When I began my time as an HPR writer nearly four years ago, the first article I wrote detailed how the 2016 election of President Donald Trump would mobilize a new generation of young Republicans. This generation, I argued, would enshrine the Republican Party in new ideals: free enterprise, combined with a newfound commitment to social freedom for all, as well. I saw a future of peace, reform, and a return to American ideals.
Four years later, I sit and write this as President of the HPR, in a nation disfigured by conflict as we await the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. As President Trump launches lawsuits demanding recounts across the United States before the ballot counting has even ended and his son encourages “total war” on unsubstantiated grounds of election interference, I am in a state of disbelief at what we have become.
I am a Republican. I have been a Republican for my entire life. I am from a family of proud gun owners, and I am a marksman in my spare time. I believe in the power of free enterprise to provide opportunities to all who will seize them. I believe in a strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, and limited government intervention into the daily lives of individuals. I believe in America, in a sense of national pride, and in a sense of national duty.
And I believe in these ideals for all people. I believe in these American principles for my LGBTQ+ friends, who continue to face frequent and legalized discrimination. I believe in these things for my little sister who has autism and a number of other disabilities that President Trump has mocked. I believe that people of color should feel safe in this country, and I believe that immigrants should be able to safely come into the United States and work to achieve their dreams.
More than anything, I believe in the power of the individual. As a Republican, I am asking you, regardless of how you voted, to trust in that power alongside me by respecting the results of this election, even as political leaders seed doubts of its legitimacy.
The results of the election remain unclear, but President Trump’s response is unclear no longer: He will not concede without a fight and will not carry out a peaceful transfer of power. He has claimed that any election won by former Vice President Joe Biden would be a “stolen” election caused by voter fraud, and for several months, has cast doubt on the legal security and validity of mail-in ballots, an issue which has already been decided over and over again, including by the Supreme Court.
I am a Republican, but I am a democrat-with-a-lowercase-d first. The sanctity of our democratic elections overshadows partisan affiliations, and any president who attacks that sacred process deserves condemnation, regardless of whether one is in agreement with his political stances and behavior in office so far.
This is not an attack on those who voted for President Trump in the 2020 Presidential Election. I claim no moral high ground, and I do not condemn you for voting your conscience. Many of my friends, family members, and neighbors made the same choice. I love them as dearly as I did on November 2. If President Trump succeeds in attaining reelection, through a fair and free democratic process, I will respect the decision of the nation and respect the president over the course of his next four years in office.
When I look around the country though, I see a nation embroiled in division, looking at each other with hardened hearts, and refusing to hold the future of these United States of America more sacred than the election of just one man for just four years.
Our nation is imperfect. That is undeniable. Our history is as littered with injustices as every other nation, and it is impossible to deny that many injustices continue. As Abraham Lincoln wrote in one of the greatest pieces of oration in history, our nation was “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
This line is frequently misread. A proposition is not a foregone truth or natural law. It is a theory, which requires proof to hold water. As a nation, we are at an inflection point: We can choose to rise above partisan deadlock to prove this fundamental human equality, or we can deny it and give into the worse angels of our nature.
Our answer to the challenge of doing justice to this proposition cannot depend on which presidential candidate is elected. We can only prove this proposition by preserving the bedrock of individual equality: the vote. We can prove that all people are created equal by respecting the vote as the fundamental expression of one’s political character, a vote that people have fought for, bled for, and died for since the inception of the United States of America.
To my fellow Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between, I am asking for a commitment to peace and a commitment to respecting our most sacred national principle. By all means, we should take all democratic measures necessary to protect this election. Exercise your First Amendment rights to assembly, petition, and speech. Allow for recounts and ballot scrutiny. Take every legal measure to ensure that our democracy is protected and that the winner of this election can be declared without doubt and respected as our rightful executive. If whoever rightfully wins this election violates the mandates of your conscience, then continue to take peaceable action to oppose the policies which offend your soul.
Do not give into calls for violence or respect misinformation that undermines our democracy. Do not look at your neighbor, who voted by mail, and tell them their vote does not count because they chose to use their voice differently. Do not endorse attempts, on either side, to incite insurrection and cause widespread destruction.
The United States lives or dies by the sanctity of its elections. Join me in pledging to work for its survival, rather than its demise.
Image Credit: “Election Day 2020” by Phil Roeder is licensed under CC BY 2.0.