Steve Kindle: A Vote for Hillary is a Vote for the GOP
by Rev. Steve Kindle, pastor2pew.org, progressive author: I’m Right and You’re Wrong, Stewardship: God’s Way of Recreating the World, and If You’re Child is Gay.
Editor’s note: On August 27, 2016, conservative author, Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. wrote a post, The Least Bad Choice. We encourage you to read both of these posts today.
This election cycle may be the most important of my lifetime. It’s the equivalent of 1860 when the future direction of the nation is at stake. The party of Lincoln emerged then as one of the two great parties of the American political scene. We are on the threshold of losing it forever.
Although the Founders did not see or encourage a two-party electoral system, it has emerged as one of the great bulwarks of American democracy. This election may very well determine if the Republican Party will continue in any form we would recognize. This would be a great loss, and I say this as a registered Democrat.
The demise of the GOP began with the election of Barak Obama in 2008. It became the obstructionist party, the “just say no” party, that blocked anything POTUS put forward. It operated under the strategy of the Senate Majority Leader who famously said he would do all he could to make Obama a one-term president. He may have failed on that score, but he may have succeeded in taking down his own party in the process. How?
The glue that holds our democracy together is compromise. Wise pols know that. They know that they cannot get everything they want, that they do not hold the only good ideas, that working together to solve problems leads to the best solutions. But Republicans have lately elected ideologues to the House and Senate, people who regard compromise as weakness and can’t bend without breaking. They refuse to entertain anything that suggests acceptance of what they consider less than the only true way. This has led to two of the least productive Congresses ever, and the emergence of Donald Trump. And, ironically, he will destroy the Republican Party.
The professional Republicans know this. Sure, call them the establishment, if you will, but they are those who put nation above party. Just Google “Republicans for Hillary” and you will see a stellar list. People like Steve Schmidt, McCain’s presidential campaign manager; David Frum, Bush 43’s speech writer; Colin Powell; Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush; Meg Whitman, Former Va. Sen. John Warner; Michael Chertoff, former United States Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush. Add to this the growing number of Republicans who announced they won’t vote for Trump (without saying who they will vote for) including Mitt Romney, George Will, Sens. Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham, the Log Cabin Republicans, and 95% of the state legislators. This list is huge and growing.
The so-called Republican “autopsy report” that detailed the Republican failures of 2012 named ideological rigidity, its preference for the rich over workers, its alienation of minorities, reactionary social policies, and institutionalized repression of dissent and innovation as its major liabilities that needed to be addressed if the party would ever again be a factor in upcoming presidential elections. This comes from Republicans!!! Or should I say, this comes from Republicans who understand their failures and want to do something about them. The emergence of Donald Trump is the most reactionary candidate possible for thwarting any hope that the Republican Party will self-correct. The result is the end of the GOP as an effective partner in the support of American democracy.
So, when I vote for Hillary Clinton this Tuesday, I will be voting for a renewed GOP as well as for someone who is a proven compromiser, a person who is no ideologue, who effectively reaches across the aisle for the better good. Sure, she has her flaws, and as a Bernie supporter, she falls far short of what I would prefer. But I want a strong Republican Party and someone who embraces all Americans. Donald Trump brings neither.
The loss, once again, of the White House, just might be the impetus for Republican reform and a return to political integrity. Come on back, Republicans—We need you!
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A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to abort babies in the womb right up until the time of birth! That is simply murder. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Planned Parenthood to continue its abortion mill and continue to sell baby body parts! A vote for Hillary is to vote for someone who lies repeatedly and who puts our country at risk for a radical Islamic takeover via open borders and inviting Muslim refugees without checking them out. A vote for Hillary is a vote for a power-hungry and greedy president who does not have the welfare of our country at heart. This is all obvious in the recent exposure of the missing emails, destroyed emails, and the Clinton Foundation corruption, as well as from Hillary’s own statements. Search your conscience and see if you can vote for such a person.
Well said Steve. The number of lies that people have believed about Hillary is astonishing. The other comment on this thread shows just how false these beliefs are. It is very troubling to see lies believed as if they were true. The false statements are repeated again and again without evidence. I certainly hope that the US people show their good sense by decisively rejecting the man Trump and his bullying tactics, his insistence that only He (meaning Trump himself) can fix everything. It is not worth listing all the things wrong with him. I am astonished at how blind the so called Christian right have appeared to us up north. Re abortion, they should remember the back alleys and the fact that it was a Republican dominated supreme court that passed Roe vs Wade. The GOP is not composed of stupid people, but the last 20 or so years have proven how stupid some people can become.
