Clean sweep

I'm a bit puzzled by reaction to Trump firing Comey. I'm not puzzled by the hypocritical reaction on the Left. That's predictable. Rather, I'm puzzled by why some conservative critics are attacking Trump's action.

i) I don't know what Trump's motive was and I really don't care. You can do the right thing for the wrong reason. 

Last year Comey held a press conference in which he systematically explained how Hillary broke the law. He dismantled her lies.

But he then held her to a lower standard than ordinary citizens are held to. He invented a condition (intent) which the statute doesn't require, and used that as an excuse not to recommend prosecution.

Mind you, even if we grant the intent criterion, Hillary's intention was undoubtedly to skirt the law. That was the whole point of the private server evasion. 

Comey's behavior was an example of how those in power protect others in power from the law. 

Moreover, the law in question isn't just some technicality. There are very good reasons for that law:

i) Hillary jeopardized the national security of the USA as well as our allies.

ii) Hillary obstructed the Freedom of Information Act, which is important to ensure a measure of transparency and accountability in gov't.

iii) Arguably, Hillary did this to cover her tracks so that she could solicit bribes as Secretary of State, for the Clinton Foundation.

Comey discredited himself and the FBI. Just another Executive agency politicized and weaponized by the Obama administration. For that reason alone, he richly deserved to be booted out.

I realize he was in a bind. He wanted to keep his job. His superiors were opposed to prosecuting Hillary. But that just goes to show that he's an apparatchik and timeserver. 

In addition, the FBI, during the election, obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Trump campaign. Once again, the FBI, under Comey, was hopelessly compromised by the politicization and weaponization of Executive agencies during Obama's tenure.

If you wish the FBI to be truly independent, you need to sweep out Obama's cronies and make a fresh start. 

Now, it remains to be seen who will replace Comey. And it remains to be seen how Trump will conduct himself. But on this issue, thus far, I don't object to Trump's action. 

Here's a good article on the subject:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/james-comey-latest-victim-of-the-clintons/article/2622746

Did Trump steal the election?

Did Trump steal the election by hackers manipulating votes? 

Not according to two Executive Branch agencies, which, if anything, have a Democrat bias:

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national

How Trump won

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/donald-trumps-astounding-victory-how-and-why/article/2607042

Was Hillary on the wrong side of history?

https://thearcmag.com/was-hillary-on-the-wrong-side-of-history-3720bcfa9ee5#.w19qpoxo9

Hillary: on the wrong side of history

The good news: Hillary lost. The bad news: Trump won.

Trump has consistently outperformed expectations, confounding the pros. Because I don't think like most voters, I can't extrapolate from my personal frame of reference to make reliable predictions. So I turn to the pros. But they were wrong. 

It's a relief that Hillary lost. She posed a more imminent threat than Trump. It's like a situation in which you will have to wage war with two hostile states. The question is the order in which to do it. You make a temporary alliance with one hostile state to defeat a common enemy. That way, you survive to fight another day. Having defeated the common enemy, the next war will be between you and your temporary military ally.  

The GOP will hold the House–as well as the Senate, although I don't know if it will have a working majority. The GOP had some pickups in gubernatorial races. 

Now we'll find out for real how many of Trump's campaign promises he intends to keep. Given that he's been on both sides of most issues, he could simultaneously keep all his campaign promises and break all his campaign promises. 

Seriously, because conservatives probably have little or no direct leverage with Trump, if he reverts to his default liberalism, it will be necessary for conservatives to use whatever leverage they have with Republicans in the House and Senate to counterbalance There's no love lost between Ryan and Trump, so there's no reason to assume Ryan will just roll over. (Not that Ryan is all that great.) In addition, we need to exert whatever leverage we can at the state level. 

I don't know for sure why Hillary lost. Her abrasive personality and her arrogant attitude that she's above the law no doubt contributed. I also suspect that Obamacare is a constant drag on the ticket.

But in addition, the secular progressives overplayed their hand. They felt they were on a winning streak, so they stayed at the table and the kept upping the ante. 

