Conservative Scholars and Writers Ask Republicans Please Don’t Vote for Trump

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:23 pm

We have seen that educated white males support Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump. This is apparently true of educated people generally. We have just seen a group of Constitutional originalists come out against Trump, declaring that,

“Trump’s long record of statements and conduct, in his campaign and in his business career, have shown him indifferent or hostile to the Constitution’s basic features — including a government of limited powers, an independent judiciary, religious liberty, freedom of speech, and due process of law.”

Now “Scholars and Writers Against Trump,” a group of self-described Republicans who are “writers, academics, critics, historians, and authors” – more than 140 of them – are asking you, if you’re Republican, please don’t vote for Trump:

Given our choices in the presidential election, we believe that Donald Trump is the candidate most dangerous to our nation’s founding ideals. He is a unique and dire threat to the political principles, liberties, and cultural values of justice, fairness, honesty, and decency we have long defended. We urge you to vote, as we will, for someone else.

The group was organized by Cherie Harder, Thomas Mallon, and Andrew Hazlett. Harder is a writer, a former Senior Counselor to the Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities and former White House staff; Mallon is a novelist and critic, a former Member, National Council on the Humanities and former Deputy Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; and Hazlett is a writer and former Chief of Staff, National Endowment for the Humanities.

Another member, writer Bruce Bartlett, a former aide to Ron Paul, Jack Kemp, Ronald Reagan & George HW Bush, and “who now thinks the GOP needs to go the way of the Whigs,” tweeted his own appeal to Republican voters:

One other easily recognizable name on the list for readers of PoliticusUSA is Warren Throckmorton, Professor of Psychology, Grove City College, who did so much to thwart fake-historian David Barton’s Jefferson Lies, and who has steadfastly refused to let ideology get in the way of fact. As Throckmorton tweeted,

Political satirist P.J. O’Rourke, who has rejected Trump, saying Clinton is wrong but at least it’s “within normal parameters,” is another member of the group, as is another novelist and satirist, Christopher Buckley.

Trump’s base demonstrably fails to think, preferring to feel. Intelligent, educated people understand the threat Donald Trump represents. This election is increasingly less an effort to put a Democratic in the White House rather than a Republican, and more a group effort to save our country from a reckless demagogue.

These people can see where Trump would take America, and they want no part of it, and would save their fellow Republicans if they can, from the “the candidate most dangerous to our nation’s founding ideals,” Donald Trump.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson


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