A modicum of sanity on President Trump, please

Fair enough, dear brother

To clarify, Scott is correct about what I originally meant, which is why I included the phrase “at some level” in my original statement. From my experience, even those who view a vote as a moral endorsement disagree about the extent of that endorsement and how much culpability the voter has for the actions of the candidate.

I agree that insisting on perfection in a candidate is a non-starter.

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When we discuss David and Samson and Saul and Solomon making the comparison to Bush and Clinton and Reagan and Obama and Trump, we are not discussing perfection, right? Scripture discusses the good leadership of sinful men in a way many elitist Christians who see themselves as guardians of the integrity of the Church refuse to do with President Trump. Imagine if Scripture did the same with David or Solomon or Hezekiah or Peter. Love,

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No disagreement here. I’ve never said Trump’s election compromised the integrity of the church and those who make that claim annoy me to no end. I’m more than willing to praise him for the good he does. All authority is from God and should be honored as such.

But there’s a difference between God unilaterally anointing sinful men to rule his people and me casting my vote. God knows the end from the beginning and uses sinful men to fulfill his purposes. All I have are God’s revealed will, a limited set of facts about the candidates, and my own conscience. And so far, my conscience will not allow me to vote for an unrepentant adulterer. But I don’t judge my brothers whose consciences allow them to do that. I only ask that they don’t despise me for abstaining (Rom 14:3).

One thing that David, Samson, Saul, and Solomon, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Obama, and Trump all have in common is that they were all authorities appointed by God without every having my vote.

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Every example in Scripture can be relegated in similar ways. That was God. That was Jesus. That was Paul. Anyone giving himself to a hard and honest consideration of the civil magistrates of Scripture would have a hard time arguing for this or that moral failing being The determinant of his vote. My own thinking is that we each vote much more on the basis of personal preference than we like to admit, cloaking our preferences in principle and condemning others for not agreeing with us. Which is to say, going back to the OP, that I suspect the real reason all the Christians have hissy-fits with President Trump and try to shame those of us who voted for him is not b/c he’s committed adultery or regularly lies, but because he’s so very gauche and what every former and repenting baptist never wants to appear is gauche. Sort of joking… Love,

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I just wanted to clarify - are you saying you don’t vote?

I am only asking because voting is a duty as well as a privilege. There was a lot of blood shed to enable us to freely walk into that booth. God rules, but God ordains means.

I’ve voted in every presidential and mid-term election since I turned 18, though I may have missed a few local-only elections in off years (Pro tem County Drain Commissioner, etc.). I wrote in presidential candidates and also voted down-ballot.

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If nobody from the Deep State serves any hard time for the plot against President Trump, I am seriously considering leaving off voting. Whatever my forebears died for, it was not for the right of the FBI to rig presidential elections.

In the early days of the Republic, districts were much smaller, so voting was more of a community affair. It was also more possible to know the candidates or their associates personally. Nowadays, the population of my state is nearly 40 million, and with about 60% of them eligible to vote, that means Presidential electors and Senators are chosen by a “community” of 24 million. The population in my local Congressional district is 720,000, but back at the beginning of the Republic, it was 33,000. Even drilling down to the level of city council, my district has a population of 360,000. This means a person’s vote two hundred years ago had ten times more influence on who sits in Congress than I have today on who sits in my City Council. What duty to vote can there be when one’s influence is so slight?

Notwithstanding, I used to vote regularly, even in the minor elections, but now, not so much. As one wag put it, if God had wanted us to vote, He would have given us candidates. These days, no major candidates represent my views on the issues most important to me, so I don’t even have the opportunity to cast a losing vote for the cause of righteousness. My state recently changed the procedure so that the two biggest vote-getters in the primary, irrespective of party, go on the general election ballot. This means much of the time I get to choose between Democrat or Democrat, but that’s no great loss because all the Republican candidates around here share the Democrats’ views on abortion, homosexuality, etc. Of course, it’s always possible to vote third party or write-in, and I did so in 2016, but what good does that do? The third party candidates I vote for are never reported by the media, so my vote doesn’t register as a protest, nor does it do anything to elevate the causes I care about.

I was motivated to go to the voting booth in 2016 because I greatly disliked one of the Presidential candidates, but that was merely for personal emotional satisfaction since there was no doubt who would win my state. I skipped 2018 because there was nothing and no one on the ballot that mattered to me. What duty do I have to choose between Moloch and Beelzebub? And going to the voting booth to do a useless write-in implicitly provides an endorsement of the system. It has been said that those who don’t vote have no right to complain, but I think it is the other way around – those who vote have no right to complain because in voting they expressed assent to the system and therefore should abide the outcome. When I don’t vote, I express that the system is not presenting me with any opportunity to exercise my choice on the matters that are important to me.

