My journey…

Stage 1

As the 2016 race for the presidency got underway, I remember marveling at the unique chance the GOP had to put up a formidable candidate against who I thought was arguably the worst major party nominee in history – Hillary Rodham Clinton. The solid choices for the GOP nomination were extensive – Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz offered respectable conservative bona fides. Dr. Ben Carson was an immanently likable guy who gave voters a refreshingly candid point of view. For those who preferred more centrist or establishment types, Governors Jeb Bush and John Kasich were also in the mix.

Then Donald Trump put his hat in the ring, and although no one could’ve possibly called him a “conservative” with a straight face, his brash appeal and bombastic style was something new and exciting for roughly twenty-five percent of GOP voters. That’s all he needed – twenty-five percent support. Since there were so many others who split the remainder of the vote, Trump’s core supporters kept him at the top, even though the vast majority of GOP voters made it clear he wasn’t their man. By the time enough of the others dropped out of the race it was too late, and a Trump nomination was at that point almost inevitable.

Why was I hesitant to support Trump? Well, up until about ten minutes before he announced his candidacy, he appeared by all accounts to be a Democrat and a liberal – a NYC liberal, even. He openly supported abortion. He seemed incapable of maintaining a healthy marriage, and evidence of his womanizing was legendary. He inherited his wealth, and when adjusted for inflation, didn’t actually do much of anything with that inheritance (from a pure financial success point of view). He also displayed an ego the size of a planet. Therefore, I concluded – why on Earth would I support (or trust) this guy?

The funny thing was, despite all of his flaws, he still wasn’t as bad of a candidate as HRC. Her lust for power, sense of entitlement for the presidency, disdain for the average citizen, absence of anything resembling a moral code (and let’s not forget the Clinton Body Count), all made half the country wonder – how’d she get this far? Yet there we were – an election for POTUS with not just one, but possibly the TWO worst candidates in history. Because of this, I felt forced to vote for a third- party candidate, just as I had in three prior POTUS elections.

That’s when my journey to political apathy began. But that journey would hit a pause for a brief while, as I was surprised at the progress his administration made in its first three years. The 2017 tax changes benefited most everyone in the country, even if only through a more robust economy (and despite repeated inaccuracies by the media and gov’t motivated economists – these changes caused federal revenues to INCREASE – not decrease). The lowering of the corporate tax rate to twenty-one percent was pure gold for our economy. America was the place to do business once again! The economy was booming. Employment numbers were better than they had been in decades. Real wages were up. And the minority employment gap was beginning to close.

Trump’s foreign policy moves were the best I’ve seen in my lifetime – even in comparison with Ronald Reagan’s. He stared down bullies knowing that the only thing they understood were raw displays of power with a pinch of unpredictability. It worked, over and over again, with Iran, North Korea, Russia, Middle East terrorists, and China, et. al. He even woke up our NATO allies who weren’t holding up their end of the bargain. In addition, his re-negotiation of NAFTA was an unequivocal success, despite Canada’s Justin Trudeau threatening to withhold priceless maple syrup from us (seriously– he really did).

Finally, the successful nominations of three promising SCOTUS justices were encouraging. Roe v. Wade was rivaled only by the 1857 Dred Scott decision as the worst SCOTUS decision in history, and it was truly “justice” to see this vacuous display of judicial engineering finally overturned. I have to give Trump credit where credit is due.

But then came 2020. After initially being dismissive of the COVID threat, Trump trotted out this guy – “Dr.” Anthony Fauci – to try to assure us that the government knew what it was doing and their advice should be followed to the letter. It only took a couple of weeks (by mid-April) for many of us to realize Fauci was completely full of it. After considering everything that transpired early in the process, Trump’s refusal to fire Fauci was stunning. Many of my conservative friends have defended this non-move by saying, “Well, he was going with what he thought was the best advice.” Um, no. If millions of us could see through a TV or computer screen that this guy was either clueless or in on something far more nefarious, then how could Trump not see it? Sure, Trump had a lot of advice to offer us, too, but most of that was equally inane. Finally, he put all his eggs in one basket and helped push through “emergency” measures to fast track a “vaccine.” (The only way this was legal was to deny that there were effective early treatments for COVID that would mitigate symptoms or prevent them entirely. Hundreds of doctors tried to let the Administration and all of us know such treatments existed, but alas – the fix was already in and they were silenced.)

