slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Why I Will Never Vote for Donald Trump, by Peter Wehner January 14, 2016

Beginning with Ronald Reagan, I have voted Republican in every presidential election since I first became eligible to vote in 1980. I worked in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations and in the White House for George W. Bush as a speechwriter and adviser. I have also worked for Republican presidential campaigns, although not this time around.

Despite this history, and in important ways because of it, I will not vote for Donald Trump if he wins the Republican nomination.

I should add that neither could I vote in good conscience for Hillary Clinton or any of the other Democrats running for president, since they oppose many of the things I have stood for in my career as a conservative — and, in the case of Mrs. Clinton, because I consider her an ethical wreck. If Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were the Republican and Democratic nominees, I would prefer to vote for a responsible third-party alternative; absent that option, I would simply not cast a ballot for president. A lot of Republicans, I suspect, would do the same.

There are many reasons to abstain from voting for Mr. Trump if he is nominated, starting with the fact that he would be the most unqualified president in American history. Every one of our 44 presidents has had either government or military experience before being sworn in. Mr. Trump, a real estate mogul and former reality-television star, hasn’t served a day in public office or the armed forces.

During the course of this campaign he has repeatedly revealed his ignorance on basic matters of national interest — the three ways the United States is capable of firing nuclear weapons (by land, sea and air), the difference between the Quds Force in Iran and the Kurds to their west, North Korea’s nuclear tests, the causes of autism, the effects of his tax plan on the deficit and much besides.

Mr. Trump has no desire to acquaint himself with most issues, let alone master them. He has admitted that he doesn’t prepare for debates or study briefing books; he believes such things get in the way of a good performance. No major presidential candidate has ever been quite as disdainful of knowledge, as indifferent to facts, as untroubled by his benightedness.

It is little surprise, then, that many of Mr. Trump’s most celebrated pronouncements and promises — to quickly and “humanely” expel 11 million illegal immigrants, to force Mexico to pay for the wall he will build on our southern border, to defeat the Islamic State “very quickly” while as a bonus taking its oil, to bar Muslims from immigrating to the United States — are nativistic pipe dreams and public relations stunts.

Even more disqualifying is Mr. Trump’s temperament. He is erratic, inconsistent and unprincipled. He possesses a streak of crudity and cruelty that manifested itself in how he physically mocked a Times journalist with a disability, ridiculed Senator John McCain for being a P.O.W., made a reference to “blood” intended to degrade a female journalist and compared one of his opponents to a child molester.

Mr. Trump’s legendary narcissism would be comical were it not dangerous in someone seeking the nation’s highest office — as he demonstrated when he showered praise on the brutal, anti-American president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, responding to Mr. Putin’s expression of admiration for Mr. Trump.

“It is always a great honor,” Mr. Trump said last month, “to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”

Mr. Trump’s virulent combination of ignorance, emotional instability, demagogy, solipsism and vindictiveness would do more than result in a failed presidency; it could very well lead to national catastrophe. The prospect of Donald Trump as commander in chief should send a chill down the spine of every American.

For Republicans, there is an additional reason not to vote for Mr. Trump. His nomination would pose a profound threat to the Republican Party and conservatism, in ways that Hillary Clinton never could. For while Mrs. Clinton could inflict a defeat on the Republican Party, she could not redefine it. But Mr. Trump, if he were the Republican nominee, would.

Mr. Trump’s presence in the 2016 race has already had pernicious effects, but they’re nothing compared with what would happen if he were the Republican standard-bearer. The nominee, after all, is the leader of the party; he gives it shape and definition. If Mr. Trump heads the Republican Party, it will no longer be a conservative party; it will be an angry, bigoted, populist one. Mr. Trump would represent a dramatic break with and a fundamental assault on the party’s best traditions.

The Republican Party’s best traditions, of course, have not always been evident. (The same is true of the Democratic Party, by the way.) Over the years we have seen antecedents of today’s Trumpism both on issues and in style — for example, in Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns in the 1990s, in Sarah Palin’s rise in the party, in the reckless rhetoric of some on the right like Ann Coulter.

The sentiments animating these individuals have had influence in the party, and in recent years growing influence. But they have not been dominant and they have certainly never been in control. Mr. Trump’s securing the Republican nomination would change all that. Whatever problems one might be tempted to lay at the feet of the Republican Party, Donald Trump is in a different and more destructive category.

In these pages in July 1980, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic senator from New York, declared, “Of a sudden, the G.O.P. has become a party of ideas.” If Mr. Trump wins the nomination, the G.O.P. will become the party of anti-reason.

