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Election Decision 2016

Election Decision 2016

Last updated on: November 30, 2022 at 1:06 am by Mark Wilson

Election Decision 2016 2022-11-30T01:06:57-05:00 Mark Wilson

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Back in 2016, all those many years ago, the nation faced a particularly hard decision.

Who to vote for in the 2016 presidential election.

“I know we don’t like to vote – marking your ballot nowadays is like choosing between the 3am showing of Beastmaster on Showtime and the 3am showing of Beastmaster 2 on Cinemax.”― Dennis Miller, The Rants

There was Hillary Clinton (Beastmaster 2)

Feeling the pressure from her left-wing base, Hillary will be hostile to nearly everything we believe in — from the sanctity of life to religious liberty. She is certain to tip the Supreme Court decidedly to the left. The American family will have no bigger enemy than a President Hillary Clinton and the wreckage she will impose on us from Washington D.C. Hillary Clinton must be opposed by every conscientious Catholic voter.
– CatholicVote (May 4, 2016)

Right on!

I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton. I reject her whole approach to the unborn, to marriage, to sexuality. I am shocked at the recent Wikileaks revelations about her plans to infiltrate the Catholic Church. I can gladly acknowledge that in some respects she occupies the moral high ground against Trump, as in refusing to torture terrorist suspects and to kill their families, but I think that, all things considered, she would do great damage to our country.- John Crosby

Then there was Trump (Beastmaster). If we shouldn’t vote for Clinton then we must stand by and vote for Trump. Right?

As much as we oppose Clinton, Trump remains problematic in too many ways to receive our endorsement. With a suspect record, no clear guiding principles, and a history of unpredictability, all we can do for now is take him at his word and hope for the best.- CatholicVote (May 4, 2016)

What???

My friends think that if I reject Hillary, then surely I will vote for Trump, who has after all given some half-hearted indications of making good judicial appointments. But I won’t vote for him either. I refuse to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.- John Crosby

Wasn’t it clear that one candidate is super good and the other super evil? How were both these candidates viewed by everyone?

It is even impossible to speak out against heinous things like sexual assault, misogyny, racism, incest, pornography and abortion without being attacked for advocating for one of these candidates.

Think about that. These two people are so identified with amorality that a discussion of immoral behavior is not possible without people thinking you are using code to attack one or the other of them.
Rebecca Hamilton,Our Vote: Choosing Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (November 4, 2016) Public Catholic @ Patheos Catholic

YIKES! Did these two really cause that much discord?

I, for one, am tired of reading and hearing the extreme mass hysteria – not just from the far right, but from the far left as well. Given how Trump tends to play on the fears and emotions of the ultraconservatives, many liberals seem to cast the assumption that every Republican is a stupid, uneducated, gun-toting, racial-profiling, misogynistic, redneck inbred who can’t imagine a world not being flat outside of the Bible-belt states. On the other hand, many conservatives have conjured the impression that everyone who supports Billary is a male-hating, tree-hugging, gender-swapping, pro-abortion communist who drinks gluten-free vegan lattes while reading the Quran.
Rene Albert,I’m Done With American Politics (October 13, 2016) Coffee & Crucifix @ Patheos Catholic

Oh. Wow. Can you explain further about your objections to Trump please?

I find that Catholics who support Trump don’t face up to the vast and many-sided moral and cultural damage that a Trump administration will inflict on us. They don’t face up to his own toxic mix of incompetence, ignorance, indecency, thugishness, trashiness, and psychological pathology.

I say to the Catholic supporters of Trump: you are paying a huge price for the benefits you are bargaining for. Have you taken the measure of the manifold malignancy that Trump would bring into our public life? Have you considered how Trump will disgrace the office, destabilize the world with erratic and reckless behavior, and undercut the pro-life cause with his Nietzschean scorn for the vulnerable? Count the cost! At the very least respect your fellow Catholics who cannot support Trump.
–John F. Crosby, Trump: On Counting the Cost (October 30, 2016) Ethika Politika

Do you have any specific examples you can give me?

Trump has staked out a series of positions that are morally reprehensible: the forcible rounding up and deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants; the banning of Muslims from the US; the suggestion that all Muslims be registered in some fashion. It is impossible to find anything that can balance out these positions in a moral reckoning.
David Cruz-Uribe Catholics Should Oppose Donald Trump (December 15, 2015) Vox Nova @ Patheos Catholic

Ok. But he’s super pro-life.

Mr. Trump’s case, there is good reason not to put faith in his pro-life “conversion.” He claims to have become pro-life because of the child of friends who decided to keep him rather than abort him, as they had originally intended. And the child, said Mr. Trump, turned out to be a “superstar.”

