Appeal II

To the conservative moderate

It’s no doubt out of my power to persuade you politically. You definitely have tuned me out before. I am far too liberal for your tastes; too radical, pugnacious, impractical, emotional, and generally stressful. There are moments when our views overlap, but by and large we keep a wide berth, each of us assuming this is for the other’s comfort. Fortunately for us both, I’m not writing today to defend rioting as a last-resort form of protest. We can have that argument later. I say that with a smile — we can have that argument: later. I’m writing today because your country needs you. Your country — not your party — needs you.

Today’s political moment brings us “together,” standing on opposite sides of the same wildly broad umbrella, known as the Joe Biden campaign. Neither of us is particularly proud to be here, I suppose, but we know we must get away from there, and well this is about all there is outside of there. The problem with this metaphor, which uses physical clustering to describe our political allegiances, is that no one is actually allowed to physically cluster together right now, at least not in big groups that aren’t college football games in Florida. Regardless of what you think of masks (at this point, don’t tell me what you think, just please wear one), there is no denying that we have gotten ourselves into a pickle; a puzzle of logic in which our leadership is, by principle, illogical. If the Covid-19 crisis hasn’t made you raise your eyebrows at the efficacy of Donald Trump’s radical conservative government in practice, I am not writing this for you, and you are not in the camp of moderate. We are dissatisfied with Trump. So we must vote for Joe Biden. Who is neither your preference, nor is he mine, and that much at least should encourage you.

First of all, let’s give it up for the American political system. At the time our Founding Fathers crafted the documents that would guide this country for centuries, do you think they dreamed of a government where special interests, overpowered by immense wealth and resources, and celebrity, would be the true owners of our representative democracy? After nearly 250 years of making the best of our situation and confronting dire political realities, American discourse has meandered its way into the dumpster. We have two political parties that seem to want pretty much the same things: corporate wealth holding up a system that totters between white supremacy (what I fear) and socialism (what you fear). Corporate wealth is the entire American political edifice, built on a foundation of buyable senators and representatives that change imperceptibly depending on which way the political winds (made up of us citizens, kept at a distance and left to shout) blow. You don’t like it; I don’t like it either. It needs to be rebuilt, but demolition is a part of that process and that amount of violence sounds tiresome. The fact is, humans are adaptable, as strong as we need to be, and unfortunately, one of the perks of being installed at birth into the American middle class is foregoing the need for great strength of character. I can kick and scream all I want, but I’m not truly hurt by most of what goes on, even in the four-year headache known as the Donald Trump presidency. Particularly as a white, straight, cisgendered, married, father and husband, I consider myself immune from most human rights pitfalls we see on the horizon should a second Trump term come to pass. If I sit this one out, I will be OK. It’s on me to stand, in this moment, for others who won’t. This is the test of our national strength of character.

In my life, I’ve known many conservatives. I am familiar with conservative culture. My hometown of Springfield, Illinois, was red for most of my formative years. I lived in rural Kansas. I have worked at two country clubs (one in Springfield, one in Denver). I had rich friends. Plenty of conservatives. The conservatives I’ve interacted with most pleasantly, and for whom I’ve had the most respect, were highly principled people. For some, voting conservative is akin to speeding on a highway: They may not believe it’s the right thing to do for the safety of those around you, but it will get you where you want to go faster, and enough people do it that you don’t feel bad. For others, though, conservatism is fundamental, a way of life, of process, of thought, born out of respect for the world into which you entered and grew up. If life is good, then conservatism makes sense as a means to keep the good in place, and protect what needs protecting.