Stage 2

This is the point where my political apathy and massive distrust of the medical establishment really kicked into gear. What transpired went way beyond incompetence. This Orwellian “vaccine” was entirely about ego, and as a result, many, many people died who didn’t have to (my wife was very nearly one of these victims). The mainstream media was fully complicit, going so far as to promote shaming those who tried to voice concerns over the potential harm done by these injections (while the death certificate for free speech in America was issued sometime in 2020, the exact date is debatable). What’s almost never mentioned regarding the US government’s handling of COVID was what it did to the economies of third-world nations. At least eighty million people RE-entered extreme poverty during this time, which means – conservatively – that an additional ten million people died unnecessarily of starvation and malnutrition, all due to government shutdowns in developed countries. This makes deaths from COVID pale by comparison. Since COVID deaths disproportionately affected Caucasian people, and starvation deaths affected mostly black and brown people, is it fair to wonder whether our policies and concerns were possibly race-based? Hmm…

To this day, Trump’s ego has not allowed him to admit that this was all a colossal mistake, for which he was largely responsible. Despite the breathtakingly bad handling of the COVID pandemic, I gave Trump the benefit of the doubt since his first three years in office arguably outweighed the shortcomings, and I voted for him in 2020.

Stage 3

Then came the 2020 elections. Even with the mismanagement of COVID, enthusiasm for Trump was off the charts, while enthusiasm for his opponent was almost non-existent. With that in mind, anyone who thinks an incumbent POTUS can get five million more votes than any other candidate in our history, and still manage to lose by seven million votes to a guy who ran his campaign from his basement, is beyond naïve. That’s just denial along with a fundamental lack of understanding of basic math and statistics. Think about it – you have a candidate that half the country HATES and another candidate about whom NO ONE is excited, and you’re telling me that mixture produced the highest percent voter turnout in more than one hundred years? Sheesh.

So, yeah – I no longer trust our elections. And while we’re on the subject, how many people really believe HRC beat Bernie Sanders legitimately in the 2016 Democratic primaries, or that Joe Biden really won the Democratic primaries against Sanders in 2020? The powers that be are masters at rigging elections. I’m embarrassed that I never saw that before, but maybe – just maybe – it wasn’t so corrupt in years past?!?

Stage 4

In the run up to the 2024 election, many, if not most conservatives, felt bad for Trump that the 2020 election was taken from him. However, we also felt his time had passed and it was time for him to move on. We also, along with most Democrats, felt it was time for Joe Biden to move on. But Trump refused to go away. I have to admit, part of me admired his tenacity. The lawfare thrown at him when the Dems saw he not only was back in the race but posed a serious challenge to Biden’s re-selection was the stuff of Banana Republics. Worried about your challenger? Take him out of the race Malcolm X style – through whatever means necessary. And yes, I’ll say it – the refusal to provide more Secret Service coverage to Trump leading up to the assassination attempt is part of that. The race against Trump has become personal for both the Dem establishment and the Deep State.

Stage 5

The final layer is the mountains of abuse being directed at Trump. It was so egregious that I was momentarily leaning toward voting for him again this year. But then I read the new GOP platform– that Trump directed– and which received eighty-four percent approval by the GOP establishment. The party of “conservatism” has become anything but. They no longer care about limited government, and no longer even mention the monstrous national debt as being a problem, but rather, just provide some throwaway line about “wasteful government spending.” Isn’t ninety percent of it “wasteful”? They no longer define marriage as sacred as between one man and one woman. They see Social Security as an entitlement, despite it being financially insolvent, and refuse to acknowledge the only two solutions that would actually “fix” it – reducing benefits or raising the retirement age (and even though one could also raise taxes precipitously, that’s not a practical option on any level).

