Let me preface this post by saying that I believe whether or not one agrees with what I am saying should not cause division in a church.  Donald Trump divides the country, but he should not divide churches.  If you are united to Christ by faith you are my brother in Him, and if you are a faithful member of a true church you are in Christ’s body, and I have Christian love for you, whether or not you agree with what I say about politics below. 

I have Always Voted Republican as a Conservative

In 2016, I voted for Donald Trump.  In 2020, I voted for Donald Trump.  In every presidential election since I have been able to vote, and in every other election, I have consistently voted for Republican candidates.  Before the 2020 election, I wrote a blog post about why Christians should vote for Donald Trump because of religious liberty, abortion, and free speech.

In 2016 Donald Trump won 46% of the vote to squeak by in the electoral college a few days after Hillary Clinton was hit with criminal charges.  Although I found his personality and character abhorrent, I voted for him in 2016 because of the Supreme Court.  In 2020, I also voted for him because of the Supreme Court.  I also though that, despite the many self-inflicted wounds he gave himself, with good conservative advisors he did a better job governing than I thought he would do.  I was very thankful that, with the help of Mitch McConnell and a Republican-controlled Senate, he appointed three justices to the Supreme Court–appointments that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  That was very, very, very good.

Many of the media attacks on Trump were baseless.  He never colluded with Russia, for example.  Many other attacks were based on taking seriously what he said when, very often, even Trump himself does not pay attention to what he says (not a good idea when you are the most powerful elected figure on earth and the commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military).

My political views are extremely conservative.  Based on Scripture, they support a very limited government and are very socially conservative.  I believe the US Constitution is a very good document for running a government in this fallen world and wish that it were followed much more closely than it is.

Donald Trump Will Not Peacefully Cede Power

So why am I not going to vote for Donald Trump again-certainly not in the Republican primary, and also not in the general election, if he wins the primary?  It is not because of his horrible character.  It is not because there are good reasons to wonder if what is good for Trump is more important to him than what is good for the United States.  It is not because he constantly attacks everyone and alienates larger and larger and larger groups of people and even people as loyal as his own vice president.  It is not because he has now been convicted of battery and sexual crimes.  These are very big problems-definitely far more than enough to make me vote for someone else in the Republican primary, but in the general election I am willing to overlook them.  It is not because of some secret sympathy for the socialistic, big-government policies of the Democrat party.  I am very concerned about the judges Democrats put on the Supreme Court and other courts and I see “vote for Trump because of the judges” as the single strongest argument to vote for him, if he prevails in the Republican primary (which I fervently hope he does not).  I am very concerned about the way the Democrat party is willing to persecute churches, Christian business owners, and Christians in general who stand for what Scripture teaches on morality.

So what was the final straw for me?  I think there is a strong likelihood that Donald Trump will not cede power peacefully if he loses an election.  I believe in the American republic, not in a dictatorship by a Republican.

I did not think that Donald Trump would do what he did after losing the 2020 election.  Pursuing all legal avenues to try to get the most votes you can?  Fine.  But his refusal-for hours-to call off the rioters on January 6 was despicable, even when it was obvious that things had turned violent.  It is also perfectly obvious that the Vice President never has had the power to unilaterally overturn election results.  If the Vice President of the party in power can unilaterally reject election results, we do not have a republic, but a dictatorship.  It does not even need to be stated that the idea that the VP can do this is absolutely indefensible constitutionally.

Let’s say that it is far more likely that the reason Donald Trump was unwilling to admit that he lost the election by over 7,000,000 votes is that Trump can never admit he was wrong than that the theories he was spouting off in public, but which even his own lawyers would not defend in court, were true.  That would be a huge problem, but maybe if he had just made stuff up to support his ego and left it at that, perhaps I would still vote for him again.

However, it is now years later, and Trump is still making the same Constitutionally fatal claims.  He still claims that Mike Pence could have unilaterally overturned the 2020 election results.  That means the end of the republic and the start of a tyranny.  What did Trump do in his very first campaign rally? He put up a video and a song made by criminals who were justly put in prison for their crimes on January 6.  He showed them violently fighting the police.  He tried to put them in a good light as they were breaking and smashing and beating police officers and trying to get in to violently place him in power.  He did not put up a video of the (imaginary) people who (in an alternate universe) just happened to wander into the Capitol as tourists or something and then were arrested and imprisoned unjustly.  No, his video showed the rioters fighting with the police, and was glorifying the rioters as if they were righteous.  Note that the video from the January 6 committee here:

And Trump’s campaign video here, where the singers are imprisoned January 6 criminals:

 

have some of the same footage of rioters fighting police (see 1:14-1:30 in), although Trump puts the violent criminals up for a shorter period of time.  Trump embraces people who wanted Mike Pence executed for treason although he does not (at this point, at least, but you never know what he will do next) himself call for the execution of his own former Vice President for treason.

