The Ethics of Trump Denial

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Brian Ballsun-Stanton suggested that I address the question of whether or not it would be legitimate to deny Trump the nomination and to do so in the context of the article by Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic. In the course of raising question, Friedersdorf presented three stock positions and I will consider each in turn.

The first option is grounded in a basic principle of democracy, majority rule. Since Trump won the majority of the votes, he has earned the nomination. John Locke laid out the justification for this, which is quite reasonable: in a democracy, majority rule needs to be accepted to avoid destroying society. If the numerical minority refuses to accept the decision of the numerical majority, then the social system would be torn to pieces and, as Locke claimed, social systems are not formed to be torn asunder.

One obvious counter to this view is to point out that while Trump won the majority of the votes and delegates, only a small percentage of Republicans actually voted in the primaries. As such, Trump is not really the choice of the majority of the Republicans and denying him the nomination would be acceptable.

While this counter has some appeal, the easy reply is that voting is like running a race: it does not matter who might win based on who might show up; winning is a matter of who actually shows up. As such, since Trump won the majority, he is entitled to the nomination.

Accepting majority rule does leave open the possibility of Trump not getting the nomination—provided that the process is taken to include the voting of the delegates at the convention. This leads to the second option, that of the delegates voting the conscience and possibly against Trump.

Broadly speaking, there are two ways to look at the obligation of convention delegates. One is that they are obligated to vote based on who won them as delegates (at least on the first vote). The foundation for this obligation is the acceptance of the rules of the process—that is, the participants agreed with the rules and are now bound by them because of their agreement. To use a sports analogy, if one team is winning under the rules of the game and the results are not pleasing to the other team, then this hardly gives then the right to start changing the rules that everyone accepted. However, there are many cautionary tales of simply following the rules just because they are rules—there remains the question of whether the rules are good or not.

The other view of the obligation is that the delegates are not automatons—each, as Henry David Thoreau would say, has a conscience. As Jiminy Cricket said, they should let their conscience be their guide. On the positive side, a person’s conscience can play a critical rule in distinguishing good rules from bad. On the negative side, a person’s conscience can be in error. While there is often the assumption that the conscience is a reliable indicator of right and wrong, a person can have a bad conscience. This leads to a serious problem: if one uses his conscience to judge the rightness of rules, then what does the person use to assess the correctness of his conscience? One possible answer to this is the utilitarian/consequentialist approach—weighing the likely costs and benefits of an action to determine whether it is right or wrong.

In the case of Trump, one utilitarian calculation involves weighing harms and benefits of denying Trump the nomination he has earned in accord with the established rules. This would mostly be a calculation within the confines of the Republican party rather than in terms of the entire country. My inclination is that denying Trump the nomination would have profoundly negative consequences for the Republican party as an institution. As many others have noted, denying Trump the nomination would be rightly perceived as breaking the rules and a betrayal of the voters. This, of course, could be seen as a benefit for those who are opposed to this party.

A second utilitarian calculation involves weighing the harms and benefits of denying Trump the nomination in the context of the entire country (or perhaps even the world). Trump has no experience in political office, seems to lack interest in the complexities of political positions, has little concern about truth, and there are grave concerns about his ethics. As such, a solid case could be made on utilitarian grounds for denying him the nomination—assuming that his replacement would be better for the country. Hillary Clinton must also be considered in these calculations—would it be better or worse for the country if she ran against Trump rather than someone else? As I see it, Trump would be worse than Hillary Clinton; but there are presumably Republicans that would be better than her. If so, a utilitarian approach would seem to point towards the delegates nominating a candidate that is better than Trump and Hillary and who could beat Hillary. At this point, it seems unlikely that such a candidate could be found—then again, there are still months to go before the election.

In closing, my position is that Trump won the nomination and is thus morally entitled to it; that is the way the process works and it would be unjust to betray the voters and Trump. However, I think that people should not vote for Trump in the general election.

 

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