And I’ll do it again! Part two![1]
(I'm feeling feisty after the manticore hunt.)
Dr. Timothy Stratton brings Hitler into the chat. Ok, that's not quite right. He poses an interesting argument that happens to prove Godwin's law, and it works like this. Say, two and only two candidates for president are likely to win, and one of them is a dirty scumbag. That sounds familiar, but suppose the other candidate actually runs on the platform of starting a holocaust. For Stratton, that makes voting for the dirty scumbag a moral imperative. Stratton also argues that abortion being comparable to the holocaust, then Christians are in a similar position today. He writes, “Bottom line: if a Christian ought to oppose Hitler in this thought experiment, then Christ followers ought to vote for Trump in 2020.”
Stratton's argument has force, but it forgets a lot too. Many of the points made in my response to the reservations expressed by Dr. William Lane Craig also apply to Stratton's argument, but both arguments deserve their own spotlight.
Disanalogocity(disanalogosity? The state of not being analogous. I know. It’s not an official word. I don’t care. It’s fun. Pronounce it! You’ll thank me.)
First, the analogy needs tweaked. The present abortion situation is not like voting Hitler into office. It’s more like trying to vote him out, after being established. Hitler would not have stepped down. I'm just guessing, but no, the real effort to remove Hitler was very very different, and that effort is more analogous to today’s situation in two ways. The real effort consisted of means more direct that than paper-wishing. Secondly, voting against Hitler could have resulted in- significant negative consequences.
To elaborate on that first bit, the more direct means includes counseling young mothers, creating options for them, pursuing various ounces of prevention, and other things that needn’t involve any coercive legislation at all. Policy follows culture. God with good people about the business of saving their yet-born neighbors will change things. (Government will step in at the last minute to try to take the credit, but still.) Sure voting pro-life helps, but just being a voting-booth activist, one that stands by while other voters in the course of their lives develop deeply personal interests in denying the evil in abortion- I’m not sure how much that helps. The most effective work is personal, not just political. With this much, Stratton may agree.
As for the second bit, yes, voting for Trump can accomplish significantly negative consequences. In a state like Utah, if someone votes Constitution party, the state’s electors will still vote for Trump. That person's vote bears zero consequence on the outcome of the presidential election no matter who it is for. However, the vote could do something if it is invested. It could contribute to a message to the RNC, telling it that it needs to raise the bar to some place higher that that Better-Than-The-Worst-Candidate-Ever standard it enjoyed in 2016. A vote's losing that zero-cost benefit at the further expense of vexing the Utah voter's conscience would be a significant loss, but-
But Wait! There's More! (had to.) Voting for Trump can also be a liability. People unofficially lose favor and even jobs when it comes out that they have voted for Trump, and that goes for red-state city-folk as well. So, not only can voting Trump entail significant negative consequences[2], next to voting third-party, it can easily be the option with the least desirable results. Therefore, this lesser-evil argument should not be foisted upon everyone. Given these considerations, it doesn't even apply to most Americans (non-swing-state folk).
Ethics
Secondly, Stratton says Christians should use every resource to resist abortion. Let’s grant him every ethical resource. That may seem like a weird qualifier, but a line does exist. Proof: violence against those working in abortion clinics is far across it. That being the case, it stands to reason that there would be less obvious trespasses as well, and one's sense of them trespasses will depend upon their social philosophy.[3] Someone may want to resist abortion but not feel at liberty to vote for Trump. They may be something of a conscientious objector, and like the conscientious objector in war, this one also could still contribute to the effort. Just, it would be by campaigning against the worse guy.
So, the most effective activism is compatible with voting third-party. Also, the most ideal activism is arguably a clean conscience campaigning against the worst candidate while investing its votes in better ones. Even if Stratton doesn't find that approach to be the most ideal himself, I imagine he'd find it unobjectionable in the many cases like that of our Utah friend.
Lots of Hope
Upon consideration, this argument for a broad-sweeping moral imperative to vote Trump is a bit of an over-claim. First, it turns out that voting for Trump isn't quite analogous to thwarting Hitler’s rise to power. Second, for many Christians it is actually a bit of a pain- maybe even a trifling, sub-ethical strategy that needlessly gets good people in trouble as well. Third and counter-intuitively, voting third-party can be an investment (however small) while a vote for Trump can be worse than a waste.
After all the unpleasantness involved in talking both Hitler and abortion, Stratton recommends a beer. I meant balm. Stratton recommends a balm. I recommend a beer. When it comes to balms, he recommends hope in Christ, and I agree. (I also recommend puppy videos.) See his site for details.
1. My last post dealt more with Craig’s inclination against voting third-party. This post focuses more on Stratton’s argument for voting Trump. Again, I mean no disdain for these two thinkers. Quite the opposite in fact. They are accomplished and respectable men with whom I greatly agree in more important matters.
2. I emphatically do not mean to imply that these different sets of significantly negative consequences are comparable at all. The parallel is a feature of an analogy to which I am responding, not an analogy I picked.
3. See my previous post as well. It’s around here somewhere.