Scott Tibbs
Nobody owns your vote, no matter what is at stake
By Scott Tibbs, October 17, 2022
Back in 1987, Gary Hart was forced to drop a promising campaign for President when his relationship with a much younger woman raised suspicions that he was committing adultery against his wife. Hart probably wishes all of this happened twenty years later, because he probably would have survived the scandal or perhaps even benefited from it. Hart's alleged adultery seems quaint these days compared to the allegations against Hershel Walker.
As much as people might wish otherwise, politics is not simple. There are actually competing interests that make simple good/bad calculations impossible. If the allegations against him are true, Walker has very serious character issues that should not be ignored. I would not begrudge a single Republican for choosing not to vote for Walker.
At the same time, I understand why conservatives in Georgia would vote for Walker as a political strategy and considering the alternative. Control of the United States Senate may rest on who wins that particular race, and that has both serious policy ramifications and serious electoral ramifications going forward. Personally, I think the ideal situation is for Walker to win, resign his seat and allow the Republican governor to appoint a replacement.
Furthermore, Democrats who cannot understand why pro-life voters would continue to support Walker should look back to 1998 and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. In many ways, this fight broke the country. It became clear that at least large swaths of the Democratic Party were fine with an incumbent President sexually exploiting a White House intern young enough to be his daughter and committing perjury, subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice to keep his sexual exploits quiet.
In the aftermath of the Clinton impeachment, some Republicans doubled down on the value and importance of character. Others, however, took the same position that Democrats took in 1998: Character does not matter. Actions have consequences, and we saw the downstream effects of the aggressive defense of Bill Clinton when Donald Trump became the Republican Party's nominee for President.
This, obviously, is not good. The Bible is very clear that God expects rulers to be virtuous, and we see that from the very beginning in how Moses chose leaders under him to rule over smaller groups of people. Christians may hold their nose and vote for a wicked man for a legislative or executive position, but we should never embrace the heresy that it does not matter if someone has been personally wicked.
We also need to jettison the poisonous idea that "winning" is a virtue in and of itself. It is not, especially if we abandon our principles in order to "win" an election or a legislative battle. We need to stop making the Republican Party into an idol that we must support no matter what. I am part of a political party, but I refuse to be part of a cult. This "win at all costs" mentality is pure idolatry, and Christians must reject it and repent of it. There is only one God who deserves absolute loyalty, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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