Saturday, August 10, 2024

Trump has put social conservatives in a dilemma

Let’s begin with the obvious.  No social conservative could possibly justify voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.  They are pro-abortion extremists, as Ryan Anderson shows in an article on Harris at First Things and Dan McLaughlin shows in an article on Walz at National Review.  Their records on other matters of concern to social conservatives are no better.  It goes without saying that they are absolutely beyond the pale. 

Despite his recent betrayal of social conservatives, Donald Trump remains less bad on these issues.  Indeed, his appointments to the Supreme Court made possible the overturning of Roe v. Wade.  It is understandable that many social conservatives have concluded that, his faults notwithstanding, they must vote for him in order to prevent a Harris/Walz victory.  The argument is a serious one.  But the matter is not as straightforward as they suppose, because the problem is not merely that Trump will no longer do anything to advance the pro-life cause.  It is that his victory would likely do positive harm, indeed grave and lasting damage, to the pro-life cause and to social conservatism in general. 

For that reason, a case can also be made for voting for neither Harris nor Trump.  Yes, a reasonable person could judge that the case for voting for him is stronger.  But before drawing that conclusion, it is imperative for social conservatives carefully to weigh the costs, no less than the benefits, of supporting him.  And it is imperative for those who do decide to vote for him not to simply close ranks and quietly acquiesce to his betrayal of social conservatives.  They must loudly, vigorously, and persistently protest this betrayal and do everything in their power to mitigate it.

In what follows, I will first explain the nature and gravity of this betrayal.  Then I will set out the relevant moral principles for deciding how to vote when faced with a choice between candidates whose positions on matters related to abortion, marriage, and the like are gravely immoral.  Finally, I will discuss how these principles apply to the present case.

Trump’s threat to social conservatism

First, let’s put aside a common straw man.  Trump’s pro-life critics are routinely accused of foolishly demanding that he immediately push for a national ban on abortion or some other pro-life policy proposal that is currently politically unrealistic.  But I know of no one who is demanding any such thing.  The critics’ concerns are very different.  It is one thing simply to refrain from pursuing pro-life goals for a time.  It is quite another thing to abandon those goals outright, and yet another thing to advocate policies that are positively contrary to those goals.  The trouble with Trump is not that he has done the first of these things – that much would be perfectly defensible – but rather that he has done the second and the third.

Consider first his change to the Republican party platform, which not only gutted it of its longstanding pro-life language, but introduced elements positively contrary to the pro-life cause.  The platform’s longstanding general principle that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed” was removed.  Only “late term abortion” is explicitly opposed.  Not only was support for a national ban on abortion also removed, but the new platform indicates that the matter should be left entirely to the states.  The emphasis is now not on the rights of the innocent but rather on the purely procedural question of who gets to determine whether and where abortion should be legal.  The new platform also adds that the party supports “policies that advance… access to… IVF.”  Into the bargain, the party platform’s support for traditional marriage was also removed.

The manner in which these changes were made is an outrage.  As reported in First Things, the platform process was rigged in a shockingly brazen manner so that the changes could be rammed through, with social conservatives prevented from having any input or even a chance to read the revised platform before voting on it.  When asked whether the platform changes marked a move to the center on Trump’s part, his son Eric answered that his father “has always been there on those issues, to tell you the truth” and dismissively compared social conservatives’ concerns about abortion and traditional marriage to “worrying about the spot on the wall in the basement.”

It will not do to suggest, as some have, that the platform change was merely motivated by reasonable concerns over the political fallout from the Dobbs decision.  For one thing, even well before Dobbs, Trump wanted to make dramatic changes to the platform that would likely anger social conservatives, but until now lacked sufficient control over the party to do so.  For another thing, even if the controversy that followed Dobbs were the only consideration, Trump did not need to change the platform in the way he did.  He could have let the existing platform stand while basically ignoring it, as he did in 2020.  Or he could have merely softened the platform, preserving the general principle of defending the rights of the unborn while leaving it vague how or when this would be done at the federal level.  Nor did he need ruthlessly to bar social conservatives from having any influence on the platform process.  Nor did he need to add insult to this injury by having an OnlyFans porn model speak at the convention.

Some social conservatives have suggested that while the changes to the platform are bad, they can be reversed after Trump is elected.  This is delusional.  Obviously, Trump has judged that he and the GOP are now in a strong enough position politically not only to ignore social conservatives, but even to rub their faces in their loss of influence, without electoral consequences.  And if he wins in November, this will confirm this judgment.  There will be no incentive to restore the socially conservative elements of the platform, and every incentive not to do so, given their unpopularity.

The long-term consequences for social conservatives are bound to be disastrous.  Outside the churches, social conservatism currently has no significant institutional support beyond the Republican Party.  The universities, corporations, and most of the mass media are extremely hostile to it.  And those media outlets that are less hostile (such as Fox News) tolerate social conservatives largely because of their political influence within the GOP.  If Trump’s victory is seen as vindicating his decision to throw social conservatives under the bus, then the national GOP will be far less likely in the future even to pay lip service to their agenda, much less to advance it.  Opposition to abortion and resistance to other socially liberal policies will become primarily a matter of local rather than national politics, and social conservatives will be pushed further into the cultural margins.  They will gradually lose the remaining institutional support they have outside the churches (even as the churches themselves are becoming ever less friendly to them).  And their ability to fight against the moral and cultural rot accelerating all around us, and to protect themselves from those who would erode their freedom to practice and promote their religious convictions, will thereby be massively reduced.

Trump has thus put social conservatives in a dilemma.  If they withdraw their support from him, they risk helping get Harris elected, which would be a disaster both for them and for the country.  But if they roll over and accept his transformation of the party for the sake of near-term electoral victory, they risk long-term political suicide – which would also be a disaster for them and for the country.

But in fact the situation is much worse than that.  For, again, it’s not just that Trump has gotten the GOP to abandon the goals of social conservatives.  It is that he endorses policies that are positively contrary to those goals.  For example, when asked about whether he would block the “abortion medication” mifepristone, Trump responded: “The Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill.  And I agree with their decision to have done that, and I will not block it” (emphasis added).  Echoing Trump, his running mate J. D. Vance has also said that he supports mifepristone “being accessible.”

Trump’s defenders might claim that he is merely acknowledging a Supreme Court decision.  But as Alexandra DeSanctis has pointed out, Trump’s remarks misrepresent what happened.  The court did not “approve the abortion pill.”  It merely made the narrow technical determination that those who had brought a certain case lacked legal standing.  There is nothing in the decision that requires anyone to support keeping the abortion pill accessible.  Now, the abortion pill currently accounts for over 60% of abortions in the U.S.  So, it’s not just that Trump has gotten the GOP to drop the stated goal of ending abortion.  It’s that he positively supports preserving access to the means responsible for the majority of abortions in the country.

It gets worse.  On the one hand, Trump says that he is in favor of letting the states decide whether to have restrictions on abortion.  But he has been critical of those who have tried to enact such restrictions at the state level.  For example, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning abortion after six weeks, Trump said: “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”  When the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of enforcing an abortion ban, Trump complained that it “went too far.”  It is worth noting that Trump ally and Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake also denounced the ban, and at one point even appeared to adopt Bill Clinton’s rhetoric to the effect that abortion should “safe, legal, and rare.” 

And it gets even worse.  As already noted, Trump’s new GOP platform calls for “policies that advance… access to… IVF.”  He has since once again “strongly” emphasized “supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America.”  But it is a routine part of the process of IVF to discard unwanted embryos.  Indeed, as the National Catholic Register notes, “more human embryos [are] destroyed through IVF than abortion every year.”  There is no moral difference between killing embryos during abortion and doing so as part of IVF.  So, once again, it is not just that Trump is refraining from advancing the pro-life cause.  He positively supports a practice that murders more unborn human beings than even abortion does.  And here too we similar positions taken by Trump allies, such as Senator Ted Cruz.

As the examples of Vance, Lake, and Cruz indicate, the problem is not confined to Trump himself, but is spreading through the political movement he started.   He is effectively transforming the GOP into a second pro-choice party.  Indeed, he is transforming it into a second socially liberal party.  Since the Obergefell decision did for same-sex marriage what Roe had done for abortion, the topic of same-sex marriage has receded into the background.  The transgender phenomenon has taken center stage in debates about sexual morality.  But the legalization of same-sex marriage is what opened the door to it, and as I have argued elsewhere, the issues are inseparable.  Once the premises by which same-sex marriage was justified were in place, it was inevitable that what we have seen over the last decade would follow.

Trump has said that he is “fine with” same-sex marriage, and, again, he removed from the GOP platform its statement of support for traditional marriage.  Indeed, he has made it clear that in his vision for the Republican Party, “we are fighting for the gay community, and we are fighting and fighting hard.”  The president of the LGBT organization Log Cabin Republicans has hailed the “radical and revolutionary” changes to the GOP platform as “one of the most important things that’s happened in Republican Party history,” by which Trump “has put his DNA into the party.”

Many of Trump’s defenders point to the overturning of Roe as evidence that, whatever his faults, he has done so much good for social conservatives that it is unseemly to criticize him for his lapses since.  But there are several problems with this argument. 

First, it was by no means a sure thing that the justices Trump appointed to the Supreme Court would vote to overturn Roe, and it is not clear that Trump himself believed they really would or even wanted them to.  It has been reported that he was privately critical of state-level measures to put limits on abortion even prior to Dobbs, and that when the court’s decision was revealed he “privately told friends and advisers the ruling will be ‘bad for Republicans’” and was initially reluctant to take credit.  Politics rather than principle appears always to have been his main concern.  It seems that he favored talking about overturning Roe, because he judged it to be good politics, but fretted about actually overturning it because he judged that to be bad politics.

Second, the Dobbs decision, while indeed a great victory, nevertheless fell crucially short of what pro-lifers had actually long been arguing for.  In order to secure a majority, the decision declined to go as far as affirming that the unborn child is a human being with the same right to life that any other innocent human being has.  As Hadley Arkes has argued, this defect helped open the door to the problems the pro-life movement has faced since Dobbs.

Third, it is silly to pretend that because a politician (or anyone else) does something good, he ought to be given a pass when he does something bad.  And in any event, overturning Roe was for pro-lifers never an end in itself, but only a means to the end of banning abortion.  It is quite preposterous to expect them to be so thankful to Trump for providing this means that they refrain from criticizing him for doing things that are positively contrary to that end.

By no means can it be denied that Harris, Walz, and the Democratic Party in general are worse on the issues that concern social conservatives.  They are more extreme on abortion and on LGBT-related matters, and a threat to the religious liberty of social conservatives.  But the fact remains that a Trump victory is bound to ratify his transformation of the GOP.  It will no longer be a socially conservative party, but a second and more moderate socially liberal party.

How should social conservatives vote?

Catholic moral theology provides guidelines for voters in situations like this, and because these guidelines are matters of natural law, they can also be useful to social conservatives who are not Catholic. 

The first thing to emphasize is that the issues we have been discussing are the most fundamental of all political issues.  The family is the basic unit of all social order, and it is grounded in marriage, which exists for the sake of the children to which it naturally gives rise.  And the protection of innocent human life is the fundamental duty of government.  A society that attacks the natural structure of marriage, that makes of a mother’s womb anything but the safest place in the world for a child to be, and whose governing authorities refuse to protect the most helpless of the innocent, is a society that is corrupt in its very foundations.  Matters of economics, foreign policy, and the like are all of secondary importance. 

Twenty years ago, in “On Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good,” Archbishop (now Cardinal) Raymond Burke set out the moral principles which Catholic theology says ought to guide voters.  After discussing abortion and other threats to innocent life, and same-sex marriage, he wrote:

Among the many “social conditions” which the Catholic must take into account in voting, the above serious moral issues must be given the first consideration.  The Catholic voter must seek, above every other consideration, to protect the common good by opposing these practices which attack its very foundations.  Thus, in weighing all of the social conditions which pertain to the common good, we must safeguard, before all else, the good of human life and the good of marriage and the family. (Emphasis added)

Similarly, the 2002 document “The Participation of Catholics in Political Life,” issued by the CDF under then-Cardinal Ratzinger, teaches:

A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals… When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden with responsibility… This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia… Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death.  In the same way, it is necessary to recall the duty to respect and protect the rights of the human embryo.  Analogously, the family needs to be safeguarded and promoted, based on monogamous marriage between a man and a woman… In no way can other forms of cohabitation be placed on the same level as marriage, nor can they receive legal recognition as such.

So crucial are these issues that some moral theologians seem to hold that any candidate who takes an immoral position on them must, accordingly, flatly be disqualified from consideration under any circumstances.  For example, Fr. Matthew Habiger argues:

Can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a politician who has a clear record of supporting abortion?  Or is it a sin to vote for a politician who regularly uses his public office to fund or otherwise encourage the killing of unborn children?  I take the position that it is clearly a sin to vote for such a politician…

The argument can be made that voting is a very remote form of cooperation in abortion.  But is it all that remote?  The legislator who votes for abortion is clearly a formal accomplice, giving formal cooperation with abortion.  S/he shares both in the intention of the act, and in supplying material support for the act.  If I vote for such a candidate, knowing full well that he will help make available public monies for abortion, or continue its decriminalization, then I am aiding him/her…

It is not sufficient to think that, since candidate X takes the ‘right position’ on other issues such as the economy, foreign relations, defense, etc. but only goes wrong on abortion, one can in good conscience, vote for him/her.  Abortion deals with the first and most basic human right, without which there is nothing left to talk about.

Cardinal Burke seems, at least at first glance, to take a similar position, when he writes:

It is sometimes impossible to avoid all cooperation with evil, as may well be true in selecting a candidate for public office.  In certain circumstances, it is morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for a candidate who supports some immoral practices while opposing other immoral practices.  Catholic moral teaching refers to actions of this sort as material cooperation, which is morally permissible when certain conditions are met…

But, there is no element of the common good, no morally good practice, that a candidate may promote and to which a voter may be dedicated, which could justify voting for a candidate who also endorses and supports the deliberate killing of the innocent, abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, human cloning or the recognition of a same-sex relationship as legal marriage.  These elements are so fundamental to the common good that they cannot be subordinated to any other cause, no matter how good.

These arguments seem to imply that a candidate’s support for abortion or same-sex marriage are absolutely disqualifying, so that the principle of double effect cannot justify voting for such a candidate even when there is no viable alternative candidate who does not support these things.

However, that is a more stringent position than the Church and moral theologians have traditionally taken, and on closer inspection Cardinal Burke does not seem to intend it.  For he goes on to say:

A Catholic may vote for a candidate who, while he supports an evil action, also supports the limitation of the evil involved, if there is no better candidate.  For example, a candidate may support procured abortion in a limited number of cases but be opposed to it otherwise.  In such a case, the Catholic who recognizes the immorality of all procured abortions may rightly vote for this candidate over another, more unsuitable candidate in an effort to limit the circumstances in which procured abortions would be considered legal.  Here the intention of the Catholic voter, unable to find a viable candidate who would stop the evil of procured abortion by making it illegal, is to reduce the number of abortions by limiting the circumstances in which it is legal.  This is not a question of choosing the lesser evil, but of limiting all the evil one is able to limit at the time…

Thus, a Catholic who is clear in his or her opposition to the moral evil of procured abortion could vote for a candidate who supports the limitation of the legality of procured abortion, even though the candidate does not oppose all use of procured abortion, if the other candidate(s) do not support the limitation of the evil of procured abortion.  Of course, the end in view for the Catholic must always be the total conformity of the civil law with the moral law, that is, ultimately the total elimination of the evil of procured abortion.

Similarly, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, in a 2004 memo which emphasizes the necessity of Catholic politicians and voters to oppose abortion and euthanasia, allows that:

When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.

Naturally, among the proportionate reasons that may justify such a vote would be that the alternative viable candidates are even worse on issues like abortion and euthanasia, as Cardinal Burke says.  Burke adds some further important points:

[M]aterial cooperation… is morally permissible when certain conditions are met.  With respect to the question of voting, these conditions include the following: 1) there is no viable candidate who supports the moral law in its full integrity; 2) the voter opposes the immoral practices espoused by the candidate, and votes for the candidate only because of his or her promotion of morally good practices; and 3) the voter avoids giving scandal by telling anyone, who may know for whom he or she has voted, that he or she did so to advance the morally good practices the candidate supports, while remaining opposed to the immoral practices the candidate endorses and promotes.

This third condition merits special emphasis.  Some who argue for voting for Trump as the less bad of two bad options have also been very critical of those who publicly criticize Trump for his betrayal of the pro-life cause and of social conservatives.  Such criticism, they worry, might lose him votes.  But as Burke’s remarks indicate, one problem with this attitude is that it threatens to give scandal.  It “sends the message” that social conservatives put politics over principle, and that winning elections is more important to them than the ends for which they are supposed to be winning elections in the first place, such as protecting innocent life and the institution of marriage.  I would add that another problem is that if politicians who take immoral positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and the like are not publicly criticized for doing so, this will encourage them to continue taking these positions in the future, or even more extreme positions.  Such politicians should be made to fear that they will lose votes, since nothing else is likely to deter them.

There is a further consideration.  As Germain Grisez points out in his treatment of the ethics of voting in Volume 2 of The Way of the Lord Jesus:

Since politics is an ongoing process, votes can have important political effects even when not decisive.  The size of the vote by which a candidate wins often affects the candidate’s power while in office.  Hence, it usually is worthwhile to use one’s vote to widen the margin by which a good candidate wins or narrow the margin by which a bad one wins.  Moreover, the size of a losing candidate’s vote often determines whether he or she will again be nominated or run for the same office or another one.  From this perspective, too, it often is worthwhile to use one’s vote for a good candidate or against a bad one. (p. 870)

Here is one way this consideration is relevant to the question at hand.  Suppose Trump not only won the election, but won by a wide margin, or won without losing a significant number of socially conservative voters.  This would encourage the GOP in the future to maintain Trump’s changes to the party and continue its trajectory in a more socially liberal direction.  But suppose instead that Trump won by a very narrow margin, or won but lost many socially conservative voters in the process, or lost because many socially conservative voters defected.  That would encourage the GOP to reverse course, and move back in a more socially conservative direction lest it permanently alienate a major part of its traditional voter base.

I have been emphasizing abortion and same-sex marriage, but obviously there are other important issues too.  On inflation, crime, immigration, appointing judges, and so on, Harris is in my opinion manifestly far worse than Trump.  Indeed, the Democrats in general are in my view now so extremely irresponsible on these matters that voting for them is unimaginable even apart from their depraved views on abortion, marriage, transgenderism, and related issues.  It is important to acknowledge, however, that even if he is not as bad as the Democrats, Trump too has grave deficiencies even apart from his betrayal of social conservatives.  The most serious of these is his attempt, after the 2020 election, to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to set aside Electoral College votes from states Trump contested – something Pence had no authority to do.  This was a very grave affront to the rule of law, and should have been sufficient to prevent Republican voters from ever nominating him again.

But they did nominate him, so the question is what to do now, in light of the principles I’ve just been setting out.  The first thing to say is that, though other issues are of course important, competing candidates’ positions on matters such as abortion and marriage are most important.  For Catholics and others committed to a natural law approach to politics, comparing candidates’ positions on these matters is the first and most fundamental step in determining how to vote, and only after that should other issues be considered.  And as I have already said, the fact that Harris and Walz are worse than Trump on these issues suffices to disqualify them, by the criteria of Catholic moral theology I’ve been discussing.  The question is not whether to vote for Trump or Harris – no one should vote for Harris.  The question is whether to vote for Trump or instead to vote for neither of the major candidates (by voting for a third party candidate, or for a write-in candidate, or by leaving this part of the ballot blank).