Trump said that he would accept the 2016 results–if he won.  He lost in 2020 and did not accept the results.  If he loses in 2024, there could be a lot of bloodshed.  If he wins in 2024-something that is very, very unlikely-there is no reason to think that he would voluntarily cede power at the end of his term.  He could come up with some reason-any reason-to retain power.  The Vice President being able to unilaterally overturn results; the election allegedly having fraud that is worse than any third-world country; Dominion voting machines changing millions of votes; you name it.  If Donald Trump can claim (even before results are in!) that the long shot conservative Republican Larry Elder lost in California to the sitting Democrat governer, Gavin Newsom, by fraud, then he can claim any election he wants was lost by fraud.

I have little confidence Trump would voluntarily cede power if he lost an election.  Furthermore, anyone that was part of his cabinet in a second Trump term would have to be an almost cultic “yes” man.  He would have to be a bobble head agreeing with any Trump claims.  Trump claimed (in his January 6 speech) that in 2020 he “won in a landslide” but is not now in office because of “the most corrupt election in … history, maybe of the world,” far worse than “third-world countries,” and “everybody knows it.” The 2020 US election was not worse than elections such as the 1927 Liberian election where the winner gained 243,000 votes from the 15,000 registered voters, the 1964 election in Haiti where the president won 99.9% of the vote, there were no opponents, and all the ballots were pre-marked “yes,” or the elections in Equitorial Guinea between 1990-2020 where the president got 98% of the vote at a minimum, with some areas giving him over 103%. Everyone knows that the 2020 election was worse than such corrupt elections, according to Trump.  Instead of having advisors like his courageous and moral Vice President, Mike Pence, Trump would have a cabinet of Kool-Aid drinkers who would actually help him to retain power after an election loss and would parrot whatever nutty claims he made.

I am not going to vote for Trump again because I do not have confidence he would cede power.  Do you have confidence he would cede power if he lost?

Why It Does Not Matter That I Will Not Vote For Donald Trump

Despite the great danger that Trump would not cede power peacefully if he were reelected, it does not matter very much that I will not vote for him.  Why is that?

1.) I am in California, so my vote does not matter in a presidential election.  California is almost certain to give its electoral votes to the Democrat candidate, and if a Republican won the electoral votes of California, he would not need them, for he would already have won other closer states in a landslide.  Were I in a swing state, I would have to think harder about not voting for Trump.

2.) However, although it would be a harder call, even if I were in a swing state I would not vote for Trump because of the threat he is to the Constitution.  Even in this case, though, my vote would not matter.  Why?  Because Trump is unelectable.  He lost a winnable election in 2020 through self-inflicted wounds, and after January 6 he was no longer a viable candidate for president.  He is never going to get the 46% of the vote that he got in 2016 again-much less the higher percentage he would need to win against someone less repulsive than Hillary Clinton a few days after she was indited.  Joe Biden, the Democrat Party, and the mainstream media will work very hard to make Trump the Republican candidate in 2024 because they know he is not electable.  Donald Trump turned what should have been a red wave in 2022 into a red trickle, even though he was not on the ballot.  People do not want someone who supports violent riots, injuries to hundreds of Capitol police officers, and the end of the republic for a dictatorship where the Vice President can unilaterally overturn results.  Running on a pro-January 6 riot platform is bonkers.  If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would wonder if the Democrats were secretly paying off Trump to run on something like that.  The electorate does not want a candidate who justifies violent attempts at revolution and whom a jury has found guilty of sexual assault.  If Republicans nominate someone creepy enough, they can even lose Senate races in Alabama.  (Note that Roy Moore was only credibly accused of sexual crimes–Trump has not only been accused, but been found guilty by a jury of them.  Roy Moore lost deep, deep, deep Red Alabama.  How badly will Trump lose?)  Trump has alienated a large portion of the Republican electorate but he unites the Democrats. He alienates moderates and far, far more than half the voting population.  A vote for Donald Trump in the Republican primary is a vote for a united Democrat government that controls the House and Senate–probably with large majorities–and the presidency in 2024.  It is a vote for a Democrat president who will do everything he can to get Roe v. Wade back.  The question is not whether Trump can get the 46% he got in 2016.  The question is whether he would be able to get 40%, or 35%, or a number even lower than that.  The question is whether the Democrats would win in a huge landslide that can introduce constitutional amendments or just a big landslide that can abolish the filibuster and appoint radical leftist tyrants to the Supreme Court.

So the fact that I would not vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 general election will not matter–if he is at the top of the Republican ticket, the election will not even be close.

However, in the Republican primary my vote definitely WILL matter.  I will be voting to keep Trump away from the Republican nomination, so that limited, Constitutional government, religious liberty, and other incredible blessings here in the United States may continue, by God’s grace.  While I think Mike Pence would be even better than Ron DeSantis, I will plan to vote for whoever appears to have the best chance at keeping Donald Trump away from winning the nomination, at least if it is still in play when I have a chance to vote in the primary, Lord willing.

As a postscript, let me say again that I believe whether or not one agrees with what I am saying should not cause division in a church.  Donald Trump divides the country, but he should not divide churches.  If you are united to Christ by faith you are my brother in Him, and if you are a faithful member of a true church you are in Christ’s body, and I have Christian love for you, whether or not you agree with what I say about politics in this post.

–TDR