On November 8, 2016, every American will be faced with the same election decision: do I vote for business as usual, and therefore no change, or do I vote for the gamble of a risky option for a new government order? It depends partly on how bad you think things are.
The upcoming choice for President could not be clearer, based on one standard. Hillary Rodham Clinton personifies establishment, an extension of the Obama policies, and business as usual. On the other hand, Donald Trump personifies the ultimate outsider and change in how government does business. The talking heads of the national news media conveniently ignore that 85% of the American public consistently continues to believe the country is on the wrong track. And further, 92% of the same public believes that Congress is ineffective, inefficient, and unlikely to solve our country’s pressing problems. If 85% believe the country is on the wrong track, then that includes a virtual majority of both Republicans and Democrats. For Hillary to win the election, a substantial percent of Americans must vote for her knowing that her administration will continue down the wrong path. Why would they do this? Because the uncertain outcome of a Donald Trump presidency is a greater fear to them than the certainty of a Clinton presidency maintaining the status quo. This is not a vote cast in optimism.
Some will say that a vote for Donald Trump is not only risky, but it dismisses the principle of decency held by Americans in their compassion for immigrants, women, and minorities. The paramount nature of this issue depends on your point of reference and the intensity of your feelings about the wrong track. The search for the definition of America’s very identity is based upon this debate. Equally important to some Americans is less government, free enterprise, national security and religious liberty. In November, after billions of dollars are spent by both sides, and every attack has been made by the competing campaigns and their alliance partners, this decision on change versus no change will still be the choice that every American will make when they vote.
We have been here before. From 1763 to 1774, the commonwealth of the American colonies was engaged in this very debate. The colonists believed their current government situation was on the wrong track. The King of England was aloof, unresponsive, and his surrogates were ineffective, inefficient, and unlikely to solve the country’s pressing problems. The revolutionary decision was whether or not to declare independence from the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. They could have chosen business as usual. Instead they chose change. It was certainly safer to remain a colony, at least in the short term. No one was starving. British society and order had its merits. But as Thomas Paine argued in Common Sense, business as usual would lead to a bad outcome. There may have been security in the short term, but ultimately, loss of freedom would result in loss of opportunity and restrict one’s God-given purpose in life.
They chose to gamble on “a risky option for a new government order.”
There are nine state Democratic primaries remaining. Bernie Sanders has a chance to win seven of these. This is hardly a resounding acclamation for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy. Her own party is struggling with the decision between radical change versus business as usual. This morning’s NBC poll has Donald Trump ‘dead even’ with Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Republicans haven’t swept these three swing states since George Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in 1988. Hillary Clinton is at her high water mark. She has 100% name ID with the American public. All of her proposals are on the table. There is nothing new that she will add to her campaign theme and message that would be advantageous. Her original strategy was to speak to middle America and dedicate her presidency to providing the government programs that they now enjoy, without change. In the abstract, her theme is business as usual, just better managed.
As the social debate on health care, education, immigration, and the LGBT community intensifies, it is critical to recognize the founding principle of the United States of America embodied in the First Amendment. The first words of the First Amendment to the only Constitution the United States has ever possessed are, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
‘No establishment of a law’ is the basis of the legal concept of separation of church and state. Little mention is made of the Constitutional principle of ‘no prohibition of the free exercise of faith thereof.’ There are many religious faiths in the United States. One is Christianity. The intelligentsia would have us believe it is a religion that is irrelevant, outdated, and without modern application. They desire to relegate Christian speech and activity to behind closed doors of the physical structure of a church. They have no historical or constitutional basis to advocate such restriction.
The suppression of freedom of speech and original thought generated outside the group think of liberals, supported by the media elite, is part and parcel responsible for the frustration of the American citizenry today.
Christians have a right to First Amendment citizenship, protected by the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. Whether you believe that Christianity was a foundational element of the Founding Fathers’ intent or not, the First Amendment guarantees a Christian’s right to believe in God, and exercise his or her faith as they see fit, anywhere, anytime, or anyplace. The God who is the Grantor of all rights cannot be consigned to confined quarters by elites.
George Washington, upon rejecting the offer of a third term as President and retiring to Mount Vernon, offered these words to his nation in a farewell address:
I shall carry…with me to my grave…unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be complete.
Defining for oneself the meaning, the purpose and the relevance to the generations, that of eternal principles of wisdom, virtue, and liberty, will be central to one’s internal debate on whether to vote for business as usual versus the uncertain option of a new government order. The importance one places on every liberty established and determined in the Constitution is the measure of the risk presented. Choosing either business as usual or uncertain change results in a future in which our children’s hopes must be sacredly maintained and their liberty dependent.
The right decision is as pivotal this November as it was to the founding colonists in 1776. May we Americans, through hope and prayer, make this decision not out of fear, but with anticipation that liberty will be complete for the generations.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?