Why Conservatives Must Vote Against Republicans this Tuesday

On September 20, 2020, I read a column by the conservative columnist David Brooks titled “No, the Democrats haven’t gone over the edge”. I’ve been thinking about that column ever since. In the column, Brooks wrote, “As Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution noted, the GOP is no longer a standard coalition party. It’s an anti-political insurgency that, even before Trump, has been elevating candidates with no political experience and who don’t believe in the compromise and jostle of politics.”

Brooks goes on to write, “The Democratic Party is an institution that still practices coalition politics, that serves as a vehicle for the diverse interests and ideas in society to filter up into legislation, that plays by the rules of the game, that believes in rule of law. Right now, it is the only major party that does that.”

Brooks’ column expresses my thoughts very well, and I’m worried in a way I’ve never been before that U.S. citizens are in danger of losing their democracy. I’m worried conservatives are losing their party in a way I’ve never seen before.

I turned 18 on November 4, 1980, the day Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term as president of the United States. I didn’t vote in that election or even register for it. I was too distracted to think about politics then. In 1984, I was serving in the U.S. Coast Guard and voted for Reagan because he’d gotten Congress to increase the pay of U.S. military members like me. I’ve voted in every presidential election, and I think all but one mid-term election since then.

In 1990, I joined the citizen advocacy group RESULTS and learned that being a United States citizen gives me political power—if I chose to use it. I did.

RESULTS taught me how to effectively lobby those representing me in Congress. I learned how to write letters to influence my representative and senators. I learned how Congress actually passes legislation (it’s not really as simple as the Schoolhouse Rock “I’m Just a Bill” song says it is). I learned how to raise money to support RESULTS’ mission to create a movement of passionate, committed everyday people to influence political decisions that will bring an end to poverty.

I’m proud that RESULTS focuses on building relationships with Republican and Democrat politicians and their staffs in Washington, DC. I’m proud that as an organization we teach everyday people how to use their power as constituents to influence policymakers to support programs and policies that are bringing an end to poverty.

So when I write I’m worried about U.S. citizens losing their democracy and conservatives losing their party, I’m writing as someone who has met directly with members of Congress and their staffs for 30 years. As someone who has seen moderates on both sides of the aisle come together, I lament the loss of moderates in the Republican Party, and I fear the Republican Party’s now blatant disregard for the laws, customs, and traditions of the United States and its Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution begins “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.”

From the beginning of the Constitution’s writing in 1787 to the present, there have been disagreements over what those words mean and how they should be applied to the people of the United States. Those disagreements often lead to passionate debates but, except during the Civil War from 1861-1865, the differences have always been resolved by peaceful compromise.

The Constitution is itself a carefully crafted set of compromises between the competing interests of national power and individual freedoms, of large population states and small population states, of national and state rule. The Founders built a system of checks and balances of power between and within the legislative, administrative, and judicial branches of the Federal government to prevent two evils: absolute rule by a monarch and rule by a pure democracy.

And now I’m scared. Ever since Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House in 1995, the Republicans have been turning away from bipartisanship and increasingly break Congressional customs and traditions. Republicans used to believe in working with Democrats and in compromise, but over the last 25 years, compromise has increasingly become an unforgivable sin for Republicans.

Now Trump demonizes Democrats and any others who contradict him to stoke his follower’s loyalty to him. Fearing the loss of their seats, Republican politicians sacrifice their traditional conservative values, such as upholding the Constitution and following the rule of law, to avoid appearing disloyal to Trump in their constituents’ eyes.

The Republican party does not control Trump—he controls the party. The only thing controlling Trump is his need for adulation; he will say and do whatever he believes makes himself look great to his followers.

In “Boycott the Republican Party”, Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes explain why they urge conservative voters to vote against Republicans. In a nutshell, they say conservatives must vote for Democrats because “the Republican Party is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.”

I’m writing this article because I believe that statement is now true. When one party has, in Brooks’ words, become a “culture war identity movement that suppresses factional disagreements and demands total loyalty to Trump”, that party’s members no longer deserve to be in office.

Liberals and Democrats will vote for Biden, but unless conservatives break ranks with Republicans and also vote for Biden, Trump will certainly claim victory and Republicans will do whatever they can to keep him in power.

For the sake of democracy in the United States, I urge all conservatives to vote against Trump and his Republican enablers. As a moderate Democrat, Biden is actually more conservative than Trump who has no coherent set of guiding values. Biden still believes in working with Republicans to heal the United States.