I have always been involved in American politics. I grew up in a home where my mother was a political operative, campaigning for politicians such as Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace (twice). Mom veered off into the land of independent candidates, working for candidates such as Wallace, Ross Perot, and John Anderson. She even had positive things to say about 1984 Vice President candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
Mom was outspoken about her political beliefs, writing numerous letters to editors of local newspapers. She was a product of her age — racist and pro-military. Mom defended Lieutenant William Calley of My Lai massacre fame and thought the Kent State students murdered by Ohio National Guard soldiers got exactly what they deserved. Mom was never afraid to speak her mind. I suspect, to a large degree, I followed in her footsteps.
That said, Mom was widely read, a news junkie who spent hours every day watching cable news programs — including C-Span. Mom killed herself in 1991 at the age of fifty-four. (Please see Barbara.) She and I had numerous discussions about politics. Her views evolved and changed, but she remained a conservative Christian until the end.
I voted in my first presidential election in 1976. I voted for Jimmy Carter. He would be the only Democrat I voted for until I left the Republican Party in 2000 and voted for Al Gore. Since then, I have voted for Democratic presidential candidates, even though I am increasingly dissatisfied and disappointed with candidates such as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton. I didn’t vote for any of these candidates in the primaries, choosing to vote for Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama instead. Whether I continue to be a card-carrying Democrat remains to be seen. I have spent the past decade voting for the lesser of two evils. I am tired of doing so, but until the two-party system is dismantled and true alternatives come to the forefront (along with ranked voting), I suspect I am consigned to lesser-of-two-evils hell.
I spent fifty years in the Evangelical church. Twenty-five of those years were spent pastoring churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. For many years, I was unafraid to mix religion and politics, going so far as to endorse and support political candidates from the pulpit. That said, I wasn’t a party hack. Former church members might remember my scathing 1998 sermon about Bill Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinsky and my 1991 sermon about George H.W. Bush’s murderous war in Iraq. George Bush would get similar public castigation for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Above political affiliation, I put morals and ethics first. I was unwilling to give politicians a pass just because we were members of the same party. I have long believed that war-mongering runs deep in our politics, and the 2024 Presidential Election is no different. The unwillingness of Harris, Biden, and other Democrats to take a stand against Israel’s genocidal violence in Palestine disgusts me. If there were a viable third-party candidate who took a clear position opposing war in the Middle East, I would vote for them. Alas, I refuse to throw my vote away to maintain naive political purity.
People who know of my right-wing political beliefs as a pastor wonder if Donald Trump was a Republican presidential candidate back in the day if I would have voted for him. The answer is no. It is unlikely that I would have voted for the Democratic candidate either. I might have voted third-party or abstained from voting, but there’s no way I would have voted for Trump. Morals and ethics matter to me, and Trump is the most immoral, unethical presidential candidate in my sixty-seven years of life. He is unfit to be president, a vile man who sexually assaulted numerous women and has ripped off countless small business owners. He is unfit to be a member of the human race, let alone the leader of the United States. I have no doubt I would have preached sermons about Trump, pointing out his lies and immoral behavior.
All politicians have skeletons in their closets. All politicians lie. Trump’s lies are legion, but Harris and Waz have told a few whoppers of their own too. I don’t expect politicians to live according to my moral and ethical values, but I do expect them to be decent, thoughtful human beings. Trump is neither, and I cannot imagine a scenario where I would vote for him.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Connect with me on social media:
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Situated as I am in the UK, we’re tempted to think that voting for anyone but Trump is desirable, and as a result tend to assume that Harris is the perfect candidate. Apparently not. I’m starting to read some of her views and, whilst I think much of what she says is to make her more palatable to floating voters, it’s clear that she veers substantially to the right. Having said which, come the election I hope that voters decide not to make perfect the enemy of good.
I agree with you. The USA does not have true free voting since we have only 2 viable choices for each political opening. We need to get rid of the electoral college. We need to get big money donations out of politics. Since I do not have the money Elon Musk has my vote is worth less than his money to support candidates. I will gladly vote for Kamala Harris to get female reproduction choice returned to the individual. No candidate is perfect.