The argument for voting for Trump is that Harris and the Democrats would do far more damage to the country, not least in the respects social conservatives most care about.  The argument for sitting the election out is that the GOP must be punished – either by losing or by only narrowly winning – for moving in a socially liberal direction, since its doing so will do enormous damage to the country in the long run unless the loss of votes convinces the party to reverse course.

These are in my opinion both powerful arguments.  And together they imply that the least bad result would be one where Trump wins, but only narrowly, and in particular in such a way that it is manifest that the GOP will in future lose the votes of social conservatives (and thus lose elections) if it does not reverse the socially liberal direction Trump has taken it in.  Unfortunately, the individual voter cannot guarantee this result, because he can control only how he votes, not how others vote.  He can’t ensure that Trump gets just enough votes narrowly to win, but loses enough votes to punish the GOP for its betrayal of social conservatives. 

But there are nevertheless some general considerations to guide socially conservative voters here.  One of them is that those who reside in states that Trump will definitely not win anyway should not vote for him, but either abstain or vote for some other conservative candidate as a protest.  For example, I live in California (which Trump will definitely lose anyway) and I will not vote for him, but will instead, as a protest, cast a write-in vote for Ron DeSantis (who in my opinion was clearly the candidate GOP primary voters should have chosen – though that is neither here nor there for present purposes).  I have also publicly been very critical of Trump’s betrayal of social conservatives, and have tried to do what I can in my capacity as a writer to encourage others to make their displeasure known.

Meanwhile, socially conservative voters in swing states could, by the criteria set out by Ratzinger and Burke, justify voting for Trump as the less bad of two bad candidates.  But a condition on their doing so is that they must neither approve of nor keep silent about Trump’s betrayal of the unborn and of social conservatives.  They must make their disapproval publicly known in whatever way they are able, so as to avoid scandal and pressure the GOP to reverse the socially liberal course Trump is putting it on.

The aim of this strategy is, again, to prevent the grave damage that Harris would do to the country, while at the same time preventing the long-term grave damage that would be done to the country by having both major parties become pro-choice and socially liberal.  Trump’s winning is necessary for the first, and his winning only narrowly and in the face of strong social conservative resistance is necessary for the second.

That, anyway, is my considered opinion.  I welcome constructive criticism.  But I ask my fellow social conservatives who disagree with me seriously to consider the gravity of the situation Trump has put us in, and the imperative not to let partisan passions overwhelm reason and charity when debating what to do about it.  Thomas More, patron saint of statesmen, pray for us.

235 comments:

  1. As a political strategy this makes sense. While I hasten to agree with you on the importance of life as an issue (hard to think of something more fundamental), there is a political consideration on another point: speech. If we maintain the right to speech, we maintain the right to influence. If country and culture is ever to be restored, that will in part entail speech (obviously, the work of God is paramount). The Republications are far more likely (at this point) to permit speech on matters which runs contrary to the culture. The current behavior of the British govt at present is a vivid picture of how this could easily turn under a different govt. In a related manner, the loss of the right to life for the weakest, tears out the fundamental plank which supports speech and the right to vote. Ignoring this argument for immediate political gain is foolish long term strategy for anyone who hopes to maintain the republic. Thanks again for your writing.

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    1. Trump's election-process actions after the fact were an alright try.
      https://rconstitution .us/zero-tolerance-for-election-manner-violations/

      More-robust actions on flawed election processes would be better.
      https://rconstitution .us/making-all-voters-rights-secure-through-judicial-interposition/

      Trump's covid actions killed.
      https://correlation-canada .org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-07-19-Correlation-ACM-World-125-countries-Rancourt-Hickey-Linard.pdf

      https://www.ijvtpr .com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/101

      Trump is likely a Republican who would sign to nationally support abortion—a bigger setback than Roe. Kennedy wouldn't be.

      Always vote for the best on life, liberty, and property. Do the right thing and let the chips fall as they may.
      https://rconstitution .us/voters-dilemma/

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    2. Do you genuinely believe Elon Misk is a benevolent person?

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    3. It’s not clear that the life-issues can be separated from economic and foreign policy issues. A simple orthogonal priority ordering, like a set of ranked principal components, might be only a theoretical convenience.

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  2. This is the Way. As usual, Professor Feser strikes true. f I lived in a blue or red state, I'd write his name in. - Didymus

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    1. https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/7348-don-t-back-down-or-you-will-lose-a-pro-life-message-to-trump

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  3. Strange how your political strategies always seem to benefit the party dead set on advancing the causes of child molestation, sexual immorality, the destruction of Christendom, and the increase of government power.

    Far be it from me to suggest such a thing, but perhaps, maybe you should vote for the candidate that ended the federal protection of abortion? Just perhaps? A shocking idea, I'm sure.

    I recognize that winning political victories is a foreign concept to a back-stabbing traitorous coward like yourself, but there's a first time for everything, is there not?

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    1. It is very difficult to believe you actually read what I wrote before posting this silly rant.

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    2. I read the whole thing. It's the usual defeatist line. Protest vote, your state is perama-cucked so your political participation doesn't matter, we need to send a message etc. etc.

      I want you to seriously consider, really take the time and think about this: What if you tried to win? What if you, instead of backstabbing and backbiting like a womanly coward, tried to be, in some way, victorious? This novel sentiment is what led to the defeat of Roe v Wade. I would also like to remind you that Trump, as flawed and sinful as he might be, is more efficacious an actor in the cause of righteousness than you are, by virtue of such an accomplishment.

      Your trite diatribes, delivered bloodlessly and without an ounce of conviction, have hitherto accomplished little, and what little effect you've had is more than countermanded by the classic faux-conservative move of turning on your political allies at the last minute.

      This country has enjoyed a slow slide into madness as a result of incompetence like this. With "allies" like you, I hope God will have mercy on us all.

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    3. " ... I ask my fellow social conservatives who disagree with me seriously to consider the gravity of the situation Trump has put us in ..."

      Trump will probably lose. There is one issue that motivates a majority of white females, and that is their sacred ritual of abortion. And that is not taking into account that this election is likely to be just as "fortified" in its results as the last one, with drop boxes, facilitated communication style voting, and all the tried and time tested Democrat techniques.

      And frankly, although I suppose we could go back to The Garden searching for the ultimate cause of this predicament, the proximate and ongoing cause is not Donald Trump's strategic misfeasance or lack of ideological committment but the recent generations of moral subversion and betrayal of the Christian faith, and most particularly the Catholic, by institutional homosexual infiltrators both male and female, and their cowardly milquetoast enablers.

      Could the Church have withstood modernism and the transformed anthropology we have now? Who knows ... because they did not really try much. The salt lost its savour.

      The pervs got their foot in the door, and John decided to throw it all the way open. Nice work, genius. The house was, admittedly, stuffy with too many neurotic old ladies of both sexes. So let's burn it down and replace it with a nice new religion fit for Gregory Baum and Rembert Weakland and Joe Bernardin.

      And now? Now, we are at the posthumanist and transhumanist juncture. With only a few educated laymen stepping into the breach and trying to do something about it.

      My advice is that small as their numbers are, Catholics ought to take their allies pretty much, again only "pretty much", wherever they can find them; at least until rhe bleeding can be stanched.

      If it can.

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    4. Anon @ 6:11,

      High on thumos, low on intellect. It's an old story.

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    5. Indeed, the angry anonymous commenter probably stopped before reading your strategic opinion. If that is the case, a little patience would have saved him a good deal of anguish.

      I think you’ve presented a well-reasoned and balanced approach that thoughtful social conservatives can follow without aiding the execrable Democrats. My mind was made up before reading your essay, but you have given me hope that moral and sensible citizens can be persuaded to defend what remains of civilization from the Marxist onslaught, while at once aiding a broader strategy to hold onto the GOP, all without feeling wracked by guilt over a Trump vote (in a swing state). Bravo!

      Now, please get together with Michael Brendan Dougherty and arrange a Zoom call with the Never-Trump pundits at National Review, Commentary Magazine et al, and help them see the stakes and path forward more clearly.

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    6. "I recognize that winning political victories is a foreign concept to a back-stabbing traitorous coward like yourself, but there's a first time for everything, is there not."

      That is wayyy out of line, even in an overwrought political season like this one.

      Yeah we could find ourselves in the middle of a social war if the Demos try and press home a post election victory sociopolitical agenda that restructures our basic associative predicates, and that is as serious a result as it gets. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/yQSUziswXIg

      But it won't have been enabled by the concerns of one Ex-libertarian Catholic social conservative philosopher of mind.

      How about your sister-in-law, your schoolmarm neighbors, that local city council woman with the pixie hair cut and officious air? Are they traitors? Have you told them that? If not, don't yet, because insulting people is a poor method of persuasion, they cannot be persuaded, and you probably cannot vote from jail.

      In fact the Demos seem to be planning on violence [Jamie Raskin] if somehow Trump does manage to overcome the now baked in structural corruptions meant to ensure permanent mandarin class rule over their tractable clients.

      I think it is justifiably expedient to vote for Trump simply because we have another "Fligh 93 Election". https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/the-flight-93-election/

      But the moral concerns of a philosopher who is Catholic won't be responsible. How about extending the same considerstion to Edward Feser, yiu wisely do to your actual adversaries?

      Issues of treason and war may come about anyway, without our precipitating them.

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    7. I don’t think he can read.

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    8. Excellent point!

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    9. " defend what remains of civilization from the Marxist onslaught ..."

      ??? The Democrats generally favor capitalism plus a safety net. The Republicans often characterize safety nets as Marxist/Communist, but that's rhetoric. Neither major party in the US goes even as far toward pro-worker policies as do standard-issue social democrats in Europe. And those social democrats are a far cry from actual Marxists.

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    10. There is economic and cultural Marxism. The latter flavor is the one on offer in the U.S.

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    11. Translation of the above comment: don’t listen to Jesus. Refuse to feed the poor.

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    12. ...a back-stabbing traitorous coward like yourself...

      An odd comment, given that it is Trump who has back-stabbed and betrayed social conservatives. (I guess we can also note the irony of an anonymous calling someone else a coward.)

      I recognize that winning political victories is a foreign concept...

      Again, odd: if one wants to be politically victorious, one has to fight for what matters, for what one wants to be victorious about. That's exactly what Prof. Feser is urging. He is urging not to throw in the towel on abortion. What is the point of being 'victorious' if you concede the field of battle to the enemy in order to 'win'?

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  4. Funny how the link in the first paragraph of the article focuses on LGBT people instead of economics.

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  5. Well, the second paragraph anyway.

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  6. Wait actually it is the third link in the first paragraph.

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  7. My point is, I’ve yet to see Feser criticize for example the Republican Party for wanting to have taxes chiefly be paid by those who can most afford them easily, ie the rich.

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    1. Huh? They already do: the top 5% of earners pay 66% of all income tax. That % has increased dramatically since 2001.

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  8. This is a wonderfully written article. It describes the seriousness of the situation we're in while providing guidance in the decision-making process. It's similar to a video Fr Chris Alar did, but goes a step further in considering the lasting damage that can occur with the GOP's lack of emphasis on the fundamental issues of abortion and marriage. Thank you for writing this!

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  9. Apparently, the Constitution party has a pro-life presidential candidate. He may not be on the ballot in all states.

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    1. The American Solidarity Party's platform is based on Catholic Social Teaching. We're Pro-Life for the Whole Life, and our candidate, Peter Sonski, is very much someone you should consider supporting. He'll be a write-in in most states, but on the ballot in a few.

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    2. Feser would reject the Solidarity Party's rejection of the death penalty.

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    3. The American Solidarity Party's platform is based on Catholic Social Teaching.

      It is consistent with certain parts of Catholic Social Teaching. It is not so consistent with others. And its details suggests that its originators might not really grasp the principles of that teaching.

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  10. Anonymous at 4:46 pm - why not post a polite criticism with arguments.

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    1. It would seem to me that the USA has a uni party. Voting for him or her will bring the same result, one quicker the other slower. In such a situation all one can do is their very best, pray hope and have trust in the Almighty.

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  11. "The first thing to say is that, though other issues are of course important, competing candidates’ positions on matters such as abortion and marriage are most important. For Catholics and others committed to a natural law approach to politics, comparing candidates’ positions on these matters is the first and most fundamental step in determining how to vote, and only after that should other issues be considered. "

    As a Catholic, I agree, of course, that we should ascribe a preeminence to these social issues that are core to and constitutive of the common good, as the documents you cite say. However, what I think none of those documents reckoned with (because they all date from an earlier, more civilized age) is a situation in which the party which is at least /more/ socially conservative has become deeply anti-institutionalist and thus deeply threatens to undermine the constitutional framework on which our ability to continue to live at peace in a pluralistic society depends, while the party that is deeply socially anarchic remains much more staunchly institutionalist. By contrast, twenty-ish years ago, it was still accurate to say that the socially conservative party was also the more institutionalist party. There are still institutionalist corners of conservatism—most obviously, the Federalist Society types—but they are increasingly pushed out by a populist element that is willing to throw out whatever norms and institutions stand in the way of getting the change it wants. I'm genuinely uncertain how we should think about the short-term tradeoff between advancing socially conservative goals and maintaining our institutions.

    Perhaps you think I exaggerate how anti-institutionalist the Republican Party is today. But, to press the principle home, imagine another, more extreme situation. Imagine a situation in which the standard-bearer for a major party explicitly announced his intention to overthrow the Constitution and install a military dictatorship—but who was more socially conservative than the rival party, which was staunchly in favor of preserving the Constitution. I don't think it is /obvious/ that in that situation one could not permissibly vote for the institutionalist party. My point is just that we should be able to agree that at /some/ point, if it continues on its present trajectory, the party will have become sufficiently anti-institutionalist that it becomes a non-obvious issue.

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    1. I think you are badly mistaken as to how "institutionalist" the Dems are. First, they already hold utterly dominant positions in the mainstream media, in education, and in entertainment. Thus they have dominating control of many of the organs of maintaining institutions.

      But at the same time, they have made it clear that their goals are antithetical to the real meanings of our social institutions themselves in their original meanings. They have already uprooted and thrown out the meaning of marriage. They are in the process of throwing out parental rights over children (Walz, the governor of MN and candidate for VP for the Dems, signed a state bill to take children away from parents who won't "affirm" a child who wants to transition.) They have transformed the schools from places of education, into places of propaganda and are turning out dunces (who express their emotions as if those were undeniable reasons to act) as star graduates. They have consistently undermined voting soundness so that "democracy" reliably turns out the results they want. They don't want to retain institutions in their original meaning, they want to retain the NAMES of institutions while subjecting us to a revolution of the substance underlying the names.

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    2. I don't disagree with many of your claims. However, when I describe a party as "institutionalist", I primarily have in mind its attitude towards those norms and institutions that are (at least supposed to be, within certain broad parameters) neutral with respect to differing visions of the good and to allow us mechanisms to peacefully resolve our differences—things like (to take what is paramount) respect for the rule of law. As Dr. Feser himself points out, Mr. Trump's conduct after his loss in the 2020 election is sufficiently egregious to disqualify him as a fit candidate—and yet it is Mr. Trump's unhinged take on the 2020 election that is now the party line that has to be parroted by Republicans. This is deeply corrosive, in my opinion, to the rule of law, and we can't afford to give it a pass just because Mr. Trump is less bad, even /much/ less bad, on other fronts.

      - anon at Aug 10, 7:22pm

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    3. Right - this is a massive consideration:

      "The most serious of these is his attempt, after the 2020 election, to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to set aside Electoral College votes from states Trump contested – something Pence had no authority to do. This was a very grave affront to the rule of law, and should have been sufficient to prevent Republican voters from ever nominating him again."

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    4. things like (to take what is paramount) respect for the rule of law.

      Again, I think you underestimate the damages already wrought. The Democrats' agenda, and the methods they have used to pursue that agenda, have been deeply damaging to the rule of law for the last 50 years or more. Just to give a few examples: on immigration policy, they have explicitly claimed falsely that people aren't here "illegally" but merely "without documents", and have made it a punishable school offense (meriting suspension) for a student to use the term "illegal alien" (also they have forbidden the Border Patrol to do their jobs). They have pushed now two dozen states to 'legally' allowing pot, even though it is still federally banned, as if the states can just ignore federal law on this: the social and legal schizophrenia in those states is mind-boggling. They publicly promoted BLM riots and mayhem, incited to injure and kill people, and promoted even "non-violent" protests to ignore state and federal mandates for social distancing required because of a public health crisis. They vociferously advocate against police enforcement of ordinary laws, and have created urban landscapes of shoplifting where store employees are not allowed to try to prevent such theft, nor allowed to seek to get police involved, devolving conditions also to massive levels of other criminal activity.

      My 20-something children just today described to me that young people they interact with - almost universally among the woke, but somewhat widely even among the conservative - have little to no respect for law as such, and think nothing of ignoring laws that impose inconveniences - laws necessary for social order - when they have no fear of being caught. This social condition is arguably incidentally due to failures on the right as well, but this condition is manifestly part and parcel of the very design of the left's pursuit of their policies. The post-modern left's social theory intends and desires the conditions they have wrought in disregard for law as such.

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    5. "They vociferously advocate against police enforcement of ordinary laws, and have created urban landscapes of shoplifting where store employees are not allowed to try to prevent such theft, nor allowed to seek to get police involved, devolving conditions also to massive levels of other criminal activity."

      This is partly true but partly caricature and exaggeration. E.g. it's "corporate" and not "the Democrats" who tell chain store employees not to try to restrain shoplifters. They do take other measures. And your "they" does not apply to all Democrats. Many Democrats are equally fed up with the stance of those fellow Democrats who seem to care more about keeping perps out of prison than about protecting the general public.

      Rep. Cori Bush just lost her Democratic primary to Wesley Bell in part because Bell is more solid on fighting crime. (Yes, there were other issues in that campaign, too.)

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    6. This is partly true but partly caricature and exaggeration. E.g. it's "corporate" and not "the Democrats" who tell chain store employees not to try to restrain shoplifters.

      I grant that it's not uniform across the Dems. And some of it comes from corporate HW instead of from the mayor's office. But that too rests at the Dems' door: they are the ones that promoted DEI in the corporations and villified things like competency and facts and obeying laws, and that you have a "duty" to run away at threats instead of standing your ground, that led to HQ doing the above.

      And I know it didn't happen everywhere. But it happened in lots of the big cities, which is the the Dems have their strongholds and most fully effected their will.

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    7. Many Democrats want much more moderate policies. E.g. Tom Suozzi (D) won a district that had gone Republican (to the disgraced Santos) over fears of crime. I grant, though, that moderate Democrats aren't going to be principled social conservatives of the kind to whom Prof. Feser wrote his OP, i.e. aren't likely to call for criminalizing abortion tout court or banning same-sex marriage (or even bringing back the death penalty for "sodomy" or whatever).

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    8. Many Democrats want much more moderate policies.

      There are some old-style Democrats around who want roughly the same kinds of things that Hubert Humphrey and Jimmy Carter wanted. But they have had the rug pulled out from underneath them, party-wise. The (MUCH) farther left has the bit between their teeth and are running things within the party. The philosophical and political theory that is the driving force for what is now the mainstream in the party is post-human in ideology and marxist in methodolgy. They, at least, really are pushing to undermine law, and indoctrinating the young to think (scratch "think", insert "feel") that's what politics ought to be.

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  12. Phil Lawler has been arguing similarly for decades (and obviously I agree with him). Considering how manifestly powerful the pro-life vote is, it seems foolish to squander it every single cycle by subsuming our criticism in the name of defeating something worse.