This election gave us a temporary reprieve, but nothing is permanent in politics. A live grenade like Trump is quite capable of leading the GOP to a disaster in 2018 or 2020. 

I refuse to heel

This will be my final pre-election post on the 2016 presidential election. In this post I'm not using "Trumper" as a derogatory term, but as a neutral antonym for "NeverTrumper". 

Why am I doing one more post on the election? Won't that be out of date after the returns are in? Although there are some topical aspects to this election, both Trumpers and NeverTrumpers are reaching into their ethical toolkits to justify their position. My primary concern is evaluating their ethical tools. They will be reaching into the same toolkits in the future. They will bring to bear the same considerations in future situations which they brought to bear in this situation. As the stakes in the culture wars are ever higher, moral clarity is at a premium. 

The Trump nomination split the conservative movement. Whoever wins tomorrow, the conservative movement will have to realign. Some erstwhile conservatives sold out. They're not coming back. 

I've seen lots of Trumper and NeverTrumper arguments. Both sides have used bad arguments. The bad arguments outnumber the good arguments. 

That's in part because most voters aren't philosophers by aptitude or training. In addition, the choice between voting for Trump and casting a protest vote is a borderline case. Because both candidates are so bad, we have conflicting intuitions. Many of us feel pulled in opposing directions. As a result, both side of the debate have used some bad reasons to support or oppose Trump.

In general, there's a different methodology between the two camps. NeverTrumpers take a more topdown approach. They appeal to moral principles (as they see them). By contrast, Trumpers take a more bottomup approach. They look at the situation. At the immediate threat. 

1. Best Trumper argument

Hillary is a militant secular progressive. A single-minded fanatic. She is hellbent in destroying anyone and anything that gets in the way of her agenda, by any means necessary. It's not just about a few seats on the Supreme Court. It's about packing the Federal judiciary in general. It's about Executive appointees in general. Notice how Obama weaponized Executive agencies to deploy against conservative groups. If anything, Hillary will amp that up. The fact that she broke the law and got away with it emboldens her. 

It's about control of Congress. The Bill of Rights. Parental authority. School choice. The consent of the governed. Gender binaries. Heteronormative values. 

It's about abortion and euthanasia. It's about freedom from wrongful termination because a public or private sector employee dissents from LGBT agenda. It's about gov't shutting down businesses through ruinous fines because they refuse to collaborate in the LGBT agenda. It's about protecting school children from indoctrination. It's about the war on boys. It's about mandatory coed restrooms, and locker rooms. It's about requiring battered women's shelters to admit "transgender women" (i.e. biological men who self-identify as women). 

Trump is a moral cretin. He has no discipline. No focus. No consistent agenda. No political philosophy. These are grave weaknesses in a presidential candidate, but compared to Hillary, his weakness is a strength. He's not out to get conservatives. He's not going to launch a pogrom against conservatives. He's not a zealot like Hillary. That's not what makes him tick. He's a hedonist. He lives for status. He wants to be the center of attention. Hillary poses a direct threat to all that's good and decent in a way that Trump does not. 

I think that's a powerful argument to vote for Trump. And it's a lean argument. It doesn't say anything positive about Trump. It doesn't make any claims about his credibility. It doesn't excuse his vices. So you don't have to defend Trump. 

It's not enough to tip the scales for me, but if I were making the case for a Trump vote, that would be it. And that's not me playing devil's advocate. I believe everything I said. 

2. Best NeverTrumper argument

i) Trump can do a different kind of damage than Hillary. Admittedly, those are intangibles compared to Hillary. But it goes to the old distinction between the enemy within and the enemy without. Trump is like inviting an arsonist to housesit while you go on vacation. Will there be anything to come back to? 

To some degree, the case against Trump is the mirror-image of the case for Trump. The very fact that Hillary is such a ruthless, implacable foe means she will galvanize the conservative movement. By contrast, Trump is a tapeworm that consumes it from the inside out. We've already seen how quickly the "Republican establishment" kowtowed to Trump. We've seen conservative icons sell out to Trump. 

