On so-called Super Tuesday the American presidential primary campaign came to an effective end. The primary process, by which the two parties select their nominee for the general election, has yielded President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump as the respective Democrat and Republican candidates.
In past election cycles, Super Tuesday – the day during the presidential candidate process on which the most number of states hold a primary (this time 16 US states and one US territory) – has all but confirmed which candidates will invariably win their parties’ presidential nominations. This time it is even more assured (the only other significant Republican contender Nikki Haley has dropped out of the race as a result of the Super Tuesday results).
And that "assurance" has yielded Catholics with a virtually untenable choice.
Now that the primary dust has settled, we American Catholics have to ask ourselves very hard questions about how – or whether – to cast a ballot in the general Presidential Election in November (your Catholic correspondent will vote “None of the Above").
Joe Biden is a baptised Catholic who not only denies virtually all substantive Catholic moral theology, but actively works against it. His is the most aggressively pro-abortion administration in American history. He, or his deputies have advocated for abortion on demand, for any or no reason, up to the day of delivery, without qualification.
While across Europe, nations are backing away from mutilating surgeries and hormone injections for confused adolescents and teenagers, Biden is engaged in an aggressive project of sterilising teens and pre-teens in the name of so-called “gender affirmation”. Biden has worked relentlessly to remove regulatory conscience protections for Catholic physicians and other health care workers, to force them to perform procedures and endorse therapies that they find immoral.
And, of course, at age 81, Biden has shown persistently escalating signs of dementia. He jumbles names, gets lost in word-salad sentences, and is often disoriented and confused in public. His “handlers” will not let him take spontaneous questions from the press because they do not know what will come out of his mouth. I do not think many Americans, including stalwart Democrats, believe that he will be competent to discharge his duties for four more years if re-elected in November.
In the 2020 contest between the same candidates, many Catholics justified a vote for Donald Trump because he advocated overturning the <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/roe-v-wade-was-an-abuse-of-judicial-authority/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">infamous <em>Roe v. Wade</em> Supreme Court decision</mark></a>, and otherwise mouthed support for pro-life policies. And, indeed, as a result of his Supreme Court nominees, <em>Roe</em> was overruled. Because Trump appealed to single-issue voters, and that single issue is no longer a federal question, does any reason remain for a Catholic to vote for Trump?
Trump has persisted in claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite overwhelming conclusions that the claims are without merit. In the process, he has subscribed to wacko conspiracy theories, becoming entangled in the darkest fringes of extreme right-wing American politics. Trump is an avowed nativist, whose immigration policy is hostile to Catholic doctrines of dignity and solidarity. He does not support the Catholic position on a host of other issues, including euthanasia, contraception, in-vitro fertilization, surrogacy, the death penalty and same-sex marriage.
Indeed, Trump’s position is not distinguishable from Biden’s on any of these important moral issues and the public policies that they suggest.
Additionally, Trump is the defendant in several court cases, facing both civil and criminal liability. He has already been fined an aggregate of about $500 million for various civil transgressions. Credible felony cases for election interference, hush money payments and purloining classified documents are pending in four separate state and federal criminal courts.
Even aside from the general American embarrassment that these candidates are vying for arguably the most powerful political office in the world, <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/cafeteria-catholicism-and-this-years-american-election-campaigns/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Catholics cannot ignore these glaring deficiencies</mark></a> in both candidates.
“Lesser-of-two-evil” analysis is not legitimate moral reasoning. Even if it were, it is simply not clear that either of these candidates will produce less-evil results if elected in November. It would require one of the candidates to make significant shifts in his policy programs (and his respective parties’ platforms), to alter this sad state.
For example, if Biden were at least to advocate strong conscience exceptions for educators and health care workers who object to abortion, <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/why-the-us-respect-for-marriage-act-is-a-work-of-fiction/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">same-sex marriage</mark></a> and transgender ideology, it might move the needle somewhat. Or if Trump were to disavow the fringe nativists and conspiracy theorists at the core of his support, he might be less untenable.
While not impossible, neither of these shifts is likely.
The <em>Catechism of the Catholic Church</em> maintains that Catholics have a moral duty to participate in public life. But sometimes – and I think this is one of them – responsible participation is to <em>withhold</em> a vote for both of these objectively unfit candidates.
Bar one of those highly unlikely significant shifts mentioned above, I, for one, believe it would be morally irresponsible to vote for either candidate. <br><br><em>(Photos by Getty Images.)</em>
<em>Kenneth Craycraft is<em> a Catholic Herald columnist based in the US,</em> and author of '<a href="https://osvcatholicbookstore.com/product/citizens-yet-strangers-living-authentically-catholic-in-a-divided-america?ga_ref_list_id=taxonomy_3_term_64995ga_ref_list_name=Taxonomy%20Term:%20Coming%20Soon"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America</mark></a>' (Our Sunday Visitor, 2024), a book that 'resets the framework of how we engage with politics as Catholics'.</em>
