Friday, August 28, 2020

Why I Cannot Respect Choosing To Vote For Trump

As Americans, we have the luxury of living in a country where we get to vote for our leaders. Unlike many countries, we have a representative government, and gerrymandering and other shady tactics notwithstanding, we have the privilege of choosing who we cast our votes for. This was a truly revolutionary system when our founders created it 244 years ago, and it has generally served us well. Despite its flaws, it has been a model to countless countries around the world, and I am deeply thankful that we have such a system.

Like most Americans, I cherish being able to go to my polling station to cast my vote, to the point of considering it a moral obligation. I have the freedom to vote for whichever candidates and issues I want, which is something I truly treasure. Part of exercising this right, however, is respecting that not everyone will vote the same way you do. We have a fantastically diverse country, and a wide array of political ideologies is naturally present. I gladly respect peoples’ right to vote for candidates and issues I disagree with, even when my opposition is vehement.

That being said, respecting peoples’ voting choices isn’t something that extends infinitely or unconditionally. There are times when we cannot and should not respect the choice someone makes. There are times when a candidate or issue is so grossly amoral that morality demands we not respect the choice to vote for them.

This year’s presidential election is one of those times.

On November 3rd, we’re tasked with choosing between Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or a third party candidate (such as Libertarian Jo Jorgensen or Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins) for our next President. None of the choices are particularly good, but Trump stands out from the rest because of his bigotry, greed, vindictiveness, incompetence, and narcissism.  His presidency has been marred by failure after failure and by his inability to actually lead. His actions, policies, and rhetoric have been offensive and damaging to both American citizens and to our reputation abroad. He is quite possibly the most dangerous man to ever hold the office of presidency in this country, and a full list of the reasons why could easily fill several books. As such, though I respect the right of people to vote for whomever they please, I cannot and will not respect a vote for Trump.

Now, because someone will inevitably attack me for it, yes, I have opposed Trump since he declared his candidacy (though I did give him a chance after he was inaugurated, which he blew within about a day). I am a Liberal and I tend to vote Democrat (though not exclusively; I refuse to register for or align with a political party because I believe that, as Washington foretold in his Farewell Address, that they are in fact the source of our problems). But my refusal to respect a vote for Trump isn’t out of partisanship or bias towards him or the Republican Party; it’s born from morality’s obligation to oppose anyone who is fundamentally un-American and a threat to democracy itself.

This isn’t about politics or political leanings. This is about right and wrong, and what is best for our country. I cannot respect a vote for Trump because voting for him is a signal that you either support or have no problem with things that are offensive, amoral, and antithetical to our country’s values and laws.

Here’s a brief rundown of just SOME of the things I’m talking about, broken down into categories of Corruption, Malfeasant Policies, Bigotry, Treatment of the Military and Veterans, and Other Actions and Behaviors:

Corruption

  • He was impeached for trying to coerce a foreign country into interfering in this year’s election (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Donald_Trump)
  • He frequently fires Inspector Generals and other government watchdogs, because they were investigating him, his administration, or people close to him
  • He fired an FBI Director, the Deputy Director of the FBI, the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and numerous other officials simply because they weren’t doing enough to protect him and/or his friends against investigations or because they were investigating him, his businesses, and/or his friends
  • He repeatedly called for the firing of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, and tried to order his firing simply because Mueller was investigating him
  • Many high-level positions in his administration, including several cabinet positions, are filled with people in an “Acting”capacity instead of someone formally nominated and confirmed by the Senate; this is an intentional end-run around Congress by Trump (who’s actually admitted to this), and it’s completely antithetical to the spirit of the Constitution
    • As of this writing, the Department of Homeland Security has NO SENATE CONFIRMED LEADERSHIP, which is truly abhorrent, and a federal court has ruled that the current leadership wasn’t even legally appointed 
  • He frequently appoints people with absolutely no experience to high-level positions simply because they either donated to him (such as the scandal-embroiled current Postmaster General Louis DeJoy) or publicly laud him
  •  He appointed his daughter and son-in-law to advisory positions in the White House, which is a clear case of nepotism 
  •  Despite promising to do so (and holding a hilariously theatrical press conference in which he claimed to do so), he’s never actually divested himself from his business interests, and is in fact making a great deal of money off of the presidency
  • He, along with numerous people in his administration (including his daughter and his wife), has violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from using their position for political purposes, on countless occasions; he in fact did it just this week, attacking Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during an official, government-funded press conference
    • During this week’s Republican National Convention, Trump has used various parts of the White House for ceremonies and speeches broadcast at the RNC, which is a BLATANT violation of the Hatch Act, as was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision to speak while on a government trip to Jerusalem

