My friend Isaac Lyman wrote a thought provoking essay. I'd like to take the time to respond to it in the space afforded here. It turns out when Facebook owns the press, they restrict how much digital ink you can spill. When you own your own press, you waste all the digital ink you want to.

Isaac and I share an ethnicity and a religion.We also share an alma mater and some mutual friends. My party associations and political views are different than his: I am a republican and a libertarian, both with little letters. Realistically, both are the same thing, if we are using the old definitions of the words, though one has a distinct flavor of anti-monarchy attached to it. My lack of direct affiliation aside, I have typically endorse right-wing policy. I ultimately consider myself a pragmatist who is pessimistically idealist. The "better angels" of our nature should make us live in a utopia; human nature, economic axioms, and flawed ideas and implementations ensure we do and will not. In 2012 I shook the hand of a presidential nominee and voted fondly for him. Mitt Romney, I thought, was the better candidate. Up to this election, I have voted exclusively for Republicans. It is my observation that I have not changed hardly any of my views. I cannot be said to have moved away from the Republican Party. They must have moved away from me.

Isaac may have intended his essay for a wider religious audience of all Christians, or even religious believers and non-believers generally. Indeed, I believe all religions (barring some knowingly dedicated to the worship of Satan) are good forces in the world. I have many friends in every major world religion, and enjoy our friendly discussions together. They make me a better believer in my own religion. We all are on the same side, working towards a similar goal, even if how we articulate the side and the goal differs. I hope to have lovely discussions on various religions in the future. I have also had provoking metaphysical discussions with agnostic and atheist acquaintances.

Frankly, this post isn't intended to be one of those friendly explanatory outreaches, but a more narrow one addressing my friend who shares a specific faith with me. I welcome other readers to contact me if certain references confuse them, but humbly apologize for descending into some jargon and terms common to members of my Church. While I believe my arguments could be made by restricting myself to Biblical references, I don't only believe in the Bible. On the topics I will discuss, I believe God has revealed further truth and knowledge via additional scripture and prophets. I expect the overwhelming majority of my (few) readers to share my particular religion of Christianity which calls itself Mormonism. I shan't explain them here, but feel free to reach out to me if you would desire.

I personally consider it absurd that Isaac felt obliged to offer a defense of his political views in the view of his religion at all. The First Presidency have repeatedly told us "principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties, and members should seek candidates who best embody those principles." The current spokesperson for the Church has personally stated that it is very possible to be a communist party member and be a faithful member of the Church (indeed, a poster in the BYU Economics department considers Joseph Smith to be a socialist). Given the flawed options available to us - arguably having only two parties limits us much more than we otherwise would be - we each must make a decision on which candidate best represents these ideals every election cycle.

With this in mind, what can we consider?
I recently asked, in what became far to heated of rhetoric, a Trump supporter the following question: How can any active Church member could support a candidate for President whose immigration plan had been specifically rejected by the First Presidency? More egregiously, the First Presidency issued the denial less than a day after the policy was first brought up.
How can an active member support a candidate for President whose views on religious liberty violate scripture, along with the teachings of Joseph Smith and other prophets? "I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves."

On the contrarian side, how can I support a candidate for President whose policies on abortion exceed the Church's long-standing views? These views have been espoused by multiple prophets at this point.
I'd answer that by repeating a bit of Isaac's point: it's not our job to enforce morals. Moreover, abortion is a dog-whistle - it's never going to change at this point, and Republicans and Democrats literally just use it as a single-voter issue to split the country and get votes. The Church's policy on abortion is often even exceeded by Republicans who want to disallow it even in cases of rape and incest. Others, such as Mike Pence, seem to go out of their way to harm women who make this decision, which is rarely made in malice. Roe v. Wade is such old, established history that frankly it is boring. I'm also inspired by Tim Caine, who has anti-abortion beliefs as a person but feels that it lies outside his role as a politician to correct. Hillary Clinton shares this point of view, from my understanding.

I think this ties into another point: it is not the job of the politician to reverse the will of the people once it has been made. Abortion was a decision made by our country decades ago. If a super-majority of the country opposed it, it could have been overturned years ago. That it has not suggests (along with numerous polls) that to eliminate or restrict abortion would require the Republican party to overturn the long-standing wishes of more than half the country. That's not the role of a representative in a representative democracy.

