I Will Never Vote for Trump

By J.D. ECARMA

I will never vote for Donald Trump, not in any scenario, not if he picks someone I respect and admire as VP, not if he swears on a stack of Bibles that he’ll do the right thing by the Supreme Court and stop undermining the pro-life cause and be the conservative he’s never once been before if we somehow make him president.

I am not bound by any duty to the Republican Party to vote for its nominee. First, because conservatism only works when free people make their own decisions based on conscience and conviction. Neither would let me vote for Trump. And second, because a party whose flagbearer encourages both racism and misogyny has no place for me anyway.

I will never vote for Trump because I love this country too much to risk making someone president who threatens free speech and loves authoritarianism, someone who neither respects nor values the office, someone who is all too ready to disregard the precious checks and balances put in place by our founding fathers.

I will never vote for Trump because I believe he is an ethically unmoored, fundamentally rotten individual whose habit of saying anything that comes into his mind—whether it’s sexualizing his infant daughter or mocking someone with disabilities—could throw this country into chaos when he offends an ally, impulsively declares war or blurts out a national secret on live television. If it comes to that, better another liberal president than an unhinged would-be dictator whose foreign policy plan seems to be immediately inciting a trade war with China and a literal war with Mexico, all while providing plenty of material for ISIS to use in propaganda tapes.

I will never vote for Trump because he encourages racism and questions the citizenship of natural-born Americans simply because they are children of immigrants and aren’t white.

I will never vote for Trump because I refuse to support someone who threatens to become the third-world strongman my father’s family left the Philippines to escape. I will never vote for Trump because America was, is and should continue to be a beacon of hope, a last bastion of freedom and a shining city on a hill.

My grandparents, my dad and his siblings came to America seeking refuge when a rising dictator threatened their freedom.

America is where people come to find refuge. If the Republic falls, we have no escape. 

 Jordan Ecarma is a former journalist now living the millennial dream: getting paid for writing Facebook statuses (that is, digital PR). She watches her use of the f-word (“feminism”) around conservatives and the c-word (“conservatism”) around feminists. Find her under @JordanEcarma.