    I would submit a couple of points. First, you seem to suggest that if Trump can win with pro-life support, that would signal a watershed change in what the Republican Party represents. The changes in the planks of the platform notwithstanding (and some go to other important issues such as removing commitment to gun rights under the 2nd Amendment), from the long perspective the party is substantially more pro-life than it has been since Roe.
    The Bushes, McCain, and Romney all favored broad "exceptions" -- McCain was opposed to overturning Roe (and I can remember being exhorted to cast my pro-life vote for him! which I did not, writing in probably my husband) and here in MA under Romney we had tax-funded abortion long before Obamacare.

    Bush to his credit instituted the Mexico policy, but remember the woeful state of the fight in those years, which saw us in the most extreme possible situation of having to oppose partial-birth abortion. We have a book on our shelves that details babies being left to die in hospitals after botched abortions -- in the 80s, under Reagan.
    Bush allowed aborted fetal tissue research, arguably the crack in the door through which the current wedge is driven, of an industry of fetal body parts shipped worldwide and the abandonment of any pretext of restraint in fetal research.

    The frustration was always watching the presidential nominee give obvious lip-service to the cause while enabling and endorsing business as usual down the ticket and in appointments to federal courts.

    In short, I am questioning the assumption that the Republican Party has represented pro-life up until Trump and Vance. That has not been my experience in 45 years in the movement. And while I agree that something is rotten in the re-writing of the platform, it's also true that few pay attention to it.

    Your critique of Dobbs is on point. I agree with Hadley Arkes and we had an exchange about the depth of principle reflected in the new appointees. Yet the reality is that the pro-life fight is now in the states. Given the limitations of energy and resources and the rather binary choice before us in the national election, perhaps now is the time to turn our attention there.

    I agree (again with Arkes, who has admirably stated it) that anything less than a forthright, whole-hearted commitment to protecting innocent life is a betrayal, whatever the pragmatic necessities are on the ground of partisan battles.


    Pro-lifers are not organized, with some exceptions (Missouri being one), to deal with more local challenges. As soon as Trump won, it was clear that pro-abortionists saw they had to organize in the states and they did -- in ways that were mainly misinterpreted by our side -- passing laws in blue states way ahead of a Roe decision. Of course, once that happened, those laws went into effect. I think we missed that boat, to our discredit. Why does that happen?

    Finally, I think it's vitally important to hold the Trump campaign to a commitment to making sure to capture the Senate and retain Congress. It's far more important for the cause of the "innocents" -- in the womb and in war -- that our actual system of governance be restored and the rule of law recovered.

    We can remind him and them that our vote is what got him in to office in 2016 and politics is about what you owe your friends. It's truly grievous that he seems to have forgotten that.

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  13. Trump's election-process actions after the fact were an alright try.
    https://rconstitution.us/zero-tolerance-for-election-manner-violations/

    More-robust actions on flawed election processes would be better.
    https://rconstitution.us/making-all-voters-rights-secure-through-judicial-interposition/

    Trump's covid actions killed.
    https://correlation-canada.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-07-19-Correlation-ACM-World-125-countries-Rancourt-Hickey-Linard.pdf

    https://www.ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/101

    Trump is likely a Republican who would sign to nationally support abortion—a bigger setback than Roe. Kennedy wouldn't be.

    Always vote for the best on life, liberty, and property. Do the right thing and let the chips fall as they may.
    https://rconstitution.us/voters-dilemma/

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  14. I appreciate that you took the time here to answer what you think conservatives/Catholics/people of good will Should do in response to the unfortunate situation they find themselves in. That being said... I think you are leaving your prescription too vague, likely to encourage the outcome you want, which is a narrow Trump victory or even a defeat this time, so that the party can change its platform for next time.

    You say: Voters in established blue states Should Not vote for Trump. Voters in swing states Can vote for him. (Voters in red states - ?). You make it sound like it would be immoral to vote for him unless you are in a swing state, and even then, those voting for him are on the defensive, rather than those abstaining.

    This seems to run contrary to the traditional advice of the Church, which states our obligation to vote for the candidate that is likely to secure the most good (the greatest among these goods being related to the family). Your sources that run counter to this are fairly sparse and less weighty than the more common understanding. I think you may even be misunderstanding Grisez by attributing the narrowing of victory to Trump in this case rather than Harris.

    Aside from this, I question your read of the current social temperature. I've said it elsewhere: do you really think that if Trump/Republicans lose this time, then in four years we can get our principled guy in? I think that's delusional. Like you already said, the issue of abortion is unpopular, even among "conservatives." If they lose this one, isn't there a chance that they will lean even further away from "socially conservative" values? You may not be sending the message you intend. Not to mention, I'm not certain that our constitutional framework is going to run with business as usual, normal election cycles, established party platforms. You seem to be taking that for granted (but maybe I'm too plugged in to alt politics).

    I see Trump more as a symptom than as the cause of a conservative party shifting more liberal. We are living in the culmination of, and the beginnings of the rejection of, Post WWII era liberalism. I think Deneen predicts our political future well when he describes the left and right populist branches as becoming more extreme, while the elite/libertarian/ruling classes are forced to uniparty between centrist left and right to maintain power. Only time will tell who emerges victorious out of that. Where are Catholics to be but caught in the fray, trying to conserve and progress that which is good.

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    1. I don’t agree with Feser’s citing the disregard for the electoral college as the primary reason Trump should have been rejected as the candidate.

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  15. Hi Dr Feser

    I think this is an excellent analysis . I just have one question for you, And that has to do with setting ideals. I also agree with you that the party platform should not have been changed at all. Nevertheless, I think that would make it difficult to blunt attacks made during debates and campaigns, just taking into account how unpopular the position of a federal abortion ban and restricting access to the pill are. Just one example would be the fact that even when Biden was in the race,the only issue that even gave him any chance of winning was the federal abortion issue and as to the pill, R.R Reno pointed out banning that is also unpopular. That Democrats are bad on all other issues actually has bipartisan appeal. The only issue that is actually keeping democrats in the race is the federal abortion issue.

    As such , while I think the platform should never have been changed, having it in the platform would still make it really difficult for any candidate to navigate. If the democrats made anything a part of their party platform, we would also attack them, even advise voters to see through their masquerade of obfuscating on the issue. My only constructive criticism would be that I think your solution of ignoring it, softening the platform, don't do much to help, especially if it's your opposition's go to issue. Pivoting about the issue doesn't look good electorally. You could avoid being asked by not doing interviews or doing only scripted interviews and avoiding debate. But these tactics are electoral pitfalls. Trump could only ignore the issue in 2020 because, it was a pre Dobbs environment, where people didn't really think the status quo would change. The demonic attempts of democrats to hit Republicans on this issue by pointing to pro life states ,unfortunately has a lot of appeal. The democrats are truly monsters. They don't care about the lives being saved by those laws.

    It seems to me that one possible option would be if, assuming the platform is not changed, to promote the ideal but at the same time promising to veto in the short term any federal law that may get passed, on prudential grounds that the backlash would drastically set the ideal back. At the same time he could promote a law at the federal level to protect born alive babies from further procedures. And he is quite good at rhetorically defending that position.

    I think that hypothetical situations about what the party would do if they came to filibuster defeating majorities in the house and senate are relevant because the party's goal is always to win as many seats as possible, it's always a possibility. It wouldn't make sense for a candidate to say, "we will never be in such a majority, so I am not answering that".

    What do you think about the moral viability of this position, Dr Feser ?

    Besides this I think the only option would be for a Republican candidate to actively defend the federal abortion ban mandate, when asked about it on the campaign, thereby accepting the disastrous electoral prospects. This is the option I currently support because it protects the principle.

    Thanks for your analysis Professor, as Always, to the point.


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    1. just taking into account how unpopular the position of a federal abortion ban

      Trump had a perfectly valid and electable position to rely on: "the Supreme Court correctly put the issue back into the states, where it belongs under our constitutional principles. On that basis, I strongly reject the idea of a federal ban on abortion - such a move contradicts the proper role of the states." He could fine-tune that message lots (e.g. be expansive about how the court would overturn such a ban) and side-step questions like "but if a ban WAS constitutional, what would your position be?"

      That's less helpful with the abortion pill. But debate-wise, Trump is savvy enough to work some thing on that too, if not as satisfying to those who want their abortifacients.

      on prudential grounds that the backlash would drastically set the ideal back....Imagine two bills to prohibit elective abortions that differ only in whether they make an exception in case of fetal disability. Assume it is reasonably certain that in the absence of that exception, tragic episodes would inspire a backlash and swift passage of a more permissive law—perhaps one allowing all abortions up to twelve weeks.

      The prudent course will often be different in circumstances where we have been tolerating an evil for decades, versus where we have been sound and not tolerating that evil. So it's not likely to be able to say it will ALWAYS be wrong to tolerate a specific (grave) evil without having to discuss the particulars. However, even when it might be best to tolerate an evil, it is necessary (to avoid scandal) that upright men not speak of the evil being tolerated as if it represented a good simply speaking, i.e. as if it were an inherently desirable state of affairs. And sometimes, when the evil at issue is of fundamental importance, it may be necessary to be willing to lose an election, or many, (or to die), to defend against it. (As the martyrs gave witness.) And part of the picture is recognizing when it is the state tolerating an evil, and when it is a question of the state actually doing the evil. (E.G. it is one thing to say "a woman's decision to get an abortifacient pill is being tolerated by our laws that won't put the pill on the list of forbidden drugs. It is another to say that the Federal government will pay for those doctors and the pills for servicemen and women, veterans, federal employees, and those on Medicare.)

      I think it very likely indeed that Trump could have won by leaving the platform alone and intelligently addressing questions in the right way. I think it likely that he could have increased his odds by modifying the platform to stress the federal role being more hands-off, and leaving in a strong pro-family stance. But he never was truly pro-life in the conservative sense, so protecting the pro-life caucus in the GOP never was a high priority for him other than in the balance of votes.

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    2. Tony

      Think about this, It seems like Project 2025 is actually hurting Trump despite the fact that Trump has continuously and vigorously disavowed it. Kamala's lead is approaching the kind unassailable lead Trump had over Biden after the debate.

      The thing is that Project 2025 is precisely the kind of social conservatism we all support here. The kind of strategies it's authors would employ are precisely the kind of strategies Prof Feser writes about above.

      If something that Trump has disavowed is hurting him so badly, just imagine how devastating it would be if he was adopting the kind of ambiguity about it that Dr Feser mentioned above.

      Having said that I do think that Trump should have actually endorsed the project, because I think that sticking to principle is more fundamental than winning.

      I also think that this election has already been lost and Kamala is all set to become the next President of the USA. I am hoping against all odds that it is not the case because I can't stand that woman.

      At the end of the day, the main point that Dr Feser is making here is that,
      "If you stand for nothing, you will fall for everything"

      It is much more preferable that the GOP accept defeat, regroup, re-establish it's core pro-life and pro-traditional marriage principles that Trump gutted and start doing the hard groundwork of actually convincing the electorate of those principles, instead of continuosly rolling over and abandoning those principles in a campaign bid,that is in all likelihood already doomed.
      Even in the unlikely scenario of a win, A win that has come at the price of abandoning all your core principles would evoke the spirit of the famous Mario meme which goes like

      "I have won, but at what cost ?"


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    3. Kamala's lead is approaching the kind unassailable lead Trump had over Biden after the debate.

      Norm, I don't know why you think that there something that looks like a clear Harris advantage, much less an overwhelming gap - the polls are quite varied and there is no reliable trend for Harris, in several the gap is 1%, within the margin of error. Looking at just the top 10 off this list at RealClearPolls, it's quite varied:

      https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls

      If you discount the most-likely biased ones, like Emerson and Fox, and focus on more independents like Rasmussen and Pew, you get Trump +4 or Harris +1. With other markers like Biden's disapproval rating, and the fact that Harris can't even talk to liberal reporters safely, the race is NOT looking solid for Harris. And there's a ton of stuff to happen between now and November that can sway the vote more than any margin that now exists.

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    4. Tony

      You make some very good points. Points that do give me hope.

      Nate Silver a well regarded statistician puts Kamala ahead by 3 points, that's why I said fast approaching.

      To be fair, Silver also put it well within the margin of error.

      And you are right Kamala is very dodgy with reporters.

      I think the on going Israel/Iran situation is a threat to her. For one thing, all it would take is some or the other appalling display by Iran to convince moderate liberals that at the very least Iran should be opposed if not directly in War.
      But if she did that she would alienate the more left wing radicals.

      The border is another, if you are going to act as a border czar despite so many issues being your own fault , people are very likely to go for the original Border Hawk.

      Another is the economy and inflation. Actually Trump could win on this alone.

      So I think I misspoke a bit. Guess I am a bit inclined to expect the worst and she definitely is the worst.

      I see the media hyping her along and it's easy sometimes to think that she has already won. Somebody so evil and despicable.

      I think in such times all we can do is pray.

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  16. I base my reasoning for the option I put forth on the following statement by pro life scholars. The article is well worth a read in its entirety.
    3"When identifying their options, lawmakers should take into account a law’s durability. Imagine two bills to prohibit elective abortions that differ only in whether they make an exception in case of fetal disability. Assume it is reasonably certain that in the absence of that exception, tragic episodes would inspire a backlash and swift passage of a more permissive law—perhaps one allowing all abortions up to twelve weeks. Then the options are best understood as: (1) protection of all unborn children, except those with a fetal disability, for the long term; or (2) the short-lived protection of all children, followed by the lasting exposure of all children for the entirety of their first trimester. Here pro-life lawmakers may choose (1) over (2) if they make clear that they reject the notion, sometimes associated with disability exceptions, that the lives of the severely disabled have less value."

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  17. The churches stance on abortion is very unpopular and is unlikely to achieve any political success anywhere.

    Unless you believe political victories by democrats are likely to change that, I don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish.

    Trump just choose a very pro-natalist pro-family candidate. You should be focused on trying to get the party to adopt a pro-family platform that can change public opinion on these issues. I don’t see how electing a proud childless cat lady is going to change opinions on the merits of raising children.

    Lastly, if there is anything more unpopular than abortion, it’s IVF. Only 12% of the public opposes IVF. A majority of people who reject abortion in all cases are fine with IVF. Quit being a sperg on this issue.

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    1. Did you actually read the post?

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    2. A majority of people who reject abortion in all cases are fine with IVF.

      Since IVF is done by killing embryos, people who are fine with IVF are fine with killing the unborn. Inventing some pedantic notion of an important moral difference between killing the unborn as abortion and killing the unborn in IVF is dumb.

      Quit being a sperg on this issue.

      I.E. Making a moral issue of abortion is retarded, so stop doing that.

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  18. Feser covers all the bases in this well written and well thought out piece. He is right to emphasize the costs as well as the benefits to supporting Trump. Back in 2016 a lot of prolifers and conservatives (like me) did decide to hold their nose and vote for the guy. But shortly thereafter, many seemed to forget all about the costs. I won't vote for Trump in 2024, nor Harris. I understand as does Feser the case for Trump, but just keep your eyes open!

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  19. As usual, I agree with most of what Prof. Feser has said here. He has set out much of the Catholic understanding of prudential political ideas, and done so very well. I particularly liked his point about voting if you are in a state that is going to vote for Harris.

    But I disagree with some pretty important points here.

    The first thing to emphasize is that the issues we have been discussing are the most fundamental of all political issues. The family is the basic unit of all social order, and it is grounded in marriage, which exists for the sake of the children to which it naturally gives rise.

    Not quite so fast. Marriage and the family are conceptually and practically distinct issues from the protection of unborn innocent life. Conceptually is easily shown: no-fault divorce damaged marriage as an institution without ever addressing unborn life. Practically, because married couples' en mass choices not to conceive children will be almost as damaging to the nation's future as choosing to kill some of them, but not as morally despicable.

    Arguably, the most foundational political issues are those critical elements that are at the core of our political system, and while marriage and children are close, what is most critical are things like (a) that man is subordinate to God, (b) the fact that man has a social nature, (c) that man has a duty to form governments, (d) that such a government is an authority that receives its authority from God and thus is subordinate to God; (e) that once formed man has a moral obligation to obey that government except under certain conditions; (f) the particular constitution of our political order as a democratic republic requires that the people in part rule themselves and that this requires on their part a number of personal and social virtues or it cannot be sustained, and (g) that our political order puts some authority with the feds and (at least by design) leaves much to the states.

    Like the defective understanding of marriage that allowed the social form of polygamy even in ancient Israel - which is a grave defect to the fidelity that is an essential part of marriage, but did not eradicate the entirety of the meaning of marriage - a failure to understand that the state has an obligation to protect the unborn is not a flaw that eradicates the very meaning of the entire political order. The Roman state allowed families to kill an unwanted handicapped child, and continued apace for 1000 years doing so. I would have no trouble voting for a candidate who fully understood (a) through (g) above, but failed on abortion by accepting it for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Unfortunately, Trump does not clearly grasp (a) through (g). He clearly doesn't begin to grasp (f). It may have been unimaginable 30 years ago, just after the Soviet empire fell, that we would have to worry about national candidates who not only didn't grasp (a) through (g), but actively opposed most or all of that, but that's exactly where the Dems have brought us: to the brink of electing people who really think of our political order in terms that utterly oppose that entire program in its parts and its whole.

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  20. This would encourage the GOP in the future to maintain Trump’s changes to the party and continue its trajectory in a more socially liberal direction. But suppose instead that Trump won by a very narrow margin, or won but lost many socially conservative voters in the process, or lost because many socially conservative voters defected. That would encourage the GOP to reverse course, and move back in a more socially conservative direction lest it permanently alienate a major part of its traditional voter base.

    That's one way to read the tea leaves. But it's not the only one. For example, there are elements within the GOP that would argue "good riddance to the pro-life, now we can court a much larger base of 'moderates' that will allow far more wins for the GOP." They wouldn't even be completely wrong, if you ignore just who those "moderates" are.

    The problem is that there are too many OTHER factors to predict with certainty what a Trump loss would imply in terms of changes to the GOP. I pointed out earlier, possibly what needs to happen is for the pro-life, and others who are tradition-minded, form their own party that can push a much more conceptually coherent platform than the "large tent" of the GOP. The GOP should have rejected the inclusion of those liberals that were known as "neo-conservatives", but that's a mistake too far in the past to undo. We simply can't know what X "will" bring down the road in 5 or 10 years of politics as if it were certain, we can only estimate with stronger or weaker probabilities. And I estimate that there is a significant chance that whether Trump wins or loses, the pro-life cause within the GOP will diminish in the next several years: I don't think we can be confident we are going to really start to turn that around until we turn around the views on divorce, fidelity, and pornography, and I can't see what would bring that around other than a Deus ex machina.

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  21. Dr. Feser, if you cast a vote for Ron DeSantis in California, it will not be counted. California only counts write-in votes for certified write-in candidates.

    Why not vote for Peter Sonski of the American Solidarity Party? The ASP is a staunchly pro-life party. We're on the ballot in a few states, and certified write-in in many others.

    You might not agree with the ASP's platform on economics, or on immigration, or on the death penalty. But abortion is the #1 issue for the ASP.

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  22. There are some very good considerations in this post. I think the Ratzinger principle on voting favours voting against the Republicans because, while Harris is bad on abortion and other moral issues, there are imperatives beyond these which would make a Trump presidency a greater evil. As the positions of Trump and Harris on moral issues are not greatly different, the other factors come to the fore.

