The death of fair play

Traditionally, American elections operate like sports. There's a uniform set of rules. The same rules for both sides going in. You win by the rules or lose by the rules. And a loss is a loss. 

If you lose, you have a chance in the next game/election to recoup your loss by winning, but in-between the last game and the next game, what's on the scoreboard stays put. If your team loses, you swallow the loss and try harder next time. 

But nowadays, many secular progressives don't believe in fair play. They don't concede defeat–even temporarily. 

It doesn't matter what happens on the field. It doesn't matter if the opposing team won fair and square. Nowadays, when the left loses an election, they try to nullify the results. They try to change the score after the fact. A loss is never a loss. They refuse to accept the legitimacy of a system where both sides must operate by the same rules. Where you accept the results. 

And this mentality isn't confined to progressive Americans. The EU had the same mentality. When countries voted against a treaty, the EU would nullify the vote. Likewise, elites did everything they could to vacate Brexit.

As I've said before, I think this reflects the outworking of atheism. If this life is all there is, you can't afford to lose, because you don't get that many chances to win the next time around. So you can't afford to play by the rules. If you lose the election, you win after the fact by getting it overturned.  

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

The Bubble

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKOb-kmOgpI&sns=fb

Obsessing over whiteness

I'm struck by the obsession with white evangelical voters. Shock, anger, and betrayal is expressed at the fact that "80%" of white evangelicals voted for Trump. 

Why are some "persons of color" so obsessed with whiteness? As a white man, I don't obsess over my whiteness. Why do some "persons of color" attach vastly greater importance to whiteness than many white folks do? 

Why single out whiteness? What makes that special? What makes that significant?

if we're going to cast the issue in racial terms, who did "persons of color" vote for in this election? Who did "evangelicals of color" vote for in this election? What are the percentages? Why is that not equally significant? 

A white evangelical is an evangelical who happens to be white. There are so many ways to define a person. Yes, race is one defining characteristic, but what makes that more important than age, sex, religion, social class, marital status, personal interests, &c?

Consider those body-swap experiments in science fiction. Suppose you must transfer your mind to another body to elude a bounty hunter. But no body is available that corresponds to your sex and race. You can either transfer your mind to a body of the same sex, but different race, or the same race, but different sex. Which will you opt for?

Surely any normal person would opt for a body of the same sex. Our sex is central to our personal identity in a way that our race is not. 

Sure, if I woke up tomorrow morning, looked in the bathroom mirror, and found a different race staring back at me, I'd have to make some adjustments. But that's nothing compared to swapping a male body for a female body, or vice versa.    

How many evangelicals voted for Trump?

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/no-the-majority-of-american-evangelicals-did-not-vote-for-trump

Social mascot du jour

There are various reasons why Hillary lost. I'd like to mention two:

i) Although this reason is blindingly obvious, Democrats were blind to the obvious. Increasingly, Democrats have focused on the "rights" of fringe constituencies. By that I mean, constituencies that comprise a minuscule fraction of the electorate. Most recently, homosexuals–followed by the even more statistically infinitesimal transgendered. 

Conversely, Democrats keep antagonizing large voting blocks. For instance, they just can't leave gun rights alone. Yet, as a voting block, gun owners vastly outnumber homosexuals and transgenders (although, in theory, these groups could overlap to some small degree). 

So voters see the tail wagging the dog. Democrats demand that 99% of the population adapt to 1% of the population. The whole nation must use transgender pronouns, accept coed public restrooms, locker rooms, sports teams, and women's shelters, force Orthodox Jews and Christians to cater queer marriages, &c. 

That's a surefire formulate for alienating voters en masse.  

(BTW, I don't object to protecting the rights of minorities. But a group isn't entitled to special treatment just because it whines.) 

This is in large part because the Democrat party is on a never-ending quest for some new cause, some new social mascot, and so the latest protected classes become ever more esoteric and artificial.  

ii) Another reason is that leftwing academics have become (in effect) the speechwriters for Democrat candidates. There are different sources of policy. Sometimes policy has a bottomup source. An exigent crisis that demands a policy solution.

But oftentimes, policy has a topdown source. Pointy-headed academics with bold new ideas. These can be liberals, libertarians, conservatives, whatever.

