No, You Don't Have to Vote for Trump or Hillary

First, let me make a quick disclaimer: I'm a bleeding-heart liberal who will definitely be voting for Hillary Clinton. I have several policy, moral, and religious reasons for doing this but that's not what this post is about.

This post is about a common argument I have heard time and time again regarding this election:

You have to vote for Trump or Hillary.

Here's the thing. You don't.

You don't have to vote for either one of them. If you are convinced through solid, unbiased research that both of these candidates are bad for the country or that neither of them can be a capable president, you DON'T have to vote for either one of them.

It feels like this year, most people seem to agree that both candidates are bad. In fact, most voters are not voting FOR a candidate. They are voting AGAINST the other candidate. They are voting not because they believe their candidate will be good for the country, but because they fear what will happen if the other one wins.

But if you believe your candidate will not be a good president, you have no business voting for them. 

This flies in the face of most of the arguments that I've seen, from blog posts bashing third-party candidates to talk show guests saying that "It's not like staying home from the movies because they all stink. You're going to have to watch a movie whether you like it or not."

I struggle with the argument that you have only two options for president and that you have to pick one of or the other. I hate seeing memes that declare a vote for Gary Johnson is a vote for Hillary Clinton, or that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump.

You know why I hate that? Because voting against someone else is perhaps the worst reason to be supporting a political candidate, especially for president. You're essentially letting your fears make you legitimize a bad choice. And I keep seeing the exact same tired old arguments come up over and over again.

I suppose the argument I hear the most is "I support my candidate because they will pick the next justices for the supreme court." But this argument comes up EVERY SINGLE ELECTION. When you say that is the reason you vote for a particular person, you are saying your vote is being held hostage by one issue. Almost like you would vote for Hitler if Hitler promised to select justices you agree with. For that matter, you do not know for a certainty what issues will be brought to trial, whether they would make it all the way to the supreme court, whether the court would agree to hear it, or even how the justices will vote once it gets that far. In the meantime, there a host of other issues that the country will definitely be facing over the next four years and you definitely owe it to yourself and your country to select someone who won't screw everything up. In debate, we call this impact calculus. If you have legitimate concerns about a candidate's level-headedness when it comes to using nuclear weapons possibly leading to nuclear war, then your concerns about the supreme court wouldn't matter anymore. Because there wouldn't BE a supreme court anymore...you know, because of the nuke stuff..

I know both major parties are arguing that a vote for another candidate is a vote for the opposition, but I'm particularly irked by Trump supporters who spin the election as a vote that's not for Trump is a vote against Christian values. His running mate probably has a claim to conservative Christian values, but Trump, in my eyes, is not even a Christian. I don't mean that to be an insult. I don't mean that as a slap against his character (because we all sin and fall short of the glory of God). I mean that theologically I don't see how someone who has not asked God's forgiveness can be a Christian, who talks about holy communion as "When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink -- and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness..." Given this, I get very frustrated when people claim Trump will stand up for religious freedom in this country. First, not only is this the single most ridiculous thing anyone could ever say about him given that he has called for a ban on members of an entire religion numbering 1.6 billion from entering the U.S. (if the government has the right to ban Muslims, it has the right to ban Christians) but it again makes a false equivalency between faith and political parties. God is not a Democrat or a Republican and treating Him like he is one makes God into something way, way, way smaller than he is. Conversely, throwing out all your own values for the sake of supporting someone who merely seems less bad than your alternative proves that you were never voting your faith in the first place. I mean I suppose that's fine to keep your politics and your religious beliefs separate, but let's just be up-front about it.

I think Erik Erickson, founder of the conservative website "The Resurgence" put it best when he was interviewed on NPR recently:

MARTIN: So what do you do? You say that you're not going to vote for Hillary Clinton so that means you're in the end going to vote for Donald Trump - and we only have a couple seconds here.
ERICKSON: No way. I won't be voting for either one. Hopefully someone will step forward that I can vote for, but as someone of faith who takes it very seriously, I'm - I take Charles Spurgeon's position. Between two evils, choose neither. Just because his has an elephant next to it doesn't mean it's worth voting for.

I am definitely not saying you should not vote. There are plenty of candidates further down on the ballot that probably do deserve your attention and support. All politics is local, anyway. And for that matter, I'm not saying you should have to vote for Stein or Johnson. You can select "no choice" or even write in a candidate if your state allows that.

But years from now, someone may ask you why you supported a particular candidate. If you say, "Because I disliked the other candidate more," that may not hold up very well in their eyes. Be proud of your choice and own it. Even if that choice is neither.

'Merson

So we recently passed a fun milestone. Our son Emerson is now 11 months old. I thought I was getting pretty good at this parenting thing until we got a second one. Ellery isn't exactly the calmest soul on the planet but at least there was just one of her.

That said though, there are some definite things I've learned over the last year about kids and myself that I didn't know before we had the second one.

1. The whole nurture over nature thing is limited. It's crazy just how different Emerson and Ellery are from each other. And it's noticeable in a bunch of small ways. Like getting dressed. In general, Ellery seemed to enjoy getting dressed when she was 1. At least she cooperated a bit. Emerson reacts as if we're trying to poke him full of needles. He also enjoys music but not near to the extent that Ellery did/does. She would often stop everything she was doing so that she could listen to a particular song. Like "I'm Gonna Be" by the Proclaimers.

2. Sleep is a luxury my wife doesn't get right now. She has always had the insane ability to be able to wake up at the drop of a hat when one of the kids is fussy. She will routinely get up to settle the kids down and I won't even be aware that the kids were even awake. I try. I really do. But Christina has the equivalent of a superpower that I do not possess. I do not know if she considers it a superpower or a curse though.

3. I've been doing more thinking about what kid of lessons I want Emerson to internalize simply because he's a boy. Sometimes these are different lessons from what I give Ellery. There is definitely a prominent person in American politics that I do not want him Emulating. I want him to see the value in being thoughtful, considerate, and wise. There are a lot of people who think male strength lies in being assertive or loud, but I want him to see that true leadership cannot occur without empathy.

And it's not just that I think empathy is important to being a good person. It's a straight-up employable skill. Markiplier has thousands of followers on Youtube not because he's funny, but because he is very good at connecting with his audience and conveying emotion. Donald Trump is in a heap of trouble right now over comments he made 11 years ago because he is really, really bad at SHOWING HE'S SORRY. I imagine he hasn't had much practice doing that.