Jerry Plett recently died. He was a friend of mine. Jerry was a snake-hipped rancher from Lincolnville, Kansas, who had a happy life. Every day, he would drive 13 miles into Marion, and stop in at the newspaper where I worked to meet his wife, Rowena, for a lunch date. By the time I met him, Jerry’s skin was the color of infield dirt, with deep-set wrinkles, and his hair was combed neatly, a burnished steel but whiter. His eyes were shadowed from a lifetime of work, yet paternal and kind. Jerry was immediate to friendship, and he embodied the kindness that is often invoked in theoretical terms on political debate stages by pols whose entire problem may be not spending enough time with people like him. A conversation could be brief, or it could set Jerry on a course of philosophical duty, to set firm an understanding of the government’s role as takers who do not provide, or to elucidate the backward nature of big-city economics, where the poor are incentivized to take life as a passive experience because the government is willing to hand them what hard work is supposed to earn them. Jerry, no doubt, saw me as a city kid (I’ve learned that the term “city” is absolutely relative), unreformed but in possession of a good heart. He and his wife, Rowena, took special interest in me and often invited me to visit their farm just outside Lincolnville. It is among the greatest laments of my time in Kansas that I did not capitalize on that opportunity. Lest I fail in justly portraying Jerry’s specific views, I will zoom out to what I encountered with conservatism in general throughout my time in little Marion, Kansas. I was talked to with biblical certainty about the ways of the world by people who had never moved zip codes. Conservatism made more sense in Marion because it was thought of in simplistic, broad terms. Jerry did once tell me the central difference between republicans and democrats: democrats believe people are good, and will work hard of their own free will to provide for their family and for their community. Republicans believe God is good, and people are inclined to sin, and we must expect that and be prepared for it. This means not setting up programs that can be taken advantage of; it means firm laws enforced dutifully; it means not entrusting government with the money to provide for us and instead taking that obligation of provision upon ourselves. While Jerry told me this — and often while he talked to me on such issues — I found myself internally dialoguing. One side insisting “this man is wrong and has fomented these beliefs from a limited perspective that lacks necessary prevailing context,” while the other side marvels, “this man is completely self-assured and happy of his life, his views and his ways have served him well, that much cannot be denied.” Always, I listened smiling, occasionally surfacing my dissent without fully stepping into the arena of debate. I wanted him to know I remained unconverted, but leave him feeling like he added something to my understanding of human nature. Ultimately he did, I suppose.

My final year in Marion was 2015. I had to get out. The summer I moved to Marion was the most racially significant summer of my lifetime. Michael Brown and Eric Garner were killed. Later that year, Tamir Rice was killed. Then Donald Trump announced his campaign to run for president. When I began to sense what was happening to public opinion, I had to leave. I felt like I was about to watch something horrific and graphic happen to someone I love. When, the day before I left, I was asked for publication purposes what my hope was for Marion in 2016 (our paper was great at dumb, fun bits like that), and I stopped myself mid-sentence from saying “Marion rejects Donald Trump for president.” Ultimately, I knew they wouldn’t. Hillary Clinton was running. I knew that town. Hillary Clinton would have lost to a goat in Marion, Kansas. I felt oddly proud when Kansas primaried for Ted Cruz. I felt that that was Kansas affirming its principles. (My personal feelings for Cruz are much beside this point.) The rhetoric Donald Trump employed, even and perhaps especially against his Republican primary competitors, was shocking. Trump took a debate stage with 17 candidates and rewrote the political rulebook with the blood of their campaigns. His shock-and-awe, his “honesty,” his “telling” “it” like it “is”, was mind-blowing to spurned conservatives tired of needle-nosed tax accountants who couldn’t reconcile conservatism with widespread discontent, beyond the idea of “Obama bad, old ways good.” The movement from Jeb Bush to Donald Trump would be first reluctant, maybe even disdainful, but eventually they’d settle in and convert with enthusiasm and, eventually, true zeal. Trump’s margin in Marion in the general election slightly edged the one Romney carried over Obama in 2012.

We can only fathom the politics we see. National policies rarely shift the tides that flow in the channels of small-town, rural America. 2020 may be different. The Covid pandemic has masked up even metropolises and small towns alike. Naturally, Trump politicized it. As states like Michigan implemented partial lockdowns, and issued mask mandates, Trump tweeted things like “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and Trump supporters like gun-toting white supremacists did things like plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow the government. In a normal year we’d remember that. Covid isn’t all that’s been politicized. Racial justice has been made into a political division point as well. This one is particularly hard for people in small towns. There are few, if any, people of color who live in these towns, and most folks can’t really fathom someone’s life not mattering; after all, they know the name of nearly everyone who lives in their community. That goes a long way. So obviously the claim that police, who are beloved in these communities, don’t view black lives as fully human, is preposterous on its face. Among other things that have been politicized: beans, football, and the Justice Department. Remember how Trump got impeached? Like, this year.