What happens when he has real power? When he has the carrot and the stick of the imperial presidency? The GOP wasn't any great shakes even before Trump ran. 

ii) Which brings me to the next point. A major reason Trump is so godawful is because he's used to getting his way. He's used to people fawning over him and groveling at his Gucci-shoed feet. He lives for that. And this campaign is no exception. He didn't have to accommodate conservatives. Rather, erstwhile conservatives accommodated him. If he can win without accommodating conservatives, why would he govern any differently? He ran on his own terms. If he can win on his own terms, why will he govern any differently? 

One by one we've seen Republican leaders heel when Trump says heel. They jump when he says jump. Someone needs to stand up to him. Someone needs to say, No, I refuse to heel. No, I won't roll over at your command. You can't always get your way. And even if you do, it will be in spite of me, not because of me. I'm not going to be another one of your Borg drones. You will have to shoot me first. 

In fairness, it's possible for individuals to denounce Trump and vote for him at the same time. But in my observation, few voters are that compartmentalized. And parties operate more as collectives than independent-minded individuals. 

3. Worst NeverTrumper argument

i) In my observation, many NeverTrumpers take intellectual shortcuts. They resort to ethical slogans. And it doesn't get any deeper than the slogan. There's no real understanding of what the slogans stand for. NeverTrumpers use them interchangeably:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/10/glossary-of-terminological-fallacies.html

In fairness, some Trumpers do resort to morally relativistic arguments when defending their support for Trump. 

ii) Some NeverTrumpers like Albert Mohler, Richard Phillips, John Piper, and Russell Moore appeal to our public Christian witness. I respect Mohler and Phillips. Moore is a lightweight. In general, Piper is a great gift to the church, but his more recent embrace of pacifism and Anabaptism makes him politically unreliable. 

In fairness, some "evangelical" Trump apologists have undoubtedly brought the Gospel into disrepute. However, there's a difference between perception and reality. We can't be hostage to mere perception, however ignorant or malevolent. We can't let popular perception to dictate our actions. 

The question is whether we have morally and rationally defensible positions. If so, we make our case. 

If we're seen to be "compromising" despite making a good case for our positions, the fault lies in the percipient. We must be prepared to challenge people who judge our actions by their unwarranted standards.

ii) In addition, the Christian witness objection cuts both ways. There are voters, especially men, who are turned off by Christianity because they think Christians would rather wring their hands than get their hands dirty. Piper himself is morphing into the parody of a Christian who's too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly use. 

4. Worst Trumper argument

i) Trumpers, like NeverTrumpers, resort to intellectual shortcuts. In their case, it's not so much moral principles, but simplistic rules of thumb:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-art-of-put-on.html

ii) Many Trumpers exhibit blind credulity in Trump's bona fides.

iii) By the same token, many Trumpers rationalize his moral degeneracy. 

iv) I noticed on Justin Taylor's Facebook Wall that some commenters act as though they needed John MacArthur to give them permission to vote for Trump. They can now do so with a clear conscience because JMac said it's okay. That's just hero worship. 

Hillary, Trump, and double effect

Although this is often cast in terms of the lesser-evil principle, we can recast the issue by invoking another principle, namely the double effect principle. In the "canonical" for (a la Catholic moral theology), you cannot use a bad means to a good end. Since I'm not Roman Catholic, I'm not bound by that caveat. So, to reformulate it a bit:

There are situations where causing harming is unavoidable regardless of what you do or refrain from doing. Either you will cause harm or you will permit someone else to cause harm, because you refuse to intervene. Given that forced option, it may be permissible to cause harm to minimize harm. 

Put another way, there are situations where an agent performs an action that has two effects: one good and one bad. Moreover, inaction on the agent's part will have a bad effect, without the compensatory good effect.

The action may still be licit provided that the intended effect desired by the agent is good while the bad effect is merely foreseen, and not intended.