Both Trump and his VP pick – J.D. Vance – think abortion belongs with the States, somehow thinking that will resolve the issue (just like it did with slavery, right?). Both have stated their support for what is now the most common method of abortion– the abortion drug mifepristone– and have helped the GOP determine that it now officially supports birth control and IVF as rights. Please remember– hormonal birth control causes up to five times as many abortions (by blocking implantation in the uterus) than surgical abortions each year, and hundreds of thousands of tiny babies are frozen, facing eventual death, due to IVF. (When you throw in the GOP’s support for capital punishment, there is literally now only a marginal difference between the two major parties on the issue of “life”. It’s hard to imagine we’ve come to this.)

So here I sit pondering the clown car act that is the Kamala Harris candidacy (totally predictable as replacing Biden before the 2024 general election)– a person who appears to be at least moderately cognitively-challenged, cackles at inappropriate times, and seems to have applied a questionable moral compass throughout the entirety of her political career. And yet she has half the country supporting her as being some kind of virtue-laden alternative to Donald Trump’s tawdry pedigree. I really don’t care anymore what happens in this “most important election in our lifetime.” (Ha!) Either way, we’re going to get the leader we deserve, and that’s a sad statement about our country.

Maybe “I don’t care” is not completely accurate. More precisely, I don’t worry about the results. However, under NO circumstances would I say it’s a good idea to vote for Kamala Harris. Nope. No way. No chance. Vote for a third party or don’t vote. Those are two choices I would suggest that you consider. If you vote for Trump anyway, though, you’ll get no grief from me. My recommendation is to vote (or not) the way you think is best. (And in case anyone is wondering, I did find a third-party alternative that is far better aligned with my values – the Constitution Party.  So yes, I’ll vote. But I’ll vote on principles – not practicalities.)

My purpose here has been to show my own gradual transformation to where I am today, but I will end by asking you to consider why Trump and Vance winning could be highly problematic for Christians, and for Catholics, in particular. Now that the GOP has made a fundamental shift to the center (left of center) and has left behind those things conservatives used to believed were worth "conserving," a Trump-Vance victory might be seen as affirmation that those values changes were a welcome (and winning!) strategy by the GOP base and by Christian conservatives. In the end that risks galvanizing the GOP's positions for the indefinite future, and will leave Christian conservatives jilted at the altar, so to speak, as the guy they had fought so passionately for in the past is now cheating on them and pursuing an agenda that has little in common with our values. But who can we turn to?

On the other hand, setting aside the horror of envisioning this for a moment, what happens if that "laughing heyena, Kami the commie" wins? Well, it will send a message to Trump and the entire national GOP that the gamble they made to compromise the principles long held by the party of Lincoln– the party dedicated to defending the rights of the most vulnerable– was utterly rejected. Then they will be the ones forced to answer the question, "Are you better off than you were four years ago" to their base.

And that gives us something realistic to work with. Yes, that means enduring the pain and embarrassment of a Harris presidency for four years. But then we rebuild, rebrand, and remember what this party really stands for– a party that represents genuine conservative, Christian values. That’s an investment I’m willing to make. That’s a sacrifice that sounds pretty worthwhile to me. The alternative is being stuck with two parties that have no substantive difference, other than the color of the hats that their followers choose to wear.

What a Long Strange Journey it's Been, but it's Not Over!

The upcoming election resembles the scenario of a B-movie playing out right before our eyes and has provided me with clarity as never before. “Put not your trust in princes” is definitely wise Biblical advice. Better yet, maybe it’s time we start changing the country ourselves. Maybe it’s time we start getting off the screens and the couch and loving our neighbor, face-to-face. Maybe it’s time to stop listening to purposefully negative news designed to divide us. Maybe it’s time we get informed and combat the real threats our government, media, educational system, and medical leadership refuse to acknowledge. Maybe it’s time to engage with our school boards and re-take parental control of education. Maybe it’s time we eat well and get outside so as to take care of our bodies– these temples of the Holy Spirit that God has given us. Maybe it’s time to remember how to play with our children and have adventures with our friends and families. Maybe it’s time we start looking for our Savior on The Cross, rather than in somewhere within the confines of Washington D.C.

Maybe the time for political apathy has arrived. I submit that your mental health and well-being just might thank you if you choose to embrace it.

Photo Credit- FEE- Foundation for Economic Education.