Polls and pundits tell us that roughly 18% of eligible voters are presently uncommitted, though many lean toward one candidate or the other. When I read this in today’s morning Politico, I found it difficult to understand how, given the publicity and the highly charged politics of the last several years, anyone could still be “undecided.” The upcoming 2024 election is arguably the most savagely partisan one since the Lincoln-Breckinridge contest in 1860.*
Truth be spoken, most of us vote rather casually, casting our ballot for president on instinct and good feelings toward a particular candidate and dislike or dismay for the other. Most of us favor a couple of issues (jobs, immigration, education et al) and really don’t take the time to study others. And, of course, many of us tend to vote along partisan lines with little regard for anything else.
Despite our rather lazy approach to voting, I find it difficult to fathom how anyone could be uncommitted and even lean toward voting for Donald Trump. For argument’s sake, if we believe the right wing caricature of Democrats as being bad for the economy, weak on foreign policy and supportive of socialist ideas that embrace welfare and big government intervention, how does that rationalize voting for a sociopathic con-man who continues to demonstrate his contempt for our constitutional government all the while lining his own pockets at the expense (and health, I might add) of the American people. How, I ask?
Since casting my first vote for president, I have never felt that the outcome of the election, either way, would destroy our government or well-being. Regardless of whoever won, Democrat or Republican, we would be all right even though I might have preferred a different outcome. There was always a reasonable and peaceful transfer of power and for those of us who lost, there was always the hope that we would win the next election. Not so now.
To the 18 percent I say, wouldn’t it be better if this time you vote for the Democrat to stave off the possible election of a candidate we all know to be unsuited for the presidency? And for those who simply hate Democrats, wouldn’t it be best if you just sat out the election rather than add your name to those who would elect a tyrant? Just this once?
*There were two other candidates in 1860, Stephen A. Douglas and John Bell, but Breckinridge was the candidate of the secessionist South.