An advantage of causing harm yourself, rather than leaving it to someone else to cause harm, is that you have more control over how, when, where, and/or to whom the harm is inflicted. You can be more discriminating, and thereby mitigate the degree of harm. 

That, of itself, doesn't settle the question of voting in the 2016 presidential election. But it does provide another moral framework for weighing the pros and cons, both ethical and practical. 

Roll the dice

I've seen some Christians use a gambling metaphor for the 2016 election. It's a sure bet that we have lots to lose if Hillary wins. By contrast, Trump is a roll of the dice. You may win the bet or lose the bet, but given the choice, it's more reasonable to roll the dice, which gives you the chance of a better outcome. Neither candidate is a safe bet, but one is undoubtedly threatening in a way the other is not.

I think that's a useful analogy. I don't object in principle. The question, though, is whether the choice is really that clear-cut. Trump can do a different kind of damage than Hillary. BTW, there's an outside possibility that McMullin will be the next president. 

JMac on Trump

JMac recently made a comment that's getting some buzz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN0IGHg0rms

He's an old man speaking off the cuff, so I wouldn't parse his comment to death. He was responding to a question. Moreover, he was implicitly responding to how some people characterize a vote for Trump.

Some of what he said was perfectly reasonable. The major weakness in his response was the claim that he's not voting for Trump, per se. Rather, he's voting for a worldview, voting for an ideology.

The obvious problem with that justification is that Trump doesn't have anything resembling a consistent worldview or ideology. Trump is not a thinker in any sense. He speaks and acts on the moment to gain a tactical advantage. 

JMac also indicated that Trump has better advisors than Hillary. But there's no evidence that Trump listens to anyone, much less conservative advisors. 

A better way to say what JMac was attempting to say is that a candidate with a malevolent agenda (Hillary) is more dangerous than a candidate with no discernible political philosophy. 

Mind you, the issue is more complex. Even if Hillary is more dangerous in the short-term, it's possible that Trump is more dangerous in the long-term if he co-ops the conservative movement. In fairness, Hillary will do great long-term damage as well. 

No, it's not all about the Supreme Court

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441566/hillary-clinton-administration-judges-cabinet-appointees-would-inflict-damage

What's a Trumpkin?

I'd like to make a brief point about my own usage. I sometimes use the term "Trumpkin". And I used that as a term of disparagement. That's intentional.

However, I don't use "Trumpkin" as a synonym for Trump voters in general. I don't use it for people who opposed Trump during the primaries, but reluctantly support him in the general election.

There are conservatives who will vote for Trump to block Hillary. It's not so much a vote for Trump as a vote against Hillary. I don't call them Trumpkins. 

Rather, I reserve that epithet for Trump primary voters, or for general election voters who minimize his faults, or praise his imaginary virtues. Who make delusional claims about his campaign promises. Things like that. 

Not voting for Trump is a vote for Hillary

i) Trump supporters routinely say not voting for Trump is a vote for Hillary. I've seen a lot of NeverTrumpers rankle at that charge. As a NeverTrumper myself, I'm not bothered by the charge.

Given certain assumptions, there's an obvious sense in which the equation is true. It doesn't mean NeverTrumpers are voting for Hillary in the sense of going into the voting booth and pushing the button next to Hillary's name. They're not casting a vote for Hillary in that direct sense. Rather, the point of the claim is that by declining to vote for the only candidate who can defeat Hillary, the side-effect is to help elect Hillary. And up to a point, that's a logical inference. 

ii) Mind you, that depends on certain conditions. It presumes that Trump is competitive with Hillary. If he's too far behind, then not voting for Trump doesn't make a difference. 

Likewise, if you live in a blue state, then even if you vote for Trump, that will be swamped by Democrat voters. 

iii) I think NeverTrumpers are too defensive on this point. It sounds bad to say not voting for Trump is a vote for Hillary because it's taken out of context. Considered in isolation, it sounds culpable to do anything that would contribute to Hillary's election. But there's more to it than that. The problem is that Trump primary voters backed the rest of us into a corner. 