I will go further: Mr. Trump is precisely the kind of man our system of government was designed to avoid, the type of leader our founders feared — a demagogic figure who does not view himself as part of our constitutional system but rather as an alternative to it.

I understand that it often happens that those of us in politics don’t get the nominee we want, yet we nevertheless unify behind the candidate who wins our party’s nomination. If those who don’t get their way pick up their marbles and go home, party politics doesn’t work. That has always been my view, until now. Donald Trump has altered the political equation because he has altered the moral equation. For this lifelong Republican, at least, he is beyond the pale. Party loyalty has limits.

No votes have yet been cast, primary elections are fluid, and sobriety often prevails, so Mr. Trump is hardly the inevitable Republican nominee. But, stunningly, that is now something that is quite conceivable. If this scenario comes to pass, many Republicans will find themselves in a situation they once thought unimaginable: refusing to support the nominee of their party because it is the best thing that they can do for their party and their country.
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Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, served in the last three Republican administrations and is a contributing opinion writer.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

That attitude will guarentee a Hillary win, and she will reign down upon us a worse socialist dictator than Obama has done. Foolish move, either not voting or voting for another person who beieves that the Constitution is only good for toilet paper, or putting in a puppy pen.

Coos Bay Tom Loc: coos bay oregon

I am throwing my vote away on the libratarian candidate... This election has been disappointing to me.. What if they gave an election and nobody came?

LAPhil Loc: Los Angeles, CA

Pretty much echoes my own sentiments, except that after the failed floor fight yesterday, Trump's nomination is all but signed, sealed, and delivered. So the question is, now what do we do?

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I'm not sure I follow that logic, NPP, as I will not vote for any candidate on the ballot. I will equally hurt/help either major candidate. My write-in vote will be for someone who, IMO, holds the Constitution in high regard, but had/has no chance to win. For me, this election is a lose-lose proposition for the nation. Besides, if mine and other non-major party votes throws the election into the House of Representatives, the results should favor Trump, with the GOP controlling it. In that case, I could be helping him win.

LAPhil Loc: Los Angeles, CA

I hope if nothing else this election will hopefully serve as a wake-up call that our current election system simply is not working. I don't care if we need a few more Constitutional amendments, the system needs a total overhaul, particularly the nomination process. I have stated some of my ideas as to possible solutions for this in the past, and I'm willing to do so again if anyone is interested in discussing this.

bilordinary Loc: SW Washington

oops

bilordinary Loc: SW Washington

Come on, be honest, it's because your a faithful party member, commie!

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

As a lifelong Moderate Democrat (I realize most of you think that is an oxymoron!) I will do what I feel I have had to do all too often: vote for the lesser of two poor choices.
While I think Trump represents a very real and well-founded dissatisfaction with the current system of crony capitalism, there's no substantive evidence he has any plan whatsoever to deliver on his "Make America Great Again" slogan.

While I am hardly in love with Hillary, she does at least have real, debatable plans to deliver on the issues she has addressed. Trump remains a loose cannon.
The devil you know is better than the one you do not.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

Hillary has already shown her level of incompetence and dishonesty. Trump has written two books in the last few years about where he would take the country. you could look for them on amazon as a California library would not have them if they wanted to keep having public funding. The information is out there should you choose to do a little work to find it. As I said Amazon has them if you are interested. I would even buy you a copy of each if i thought it would make a real difference, and, as you know, we have very limited funds.

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

Please advise the titles to which you are referring.
The online listing from the SF Public Library lists 8 books available written by Trump, so I want to be sure I get the right ones!

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Bileordinary, as a member of the last three Republican presidential administrations, I would assume that the writer...Mr. Peter Wehner...has been a faithful GOP party member. But, I don't believe that would make him a "commie." It makes you appear, perhaps, off-kilter.

no propaganda please Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun

[quote=PaulPisces]Please advise the titles to which you are referring.

you are lucky your library has them.
I have read these three so far and thought he had many good points
in amazon the prices are listed with them
Great Again How to Fix Our Crippled America $10.30

Time to Get tough $7.88

The America We deserve $19.46 hard cover
$7.99 Kindle
frankly I don't like Kindle for non fiction too hard to underline and impossible to refer back to

Worried for our children Loc: Massachusetts

I highly doubt that you've read the majority of Slatten's 28,000 posts, if you had, you'd realize just how wrong you are about labeling him a "commie" - there's nothing wrong with someone voting their conscience, all he is doing is sharing the reasons why. Expressing independent thought, does not make one a "commie".

PaulPisces Loc: San Francisco

[quote=no propaganda please]



Thanks for the fast reply. My library has both.