Reasonable conservatives have a lot of factors weighing on their minds coming in to this year’s election. Libertarianism flirts harmlessly on the side, a vote for escapists, while the real decision bears down on them: stoop to a bastardized conservatism, or stoop to a center-left democrat. Good conservatives are well-principled, and for many, one of those principles is “never vote Democrat.” Lord knows a Biden presidency, along with a potential majority-democrat senate, could be a lot more losses than wins for even a moderate conservative American. Trump raves about Biden as a Trojan Horse for a more liberal agenda. That would be a concern. But so, you would think, is this: We are losing the leash on America. Trump is barely pro-democracy, to put it modestly. Trump is rushing in a Supreme Court justice because he anticipates a legal battle in the wake of the election. Democracy is much easier when you have to appeal to only nine people, three of whom you appointed. Trump amplifies racists and cannot specifically condemn or disavow them because they support him. They don’t just casually support them the way they may have decided to vote for Romney over Obama based on other political ideas. They support Donald Trump, fervently, because he allows them to be who they want to be, and calls them “very fine people.” It’s far scarier company than Biden’s base support. I say “base support” because many far-left liberals plan to vote with reluctance for Biden. The party who proclaimed itself the party of patriotism in the wake of 9/11 is running a candidate literally endorsed by the Taliban. Trump has made a mockery of conservative ideals by appealing to the lowest common denominator among Republican voters. He has used the dumbest and yes, most deplorable, portion of the base to forward an agenda that slightly overlaps with the maverick conservatism of John McCain. The Republican party is in shambles, left essentially to choose between Trumpism or naught existence. A system limited to two parties carries with it this particular risk: that one party should become a monstrosity, and the other party should be invited to follow a similar path. While democrats have a path to monstrousness laid out ahead, it is more likely that a democrat landslide begets a party split that allows for a Republican split in kind. If Biden wins, we are potentially four to eight years away from a four-party race, if Republicans can galvanize outside of the mantle of Trumpism.

It may be a bit of a dream, but it’s what I’m honestly hoping for. I don’t think there are too many Americans who endorse and value the two-party political system. It does seem to be the logical conclusion of any democracy tethered to coalition-building and national elections at the scale of our own. It does not need to be, though, and we don’t need to feed every emotion or action through a partisan translator to determine whether, say, college football is a Democrat or a Republican cause. Ultimately, I think there is a place for conservative thinking in our national dialogue. I’ll admit I believe it should be a small, perhaps 30% portion of the electorate, capable of massing support but generally functioning as a check and not a ruling entity. Conservatives should have a deep appreciation for and accurate understanding of history. They should use that to rein in expectations when progressives begin eagerly thinking the entire future is one simple step away. I don’t know exactly how it would work but that sounds right to me. I think of how Cindy McCain, late senator John McCain’s wife, has endorsed Biden. I used to think John McCain was a bullshitter. He would talk disapprovingly of rhetorical strategies of the Trump campaign, and ultimately fall in line when it counted. Then he voted to protect Obamacare from a disingenuous attempt to repeal without replacement. It was little, perhaps not enough, but it was a moment pulsating with hope for a return to conscientiousness of the Republican party. It seems all too symbolic that John McCain died with Trumpism in the White House.

I think there is no place, therefore, for Trumpian thinking in American political discourse. I want Trump, McConnell, and Graham — and all those who commit heinous hypocrisy to cling to power the American people don’t want them to have — to be buried and to never see political capital again. I hope for a new political paradigm. Trump is offering to take us to one, but I don’t think it’s one the country wants. Biden is our avenue to another. He always has and always will value genuine conservative input. He is reasonable. These same things cannot be said of his opponent.

The fact is, Trump is the radical. He’s a radical conservative that poses a threat to important tenets of American democracy — the press, bipartisanship, nonpartisanism. These help set the stage for robust debate, for competition of ideas, and for national and global progress stamped with American colors. If we subject ourselves to Trumpism, that’s all we subject ourselves to — his cult of personality and his whims and his great desires. Right now, that’s not a trustworthy position. We must rebuke Trumpism, for it has made plain and ugly our differences. We must get back to the virtues we see in each other, the aspects of the American experience that unify us. They do exist. Not voting for Trump is not enough. Conservatives unwilling to be sold what Donald Trump is peddling must vote for Joe Biden. Biden said in his speech accepting the democratic nomination for president that he would work just as hard for the Americans who didn’t vote for him as for those who did. It was as profound a statement as it was simple. It made me mad, honestly, at first. But I understand — that’s what presidents are supposed to do. I had forgotten. Honestly, a lot of us probably have. There are a multitude of upsides to a Biden presidency. Buried in among them is the potential for the conservative movement to heal, to get back to its principles, to be a force for good in American life. Under these circumstances, the potential is once again there for intelligent ideas, rather than primal attacks, to win the day. Surely the most worthy could thrive under such circumstances. So please, though I understand he may not represent your most closely held ideals, please understand this when you cast your vote: The path to that brighter day, those better politics, that way forward, for all of us, it starts with Joe Biden. Where it goes from there is up to us.