Bob MacDonald, words out of Hillary’s mouth during this campaign make it clear she is for abortion without limits. It is mind-boggling to me that anyone could vote for her, considering how she handled classified information and put our country at risk. I believe the Christian “right” as you call it are not the blind ones, but the blind ones are the Obama and Hillary supporters. Also, the Republican platform is enough to make Christians support their candidate. Sadly, the Democratic platform is just the opposite.
Regrettably, Nancy, we will never agree on this. Your understanding of the abortion problem is simplistic beyond words. You do not know when the spirit comes into the bones of the child in the womb. And you shouldn’t pretend you do. Nor should you label those who seek the good of women and children among the democrats as you think of them.
Well, if you don’t know how long it is after conception until the fetus becomes human, then you should not take the chance of taking a human life at any stage of gestation! Psalm 139 makes it plain that God formed us in the womb, and Jeremiah was called from his mother’s womb. Helping a woman to abort her child is cruel, and she will suffer physical and spiritual consequences. Some things aren’t hard to figure out, and this is one of them. Abortion is murder. It is extremely rare that it may be justified to save the life of the mother. A friend of mine is an example, and I would not say she did wrong to allow it. Another friend had an abortion against her will, and she deeply regrets it. She is pro-life now. So is Norma McCorvey who was the Jane Roe in the Roe vs Wade case. You should find out her testimony. Awesome!
but I am glad you answered
and in case you haven’t read this: In the eight years since we’ve had a pro-choice president, the abortion rate in the US has dropped to its lowest since 1973. I believe the best way to keep this trend going is not to simply make it harder for women to terminate unwanted pregnancies but to create a culture with fewer unwanted pregnancies to begin with. http://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12369912/hillary-clinton-pro-life
I would never give Obama credit for the drop in number of abortions! The credit goes to the relentless efforts of pro-lifers! Also, sonograms have opened the eyes of many scared girls that abortion is wrong. Gosnell’s exposure as a butcher woke some people up, and the practices of Planned Parenthood in selling baby body parts horrified most of the public!! A ministry like Sav-A-Life which our church supports (nearby) is the one I applaud!!!
Thanks, Bob, for the link. I read it. She makes a good case, and I am glad to know how the pro-choice people think. She has marvelous human solutions.
The problem is faith in God is left out of the discussion. Yes, there are very trying situations in families, but a Christian should have a different response to a problem than a non-Christian. It may look impossible to have to give birth to yet another child in an already crowded and poverty-stricken household, but it is an opportunity to trust in God to make a way where there seems to be no way. We can’t predict outcomes, but we can do what is right as God gives us the grace, and it must be based on HIS WORD. God is grieved at all the innocent blood shed because of legalized abortion. Abel’s blood cried out to God for justice. He’s the same God today, and He is not only a God of mercy, but He is a God of justice. Just think, the weakest and most vulnerable among us are the babies in the womb, and they have few laws to protect them. Pro-abortion people pretend to care about women and children, but the very weakest ones they don’t care about. If our nation has laws to protect the innocent, then the preborn should be at the top of the list for legal protection.
Bob, I just went to Facebook, and the first thing that popped up was a post by my daughter-in-law, quoting Mother Theresa. Here it is, and I say, “Amen!”
“But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.
And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.
And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”
Mother Theresa Reported by the Wall Street Journal, a speech given in front of statesman.
President and Mrs Clinton and Mr and Mrs Gore who refrained from clapping.
Nancy – for the record, I am not in favour of abortion. But making it illegal for all people for all reasons is the worst possible solution to any desire I might have. It leads to what we have come from, back alley butchery. I am sure that to decide to have an abortion is among the worst possible decisions for anyone. I have for the record, two adopted children who might have been aborted, one of which was damaged in utero by his mother. They have both had very difficult lives. They would have been written off by some congregations of believers I have been in. One is African from an Islamic father, and one North American Aboriginal with fetal alcohol effects.
You will know of course that many fetuses abort naturally. And since I share your love of the Word of God, I am aware that the case against abortion cannot be made from those texts.
e.g. this from an article from The Bible in Political Debate: What Does it Really Say? (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016). By Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte Theology Department, Vrije Universit:
All in all, the Bible does not speak as clearly about abortion as some politicians might wish. Where it does speak about pregnancy and abortion, the God-given character of human life is an important point of departure. On the one hand, there are passages that state how God has plans for some special human beings, his prophets, already during their stay in their mother’s womb. This implies that already at that stage God had selected them as the persons they would become. On the other hand, some passages indicate that human life was only thought to begin either at the moment the fetus was fully developed or even up to a month after the baby’s birth. It is therefore difficult to refer to anything like “the Bible’s teaching on abortion.”
