To a Friend Voting for Trump

If we believe in democracy, I believe we have a responsibility not only to vote for it but to speak up for it, including to family and friends, despite how hard that might be. That doesn’t mean berating or insulting them. It can be done quietly and respectfully. In my own view it’s a mark of respect and even love to give people the whole truth about what we believe.

So I’ve written an appeal to a friend who's planning to vote for Donald Trumo, imploring them, before it’s too late, not to make a mistake I believe they’ll regret for the rest of their life. I hope it might be useful for you, however you plan to vote.

— Spencer

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In a democracy.
In normal times, we should try very hardto keep politics and morality separate.
No matter how much we may arguewith someone's political choices,
we should avoid judging those choicesas morally wrong.
Because that way lies intolerance,the opposite of the core small.
The democratic valueof freedom of thought.

(00:22):
But this is not a normal time.
We have come up against a limit.
If you believe that democracy itselfis morally good,
you can't help but believe thatan attempt to end it is morally wrong.
I'm guessing that most of the peoplelistening to this hold
that belief as I do.
But what do we say to people we know

(00:44):
and people we care aboutwho plan to vote for Donald Trump?
If we believe in democracy,
I believe we have a responsibilitynot only to vote for it,
but to speak up for it,including to family and friends.
Despite how hard that might be,
it doesn't mean beratingor insulting them.

(01:05):
It can be done quietly and respectfully.
In my own view, it's a mark of respectand even love
to give people the whole truthabout what we believe.
So I've written an appeal to a Trumpsupporting friend,
imploring them before it's too latenot to make a mistake
I believe they'll regretfor the rest of their life.

(01:25):
I hope it might be useful for you.
However you plan to vote.
Here it is.
Dear friend.
I know you believe sincerelythat in voting for Trump,
you're doing the right thing.
But I hope that before you do it,
if only as a favor to me, you'll thinkabout the following with an open mind.

(01:46):
And I hope you know mewell enough to know.
I don't say any of it lightly.
In the coming election,
we aren't just voting for a Democrator a Republican.
We're voting for or against democracy.
It's not just me saying thator my fellow Democrats.
It's also an unprecedentednumber of respected Republicans

(02:09):
who have joined Democratsand independents in defense of democracy.
They believe, like I do,that if you believe in democracy,
you can't vote for Donald Trump.
This is a time for choosing,
as Ronald Reagan said about another time.
Many of Reagan's formersenior staff recognize it.

(02:30):
They recently issued a statementannouncing their rejection of Trump
and their plan to do whatthey would never do in normal times.
Vote Democratic, because this timethat means voting to preserve democracy.
The Reagan veterans wrote.
President Ronald Reagan,famously spoke about a time for choosing.

(02:50):
While he is not hereto experience the current moment.
We who worked for him in the white House,in the administration,
in campaigns, and on his personal staff
know he would join usin supporting the Harris Wallace ticket.
The time for choosingwe face today is a choice
between integrity and demagoguery.

(03:10):
Our votes in this election are lessabout supporting the Democratic Party,
and more about our resoundingsupport for democracy.
The Reagan veterans are joined by hundreds
more from the administrationsand campaigns of George H.W.
Bush, John McCain and George W Bush.
It's known that George W doesn't supportTrump, although he's remaining quiet.

(03:34):
But his vice president, DickCheney, is not.
In a statement, Cheney said,
in our nation's 248
year history,there has never been an individual
who is a greater threatto our republic than Donald Trump.
He tried to steal the last electionusing lies and violence
to keep himself in powerafter the voters had rejected him.

(03:58):
He can never be trusted with power again.
More than
700 former senior national securityofficials agree.
People whose core responsibilityand heavy burden
was protecting the nationfrom all threats, foreign and domestic.
They too. See this as a time for choosing.

(04:18):
They stated this election is a choice
between serious leadershipand vengeful impulsiveness.
It is a choice between democracyand authoritarianism.
The choice is seen similarly
by senior membersof Trump's own administration.
They include his chief of staff, GeneralJohn Kelly,

(04:39):
his secretary of defense, Mark Esper,his national security adviser, John
Bolton, his chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff, general Mark Milley,
and his vice president,Mike pence, who has said he, quote,
cannot in good conscience vote for Trump.
Pence says he objects to Trumpbetraying the principles of conservatism

(05:01):
and he objects to Trump's attemptto subvert the will of the people
during the January 6th insurrection.
General Kelly is more blunt.
He has told friends that Trump is, quote,
the most flawed personI have ever met in my life.
He has publicly described Trump'sdishonesty as, quote, just astounding
to me.

