In the realm of “headlines that shouldn’t have to be written,” this one might seem like the most obvious. But in recent weeks, some online conservative influencers have actually suggested that Republicans who are upset with the inaction of the GOP Congress or certain Trump administration policies should stay home or even vote Democrat out of spite in this year’s midterm elections.
It seems wise to refrain from calling out anyone in particular here to avoid giving any more oxygen to the purveyors of this terrible “strategy” (if you can call it that). But suffice to say, this is a very real sentiment among some corners of the conservative base – and if it continues to spread, it could well affect the balance of power in Washington, D.C., and state capitals.
It goes without saying that Republicans voting Democrat, is the surest way for the GOP to lose elections – but that’s exactly what the proponents of this strategy want. The idea is that if the Republican base shows the party leaders just how upset they are by abandoning them at the ballot box, it will lead to major changes in the party’s policies and priorities that the saboteurs have been demanding.
There is also something of an anarchic thread running through this argument. The implicit assertion is that even the Republican Party is so far gone that the best course of action is to hand power to the radical Democrats, allow them to destroy the country, and then supposedly build something better from the ashes.
That likely sounds extreme to most Americans, and it is. But that is a view held by a sizable number of disaffected voters “on the right,” and confronting it head-on is the only sensible response.
To be clear, no one is suggesting that conservatives owe their allegiance to any individual politician or political party. To the contrary, it is justified and indeed patriotic to hold leaders accountable to their promises. In a healthy republic, the voting population should maintain a degree of skepticism and “show me don’t tell me” when it comes to elected officials.
In our current moment, it is perfectly legitimate to be upset with congressional Republicans for failing to do more on election integrity, housing affordability, or healthcare. It is also well within reason to be frustrated at the lack of progress on the skyrocketing national debt and deportation numbers, or foreign interventionism.
But to suggest that the past two years – or even the past ten, since Trump first burst onto the political scene – have been so disastrous as to justify conservatives voting for the party that is committed to destroying everything conservatives believe in is utterly delusional and childish.
Laments about what the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have not accomplished conveniently leave out what they have accomplished. The Working Families Tax Cuts passed last year are not trivial – they represent real savings for working Americans. That bill also prevented the largest tax hike in history that was looming with the expiration of the 2017 Trump tax cuts. Real wages are up, inflation is down, and violent crime is down.
The Trump administration also secured the border with astonishing speed, and the flood of illegal aliens entering the country has ceased. While deportations are perhaps not occurring as quickly as some conservatives might prefer, there are more than three million fewer illegal aliens in the country today than when Trump took office.
There’s also Trump’s flurry of executive orders ending the regulatory war on the American energy sector, stopping the chemical and surgical mutilation of children, expanding protections for the unborn, defunding USAID, abolishing costly regulations, and so much more.
Consider the alternative had Kamala Harris won the presidency in 2024 and with it a Democrat Congress: the largest tax hike in history, endless lawfare against conservatives, a completely weaponized FBI, runaway inflation, DEI mandates throughout the federal government, millions more illegal aliens, and anything else that progressives could have dreamed up. All of that was avoided thanks to conservatives and independents – even many who may have disagreed with Trump and Republicans on certain policies – showing up and making the mature choice to vote for the party that wouldn’t drive the country into a ditch.
From a broader perspective, the “vote Democrat to spite Republicans” crowd also suffers from a shocking ignorance about history and the nature of political systems. The underlying assumption is that society operates according to the principles of fixed momentum, and that no matter how bad things get, the train will still stay on the tracks. The “burn it all down” mindset takes as a given that there will still be a foundation to build back on.
But history tells us this is not the case. The Roman Empire collapsed and never came back. The power vacuum it left plunged Western Civilization into a thousand years of darkness that was only ended through a shocking amount of bloodshed and struggle. The fall of the Weimar Republic produced the Nazis. The collapse of the old regime in China led to Mao and tens of millions of deaths. There is no guarantee that what comes out on the other side of a collapse is better than what preceded it.
If America falls, there is no fallback plan. As Ronald Reagan put it so eloquently, himself quoting Abraham Lincoln, America is “the last best hope of man on earth” – and if we fail to preserve it, we will sentence our children to take “the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
Regardless of how upset one might be with elected leaders, conservatives have a responsibility to vote for the candidates who best reflect their values. Criticize them, hold them accountable, and primary them if necessary. But voting for a party that is actively trying to destroy everything that conservatives believe in, everything that is good about America, should never be viewed as a viable strategy to build a better future.
Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