I would also draw your attention again to the quote I made above from Ecclesiastes 11, verse 5.
As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
or my translation from the Hebrew
In that you have no knowledge what the way of the spirit is, like the bones in the belly of the expectant, so also you do not know the deed of God that does it all.
For us to pretend we know and legislate for others in this matter is difficult to come to agreement on, because we do not know the whole story either how the body works and the spirit in the same, or the condition of mother and child and the aspects of the conception itself.
There are three articles by Joel Hoffman, a reasonably helpful Hebrew Scholar – e.g. this one https://goddidntsaythat.com/2015/09/06/the-bible-on-abortion-part-1-2/.
Bob, you are to be commended for adopting these two children. How Christ-like. But I think the discussion should be more about the reasons for abortion. I don’t have the statistics, but I would think that most abortions are done because of illicit sex, for convenience. And I would say that the abortionists’ motives stem from greed. Planned Parenthood demonstrates greed. People in the industry have no fear of God. The root of the whole problem is rebellion against God’s law and self-gratification. I do not ever want to legitimize the pro-choice movement. It is simply wrong, based on God’s Word. I am so glad to know you are not in favor of abortion.
The position of a Christian should be to give aid to those girls and women contemplating abortion, helping them carry their babies to term in practical ways and helping them spiritually in the process. I have heard testimonies from women whose crisis pregnancy brought them in contact with the Savior of our souls!!!
Steve,
I was struck by your comment about the demise of the Republican Party. I would agree that the election of Obama marked an low point for the party with the Democrats having majorities, not only in Congress, but also in Governorships and state houses across the country. Now, 8 years later the situation is completely reversed. Republicans have the Presidency, Congress, 33 out of 50 Governors and the most of the state houses. Democrat loses across the country in the last few elections have been in the thousands of offices. If Obama has caused the demise of anything it as been the Democrat party, and Hillary then put a nail in the coffin.
However, I do not believe this is not actually the case. I do hope the Democrats will do what normally happens after such a loss, that they will go into a period of reflection about what went wrong. To me as an outsider the problem is clear. As I wrote here back in August 2015, “For nearly two decades Democrats have closed their eyes to the long list of scandals that surround the Clintons, and the Clintons’ lawlessness has been spreading through their party. Winning, not character, was what matters. But compromising on issues of character is different than compromising on political positions. Perhaps for the Democrats, the bill is coming due.”(https://energion.co/discuss/2015/08/14/the-clinton-compromise/) For far too long Democrats have written off any hint of wrong doing as some sort of Republican conspiracy to be ignored, and the longer it was ignored the worse the problem became.
As for the being unproductive and unwilling to compromise, that is only half the story. The house, where conservatives were strong enough to replace the Speaker, was very productive. Last year they passed over 400 bills, many with bipartisan support, only to see them blocked in the Senate by Harry Reid. Democrat Leaders wanted the narrative that is was Republicans blocking everything, and so they wanted to keep bills ways from the President’s desk, for the President signing or even worse vetoing bills would have run counter to the narrative.
As for the Republican party, I expect it to be quite healthy. While I do not believe I will always support what Trump does and will oppose him when needed, I do not think he will be anywhere near as bad as Democrats believe. There were already positive signs during the campaign as he moved away from his more objectionable statements to more centrist and reasonable policies, and I expect that to continue as he learns more. In fact there is at least the possibility that he will surprise all of his critics, and I include myself in that category, and be a very good President. Managing large endeavors is after all something he does very well, and something most politicians have little experience in.
As for the democrats, I do hope they reform and become a party known for integrity and that in doing so they force Republicans to do the same. I while I do believe ignoring wrong doing is currently more of a problem for the Democrats, I do not believe this is exclusively so, and there is great room for improvement on both sides. Secondly, If Trump does have a lesson for us, it is that those in power should no longer see them self as distinct from the people they govern and those in power need to listen to the people. I am not saying this is his message, but that is why he is going to be the President for the people on both sides were angry at those in power.
Those in government are, or at least should be, servants of the people, not their masters. Integrity, humility, and a sense of service, if these are the lessons the Democrats take from this loss, they will return to be a great party, and an example for Republicans to follow, for these are lessons both parties should take to heart. If they do this, the rest of the disputes will take of themselves.
Elgin, well spoken.