For the same reason, homosexual marriage isn't going to be walked back. Why fight battles in a war which has already been lost? (I do wish gay marriage had been established by a law rather than particularly unconvincing abusive interpretations of the Constitution, but we would have gotten there eventually. I think waiting for consensus to have shifted a bit more towards a law would have lessened some of the current backlash) My view is that we should fight the good fight on moral issues, especially when the prophets have detailed a clear position. But why fight after the war is over? Why inflict unnecessary damages long after a cease-fire should have been declared? Why should conservatives shoot ourselves in the foot by further convincing those we should have respectfully disagreed with that we are inhumane monsters bent on their destruction?

There are evil philosophies and practices in this world hiding as good. Our role is to fight this evil when it is advanced.
But when the voice of the people chooses a particular evil, let's move on to the next battle.
To do otherwise is to ourselves become evil - infected by hatred of people rather than what we believe to be sin.

I agree with Isaac: the current Republican party, now the party of Trump, no longer represents a culture conducive to a Christian committed to following the teachings of Christ and His apostles in the New Testament and other scripture. The Book of Mormon in particular showcases the follies of amoral leaders. It is evident the world didn't adequately learn this lesson from the Old Testament, which can be read as the Lord versus the Isrealite's desires to be more like their wicked neighbors. "When the wicked rule, the righteous mourn" was elevated from a Psalm to be spoken by the mouth of the Lord in modern days. This should give us great pause and concern for who we are electing. We have been given instructions on who to elect: "those who are wise and honest", and have been told to "cleave to that law which is Constitutional" while anymore more or less than this is evil. I find it very difficult to find either Trump or Clinton honest or wise. But I sure know which of the two I'd rank as least honest and least wise...

Discrimination against Latinos is personally offensive to me, given my time spent trying to aide them. During my association with Hispanics, I have come to love their culture. I met many who were here legally and illegally. I don't think it ever made a difference to me. God didn't care either way; He just wanted them to come closer to Him. Increasingly, it mattered less and less to me too. It was just an item to maybe be aware of - maybe it would be easier for them to get a job, or harder for them to get married, if their legal status was one way or another.

One should have been legal but for some lapsed paperwork his father forgot to fill out. Shortly after, his father died. Now, he walks the long path to a legal means to stay in the country. While doing so, he continues to work to provide money for his family. Even with an American spouse, it has taken many months and even years to become legal. He will one day be a citizen of this country, as his children already are.

To support anybody or any policy which was intended to harm this kind man, who serves faithfully as a member of a branch presidency and served an honorable mission, would be outrageous. He was dedicated in helping us missionaries, sometimes multiple times a week. Trump and others have even called to remove citizenship from the children of illegal immigrants. This is not only unconstitutional, but aimed at fomenting a class of "real" Americans and "fake" Americans because of their parents. If making America Great Again means stealing American from this man and his children, then I'd rather never make America Great Ever.

When Mexico sent its people here, I didn't find any who brought drugs, or crime, or were rapists. I did assume that some were good people. I was right, beyond my wildest dreams.

To even think of voting for a man who thinks that a judge should be dismissed because he was Mexican is painful for me. It would be a betrayal of all the fine Hispanics I met on my mission. It would be spitting in the face of my teachers in Mexico City, who were eager and kind to us even as they spent the holiday season teaching gringos the rudimentary basics of how to say a prayer in Spanish. It would be kicking those who listened to me and who fed me from their scanty kitchens pasole and mole. I don't remember all the names and faces of those who treated me well who were Hispanic on my mission. Many did so only because they believed we were men who sought to be of God. They didn't share my beliefs, and had no intention of ever doing so. But they insisted I come over to their backyard where their friends were and eat anyways.

But even on my mission, I was warned of Trump - well before he was the Republican nominee. "Please, keep Trump away." As a missionary, I wasn't involved in politics. It would take me some time to learn why even in October of 2015, as I finished my service, people were scared of Trump.

I've made the case why Trump is repugnant. Actually, I've only listed a few items on a deluge of idiotic hatred. To fully list why Trump is so terrible might require all my time prior to the election.