    On foreign policy, in particular, Trump's actions would be irresponsible and lead to terrible wars. The Biden presidency has been able to restrain the extremists and xenophobes in charge in Tel Aviv, thus preventing a general Middle-Eastern conflict. The Biden administration has also supported Ukraine, preventing Moscow’s takeover and ensuing attacks in other European countries. The second is is migration. The immigration of millions of hard-working Catholics is a plus. The revival of Hispanic influence in the historically Hispanic third of US territory is a great cultural and eventually geopolitical fact of the twenty-first century. A Trump victory would not prevent this process but hasten it in a very unpleasant manner, perhaps, by instigating a traumatic civil struggle within the US and drastically speeding up internal transfers of population. I’m not sure how US Catholics should handle Hispanisation, but being nasty to immigrants is not the way. I do not understand how a US Catholic can prefer pagan Indian immigrants fluent in English to Catholic Hispanics who are not.

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    1. This guy is nutso.

      Trump's actions would be irresponsible and lead to terrible wars. The Biden presidency has been able to restrain the extremists and xenophobes in charge in Tel Aviv, thus preventing a general Middle-Eastern conflict. The Biden administration has also supported Ukraine, preventing Moscow’s takeover and ensuing attacks in other European countries.

      He's talking out both sides of his mouth here. First, Biden's actions in Ukraine may help us get closer to a WW3, if Putin gets tired of a stalemate and decides to go nuclear. Second, with Trump in charge in the White House, Hamas wouldn't have even tried their nonsense, and (again) it appears that Biden is running us ever closer to Iran expanding that conflict to a widespread war.

      The immigration of millions of hard-working Catholics is a plus.

      Pure idiocy: the illegal immigrants are violating our laws, and by their massive presence they are undermining respect for law as a whole in the left side of the electorate (which the far-out left Democrats want). What good is "hispanisation" if what we get out of it is another Mexico, with its authoritarian hatred of Catholicism plus disorder and poverty.

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    2. My Putin won't "go nuclear". He's a survivor. The hard-working Hispanic immigrants help keep the US economy afloat by doing the jobs others won't do, and for half the price. They are no less law-abiding, but more family-oriented than average US citizens. The disorder in Mexico, and the whole drug scene, was imported there from the US. Time to face facts.

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    3. "The disorder in Mexico, and the whole drug scene, was imported there from the US. Time to face facts."

      Face this fact. Mexico has been a sociopolitical latrine since its inception as a so-called "republic".

      I have known a number of very fine middle class Mexican technicians, engineers and even a couple of men from ranching families.

      But it was not the United States that was responsible for the murderous anti clericalism of the 19th and 20th centuries, the damnable Institutional Revolutionary Party and its corrupt cadres, nor for the death worshipping lumpenproletariat running rampant. Nor for corrupt traffic cops or police chiefs, or government employees

      It is Mexican sociopolitical culture in general, the culture of the patron and the mordida which has itself, generated these effects.

      In fact, it has been a trait of Hispanic culture for centuries.

      God bless Argentina's efforts to extinguish the curse of that inheritance

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    4. You don't know your history. Mexico was vastly superior in wealth, population and civilisation to the US in 1776. It was also peaceful and Catholic. What has occurred since then is a battle to impose Enlightenment "values" on the country, and you know very well which nearby country was pushing those. In reference to the more recent disturbances, remember that there were no narcos, gangs or drug industry in Mexico a few decades ago. ALL of this was created to service the

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    5. You don't know the history of those warmer climes you do not inhabit. Mexico was Catholic, peaceful and, in 1776, vastly superior to the US in population, wealth, civilisation. The Plaza Mayor in Mexico city is the greatest urban landmark in the New World, by what it represents, and what it covers.
      The troubled history of Mexico since 1832 is the struggle to impose Enlightenment "values", principally emanating from the US. As for more recent troubles, there were no narcos or drugs industry in Mexico before it became necessary to cater to the "sex, drugs and rock'n roll" civilisation invented you know where.

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    6. "You don't know the history of those warmer climes you do not inhabit. Mexico was Catholic, peaceful and, in 1776, vastly superior to the US in population"

      How about that. Between the perpetual organized bloodbath of the native population's sway, and the ejection of the Spanish colonizers, Mexico was Catholic and peaceful.

      Maybe Mexico shoud have kept the Spanish, since they at least tried to protect the peaceful native population from the marauding native population. Albeit with only qualified and limited success.

      But instead Mexico went its own way, and has since then enjoyed almost 200 years of political chaos, revolutions, priest murder, persecution of the Church, and a political culture based on corruption: from the local traffic cop right up to the president.

      But it is everyone elses' fault. Mordida, patrons, the latifundia and the caudillios further south ... all the fault of someone else.

      Sure. Watch this to a chorus of Mexicali Rose .... or La Golondrina if you prefer, as you dream of those halcyon days of yore; of magnificent plazas, clean adobe walls, and the shade of the ancient cottonwood trees ...

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=534yUDeMAg0&pp=ygUNSW4gb2xkIE1leGljbw%3D%3D

      As a Mexican once told me, in what he recounted as a common saying, "The only problem with Mexico, is the Mexicans"

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    7. You don;t know Mexico. Apart from the internal struggles caused by the enforcement of foreign Enlightenment values, Mexico has been a relatively peaceful country since 1834. The US can't brag, what with its civil war, and exclusion of a significant part of its population (Blacks) since that war. Mexico is civilisation, the old West, the real world, something to study and hunger for from the deadening emptiness of comfortable suburbia north of the Rio Bravo, while it lasts.

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    8. "Miguel Cervantes
      August 13, 2024 at 8:06 PM

      You don;t know Mexico. Apart from the internal struggles caused by the enforcement of foreign Enlightenment values,
      "

      According to you I don't know history, or the "history of warmer climes [I] don't inhabit", or know Mexico"

      Well, I do know history, including the history of Latin America. And if not in granular detail, I know enough about the social and political history of Mexico and Latin America in general to know that you are evading the social and cultural issues I brought up. That is to say the endemic corruption, the patronage, the dictatorships, and revolutions. And in the case of Mexico, the legalized suppression and persecutions of the Church.

      I also know that Mexicans are fleeing Mexico, and I have known and worked with and discussed the society with them.

      "Mexico has been a relatively peaceful country since 1834 ..."

      Depends on what you mean by "relatively". Perhaps in comparison with Cambodia under Pol Pot.

      https://users.pop.umn.edu/~rmccaa/missmill/mxrev.htm#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20consensus%20among,from%201.9%20to%203.5%20million.

      "Mexico is civilisation, the old West, the real world, something to study and hunger for from the deadening emptiness of comfortable suburbia north of the Rio Bravo, while it lasts."

      It is that deadening comfortable suburban emptiness that Mexicans are currently fleeing toward, in order to escape their "real world".

      And: While it lasts? You are right about that. Because although you can move a new population into a pre existing housing stock, you cannot thereby reproduce the sociopolitical conditions which made its existence possible in the first place.

      And yeah, plenty of psychologically disturbed Americans will enable the process because of the good feelz they get from their lady bountiful routines and their desperate need for someone, anyone, to affirm their corpulent, blue haired and dysfunctional existences.

      Thus they will continue to bring ruin upon the land of their birth in this manner until it kills them off or they become extinct; a result which should please all concerned: The migrants who replace them, because they got their stuff; their long suffering fellow citizens whose principles of tolerance for the mentally ill led to this result, because they are now morally freed of the "obligation to tolerate" anyone or anything uncongenial; and finally, those craving nihilist subversives themselves, for whom existence was merely one, long, dismal, exercise in resentment driven subversion.

      After which ... well, no one can say. But we can have some idea of the possible scenarios.

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    9. You have free will. You are not determined by your WASP worldview. You ought to let go of the stereotypes and myths of that view and return to the Christian West. I know this is outside the experience of a state founded on Enlightenment values, but now you have an opportunity...

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    10. "Miguel Cervantes
      August 14, 2024 at 8:03 PM
      You have free will. You are not determined by your WASP worldview. You ought to let go of the stereotypes and myths of that view and return to the Christian West. I know this is outside the experience of a state founded on Enlightenment values, but now you have an opportunity.
      "

      Which specifically "Enlightenment" values would those values be?

      Constitutionalism? The principle of the rule of law? Private property? Self-government? The constitutional separation of federal [or governing] authority, functions, and powers including the Executive, Legislative and Judicial? The reservation of powers not so enumerated to the people or the states of the federation? The rejection of ultra vires pronouncements and orders? Freedom of association, and by implication, disassociation?

      So far all you have done is to assert that I don't know Mexican history or culture; whereas I have provided numerous data points both academic and anecdotal: both from studies and from personal experience and involvement with Hispanic refugees and migrants and businessmen.

      You merely engage in a lot of easily refuted allegations, and vacuous hand waving insinuations.

      Is your embrace of that irrational and bankrupt technique a practical demonstration of your rejection of "Enlightenment values"?

      You are long on accusations and short on evidence, pal.

      Maybe you should accuse less and explore more - at least a little of what are sometimes referred to as Enlightenment values.

      Because it is at Ieast some of those values, as manifested within a heritage of "WASP" sensibilities, that produced the polity which you hope will extend refuge to the very people rejecting them.

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    11. Hispanics in America are giving up Catholicism in droves. I live in mostly Hispanic town. Most of them don't practice the Catholic religion.

      It's one thing for legal immigrants to help Catholicize the US in culture and then in law. It's another thing entirely for illegal immigrants to come here to lose their religion and adopt the dregs of American irreligion.

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    12. What about the Christian non-West?

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    13. The immigration of millions of hard-working Catholics is a plus. ...

      It's certainly not a plus for the immigrants: their children will lose their faith far faster in America than had they stayed in Mexico.

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    14. There isn't really a Christian non-West. Strictly-speaking from a Catholic point of view, the Philippines belongs to the true West - the hegemonic civilisation between late antiquity and the Enlightenment, while the US or Sweden do not.

      The Enlightenment is defined by values that separate it from the Christian West that preceded it. Therefor, the answer to your question is - all of them.

      As for the potential outcomes if the history of migration were different, there's not much point speculating. It won't be reversed.

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    15. My Putin won't "go nuclear". He's a survivor.

      Putin is a survivor. However, he is not winning the war, and at the moment he is at risk of losing the war. He very well may not survive if he actually loses the war. Hence, if he can't win the war without nukes, he may use nukes, hoping to keep the use to tactical nukes in really remote places. He could even use them on the Ukrainian forces only inside of Russia, claiming not using them as WMD because they were only used on a non-city battlefield against soldiers, defending his own territory.

      If you think you know Putin could never use nukes, you are another of the dangerous nutcases that underestimate the derangement of a despot about to lose.

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    16. Doubt it. The US seems most content to prolong this without any outright winners or losers, so Mr. Putin is safe enough from external threats.

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    17. Just to recap in general sometimes paraphrastic terms

      DNW: So Mexico is a sociopolitical s#ithole which leads Mexicans flee to the United States by hook or by crook.

      But this is supposedly a good thing for Americans because Mexicans will bring the values of the "true west" which they enjoyed back home with them to a benighted Enlightenment values polity?

      But, wait ... they are fleeing a supposedly wonderful "true west" polity, are they not?

      MC: Well, yeah but that is because outside forces foisted enlightenment values on Mexico. So it is not their fault.

      DNW: But Mexicans run Mexico.

      MC: But it's not their fault.

      DNW: Ok, so they are fleeing from either a true west, or enlightenment values s#ithole in Mexico [it depends], for an Enlightenment rule of law polity to the north.

      And by bringing their law breaking anti-Enlightenment values with them, to the place they are fleeing to for a better life than they had in their "true west" s#ithole, they will make the refuge even better by destroying the Enlightenment institutions which produced the system to which they are now fleeing ...right?

      MC: So right!

      DNW: Well exactly what govening principles of the Enlightenment polity to which you have fled for opportunity and security, do you wish to destroy again? As I asked before;

      "Which specifically "Enlightenment" values would those values be?

      Constitutionalism? The principle of the rule of law? Private property? Self-government? The constitutional separation of federal [or governing] authority, functions, and powers including the Executive, Legislative and Judicial? The reservation of powers not so enumerated to the people or the states of the federation? The rejection of ultra vires pronouncements and orders? Freedom of association, and by implication, disassociation?"


      MC: "The Enlightenment is defined by values that separate it from the Christian West that preceded it. Therefor, the answer to your question is - all of them."

      DNW: Well, OK. You wish to destroy all those limitations on governing power with respect to procedure or interactions with the individual, which I listed.

      Thank you for your honesty, even if it was driven by an overweening self-assertion and vainglory. You have cleared away any ambiguity or moral fog.

      Looks like we are in for an eventual, probably "two front", war. And I don't mean war figuratively.

      I guess no one gets to live unmolested by the troublesome for long. If you build it and it is any good, they will come for a piece of it: Invited or not.

      So be it.

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    18. Yes it's hard to relive history with a twist. Texas and California were seized by the US after the mass illegal migration of US citizens seeking a better life in Mexico's rich borderlands. Now it's the other way round. It's probably the only way to overturn Enlightenment values. Those who have been saturated in Enlightenment values after two centuries of US existence are not ever likely to ditch the worldview. I'm not suggesting the non-Hispanic residents of the US borderlands turn into "Mexicans"; they just need to see a template for an alternative to the Enlightenment. As out discussion shows, they'll probably never agree one otherwise. Let history sort it out.

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    19. Violence will probably will have to sort it out.

      ^Yes it's hard to relive history with a twist. Texas and California were seized by the US after the mass illegal migration of US citizens seeking a better life in Mexico's rich borderlands."

      Good lord you are full of it.

      "Mexico" supposedly controlled these "rich border lands" which they could neither populate nor defend and for how long?

      Refresh your memory here pal. It was Spain, not "Mexico" that gave Moses Austin a grant to settle there in the part of New Spain called Texas in 1820. Not "Mexico".

      Look at the map. Maybe that will help you get you mind straight.
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Spain#/media/File%3AMapa_del_Virreinato_de_la_Nueva_Espa%C3%B1a_(1819).svg

      "Mexico" did not extend to Texas at the time Austin received his grant. Mexico is the green part, see?

      Texas is Provincias Internas de Oriente, not effen Mexico.

      Austin's son however did get the grant confirmed by the so-called empire of Mexico 5 years later.

      Then the dictator came along and the people of Texas both Anglo and Tejano soon had enough of the pretentions of the clown "empire" to the south and the dictator and put an end to the pretentions of both.

      Gotta say one thing though, you sure do have a knack for making the choice to go to war seem easy. LOL

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    20. Texas and California were seized by the US after the mass illegal migration of US citizens seeking a better life in Mexico's rich borderlands.

      Hehehehe, you have a funny way of remembering history. What about the Spanish illegally immigrating into Mexico in the 1500s?

      The notion that the territory that eventually became Texas was "Mexican", or slightly more properly in 1819, "Spanish", was itself partly a fabrication, kind of along the same lines as the fabrication of King Charles giving a land grant to Lord Fairfax of 50,000 acres in Virginia: it wasn't Charles's to begin with, and it wasn't British except in the imagination of a group of deluded nobles and speculators 3000 miles away.

      There were only something like 3000 people in eastern Texas when Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. And the Texas-approaching "borders" of the land already "owned" by the US from the 1803 Louisiana Purchase were not distinctly known yet either. (Indeed, the true reality of the US "owning" the Louisiana Territory also was more than a little of a paper fiction, especially its western edges. A fiction that the US would eventually back up with settlers and then force.)

      Spain had no formal general "immigration rules" in 1820 for the province of Tejas. But (as DNW mentions) Spain had given a grant for Austin to bring in settlers, which later Mexico confirmed. In 1824, Mexico explicitly invited immigration into the area. It was only in 1830 that they made a law restricting more immigration. After that, you might have a point about "illegal" migration.

      Since you seem to have no problem with the Spanish "seizing" Mexico and Texas and Baja California and Alta California from the natives, you should have no problem with the US seizing them from the Mexicans with the same methods.

      As to the Spanish management of the societies in their span of control: while there was some variation, it is not completely without justification that many of the native tribes now repudiate what the Spanish did: in much of South America there was widespread theft of wealth and (various forms of) hard or soft enslavement of the natives. In California there was something akin to slavery in some places. (Not all claims today are valid claims that the practices really amounted to some form of slavery, but some are, as there was considerable differences between the many regions.)

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  24. I am disappointed, Mr Feser, that you did not mention American Solidarity Party whose program both opposes abortion, euthanasia, pornography etc but also takes inspiration from Catholic social teaching on economy. While it's not present all over the country, the existence of such party should be promoted as much as possible among conservatives. Unless you have some reservations about that organization, which I will gladly learn about, I think there's no argument that Catholics in the states where their candidate is on the ballot should vote for them.

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    1. They also oppose the death penalty. What do think Feser thinks about that?

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  25. Zippy (RIP) as usually was and remains right about voting. Nobody will see it until it’s way too late.

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    1. Zippy was disastrously wrong about voting and he now knows better.

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  26. Problem is centralization. We treat the executive as an elected monarch. If they weren't imperial presidents this isn't an issue as they cannot write laws or dictate for an entire land mass, in this case the union which most falsely believe these united States is a single entity or one nation or one country. That is a myth. It's a federal republic made up of 50 soveriegn nation-states. State is another word for country. If catholics could embrace this truth maybe we can make good changes as the focus should be at the state level and not at the federal level.

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    1. You misunderstand what the US is constitutionally: it is a meshed reality composed of 50 polities which have sovereign reality to some extent, and which also share partial sovereignty with a federal union whose stated Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It is a constituency of shared sovereignty that isn't merely an alliance of 50 states and isn't merely a single national state.

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  27. Wow! Looks like Trump Derangement Syndrome has spread even to "conservatives" now 🤣🤣🤣

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  28. There's actually time to do something proactive this election.

    Pro-lifers in the key swing states need to collect enough pledged votes to cost Trump the election in their State, and then declare unless Trump and the GOP change the platform, the votes go elsewhere. Would only take a fraction of the pro-life votes. GA was lost by 11K in 2020. It is the Art of the Deal.

    The problem with prolife groups is that they are a collected group of "battered women" who insist on taking a beating every cycle and then coming back for more the next election. They make excuses for the GOP and insists the GOP really loves them when it is clear it does not.

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  29. Only disagreement I have is with the implication that not voting is basically the same as voting third party or write in.

    I don't think it is. It seems to me that voting third party or write in is significantly more effective at conveying your message to the major parties. If you are passionate about particular issues that you are willing to positively vote for them against the main candidates, you can be a reliable vote for them if they changed their policies to be more in line with your views. Not voting at all does not give them the same message. They don't know why you didn't vote and therefore can't make a confident decision to court you next cycle.

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    1. Only disagreement I have is with the implication that not voting is basically the same as voting third party or write in.

      I don't think it is.


      I agree completely. Not voting leaves the public and the candidates without any information about whether you didn't vote out of apathy or out of careful consideration or what, whether your preferences lean in any specific direction, etc. If you can't vote for one of the two major parties, but you can vote for one of the small parties, you should vote.

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  30. Thanks for this, it's fantastic. My 2 cents, a Christian cannot vote for a pro-abortion / same-sex marriage candidate. You perfectly articulated the primary nature of these issues, and the fact that Trump is not neutral, he would actually do harm. American Christians are being sifted.

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  31. I mean, this is exactly what the Never Trumpers warned you would happen. They said Trump wasn't actually committed to social conservatism, that his record was clearly against him, and that he would say anything that he needed to get himself elected because all he cared about what power for its own sake. Now the inveitable betrayal has come, and the conservatives who sold their souls to the Orange God are acting shocked that he would cast them aside when he no longer needed their votes. Of course, no lessons will be learned. Social conservatives and Catholic integralists will line up behind the next pseudo-conservative populist despot that comes along, and then it'll be surprised Pikachu all over again.

