My friend Lucas has asked if he could guest post today on the topic of Super Tuesday. As soon as he asked, I said, “who am I to say no?”

Then I couldn’t get that question out of my mind.

Who am I to say no? Would I put up a pro-Trump guest post? Pro-Cruz? It’s a fair question.

I do tend towards political writing, although I usually publish those pieces elsewhere and keep posts here to more family- and faith-oriented topics, but a large part of what I write about is the hard work of learning to understand one another, and treating those with whom we disagree with the same compassion and standards we treat those with whom we do agree. Getting feedback from the choir is lots of fun, but not why one goes into the business. Or shouldn’t be, anyway.

So with that in mind, must the answer to my burning and introspective question be “yes?” I’d love to know your answer (and reasoning), but more importantly, I’d love to hear your voice on what Lucas has to say, whether it’s agreement or otherwise.

And for those who disagree (I have many friends and family who will, as does Lucas!), may grace abound.

Without further ado…

On Super Tuesday, Vote Your Hope
We Need a Better Choice in November

By Lucas Jackson

It’s pretty unlikely that Donald Trump is literally a fascist.

But you don’t have to believe the worst about Trump to recognize that his candidacy has unleashed something dark in our country. Like all demagogues, he’s exploited legitimate grievances. Disastrous trade deals that benefited corporations at the expense of everybody else. A corrupt political system owned by special interests. Politicians who can’t answer simple questions like:

What did you say in your speech to Goldman Sachs?
or
Will you ever lie to the American people?

And like all demagogues, Mr. Trump takes those grievances and spins them to play on the darkness in all of us – racism, prejudice, nationalism, hate.

And he is poised, today, to put a stake through the heart of his GOP opponents and become the most disliked candidate in American history from either party to win the nomination. That is not an opinion, it’s a statistical fact.

The second most disliked candidate in history to win a nomination? Hillary Clinton. Unless she isn’t nominated.

Hillary Clinton is the worst possible candidate to run against Donald Trump. Every one of Trump’s legitimate critiques of the political system hit home with Clinton. Trump is self-funded, Clinton and her Super Pac takes millions from Wall Street. Trump is against terrible “free trade” deals. Clinton has supported them. Trump is even, apparently, against the Iraq war. Clinton voted for it.

But far more than any one issue, Clinton embodies everything that sends so many voters of all parties (including independents) searching for an alternative of some kind. The lack of honesty and trustworthiness. The shifting positions on issues to fit the political mood. The corruption. Many of those voters have fled to Trump. But many have turned away from the siren call of hate and division and instead supported Bernie Sanders, an actual independent who takes no money from special interests, has no Super Pac, is funded by millions of small contributions (the average is, what, 27 bucks? I think we’ve heard that somewhere) and seems to be the rare politician who – agree with him or not – has the courage of his convictions.

With Clinton vs. Trump, the choice is between the same old politics of corruption and greed vs. something even worse.

Democrats scared of losing to Trump might consider supporting the more electable Democrat. And despite multiple polls showing Sanders doing better against Trump than Clinton, the media seems to be convinced that Clinton is more electable. Democrats wary of the rise of Trump may support Clinton out of fear, even if they like Sanders better.

Don’t vote your fear. Vote your hope. Vote your love. Vote your conscience.

The alternative is that come November, we’re left to choose between two troubling candidates – one of them is surrounded by aides who lobbied against the Affordable Care Act, is on record supporting the use of cluster bombs, which mostly kill children, has been involved in coups around the world and promoting perpetual wars of regime change and whose last campaign used racist divisive rhetoric.

The other candidate is Donald Trump.

We can do better.