Why I'm Voting for Trump in 2020 (and why I was never trump in 2016)

Welcome to Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. This is the episode many of you have been waiting for.

Why I am voting for President Donald Trump this year when I didn't in 2016.

I was on the more conservative side of the never -Trumper, I don't want to call it a movement, but mentality.

Beginning to find out most of the never -Trumpers are just progressives. They're not conservatives.

I was a conservative who was concerned about Donald Trump because I didn't think he would be a conservative. I have changed my mind.

It's not so much a change as it is an evolution of understanding where the issues are.

I think the scenario has changed. I think Trump has changed. There's actually a bunch of things going on that are changing. I'm going to explain all that and why

I am choosing to vote for Donald Trump this time. I do want to say up front, if you decide to vote for a third party, you can't do it.

I understand. That's okay. I'm not judging you for that.

I'm just going to tell you how I'm coming at this. I think it's a matter of wisdom. There's good, better, best. I'm not thinking about this as necessarily it is an objectively right or wrong thing whether or not to vote for Donald Trump.

You've seen my thoughts in the past on voting for Joe Biden, voting for the Democrat platform, using any logic that would make you vote for Joe Biden, that tries to ease your conscience about abortion, and these kinds of things.

That is wrong. That is objectively wrong. You can go to other videos where I've talked about this, but this video is about Donald Trump and why

I'm choosing to vote for him this time. I want to say a few things up front.

Number one, thank you to everyone who supports me through prayer, through giving. I have had a very busy week.

A lot of unexpected phone calls. I've been on the phone a lot. Trying to help people, trying to make connections for people in ministries, personally.

I just want to let you know that sometimes we only see the tip of the iceberg.

Those of you who are my patrons and supporters, et cetera, those who pray for me. There is more going on, so I just wanted to give you that encouragement.

There's some conversations I've been able to have that have been encouraging, and you're part of that in some way.

The other thing I wanted to remind you of is that no matter who wins on Election Day, God is sovereign.

I know that sounds cliche. I know that it gets thrown out there sometimes inappropriately to just kind of say it doesn't matter almost.

I get the sense when I hear some people say that it's almost fatalistic.

Well, whatever happens, God's in control as if it doesn't matter. It does matter who's in the White House. Yeah, God's on his throne, but it does matter.

We have actually a decision to make ourselves because we're in a Republican form of government.

We get to vote for representatives, and it's important I say that. We get to vote for people that represent us in the electoral college who then choose the president, and so I'm thankful for that.

I think that no system's perfect. This side of heaven, there's always going to be weaknesses that sinful men can use, but it's a pretty good system.

And so God is sovereign, and what I would like to remind you of is his sovereignty through history.

All the people that had to live through horrible times for Christians—think of Soviet Russia.

Think of Maoist China even in the last century. You go back to the original

Christians and think about the persecution that they underwent under Nero. There have been many times in history it's been hard to be a

Christian, and I do think that our country is—we're running towards persecution. There's been a little bit of it, but not to that extent quite yet, but we're going there.

We're going to a time when Christians will be censored. Some of them are already. They will be perhaps even thrown into jail or whatever.

Their social credit will go down. We'll talk a little more about social credit later, but if Trump is elected, we have four more years.

We have a reprieve, and that's four more years. And what I mean by reprieve is we have four more years to specifically exercise some of the freedoms that have been enjoyed in this country for a long time.

Since its inception, we get to have freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom to worship, and we can exercise those freedoms.

We can evangelize. We can worship. We have freedom to exercise our religious convictions, and we need to take advantage of that.

If we get four more years, guys, we need to take advantage of it. I've been thinking about the last four years because I had that same thought when

Trump got in last time, and I thought, well, at least Hillary's not going to be clamping down with hate crimes legislation where she censors what kinds of sins we can talk about when we're evangelizing or when the church meets.

This COVID thing has really shown, though, that persecution can come in different ways. You can just say the church isn't essential, and liquor stores and abortion mills and you can go get pot.

Those kinds of things are essential, and the church can suffer discrimination. Christians can suffer discrimination in all sorts of different ways.

And if Hillary Clinton were president, I think during these last four years, this country would look much different.

But even under Trump, though, it's slipping. And so we can't take it for granted if Trump gets in, that we're just going to have freedom for perpetuity.

We don't have that guarantee. In fact, we have the opposite. We know that at some point, without the intervention of God, obviously, that is going to end.

The country can't sustain itself because the constitution of our country was made for a moral and religious people.

It is wholly inadequate for any other kind of people. So not to scare you too much, because my point is, redeem the time no matter what happens, but redeem the time especially if Trump wins.

And number two, remember God is sovereign no matter what happens. He is in control. Go look at the stars the night of the election and think about what he's done through human history and what it's leading up to.

And we know in the end, we've read the end of the book, he wins. So let's try to take some comfort in that. Now, let's talk about a little bit of my personal history, my voting history.

I'm not as consistent as some people probably think. I think a lot of people think I'm just a Republican, a right winger.

I am a right winger, I guess, in the sense that I am conservative, traditional, kind of more Burkean conservative.

I have not always voted for the Republicans, though, and I have not always been a registered Republican. In fact, I've worked for the Board of Elections where I grew up a few times for the conservative party.

