Vote for the Crook, It’s Important . . . No, the Other Crook . . .

Democrats are smarter than Republicans. Sure, they’ll decide where to buy a chicken sandwich based on the parent company’s social awareness; they’ll boycott a state they would never visit in the first place if it passes a law they don’t like; they’ll patronize a shop only if it pays the clerks who sell its made-in-China goods a “living wage.” But when it really counts — when they enter the voting booth and help choose the people who will actually run their lives (and everyone else’s) — they hold their noses and pull the lever for whatever sleazy hack their party dredges up. If you’ll vote for a Clinton, you’ll vote for anyone.

Republicans, and conservatives more generally, get this backwards. We’ll buy goods and services from anyone, since boycotts are contrary not only to the efficient functioning of competitive markets but also to the spirit of free expression and mutual tolerance upon which this nation was founded (and besides, if we shopped only at stores run by corporations whose principles we admire, we’d have about three options in a typical mall). Yet we agonize endlessly over the fact that we might have to vote for someone who embarrasses us, or is soft on our favorite issue.

The reason for this difference between the parties is that buying organic fair-trade coffee is something you do to feel good about yourself, so it provides its own reward; but elections pay off in dollars and cents and cushy government jobs and racial quotas and friendly regulations and billable hours for lawyers. Democrats stick together because they are a political party in the traditional, high-school-textbook sense — a mutual backscratching society (or racket, if you prefer) of assorted groups who agree to work and vote together to help themselves and screw everyone else.

The Republicans, by contrast, are a shaky social-reform club and debating society whose members’ interests have been diverging ever since they combined to (mostly) defeat their shared enemy, Communism. Social conservatives hated Communism because it was atheist, free-marketeers because it was dirigiste, libertarians because it was authoritarian, and security hawks because it was trying to kill us. Ronald Reagan did a good job of bringing all these conservative groups into the Republican party; but, like most victorious political movements, the anti-Communist coalition became a victim of its own success. Now the coalition’s disparate elements look at their party’s recent record and think: What’s in it for us? Unlike the Democrats, a party preaching small government can’t really unite around shared government largesse (though the GOP does sometimes try). If only there were still some grasping, control-freakish, law-disregarding, society-remaking, ever-present common enemy that could hold the coalition together . . .

And there is, of course: It’s called the Democratic party. They aren’t quite as bloodthirsty towards their opponents as the Communists were (though they’re getting there), and they are a bit less incompetent economically. But they share the same belief in scientific management centrally applied by experts, and the same contempt for the masses — especially when those masses try to exercise democratic rights or put their religious beliefs into practice.

Social conservatives should oppose the Democrats because they are pro-abortion and anti–religious freedom; libertarians because their solution to everything is more government, more taxes, more regulation; free marketeers because they are champions of crony capitalism, unions, and the credentials racket; and security hawks because they are anti-military and anti-Israel and favor appeasement and “leading from behind.” Above all, every conservative of any stripe should oppose them because they explicitly envision the function of the courts to be enacting leftist policy preferences, regardless of archaic relics like the Constitution.

To be clear, this is the Democratic party we’re talking about, not just Hillary and not just “progressives.” Comparing Hillary’s announced plans or opinions, or her qualifications or presentability or degree of dishonesty, with those of Donald Trump misses the point: It’s not just one particular candidate who is the enemy, but the Democrats as a party. As was true with the Communists in the Cold War, keeping Democrats out of power whenever and wherever possible is a supremely important goal in itself. Even if the GOP does not offer much for your particular brand of conservatism, the Democrats will be sure to go farther and faster in the wrong direction.

Of course this means you will often have to vote for a candidate who makes you want to throw up. And of course not-Democratic doesn’t mean not-bad; the GOP’s repeated surrenders since winning a Senate majority in 2014 are why we’re in our current fix to begin with (though the degree of their cooperation has been considerably exaggerated). And of course choosing sides means you will end up defending some pretty shady characters: Do you think Bill Buckley enjoyed writing in favor of Joe McCarthy? But he did, because McCarthy was anti-Communist, and Communism was the greatest threat of the age.

If Donald Trump is elected president, I will be disappointed and embarrassed for my country, but proud of my fellow conservatives for squarely facing up to a tough decision. Hillary Clinton is going to unify the Republican party, and the conservative movement, before or after the election. We may as well make it before.