Scarily, Trump is the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a combination of various people who claim to be conservatives. These include people who lost their jobs because of globalism who didn't or don't want to retrain to other careers - not really a traditional US right-wing position. These include racists (1/5 of trump primary supporter's don't like the emancipation proclamation). It includes those who fight as culture warriors for Christiantity - an odd sort of Christiantity where an unrepentant adultering possibly rapist will restore the sanctity of marriage.

Hillary Clinton was right. There are deplorables on the right; people who do not desire to change for the better. They want us to instead change for the worse. They helped back Trump into the position he is at now.
They aren't going away after he is defeated.

What can we do moving forward to resolve issues in our political system which created this grand problem?

Most disturbingly, there is a tendency for people to make politics their first religion. I think we see evidence of this everyday in the political spectrum. Saints aren't restricted to the hagiography; past presidents are inducted with alarming frequency whilst ignoring their misdeeds. On the right, Saint Reagan is frequently held as a golden standard. To aid in the worship of him, like many people's gods, he is dead and cannot speak to correct the record. Nor are devils kept in hell, but given to the opposing party. To be honest, I don't often see deification on the Democratic side, except perhaps on individuals like JFK and MLK. That all with opposing views are necessarily satanic is popular on both sides of the aisle.

Despite all this, and all that Isaac noted, I find it dangerous to ignore politics. To not be active in politics is to allow others to rule over us - almost certainly to our dismay. Edmund Burke mentioned long ago that all good men have to do to allow evil to triumph is do nothing. The rise of Nazism in Germany, the jewel of Europe civilization, bears this statement out most terrifyingly. Moreover, as noted earlier, we have been commanded to do so. Prophets have addressed the fallacy of letting the world fall to peices around us simply because we know that we are approaching the last days. We are to strive to keep society moving the correct way.

"For ye have the poor with you always"

I somewhat disagree with how the Democrats in this country have proposed to aid the poor, but that's an entirely different essay so I'll just touch lightly on it here. There is plenty of room for alternative policies to care for the poor which are in line with Christ's teachings. Here the Doctrine and Covenants may teach us a lot in regards to the United Order. There is room even for means-based welfare - we know that "he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer" (though I also know that most research shows most poor are not poor out of laziness).

The Republican policy on aiding the poor is mostly to give more money to the rich in the hopes it will somehow aid the poor. We know this doesn't work, at least at the current level of relative taxation and poverty. We know it very well. To continue to push this without even considering the abject failure of this policy in the United States and globally is to put disproven ideology above pragmatic policy.

In all things, we are best off approaching policy from a pragmatic position of what works rather than political ideology. For example, I believe the homeless should be housed nearly unconditionally. I don't believe this because the right-wing demagogues have said it, or because Friedman Milton mentioned it in an interview. I believe this because it's usually cheaper to house them than to have them on the streets. They also tend to suddenly find jobs after several months with a roof, and kick drugs.

Reasonable rational people may have disagreements over policy. But when they do, they argue out of a desire to make a good decision rather than to defeat the other guy. Once we remove ideology from the negotiation table, we can use numbers rather than psuedo-religion to arrive at a compromise - or even give up our position entirely. Better policy results from this type of argument in the same way better books emerge after editing.

I hope I've articulated my position clearly. To summarize: we have a religious obligation to protect the Constitution, aid the poor, and many other duties. The best way to accomplish these aims, outside our own personal lives and ministries, is via politics. There are many policies which could aide these aims. If we had a better thought-process around political arguments we could more readily come together to create good if not perfect policy. Eliminating ideology from decisions helps policy. Donald Trump and many who differ from him only in their care to not so bluntly state their hatred are a cancer on the Republic of the United States of America. I call on Republicans as a whole to separate themselves from the mean-spirited among their party. Those who don't do so are in effect equally mean-spirited.

The mean spirited do not and cannot deserve our support. For this reason, I have voted straight blue this election cycle for all national positions. I warned my Senator and Representative of my intent to do so after literally dozens of terribly horrific statements from Trump. Their continued inaction meant I was honor bound to back candidates who did not tacitly agree with hatred, whether out of convenience or shared beliefs.