(05:21):
He has exposed Trump'sbelittling of wounded and slain veterans
whom Trump described to Kelly as,quote, suckers and losers.
Kelly says Trump was bewilderedby their willingness to sacrifice,
asking, quote, what's in it for them?
Kelly sums up Trump as, quote,
a person who admires autocratsand murderous dictators,

(05:44):
a person that has nothing but contemptfor our democratic institutions,
our constitution and the rule of law.
This is not normal.
It never happensthat so many national security officials
and so many leadersin a former president's own party
repudiate him and warnthe rest of the nation against him.

(06:07):
But this is not a normal time.
None of the principled RepublicansI've mentioned agrees
with all or in many cases,any of Kamala Harris's policies,
but all agree that the choice to defend
democracy must outweigh all others.
As the very conservative Republican formerrepresentative Liz Cheney says,

(06:29):
the nation can survivewhat she thinks of as bad policy.
But, quote, we can't survive a presidentwho is willing
to torch the Constitution.
If, despite all these warningsand despite the evidence of your own eyes
and ears these past many years,you still plan to vote for Trump. Why?
I can't believe that you believewhat Trump says

(06:52):
you know about or can, if you chooseto his fraudulent business career.
You know about his sham universityand his sham charities,
including sham fundraising for veterans.
You know that he launched his careerin politics with a racist birther lie,
and has told tens of thousands of liessince, the most serious of

(07:13):
which is the big lie that's centralto his continuing attack on democracy.
And surely you don't believe his
transparently opportunisticor deluded enablers in politics and media,
so many of whom were so recentlyamong his fiercest critics,
including his vice presidential pick,
who has called Trump, quote, an idiot,

(07:36):
reprehensibleand, quote, cultural heroine,
and wondered whether Trump is just, quote,a cynical asshole
or America's Hitler.
For any educated person,
the truth is easy to find, easierthan ever before in history.
And the truth is, as Trump himselfhas said, he wants to make the military,

(07:58):
the judiciary, the bureaucracyand the media loyal only to him.
He wants to punish thosewho are not loyal to him.
He has repeatedly argued for theimprisonment or execution of such people.
He wants to make America like his friendViktor Orban's Hungary,
a sham democracy run by an autocrat.

(08:19):
Just talk.
We've already seen himtry to overthrow an election, an act
which, if it had succeeded,would have made our democracy meaningless.
We've seen him organize the insurrectionand then watch it on TV, refusing
to intervene for three hours,refusing to intervene in the attempted
assassination of his own vice president,an attempt he incited,

(08:44):
and he refuses to committo accepting the results
of the next electionunless, of course, he wins.
So if you do still plan to vote for Trump,
what,as Trump might ask, is in it for you?
Whatever it is,I hope that before it's too late,
you face the fact that you're choosing itover democracy.

(09:07):
I know the choice may not look that wayto you now, and you are far from alone.
There are so many Trump supporters.
How could they all be wrong?
That's the way it always looks like it did
before the Civil Warand before World War two.
Figures like Trump can be very popular
until suddenly they aren't,and supporting them can look right

(09:30):
until it becomesinescapably clear that it wasn't.
But everyone has to live with the choicethey made.
In this,we're all wrestling with human nature.
Yes. I'm sayingI think you're about to do a bad thing,
but that doesn't make you any worsethan the rest of us.
It makes you human.

(09:51):
All people do bad things.
And because we can't bearto think of ourselves as bad people,
we instinctively invent convincing
stories that explain why what we're doingis actually right.
Except that bothersomevoice inside knows it isn't.
And that voice doesn't go away.
Liz Cheney has
tried repeatedly to warn herRepublican peers about this.

(10:15):
She herself supported Trumpup to the point
when he tried to sabotage the election.
These were her words to thosewho stuck with him even after that.
I say this to my Republican colleagueswho are defending the indefensible.
There will come a daywhen Donald Trump is gone,
but your dishonor will remain.

(10:38):
Liz Cheney is unpopularin today's Republican Party.
But she's brave and she's right.
And she will have a much easier timeliving with her choice
than will those who make the other one.
Everything is riding onhow each of us makes the choice
for the country and for ourselves.

(10:58):
Please think hard before you make it.
Thanks for listening.
You can find a transcript of this letterwith links at Dastardly cleverness.com.