Yesterday, I wrote, ". . . a vote for Trump is not an endorsement of his character, but of the ideas and policies he stands for." To generalize and precisify: A vote for a political candidate need not be an endorsement of his character as a whole; it can be mainly an endorsement of the ideas and policies he stands for.
But then I came across some comments at Rightly Considered that seem to contradict my thesis. There I read something to the effect that on a ballot there is no circle to fill in labelled 'Trump's ideas and policies.' I read that voting is for people, not for ideas and policies.
I beg to differ. Obviously, if you are voting for a candidate as opposed to a proposition, you are voting for a person. But a wise voter does not vote for a person in abstraction from what he stands for, like the conservative grandmother who votes for Lenny the Leftist because Lenny is her beloved grandson, but precisely because of what the candidate stands for.
Thus when I vote for Trump, I will vote for a particular deeply flawed man because of the policies (some of which) he can be expected to promote, policies which are salutary, as opposed to the policies of Hillary which are almost all of them deleterious. I will vote for him despite his character flaws just as, if I were a benighted lefty, I would vote for Hillary despite her even worse character flaws. I would not vote for Hillary because she is a woman, even if I were a woman who agreed with her ideas. The record will show that I am neither.
But you don't have to agree with me that Hillary is worse than Trump character-wise. We should be able to agree that both are on a fairly low moral level. The point is that my wise vote for Trump will not be an endorsement of his character as a whole. I will be voting for the Orange Man as a vehicle for the implementation of policies that will serve the greater good.
So that's the first mistake about voting. It is the mistake of thinking that to vote for candidate X is to endorse the character of candidate X in the main or as a whole. Of course, character comes into it. If I thought that Trump's mendacity extended to his lying about all of what he has promised to do, such as appoint conservative justices for the Supreme Court, then I would probably abstain from the presidential decision.
The second mistake is to think that a vote for Hillary is not also a vote for Huma, and indeed for all of Hillary's ilk and entourage. (Do you want Bill, and Huma, and possibly the texting, sexting Anthony Weiner in the White House?) The mistake is to think that a vote for a candidate is not also, indirectly a vote for all of the people the candidate, if elected, will bring into the government or appoint. Indeed, and even more indirectly, to vote for a candidate is to vote for an entire governing culture which, even if the candidate is in office for only four years, might continue on for decades .
The Hillary Stench could haunt the halls of the People's House for a long time to come.
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