This is America’s 59th quadrennial presidential election. Elections matter.
This election is unlike any other in U.S. history. No real campaigning, no conventions, dramatically modified debates, no mass rallies, and in many places, little or no in-person voting.
Yet, it is a watershed election with much at stake. It is the America we know and love versus some woke future in which America is canceled. The contrast could not be greater. The decision is yours and that of all registered voters.
Here are 10 questions you need to answer to figure out for whom you ought to vote. It’s simple—follow this 10 question guide and cast your ballot. Give it to others. Pass it around. Make it go viral.
Answer each question in private and with a more or a less and then follow the logic.
- Do you want more or less government involvement/regulation of the economy?
- Do you want to pay more or less in taxes?
- Do you want more or less military intervention in other countries?
- Do you want more or less trade with China?
- Do you want more or less illegal immigration?
- Do you want more or less federal budget deficit?
- Do you want more or less violence and anarchy in our cities?
- Do you want more or less rioting and attacks on the police?
- Do you want more or less taxpayer money going into welfare payments?
- Do you want more or less government health insurance?
If you said “less” to six or more of these questions, vote for Trump and the Republicans without a doubt.
If you said “more” to six or more of these questions, vote for Biden and the Democrats without a doubt.
If you are split down the middle, cast your vote on this tie-breaker: Do you want a more or less socialist country? More go Democrat; less go Republican.
This is not that hard and it can be done with some deliberative reflection in a relatively short time period. It is your vote, so don’t let someone else sway you, harvest, or steal your ballot.
Making a choice is critically important and voting is a democratic norm and freedom that our forefathers fought to achieve, extend, and uphold.
Be sure to exercise your right.
In 2016, 250,056,000 U.S. voters were eligible to cast a ballot. Only 138,847,000 did so. Only 55.7 percent of those who could vote, did. That was a slight decline from the previous election and far under the turnout in many other democracies.
What’s at stake? Why bother to vote at all?
Voting is a method for a group, referred to as the electorate, to make a collective decision and express an opinion rooted in discussion and debate on who rules. While there are different voting and representation systems, from majority rule to proportional representation, they all come down to determining which candidate or political party will hold office for an allotted period of time.
Since the earliest democratic impulses in ancient Athens, humans have held that voting was a critical act. In the 5th to 4th century B.C., the Greeks had an extraordinary system of government called democracy. Under that system, all male citizens had equal political rights, freedom of speech, and the opportunity to participate directly in the political arena. Further, not only did citizens participate in a direct democracy whereby they themselves made the decisions by which they lived, but they also actively served in the institutions that governed them, and so they directly controlled all parts of the political process.
By the 17th and 18th centuries this thinking was further refined by people like John Locke, the Baron de Montesquieu and Edmund Burke to shape the framework we have today, namely, representative democracy. Burke’s central argument, perhaps most important for our own times, was that revolutionaries’ destruction of institutions and the move to mob rule undergirded by social anarchy and cultural annihilation could mark the end of Western civilization itself.
When taking up the mantle and voting this November, as citizens we both partake in and take responsibility for the government we chose. We will be answering the question of who we want to represent our interests when making decisions, enacting policies, taxing and making budgets, dispensing justice and even commanding troops to go to war.
Take this responsibility seriously and consider it your solemn duty.
We also need to guard against the real possibility of voter fraud which happens too often and refuse to allow illegal vote harvesting or mail-in ballots that break the system and allow for the theft of an entire election.
Voting is just too important. Voting matters. It is, in fact, the most important duty of citizenship.
I supported and voted for Donald J. Trump way back in 2016, when few of my elite friends and many of my Republican stalwarts were not on his side. I endorsed him already in Forbes magazine in July 2015 when he came down the elevator at Trump Tower. I compared him positively to the economic nationalism of my namesake, Theodore Roosevelt, at the turn of the last century.
Now more than ever we need President Trump to defend our great country, to sustain its enterprising and recovering economy, and to relish the spiritual traditions that birthed, built and have continued America’s exceptionalism.
As a patriot, I am proudly voting for him again in November 2020.
Take the more or less test, then vote yourself.