I will not be voting for Donald Trump. Nor will I be voting for Hillary Clinton. In all likelihood, I will simply leave the top of my ballot blank, and vote only in the state and local races.
While there are people I respect who are likely voting for one or the other of the major candidates (mostly Trump, given my the profile of my acquaintance) and I do not think that it is morally impossible to come to a reason for supporting either, I think that withholding my support from either candidate has been or moral benefit to me. Some people are capable of being entirely practical in their voting, "I'm voting for Trump because I think that policies I support are more likely to pass under him than Clinton." However, many people are not able to be so impersonal. Having decided to support a candidate, however reluctantly, becomes necessary for them to defend him.
I see this among Hillary supporters on a group of Social Justice oriented Catholics that I lurk in. People who seemed to start out supporting a Democrat in a rather conflicted fashion, troubled by her absolutist position on abortion, are soon repeating anti-clerical lines about how priests and bishops should just shut up about politics and making broad claims that legalizing abortion is good for women.
I see it too among Trump supporters, and because these people are more like me ideologically and in temperament, I find it all the more troubling. People who were annoyed when feminists hash-tagged that #YesAllWomen were sexually harassed by men in too many cases are now willing to argue that "look, all men talk like that" when Trump talks about walking up to a woman and grabbing her genitals.
Most of us do not simply vote in detachment, we join the team and then feel the need to defend everything "our" guy does. This isn't a bad instinct. Loyalty is a good thing. But it is important to think twice about who we give our loyalty to. What has saddened me in this election in particular is to see Trump's awful candidacy drawing people to defend things they never would have excused a year ago.
At the end of the day, I care a lot less about who people vote for than I do about the ways in which their support of a candidate leads them to excuse actions and attitudes they never would have defended before. Those changes in moral standards may last long past the election and will effect their own lives far more.
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6 comments:
My father was telling me he was thinking of voting for Hilary. He said he knew she was for abortion but that she hadn't mentioned it much. What was left unsaid was whatever greater evil he thought Trump might be for. He also did not appear to understand the concept of not voting. Nor the idea of incentives- i.e. Trump's incentives being significantly different from the criminal political class. We can expect him to act in his interests, which means there's a slight chance of less horrible.
But I don't know that people are changing their moral standards. They are slowly beginning to realize what is important in a fight. We are headed towards civil war internally, and the regime is doing some impressively stupid things externally. In order to mount any sort of defense, I need to be reasonably sure I won't get stabbed in the back. We've got a long way to go before I do feel that way. I do hope we get there before it is too late.
Much of what happens in this country goes on behind the scenes. This election is entertainment, a distraction- unless a President Trump really can fire federal employees by the thousands. Or indict a lot of people based on what the FBI knows, what can be found on C-Span, etc... How much can one guy do? No, we need a resistance movement, and that goes back to trust. Not trust of Trump, but of each other.
I think this comes down to the need to smooth out the cognitive dissonance of "I support candidate X" and "candidate X does Y bad thing." Either my support has to go, or Y must not be that bad after all....
Also, they find you like someone more whom you help, but the positive feeling *follows* the assistance, as if your brain and emotions are making up a reason to explain your helping the person. Perhaps the same happens when the "helping" is just visible support.
Me, I can make a tactical decision to vote for someone and yet not feel any need to defend him - I only need to defend the tactic. That said, this election is making me sick to my stomach. I am truly undecided, and appalled.
Yes, keep your eye firmly on the tactic - good point.
I think you have put your finger on it perfectly - once we have decided which "team" to support, there is a human tendency to find reasons why all aspects of that team are justified, or better than the other. I have been very troubled by exactly the phenomenon you describe - people excusing or justifying actions or statements they would have whole-heartedly condemned in any other context.
Most of us do not simply vote in detachment, we join the team and then feel the need to defend everything "our" guy does. This isn't a bad instinct. Loyalty is a good thing. But it is important to think twice about who we give our loyalty to. What has saddened me in this election in particular is to see Trump's awful candidacy drawing people to defend things they never would have excused a year ago.
At the end of the day, I care a lot less about who people vote for than I do about the ways in which their support of a candidate leads them to excuse actions and attitudes they never would have defended before. Those changes in moral standards may last long past the election and will effect their own lives far more.
This is a great point. I have noticed the same thing and find it distressing.
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