Why should you vote for Evan McMullin for president and not Hillary, The Donald or (Feel the) Johnson? The Collision Blog has 10 reasons:
1: The two party system is screwing us over, and we need to punish it.
Our Democrat and Republican choices honestly couldn’t be any worse than they are. You’re the boss, guys. Roughly 14 percent of adults (eligible voters) in America chose Hillary and Trump. *Taps microphone* FOURTEEN PERCENT. That means roughly 86 percent of those who can vote either stayed home or preferred someone else. Sure, some gleefully jumped on both trains when their candidate failed to win, but the people who don’t regularly sniff lines of Fun Dip dust and Comet are voting for the nominees because they think they have to. It’s tribalism at its worst.
Let me channel my inner Nancy Reagan: Just say “no” to tribalism.
If more people would detach themselves from a soul sucking party affiliation, people would start realizing that there’s more of us than them.
2: He was a senior adviser for the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives on national security issues, was the Chief Policy Director with the House Republican Conference, and is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In short, the man knows his way around foreign policy like Trump knows his way around bankruptcy laws
. Below is a video of him in May speaking on mass atrocities, and addressing the lack of follow through in the “never again” movements.
3: It’s the closest we’re ever going to get to voting for Jack Bauer (I can’t stress this one enough).
Evan worked for the CIA from 2001 – 2011, specifically on counter-terrorism and intelligence operations in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Not only was he nose deep in foreign affairs from a legislative level, but he has first hand experience on the proverbial front lines.
Let me reiterate: It’s like voting for Jack Bauer.
Unfortunately, it’s without the hacksaw and Tony Almeida, but let’s be reasonable here… only so many of our dreams can come true.
4: He doesn’t pander to your unwarranted paranoia.
McMullin worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as a Volunteer Refugee Resettlement Officer in Amman, Jordan.
In short, the man knows his way around refugee issues like Donald Trump knows his way around failed business
“I spent ten years, over ten years, in the Central Intelligence Agency, serving overseas and in the Middle East, and let me tell you, if you’re a terrorist and you want to come to the United States, the worst possible way to try and do it is as a refugee. You’ll go through a year and a half to two years of vetting. If you want to come to the United States and you’re a terrorist, you’re much better off just coming through on the Visa Waiver program from Europe, or just walking across the border in Mexico. So, I think there’s a lot of hysteria, unjustified hysteria around the refugee situation. And I think we need to be more careful, and thoughtful, and accurate with the way we talk about that issue, because it has implications for a variety of other interests that we have overseas.” – Evan McMullin during a Special Report Interview with Brett Baier
Watch the entire interview below:
5. He has a solid grasp on how to defeat ISIS.
“The problem is the pace of what we’ve been doing. President Obama has articulated a containment strategy that sort of has this other slow road towards defeating ISIS. The problem is that when you allow ISIS, or any other Islamist terrorist organization, to have a safe haven the size of the one that ISIS has, you buy them time to plot and plan the kinds of attacks that have happened in Europe and the United States, and elsewhere, over the last year. So the pace needs to pick up, this isn’t something that we can get around to casually, and that’s my objection with what President Obama is doing… I don’t think we should take anything off the table, but there are a lot of better options for us to turn to before we put traditional troops on the ground. I think we need to use CIA operations, and we need to use our Special Forces. I’ve been there, done that, we’re very good at this… We need to exhaust some of these things before we put traditional troops on the ground. I don’t think it’s necessary, I think we can defeat ISIS through other means.” – Evan McMullin during a Special Report Interview with Brett Baier
In short, the man knows how to handle terrorist organizations like Donald Trump knows how to find younger wives.
6. He ACTUALLY says what everyone else is afraid to say concerning immigration.
“I’m not for deporting 11 million people, I think it’s ridiculous. It would cause so much trouble economically and in other ways. It’s a ridiculous idea, and I oppose that. I think what we need to do is for those here illegally but not criminals, and who want to stay, there should be a path towards a legal presence here in the United States.” Evan McMullin during a Special Report Interview with Brett Baier
He also says other amazing things with – dare I say? – Jack Bauer swagger. …
“As a former intelligence professional, I find it alarming that Donald Trump is receiving a classified intelligence briefing. Trump, his campaign chairman Paul Manafort and General Mike Flynn are all compromised by the Russians, and this briefing will be an intelligence coup for Vladimir Putin’s SVR and GRU.” – Evan McMullin during a CNN interview with Jake Tapper
It’s like Cheng Zhi vs. Bauer all over again.
7: Win or lose, he has the power to carry the conservative principles away from the shark infested waters and to the shore.
If it’s down to Hillary and Trump, Trump is taking a loss. It would require a miracle for him to win (one that’s not beyond Hillary, I suppose). Just going off of 2012 numbers (Check out this article), let me put this in perspective: Based on voting records and data, there are over 85 million people who don’t normally vote in any election, over 100 million who are ineligible (children, felons, etc.), and roughly 133 million who will vote in the General (give or take a few million due to new voters or those who stay home in the general). Roughly 73 million of the voters who didn’t find it in their hearts to go to the booths in the primary will join the 60 million who did vote in the primaries come November (based on previous elections).
