Dear NeverTrumpers: Don’t Throw Away Your Vote.

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I’ll start this post with a quotation I’ve used before from the respected conservative economist Dr. Thomas Sowell in an article he published in August:

There are few things worse than being deprived of our basic Constitutional rights, on which our freedom ultimately depends. But one of those few things is being deprived of life itself by the reckless decisions of a volatile, ill-informed, immature and self-absorbed President in a nuclear age.
(This article was posted on a number of conservative websites, including TownHall.

As this disastrous election wends its way to the finish line, there are more and more conservative Republicans who are willing not only to denounce Donald Trump but also to say that they will, indeed, vote for Hillary Clinton. The latest to do so is Michael Chertoff, former Whitewater Committee special counsel and Homeland Security secretary.  Here’s what he had to say yesterday:

“The reality is … it’s a binary choice. This is not, ‘What is your best outcome in the world,’ ” Chertoff tells NPR’s Renee Montagne. “It is: You have two people, and which of the two would be better as president? And I think presented in that way, it was pretty clear to me that I should publicly take the step of saying that I would be planning to vote for Hillary Clinton.” (Read the entire article here.)

Here’s my message to those who say, “I won’t vote for either candidate because they’re so horrible, so I’ll just leave that top choice blank, or write in Abraham Lincoln or some such,” who say, “I don’t have to vote for anyone; no one owns my vote” or “it doesn’t matter what I do because my state is so solidly Democratic that it’s going to Clinton no matter what” or “I’ll vote for a third-party candidate who has no chance of winning as a protest against the two major party’s pitiful selections”:

Your vote matters.

Yes, our elections are decided by the Electoral College, and for almost every state it’s winner take all. So once a candidate has over 50% of the vote the rest of the count is moot. Right? No. Here’s why it’s very important that this not be a close election, that Clinton win a substantial majority of the popular vote as well as winning the electoral vote:

1.  Accusations of the election’s being “rigged” will be harder to sustain if there is a clear mandate from the electorate. As responsible commentators have said repeatedly, Trump’s outrageous suggestions about the validity of the vote pose a real danger to what has been one of America’s greatest strengths: the peaceful transfer of power.

2. If America does not decidedly and unambiguously reject Donald Trump, we will have this whole weary battle to fight over again in 2020. Not with Trump himself, of course. But if this election is close, the lesson of 2016 will not be learned. The attitude will be, “We almost won! Let’s find a smoother, more acceptable Trump figure and nominate him in 2020, and this time we’ll go over the top!” No, my friends, this must not happen. (We also don’t want a Mike Pence figure who will deny the undeniable in the support of a reprehensible candidate, however decent he may be personally.)

So, to quote Thabiti Anyabwile once again, the African-American pastor who back in May was one of the first conservative evangelicals to come out against Trump and whose words ring even more true today:

To summarize: I think the evil is real. Consequently, my conscience is aroused and I feel obligated to act in a way that attenuates the evil–in this case, vote. That leaves one question: Who to vote for?

At this point, assuming Trump and Clinton are my only options, I’d vote for Clinton. Okay… take a deep breath. Count to ten. Pray.

Here’s why: I prefer the predictable over the unpredictable. Whatever we might call Clinton, however we might evaluate her as a leader or her platform as a vision for America, we could say more or less the exact same things about Trump–with one glaring exception. We have no way of predicting Trump’s behavior from one hour to the next. None. Except to predict that the behavior will be vile and repulsive for any person who cares about civility, truth, and the dignity of the office.
(emphasis mine; read the entire article here.)