The Lesser of Two Evils: The 2016 Presidential Election

If you’re like me, you have been taking the candidates for the 2016 presidential race with a grain of salt.  In the past I was never really into politics.  Ironically, political science was my first major in college.  My entire first year of college I spent convincing myself that I hated to read.  Once I changed my major to theology, I realized that I hated to read politics.  Before I could vote, I had absolutely no interest in politics.  I honestly felt that once I reached adulthood and could vote I still wouldn’t because I had no interest whatsoever.  However, I did find myself voting as soon as I could.  That didn't change my interest though.  I never sat down and watched any debates.  I didn’t watch the news or read the newspaper. Basically, I started to consider the election about two weeks before I had to cast my vote.  By that time, all of the sub candidates had been whittled away and we were left with two potential presidential nominees.

The first time I voted was in 1996, less than two months removed from my 18^th birthday.  I voted for Bill Clinton, and looking back, I think the only reason I did was because of Dana Carvey’s impression of George Bush on Saturday Night Live.  I based my vote on the caricature of a person rather than anything that that person legitimately had to say.  Unfortunately, I didn’t quickly learn my lesson, and in 2000 I voted for Al Gore.  The main reason I voted for Al Gore was because I thought there was no way we should elect someone who came across to be as dumb as George W. Bush.  I just couldn’t stomach the thought of voting for someone who pronounced it nuke-you-lar instead of nuclear.  When 2004 rolled around, I was even more convinced that George W. Bush had 3 to 4 screws loose. I'm struggling to remember who I voted for.  I think it was John Kerry, and I’m too tired to look it up see if I’m right.  In 2008 I voted for Barack Obama.  I know what you’re thinking.  Every single vote I cast was for a Democrat. My votes were cast based on my perception of how intellectual a person was, not on the content of what he was actually saying.  All that changed in 2012.  I voted for Mitt Romney.  At the ripe old age of 34, I had finally reached adulthood and was actually listening to what candidates had to say.

I had taken a close look at American Society and the factors that have contributed to its recent decline.  With that election, I found myself taking hard-line stances on certain issues.  While the “money for everyone” and equitable share rhetoric of the Democratic Party are wonderful ideas, I couldn’t get past the broken welfare system, the government’s hands in everything, and, above all, that pesky abortion thing.  My faith had finally kicked in and became the source from which all politics would flow.  In one election, I turned from an unknowingly solid Democrat to a staunch Republican.

Actually, I claim to be an independent because I think the fact that we have only two political parties means that we are always choosing the lesser of two evils.  In a perfect world, we could have a third-party that would value the dignity of every human life and destroy the abortion industry like the conservative party would like while at the same time upholding social justice issues for which the liberals are well known.  I feel like the 2012 election was going to be that identifying moment where I would become a Republican voter regardless of the nominee.

That brings us back to 2016 and the current circus that the Republican Party continues to throw on the national television and news media.  I was really hoping that the conservative party would learn the lesson of vetting quality candidates after the debacle of picking Sarah Palin as a running mate.  Apparently not.  Despite my insistence that time would take its toll and eliminate Donald Trump as a viable candidate for the nomination he continues to make headlines and climb up the rankings.  This time I don’t need SNL to offer me a whimsical look at political candidate.  The man himself is a walking caricature.  And so I found my relatively new and staunch conservative status in limbo because of who is leading the charge of the conservative party.  Watching the conservative’s battle each other has been nauseating.  Yet, I realized I hadn’t even looked at the liberals.

So the other night I clicked on the Townhall between Sanders and Clinton.  To be honest, I’ve never really listened to Bernie Sanders so I thought I would give him a chance to it least say something to me.  I listened to him for five minutes.  He talked about social justice and the elite billionaire class and I found myself nodding in approval.  Then he hit me with the closer that “every woman has a right to be in control of her own body.”  For those of you new to politics, that’s liberal speak for “go ahead and kill a baby because its human value isn’t the same as the person it’s in.”  He lost me.  So I, again, return to the lesser of two evils debate.  I have really been struggling so I thought I would seek out some guidance.  It was so short and so simple that I’m really kind of embarrassed I didn’t think of it myself.  I was told to look at the nonnegotiables.  I needed to look past the candidate as the party would attempt to do.  I would also need to hope that the party would surround the president with the right people to help make quality decisions.  Again, to decode, if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee I may have to vote for him and hope that he has a quality Cabinet.

So what are the nonnegotiables?  Here’s a short list for brevity’s sake: abortion, marriage, family.  Actually I probably could’ve made it simpler; it all comes down to love.  Pope Francis puts it very succinctly in his latest encyclical Laudato Si (paragraph 65):

 “The Bible teaches that every man and woman is created out of love and made in God’s  image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). This shows us the immense dignity of each person, “who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons”.[37] Saint John Paul II stated that the special love of the Creator for each human being “confers upon him or her an infinite dignity”.[38] Those who are committed to defending human dignity can find in the Christian faith the deepest reasons for this commitment. How wonderful is the certainty that each human life is not adrift in the midst of hopeless chaos, in a world ruled by pure chance or endlessly recurring cycles! The Creator can say to each one of us: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jer 1:5). We were conceived in the heart of God, and for this reason “each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary”.

I am capable of love because I was created out of love and for love.  This love requires that I see that every single human life has value.  It is for that simplest of reasons that I will vote against the Democratic Party again.  If it turns out that Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, and he is the least objectionable of the pro-life candidates remaining then he will get my vote.  If that happens I pray for two things.  First, when the new president, whoever that may be, places his/her hand on that Bible and he swears that oath (which requires swearing to GOD by the way.  Seriously, it isn’t an oath unless you swear to God) that he really means it at the very end when he/she says “so help me God.”  And second, that God helps him.