As regular readers will recall, this year I switched my political party affiliation from the GOP to the American Solidarity Party. I recently cast my vote by mail for Brian Carroll, the ASP candidate for President. I'm a big fan of political commentator Rod Dreher, so I was interested in his essay explaining why he also voted for Carroll.
I haven’t voted in a presidential race since 2004, because I am so alienated from both parties. I am deeply on the right on social and cultural issues, but more to the left on economic policy, in the sense of wanting the government to do more for workers and ordinary people, and wishing that the GOP were not so much in thrall to its donor class. I’m a Tucker Carlson/J.D. Vance conservative. It’s easy for me to withhold my vote, living as I do in Louisiana, a red state that is going to go for Trump. But I am tired of not voting for president, and want to push myself to make a decision, and live with it.
Fortunately, when I looked recently at the Louisiana ballot, I discovered that the American Solidarity Party was on the presidential line—that is, its nominee Brian Carroll and his running mate Amar Patel. When I read the platform of the ASP, I found that I didn’t agree with everything, but the overwhelming majority of its pro-family, Christian Democratic (in the European sense) policies I could endorse. I realized that 2020 will be the first time in my life that I can cast a presidential vote for a candidate and his party, as opposed to against the greater of two Republicrat evils. So that’s what I plan to do, while voting Republican for Senator Bill Cassidy, and for U.S. Representative Garrett Graves.
Brian Carroll won’t win, but I cannot pass up the chance to show my support for a party that actually represents the full spectrum of my views as a conservative Christian. To be honest, if I were in a swing state, I don’t know that I would do this. I probably would, though, because it’s unusual to experience voting as an act of civic affirmation, instead of civic despair, and I would like to do that at least once in my life.
That's pretty much why I voted for Carroll.