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    1. Is your implication that we ought to have preferred the world where Trump was never elected in the first place, Hillary got two SCOTUS picks, and Dobbs never happens, but at least the Republican Party platform still explicitly says it's pro life?

      Weird flex, but ok.

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    2. I think the implication is that Republicans should have nominated John Kasich in 2016.

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    3. The Great Thurible of Darkness is correct. Eight years ago I was screaming at social conservatives that "if you really want to end gay marriage, and abortion, and you want to end illegal immigration...Trump either won't do those things for you, or he will do one or two of them accidentally. Trump is in it for one thing: to get attention. More accurately, he thinks he's God, and therefore will do whatever causes people to clap for and worship him. If saying "I'll bring back abortion" gets him applause, he'll say that. If saying "I'll ban abortion nationwide" gets him applause, he'll say that. And his "position" on these things change from moment to moment, based on what he thinks will make him "look good" in that moment, contradictions be damned. Why do you think he just recently said "Christians, vote for me this one time and you'll never have to vote again?" Because he doesn't care what happens to conservatism, he only cares what happens to himself.

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    4. @Anonymous

      A piece of undercooked brocoli could have beaten Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election; this nonsense about Trump being the only one who can stop the Democrats or whatever is exactly that: nonsense. More importantly, there was a time when social conservatives prided themselves for their unwillingness to compromise when it came to the personal integrity of a candidate. Ever since Trump took over the Republican Party, however, it seems more like so-called conservatives would vote for literally anyone they thought would be their big bully to fight the culture war against the Left, and that's not even a remotely conservative position (and certainly not a Christian one). But, I can see you're already sold on the idea that in the craven pursuit of political power needed to win culture war battles, the end justifies the means. So, enjoy your means. I'm sure God will think "b-but Hillary was gonna win" is a great argument at the Final Judgment.

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    5. Hold a minute. NeverTrumpers made a much stronger claim in 2016 than "Trump should not be the nominee" they went on to make the subsequent claim that Trump should be opposed in the general election as well.

      Nobody in this thread made a claim approximating "Trump was the only one in 2016 who could stop the democrats or whatever."

      Fear not, you have vanquished your straw man. He won't be back up to hurt you any more.

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    6. Okay, yes, they also should have opposed him in the general election, because he was self-evidently unfit for office, as basically everyone recognized at the time. Except, because Americans have the memories of goldfish, they've forgetten that they claimed to be "holding their noses" just to block Hillary from winning and have embraced Trump as a positive good. What's the good of winning one election if the compromises you make destroy the moral fabric of the party in the long term? That's exactly what the Never Trumpers wanred would happen, and it's exactly what happened. Just how much are you willing to sacrifice on the altar of winning the culture wars? Because Trump asks much and he always wants more. If you can't see that, then you deserve him.

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  32. I don’t buy his premises. Trump wanted to cut platform from 69 to 25 pages. And take abortion off table.
    Who would have thought he would be the most prolife president ever after 2016 election? Not perfect but Prolife.
    He had many Catholics around him then as he does now.
    Besides Trump will just slow down the storm brewing.
    All in God’s hands. No need for all this hand wringing.

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  33. ".. most falsely believe these united States is a single entity or one nation or one country. That is a myth. It's a federal republic made up of 50 soveriegn nation-states. State is another word for country. If catholics could embrace this truth maybe we can make good changes as the focus should be at the state level and not at the federal level."

    Either they cannot grasp it or they have something in their heredity that simply cannot adapt to federalism, and craves the collectivity. And that, I don't want to believe.

    I am doing my best not to label Catholics both liberal and conservative as a bunch of peasants [ or worse, masochists] unfitted by nature for the tasks of self-government, but the more I read, the more it looks like it.

    So I encourage them to look around. We have states with some remaining political sovereignty if not the dual federalism we once enjoyed. We still have a 10th Amendment. We also have political parties; and one of them, though flawed and compromised as are all human institutions, is concerned with preserving our economic liberties and constitutional rights. We maintain those, and you can do something about unborn babies. We fail at that, and you won't be able to protect your own kids in your own house.

    You want to ban abortion? Good! The ball is presently in your home state court. Talk to your neighbors. Go to the gay false priest/presider in your parrish, or the lesbian nuns, the officious chancery ladies who couldn't get jobs with the DMV, or the simpering pursed lipped bishop and see what they are up for.

    Here's the thing, you lost - or we lost - on the abortion issue before any of us were of an age to vote, if not yet to be born ourselves. You have Trump, pure and simple for what constitutional correction we do have. And eff you David French

    Now, there are those who cannot rest easy in maintaining their own liberty or security knowing that an injustice is being perpetrated anywhere. Well, when it comes to preaching the Gospel, there is a civil institution which is supposedly designed to do just that. Go among all nations, or at least all 50 states, and see how you are received. But you already know how that will turn out.

    You would think though, that those ordained and even compensated somewhat to do so would. But even they, won't. They are too busy warbling gay Jesuit hymns and holding hands.

    God have mercy ....

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  34. It strikes me as a far less important priority to punish the GOP platform, than to prevent the further destruction of our entire way of life, grave possibility of WW3, etc. Trump did more for the pro life cause during his last term than any nominally pro life president has done, ever. His actions should count for something.

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    1. This is my take on it as well. We don't have the luxury of spiting the Republicans when the existence of the Republic, and global war are on the table.

      The Republicans have always been dismissive of good conservatives. This is nothing new. What they aren't doing is rushing the country into economic collapse, and the world into chaos, and a good chance of nuclear war. Or at least they are doing economic damage to a lesser degree.

      Pro-life issues being paramount won't make much difference if an emboldened Russia and China team up with Iran and decide to become _really_ aggressive.

      Pro-life issues being paramount won't make much difference if the U.S. is rushing towards social breakdown and massive violent unrest. When you're holed up in your basement, hoping the ammo and food don't run out, the GOPs support of IVF doesn't have much direct effect on your life, or of anyone else's.

      Unborn lives are as important as born lives.

      But the converse is also true. Born lives are as important as unborn lives.

      The U.S., as flawed and corrupt as it is, is still the world's best chance to avoid another Dark Ages. To risk its existence to spite Trump's ego is pure folly.

      We have a first-past-the-post voting system means that voting for a third party candidate is a de facto vote for whichever of the big two you would least prefer. In terms of game theory, a vote for the ASP is a vote for Harris. Full stop.

      If you're willing to put literal communists in charge of the U.S. and hasten the demise of the greatest country in the world just to make a point, well, you're not going to get any brownie points from the millions of people who have to pay the price of that decision.

      We have to use the tools we have, and right now all we have is Trump. But if Trump wins, the field is wide open for 2028. If he loses, we'll be starting from that much more behind where we are now, and in no way will the actual eradication of abortion be further along that it is today.

      If the GOP thinks it's necessary to eject abortion and traditional marriage in 2024, how much more will it be willing to eject after another 4 years of radical, destructive polices, quite possibility with a massive world war going on?

      This blog post was very thoughtful and contains a lot of truth, but I think it's working on a level that is way too academic for the situation we find ourselves in.

      We've had a President for almost 4 years who is nominally Catholic, and who benefits from being ostensibly on good standing - he basically brags about it - while being radically pro-abortion, pro-perversion and pro-a-lot-of-other morally reprehensible things. If the bishops of the U.S. don't want to risk all that sweet NGO money, or being seen as political enough to risk the Church's tax status to boldly proclaim that Biden is operating in radical opposition to some of the Church's most important teachings, including possibly excommunication... why should we lay people risk our literal well-being and possibly our lives to send a symbolic and almost certainly toothless message to the GOP?

      Delete
  35. quick question: since the total number of abortions has increased after Roe was taken down, do you think that Catholics are more interested in having laws banning abortion or see the actual number of abortions decrease? because the two does not seem to coincide.

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    1. Even granting that the correlation represents causation, and even further granting that this represents a long term trend that will continue indefinitely, this question is premised on what I like to call “super villain logic.”

      When the Green Goblin tells Spider-Man that he has to choose between saving MJ and saving a bus full of school kids, Spider-Man is manifestly not morally responsible for the deaths of the group he does not choose, the Green Goblin is.

      In the same way, if I’m a pro life voter and I want to say “I don’t want to live in the kind of state/country where murdering children is legal” and because of that, purely out of spite for me, other people exercise their free will to murder more children, I do not agree that those deaths are on me.

      Delete
    2. perfect answer: Catholics don't give a rat's ass about decreasing the actual number of abortions. Not that I had any doubts!

      Delete
    3. since the total number of abortions has increased after Roe was taken down,

      I haven't seen data that supports that. But even more, I haven't seen any even remotely cogent rationale that puts the cause of an increase in abortions as a Supreme Court determination that Roe was improperly decided. Every abortion that was legal in the last 2 years was legal before Dobbs.

      Delete
    4. Even if more abortions are happening post-Roe, it was a step that was needed if we are to make any progress towards eliminating legal abortion. It was a badly-decided case, based on the 'emanations of penumbras" from Griswold, or as I always described it "Harry Blackmun pulled it out of his butt", since the so-called right to privacy was only ever used to defend abortion, but never used to defend actual privacy itself.

      Overturning Roe is consistent with the Constitution, as is returning the issue to the states. The next battle is at the state level, and a lot of states are doing a good job on this front. Remember, it took half a century to fix Roe. Like many issues in the Church itself, changing the culture is not something that can be done overnight, and may take decades or generations. That doesn't mean we give up, or are compromising, when we take two steps forward and one back.

      While the blog post makes some compelling arguments that Trump is problematic on a front that's important to conservatives, and more importantly, Catholics, anything we do towards that -- at this point in time! -- will just work towards Harris winning, and if that happens, _everything_ gets worse... including having more judges that will blatantly ignore the Constitution, precedent, and anything else to pursue their leftist agenda.

      The time to fight the pro-life battle inside the Republican party is at the primaries. When facing the Democrats, who I now literally believe are an existential threat to the country, we can't let "good" be the enemy of "perfect", or even "problematic" be the enemy of "saving the Republic".

      It can reasonably be argued that Democrats (along with the neo-con wing of the Republicans) are the Party of War, and in fact, it can be argued that they always were. Things in the world are bad... 1930's bad... I seriously believe that we are not compromising our Catholic ideals to vote for Trump in 2024. We are fighting to preserve the Republic that is the only bulwark (along with the Church, something I should have mentioned in my comment above!) against a new Dark Ages.

      Once Trump is in office, and we've backed away from the cliff, we can redouble our efforts to sway the Republican party back towards more consistency with Catholic teaching.

      Delete
    5. "Once Trump is in office, and we've backed away from the cliff, we can redouble our efforts to sway the Republican party back towards more consistency with Catholic teaching."

      That's the whole problem. The GOP and the US conservative movement is at is core at odds with Catholic teaching. Its core philosophy comes from secular libertarianism/neoliberalism, and its built around protecting the financial interests of wealthy business-owners. Its completely at odds with the both the intellectual tradition of the Church and the sociological fact that most Catholics aren't trust-fund babies and hence don't tend to benefit much from Republicans winning elections and putting libertarian policies into practice. Ayn Rand fanboys who inherited their dad's car dealership fortune aren't going to care about being "consistent with Catholic teaching", even if they go to mass on Sunday and got their MBA at Notre Dame.

      Delete
    6. @Rick Gutleber

      Harris winning, and if that happens, _everything_ gets worse... including having more judges that will blatantly ignore the Constitution, precedent, and anything else to pursue their leftist agenda.

      It will be the most righteous, grounded, and sincere supreme court since the great pyramids. Full of Ubuntu.

      Delete
    7. "Its completely at odds with for what it s the both the intellectual tradition of the Church and the sociological fact that most Catholics aren't trust-fund babies and hence don't tend to benefit much from Republicans winning elections and putting libertarian policies into practice. Ayn Rand fanboys who inherited their dad's car dealership fortune... "

      Interesting comment both for what it says, and doesn't say.

      Grant that the axe the commenter is grinding is directed at Republicans and that that is his focus. Still, the mention of trust fund babies probably brings to mind one or more prominent left leaning spewers of Catholic social justice bullshit: families who are very wealthy Democrats.

      These Democrat trust fund babies can afford to have playtime occupations at the various "public interest" foundations and NGOs, and never be in danger of missing a mortgage or business loan payment.

      They have other peoples' money to play with and dispense, unlike the Republican inheritors of Dad's car dealership who employ dozens and can lose it all, including the big house and Florida condo if they are not careful and there at the dealership almost as much as Dad was.

      As far as libertarian tinged policies benefiting average Americans? Well, there are many small businesses other than auto dealerships, and a legal system that makes starting and running a business less onerous than it is in social justice bondage prisons so beloved of those lacking drive, desire, or talent or the vision to succeed, will allow the ambitious citizen to develop his entreprenurial skills.

      One other point in the form of a question for those who need the situation put more starkly.

      Do you have the "right" to be a "worker"? Not meaning, do you have the right to work, i.e., use your natural powers to manipulate material reality; but rather do you have the right to expect someone else to visualize and build an economic engine in order to provide you with a time occupying and remunerative ride?

      Do you have the right to demand someone else plan and risk and create so you don't have to, and can walk into a prearranged niche that suits your inclinations?

      I don't give Frankfurt School Marxist garbage much credit, but the one who recognized the potential tyranny of the entitled moron [even for a socialist society], was on to something in that instance.

      One more point. It is true that contract societies [ whatever verbiage or tint one uses to describe them] are largely fictive. They are mainly hypothetical descriptions of sociopolitical formations the origins of which are lost in the fog of time.

      Except this one. And it is why we are still free to whatever extent we are, and the peasants in Europe and those whose collective minded ancestors who somehow managed to cross our borders successfully, are still and always crawling up each others' asses.

      And that is no way fit to live.

      Delete
  36. It would help if commenters would pick an ID. No one wants your name and address. Pick any consistent identifier. If you have 5 minutes to leave a comment, you have 5 seconds to do that

    Anonymous August 11, 2024 at 5:54 PM
    Good post

    Anonymous August 11, 2024 at 4:49 PM
    Good post

    Tony August 11, 2024 at 4:21 PM
    Good post

    Anonymous August 11, 2024 at 4:13 PM
    Good post


    Anonymous August 11, 2024 at 5:29 PM
    Very good post

    Anonymous August 10, 2024 at 9:39 PM
    Good post


    ReplyDelete
  37. "Meanwhile, socially conservative voters in swing states could, by the criteria set out by Ratzinger and Burke, justify voting for Trump as the less bad of two bad candidates. But a condition on their doing so is that they must neither approve of nor keep silent about Trump’s betrayal of the unborn and of social conservatives. They must make their disapproval publicly known in whatever way they are able, so as to avoid scandal and pressure the GOP to reverse the socially liberal course Trump is putting it on."

    First of, you mean "socially conservative Catholic voters."
    Secondly, voting is always electing between morally flawed candidates, this is not a unique feature of this Presidential election.
    Third, since we are talking about a Presidential election there are but two viable candidates, Ron DeSantis is not one of them, sadly.
    If you want to persuade you should start with the only morally permissible conclusion, if the choice is between Trump and Harris the only permissible action is either voting for Trump, or ―if, and only if― your abstention has no chance to cause the election of Harris, to abstain.

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    1. >voting is always electing between morally flawed candidates, this is not a unique feature of this Presidential election.

      What IS unique to this election, however, is that the choice is not between morally flawed candidates, but between a morally flawed candidate and a candidate who tried to end the American republic. For the first time in American history, a president tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power and stay in office despite losing the election. Elections, and most importantly, accepting the results of elections, are the entire basis of our great country. Donald Trump, a malignant narcissist, does not believe that he ever loses anything. And so when reality inevitably slaps him in the face, he invents a delusion to maintain his view that he is God: when his show lost the Emmys, it's because they were "rigged." When he lost the Iowa caucus to Ted Cruz in 2016, it's because it was "rigged." When he lost the popular vote in 2016, "rigged."

      Donald Trump is a grave threat to the very existence of the United States of America. If our leaders can just declare "rigged!" whenever they lose elections, and then illegally enter or stay in office, then the people no longer select our leaders and the country is over. I consider Trump to be an enemy of the United States, and anyone who still supports him is, in my view, an enemy as well.

      Delete
    2. Your take leaves me almost speechless. I cannot believe you actually are sincere as anybody notices that the current sitting President is not Trump. Hence he must have left office, wouldn't you agree?

      Delete
    3. @Felix, Snowball will always be the enemy of the Animal Farm

      Delete
    4. > If our leaders can just declare "rigged!" whenever they lose elections

      You mean like the Democrats have done in every election they lost since at least as far back as 2000?

      Delete
  38. Meanwhile one now well known social conservative, namely J D Vance has endorsed the unspeakably vile book featured in this essay.
    www.thenerdreich.com/unhumans-jd-vance-and-the-language-of-genocide

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    Replies
    1. "A Nony MouseAugust 12, 2024 at 2:43 AM
      Meanwhile one now well known social conservative, namely J D Vance has endorsed the unspeakably vile book featured in this essay.
      www.thenerdreich.com/unhumans-jd-vance-and-the-language-of-genocide
      "

      I guess you don't like the idea of "exact reciprocity" very much.

      Possibly you don't like it much on some Catholic principles which view all societies as natural and all men as fungible and born to be used.

      But that is not the predicate upon which this polity was formed. And as Lon Fuller pointed out, reciprocity is in fact a core principle without which no theory of natural law can be sustained.

      Now, I have not read that "vile" and apparently deliberately procative book, just the review to which you linked.

      But I think it is undeniable that the progressives have themselves adopted a non teleological and nominalist conditioned "anthropology".

      It is one which makes it difficult to see just what exact category of moral beings the progs are referring to when they rhetorize in presumptive terms of mutual interest, and pimp "solidarity", as if there were a defineable class the members of which had universally shared essential moral characteristics which IMPLIED duties of recognition and forbearance.

      And we all know, or at least those who have studied the issue in depth and detail, that Marxists and Leninists, and even Scandinavian socialists by and large, do not accept, and in fact reject a traditional essentialist anthropology positing an actual morally shared human nature.

      What had been taxonomically categorized as a morally identifiable human kind possessing universal characteristics implying intrinsic rights, has been explicitly rejected by them.

      " ... with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

      Yeah, so if you ignore the emotive and solidarity pimping rhetoric of the "organisms" [Rorty approvingly quoting Dewey] of the left, and just focus on the redounding implications of their own logic, then no, it does not look very good for them.

      No, not at all. But it does look just.

      Delete
    2. Replying to my own comment here. A few typos which I thought were corrected but were not, are in the comment posted. Which is more typical than not.
      Suggestion for those who as I do, type live, have autocorrect disabled, and use a hand held device: "select all" and copy about 70% through.
      Because you can lose it all @ 99% of the way through.
      Best to have it saved on the fly than nothing. Even if you let typos through.

      Delete
  39. "It is that his victory would likely do positive harm, indeed grave and lasting damage, to the pro-life cause and to social conservatism in general."

    It is not common for me to disagree with Dr. Feser, but here I have to say that it seems to me that the election of Kamala Harris would do harm that is more lasting and significant not merely to social conservativism but to our society as a whole than a candidate like Trump being "rewarded" (I wouldn't characterize it that way, but for the sake of argument...) for changing the platform to reflect his own unprincipled position which is both closest to the principled position of defending life and closer to the majority of Americans than the position of Kamala Harris.