Yet even when it originates with pointy-headed academics, historically there's been a vetting process. Academics don't set the agenda directly. Rather, new ideas take time to percolate. There's an effort to create a constituency for the ideas. Op-ed columnists popularize and promote the ideas. Aspiring political candidates float new ideas as trial balloons. 

The intent is to get voters behind new ideas by gradually exposing them to new ideas, until they become accustomed to them. If successful, that lays the groundwork for the political agenda. Of course, some policy initiatives never catch on. The public just doesn't like them. 

But more recently, Democrats have bypassed that filter. Radical ideas by leftwing academics immediately set the political agenda of Democrat politicians. Voters are informed in no uncertain terms that these are moral imperatives. The lightning speed with which transgenderism captured the Democrat party and became an instant necessity is a case in point. Even faster than the two-step from gay domestic partnerships through gay civil unions to gay marriage. 

But of course, normal Americans don't share these outre priorities. That doesn't speak to their needs. 

Comparative assessments in voting

Although I was a NeverTrumper from first to last (I put that in the past tense since it's now obsolete), I find myself in the paradoxical position of defending Trump voters. Case in point:

Tedla G Woldeyohannes
How should the world think of American Evangelical Christianity anymore? American Christian missionaries, when you go out to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people, say, in Africa, what would you say if people ask you, have you voted for Trump? What does Trump symbolize for a Christian? 

To which I replied: Evangelicals voted for Trump in the general election because Hillary put a gun to their head.

There are self-identified American evangelicals who exhibit delusional confidence in Trump's bona fides.

That said, it's meaningless to simply express dismay or disapproval that many American evangelicals voted for Trump in the general election. That's a skewed perspective. Voting in the general election involves a comparative assessment. Comparing one candidate with another. 

It's not just a question of whether or not to vote for Trump, but comparing and contrasting Trump to the alternatives. So this one-sided analysis is ill-conceived. 

I myself am a NeverTrumper. But you need to frame the issue in terms of a comparative judgment respecting more than one candidate.

The popular vote doesn’t win elections — nor does it grant legitimacy

https://medium.com/@MatthewSchultz/the-popular-vote-doesnt-win-elections-nor-does-it-grant-legitimacy-2f589a06e0ae#.gyumzhslc

The Electoral College

In the wake of Hillary's defeat, we have predicable calls for the abolition of the Electoral College. Needless to say, people only complain about the Electoral College when there's a split vote and their candidate loses, never when there's a split vote and their candidate wins. The Electoral College is nonpartisan. Doesn't favor one party's candidate over another's. Same rules for everyone going in. 

Here's my answer to a Frenchman who was asking about the Electoral College. I'm not a political scientist by trade, so someone else might be able to give a bette answer. But here goes:

i) The short answer to your question is that the American political system is a republic rather than a democracy. 

ii) By way of justification: if the popular vote settled things, then urban elites in big cities would always decide who gets to be president. Ultimate political power would be concentrated in big cities. But that's an unrepresentative sample group. The Electoral College system spreads things out to require a more demographically diverse working majority. 

That was an issue even back in the 18C, with population centers and urban elites in Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, NYC). 

iii) I'd add that Democrats actively solicit voter fraud, which makes it easier to steal elections based on the popular vote. 

iv) Because humans are social creatures, humans in community are apt to think alike more than humans outside a particular community. Due to peer pressure, common social conditioning, &c., the more that generations of people live and work in the same locality, the more their outlook tends to coalesce. 

The Electoral College system cuts across that groupthink, requiring a more demographically diverse sample group. 

v) France has been fully settled for many centuries. The current political system in France was put in place many centuries after the major urban centers were established. Long after the distribution of urban and rural populations was firmly in place.

By contrast, America, at the time of the Republic, was largely an unexplored, uncolonized wilderness. Most of the major urban centers did not exist at that time. The borders were not established. 

So the current political system was put in place long before the country had taken shape. The Founders attempted to devise a system for an expanding nation.

Is Trump the advent of the Zombie Apocalypse?

Images of Democrats in a state of utter hysteria over the election results is something to behold. I admit watching their reaction is a guilty pleasure. I say that as someone who was a NeverTrumper from start to finish. Although I can't be disappointed by Hillary's defeat, I'm not gleeful about Trump's rise to power. I view his ascendancy with apprehension (but a different kind of apprehension).

In many cases it's like watching those day-after-Halloween videos about parents who prank their kids by telling them they ate all the candy, then observing the kids react. Shock. Stunned disbelief, followed by a sense of betrayal, then alternating rage, and sobbing. 

