53 Days and Counting

 I would rather not vote for either of these candidates.

The argument that I really should pick one, that it's my moral and civic duty to do so, is usually based on some form of a "lesser evil" argument. 

In my case, being a conservative by nature, people use this argument to convince me that I should vote for the Republican, who despite all his faults will at least hold the line against a takeover of the government by the socialist Dems. On the other hand, some NeverTrumpers make the case for a Biden vote on the grounds that Trump mist be stopped.

My main reason for dismissing these arguments is that I am just not sure who represents the "lesser evil." The lesser evil argument requires that I know with a high degree of assurance the evil that will ramify from one electoral outcome or the other. I am just not that prophetic.

Secondly, my lack of assurance about such matters is complicated further by the fact that each side strenuously overstates the evil of the other. The decision to vote the lesser evil is driven by a fear that has been ginned up in the body politic. Every campaign for president amounts to this: Don't believe what the other side says about our side, but believe what we say about them. 

As a conservative Christian, I am not an optimist about human nature. I don't think we are less or more trustworthy, less or more self-serving, less or more evil, based on party-affiliation. Politics is the game of power-seeking, or it is civil war by constitutionally prescribed means, or it's raw ambition disguised in robes of civic virtue, but however you might characterize it, it is not good vs. evil, and as in all war, truth is always its first casualty.

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Note: The Woodward revelation that Trump knowingly lied to the American people about the danger of the Corona virus teaches us that while often in history very fallible leaders may "rise to the occasion" in a crisis, this rising is not a foregone conclusion. Some never rise.