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Please forgive my bluntness, but that’s not really your call to make.

There are many different systems of governance around the world; I invite you to try a few. Perhaps they may prompt you to reassess your position on the American system.

First, please explain why voting is a duty.

Sure, it may well be the case that Swiss federalism would be better, or the election system of those nations who don’t use a first-past-the-post criterion.

But that is really beside the point. Implying that I shouldn’t criticize the 21st century system of American governance because some other countries are worse is like saying I shouldn’t criticize the current direction of the PCA because the Episcopalians are worse. The reality is, sometimes participation can be harmful. For example, if a committee is set up to evaluate Revoice and the committee is clearly dominated by the wrong sort and no minority report will be allowed, then serving on the committee will only strengthen Revoice because there will be more names associated with a report favorable to Revoice and less evidence of opposition.

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Brother I think we are at opposite poles on this one issue. We probably line up on many more things. There is just something that living abroad and traveling around the world, especially in some pretty cruddy places, will do to remind us of the blessing that this nation is.

We clearly see the enterprise of voting as fundamentally different. What can I say? I think you’re wrong and I think @tbbayly laid out some great explanations of both the nature of a vote and the curious predicament people put themselves in when comparing against those leaders God chose in the past; people on whom we would be appalled to see the Spirit of God rest – but rest on them the Spirit did (e.g., the patriarchs with their penchant for lying, the judges, and even the “good” kings).

When I hear handwringing from never-Trump evangelicals (a bit unmanly if you ask me) over the fact that they don’t have a pastor on the ballot, I think of two things. First, I think of a holocaust of infants that Christian (or even just “theistic”) citizens cannot seem to line up in unity to oppose at the ballot box. Second, I think of coffins adorned with flags being offloaded from military transport planes.

By the way, I come from New England so I know what it’s like to have RINOs on the ballot. I remember writing in Ron Paul back in 2008. But I went out and voted because it is my civic duty, and this is my country, and well, I guess I’m just a simple patriot.

Except it’s not like that at all. There is no civil or spiritual duty to associate with a denomination. If you don’t like what the PCA is doing, there is absolutely nothing wrong with walking away from it.

Monarchies hold up very nicely compared to democracies consisting of similar peoples. Morocco is better-governed than Algeria. Jordan is better-governed than Syria. Brunei is better-governed than Malaysia. Liechtenstein is better-governed than Austria. Oman is better-governed than Yemen.

And I’ve also lived in one of the most epically ill-governed places on earth. The introduction of American-style democracy hasn’t seemed to have improved the place much.

That’s cute.

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Well, I’m not a handwringer. If there was a chance that Trump could have won my state, I probably would have voted for him. But there wasn’t, so I wrote in a staunch pro-life third party candidate who didn’t make it on the ballot in my state. But that was for the emotional satisfaction for voting against Clinton – as I explain below, it wasn’t a strategic choice.

If you think I disagree with @tbbayly, you are mistaken. Sure, if it is a choice between David and Ahab, go with David. Or even if it is a choice between Jehu and Ahab, go with Jehu. But what if it is a choice between Manasseh and Ahab? At some point it comes to choosing not between an imperfect good and an evil, or between a lesser evil and a greater evil, but between two greater evils. And at that point, I think it is right for the Christian to vote for neither.

Here is where you are not thinking strategically. The legitimacy and mandate of the winning candidate depends not only on the margin of votes by which he won, but also on the percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots. I.e., winning in a low-turnout election is viewed as not as strong as winning in a high-turnout election. So when you show up in the voting booth and write in a candidate, you elevate the turnout of the election and strengthen the mandate of the winner (Manasseh or Ahab). Doing so might be worthwhile if somehow your write-in would elevate your candidate and potentially contribute to a win down the road, but write-ins aren’t reported, so it is a useless gesture.

This is an admirable sentiment, but simple patriot Christians sometimes turn out to be unthinkingly propping up wicked systems.

Well, there is where we differ, then. I do not view Trump as fundamentally wicked in the class of Manasseh or Ahab; and in fact, I kinda like the guy (as a President) and the disruptive influence he is against the Chamber of Commerce caucus in the GOP.

I also do not view the American system as wicked, but as a net blessing. It looks like we won’t arrive at common ground on those two things, so it’s probably best for me to just leave my contribution to this thread at that.

Honestly, I think the main issue is that you don’t carefully read what your interlocutors are saying, and then you jump to false conclusions. For example, I never likened Trump to Manasseh.

Also, your sentimentality about America is clouding your judgment and causing you to misinterpret others.