But what if the child had not been a “superstar”? What if he’d turned out to be a “loser,” or what if he had been born with Down’s Syndrome?

In fact, Mr. Trump was asked that very thing. Here is his answer.

I’ve never thought of it. That’s an interesting question. I’ve never thought of it. Probably not, but I’ve never thought of it. I would say no, but in this case it was an easy one because he’s such an outstanding person.
Scott Eric Alt In Election, Protecting Conscience as Important as Ending Abortion (August 6, 2016) To Give a Defence @ Patheos Catholic

Ahhh. But. But.

Boastful adultery? Defrauding workers? Scapegoating ethnic and religious minorities? Rejecting the humanity of foreigners? Promoting violence and unlawful warfare? Violating the dignity of the female person? Merely trifles.

This is why support for Trump presents such a unique and absolute scandal to the pro-life witness. If you claim to see the humanity of the unborn, but you don’t see the humanity in the people— women, foreigners, ethnic and religious minorities, businessmen, immigrants, refugees—Trump has dehumanized, then your claim is axiomatically absurd.
Matthew Tyson Laura Calise on Voting for Clinton (November 7, 2016) Mackerel Snapper @ Patheos Catholic

So you think it was OK for people not to vote for him then?

I cannot in good conscience vote for a person who has no record of being a decent and wise human being in the name of “winning”. If we Catholics, as a group, do not rise up and say “no more!” this situation will continue to degrade and we will find ourselves prisoners of our own choices.

Plato addresses that. One of the hallmarks of tyranny is the lack of freedom –not just for the governed, but for the individual tyrant. He is a prisoner of his own desires, always wanting more. He constantly worries about how he will keep his power and who is coming to take it from him. He fears for his life.
Katie O’Keefe, Backs of People’s Heads and Baby Faces: On Moral Dilemmas and Not Giving Up the Ship(July 20, 2016)Backs of People’s Heads and Baby Faces

That last part almost sounds like something that happen at the end of this election. But a person can vote for Trump if their conscience leads them to right? Just look at Hillary’s past.

Can a Catholic vote for Donald Trump?

Let’s think it through. What I find curious about supporters of Donald Trump is that they are eager to tell everyone Hillary’s terrible past. We are told how she was incompetent, corrupt, dishonest and unreliable. We’re told of her husband’s infidelities and her cover up, her bullying, threats and general unpleasantness.

But somehow, when it comes to Donald Trump’s past we’re supposed to overlook all those character faults. His bragging about sexual promiscuity, his two failed marriages due to philandering, his draft dodging, his pro abortion past, his bankrupted businesses, sleazy contacts, casinos, strip joints and his general vulgarity and egomania are all supposed to be overlooked because “he’s not Hillary.”

Well, I don’t buy it. In my book they’re both as rotten as can be.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Can a Catholic Vote for Donald Trump? August 1, 2016) Dwight Longenecker @ Patheos Catholic

Gosh my head is swimming. Shouldn’t we put our hopes in Trump as our political savior?

Though we are followers of Christ the King, we Christians still have a responsibility to take part in earthly political processes. However, we must not put our hope in building on the sand of shifting political triumphs or defeats. The Catholic Church teaches that our faithfulness to Christ the King is going to result in our eventual political defeat. We must go forward, but not despair when we suffer political defeat. If we were to despair, it would mean we had put our faith and hope in earthly politics. If we suffer earthly defeat for being genuinely faithful to Christ, then we have triumphed in Christ. Conversely, the only “political” triumph we can count on is the Last Judgment, which will come not by our triumphing in earthly political processes but precisely in the midst of our suffering earthly political defeat. Stephanos Pedrano Christians and Politics

Isn’t a sin to vote for the wrong Catholic party?

If you’ve been told it’s a sin to vote for a certain political party, be at peace. The Church has no political party. Our kingdom is not of this world. We hope for the very best we can, and we use our prudence to make an informed and wise decision. Good luck with that this time around, honestly.
Mary PezzuloFinal Notes Before You Vote (November 5, 2016) Steel Magnificat @ Patheos Catholic

So voting for Clinton is the right thing to do?

As is, I hope, clear by now I support the legitimacy of voting for Hillary to stop Trump, while at the same time noting that one does not have to vote for her if your conscience will not allow you to and while adding that if you are in a position (as I am) of being in state which will certainly vote for her, you can (as I will do) cast your vote for a third party in protest of both awful candidates.
Mark Shea Conversation with a Friend Who Supports Hillary (August 11, 2016) Catholic and Enjoying It @ Patheos Catholic

Ok. So if I supported Trump can we still be friends?

