First: Read this.....
Never Trump. Jon Gabriel, Ricochet
Second: It's no secret that I've always been a reluctant member of the Republican Party. This is in large part because most Republicans are joyless people with whom I have little in common. When you're a pro-gay marriage, pro-gambling, pro-immigration, pro-individual choice Republican with libertarian leanings you often find yourself at cross-purposes with the Party in the Bible-belt South. (One issue on which we do agree is pro-life, that wasn't always the case but I was wrong then, and have come around now)
The problem is that the Democrats are even worse. If you want to be depressed, spend some time around a progressive social justice warrior without a fifth of whiskey. If you can do that without making a bee-line toward the medicine cabinet more power to you.
Also, Democratic policy, for the most part, is an exercise in silliness. Yes, the GOP is too corporation friendly and yes, they get issues like immigration totally wrong. I admit that their 100% insistence on cutting taxes for the rich gets tiresome.
But they aren't anti-business, for the most part and they aren't full of social justice warriors.
That said, if the GOP selects Trump as their nominee for the Presidency of the United States of America I will, as will many others, leave the party. This time I will not come back.
Because if a group of people that I'm not all that sure about anyway decide to nominate an odious, self-promoting, wanna-be strongman as their standard bearer I'm out.
Of course, if Trump does get the nomination the very real possibility exists that the GOP itself might be out. Oh sure, it will still limp along in some manner, and at the State level there will probably still be some life, but as a National entity it could find itself crippled for a generation.
This would be a disaster for the Nation as Democrats would have free-reign to undo each and every piece of the American Experiment to their choosing. You could pretty much say goodbye to the Bill of Rights, profitable business, finance as we know it, and prosperity. Under policies designed to promote "clean energy" (but which would really be designed to limit energy) the poor and middle-class would suffer greatly while the ruling and courtesan classes dined on peacock and baby seal. The income gap would turn into an un-passable gulf and poverty rates would sky-rocket.
Increased regulation would stifle entrepreneurship, the newly-empowered unions would destroy productivity and profitability and federal environmental policy would all but shutter the oil and gas industry, causing millions to find themselves out of work with few prospects. Patronage would surpass merit as the means to success and all the while the GOP will find itself relegated to permanent minority status, similar to the Republican party in California.
I cannot and will not be a party to that.
So, today I'm going to cast my vote for Marco Rubio. It's quite possible this is the last vote that I will ever cast as a Republican.
#NeverTrump
