Or you could have voted for someone who didn’t have an established lifelong habit of lying to your face. Or you could have noticed that there are many, many other issues that matter too.
Or you could have just noted that the decision a woman makes on whether to continue a pregnancy or not is just none of your goddamn fucking business.
Awww, is-ums feeling “persecuted”?
All right, but you’d better never complain about things like moral relativism or the christian right wing being labeled hypocritical again. You’d better own that shit.
EDIT: I cannot run a browser correctly. Accidental double post.
Shit, I was halfway through before I noticed!
If this sort of single-voter logic is what church encourages, is it any wonder opinions about the church are so unfavorable?
You are essentially saying you have no problem electing a rapist as President just long as he pays lip service to an issue your religion is overly fixated on. Gee, I wonder if Trump was counting on such laxity in critical thinking when he decided to add that to his platform. It’s almost as if he thought to himself “what can I possibly say that will cause a bunch of people to vote for me in spite of my gaping flaws and inexperience? Oh I know…abortion bad!” And you and millions of others fell for that.
Unless, I suppose, you suspected all along it was just lip service. I mean, by your own words, you consider Trump a “pussy grabber”. So it should’ve occurred to you it’s quite possible his lifestyle and infidelity has personally contributed to the abortion of more fetuses than a seasoned Planned Parenthood doc. Given this, you would have to know it is unlikely a man of such character would have the moral conviction to fight abortion. Right? Or do you not know this?
Budget Player Cadet, you were wondering what “moral relativism” means? That’s it right there: Voting for a person like Trump, just because he’s currently pretending to be opposed to abortion. Which also, incidentally, provides a clear lesson in just why moral relativism is bad. What it does not provide, unfortunately, is any insight into why those who decry it most loudly are precisely the ones who engage in it.
Just for the sake of clarity: is there anything that could happen – over the course of Trump’s presidency – that would get the two of you reconsidering, such that Trump would’ve done more than (a) “lip service” and “pretending”, and more than (b) Hillary Clinton would’ve? Any amount of legislation on abortion he could actually sign into law; any number of court picks who actually rule for X instead of Y; anything?
I think you may be missing the point - the issue is not that the devil will fail to carry out his end of the deal - the problem is that they made a deal with the devil.
Give Trump credit. He’s pro-family. He’s had three of them.
<Lehrer> And who knows how many between?</Tom>
It almost sounds like you think Trump might have some moral compass other than personal greed, or worship some Holy Trinity other than Me, Myself and I. He could appoint Billy Graham or Martin Shkreli to the Supreme Court and it would just be political opportunism rather than a reflection of his “religion.” Sincere question @The Other Waldo Pepper: Do you not realize this? Your comment almost sounds like you’re arguing differently.
This is the man who flip-flopped from Pro-Choice to calling for rape victims to be punished if they abort, a stance that even the devout Christians who murder surgeons don’t take. This is the man who appeals to his base by saying he’d like to F*ck his own daughter. He based his decision to pardon Joe Arpaio on the cheers the suggestion got from his racist fans at a rally.
Bruiser1036 declines to answer my questions; how about you Mr. Pepper?
Uh, sure: I think there was effectively zero chance of Hillary doing anything other than pro-choice stuff in office, and I think with Trump there’s – a nonzero chance? Maybe fifty-fifty? Maybe sixty-forty? Maybe eighty-twenty? Damifino. And, granted, whatever it is, it’s a safe bet that it’s the mere product of Trump’s greed; but, to paraphrase Trump, what did they have to lose? If they’re single-issue voters, and the other candidate is “nothing”, I figure they’d go with “something” – and I figure they’d pat themselves on the back every time he does “something” for them.
This is true and it’s not my intent to imply Trump can’t or won’t curtail abortion via his appointees.
The same could be said for any Republican president, though. So picking Trump in the general election might be somewhat defensible if abortion is your only issue of concern (which is not a rational viewpoint at all, but whatever), but what’s the Christian defense for voting for him in the primary? Many among the faithful–including Jerry Falwell–publicly supported an adultering, twice-divorced trafficker in obscenities even though life-long pro-lifers of the non-pussy grabbing variety were pleading to be elected.
My point is that Christians who justify their actions using the single-issue voter defense got some 'splaining to do.
If we’ve got a choice of Bibles, I want to at least consider this one:
Like I said earlier on, I’ve known the Lord for 47 years, and I had some pretty decent Bible education even before that. And I’m 100% sure that the passage Saffron quotes isn’t in the Bible I’m familiar with. So I’d kinda like to at least check out her Bible to see if I like it better, y’know? It sounds like it’s got potential. 
Of course, it all started to go to hell when the Senate was mean to Robert Bork.
If you’re a single issue voter voting for Trump in the primary is defensible if the other choices have no chance of getting elected. Cruz did not based on being another boring traditional candidate. Kasich did not based on how badly he tanked. Better to support Trump who might be just Pro-Life as a matter of pandering but who actually had a shot at being elected and able to do something, than to support a lifelong Pro-Lifer and cause distracting bickering in the Republican convention.
Piffle. Nobody actually knew in early 2016 whether any other Republicans had “no chance of getting elected”. In fact, in March 2016 Cruz and Rubio both polled better against Clinton than Trump did.
Republican primary voters supported Trump because they wanted to. If they thought another candidate would be preferable, they were free to vote for that candidate. Most of them didn’t. They don’t get a pass on pretending after the fact that they had no other viable choice.
In fact, I suspect that a lot of Trump voters are now exaggerating the extent to which they were “single-issue voters”, as well as their perceived absence of electoral alternatives, precisely in order to distance themselves from their deliberate choice to support Trump. If they can make some kind of argument that they had to vote Trump because they had no other option, they hope they won’t look quite so irresponsible and stupid.
Too bad. The label “Trump voter” is going to stick to them for a looooong while.
To add, another fiction being offered to excuse their ill-conceived choice is that abortion was what led many Christian single-issue voters to back Trump.
According to this cite, only 14% of white evangelicals identified as their topmost voting issue either Supreme Court nominees or abortion. A greater proportion (15%) actually rated “Personal character of the candidate” higher than abortion-related concerns.
Religion gives Trump voters some amount of cover to hide behind. If someone can say that it was a moral issue that led them to vote a certain way–particularly if that issue conveniently was not espoused by the other candidate–then they can don’t have to account for much. It’s an easy excuse, no complicated argumentation required to defend it, very black and white. In contrast, saying that you voted for Trump because you saw him as smart, capable, strategic, or whatever leaves your judgement up for debate. Most sane people can now see that he is none of these things. It’s a much harder position to defend.
Let me see if I understand this.
You want to base your voting decision around a Moral Choice. OK. One particular moral choice.
- You’re presented with two candidates
- a woman who has foibles, as most of us do, but has dedicated much of her life to helping disadvantaged people. (You’ve never even read Hillary’s biography, have you?); and
- an amoral man who is probably the most despicable beast to ever be a serious candidate for President.
- You choose … the Least Moral of the two, the despicable beast, an obviously-nonreligious man who every day surprises us with the depths of his ignorance, hypocrisy, pettiness and disloyalty.
- Why? Because today he pays lip service to punishing women who have abortions.
- And why do you think Clinton is just as immoral as the obviously despicable beast? Because you read on Facebook:
Hillary Killary Pee
The witch hates BenGhazee
The witch fell down
Her shit was brown
Hillary Killary Pee
Brilliant.