    Regarding social conservatism: this can be understood as a movement or as a set of principles. If understood as a set of principles, both candidates violate the princpiples in various ways but one candidate (Kamala Harris) promotes policies whose implementation would include a more comprehensive violation of the right to life, religious freedom, etc.

    If understood as a movement, social conservatism would not in my view become more influential in either the Republican party or in the Country through witholding their vote for Trump. They would become less so. In the Country, the values that social conservatives represent would be further regarded as ancient artifacts with no relevance today. In the Republican party, those like Rubio and others who have supported the candidate and tolerated changes to the platform would regard the witholding of support in the same manner that our kind blog host regards the chances of the platform being changed back. Such folks would regard the witholding of support for Trump as naive and foolhardy and it would lead to further splintering of a movement that is in need of some cohesion to be able to influence our society more broadly. So, through this splintering, the movement would suffer if social conservatives withheld their vote.

    This splintering is reflected in the fact that I, who am a great fan of Dr. Feser and his important work, find his judgement on this matter rash. Moreover, he would consider my judgement "foolhardy". If Rubio were the next Presidential candidate, I believe that he would push to have the platform amended to reflect more consistently the values of social conservatives and I don't think it is a pipe dream to think he could be successful (It is certainly not "delusional"). Social conservatives have no place in the democratic party. However, they do have a place in the Republican party and they can continue to have influence if they don't disengage or offer ultimatums that will both be temporarily unsuccessful and will harm their long term influence with the party and harm our society in both the short and long term through that loss of influence in the only political setting where it has a home.

    That is my assessment of the situation and I regret that the issue has proved so divisive to people who are generally very like minded. The reason that it has done so it that this is, at its heart, a matter of prudence. Which decision causes "great(er) and (more) lasting harm" (both to our society and to social conservatism as a movement)? The answer to this question, framed in precisely this way, seems to me glaring.

    ReplyDelete
  40. On the tolerance of lesser evils, I found the comment of Michele Arpaia helpful:

    "the entire Catholic tradition — from Augustine, who believed that the elimination of prostitution would lead to social imbalances, to Thomas Aquinas, who stated that 'those in authority rightly tolerate certain evils [...] to avoid encountering worse evils,' from Leo XIII, who wrote that 'human law can or even must tolerate evil,' to Pius XII, who asserted that 'what does not conform to truth and moral norms [...] may not be prevented through state laws and coercive measures [...] in the interest of a higher and more widespread good' — has expressed tolerance towards behaviors or laws contrary to Christian morality when condemnation would result in worse situations."

    In a follow up interaction to this comment, Miguel Cervantes wrote:

    "Michele. Your example, " because embedded in their DNA, support all sort of un-Christian values, in addition to little or no possibility to reform their creed" also applies to the Republican Party represented by Trump and Vance."

    The question here has to do with the respective goodwill and sincerity of those within the democratic and republican parties. Although Cervantes is right that the knife cuts both ways, it doesn't follow from this that Republican candidates are AS unopen to reform their position to be more amenable to pro life principles as democrats. They are after all much closer to social conservatives and some of them recognize those principles already (e.g. Rubio). As they are closer to us, why assume that they are "unreformable" with the same level of obstinate opposition to our principles as is found in the democratic party?

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    1. I appreciate that the dynamics of how each party works, and one's own experience of them, can influence one's attitude towards either (I don;t like either, but could never see myself socialising well at a Democrat event at all). However, determining which of them suits the Christian worldview in the long-term effects of government is another matter, I believe.

      Delete
  41. I found Tony's comments on how to assess the prudential decision on this mater helpful.

    Tony wrote @10:28 PM:

    Feser quote: "This would encourage the GOP in the future to maintain Trump’s changes to the party and continue its trajectory in a more socially liberal direction. But suppose instead that Trump won by a very narrow margin, or won but lost many socially conservative voters in the process, or lost because many socially conservative voters defected. That would encourage the GOP to reverse course, and move back in a more socially conservative direction lest it permanently alienate a major part of its traditional voter base."

    "That's one way to read the tea leaves. But it's not the only one. For example, there are elements within the GOP that would argue "good riddance to the pro-life, now we can court a much larger base of 'moderates' that will allow far more wins for the GOP." They wouldn't even be completely wrong, if you ignore just who those "moderates" are.

    The problem is that there are too many OTHER factors to predict with certainty what a Trump loss would imply in terms of changes to the GOP. "

    The imagery of "reading the tea leaves" is particularly apt in light of all of the contingencies involved. The impact of Harris victory on our society is far more predictable than the likelihood of both the development of the slight margin scenario and the broader Republican response to that scenario.

    I also found the article by Rusty Reno on this a model of in how to consider this prudential judgement. See:

    https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/07/the-republican-party-sidelines-the-pro-life-cause

    ReplyDelete
  42. Neither candidate is morally worthy of the office being sought. The only morally acceptable option for Catholics (as well as other Christians and persons of good will and common sense) is to abstain or vote for another candidate (declared or undeclared). Imagine the message it would send if the Electoral College winner managed only a half or less of the popular vote received by the winner in prior elections (leaving aside the inflated 2020 vote totals). Voting for Trump, under any circumstance, is a ratification of his corrupt morals (personal, financial, and political), as well as his barely concealed contempt for the religious voters who made his 2016 election possible.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Tony's comment on August 10th at 10:28 PM:

    Quote from Feser's post: "This would encourage the GOP in the future to maintain Trump’s changes to the party and continue its trajectory in a more socially liberal direction. But suppose instead that Trump won by a very narrow margin, or won but lost many socially conservative voters in the process, or lost because many socially conservative voters defected. That would encourage the GOP to reverse course, and move back in a more socially conservative direction lest it permanently alienate a major part of its traditional voter base."

    Tony's response: "That's one way to read the tea leaves. But it's not the only one. For example, there are elements within the GOP that would argue "good riddance to the pro-life, now we can court a much larger base of 'moderates' that will allow far more wins for the GOP." They wouldn't even be completely wrong, if you ignore just who those "moderates" are.

    The problem is that there are too many OTHER factors to predict with certainty what a Trump loss would imply in terms of changes to the GOP. "

    The imagery of "reading the tea leaves" is particularly apt in light of the contingencies involved in determining the development of both a slight margin scenario and the impact of the scenario on the republican party. The impact of a Harris presidency on our society is, however, very predictable as Harris has communicated the policies that will be implemented if she is elected.

    Rusty Reno's article at First Things is a model in how to weigh the prudential matters involved in these decisions:

    https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/07/the-republican-party-sidelines-the-pro-life-cause

    ReplyDelete
  44. It occrs to me that, unlikely as it seems, some commenters might be unaware of how to add an arbitrary comment identifier.

    Now, if you are presented with Anonymous"

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Anybody can add an identifier at the bottom.

      Anymouse

      Delete
  45. Prof. Feser, you essay was very well reasoned except for one consideration that you missed that alters everything. That consideration is the overwhelming evil of the Democrat ticket. The Democrat candidates' positions are intrinsically evil beyond salvage and beyond reasoning and must be directly opposed, not politically outmaneuvered. We are bound by ethics to vote directly against them and for the lesser evil that has a chance to win.

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    1. Did you actually read to the end?

      Prof. Feaer’s actual recommendation seems to account for this.

      Delete
  46. People who love abortion will come out to vote for Harris and if she gets elected it will be worse for Pro-life and Pro-lifers.

    If we stay home we can vote for the lesser evil and in that favorable environment promote more Prolife without oppression from the Government.

    So I think the only choice is Trump.

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  47. So, we have no viable candidate for president. Nor do we have any prospect for one, because a protest vote isn't going to change the platform for the next election, even if we have one.
    So, the only honorable course is to stop paying taxes and go to jail, I guess. It's what a Catholic Worker would do, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  48. Thank you for the post and the replies. As a Protestant, this is a very helpful education as to how thoughtful Roman Catholics are thinking about the presidential election. What struck me is (1) the emphasis on laws regulating abortion and other family issues as the primary issues for a Christian to consider. That is not obvious to me as a reader of the Bible. Values such as compassion for the poor and disabled and outsider, and a restraint with regard to violence, fairness and even handedness, and a lack of personal enrichment are emphasized as desirable characteristics for kings in the Old Testament and then reinforced by Jesus. (2) Second, I noticed the emphasis from these Roman Catholic intellectuals on the importance of federal and state laws and legislation restraining human sin. As a Protestant, I think it is more important to be an example as an individual and as a congregation of the way God wants us to live. I think it is good to have laws that constrain evil and encourage the moral good but overly specific laws tend to feel coercive and lead to backlash against Christianity because people mistakenly get the idea that Christianity is coercive.I think that is one reason some Christians are personally against some practices but don't think there should be laws against them. The whole discussion here has reminded me to continue trying to teach people about the breadth of the Bible and to living in such a way that outsiders note the beauty and health and goodness of the way of Jesus. (I think Roman Catholics often are those examples).

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    1. Laws are a part of the Bible that have been regretfully DE-emphasized by Protestants. The 10 commandments were the most fundamental component of the law code of the Pentateuch. After asking what he must do to inherit in eternal life, the rich young ruler was told by Jesus to keep the commandments. When asked which ones, Jesus listed several of the 10 commandments. These are both a part of the Chrsitian way of life and necessary for eternal life. This is the reason it says in Hebrews that Christ is the source of eternal salvation for those who obey him. It is regretful that Luther's unbiblical law/Gospel dichotomy came to have such and influence on Protestantism when law is such a integral part of the Bible (as another example, the entire prophetic tradition involved a critique of Israel for breaking God's law). It is also regretful that this has caused such confusion among Protestants about the role of law in moral development and the necessity of law to prevent evil in a society and to promote the common good.

      Delete
    2. Values such as compassion for the poor and disabled and outsider, and a restraint with regard to violence, fairness and even handedness, and a lack of personal enrichment are emphasized as desirable characteristics for kings in the Old Testament and then reinforced by Jesus.

      Among other things, law is a teacher. One of the reasons most of the values you cite are found somewhat widespread in our society is because our society was Christian for 1500 years and embedded those values into laws that supported them. Not to mention that "fairness" and just laws are simply 2 sides of the same coin.

      Delete
    3. Feser's opinion is normal for conservative Catholics, but its not definitive the "Catholic" take on the election. If you were reading liberal Catholic publications like Commonweal or National Catholic Reporter they would say that abortion should be weighed against other issues, like the duty to the poor, they would interpret the CDF documents from Cardinal Ratzinger differently, and they would outright ignore anything Cardinal Burke has to say on the topic. Its also worth noting that Ed is an immigration restrictionist and criticizes Harris for her immigration policies in his post. Most Catholic authorities, even including conservative bishops, are generally pro-immigration and would view immigration policy as a major knock against Trump.

      Delete
    4. I agree with almost everything that Anonymous said at 8:28, except that in several places he should have added " " marks around Catholic. There are a big bunch of "Catholics" who are pro-immigration in the specific sense that the liberals have been touting for decades, i.e. not enforcing the rules, getting rid of rules, and even getting rid of borders as a concept. A number of them are in bishops' seats. But it is pretty well understood that there are a number of heretics in bishops' seats, too. So, that there are people who call themselves "Catholic" but who spout error all day long doesn't mean that their errors are Catholic teaching.

      Feser and most conservatives are also pro-immigration. We insist that it happen in an orderly manner, according to the rules established to ensure the common good. Those rules entail plenty of immigration will occur. I have helped immigrants here under real asylum - they would have been killed by the new government of their old country. There are very good reasons to enforce the laws, both because that upholds the very principle of "rule of law" itself, and because those laws embody sensible protections and needed regulation of immigration. The "duty to the poor" doesn't include undermining the social framework under which wholesome wealth was created and sustained. It sure doesn't include turning a blind eye to rape, trafficking women for the sex trade, and selling immigrants into slavery - which has been happening because of the Dems' desire to flout the rules.

      Delete
  49. There are about 50k people spread out between six states that will decide the election. For them, it’s a difficult decision to make, but for the rest of us it’s easy to do as you describe and use a write-in or third-party vote to voice dissatisfaction. That’s what I’ll be doing. The one thing that would make it difficult for me if my vote mattered, is if Harris wins, she will likely go about dismantling the conservative majority in the supreme court with term limits. After that, it would an unlimited constitutional right to abortion for any reason up to the third trimester.

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  50. Although I had read Feser's previous posts on this topic in their entirety, I did not read the final paragraphs of this post until after I commented above. A combination of caring about this issue, time constraints, and a smidge (more?) of foolhardiness contributed to that mistake.

    As reflected in the final paragraphs of this post, Feser recognizes the obvious point that a Harris victory would be far worse for our society. However, a point needs to be made to the Republicans without handing a victory to Harris. Very good. I agree with this although I don’t find it likely that Feser’s practical suggestions could be widely communicated and effectively implemented in such a way to get the results just right and to have those results interpreted in exactly the way that he would like. I think that instead this approach, if widely communicated, would cause confusion and embolden those that who are completely opposed to the pro-life movement. Instead, I think that remaining active in the party and communicating directly to party leadership is an effective way to accomplish this goal. Better yet, Catholics and other principled folks could take active roles in party leadership and try to influence the direction through their involvement.

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    1. It seems that there is some degree of people talking past each other, at least in this comments section.

      It doesn’t sound to me like what you’re suggesting and what Feser is suggesting is actually in any way really opposed, and in fact they’re actually complementary ideas.

      What we do at the ballot box specifically does not really entail a restriction in what we can and should do outside the ballot box to fight abortion. I suspect that Feser would agree that the things you propose are good and sensible measures.

      It is an important enough issue that we need to consider every tool at our disposal, and (at least in some areas) it seems prudent that voicing displeasure towards the trajectory of the GOP by voting third party is one of those tools. Another is being involved locally to influence the party from the inside, as you suggest.

      Delete
  51. Should pastors and bishops refuse public Communion to JD Vance?

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    1. Vance should be excommunicated.

      Delete
    2. If people saying these things want to be taken seriously, they should put forth their supporting argument for these positions, as Prof. Feser does when he makes arguments.

      Merely asserting that a thing ought to happen is not a convincing argument, and it suggests to the audience that the person making it does not actually have a convincing argument for their position, and they know it, otherwise they would put it forward.

      Delete
  52. Don't know how I missed this, previously. You might have too.

    Highly relevant, in a philosophical sense for the grounding of the intellectual situation we face today. That is to say, not mere positivism but something with a deeper and explicitly socially transformative agenda.

    Rorty Contra Truth
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=201M75zSTXg

    [I just added the spade to my ID to see if it would take ...]

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    1. DNW,

      Your link is a "Fascinating Rhythm", but I think it isn't the one you meant to post.

      Delete
    2. "Your link is a "Fascinating Rhythm", but I think it isn't the one you meant to post."

      Hahahaha. You are right!
      The danger of multi tasking on a Tablet.

      This is the Rorty clip: 'Is Knowing the most Distinctively Human Capacity? Richard Rorty (1996)"

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lh97FTidzLM

      I checked it.

      Re. The other.
      As a kid in college, like most, I tired of stale rock, and migrated toward an interest in Jazz in several forms.

      Being particularly interested in guitar, I was already aware of the name Django Reinhardt. [You can see where this is leading]
      About or before that time an aged but spry Stephan Grapelli, was touring with a young Martin Taylor; and for a decade later songbook standards performances of the kind put out by Diana Krall [ "Live in Paris" ] were popular.

      Well, those performers kind of aged out. But weirdly, a new generation of Europeans and New Yorkers began reprising some of that Jazz age and songbook music.

      Not all of it is to my taste. Fascinating Rhythm is certainly not.

      I'll take Coltrane's 1960 Green Dolphin Street performance in Germany over that.

      But Adrien Chevalier has to be one of the most accomplished swing jazz fiddle players since Grappelli.

      In that video which I apparently I bookmarked he is accompanied by Vinnie Raniolo, who was for a long while the "side kick" of Frank Vignola before Frank shattered his arm and began his recovery.

      My guess is that that video might have been recorded during the covid lockdowns or as they let up, as these same musicians were performing in their apartments for fun and practice using live feeds or recorded tracks.

      If you are a guitarist, you may wish to look up the name Joscho Stephan. He is a brilliant "Gypsy Jazz" player who has branched out incredibly.

      He's great on a Telecaster, or a Gibson L5, not just a Maccaferri

      I'd suggest his "Autumn leaves (Mystic improvisation with Joscho Stephan & Biréli Lagréne)" Jazz Club Hannover, if you are curious. It is only very slightly bop.

      Delete
  53. You have forgotten the too neglected reality that trump is also the father of warp speed, declared quack emergency, platformed fauci, and rolled helicopter cash to democrat! Governors to lockdown.

    Also, Dobbs is arguably worse than a nothing burger because in allowing states to choose, it stripped the winds of an alienable from the sails of created equal.

    Which, along with all you say, supports the notion that he is a Democrat planted to make conservatives lock down who would not have under a president who admitted to be a Democrat.

    The argument has been made that trump is a reality actor kayfabe frick to the Democrats frack.

    I make this argument in more detail at Momanddadmatters.substack.com.

    If I am correct and the GOP has been captured by this trojan horse for the Democrats, the right thing to do would be to persuade the massively formed trumpsters to flock to the little green shoot of the American solidarity party.

    ReplyDelete
  54. That should read "Also, Dobbs is arguably worse than a nothing burger because in allowing states to choose, it stripped the winds of inalienable from the sails of created equal." Bears repeating.

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    1. allowing states to choose

      You seem to be operating on the sheer assumption that the determination made by the Supreme Court (at least, the majority) should be described as "allowing", as if it were in their discretion how to align the results, and they simply preferred that the power to choose reside in the states.

      If they did their job properly, that's not their role. They are supposed to discern whether the Constitution did or did not take the power away from the states. They are not supposed to be giving vent to their own preferences on that question, i.e. not supposed to pretend that the Constitution actually says what they wished it said.

      When the Constitution was written, and even when the 14th amendment was passed, we didn't have the science we now have on embryology: the knowledge to say when "ensoulment" took place hadn't advanced all that much beyond the status when St. Thomas thought it occurred in the middle of pregnancy, not at the beginning. We can, NOW, legitimately
      understand that "protection of human life" should be understood to mean protection of an unborn baby's life from conception forward. But that doesn't mean that the laws passed 200 years ago did in fact mean that.

      There is nothing wrong with the possibility that a law made 150 or 250 years ago, holds within it some ambiguity that becomes visible and a critical decision-point on a matter only because of a new change in technology (or other social change). And to determine at that later point that the ambiguity in the law can only be fully solved by making new law, not by simply choosing to read into the old law one possible reading of the ambiguity. For example rules about privacy didn't need to be clear about recording a person's voice, until there were methods of recording a person's voice. Assuming that the prior rules regarding privacy "must" be interpreted along one path of the ambiguity, as if the people who wrote that old law "must" have meant by it one possible way of solving the NEW problem, is not a good way of understanding law.

      We have within our powers, as the people, to add to the Constitution an amendment that clarifies that the unborn are persons with the rights of persons. I wish that the Constitution already meant that, but wishing it so doesn't make it so. I think it is a shameful thing that not only is America not prepared to make such an amendment, probably over 80% would vote against it.

      Delete
    2. We don't need to bicker about ensoulment when we have the words of the Declaration, which says all men are *created* equal and have the inalienable right to life.
      Don't make the same mistake Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens made, to ignore what is plainly before your eyes. The brave union soldiers gave way too many of their lives to show that the declaration is assumed by the Constitution.

      Delete
    3. the Declaration, which says all men are *created* equal

      And yet we needed the 13th amendment. Why was that? The Constitution wasn't a perfect document that (already) answered all questions, right from the start. It needs development, by increments, as our grasp of the good develops.

