The Conservative Case for Kamala
This year’s DNC broke a lot of records. It featured several notable speakers from almost all realms of American life; former president Obama, poets, congresspeople, workers, and reverends. But 2024’s Democratic National Convention also broke the record for the most Republicans to deliver speeches addressing it. Several Republicans addressed the DNC this year, including former Republican representative Adam Kinzinger, former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geof Duncan, homeland security advisor to former vice president Pence Olivia Troye, and Stephanie Grisham, one of Trump’s White House press secretaries.
These people addressed the DNC with heavy hearts, knowing almost absolutely that their political careers were over, that they would be labeled RINOS and traitors. And yet they still stomached that cost and chose to give their speeches anyway.
Why?
The common theme behind many of their speeches was to extend an olive branch to fellow Republicans and conservatives, to try to communicate that in this uniquely important election, candidates’ principles matter much more than their policy positions.
The idea of voting for a candidate from the opposing party is unthinkable to most people regardless of political affiliation. The question for many is: can their party’s nominee cross the line to become the worse candidate, and if so, where does that happen?
Today I make the case that Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s nominee for President, has indeed crossed that line.
On a deeply personal level, Donald Trump is a morally corrupt, bankrupt man. While he was in the well-reputed or infamously reputed New York reality business, he was notorious for failing to pay contractors¹ In his personal life he cheated on all three of his wives wives, subsequently going through two divorces, including sleeping with a porn actress while he was married and his wife had just given birth², and then delivering a hush money payment using campaign funds to conceal it from coming out People who have worked around him have described him as a rude man who’s prone to violent outbursts³. Plain and simple, on a deeply personal level, Trump is a vindictive and self interested man. He does not have the moral character to be our president.
On the contrary, consider the greatest presidents of the twentieth century, Ronald Reagan and HW Bush, the icons of modern conservatism. They championed a strong foreign policy, based on the principle that America ought to take a stand against communism and authoritarianism, that we ought to stand as a beacon of hope shining bright across the globe providing light to the millions of people struggling and yearning for freedom. That was what the Republican Party stood for. In total contrast to Trump’s isolationist narrative.
But now, that party is dead. Trump killed it. His brand of neo-populist, isolationist sentiment has been an unmitigated disaster for America’s foreign and domestic policy. Rather than choosing to reinforce America’s traditional democratic allies in Europe and Asia, Trump has cozied up to despots across the globe. He makes friends with Putin, Xi, and Orban⁴ while throwing our allies right into their autocratic arms. During his first term he did it to the Kurds⁵ and during his second he plans to do it to the Ukranians⁶, abandoning our ally in its defense from what can only be described as one of the greatest evils of our time. The sheer magnitude of human suffering Trump’s decisions have had and could have if he is elected again is truly incomprehensible. If Trump is elected again, and he does abandon Ukraine as he has stated he will, the whole system falls apart. The order that the great conservative leaders of the post war world have cultivated will be replaced with a world of dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, where any sort of moral values go out the window.
That is an unthinkably scary world. It’s a world unimaginable to the great conservative icons of the past: Bush, McCain, Reagan, Eisenhower, Ford; they would all be terrified to see what the Republican Party has become under Trump. These great men stood for the values that make this country great, our democratic institutions and values. Trump has no respect for such ideals.
Following the results of the 2020 election Trump refused to concede that he had lost. Trump put his ego and hunger for power above the very bedrock of our nation: the transfer of power. That’s why he picked JD Vance, who has said he would have gone along with Trump’s plan to steal the election.
Trump told a big lie. He spent months spreading misinformation on social media rammed through hundreds of legal cases alleging fraud⁸, all the while scheming and pressuring governors to submit fake slates of electors to hijack the election⁹. When those all failed, he incited a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol Building¹⁰ to stop congress from certifying the will of the people.
In a way, that terrible day was the culmination of the entirety of the Trump presidency; one built on lies, one that embraced the very worst in American society, one that has had a truly toxic effect on the political discourse in this nation.
That is not conservative. None of this is conservative. Conservatism has always been about safeguarding the values that have made this nation great, that have allowed for it to be a shining beacon of liberty and freedom.
Donald Trump does not stand for those values. Trump is not conservative.He is a self interested and power hungry traitor, whose quest for empire has brought him to embrace the most reactionary and extreme ideas we’ve ever seen on a mainstream level.
Trump has hijacked the Republican Party, and turned it into a cult of personality to protect himself. A good way to illustrate this is to look at the people he’s surrounding his campaign with.
Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Elon Musk, JD Vance. What do these people all have in common?
Nothing besides loyalty to Trump.
None of these people are in harmony when it comes to policy positions, let alone any connections to the Republican Party. Yet they’re the people Trump keeps close; Tulsi and Kennedy have been confirmed to be on the Presidential transition team¹¹ in a second Trump term. Vance is running to be Vice President despite only having been in Congress for three months, before which he described Trump privately as “America’s Hitler”¹².
