I'm for Evan McMullin Because I Won't Waste My Vote

Evan McMullin will not be the next President of the United States. He doesn't have a prayer of winning the White House, and he may not even capture a single electoral vote. After November, there's a decent chance you won't hear his name ever mentioned again in the national news. Heck, you may even be hearing of him for the very first time right now.

Yet, he's the person I'll be casting my ballot for on election day, and the reason is fairly simple: he's the only remaining presidential candidate who isn't a waste of my vote.

Now, I realize how odd that statement might sound. After all, how can supporting a candidate who can't possibly win be anything other than a wasted vote? It's certainly a valid question — one I would have been asking myself four years ago, had someone told me that they planned on voting for a candidate other than Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

But this election year is different. Boy, is it different.

To get a big picture of why, one has to look at the last 15 years of American history. We've been through quite a bit during that time.

We watched in horror on 9/11 as our buildings collapsed, our planes fell, and thousands of our citizens died. Long wars in the Middle East have scarred us, and have made us question what we gained.

A catastrophic collapse of the economy, along with its excruciating slow recovery, has diminished our entrepreneurial spirit and limited our career aspirations and opportunities.

Dishonest, ideologically-driven policies (that most Americans didn't want) have screwed up our health-insurance system, making it unmanageable, increasingly expensive, and unsustainable. More and more parents worry that their children's standard of living will be worse than their own.

Nearly eight years of passive, impotent leadership on the world stage has emboldened America's enemies, disheartened our allies, and ushered in an increasingly dangerous era that few seem to understand.

Endless demagoguery and hyper-partisanship in Washington have kept our country's most serious challenges from being addressed. Our leaders continually fuel a culture of victimization, and direct us toward the wedge-issues that divide us. They stoke envy and resentment, and pit different economic classes and ethnic groups against each other, all for political gain.

The result of all of this has been a crushed American spirit, and a fear that we have lost the things that have made this country great.

Citizens have understandably lost faith in the system. They've given up on the existing political establishment. While many have lost hope and have become apathetic, others have flocked toward the populist hyperbole of charismatic "outsiders" who've promised to burn the old institution to the ground, regardless of the consequences.

America's damaged psyche was on full display throughout the primaries, and it has brought us to this dark point in our nation's history.

Just a month out from the general election, we're being told that we have a "binary choice" to make between two utterly unacceptable candidates that most of us neither like nor respect. And we're being told that we can't afford to "waste" our vote on someone other than them.

I, however, believe that choosing between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would itself be a waste of a vote.

Clinton is a hopelessly corrupt individual, who has proven time after time to be a totally inept leader. She'll always put herself before the country (as she did with her Benghazi scapegoating and her private email server), and she'll govern as someone who believes she is above the law (because up until now, she has been). When she's not busy covering up her own scandals, she'll be pursuing the radical agenda of her increasingly far-left base.

She's a wasted vote.

Trump is a hopelessly immature, intellectually lazy vulgarian. His narcissism is dangerous and his temperament is disqualifying. He's morally bankrupt, and his candidacy is entirely about his personal ego and thirst for prominence — not the country. He ran as a Republican purely out of convenience. He's not a conservative, he doesn't understand conservatism, and he would not govern as a conservative.

He's a wasted vote.

Both of these candidates are pathological liars. Both are big-government liberals who will expand entitlements, keep our healthcare system locked in the tight grip of government, and further limit our individual rights. Neither will address our national debt. Neither will nominate conservative Supreme Court justices. Neither understand the terror threat. Neither has the judgement to lead this country.

Both of these candidates are wasted votes, and I'd be forfeiting my dignity to support either of them.

Evan McMullin got into this presidential race because he recognized that the "binary choice" America was left with was totally unacceptable. He recognized that character, principles, limited government, and individual liberty were without a voice in this election.

Many of us on the Right have complained and commiserated for months over the Republican party's nomination of Donald Trump. We've watched Trump routinely pervert our ideals, misrepresent our motives, trash those we respect, and bring legitimacy to the unfair stereotypes we've long been branded with by the Left. He has repeatedly embarrassed our side of the political aisle, under our own banner, and all we can do in return is call on the RNC and other party leaders to do something about it.

But that's not going to happen. The RNC isn't going to answer that call. Evan McMullin, however, has.

McMullin bravely got into this race, knowing that he would be mocked as an unserious candidate who couldn't win. He knew his campaign would be viewed as a pointless stunt, and met with eye-rolls. He knew he'd be accused of being a "GOP-establishment plant" who was positioned to rob electoral votes from Trump.

I think he got in because he's a patriot — a patriot who felt Americans deserved a dignified choice.

We wanted a principled, conservative alternative, and that's what we've been given with McMullin. Through he's running as an Independent, he's a Republican — a real one. And his platform is the kind that used to make me proud to be a member of the Republican party (before Trump drove me out).

McMullin is strong on national security, has good foreign policy experience, and he understands the terror threat. After all, he's a former CIA operative (who served in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia). He also served as a senior advisor to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and as the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference.

On the economy, he's for small-government, pro-business policies. He wants to reform entitlements, and he wants to advance charter schools. He's pro-market on health insurance, and he's pro-free trade. He's strong on religious freedom, border security, and our constitutional rights.

He also brings with him an optimistic view of America's future, which has not often been seen in this campaign. The major-party candidates' most compelling case for themselves is how terrible their opponent is, and how much he or she would screw up the country. In fact, most Americans feel as though they'll be voting against someone rather than for someone, come November.

Talk about a waste. Fear shouldn't be one's only motivation for voting...especially when both choices are absolutely horrifying.

That's why Evan McMullin is not a waste of my vote. He's someone I want to vote for. He's someone I'm proud to vote for. How many of us can say that this year?