To take a comparison, it's normally wrong to embezzle bank funds. But suppose bank robbers kidnap the family of the CEO or CFO of Citicorp, using the hostages as leverage to coerce the CEO or CFO to set up a Cayman account just for them, then transfer $10 billion from the City Corp account into the Cayman account, to secure release of the hostages. 

Indeed, you have movies with a dramatic premise like that. Take Harrison Ford's Firewall. (I haven't seen it, just read reviews.)

That puts embezzlement in a different light. The audience is supposed to be sympathetic to the CEO or CFO because the robbers put a gun to his head. That forces him to do things he wouldn't ordinarily do. There are attenuating circumstances that exculpate his actions. 

By the same token, NeverTrumpers feel they've been maneuvered into a situation where the acceptable options were taken away from them. It's not their fault that they refuse to choose between the remaining, unacceptable options. The chance for a good outcome was already nixed during the primaries. They aren't responsible for the dire consequences which irresponsible voters set in motion. The results of the NeverTrump position is mitigated by the situation into which they've been thrust, against their will. 

It's like someone pulling the pin on a grenade. Once he does that, it may be too late to prevent the ensuing damage. The only way to prevent the damage would be by not pulling the pin in the first place. But if that happens, there's no going back to the options you had before he pulled the pin. 

Hillary and the UMC

"Progressive Christians" predictably attack Trump but don't attack Hillary. To a great extent, there's been a similar asymmetry among evangelicals and conservatives. That's because evangelicals/conservatives take Trump's candidacy personally in a way they don't take Hillary's candidacy.  No one's liable to mistake Hillary for a representative of the conservative movement. So evangelicals/conservatives don't feel the need to explicitly disassociate themselves from Hillary, since that's taken for granted. Likewise, the conservative movement has had a voice in the GOP, whereas it has no voice in the Democrat Party. So, once again, evangelicals/conservatives are more alarmed by what is happening under their own roof (relatively speaking). For evangelicals/conservatives, Trump's candidacy ignites an in-house debate in a way that Hillary's does not. Trump's candidacy triggers an identity crisis regarding the future of the GOP and the future of the conservative movement, in a way that Hillary's does not. That's one reason many conservative pundits have neglected to make the case against Hillary.

There is, however, an interesting parallel. Hillary is a United Methodist. So is Ben Witherington and Bill Arnold. They represent the conservative wing (by Methodist standards) of the UMC. 

To my knowledge, conservative spokesmen for the UMC like Witherington and Arnold haven't distanced themselves from Hillary in the way that many evangelicals have distanced themselves from Trump. Why is that? Witherington has distanced himself from Trump, so why not Hillary? Why not publicly repudiate her as an authentic representative of the Methodist tradition? 

Another round on "consequentialism"

Yesterday, Christian philosophy prof. Paul Franks posted a critique of Wayne Grudem's recent article:

https://tyndalephilosophy.com/2016/10/21/wayne-grudems-deplorable-argument-for-trump/

In some respects I agree with both of them and disagree with both of them. I agree with Grudem's case against Hillary. I disagree with his support for Trump, although I don't think his argument is "deplorable". 

Conversely, I agree with Franks' opposition to Trump, but I disagree with his central objection to Grudem's article. Today, Franks and I had an email exchange. I'm posting my side of the exchange:

I. First reply

Dear Dr. Franks,

Regarding your recent post on Grudem:

https://tyndalephilosophy.com/2016/10/21/wayne-grudems-deplorable-argument-for-trump/

As a trained philosopher, I'm surprised to see you mischaracterize Grudem's framework. You repeatedly accuse Grudem of "consequentialism". Yet Grudem denies that consequences are the sole consideration. In responding to the (3) objection that “When faced with the lesser of two evils, choose neither one,” Grudem says:

Answer: I agree with this principle when facing a choice between doing two evil actions. For example, when faced with a choice between stealing and telling a lie, I should choose neither one. But this is not that kind of situation. We are not talking about doing something evil. We are talking about voting.

