On Voting for Terrible People

With the victory of Ken Paxton in the Texas Republican Senate primary and a torrent of bad press about the misbehavior of Graham Platner ahead of his presumptive victory in the Maine Democratic Senate primary next week, a question that has bedeviled our politics since Bill Clinton, and especially in the era of Donald Trump, has resurfaced: how to approach voting when at least one of the major-party candidates is a terrible, immoral person.

I’ve written variations on this topic many times by now, from retrospectives on Clinton to the relative character of the 2008 candidates to Trump, Roy Moore, Herschel Walker, and David Vitter. Some of those lessons apply as well to confirmation votes, as with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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With the victory of Ken Paxton in the Texas Republican Senate primary and a torrent of bad press about the misbehavior of Graham Platner ahead of his presumptive victory in the Maine Democratic Senate primary next week, a question that has bedeviled our politics since Bill Clinton, and especially in the era of Donald Trump, has resurfaced: how to approach voting when at least one of the major-party candidates is a terrible, immoral person.

I’ve written variations on this topic many times by now, from retrospectives on Clinton to the relative character of the 2008 candidates to Trump, Roy Moore, Herschel Walker, and David Vitter. Some of those lessons apply as well to confirmation votes, as with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth.