicans currently in office who have any hope to hold up under such scrutiny, there’s very little difference in my mind between Will’s approach and French’s approach.
I have some sympathy for Republicans who have tried to distance themselves form what the GOP has become. But, in the end, they chose to stick with the party. As French points out, rejecting the party carries substantial risk with it. But that’s the company they kept.
Now, it’s relatively easy for me to hold this viewpoint. I wouldn’t be likely to vote for a Republican anyway. But what if the parties were reversed?
What if the Democrats kept propping up an incompetent, dangerous man in the White House? Would I be willing to vote for a moderate Republican (as moderate as Joe Biden is a moderate Democrat)? Yes. And while it might make me feel queasy that the party I prefer (but by no means worship blindly) had strayed so far afield, I would not support any president, of any party, who behaved as Trump does.
And would I vote for a Republican if they were running against an obsequious Democrat supporting such a president? As long as the Republican wasn’t also an extremist, yes.
Because when a party strays as far afield as the GOP has, it’s no longer the party you support or believe in.