Malfeasant Policies

  • He suggested that he plans to station federal law enforcement at polling stations in order to prevent voter fraud; it isn’t likely he would actually do this, given how blatantly illegal it is, but the sheer fact that he’s even floating such an idea is terrifying and disgusting in itself
  • He has issued Executive Orders to effectively BAN both TikTok and WeChat in the United States, which is a severe infringement on First Amendment rights (TikTok is currently suing to block this order)
  • He has failed to adequately respond to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in nearly 6 million confirmed cases and nearly 180,000 deaths as of this writing
    • In a particularly shameful failure, hundreds of millions of dollars were promised to Native American tribes, who have been hit particularly hard by COVID, to help with treatment and prevention, and they were held up for no legitimate reason until a federal court ordered the treasury to release the funds
  • He consistently attacks science and promotes conspiracy theories and dubious treatments that have quite literally killed people 
    • He is clearly supportive of the repeatedly debunked QAnon conspiracy theory, as evidenced by his retweets of QAnon supporters and his endorsement of political candidates that are hardcore adherents to the theory
  • He has pulled the United States out of numerous international treaties and agreements, including the Paris Climate Accord and the Iran Nuclear Deal, using reasoning based on lies and conspiracy theories, which makes our country and the world fundamentally less safe and also makes it far less likely that even our allies will trust us going forward
  • He has added nearly $7 trillion to the National Debt and has more than quintupled the budget deficit, despite pledging to eliminate both
  • He failed to adequately respond when Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, and tried to blame his failed response on the local government and even threatened to pull emergency funding and workers out of Puerto Rico after they called out his terrible response
  • He has literally put thousands of immigrant children at the border into cages, which is a violation of both domestic and international law as well as basic morality, which has resulted in the deaths of at least six childrenand leaving countless children with clear signs of PTSD
  • He sent Federal troops into American cities to assault and illegally detain peaceful protestors; dozens of protesters were literally abducted off the streets by law enforcement agents in unmarked vans that refused to identify themselves and didn’t display any kind of agency insignia on their uniforms
  • He had peaceful protesters teargassed and assaulted, WITHOUT CAUSE, simply so he could pose for a photo in front of St.John’s Church
  • He has made it more difficult for students who are sexually assaulted to obtain justice by changing the way Title IX is enforced to give a blatant advantage to the accused
  • His tax overhaul gave a trillion dollar tax break to himself and his wealthy friends, and the burden of paying for that break fell squarely on the middle class and small businesses 
    • The new tax code eliminated nearly all deductions and also changed the income thresholds of the various tax brackets, which means that most middle class taxpayers ended up seeing a substantial deduction in their tax refund, and many ended up owing; many that normally owe ended up paying substantially more than normal
    • The loss of deductions has also severely impacted small businesses, as they depend heavily on those deductions to help lessen their tax burden; even with the business tax rate being lowered, a lot of small businesses actually saw a net INCREASE in taxes owed because they no longer had deductions to mitigate that debt

Bigotry

Treatment of the Military and Veterans

Other Actions and Behaviors

This list is obscenely long, and it’s by no means exhaustive. Some will almost certainly attack me for using a Gish Gallop, which is a logical fallacy. But this is untrue because that particularly fallacy relies on an overwhelming list of points that are either completely untrue or too weak to stand on their own. I made sure to research every point I brought up to ensure both accuracy and strength, and attached links for further information. I’ve also left out a great many examples simply because I don’t wish this essay to go on ad infinitum.

My base point is this: literally any one of the dozens of horrific things referenced above should be a non-starter for any voter. Any one of these things by itself makes a person completely unqualified to serve as president because it shows that they don’t have the character, the temperament, or the intelligence to lead us. However, I could still respect someone choosing to vote for a candidate who had done just one or two of these things; many of our presidents have committed gross breaches of trust and crimes while in office (both the presidency and in other offices they served in during their careers), and it’s not possible to find a truly clean presidential candidate in today’s political landscape.

But voting for Trump isn’t just excusing one or two bad actions. It’s excusing ALL of what I’ve listed above, which is only a fraction of the uncountable number of heinous things he’s done.

It’s excusing a level of misogyny rarely seen and the fact that he is a sexual predator.

It’s excusing virulent racism and bigotry that has won him endorsements by multiple white supremacists and a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

It’s excusing his utter incompetence and narcissism on a scale we've never seen before.

It’s excusing corruption on a scale that makes Nixon look like a pickpocket.

It’s excusing his outright contempt for our troops and veterans.

It’s excusing the tearing apart of immigrant families and the caging of children.

It’s excusing his trampling of the First Amendment.

It’s excusing his flagrant and frequent abuses of power.

It’s excusing taking away healthcare from tens of millions of Americans.

It’s excusing denying LGBTQ+ people jobs, healthcare, and adoptions purely because of who they are.

It’s excusing a level of lying that has never been seen.

It’s excusing the fact that even now, as I write this essay, he is trying to interfere in the upcoming election by sabotaging the Postal Service, which is also having catastrophic effects on businesses and will likely cost lives as people are unable to get their medications delivered in a timely manner.

It’s excusing his failure to adequately respond to ANY crisis under his watch, most notably the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

No one should be okay with ANY of this. To vote for Trump despite such a massive list of abhorrent and unconscionable behavior, a list that, even while admittedly incomplete, irrefutably proves that he’s antithetical to everything we as Americans are supposed to value and treasure, cannot and should not be respected. Voting for Trump shows that one either hates Democrats so much that they're willing to excuse anything in order to keep Republicans in power or that they actually support and endorse the appalling and amoral things Trump has done. I’m honestly not sure it’s possible to measure which of these is worse, but it doesn’t matter because neither is a legitimate reason to vote for such a dangerous monster.

I won’t tell people who to vote for. We should all listen to the facts and make our own decisions. But voting for Trump is fundamentally amoral, and I cannot and will not respect the choice to do so, and I find it hard to respect any person who makes such a choice.

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