Thanks Bruce.
I view the current Presidential candidates as a choice between bad and worse.
Harris as bad, Trump as worse, much worse.
Frankly as the election progresses I find Trump lying every time he opens his mouth.
His election will portend disaster for the American Experience.
I do not support the Gov’t (Democrats) positions on DEI, reparations or the LGBTQ movement.
I do support the Gov’t providing tolerance and tax breaks to these movements / organizations, but force feeding these movements on a predominantly racist and Judeo/Christian Cult majority is crazy IMO and may well
lead to the end of Democracy should Trump get elected.
Trump is the most disgusting Political leader to pollute the American body politic since Jeff Davis.
Anyone that believes his lies will ultimately get exactly what they deserve. The destruction of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the end of social programs, the end of American strategic world wide foreign policy and military accomplishments established since WW2, the end of NATO, probably the right to vote and a police state.
Americans will get enslavement to Fortune 500 companies, the creation of an Oligarchic Society similar to Russia,
and an Imperial Presidency with a stream of Trumps or hand picked successors ad infinitum.
The Christian Nationalists will be revealed for what they are, Facists.
Ceasar will have crossed the Rubicon if voted in. The die is cast. I will swallow hard, cast my vote and hope that better candidates emerge in the future, that is, if I even have the right to vote in 4 years.
I despise the 2 party system. I would prefer multiple parties and a rank choice voting system. Voting shouldn’t be a binary choice.
My mom died in 2014. She was active on her county’s GOP and in Republican women’s club. I’m not sure why she switched from Democrat to Republican in the 80s. She and my stepdad were on government assistance for awhile after his disability prevented him from working. I was sending them $$$ too but somehow they were pissed about black people “not working” and getting government assistance, so there they were. They were also evangelical Christians, and looking back I can see that my mom was getting into some conspiracy theory stuff, but I didn’t really read the emails about end times and Israel and Obama back then. My aunt and uncle and I have discussed how it’s better that she passed away before Trump because she probably would have supported him because he was GOP, and that would have broken our hearts.
It was shocking to see how many evangelicals from my past became Trump devotees. Horrible.
My current politics are generally “left of center”, more “center” than left. Sometimes I also use the term “conservative with a small c” or even the more confusing “conservative-progressive”, a play on “agnostic-atheist”. I’m conservative in my personal values, interests, clothing, music preferences, how I like to spend my time, my behavior and manners, etc. but progressive concerning abortion, criminal justice reform, books in libraries, church and state, etc. Like Jeff, I feel very strongly that no one should be “force fed” an ideology in this country, whether from the right or the left.
When Trump first reared his ugly head (2016), I was alot more of a law and order, moralistic conservative (but ironically a lot less religious). Just about all my friends and relatives supported him, but I (and my wife) did not. I voted for a third party candidate because I also did not (and still to this do not) trust the Clintons. During a hike I made the mistake of telling a good friend about my decision. He was decent about it, but I got the “you threw away your vote” lecture. I responded that there was something I did not like about Trump, mainly that he came across as a loud-mouthed and uncouth bully that never apologizes for anything he does or says. He seemed to be a sociopath, especially because of the con-man level of charm and enthusiasm he could muster when he wanted to.
I didn’t vote for him in 2020 and definitely will.m not vote for him now. Kamala Harris, while most likely not someone who fits my definition of an ideal candidate, represents sanity, process and procedure, and a commitment to recruit a good cabinet (including at least one Republican). To me the choice is not between Republican and Democrat, but between the middle-left and the extreme authoritarian far right.
There will never be a perfect candidate. This country is heavily influenced by religion toward conservatism so I don’t believe any presidential candidate who is overtly progressive can get people, even those who hate Trump, to abandon their loyalty to the GOP. Harris has to be somewhat centrist to appeal to enough people and right now, we are in survival mode. Harris and Walz are thoughtful, decent people who live in the real world. The politicians from the other side are thoroughly indecent and operating within a nightmarish conspiracy-laden dystopia that has nothing to do with real life. It’s an easy decision.