#SettleforTrump

Courtesy of Donald J. Trump

By Catherine Hicks

This year is the first presidential election I’m eligible to participate in and I’m going to be voting for President Donald Trump – with hesitance.

In 2016, I was 16 years old and in my second year of college. I was unable to vote, but was politically engaged, even more so than usual as I happened to be taking american government during the election season. 

In reality, I didn’t really like either of the candidates. I often said voters were choosing the lesser of two evils – and the same holds true in 2020. In my voting infancy, I’m beginning to wonder if this is how most elections are.

This election, I am in a different position because I am able to cast a vote.

I’m registered as a Republican due to Florida’s closed primary system, which prohibits independants from participating in partisan primaries. I don’t feel that either party, Democrat or Republican, embodies the ideals I hold – a commonality among voters.

I’m mostly conservative, meaning I advocate for less government involvement in personal affairs and lower taxes. I believe the government’s role is usually a negative one, because it is prone to corruption. People will have more personal liberty if the government stays out of their lives.

I’ve always believed people should care for and help communities and people in less fortunate circumstances. If we remove the government’s responsibility (and corruption) in such charitable actions, more people would be incentivized into helping others.

Similar to other young conservatives, I vocally criticize Republicans in their refusal to address environmental issues such as climate change. I’m also not particularly religious so I support separation of church and state. And I believe that the healthcare system needs reform. 

I’m not always the biggest fan of Trump’s decisions in the name of the Republican party, or of his temperament. He’s made me cringe at times; mocking a disabled reporter, dismissing climate change as a hoax and his twitter usage makes me wish someone would take his cell-phone away.

There are many things he does I do approve of, such as not accepting his salary and donating it quarterly to various charities, ordering the operation that killed ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, appointing conservative and constitutionalist judges to courts of all levels and signing the First Step Act into law, which provided prison and criminal justice reform. 

But, like many Democrats this year in their feelings towards Trump, I am voting for Trump because I don’t feel I’m morally capable of voting for Joe Biden.

At the beginning of the Democratic primaries, I was interested to see if any truly moderate candidates would step forward. I was surprised and impressed by many of the candidates.

Biden and Elizabeth Warren were my last choices of the democratic candidates. I knew should they be nominated, I would have little choice but to vote for Trump, whom few had dared challenge for the Republican nomination.

Recalling the actions the DNC took in 2016, giving Hilary Clinton the nomination when many believed that Bernie Sanders was the rightful nominee, I wasn’t surprised when they did it again and Biden emerged triumphant.

One of the most common traits in politicians is their lack of authenticity, demonstrated election cycle after election cycle by the promises made and not kept. Career politicians, on either side, are the worst of all. They’ve learned how to excuse their lack of follow through and convince voters to continue electing them to cushy positions with high salaries funded by American tax dollars.

Biden is the epitome of a career politician. Throughout his career, Biden has continuously made promises he couldn’t keep and historically has gone against the very things he claims to support. 

• Biden proposed and heavily advocated for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which reshaped the criminal justice system and is partially responsible for the mass incarceration that ravaged low income communities. 
• He eulogized and praised Strom Thurmond, one of the most well known segregationists, leading the longest filibuster in history at 24 hours and 7 minutes on the Civil Rights Act of 1957, as a ‘close friend’.
• In a video chat with author and rapper Charlamagne Tha God, Biden said “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” on May 22.
• During his time as vice president, Biden advised President Obama not to order the mission that ultimately killed Osama Bin-Laden. 
• He vocally supported the war on drugs, going so far as to criticize George H.W. Bush’s plan to increase efforts in the war on drugs for not being “tough enough, bold enough or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand,” in 1989.

I wish Rep. Justin Amash, a  congressman who switched from the Republican Party to the Libertarian Party in July of 2019, would have maintained his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election. 

Jo Jorgensen received the nomination for the Libertarian party, whose policies I also don’t agree with, leaving Trump the last remaining contender.

Though I’m by no means enthusiastic about the candidates in the election this year, I am enthusiastic about exercising my right to vote and I think you should be too. Whether you’re voting for Biden, Trump or another candidate, make sure you’re at the polls on Nov. 3.

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Written by: Catherine Hicks on September 7, 2020.
Last revised by: Sophie OjdanicSeptember 28, 2020.