Ben Shapiro Knives Out

By Ben Shapiro. Sep 13, 2016 DailyWire.com. Facebook. The long knives are out for #NeverTrump. As the election quickly approaches, many Trump. With the election year heating up, the knives have come out for Facebook once again as the media looks to destroy a competitor they feel is too accepting of conservatives.

The long knives are out for #NeverTrump. As the election quickly approaches, many Trump supporters seem intent on browbeating conservatives who say they won’t vote for Trump into supporting Trump – or at least into silence. The chief tool in their arsenal is the fully intellectually dishonest line, “If you won’t support Trump, you want Hillary Clinton to be elected.”

This mistakes secondary effect for primary motivation.

Let’s say that you decide today to eat a cheeseburger. Your motive, clearly, is to enjoy the taste. You are foregoing other, more nutritious options, in order to eat the cheeseburger. The secondary effect of eating the cheeseburger will be a decrease in your overall health – your chances of heart disease will rise, your salt intake will increase, your weight will bump.

This does not mean that you are eating the cheeseburger because you want to be unhealthy and die.

The same holds true for those of us who say we will not vote for Trump. As I’ve expressed ad nauseum (my own and that of others, I’m sure), I’m not voting Trump because I’m watching as he currently masquerades as a conservative while ripping the heart out of conservatism, dragging many supposedly conservative thoughtleaders along with him, and toxifying conservatism to a whole new generation of voters, as well as women and minorities. My motive in not supporting Trump is to avoid all of these evils. A secondary effect of my failure to vote for Donald Trump is that the chances of him winning California decline by approximately 0.0000003 percent (Romney lost California by 3 million votes) – and a secondary effect of my failure to shill or lie for Trump is that others may not vote for him either, making a Hillary victory marginally more likely.

Free download program free templates presentation slides. That does not mean I “want” Hillary Clinton to be president. If I did, I’d vote for and shill for her.

Knives Out Based On Book

But let’s use the anti-#NeverTrump logic on Trump supporters. By their logic, you might think you’re voting for Trump to stop Hillary Clinton. But your real motivation is to help Donald Trump pervert and destroy conservatism, toxify conservatism for future electorates, and usher in an ever-more-leftward government (if W’s poor tenure resulted in Obama, what will Trump’s disastrous tenure hold?). That’s not merely an accidental byproduct of your #NeverHillary position – it’s what you want. It’s what you pray for. You want conservatism destroyed for Trump.

If you feel this is unfair, that’s because it is.

I understand the motivation of those who vote Trump to stop Hillary – and it isn’t to embrace every element of Trumpism, or to justify every horrible thing he will say and do. Well, extend us the same courtesy. I’ve likened the 2016 election to Dunkirk – strategic retreat from Trump defense is necessary to preserve the conservative army for the greater war. That doesn’t mean I want to lose Dunkirk; the British didn’t either. Attributing primary motivations to secondary effects makes villains of us all.

This mistakes secondary effect for primary motivation.