So Grudem clearly thinks some actions are intrinsically wrong. Consequences alone could never warrant those actions. He just doesn't think voting for Trump is one of those actions. 

Now, what Grudem says in that regard is very brief. It may not be an adequate counterargument to the objection, but he clearly rejects the position that consequences are a sufficient criterion in moral valuation. 

In addition, why do you seem to absolutize "conscience"? Conscience is not infallible. 

II. Second Reply

Thanks for your reply. Actually, I'm operating with standard definitions of consequentialism. For instance:

Consequentialism is the view that morality is all about producing the right kinds of overall consequences.   

http://www.iep.utm.edu/conseque/

Consequentialism, as its name suggests, is the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. This general approach can be applied at different levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things, but the most prominent example is consequentialism about the moral rightness of acts, which holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act, such as the motive behind the act or a general rule requiring acts of the same kind.  

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

Consequentialism assesses the rightness or wrongness of actions in terms of the value of their consequences. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), 2:603. 

But that's clearly not his framework. He cites two examples (stealing, lying) which he considers to be morally wrong regardless of the consequences. Hence, he doesn't think consequences are sufficient to justify every action. 

The question at issue isn't whether his argument is successful, but whether he's a consequentialist. His argument for voting for Trump may be an abject failure. That doesn't make him a consequentialist.

Suppose I'm about to drive home from work. The freeway is congested. At that time of day, a side street will get me home quicker than the freeway, so I choose the side street. Surely that doesn't commit me to consequentialism. 

Moreover, I don't know why you treat following one's conscience as the logical alternative to consequentialism. For instance, deontology isn't based on appeal to conscience. 

III. Third Reply

This is what I take you to be saying. Your position appears to be that although someone may not be a consequentialist, yet if in particular case he only take results into account in making his decision, then he is, in that instance, guilty of "consequentialist-based reasoning". If that's what you are saying, I think that's demonstrably false. 

Consequentialism is the position that, as a matter of principle, "morality is all about producing the right kinds of overall consequences," "whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act," or "the value of their consequences."

i) Now, to recur to my first example, in choosing which route to take home, I only care about the results (i.e. getting home by the fastest route). That, however, doesn't mean I think that, as a matter of principle, the value of the results is the only consideration in decision-making.

Rather, it means that, all other things being equal, the desired result is the deal-breaker. Put another way, in a choice between two morally neutral options, consequences may be all that matter. That's the decisive consideration. 

Again, though, that's different than saying, as a matter of principle, that consequences are the only consideration. Rather, it just means that in this particular case, there happen to be no other morally salient factors or countervailing factors. So, by process of elimination, preferred results are the only remaining differential factor. 

ii) Take another example: suppose I have a teenage son with cancer. With treatment, he has a 95% of survival. Without treatment, he has a 95% chance of dying. Given those options, I have him undergo cancer therapy. All I care about is effective treatment. That, however, isn't consequentialist-based reasoning. Rather, it means there are no other countervailing factors to consider in this instance. To bring that into relief, let's compare it to some different examples:

iii) Suppose two patients need a heart transplant to survive. One is 15 and the other is 75. Here the age of the patient introduces an additional moral consideration. It's not that the life of the 75-year-old patient is intrinsically less valuable than the life of the 15-year-old patient. And it's certainly not that the elderly are not entitled to good medical care.

But the 75-year-old patient has already had an additional 60 years of life, compared to the 15-year-old patient. And with a heart transplant, suppose that extends his life for another 10 years. It's unfair that he should have an extra 70 years to live at the cost of the teenager dying at 15. 

iv) Suppose I'm a ruthless military dictator. I discover that my teenage son has a congenital heart defect. He needs a heart transplant to survive. Without it he could drop dead at anytime.

I have my goons round up 50 heathy young men. I have them subjected to genetic testing to isolate the most compatible donor. I then have the donor euthanized to harvest his heart to save my son.