The manipulative rhetoric is coming from both sides, and I refuse to be a part of it. As much as Trump disgusts me, I am not going to unfriend someone simply because he or she has worked out a different line of prudential reasoning than my own. As irritating as it is to have Clinton supporters act as though her hawkish foreign policy doesn’t matter in relation to first-world issues, I am going to try to be understanding. It is true that there are people I will never think of the same way again – people I no longer respect as much, from the standpoint of a Catholic academic. But I can still give every single person the respect due to her, or to him, as a being created in God’s image. That’s called being pro-life.
Rebecca Bratten Weisspolitics is serious business – and that’s why it’s important not to let it destroy relationships (November 4, 2016) Suspended in Her Jar @ Patheos Catholic

Can people be friends and have civil conversations about these issues?

Deacon Steven D. Greydanus writes renowned film reviews and also articles for National Catholic Register. I appreciate his thoughtful, civil, charitable thoughts on this political campaign. It is possible to engage in constructive dialogue! He is a Never-Trumper; I voted for Trump. It’s more of a pleasure to disagree with [Deacon Steve] than to agree with many people.
Dave ArmstrongDialogue with Deacon Steven Greydanus on Voting & Pro-Life Biblical Evidence for Catholicism @ Patheos Catholic

Many people thought the electors might not cast votes for Biden. Did this doubt happen in 2016?

Perhaps if I confidently predict there is no *way* the Electoral College will actually vote to reflect what the majority of Americans actually voted for, my talent for jinxing elections will result in the EC voting for Hillary and sparing us the catastrophe that is about to unfold.

Nah. Ain’t gonna happen. We’re stuck with this crook. Let us pray.
Mark SheaWell, it’s December 19 (December 19, 2016) Catholic and Enjoying It @ Patheos Catholic

So I guess it was OK or not OK to vote for Trump or not. How should have Catholics viewed his upcoming presidency?

In the years to come, as the dust settles on the Obama years, we can hopefully look upon and judge his actions and decisions through the perspective of Catholic views on justice with greater clarity. As America enters the era of the Trump administration, we need to just as vigorously, and with an equal amount of clarity, examine, critique, promote, and resist his policies where necessary.

Disagreement with President Trump should not serve as an obstacle to one submitting to morally just and politically sound policies, nor should support of President Trump’s policies serve as an obstacle to critiquing his genuinely unsound political policies. We as Catholics should pray that he makes just and morally sound decisions as president.
Cole DeSantis, Reflecting on the Catholic View of Good and Just Government (January 26, 2017) OnePeterFive

Any Final Thoughts?

But note what we haven’t yet seen — the sudden appearance of dozens of time-traveling visitors from the future desperately scrambling to prevent that from happening. That’s surprising.

Now, it’s entirely possible that this merely indicates that our time-traveling friends from the future are looking back on 2016 as the year that Donald Trump eventually lost the November election. In that case, future time-travelers might not regard 2016 as a pivotal year worthy of their energy and attention for missions attempting to correct the disastrous mistakes of history. Or perhaps 2016 therefore constitutes, for them, a kind of official no-fly zone, with time-travelers forbidden to return to early 2016 lest they inadvertently do something to change that outcome and accidentally spark a chain of events that might, instead, result in a Trump victory.

So, come November, after breathing a huge sigh of relief at Trump’s defeat, I may have to change my mind about this and look back at the absence of intervening time-travelers as evidence for the future invention of time-travel.

BradburyThunder22,jpg It’s also possible, if we take a multiple-divergent-timelines view of how this would work, that any future timeline subsequent to the election of Donald Trump will turn out to be such a dystopian nightmare of proudly oafish brutality and ignorance that no such future society will be capable of inventing and constructing the devices that will make time-travel possible. Maybe the only possible futures in which time travel can be later invented are those futures that follow Trump’s defeat. Fred Clark The rise of Donald Trump may disprove the possibility of time travel (March 17, 2016) SLACKTIVIST @ Progressive Christian

Regardless of what you all think of Mr. Trump or Ms. Clinton they both need our prayers. May God have mercy on them and us all. May we all do his will. Amen.

Other Articles and sites of Interest

The Heavy Anglo Orthodox: Telling a Peisistratos from a Kleon
Religion Writing in the Time of Trump | Sojourners
Strange Bedfellows: The Overlap of Jewish Trump Supporters and White Supremacists – Pacific Standard (psmag.com)
Miner Wisdom
My Make Trump Burger phase

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