      Delete
  55. I think it should be borne in mind that Trump's views on abortion are pretty much the same as Billy Graham's. If social conservatives turn against him they could simply become irrelevant to the future of the Republican Party and American politics.

    Frankly I think there is so much at stake here, including potentially the literal end of the world if NATO succeeds in bringing about World War Three, that it's irresponsible to undermine the Trump campaign in any way.

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  56. “And if he wins in November, this will confirm this judgment. There will be no incentive to restore the socially conservative elements of the platform”.

    I worry about the inverse, too. When the Left effectively portrays the Republicans as extreme conservatives no matter how much they drift from social conservatism, doesn’t Trump losing just confirm that once again, the platform wasn’t centrist enough to defeat the Democrats? Can any commenters assess this outcome?

    As always, thank you Professor for this food for thought.

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    1. This is also my biggest concern and what I regard as the most likely result of a loss. Whereas a marginal win would not help this cause much; a decisive win would.

      Delete
  57. On reflection, I think I'd like to retract my above comment. Dr. Feser clearly indicates voters who can potentially influence the election should not assist a Democrat victory. And every election seems like the most important ever, and indeed prolife voters have to make a stand somewhere.

    On the other hand, I think it's only fair to say that a candidate like Ron De Santis could only get as far as he did because Trump had already wrested the party from the neocons.

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    1. Although Dr. Feser indicates that voters should not assist Democrats, I don't think his concerns about social conservatives losing influence through voicing opposition to the party's candidate are as strong as yours (or mine). He thinks social conservatives will lose influence through NOT voicing such opposition and even witholding votes. I think that the opposite effect is much more likely.

      While we can push for principled positions to be re-incorportated into the platform, I don't think that we will gain influence through withholding votes. Influence would be more possible in the event that the Republican party became dominant and won decisively as that dominant party would be the political home of those who hold principled positions on abortion. Albeit the home might be considered less "homey" than 6 months ago, but it would not be downright hostile as in the Democratic party. The greatest danger is that the influence of the democratic party increases in our society and that our society becomes increasingly downright hostile. The more decisive the Republican victory, the less chance that this would happen in the near term. Then the work of making the case for the principled position in the public sphere is much easier as that sphere is less controlled by those who are hostile to the lives of unwanted unborn children.

      Delete
  58. The OP has some good comments but leaves out certain factors. Tim Walz is an extremist on abortion, even favoring infanticide for certain neonates. If Harris and Walz win, there will almost certainly be a full scale 2 tiered system of justice in which active pro-lifers are treated by the FBI differently than pro-abortion. This is already partly happening.
    Harris and Walz plan to cheat on the election by having non-citizens vote on a massive scale. If they get away with it, there may never be a fair election in the U.S.A. for a long time and the results will be catastrophic for social conservatives.
    Harris and Walz (and their mainstream media allies) are running a campaign that avoids discussion of issues such as inflation, immigration, foreign policy, and their position on the issues. Trump and Vance discuss those issues a lot. Harris and Walz are the most radical extreme leftist ticket but also the most deceptive.
    There is mention in the OP about the message it sends to Trump if he wins by a large margin. There is no consideration given to what message it sends to the Democrats if they can get away with a radical leftist position, a plan to cheat by having non-citizens vote on an industrial scale, and win by larger margins in noncompetitive states because social conservatives go AWOL. Surely that should at least be mentioned. The OP is considering only one side of the "message sending."

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    1. I thought Trump was being stupid in his many and varied comments on the "rigged" outcome. (He should have fixed more of his attention on a specific strategy that he could actually make stick, for one thing.) But we had seem him bloviate and bombast for 5 long years before Nov. 2020, so seeing him bloviate about that too was not the least bit surprising.

      While there are many angles from which to cast doubts on Trumps claims that the 2020 election was stolen, I am troubled by the fact that (a) since then there are (now) judges finding cases of clear election malfeasance, which suggests to me that it sometimes takes more time (a lot more) to actually develop proof of the fraud than 2 months to Jan. 6; and (b) that there appears to be endemic behaviors that undermine sound and fair elections, some but not all of which would have been found even by unbiased observers at polling and counting places. I personally have witnessed 2 cases of malfeasance, one of which occurred in the voter registration process, and one at the polling place by the officials overseeing the activities there. Both of them happened to favor Democrats. My father was a local party leader, and fought polling place corruption that he claimed was endemic, 50 years ago - usually (but not always) by the Dems. While I have little doubt that there is some ongoing voting misbehavior by GOP people, I cannot locate the kinds of policy-based reasons we would expect it to be common or universal in the GOP, but it is easy to find such reasons in the Democrats: they themselves declare the injustice of "limiting" the vote to citizens who have registered and can present ID - they give "reasons" why it should not be limited to those who are citizens, or those who register, or those who can establish their identity - all of which is profoundly meant to undermine the honesty of the election. This is separate from the obvious (and universal) incentive to cheat for "our side" to win just to get the win, a motivation that will always be there on all sides, and for which rules are necessary to curb the mischief.

      I am also dismayed by the apparently adamant desire by so many Democrats to oppose changes to voting methods that would ensure that votes are counted honestly. (E.G. Blockchain methods, just to pick one).

      I am not "involved" in the efforts made at local levels to make the voting process work the way it is supposed to. If I were, I imagine that I would have first hand evidence of the mischief being endemic, rather than the second-hand anecdotal evidence that runs around. For a candidate who IS involved and runs into the stories and the problems day in and day out, I don't know how ANY of them could reject toying with the claim "I was robbed" unless the vote differential is at least 20%.

      Delete
  59. Some people are hesitant to vote for third parties, knowing they won't win. Historically, however, they have frequently won in the long term when their policies are adopted by one of the major parties.

    This only happens, however, when they get enough votes to make the major parties take notice. That's why I encourage folks to vote for the American Solidarity Party this election (Peter Sonski is their candidate). It's the best strategic move for any pro-life voter not in a swing state. It sends the clearest message, particularly in the current political environment.

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    1. As bad as candidates have been in the two major parties, the little parties have their own problems. Prime among them is the fact that when they list their goals, some of them are ill-considered and conflict with other goals, some of them are idealistic and sound good in theory but in practice would be horrible, and some of them are OK if you angle for them in certain ways but dangerous as hell if you try for them carelessly. And most of the time they don't acknowledge that they have no more money available to achieve their goals than is usually available, and it would take 4 times what is available to fund what they talk about - and we have no clue how they would prioritize. Their "leaders" hardly ever have experience at the top levels of government, which means that they have no clue how to handle the pressures and trade-off demands that are necessities at that level. Learning how the media loudspeaker, congressional demands, lobbyists and murky money, and so on as "on the job training" is not acceptable for a president. Maybe OK for a governor, because he doesn't have national security or the monetary system in his portfolio. Why do these parties have candidates for president, but not for governor or state office they might actually have a shot at? They should aim to prove their competence at lower levels before aiming at the top.

      So, ask yourself this question: is it morally acceptable to vote for a third party presidential candidate - to "send a message" - because you don't think he can win, when (if he could win) you probably would not vote for him, or at least would have a lot more qualms about?

      Delete
    2. Why would it be morally unacceptable? I would appreciate seeing the argument.

      Delete
    3. The act of voting has a meaning that is distinct from the non-vote consequences that you hope it carries, such as a "message sent" to various persons. It's primary nature is in the election / vote meaning itself. Voting for person X for office means, roughly, that I am in favor of this person X holding this office. If you actually want this person X to hold the office, then the "message sent" to others, which primarily includes the very message THAT you want this person X to hold the office, is coordinate with your actual intent. You can intend secondarily to support other messages that reasonably attach to voting for X, such as "I am largely in favor if X's policies" and "I am not in favor of Y's or Z's policies". The vote for X has those other meanings because it's primary meaning is that "I want X to hold the office." It is distortional to intend primarily some other message than the primary meaning in the vote, the meaning "I want person X to hold the office." So, if you would not want this person to hold the office, then voting for him to "send a message" (of some other sort) is basically talking out both sides of your mouth.

      Delete
    4. Thank you for the response, that's very helpful.

      If we consider voting as an act of communication, you are correct in some cases. A vote for one the two major candidates (or a third party candidate like RFK Jr. who is running a serious campaign intending to win) does communicate that you want the person you voted for to hold office.

      But that's not true of third party candidates like Peter Sonski and the ASP. Everyone, including Sonkski, knows that he cannot actually win. Sonksi has talked about this several times in interviews. His purpose for running is to promote his platform, particularly the pro-life and pro-family parts of it. For example, in an interview with the National Catholic Register, he says,

      "If I represent views and values that voters are looking for, my hope is that I can begin a trend toward people accepting those options, embracing those options, voting for those options, and maybe some of those options ultimately being accepted by those candidates that do win if they see that there is movement by the electorate toward third party candidate."

      In other words, he's intentionally and transparently running to communicate to the major parties that people want to vote for pro life candidates. He recognizes that the major parties interpret votes for third parties as votes for the platforms of those parties, especially the parts of the platform most prominently emphasized. That's the context I mentioned above.

      However, if someone is still concerned that they will be misinterpreted they can always communicate directly to the major parties. Something like, I'm voting for the ASP instead of your candidate because of this issue. Or they could even write in something explicit, like "Missing Prolife Candidate," which makes the intention very clear.

      Delete
    5. It's fine to communicate explicitly in this way. That kind of detailed explanation, being concrete in its specificity, will be understood clearly.

      But your name is not attached to the ballot, and the ballot workers, and the party leaders who get the results, and the news reporters, just see a bland, undifferentiated one more vote for Z instead of the two main candidates. THEY cannot discern the specific reason for the vote, they can only discern the inherent nature of the vote for Z. That nature entails that the voter means to say "I prefer that Z take the office". Which is absolutely fine if you do prefer that. It's only a problem, and a miscommunication, if you don't prefer that. And an indication of your actual stance is whether you would re-think your vote if Z had a real chance.

      The Republican Party was founded in 1854, and took 45 seats in the House during that election year; they also held 10 seats in the Senate going into the 1856 presidential election. These are solid showings to establish a plausible case for a real presidential run. They gained 45 seats in the House and 8 more in the Senate, while grabbing 38% of the electoral college votes for the presidency in 1856.

      It's not intrinsically necessary for a good presidential candidate be a former senator, governor, or general...but there are valid reasons why they almost always have been one of those, besides the obvious one that that's who knows how to work the political system. It's also because that process winnows out the flakes, idealists who can't understand the difference between ideals and what is pragmatic given human nature, and so on. It's a lot safer - and usually a lot better - to get the humdrum improver who will make improvements incrementally, than to take a bet on an untried philosopher who has good ideas in the abstract but has never turned them into practical action. So, it's prudent for a party to shoot for offices that are building blocks to the presidency , and prove themselves, before shooting for the top office.

      Delete
    6. Considered as *an act of communication*, a vote doesn't have an inherent nature, not in the sense you are using that term. What it communicates is dependent on the context in which it is cast. It's just false that people see a vote for a third party like the ASP as an equivalent communication as a vote for a major candidate. That's not how those votes have been understood historically, it's not how the ASP is intending their campaign now, and major party leaders don't interpret them that way either. Not sure what else to say about it. As we agree, though, any fear of confusion can be easily avoided if desired.

      Delete
  60. Conservatives, social and otherwise, are good at criticism but bad at politics. First, learn politics and get into the arena, then persuade others of the rightness of your position. Use criticism as a tool to unite, not divide.

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    1. There have been good conservatives in politics. Not every individual is called to be a leader in political party work.

      Delete

  61. If Trump loses the election, the Republican party will not move in a more socially conservative direction. Instead, the narrative will be that the Republican party was TOO pro life, and they need to liberalize on the issue if they ever want to win an election.

    Something similar happened with same-sex "marriage" after the Obergefell decision. Seeing no plausible path to reinstitute same-sex "marriage" bans, social conservatives lost heart and gave up on that issue.

    Trump is responsible for Roe v Wade being overturned. 14 states ban abortion outright, another 4 ban abortion when a heartbeat can be detected. We risk seeing all of these terrific pro life laws be overturned if Kamala is elected as president. There's no guarantee we hold the Senate in 2024 and 2026, and two of our pro life justices are in their 70s.

    I want a national abortion ban with no exceptions just as much as Dr. Feser. But punishing Trump for not pursuing a national abortion ban, something Antonin Scalia nor Clarence Thomas pursued, is insane.

    Dr. Feser has the luxury of sitting out this election since he lives in California and his vote doesn't matter. But he should heed the wisdom of the Divine Comedy, and remember that those who remained neutral during times of crisis were damned to Hell.

    Abraham Lincoln is remembered as the man who ended slavery, but he explicitly ruled out a national slavery ban in his 1858 and 1860 elections. There were hardcore abolitionists who wanted to boycott Lincoln for not being anti-slavery enough. Had they gotten their way, slavery would have persisted even longer in the country. Does Dr. Feser think there is a pragmatic argument for boycotting Abraham Lincoln? If not, then his argument to boycott Donald Trump fails.

    I've taken the time to respond to Dr. Feser because I hold him in such high regard. Over the years he has made a major impact on my religious and philosophical development. We could use Dr. Feser's eloquence and wit in the fight against the most pro abortion candidates in US history. I've had engagements with Dr. Feser on Twitter, but he's never answered how Republicans are supposed to win an election campaigning on a national abortion ban when ballot initiatives promising that failed in deep red states like Kansas and Kentucky. Surely a weaker platform is a reasonable tradeoff for stronger policies; and a stronger platform is a poor substitute for an impotent party.

    I pray Dr. Feser comes to his senses, because if Trump loses this election, he risks being the last pro life presidential candidate. Let's not throw away the many state level abortion bans made possible by Donald Trump.

    -Neophyte

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    1. Neophyte, this is a much better articulation of what I was trying to say, although I wouldn't quite get behind the Dante allusion.

      I am wary of being carried away by Trumpmania (although I am only watching from another country), but I really do suspect there are good strategic and moral reasons to support Trump wholeheartedly, while still arguing for the strongest pro-life policy. Sometimes doctrinal purism DOES win out; more often, it seems to me, it doesn't. The Lincoln analogy is very well put.

      Delete
    2. Women should never have been given the right to vote. That is why our country is in such a mess.

      Delete
    3. Considering that it's men that voted to give them the vote, it's hard to see that men used the power to vote so much better than women do.

      Delete
  62. An honestly disappointing article from Feser. We can tell he didn't really research his strategy adequately because he plans to write in Desantis. In California, his write-in vote will be thrown out (only approved write-in candidates are counted). The GOP will never see it. For an article educating Catholics on how to vote, that's a surprising error.

    This article is based on the vague premise of "based on Trump's betrayal of conservatives" (?). I am surprised at the outrage at Trump for things normal people on the street don't care about, like January 6. There's obvious personal resentment that Desantis didn't get the nomination. And then the icing on the cake, the admission that he lives in California so none of this matters for him anyway and he has the luxury of a protest vote (but he's failing at that anyway!).

    When he claimed that no one can know if Trump intended to nominate prolife constitutionalist Supreme Court justices, he totally lost me.

    When he points out that Dobbs didn't go far enough, that's where I knew his brain shut off. Dobbs couldn't redefine the fetus as a person - as a constitutional decision, all the justices could do is knock down Roe. Feser is rational enough to know that. But he's emotional, so he still implies it's Trump's fault.

    What a bizarre read.

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  63. It seems delusional to say that if Trump loses, the establishment GOP will 'return' to being socially conservative. As if the party of McCain and Romney and Bush was conservative??

    No, if Trump loses they will blame it on him focusing on abortion and social issues at all. We will go back to the Bush GOP where Catholics and prolifers and religious conservatives had no traction at all.

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  64. "Some social conservatives have suggested that while the changes to the platform are bad, they can be reversed after Trump is elected. This is delusional."

    How do you know that, Feser? The way to answer that is by looking at American political history. And actually, there have been reversals and restorations by the political parties. The fight between "Rockefeller Republicans" who just cared about tax cuts and social conservatives goes way back- and the CULTURE that encourages people to be social conservatives will not be eliminated by one election

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    1. Achieving any kind of a restoration of America as a pro-life society is not going to happen in a year or 2 or 4, and it is imprudent to imagine otherwise. If we are going to achieve it, it's going to take many years, probably several decades, and one election cycle is only a stepping stone at the very best. So, at this point a stepping stone that doesn't get us CLOSE to the end goal is not some big bad horror that we must repudiate. The early Christians lived through a 300 year period of outright persecution by the state, most of that time with no political or social method open to them of achieving a reversal of that persecution. It is not given to a handful of men to be able to absolutely ensure that their society will get better politically or culturally, and therefore it is not their role to act as if it was absolutely within their power if only they took the right course of action.

      The changes in the platform can be reversed: maybe not this year, nor next. Maybe after Trump. Maybe in 20 years. Maybe when the GOP is replaced with a Christian party. It is not our role to know when, it is our role to work for the right.

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  65. " There is no moral difference between killing embryos during abortion and doing so as part of IVF. So, once again, it is not just that Trump is refraining from advancing the pro-life cause. He positively supports a practice that murders more unborn human beings than even abortion does"

    Ed, That is such an extreme statement that you harming your pro-life cause. Perhaps you cannot see the difference, but the overwhelming majority of the American people do.

    Alabama is the reddest of all the red states. After the Alabama Supreme Court (quoting from Scripture and hoping to satisfy the Religious Right) ruled that an embryo is a person, IVF providers in the state said they would stop offering the service, fearful of prosecution.
    What followed was such an outcry from couples who wanted IVF to have children that the Alabama Legislature scrambled together legislation that said IVF providers would not be prosecuted. Alabama legislators did not want to face the wrath of their constituents.

    Again, a statement like yours is just too extreme for the American people to accept and harms your own pro life cause. I am saying this as a matter of strategy because I am myself not a practicing Catholic and plan to vote for Harris.

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    1. Perhaps Feser would have been clearer by saying that there is no objective moral difference between the two. Subjectively, it might be different, in the sense that killing a microscopic bit is not as obviously like killing a child as killing a 12-week fetus with manifest human form is like killing a child. So a person who steadfastly refused to even consider the evidence that the microscopic bit is a human being might subjectively be less guilty of the choice to kill a human being.

      But how plausible is it that a person who elects to have IVF can innocently refuse - the whole time - to consider what it is that they are doing to the rejected embryos?

      Apparently, only 2% of couples have used IVF. I have a hard time understanding why they should be counted as "such an outcry" that legislators would fear for their next election success in a red state, especially if they can wiggle around by simply not having a bill come to a vote, or if they can make sure the bill is saddled with other legislative agenda items that they can claim is the reason they voted it down.

      Even before Dobbs changed the landscape on abortion, I believe good legislators should have (a long time past, now) put in place laws to force surrogacy contracts to submit to oversight and that the receiving couple be treated as adopting a child , with the oversight that usually requires. (The possibility of a corporation simply making children for commercial purposes (labor? spare body parts? blood?) is a real danger here.) And once that is a recognized state role, and the fact that a child has a positive right not to be conceived for the sake of an unmarried parent's desires, I wonder whether an understandable sympathy for infertile couples could be channeled into insisting that they first offer for adoption, before going to IVF. That is, use good law to reduce the expectation that IVF ought to be available to anyone who wants it.

      Again, a statement like yours is just too extreme for the American people to accept and harms your own pro life cause.

      There are statements you make because they are TRUE whether they help or hurt some election goal. True, you don't have to SHOUT truths that are unpalatable to many, when you can legitimately hold your tongue to pursue some other good. Feser isn't saying that the platform should have put into bold, large typeface, an immediate goal to make IVF illegal, but they didn't have to change it to support and fund IVF either! There's lots of ground between those extremes that would be OK with most people.