Now that truly is consequentialist-based reasoning. That's only concerned with the results–to the exclusion of countervailing moral considerations. 

v) Let's finish with a different kind of example. Suppose I believe that all other things being equal, a candidate's character is a morally germane consideration in choosing who to vote for.

Suppose, however, there are only two viable candidates, and both of them share the same morally disqualifying character. In that event, they cancel out the character criterion. 

It's not that I think character, per se, is irrelevant. But that criterion has been mooted by the two candidates. So I focus on their respective policies. 

Do Democrat social programs lower abortion?

Some people say that if you're truly prolife, you should vote for Hillary because Democrat social programs lower the abortion rate. For a corrective:

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/there-is-no-pro-life-case-for-planned-parenthood/

Grudem reverts to Trump

Wayne Grudem has published a third post on Donald Trump:

http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/10/19/if-you-dont-like-either-candidate-then-vote-for-trumps-policies-n2234187

It's easy to make fun of Grudem's careening views, but this is an example of a conscientious man struggling with a difficult choice. Grudem's article is very thorough, although it suffers from overconfidence in Trump's campaign promises. To begin with, Trump's campaign promises are a moving target. And he shows precious little commitment to his campaign promises. 

The best argument for Trump goes like this:

i) Principle: if push comes to shove, a bad man who does good things is better than a good man who does bad things.

ii) We have two vile candidates. One of them (Hillary) will undoubtedly strive to do terrible things. The other (Trump) may do a few good things, or at least not consistently do so many bad things. 

Put another way, Hillary is an ideologue in a way that Trump is not. The very fact that Trump has no considered political philosophy means he doesn't have an agenda in the way Hillary does. 

iii) However, that slight advantage is potentially offset by the additional consideration that Trump warps the conservative movement. We already see many erstwhile conservatives bending their ideology to conform to Trump. 

If Trump is elected, will there be a viable conservative movement to revert to after the dust settles? Will the GOP be a meaningful alternative to the Democrats? Or will we be stuck with two liberal parties? Will a Trump presidency further adulterate the GOP, and marginalize the conservative movement? 

That's what makes it difficult to tally the pros and cons. Fact is, the future is unpredictable. And we don't know for sure if the alternatives would have turned out any better, because we can't run multiple timelines, compare them, then pick the best. 

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

Unless Wikileaks drops a bombshell that blows the Clinton campaign out of the water, the Republican bid is probably doomed. 

It's interesting, in a tragic way, to consider how altering one variable would completely alter the race. If voters in Republican primaries and open primaries had chosen almost any other GOP candidate except Trump, the focus of the message, the focus of the conservative and/or Republican commentariant, would have been on the future direction of the country under Democrat rule. Warning about the disastrous trajectory of secular progressives–as well as the infamy of Hillary in particular. An outward-looking message. 

But because Trump was in the race, and instantly became the center of attention, the focus of the conservative and/or Republican commentariat was overwhelmingly on the future direction of the GOP, the conservative movement, and the religious right. An inward-looking, internecine fight. And those are necessary debates. But they were made necessary by Trump's presence. It became a debate, not about control of the country, but about control of the the GOP, the conservative movement, and the religious right. 

From a political standpoint, that's an exercise in misdirection. It deflects attention away from the policies of the opposition party. A diversionary tactic worthy of the Old Serpent. 

That also led to partial paralysis on the part of NeverTrumpers, because there's a tactical tension between attacking Trump and attacking Hillary. I think NeverTrumpers were hesitant to prosecute the case against Hillary for fear that would encourage people to vote for her opponent–Trump! And that would be counterproductive to their aims. That's a hard needle to thread. 

After Trump became the official nominee, some pundits who opposed him in the primaries pivoted to attack Hillary. But mid-July is way too late to begin making the case against Hillary. Moreover, that case is constantly obscured by the disruptive presence of Trump. He's always in the way. He remains the flashpoint of controversy. 

