In today’s Wall Street Journal, Eric Metaxas asks “Should Christians vote for Trump?” and determines that they should. He concludes his case like this:
For many of us, this is very painful, pulling the lever for someone many think odious. But please consider this: A vote for Donald Trump is not necessarily a vote for Donald Trump himself. It is a vote for those who will be affected by the results of this election. Not to vote is to vote. God will not hold us guiltless.
Now I’m not a Christian, and I’m not voting for Trump (or Hillary), but I can see the point Metaxas is arguing. He assumes there is no choice but to vote for one of them, and that declining to vote for Trump means implicitly supporting Hillary (yet somehow the opposite is not the case).
But whether you share that view or not, it does seem to me that if the only way you can persuade yourself to vote for Trump is to persuade yourself that that’s not really what you’re doing then maybe you’ve actually persuaded yourself to do something else.