Same reaction from Hillary supporters. "You ate all my candy!" "That was my candy!"

In politics, you win some and you lose some. A perennial, alternating cycle that happens to Democrats and Republicans alike. Yet in this election, some Democrats are acting as if they had a permanent lock on elective office. It's childish.

But in some cases it runs deeper. CNN had a scene at the Javits Convention Center. One woman in particular, who appears to be in her 50s:

She's absolutely beside herself. Hyperventilating. Looks like she's about to have a heart attack. I don't mean that facetiously. Apparently, she has no life outside politics. 

Her reaction is so overwrought. She responds the way a mother ought to react when the ER surgeon goes into the waiting room and says, "I'm afraid we weren't able to save your daughter. Her injuries were too severe."

Where's the sense of priorities? If politics means that much to you, it means way too much to you. 

Fact is, freedom-loving Americans had far more to lose in this election if Hillary won than Democrats had to lose if Trump won. Hillary posed an existential threat to freedom-loving Americans. 

By contrast, even though Trump won, the liberty and livelihood of Democrats isn't imperiled by Republican rule. Their job security is not imperiled.   

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

Popular backlash

A few random observations about the election:

i) I think one reason Hillary lost is that liberals routinely try to coerce and shame people into compliance rather than using persuasion. Not only does that mean they are not even attempting to get people to see things from their viewpoint, but they antagonize voters by pushing them around. That can be a successful policy if you have power over others. But it's not a reliable policy for remaining in power. 

Admittedly, this poses a dilemma for liberals. If their policies are inherently elitist and unpopular, then they have precious little prospect of success in convincing people to agree with them. So they can only resort to brass-knuckle tactics. 

Their best bet is controlling public and private education. Brainwashing the next generation. Turning kids against their parents. Turning the next generation into drones for the totalitarian secular state. 

ii) The 2016 election may be the last gasp of the "angry white male" voter. That's a dwindling demographic. America is becoming increasingly and rapidly multiethnic, which is fine (except for the Muslim component). Conservatives need to do a better job of spreading the message. 

iii) There are different theories as to why Trump won. He tapped into the alt-right. He tapped into the blue collar vote. Those were both elements of his constituency. 

Much indignation has been directed at self-identified evangelicals who voted for Trump in the general election. But ironically, there's a sense in which the liberal establishment created Trump. He's their Frankenstein. 

Although a certain percentage of self-identified evangelicals hold delusional beliefs about Trump's rectitude and consistency, I think that for many evangelical voters, it was just an anti-Hillary vote rather than a pro-Trump vote. Secular progressives have made themselves a direct threat to tens of millions of Americans. For many Trump voters, they simply acted in self-defense. They gambled on Trump. 

There are many examples in which the secular progressives are increasingly oppressive and autocratic. I think that provoked a popular backlash. Just a sample:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/08/07/saying-at-work-that-hillary-clinton-shouldnt-be-president-because-women-shouldnt-work-full-time-may-lead-to-a-harassment-lawsuit/

https://pjmedia.com/faith/2016/09/09/massachusetts-forces-lgbt-accommodation-rules-on-churches/?singlepage=true

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/10/07/a-university-told-students-to-select-their-gender-pronouns-one-chose-his-majesty/

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438906/american-bar-association-lawyers-follow-these-speech-rules-or-else

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/05/17/you-can-be-fined-for-not-calling-people-ze-or-hir-if-thats-the-pronoun-they-demand-that-you-use/

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439126/transgender-teens-parents-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-doctors

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/womens-shelters-must-admit-transgender-men-obama-admin-rule

http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/04/obama-admin-tells-landlords-they-cant-refuse-to-house-criminals/

http://www.lifenews.com/2016/10/14/appeals-court-upholds-california-law-forcing-pregnancy-centers-to-promote-abortions/

Trump: At Least He Was Better Than Romney

For those who are inclined to say that Trump was a bad candidate for the Republicans to nominate, consider that, in this admittedly "apples to oranges" analysis, at the very least, he out-performed Romney in 2012:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/442059/dont-blame-clinton-trump-2016-wouldve-beaten-obama-2012

Update: the author of the NR article has issued a Mea Culpa, that the data that he used was not up-to-date, and that it affected the substance of the article:

UPDATE: Mea Culpa. Here’s what happened: I used the New York Times vote-record database for the numbers in this post. This was a matter of convenience; I had already been using the NYT database because of its excellent interactive feature, which allows you to scroll over counties in any state color-coded indicators of partisan margin as well as raw vote totals. Here’s the problem: The NYT database doesn’t have the correct numbers in some states.