What connections do any of these people have to conservatism? How long have these people served the Republican Party? What connection do these people even have to the Republican Party?
The answer is none. Trump chooses to embrace these crooks and crackpots instead of the esteemed senators or representatives at the heart of what the GOP used to be.
What about the last Republican president, a man who’s supposed to be treated as a respected elder in the party, George Bush? Trump has denounced him, as has his cabal.
The party of Bush, the party of conservatism, is not the party of Trump. Trump has created a party solely loyal to him and his parade of loyalists
The nominee of the Republican Party in 2024 is not a conservative, he does not want to conserve the values that make this nation great, such as the preservation of the rule of law, and a strong foreign policy that stands up to tyrants.
So, has Donald Trump crossed the line?
Yes, he absolutely has.
Donald Trump is not the conservative choice in this election.
In light of this reality, voting for the Democratic Party is the vote that I ask fellow conservatives to make.
I won’t lie, Kamala Harris is by no means a conservative, she has never claimed to be.
But she has made a considerable effort to extend an olive branch to them. Aside from inviting Republicans to speak at the DNC, she and the Democratic Party have embraced a wholly more conservative agenda, headlining their convention with the word FREEDOM.
She has also stood by our allies in Ukraine and Israel in their times of war while committing to appointing a Republican to her cabinet. She has also shown a fierce respect for the transition of power and the rule of law, something direly needed in this country.
Putting them side by side, Kamala is much more of a conservative than Trump. I know that this is an outrageous claim, but when a candidate refuses to concede that he lost an election, then pursues illegal means to overturn it, such a comparison is apt.
I know it might be hard, but I am asking fellow Conservatives to vote against sending this nation back into the chaos of Trump. Trump losing this November might show the GOP that it’s finally time to get rid of him once and for all, reviving the party of Reagan and Lincoln.
To all conservatives: this November, make the conservative choice, the choice for Harris-Walz.
Citations:
1: Neidig, Harper. “Report: Trump Has Refused to Pay Hundreds of Workers.” The Hill, 9 June 2016,thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/282933-report-trump-has-refused-to-pay-hundreds-of-workers/.
2: Cooper, Anderson . “Original 60 Minutes Stormy Daniels Interview: Full Video and Transcript of Anderson Cooper Discussing Daniels’ Alleged Donald Trump Affair – CBS News.” Www.cbsnews.com, 22 Aug. 2018, www.cbsnews.com/news/stormy-daniels-describes-her-alleged-affair-with-donald-trump-60-minutes-interview/.
3: CNN, Maegan Vazquez. “The Long List of Trump Administration Officials Turned Critics.” CNN, www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/politics/officials-who-criticized-donald-trump/index.html.
4: Wolff, Stefan. “Trump, Xi and Putin: A Dysfunctional Love Triangle with Stakes of Global Significance.” The Conversation, 11 Nov. 2024, theconversation.com/trump-xi-and-putin-a-dysfunctional-love-triangle-with-stakes-of-global-significance-243280. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
5: ““Trump Betrayed Us”: Fleeing Kurds Condemn U.S. Decision to Leave Syria.” PBS NewsHour, 21 Oct. 2019, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-betrayed-us-fleeing-kurds-condemn-u-s-decision-to-leave-syria.
6: Slattery, Gram, and Simon Lewis. “Exclusive: Trump Handed Plan to Halt US Military Aid to Kyiv Unless It Talks Peace with Moscow.” Reuters, 25 June 2024, www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-reviews-plan-halt-us-military-aid-ukraine-unless-it-negotiates-peace-with-2024-06-25/.
7: Samuels, Brett. “Trump’s 2020 Election Claims Back in Spotlight in Closing Weeks of Campaign.” The Hill, 8 Oct. 2024, thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920303-trump-refusal-election-loss/.
8: “Trump’s Judicial Campaign to Upend the 2020 Election: A Failure, but Not a Wipe-Out.” Brookings, www.brookings.edu/articles/trumps-judicial-campaign-to-upend-the-2020-election-a-failure-but-not-a-wipe-out/.
9: “Law Forward.” Law Forward, 18 July 2024, http://www.lawforward.org/fake-elector-plot-started-in-wisconsin/. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
10: Fuchs, Christian. “View of How Did Donald Trump Incite a Coup Attempt? | TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society.” Www.triple-C.at, www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1239/1426.
11: Ollstein, Alice Miranda, and Adam Cancryn. “Kennedy’s “MAHA Transition Team” Includes Anti-Vax Activists – POLITICO.” POLITICO, Politico, Nov. 2024, http://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/22/kennedy-anti-vax-activists-transition-team-00191306. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
12: Steck, Andrew Kaczynski, Em. “JD Vance, Trump’s vp Pick, Once Called Him a “Moral Disaster,” and Possibly “America’s Hitler” | CNN Politics.” CNN, 15 July 2024, www.cnn.com/2024/07/15/politics/kfile-jd-vance-comments-trump/index.html.