      Delete
    2. Says Ed Feser, of Trump, "He positively supports a practice that murders more unborn human beings than even abortion does"
      I respect Ed, but that statement is ludicrous. Only the most extreme pro- lifers believe that. But then again, Ed also believes that contraception is immoral and gravely sinful. Thankfully, no state, not even Alabama, plans to make contraception illegal.

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  66. WCB

    Pew Research surveys demonstrate 63% of the American public favor liberal abortion policies, "Legal in most cases". Like it or hate it, this will play a big role in the coming election. Long term, politicians that favor a ban on abortion in all cases including incest and rape are fighting a losing battle. That will make J.D. Vance and project 2025 political liabilities come November. Protecting abortion rights is going to be on a lot of state ballots and that is going to affect turnout at the voting booth. And Trump is such a known liar, nobody trusts anything he says about any of this.

    See you all in November.

    WCB

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  67. "Again, a statement like yours is just too extreme for the American people to accept and harms your own pro life cause. I am saying this as a matter of strategy because I am myself not a practicing Catholic and plan to vote for Harris."

    He is on a blog, one he owns, addressing pro-life, anti abortion, social conservatives with the remark you quoted.

    He is urging them to count the costs to their historic aims and their assumed place in the Republican sociopolitical order even if they do vote for Trump realizing that he is a possible morally legitimate choice, whereas Harris is not.

    If a philosopher who identifies as a a Catholic and social conservative cannot express a moral judgment and strategic considerations in-house and ostensibly to his own, without being accused of harming his own cause, we have come to an exceedingly strange pass in this country when it comes to "strategy". Which, in fact, we have.

    I think there can be no doubt from a purely factual point of view - and it is even now stated outright by a number of the few remaining outspoken conservative Catholic prelates - that western society has reached a conceptual inflection point with regard to its formerly assumed philosophical anthropology. The effects are incalculable.

    Of course, moral nihilism and self-creation doctrines have always been somewhat visible undercurrents in western society, even before the French Revolution, Nietzsche, and Marx, Freud, and Darwin.

    And if you consider Germany and Russia somewhat western, millions have already died within the past 100 years as the consequences of that stance have erupted society wide.

    Whether we are seeing the beginnings of that here and now, with the collapse of traditionally official conceptions of the human organism, and, the now freely expressed homicidal rage of that portion of the wokish population embracing transhuman, post modern, or dime store Nietzsche "values", remains to be seen.

    If Harris and her No Limits cadres of lunatic morally deconstructed appetite entities are put into full Iegislative, executive and administrative, authority, they might push and push until all trace of a generalized, social affinity driven interpersonal restraint, disappears completely.

    Most, having seen the stats in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump where 30% of Democrats wished it had succeeded *** recognize we are almost there, now.

    Rorty suggested to his followers that they, stop thinking of man as some kind of special creature having a mental relationship to truth or objective reality, but just as an organism operating in a particular environment.

    It wants what it wants and end of story, don't you know.

    If we are unlucky, we may be, as a consequence of that pragmatic thinking, in for a sorting once thought unimaginable by most people calling themselves Americans.


    ***
    https://unherd.com/newsroom/third-of-democrats-wish-donald-trump-had-been-killed/

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    1. If Harris and her No Limits cadres of lunatic morally deconstructed appetite entities are put into full Iegislative, executive and administrative, authority, they might push and push until all trace of a generalized, social affinity driven interpersonal restraint, disappears completely.

      I don't think that the woke and others pushing us toward that vision have thought through the point of who will have the means of force at their disposal. I mean, right now "the government" has most of the means of force, but if there is a generalized disappearance of restraint and the concepts / affinities by which restraint is coordinated, that ceases to be a functioning reality. I can guarantee you the effeminate woke basement dweller won't thrive in that environment. (Really, nobody will, but they will not thrive even more than most others.)

      Most Americans, woke and otherwise, have simply become deluded on how easy it is to lose a system of order when too many push against the existing order. The woke have further deluded themselves into thinking that it's fine to push against ALL order, not bothering to consider all the manifestations of order that they don't want to lose.

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  68. There is a podcast with Ezra Klein and Tim Alberta in which Tim shares what he has learned about the Trump campaign from talks with Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. A vast amount of the Trump campaign fund is devoted to the Election Integrity issue rather than turning out the vote. Trump has employed tens of thousands of lawyers and poll watchers (and volunteers), observing in swing states every drop box, how every vote is collected and tabulated. Here is the link:
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trump-campaigns-theory-of-victory/id1548604447?i=1000662613702
    Trump, in contrast to 2020, has done the legal preparation to contest the vote and win in the Supreme Court if the margin of difference is plausibly via illegal ballots. The other major issue discussed in this podcast is that Trump is now completely convinced about the vote by mail and the Republicans will not be at a major disadvantage on this part of voting this year. Go to the 20 minute mark on the podcast for both these elements.
    Democrats will attempt to cheat on a massive scale, Republicans will document it and will win in the Supreme Court but it will go into December before this happens. This is part (obviously, not all) of why there is such hostility at the Supreme Court by elected Democrats at the moment.
    The Democrat party needs to be taught a lesson in every state.

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  69. So admitted that ASP is a little green shoot right now but so was the Republican party in 1854 and look what it did in 1856. And that was because *it was founded to abolish* abortions twin (slavery) on the same basis ... "Created equal"!

    Now what if the writers of project 2025 got behind ASP to help smooth their rough edges and truly prepare them for leadership capable of leading the refugees from the raped Republican party.? I might call that Project 2026, after the birthday of our beloved created equal, the single entity that will abolish abortion.

    See asp as the lesser of two evils, because kayfabe Democrat plant DJT helped the Democrats swallow the GOP with his rape of the platform. So ASP is the lesser of the two evils. They need all of our assistance now.

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  70. It is always better to be on the winning side, regardless of how your ego was damaged. The Democrats have officially won the culture war when cosplay conservatives throw away their votes because orange man bad and their feelings were hurt during the convention.

    Very short sided post. Whether or not the maga wing truly respects cultural conservatives is a minor concern when you consider the fact a Democratic party-led administrative state will institute policies that are the antithesis of what cultural conservatives claim to believe and are supposed to be fighting against.

    The only (no matter how small) chance cultural conservatives have to be a political force is stay united with the Republican party, and try to advance cultural policy through incremental policy victories.

    Helping guarantee that Democrats win all three branches of government this November will only hurt the conservative movement. We don't have Hollywood, we don't have the media, we don't have the universities, and now you are advocating that we lose any potential foothold we would have in government?

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  71. "(The possibility of a corporation simply making children for commercial purposes (labor? spare body parts? blood?) is a real danger here.)"

    Corporations? Yeah seems possible or even likely given the known transhumanist worldviews of many in the genetics business.

    Probably not primarily for labor though.

    Have you possibly noticed in the coverage given to "Pride" events, the deployment of children as ornamentation in gay gatherings; be they as stage twerking neophyte performers, or as victims of their ostensibly heterosexual but woke mothers who are introducing them to, or grooming them for, trans and drag culture?

    We are about this [ ] far, from monstrosites that only the most degranged science fiction could have envisioned 30 years ago.

    They will raise children if they can as captive sex receptacles without a second thought.

    Some already are when they figure they can get away with it, as criminal convictions have shown.

    And what are the bruised reed, smouldering flax Trump sensitive Catholics [not including Feser here] going to do about it when some time after the Dems finalize their grasp on power, they see children being led around on leashes and dressed in bondage garb, by "their own" so-called parents?

    Probably congratulate themselves that at least they did not vote FOR Kamala.

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  72. WCB

    As I noted on a post above 63% of Americans think abortion should be legal in most cases. How about Catholics? At Pew Research we find that self identifying Catholics, 13% think abortion should be legal in all cases and 43% in most cases. 32% illegal in most cases, 10% illegal in all cases. 23% of Americans are Catholics. It is hard to see how anti-abortion hard liners are going to be able to prevail at the voting booths on this issue.

    WCB

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  73. I liked the picture of Thomas More at the top of this post. Very expressive of the the dilemma of Conservative ideology: how to reconcile unchanging, universal values with changing civil society; which must conform to which?

    Saint Thomas More gave the Christian answer: society is determined by universal, eternal values and, ultimately, by the otherwordly end of its members, which society itself cannot attain. Henry VIII and most of his society answered (in anticipation) as Conservatism, from its invention in the eighteenth century, answers: society determines everything.

    With this ideology, Conservatism today (even "social") cannot do more than exploit niche markets of those hankering for a slightly better version of whatever society has determined for "today". Time to ditch Conservatism.

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  74. Maybe being betrayed by the secular right will cause the religious right to do some soul-searching. Social conservatives, and especially Catholics, made a deal with the devil by allying their moral and cultural politics to free-market libertarianism, a secular intellectual tradition that is just as alien to the Catholic way of thinking as Marxism is, and leads to economic policies that make it more difficult for working and middle class people to form families and have the leisure time or resources to participate in civil society. (The top 8 libertarian intellectuals I can name of the top of my head are Rand, Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Friedman, Charles Murray, James M. Buchanan, and Nozick. That's 6 atheists/agnostics, 1 maybe religious Jew, Nozick, and idk about Sowell. But according to conservatives, these people are a better source of economic insight than Catholics, including the last 150 years of Popes and their economist advisors).

    People can come to their own conclusions on public policy issues, but the Church isn't allergic to supporting things like the social democratic welfare state or labor unions or even worker's cooperatives like the Mondragon Corp. Fr. John A. Ryan ("Msgr. New Deal") was writing about these themes over 100 years ago while being impeccably doctrinally orthodox by the exacting standards of the era. The priest who ghostwrote Quad. Anno for Pius XI (Fr. Nell-Breuning) later wrote that there was no conflict between the Church and the economic policies of the UK Labor Party or the Nordic social democracies. Indeed, most British Catholics in the 40s and 50s, being working-class Irish living in industrial cities like Glasgow and Manchester, surely supported Clement Atlee's Labor Party, and they were not criticized by their bishops for doing so. Huge numbers of US Catholics supported the New Deal and New York even had a devout Catholic Italian-American congressman who was a borderline communist (Vito Marcantonio). In Germany, there's a whole history of the Church supporting the requirement that labor unions must be represented on corporate boards ("codetermination"), a sort of partial step towards turning private companies into worker's co-ops (i.e., making them semi-socialist). And when you think it about, there's a a lot of overlap between proponents of (tweed wearing trad Catholic) Distributism and (evil godless revolutionary blue hair) Market Socialism. Both tend to agree that industries that can't scale down to the mom-and-pop level, such as automobile manufacturing, such be comprised of firms organized as workers co-ops rather than capitalist firms owned by shareholders.

    There's basically nothing in the economic agenda of the modern Democratic party, or even more extreme groups like the DSA, that is at odds with church teaching, the friction is almost entirely limited to moral/cultural politics. Yet Catholic media publications (Crisis, Frist Things, Catholic Answers, NC Register, etc.), which probably get their funding from wealthy libertarian donors, routinely endorse free market economic views and conflate them with Church dogma, and then hysterically proclaim that the US will turn into a Soviet planned economy if Harris becomes president.

    The whole situation is bizarre if viewed from a historical perspective. According to Conservatism, Inc., I can't be a religious Catholic and a social democrat, I need to be a sycophant for the Chamber of Commerce and Charles Koch and vote Red no matter who because somehow the GOP winning will lead to more people going to church and getting few abortions and society being more family-oriented. Predictably, when the GOP wins, they make the tax system more regressive, cut corporate regulations, and attack labor unions, and the atomization and secularization of society proceeds apace.

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    1. allying their moral and cultural politics to free-market libertarianism, a secular intellectual tradition that is just as alien to the Catholic way of thinking as Marxism is,

      To the extent that principled traditional Catholics simply allied with libertarians against the liberals of the New Deal, without BUYING IN to libertarianism full stop, they certainly were NOT buying in to ideas just as alien. Ryan and his theory was a useful stage of thinking about social work and economic dynamics in an industrial age, but he was also off base on a number of points. The easiest way to describe it is that while he got a lot of the solidarity part of it right, he didn't mostly get the subsidiarity part of it right. Since his time, the Democrats have gotten ever farther from a Catholic economic ideal.

      In Germany, there's a whole history of the Church supporting the requirement that labor unions must be represented on corporate boards ("codetermination"), a sort of partial step towards turning private companies into worker's co-ops (i.e., making them semi-socialist).

      Nothing in Catholic teaching requires that there be a labor union in a company or industry, and indeed a need for a labor union is usually a symptom of faulty management.

      To the highly successful entrepreneur who is also an excellent manager, and thus becomes the head of a large company, the left would declare his obliged to break up ownership of his successfully operating (and producing, and wage-paying) company for no other reason than because "IT'S BIG". Even if (as has happened more than once) such change in ownership means it fails, thus harming the workers as well as others.

      There's basically nothing in the economic agenda of the modern Democratic party, or even more extreme groups like the DSA, that is at odds with church teaching,

      Except where the economic agenda seeks to make a permanent client class of poor individuals so that they are always dependent on government-forced distribution. The correct model should be to seek to enable most poor individuals to shed their poverty through work and thrift, and make them self-supporting, and self-respecting and worthy of new respect at the same time. (John Paul II partially described this in Laborem Exercens.) The Great Society policies (and its descendents) has turned our country from having poor individuals to having a poor underclass, who permanently depend on government and (to an extent) never expect to enjoy that independence and respect. That's not the Catholic view of a sound economy.

      Delete
  75. Henry VIII and most of his society answered (in anticipation) as Conservatism, from its invention in the eighteenth century, answers: society determines everything.

    So, Henry VIII was a proto-conservative breaking off from standard liberalism not only before Burke invented conservatism but even before Locke and others invented liberalism! Henry, who broke all the social rules and establishment Church in order to have restraint-free sex and get an heir by hook or by crook, was a conservative! Next we are going to hear that Judas was a conservative because he wanted a messiah who would overthrow the Romans, and that Satan was a conservative who tempted Adam in order to overthrow the order God had already established in the Garden. I mean, because he wanted to return to the better society of the 1950s. I mean, the better society that the angels had before man was created, for the half-instant before he rebelled against God.

    You seem to have a brain lesion labelled "conservatism": anything and everything that isn't right thinking is conservatism to you.

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    1. Thankfully, we no longer have kings and queens and popes who wield temporal power.

      Delete
  76. I'll explain it to you yet again. No need to lose your serenity just because the conservative myth that it exists to defend the traditional order against liberalism is challenged.

    Henry VIII and most of his society answered (in anticipation) as Conservatism, from its invention in the eighteenth century, answers: society determines everything - it's an instance of conservative-type behaviour. Aspects of Conservative ideology were already present in the Renaissance, though. Already, scepticism, and state absolutism were espoused by precursors to Conservatism like Bodin and Hooker. Already, they had made society the supreme principle.

    Conservatism arose to defend an order, the absolutism of English parliamentarianism and French monarchical absolutism. It was an order which displaced, not liberalism, but the old Christian West. The Enlightenment had several expressions, and Conservatism was one of them! Burke was heavily influenced by Hobbes and Hume, and did not attack Locke, despite his varying views. Burke and de Maistre got the essentials of their worldview from Enlightenment thought and nowhere else.

    Conservatism, even today, is a defence of the Enlightenment order of 1700; its squabbles with subsequent Enlightenment currents obscures its rupture with the Christian West, but if we care about that West, we need to undo two centuries of confusion. The ideology of Burke and de Maistre, Kirk and Scruton, cannot be salvaged, no matter how many insightful things they said about OTHER Enlighteners.

    If you believe anyone who challenges the received myths about Conservatism is crazy, however, it may be a waste of time arguing with you, but I will continue to try. The truth is important.

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    1. But what is the truth?

      Delete
    2. Tony understood you correctly. You have a brain lesion labeled "conservatism." That explains your absurd notion that the catastrophic views on so many topics of Harris and Walz are better than the "conservative" Trump and Vance (which Feser to his credit never came close to asserting). Throw in another brain lesion labeled "Anglo-Americanism," perhaps seasoned with hostility toward the Jews, and we have the philosophy of Miguel.

      Delete
    3. As I never asserted any of these things, perhaps your own brain is suffering from the weight of the conservative sacred cow whose myths you continue to shelter under. Poor show of argument from conservatives around here.

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  77. Time for another topic.

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  78. This might be edifying reading for some people.


    "... only 34 per cent backed Labour. This is the lowest share won by any party securing an overall majority in Parliament, however small – let alone a party winning a landslide in seats. Sir Keir Starmer, Britain’s new prime minister ...Reform has just five seats, despite winning 600,000 more votes than the Liberal Democrats. In district after district, Reform picked up enough votes from the Conservatives to hand victory to Labour ...
    In practical terms, Starmer has virtually untrammelled power ...
    '


    https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/behind-uk-election-what-vote-count-means-labour-government

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  79. A number of Catholics I know think it is a problem in the USA that conservative Catholics often tend to conflate advocacy of capitalism with advocacy of Catholic teaching. People call Marxism things like life-denying or human-annihilating, but I think a strong case can be made that unfettered capitalism is those. The profit motive can easily overwhelm many other motives, leading to the hollowing out of entire modes of living, e.g. agrarian and working class culture. (I am not a Marxist, just a moderate Democrat.)

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    1. I agree that unrestrained capitalism is contrary to Catholic principles. That's because embedded in the "unrestrained" part of it is the fact that the other part of it is not intrinsically ordered to the human good as a whole - because the human good as a whole is broader and deeper than what can be expressed in economic terms. Hence the economy, and goods that can be measured in economic terms, need to be folded into the entire hierarchy of goods by principles from outside of economic principles. That's where the restraint must come in.

      But socialism is per se contrary to human good, not just when it is "unrestrained". Socialism denies the natural reality of property (by which I mean private property) and the determination of uses of property at the personal, family, and sole proprietor firm scale required by the principle of subsidiarity. Socialism demands a false premise that some goods are - by nature - "the goods of production" that are inherently unlike the other goods, ignoring how it is that made goods arise in fluid and fungible ways. (In practice, every socialist state ended up ALSO being inhumane in ways as bad (or worse) than the inhumanities of the capitalist states. One could claim that that this is just a happenstance of history - but then one might say the same of capitalist states.)

      I dearly wish that small farms and small businesses weren't destroyed by capitalism run amok. However, I can't deny the fact that far more people in 2024 do not live 1 bad week away from starvation, than was true back in prior centuries, due largely to large-scale agri methods. Is there some wholesome (economically and humanely) way of splitting the difference? If you could extract from socialism its false premises and still use its worthwhile attention to the largest scale needs of the many; and extract from capitalism its heartless impersonal attention to "profit" to the exclusion of all else, maybe we could arrive at a better system.

      A number of Catholics I know think it is a problem in the USA that conservative Catholics often tend to conflate advocacy of capitalism with advocacy of Catholic teaching.

      This is probably as much a mistake in those observing conservative Catholics, as a mistake in conservative Catholics: IT IS part of Catholic teaching that access to (largely) free markets is a right principle of social order. That doesn't mean the same thing as "unrestrained capitalism". If conservatives were to speak more properly of "capitalism" by distinguishing it into sub-species, of which unrestrained capitalism is one part of the genus but there are others that entail SOME important restraints, would that help clear up the confusion? ST. JPII explicitly evoked such distinctions in Centesimus Annus. Catholicism isn't neutral between socialism and capitalism (when that "capitalism" is allowed to include restrained capitalism).

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