Why Did Evangelicals Flock to Trump? Existential Fear

And maybe a lot of people just voted for whomever they thought could do the job they wanted done.

[M. Osborne]

It seems that the only way to break out of the practical truth that “A vote for X actually advances Y” is for a critical mass of voters to say, “Hogwash. I’m voting for X.”

Might eventually work — if people all choose X, rather than X, U, V, and W, thus diluting all the the 3rd party votes.

Although, as someone else posted about Perot, it just allowed a president who had received even less of the popular vote than Trump. For real 3rd-party voting to work, we would need to have a European-style system, where if the lead vote getter gets less than 50%, he or she would need to form a coalition to govern. Of course, I watch the German channel 1 news quite often, and their system has plenty of disadvantages too.

Just goes to show that there is a lot to think about when one casts a vote. It’s NOT just all about fear.

“And maybe a lot of people just voted for whomever they thought could do the job they wanted done.”

No doubt some people wrote-in a vote for themselves, or other people who had no chance of winning. The context of my post above involved the possibility of actually affecting the outcome with one’s vote in tossup states, given there was no one on the ballot who would get the precise job done they wanted. And in other states the question was easier given the certainty the state would go for one candidate or the other.

As I mentioned earlier, the idealist approach to voting (only voting for someone you hold in high esteem and wholeheartedly endorse) is quickly passing away given the unfolding anti-Christian demise of Western Civilization. The 2016 Trump vs Clinton election, sadly, is a foretaste of most elections to come. Christians will have to decide whether they want to give up and have no say at all (the idealist approach) or continue to have a minimal say using the either/or approach (one of the two is going to win, and of the two, I would prefer A over B.

[Ron Bean]

And maybe a lot of people just voted for whomever they thought could do the job they wanted done.

While I agree that that’s a perfectly valid way to think, it’s not the only valid way to think for a Christian.

The 2016 Trump vs Clinton election, sadly, is a foretaste of most elections to come. Christians will have to decide whether they want to give up and have no say at all (the idealist approach) or continue to have a minimal say using the either/or approach (one of the two is going to win, and of the two, I would prefer A over B.

1. I tend to favor seeing my vote as part of my witness for Jesus, more than (not instead of) my effort to influence American politics.
2. I get why people voted for Trump and object only when they lapse into the kind of rhetoric Jerry Falwell has used.
3. I would still like to think that the broader either-or you’re referring to: either be an idealist or be a pragmatist, isn’t final. I’d like to think we have a 3rd option, that enough people opting for a 3rd party will change the way the other two parties behave, and/or to change the way pundits describe the political climate.

“…it’s not the only valid way to think for a Christian.”

Exactly.

Christians who have the right to vote exercise that right in a variety of ways:

1) One can decide to try and actually affect the outcome. This results in actually voting, and choosing one of the two candidates who could actually win, and trying as best as possible with the information available to pick the better of the two options.

2) One can use their right to vote by making some other statement with it. These include:

a) Not voting, thereby leaving the selection of our leaders to others.

b) Voting, but choosing or writing in an ideal candidate to show everyone what a vote for an ideal candidate looks like, while at the same time leaving the selection of our leaders to others.

c) Knowingly voting for the worst possible candidate to hasten the end of the country, hoping that it will speed the end of the age.

“I would still like to think that the broader either-or you’re referring to: either be an idealist or be a pragmatist, isn’t final.”

I wouldn’t really call a Christian’s 2016 reluctant vote for Trump pragmatism. It was much more a calculated gamble. A Clinton victory was a certain radical leftist pick for the Supreme Court. A Trump victory meant that if Trump kept his word (which was no guarantee given his lifestyle and past problems), then there was the possibility he could pick a conservative SCOTUS nominee. It was a calculated gamble that he would actually follow through, and thankfully he has (twice), as well as lower court nominees. Pragmatism says if it works, do it. But there was no guarantee Trump wasn’t going to become a leftist the moment he took office.

So it was a calculated gamble. Either a sure thing (Clinton), or a gamble on someone who wasn’t a sure thing, but could elect to stick to his promises.

I agree with you Michael in the hope that our future isn’t going to be as bleak as that when it comes to voting choices, but things look grim when we consider the direction things are going with gender identity and related issues.

I wouldn’t really call a Christian’s 2016 reluctant vote for Trump pragmatism. It was much more a calculated gamble.

Understood. Probably not the best choice of terms on my part. I meant “pragmatic” in the loosest way of trying to do something that could work, not the philosophy that would justify the choice by the expectation that it might work.

But I’d also like to point out that my vote for McMullin wasn’t simply based on “idealism,” either. (And no one here has said that it was.) There’s a hope (pipe dream?) that more voters will start to do likewise and over the long term we’d see a change that we get more (better?) options on a regular basis. So I have my own “pragmatic” (loosely defined) angle on my voting. It’s just that I’m skeptical it’s going to work any time soon. :)

The GOP had better options in the primary. But as I pointed out earlier, Trump was able to use the fact that all the other candidates were canceling each other out, and thereby win the nomination getting on average about 35% of the vote per state, and still losing many states outright.

Looking over at the left, they have the Green Party, and they have avowed socialists, and they try to do their best work during the Democratic Party primary. But once the general election is upon them, they for the most part return to vote for the Democrat, except for when they feel the outcome is certain and then they are ‘free’ to vote their hearts.

That was one of the ironies of the 2016 election. The Green Party members were so certain Clinton would win, that they confidently voted Green Party in large enough numbers that they were responsible for Trump winning in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, enough to flip the election to Trump—a mistake they won’t repeat in 2020.