Enjoy Your "Victory"

So it appears we have the victory of the “lesser” evil. I’m still trying to see some silver linings in this mess. What analogy could be used to describe this election?

Think of America as a little boy who is playing out in sub-zero temperatures wearing nothing but his boxers. He’s fast developing frost bite. The situation looks quite grim, so we are told “If we do not amputate his limbs, he will die of gangrene.”

Hillary Clinton is, of course, the gangrene in this scenario. Trump is the amputation of the limbs.

But even this analogy doesn’t quite get at the reality of the situation, because running desperately toward the shivering little boy is the mother screaming at the top of her lungs, “JUST GO INSIDE AND GET YOUR COAT!” That was the voice of conservatives who rightly point out that literally any of the seven million other Republican candidates this year would have been better than Trump—even Jeb! would have been an improvement. Instead, America opted to ignore that advice and pick amputation.

Is it really the lesser of two evils when the lesser evil could have been avoided altogether?

The bottom line is, like in the analogy above where the little boy will have to live on now without his limbs, America will now have to live on without a Conservative candidate ever being nominated as president again. I’ve explained the logic before, but I’ll state it again. The RNC wants to win elections more than they care about principals. Conservatives have just told them that they will vote for a candidate as liberal as Trump is, because the Democrat is worse than Trump. (And believe me, the Democrat is always worse than the Republican, otherwise he or she would have had an R after his/her name instead of the D.) The RNC knows that it will be able to pick off more votes from the middle if they run Liberal Republicans, whereas they will already have just as many Conservative votes either way. Therefore, simple math dictates that they must move leftward on the spectrum.

I will never see a Conservative nominated in my lifetime. Trump’s victory assures that.

But I mentioned I’m looking for some silver linings.

Well…

1) Hillary might go to jail. Except no one really expect Obama not to pardon her. So…

1) Liberals might see how “reasonable” Conservatives are in voting for someone who is not a religious fuddy-duddy. Except, as one of my atheist friends on Facebook said, “Those of you who voted for Trump -- especially those of you who are Christian -- never again are allowed to say the moral character and integrity of the president is a priority to you.” So…

1) Trump might not be as bad as Hillary would have been.

Well. There is that.

I sure hope you got some great soup out of selling your birthright, Conservatives. It’s not like the Bible ever says things will go wrong if you give up your principals for political convenience or anything.

President-Elect Donald Trump: “Win-Win”, “Morning in America”. Things like that.

You all didn’t hear much from me this election cycle. Other than a few (somewhat heated) email conversations – not many – with my co-bloggers here, and some ongoing interactions with my kids, I didn’t participate in the political discussions of the season.

Not that I didn’t watch intently. I watched many a Trump speech live or on YouTube, and I paid close attention to what Limbaugh and Hannity and a few other of his supporters were saying.

While I concede, with all of you, that Donald Trump was not the ideal candidate, there is no question in my mind that he was the candidate appointed for this season. I’d urge you to watch his acceptance speech. (Sorry, other than the full event on YouTube, this NYTimes condensed video was all I could find at this early hour).

In this speech, he was kind and gracious and not at all the hateful and bigoted (and worse) candidate that many have portrayed him as, especially as the mainstream media almost universally described him.

While I know that many of you are disappointed with the way things turned out, and in fact have been disappointed with this whole election season, I’d like to encourage you to consider all the good things that will come out of this election:

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. 

Should you lock your door at night?

One of the dumber reactions I've seen to the presidential election is the claim that it doesn't really matter who wins or loses because whatever the outcome, God is in control. People who care about elections are faithless. We have nothing to fear. God has already decreed the winner.

I take it that people who say this fancy themselves to be Calvinists. But they play right into the Arminian caricature of Calvinism as a synonym for fatalism. 

Do the same people who say this lock their door at night? Or would that be distrustful of God's providence? I mean, if God has predestined the house-burglar to break into your home, countermeasures are futile, right? 

