Intellectual consistency is not an embrace of a false dichotomy. But to reject the lesser-of-two-evils approach in 2016 only to embrace it in 2020 is clear cognitive dissonance.

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I have much appreciated the healthy debate that has recently occurred at The Liberty Hawk. This debate has revolved mainly around the difficult conundrum that, despite some more positive recent developments, may end up facing some former Republicans. This conundrum is the question of whether or not to vote for Bernie Sanders to remove Donald Trump from office.

Now, I say some former Republicans, because it is not a difficult choice for me. I resolved in 2016 that I was done playing the lesser-of-two-evils game. I determined in that election cycle that, moving forward, I was only going to vote for things and not against things. Nothing that’s happened in the ensuing years has changed my mind.

I did find a way to be a “Democrat for a day” in the Utah primary. I was able to vote for Joe Biden and the efforts of his supporters to push back against Bernie’s socialist vision. But it is still highly unlikely I will find a way to vote for him in the general election. And I will definitely not find a way to vote for hard-left progressives like Sanders and Warren.

So yes, I’m unwilling to vote for the lesser-of-two-evils to remove Trump from office. Because this is my stance, and those of other principled conservatives, Richard in Japan argues in his latest article that we are engaging in a false dichotomy. Frankly, I’m having trouble squaring his most recent argument.

His article weaves a tale of his 2016 experience. It tells of his frustration that mainstream conservatives so fully bought into the false dilemma of what a Hillary presidency would do to the country. One of his lines is something I can appreciate and fully empathize with:

“’ If you’re not for Donald, you’re for Hillary.’ I’ve lost count of all the times I’ve heard that old chestnut, and how many times I responded: Those aren’t the only two choices. You could, instead, VOTE FOR SOMEONE GOOD.”

I heard the same arguments, and I responded the exact same way. In fact, Richard and I arrived upon the same conclusion: we voted our conscience and checked the box for Evan McMullin. We rejected the false dichotomy, we stuck to our principles, and we eschewed the notion that we had to give our consent to an unscrupulous, unprincipled man because Hillary was some sort of existential threat.

All of these arguments I agree with, wholeheartedly. But there’s a big but in Richard’s article. It’s the assertions and arguments that proceed from this big but that loses me.

In the latter half of his article, he proceeds to make the argument, essentially, that Donald Trump is an existential threat to America. He lists many of the things that Trump has done to destroy and weaken our constitutional norms. He argues the only way to stop this is to get “that awful man voted out of office.”

The kicker of Richard’s article is that, after making many excellent and well-thought-out arguments against false dichotomies, he concludes by asserting a false dichotomy of his own.

“You can vote your conscience for a third-party, or not vote, and see the corruption take hold for four more years. Or you can use the tools at hand to remove this stain on the White House.”

This represents the prevailing cognitive dissonance of Richard’s argument. He’s making two different arguments at the same time. He is clearly frustrated with the false dichotomy that our fellow conservatives embraced in their fear of Hillary, and that led to a Trump dominated GOP (a frustration I feel myself). But then he argues that my refusal to participate in granting a mandate to a candidate whose vision I fundamentally oppose in order to remove Trump from the White House is me engaging in the same false dichotomy.

How does this make any sense? Either voting for the lesser-of-two-evils is a false dilemma or voting your conscience is a false dilemma. It can’t be one way in 2016 and the other in 2020. If I was going to engage in voting for the lesser-of-two-evils, I would have done so in 2016 and voted for Donald Trump. After all, that was precisely the choice many conservatives made (a decision that Richard says fills him with “endless shame”). Yet, he’s saying that because I’m attempting to be intellectually consistent and placing the same expectation on a Democrat in 2020 as I did on a Republican in 2016 (that they need to earn my vote and not just point at the other side) that I would be allowing Trump’s corruption to continue.

And so, to the argument found in the last half of Richard’s article, I respond by paraphrasing the argument in his first half:

Why must I accept the false dichotomy of: “If Trump wins, it will be the end of American Democracy?”

No, it wouldn’t! Do you really think America is so fragile? America has been through two world wars. America has survived the Red Scare and yellow fever. If we are so vulnerable that two bad elections can destroy us, then I have bad news for you: we’re already dead.

Well, I don’t believe that, and deep down, I don’t think you believe it, either. I’ll prove it: imagine that Trump wins again in 2020. Now ask yourself: what would you be doing this time next year?

Give up on America, since no matter what you do, Trump will be the end of American democracy? Curl yourself into the fetal position on the floor, waiting for the sweet release of death? Surrender to the Forces of Darkness? Or would you be, with me, fighting his agenda, and working to defeat his influence in the Republican Party at the ballot box?

Yet despite the clear logical fallacy of this argument, I now see many Americans making the same mistake again. Only this time it’s with Bernie Sanders.

It’s quickly becoming the central argument of the 2020 election: “If you don’t vote blue no matter who, you’re for Donald Trump.” I’ve lost count of all the times I’ve heard that old chestnut, and how many times I will continue to respond: Those aren’t the only two choices. You could, instead, VOTE FOR SOMEONE GOOD.

Do you have a response to this article? Would you like to offer your own take on this topic? Feel free to submit your own article or offer a comment.

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