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Contrary to what some newspaper owners think, now is the time for support. Look elsewhere if that’s what you came here for.

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Instead, I’ll simply focus on how I think about the election, starting with my vote.

I won’t vote for any of them.

But that doesn’t mean I’m neutral about the outcome of the election. If I lived in a swing state instead of the District of Columbia, I might vote for Kamala Harris. I certainly wouldn’t vote for Donald Trump. But given that Harris will lead DC by at least 30 points, the “It’s a binary choice!” » the harangues leave me cold.

If I were to vote for Harris, it would only be to vote against Donald Trump. I don’t think she was a compelling candidate, whether for senator or vice president. I think she is extremely wrong on several points.

I don’t think Harris is wrong on absolutely anything, but the framing is correct. Trump is simply unacceptable. The mere fact that he violated the American tradition of peaceful transfer of power is inherently disqualifying. All other reasons – and there are many – are like putting ten extra pounds of manure in a five-pound bag.

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Plus, speaking of shoveling manure, most Republicans’ desire to deflect Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election is a reason to want him to lose. Senator JD Vance and President Mike Johnson have both bought into the embarrassing lie that we had a peaceful transfer of power because Trump finally left office on time.

Breaking Trump’s hold on the party is worth being a bad Democratic president for four years, especially since Harris will have a hard time getting much of anything passed in Congress, let alone anything catastrophic.

Of course, Harris might surprise me and be better than I expected. But the most likely scenario for that to happen would require her to move to the center. This too would be good for conservatism. A more moderate Democratic Party would shift the center of gravity of American politics to the right, which is supposedly the goal of the conservative movement.

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If Harris is a moderately failed president, that will be a good thing for a post-Trump party (Hebert Hoover was great for Democrats, Jimmy Carter was a boon for Republicans). If she is a moderately successful president, it will be because she worked with the Republicans on their “to do list.”

So I will vote strategically rather than emotionally. People invest great cosmic importance in voting. Tell me how you voted and I’ll tell you who you are seems to be the modern incarnation of Schmittian logic. I think this is pernicious nonsense. Elections are both job interviews and performance reviews, during which we hire and fire civil servants. We don’t have kings and queens. So, I’ll write in a decent, normal Republican – Paul Ryan, Ben Sasse, I welcome suggestions – because I want to send the signal that I was an accessible vote for a sensible Republican Party.

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In short, I am thinking beyond this election, because politics is a marathon, not a sprint. The Madisonian structure of our system assumes that there will always be other elections. We have elections in this country all the time, from dog catchers to insurance commissioners to governors to senators. Before the elections, this was how politicians and parties took the temperature of the electorate.

None of this makes sense to those who believe the fate of the world depends on these elections. But this “Flight 93 election” thinking is one of the main reasons our politics are so broken. This turns political struggles over competing policies into religious wars over the nature of reality. A conservative, we are told, is not a conservative if he or she does not vote for Trump. Absurdity. I will not vote for him because I am a conservative and I think this country needs healthy, sensible conservatism.

Given this view, many people tell me that I should therefore have the courage of my convictions and not only vote for Harris, but also vote for her. I gained a weird new respect from the left for refusing to lie for Trump. It’s good. But I don’t see any reason for Harris to lie either. It’s not my job.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and host of The Remnant podcast

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