I hope that those who agree with me will vote in Tuesday’s elections. Those who disagree with me should cast their ballots next week.

Last updated on: November 5, 2018 at 5:05 pm by Dan Peterson

I hope that those who agree with me will vote in Tuesday’s elections. Those who disagree with me should cast their ballots next week. 2018-11-05T17:05:08-07:00 Dan Peterson

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The United States Capitol at Washington DC (Wikimedia Commons public domain)

As I think I’ve made very clear over the past three years or so, I have profound reservations about President Donald J. Trump. He was not my first choice for president. Nor would he have been, in an ideal world, my tenth choice or my twentieth, or my hundredth. And, in fact, I didn’t vote for him in 2016.

My initial and principal reservations concerned Mr. Trump as a potential (and now current) head of state. His character, his record of breaking marital vows and business contracts, his crudity, his public dishonesty, his tendency to demagoguery . . . all of these things appall me. He is not the representative of America that I want our presidents to be.

I also feared that he would let us down as our head of government. I’m not at all convinced that his apparent conversion to something rather like elements of conservatism is either deep or sincere, and I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see him switch sides again. Thus far, though, he’s been dancing with the ones what brung ‘im, and I hope that will continue. But his instincts seem to me to incline toward statism or big government, and even toward autocracy. I’m confident that he has no deep understanding whatever of genuine conservatism or of the Constitution.

However, to this point I’ve been pleased with many things that Mr. Trump’s administration has done — though not with all of them. (Mr. Trump’s brashness and his disdain for what the elites think of him may actually have served us well, at least occasionally, in this regard.) I think that the country will be far better off for years to come with Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, for example. And, although I wish ill to none of the incumbents on the Court, I devoutly hope that Mr. Trump will have the opportunity to nominate at least one more justice.

Which means that I really, really hope that — as, at this point, seems likely — the Republican Party maintains control of the United States Senate. That’s essential in order to confirm strict constructionist judges.

To that end, I’ve already cast my vote for Mitt Romney, whom I would love to have seen win the White House in 2012.

But I also hope that Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives, which is a much more doubtful proposition. I could not vote for her, since I’m just outside her congressional district, but I’m hoping against hope that Rep. Mia Love will retain her seat in Congress.

In Ben McAdams, she’s up against someone who, at least upon superficial inspection, seems the ideal challenger to her. But residents of Utah’s 4th congressional district should closely examine his record. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, for example, McAdams had the most liberal voting record in the Utah State Senate in 2011:

http://local.sltrib.com/upload/2011/04/1302896884redblueweb.pdf

In addition, as a Utah State Senator in 2011, McAdams was one of only six senators to vote against H.B. 353, which expanded the rights of doctors and health care providers to refuse to participate in performing abortions if doing so violated their moral conscience:

https://le.utah.gov/~2011/bills/static/HB0353.html

Rep. Love has also been endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee while, according to the Committee’s radio ads, McAdams has voted against the Right to Life a majority of the time.

Finally, I have voted against Utah Proposition 2, and I encourage others to do so as well. It has a reasonably good chance of passing, but I hope that it won’t.

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