John Hawkins: No, I Will Not Vote for Donald J. Trump in a General Election

The proprietor of Right Wing News, at Town Hall:

I hammered John McCain and Mitt Romney so brutally during the GOP primaries that I was blackballed from the 2008 and 2012 Republican conventions in retaliation, but when the time came in the general election, I did vote Republican. I will never be a fan of John McCain or Mitt Romney, but I could at least embrace Reagan’s my “80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy” mantra and support them.

I cannot say the same about Donald J. Trump.

He’s not a good man, a Christian or a conservative and he doesn’t care about the Constitution, the country or as far I can tell, anything other than making money and hearing his name repeated as often as possible. If Matthew 7:16 is right and, “By their fruit you will recognize them,” what fruits has Donald J. Trump borne into the conservative movement? He’s managed to turn longtime allies against each other, good people are approving of despicable behavior they would have unhesitatingly condemned a year ago and the way he behaves is so childish and disgusting that 35% of Republicans and Republican leaning independents want a third party if he’s the nominee. Many Donald J. Trump fans assume these people who detest him so much are “establishment” Republicans. While it’s true that many members of the GOP establishment dislike Donald J. Trump (And others, like Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Scott Brown have endorsed him), the majority of people who oppose him are grassroots conservatives. Donald J. Trump may have more backers than anyone else in a divided field, but so far roughly two-thirds of Republicans have picked someone other than him as their candidate.

I don’t insult people for supporting or endorsing Donald J. Trump, I haven’t called for any blacklists, I’m not calling for the nomination to be taken from him at the convention and I’m not encouraging anyone to start a third party. In fact, I know there are many good conservatives who support Donald J. Trump. Unfortunately, when a third of the Republican Party rallies behind an unelectable, unstable, misogynistic, authoritarian conman who says any stupid thing that comes into his head, there is no escape for the rest of us from the ramifications of that decision...

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