Why I Voted for Trump in 2020
And why I intend to stop him from being a candidate in 2024
In last year’s election, I made a decision that for a long time I didn’t think I would make. I had voted in 2016 for the libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, because between Hillary Clinton’s corruption and dishonesty and Donald Trump’s generally-repugnant personality, I could not vote for either of them. Yet I took the very reluctant action of voting for Trump, whose rhetoric and behavior I found deeply problematic but who I otherwise saw as a necessary barrier against the oppressive “wokeism” creeping into America, and who did also accomplish some good things.
This isn’t the first time I’m admitting this publicly. I also said it in a post shortly after the election explaining why to my Facebook friends, several of whom unfriended me after it was posted. Other friends, despite their opposition to Trump, have been very gracious towards me. I am appreciative of that.
In general, I vote Republican because out of the two major parties, my values align most closely with them. Sadly, in today’s duopolistic political system, one does not have much of a choice; this is especially true in elections for lower offices. However, to my knowledge, the vast majority of Republicans I’ve voted for have at least outwardly shown a sense of personal decency. The same can absolutely not be said for “tweeter-in-chief” Trump.
We’re talking about a man who seems to enjoy stirring up conflict with others through his frequent derision of them, who bragged about approaching women inappropriately because of his stardom and touching their genitals, and who said outright “I think Islam hates us.” Perhaps worst of all, there is good reason to believe that his rhetoric and behavior encouraged the rioters at the Capitol on January 6th, even if he had no direct responsibility for it.
Some people might read that and say that it’s small potatoes compared to the good things he accomplished. I do believe that his presidency yielded some commendable achievements. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the IS terrorist group, was neutralized. An unprecedented number of Muslim nations established peaceful relations with Israel. And I supported the repeal of the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. These things, among others, did factor into my decision last year.
But what truly pushed me to vote the way I did was two things, the first being the Democrats’ proposition of packing the Supreme Court after Justice Barrett’s confirmation. Even though the number of Supreme Court seats had changed in the past — the last time being after the Civil War — I strongly felt that changing the number of seats would hurt its function as a judicial body and, by extension, undermine the integrity of our democratic republic. FDR, in his presidency, tried to pack the Supreme Court when it kept rejecting his numerous expansions of federal economic control under the New Deal. This was widely seen as an attempt at power-grabbing and later abandoned.
The second thing was the pervasive narrative of identity politics among the political left, and the influence it was having throughout the country. As I noted in my article “The Pandemic of Anti-White Negativity,” people have been denied or pushed out of positions for not falling in line with the “woke” racial narrative. Discrimination is being openly supported in the name of achieving equity, and has been advocated by President Biden himself. I live in New York, so I knew that my vote for Trump wouldn’t change the way the electoral votes went in my state. Even so, I felt a need to send a signal to the “wokeist” left that these destructive social initiatives would not be rewarded. I thought that in adding my vote to Trump’s tally, I along with everyone else voting for him would help give pause to those who support race-based equity, dismantling police departments and tearing down statues of figures who don’t deserve it. In that sense, I was gratified to see that a larger share of non-white voters got behind Trump last year than in 2016.
As the expression goes, the enemy of my enemy was my friend. With Trump being in office and being the Republican candidate at the time, I took what I believed was the appropriate course of action. Nevertheless, he was in many ways a liability to our nation’s unity. His behavior encouraged division, and without a doubt fueled ideas among the left of racism being prevalent in the highest levels of our society, even if Trump was not actually racist. If you’re the President of the United States and you put out a tweet, even by accident, of somebody shouting “white power” twice, you’re giving the people reason to be scared. This is one of numerous times that Trump’s erratic behavior got him into trouble, and without doubt made many of his own supporters cringe.
In short, Trump encouraged radicalism. And despite the positives of his presidency, many if not most of the things he did could’ve also been carried out by a Ted Cruz, Ben Carson or Rand Paul. Trump may indeed the Winston Churchill of our time — and Churchill had arguably even more problematic attitudes than Trump. However, that is of no benefit to us if passion reigns over reason in our country, and if a better leader can address the challenges facing our nation and our world. If Trump is to be the Republican candidate in 2024, so be it. It doesn’t mean I have to vote for him again, nor does it mean I won’t encourage my Trump-supporting friends and family to steer away from him. I intend to do so before then.