So that’s roughly 120 million people who didn’t vote for Trump in the primary, and 117 million who didn’t vote for Clinton, who will vote in the general. Now within that 120 million/117 million, respectively, you have tribalists who will jump on due to party affiliation (more so for Democrats), but in that 120 million/117 million, you have demographic numbers that youMUST hit. One important demographic is the female vote – which accounted for over 53% of the vote in 2012 – and Trump’s negative ratings with women are 20% higher than they were with Romney… and he’s running against a woman. I won’t even go into the numbers in the African American or Hispanic communities because, well, it paints a very sad picture for those poor White Nationalists who keep saying they want to deport me when their guy wins and kicks us liberal [insert various creative expletives here] to the curb – despite the fact that I was born in Texas, the daughter of a 30 year veteran, cry when Lee Greenwood sings, and love Apple Pie more than some people love their children – come November (I don’t think they grasp the transitional period between November and January yet).
See, I went through all of that to show you that those in the GOP who refuse to vote for Trump aren’t a swaying factor in regards to individual vote count and the electoral college. As much as I’d hate to see so many sexists, racists, and fascists – those who have become the personification of dyspepsia – curl into the fetal position and cry in November, it’s more than likely going to happen.
Aaaaand the point here is that Hillary has already won if you think the only options are her and the Lord of Darkness. The odds are that bad. If I were obnoxious – like some supporters on the dark side – I might even say that a vote for Trump is a vote for Hillary. Regardless, Conservatism needs a dog in this fight because not only would we like her to lose, as well, we can’t allow conservative ideals to be mistakenly chained to Trump’s ankles when he and his campaign are sucked into the deepest and darkest political black hole in November. We need to separate out the ideals, we need to be able to say, “This over here is Conservatism, that over there is Fascism.” Having someone in the race who represents conservative ideals – more so than many of the other candidates we had, I might add – is going to help us achieve that goal.
We need to focus on the future like Donald Trump focuses on Miss USA pageant contestants… and probably laser pointers.
8: He isn’t a career politician, and he truly isn’t beholden to anyone – unlike both Clinton and Trump.
I don’t think anything else needs to be said on this, so here’s my favorite John Wick GIF:
9: History. History. History.
He hasn’t destroyed thousands of jobs.
He hasn’t ignored increased security requests.
He has sued zero little old ladies.
He hasn’t praised Putin.
He hasn’t praised Saddam Hussein.
He hasn’t lied to the families of dead American heroes.
He hasn’t donated to people who lied to the families of dead American heroes.
He hasn’t lied under oath about deleted emails.
He hasn’t used bankruptcy laws to harm innocent families for his own personal gain.
He hasn’t talked about wanting to bed his offspring.
He doesn’t refer to women as a “piece of a**.”
He doesn’t intend on forcing our troops to commit war crimes.
He knows what a war crime is.
He knows the difference between Kurds and Quds, and what a “Nuclear Triad” is.
He hasn’t demonized rape victims.
He wasn’t involved in Watergate.
He hasn’t hired “all the best people” only to fire “all the best people,” over, and over, and over again.
He hasn’t lied about sniper fire for attention.
He hasn’t been disrespectful to the military, veterans, and their families. (See what I did there? That one is funny because you can’t tell which one I’m talking about.)
He hasn’t made plans to attack religious freedom.
He hasn’t made plans to attack the First Amendment.
He hasn’t made plans to push more gun-control.
He hasn’t made plans to grow the size of government. (Look, I did it again.)
He hasn’t put national security in jeopardy. (Oh, there’s another one.)
He hasn’t lived a life of corruption. (I can’t stop…)Alright, I’m having too much fun on this list and should stop before it becomes a book and you stop reading. Point is, he’s a clean slate with an impressive background. That’s better than the two current leaders in the race who, like other breathtakingly horrible human beings, happen to have resumes that read like the character description of an evil dictator in a dystopian novel. …
10: He keeps things in perspective.
While I take a moral position – like everyone else – on societal issues, the GOP has lost its way by putting all of their eggs in that particular basket. We need to be focused on the benefits of the free market, responsible foreign policy, and reasonable spending cuts. We need to sell our ideas and values, not shove them down their throats.
Example: Same sex marriage debate.
The truly small government position on same sex marriage would be to ask why the government is involved in marriage at all. It shouldn’t be “I’m right!”or “You’re wrong!” It should be “why did we ever make this a government issue in the first place.” Evan is smart to brush off this topic as a hill that is not worth dying upon. Additionally, he recognizes issues that many in the GOP need to start coming to grips with:
BONUS ROUND: He’s good for down-ballot races.
Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of people staying home, and the legislative branch is in jeopardy. We desperately needed to give people a reason to go to the voting booth, and Evan gives them that reason. I was always going to go to vote, but now I’m excited to vote for someone who represents my principles.
I don’t know what happens after November, guys. I just don’t. I don’t know what principled conservatives will call ourselves when this mess is over and the fallout hits, or what politicians will be on our side. However, there is one thing I know: Evan McMullin saw a deep void in this election and he stepped up when no one else would. …
Anybody who reads my blog is well aware that no one is beyond reproach on this page. I do, however, believe that he’s standing up for the conservative values currently in jeopardy, and I believe he is a man of good character who has spent his life helping others, and that’s a foundation worthy of applause.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 