In a sense that's true. Yet God hasn't simply decreed what will happen. God hasn't simply decreed who will be president, but who will vote for which candidate and other forms of political activism. The outcome is not irrespective of our efforts, but due to our efforts. Predestination doesn't invite complacency, as if the future will turn out the same way no matter what we do or fail to do. 

By the same token, God hasn't necessarily decreed that the house-burglar will break into your home even if you lock the door. Perhaps he has, but you don't know that in advance. Moreover, it's not as if locking your door thwarted God's decree. It's not as though God decreed that you not lock your door, but you overrode his decree and did it anyway. No, if you lock your doors, then that's why he decreed all along. And that may successfully deter the house-burglar. You only know by trying. 

Fact is, apart from revelation, we don't know ahead of time what God has decreed. That's something we discover in retrospect, as the future becomes the past. Even people who don't believe in predestination fulfill it. So you don't have to give any thought to predestination. You just do whatever you were going to do. God predestines your motives as well as your choices. You act on whatever reasons you had at the time, which turn out to be the reasons God gave you to act on. Not to mention that a certain amount of decision-making is the result of subliminal considerations. You weren't even conscious of all the factors that fed into your choice. 

Some people tie themselves in knots over predestination, but as a practical matter, there's no reason to second guess your actions. It's like saying, if the door is locked, I can't open it. True. But is that a reason not to try the doorknob? No. For if the door isn't locked, then you can open it. And you find out what's possible by giving it a try. Either the door knob will turn or it won't. That doesn't prevent you from finding out which is which. Just go ahead and do what you had in mind. And that's what God predestined! 

Is politics the kingdom of darkness?

I wasn't planning to do another pre-election post, but here goes. Yesterday, JMac outlined his position:

https://vimeo.com/190474131

He has a very clear position. He has straightforward reasons for his position. I agree with some of what he says. I disagree with some of what he says. 

I've seen some highly polarized reactions to his position. I've read sycophants who hang on his every word. I've read detractors who say it's a "sad day of compromise…hardcore faithlessness." 

Both extremes are absurd. And it reflects the irrational polarization we've seen throughout the campaign cycle, where you must be totally for someone or totally against them. Now, there are people who merit that absolute dichotomy, but JMac is hardly one of them. 

i) At least to judge by this clip, JMac takes an Anabaptist view of politics. There's the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. Politics belongs to the kingdom of darkness. There's no connection between politics and the kingdom of God. Politics is earthly and temporal. What happens in America has no relationship to the kingdom of God. Our elections don't help or hurt the cause. 

I consider that highly artificial. Perhaps he's shadowboxing with the liberal postmillennialism and social gospel of Rauschenbusch. The notion that social activism will usher in the kingdom of God.

It's true that God doesn't set his watch by world history. Rather, world history is set by God's watch. 

However, there's an obvious sense in which politics or world history intersect with the kingdom of God. If, say, public school children are brainwashed in atheism, if Christianity is demonized in the classroom, then that's a setback for the kingdom of God inasmuch as you will have fewer Christians. 

Likewise, the Master's College and the Master's Seminary is threatened by the secular progressives in California. If a Christian curriculum becomes hate speech, that's a setback for the kingdom of God.  

By the same token, if authorities begin to revoke Christian custody of their children because they raise biological boys as boys and biological girls as girls, that will be a setback for the kingdom of God. The freedom to raise your kids in the Christian faith is hardly irrelevant to the progress or fortunes of God's kingdom on earth. 

It doesn't mean God's plan for the world has been derailed. In a sense, the kingdom of God is right on schedule. But we need to avoid confusing belief in God's sovereignty with que sera sera fatalism.

It's true that America will go the way of other superpowers. But during their heyday, superpowers exert tremendous international influence. And they can help or hinder the dissemination of the Gospel. 

JMac also talked about how Democrats systematically weaken police. But there are two related problems with that characterization:

i) To the contrary, Democrats are creating a police state. They need ever more expansive and intrusive enforcement agencies to impose their social policies on the nation.

ii) Apropos (i), law enforcement becomes the vanguard for secular progressive social policies. Indeed, JMac fails to notice the tension between his uncritical support for police and his criticism of social policies that punish those who do good while protecting those who do evil. 

Finally, he said America is under God's judgment. I hear that a lot. Maybe it's true. But the appeal is circular. You could argue it either way. Is secularization a result of divine judgment? Or is divine judgment a result of secularization? What would be the evidence that distinguishes one from the other? 

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.