I guess we should give the Devil his due for successfully derailing the 2016 election. 

Can Hillary succeed?

Conservatives rightly fear that Hillary will continue Obama's secularization of American society. No doubt she will try. How successful she will be is harder to say. Both Obama and Bill Clinton are natural politicians. By that I mean that for a certain kind of voter, they are charming and charismatic. They don't have that effect on me, they are popular with many Americans. And that enables them to promote divisive policies without appearing to be divisive. 

Hillary, by contrast, is divisive in style as well as substance. Because she's naturally strident, she will provoke opposition to a degree that Bill and Obama do not. So she may face much tougher sledding. 

Now I don't know what the breaking point of the American public is. I don't know if the American public has a breaking point. Even if it does, I don't know if the percentages will be sufficient halt or reverse course. That remains to be seen. But when you combine Hillary's heavy-handed agenda with her disagreeable personality, that's the best prescription for a popular backlash. The only question is the scale of the backlash. Will it be enough to unhorse the SJWs? This will be an all-out conflict. 

Trump and the gender gap

On Facebook, Robert Gagnon got into some impromptu debates with a few high-minded women when he argued that voting for Trump may be justifiable as the lesser of two evils. Because Trump is a male chauvinist pig, I think some women find it incomprehensible and unconscionable how any decent may could vote for Trump. If you vote for a male chauvinist pig, what kind of man does that make you? Because they disapprove of Trump, they disapprove of men who consider voting for Trump.

To some extent I think this may reflect stereotypical differences between men and women. I'm not talking about Alt-Right men. I'm talking about decent men. How can a respectable man consider voting for someone as disreputable as Trump?

I'm guessing this is how some men view it. As president, Hillary threatens the job security of millions of Americans. How so? Due to homosexual/transgender lobbyists. SJWs are utterly intolerant of dissent.

If you don't use transgender pronouns, you man well be fired. Or your business will be boycotted. Or fined.

Or suppose there's a "gay couple" in your office who decide to get married. Suppose the boss throws an office party to celebrate. Woe to you if you absent yourself from the party. Even if you don't verbally express your disapproval, nothing short of affirming them will save your job.

And it's not just at work. SJWs surveil social media for people who make politically incorrect statements. Likewise, they bait people into making politically incorrect statements.

There are probably men who consider voting for Trump to protect their family. They can't protect their family unless they can protect their livelihood. 

My point at the moment is not to debate whether that's a sufficient reason to vote for Trump. I'm a NeverTrumper. My point is simply that honorable men can have honorable reasons to vote for a dishonorable candidate–given the alternative. It's not that hard to fathom. 

What if Hillary wins?

If Hillary wins, as seems highly likely, that's very bad news. But does that mean the future is hopeless? 

Here's a possibility: Hillary's DOJ pushes the transgender agenda. That, in turn, encourages Democrat officials in various states to push the transgender agenda. That, in turn, provokes a tremendous popular backlash on the part of otherwise apathetic citizens or reflexive Democrat voters or independents. 

If Democrat politicians impose transgender policies regarding coed restrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams, will that alienate key voting blocks in the Democrat party?  

Likewise, what if we continue to have an uptick in domestic jihadist massacres that are easily linked to liberal immigration policies. 

We will see if there's a breaking point. To some degree, the Trump nomination in itself represents voter frustration with 8 years of Obama. But they chose a dud.

We also see how immigration policies in Europe are empowering rightwing parties. So it's a mistake to despair and assume the liberal trajectory is unstoppable.  

Here's another potentially, albeit unwittingly, promising development in the culture wars:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/439893/animal-rights-means-no-dogs-and-cats

Increasingly, liberals are fanatical pet owners. Dogs and cats as a substitute for kids. They feel virtuous about their antinatalism. 

But here we have a powerful special interest group that's targeting the very concept of pets. And it's coming from the Left. If it gains steam, it may antagonize voters who reflexively favor Democrat candidates. It can be wedge issue, just like transgenderism.