I have voted for a libertarian for president one time because I couldn't vote for McCain.

I remember I used to be a lot more idealistic. I think I've become more pragmatic and I'm not a libertarian. But at the time

I was I was veering more that direction, like a lot of younger people, I think, do. I I ended up one time for a local election and my mind is foggy on this.

I can't remember exactly if I did a right in or if I voted for the Democrat, but I think I might have voted for the Democrat. And it wasn't because the

Democrat was you know, it wasn't like on board with like the national Democrat platform. It was because the

Republican was so bad and the Democrat actually, with all the local issues that I knew, was actually better.

And so that's why when people say, well, we should discipline people for voting Democrat.

Yeah. If what you mean by that is they're supporting the Democratic Party platform. They're voting for someone who carries that platform, who endorses evil.

Sometimes in these local elections, it's it's almost meaningless. I'm just saying the party affiliations don't always mean much on the local level.

But I digress. So just trying to throw that out there. I have not always been consistent in voting on a straight party line.

In fact, most of the time I don't or I haven't. So it's my knowledge.

So so this last election four years ago, I should say, before the election four years ago for president, I voted for.

I did a right. And I actually it was. Yeah, it was a right. And it was a third party and it was Constitution Party.

I think I voted and I did not vote for President Trump. Now, I'm going to get into why

I didn't and why things have changed for me and I think have changed for Trump as well. And for the situation we're in right now,

I also I was I should say I did work a little bit for the

Cruz campaign, not I wasn't paid or anything. I just made some phone calls for them. But I I was really at the time

I really wanted Cruz to get in there. I thought he had shown such moral courage standing against Obamacare.

And I thought this Trump guy, he's just a liberal. And so I think there was there was a personal thing.

It wasn't all personal. I definitely had principled objections to Trump. But there was also in that,

I think, a personal kind of issue that I had with him because of the way that he treated

Cruz and the way that he just treated people in general. And I don't endorse the way he treats a lot of people or and has in the past.

Now, that being said, so you kind of know where I'm coming from.

I am, like I said, principled, conservative. I don't believe in situation ethics. I don't believe

I am an absolutist. I don't believe in pragmatism or ends justifies the means. So you're going to wonder probably how am

I approaching this? How do I not use those tools to justify my vote for Trump? And that's what I want to talk to you about.

And if you find inconsistencies, you know, feel free. Look, I'm I'm always open to to criticism. If you think that I'm making the wrong decision, tell me in the comments.

But I think I've thought through this as much as I can, and I think I'm coming to the right decision in my mind, at least.

So why I did not vote for Trump in 2016, I did not assume it was a binary choice in 2016.

That is one of the reasons I didn't assume that I thought. And what I mean by that is the coalition governments of Europe, you know, where you have to form a majority to get a coalition government started and then govern that way.

I and I don't know all the ins and outs of that, but I've thought that that's a superior model because you actually have competing views of the government that one might be more nuanced than the other on a certain issue.

And you can have you just can have, I think, almost better representation because not everyone fits into one or the other box.

So the two party system thing, I didn't I didn't really care for that. I still don't really care for that in every way.

I'm also a localist, though, so I I think that certain states should probably have certain parties.

And in fact, I think your state election should be more important than your federal. But that's we left that a while ago.

So I just wanted to live in that world in my mind that it wasn't a binary choice. I'm not so sure that world exists anymore, but that's what

I thought in 2016. It's not a binary. This is not a binary choice. I also thought that I was justified in thinking

Trump would not govern conservatively. I had a track record. I had his talking about his

New York City values and that kind of thing. I thought Trump would rebrand conservatism and the

GOP and drive young people away, offend everyone, just sink the

Republican Party. There would be no Republican Party, perhaps, or the Democrats would just get the best of us because Trump's the one that's representing it.

And and he's he's the way he is. I thought Trump's moral failings also disqualified him.

And so these were really the four reasons that in 2016, I just could not support Donald Trump.

Now, I want to talk about these reasons one by one and what what's changed, why

I don't view them the same anymore. The first is that the binary choice objection that I had,

I have come to the conclusion, especially in 2020, that the

Great Reset is. A binary choice. What do

I mean by that? I want to I want you to watch a few videos and this this may be new to a lot of you, but you need to see what this is and we'll go from there.

So I'm going to show you a few videos. It's from the World Economic Forum on the Great Reset. It says our world has changed.

Our challenges are greater. It's showing what's supposed to be climate change.

It's showing the covid issue. It's showing pollution. Our fragility is exposed. There's that word fragility, poverty.

And it was showing the discrepancies between poor and rich because our systems need a reset.

It's showing protesters. Everyone has a role to play.

So it's showing covid and there's the George Floyd riots, black lives matters, riots, rather.

Everything. I mean, this is just all encompassing. You get the impression. I mean, you got just all sorts of things that it's showing that are supposed to designate,

I think, climate change and space travel and birth and everything you do in life.

And it's just at the end says the Great Reset. Now, this looks like an advertisement because it is World Economic Forum, the

Great Reset. Now, if you know anything about the World Economic Forum, I've talked about it before on this podcast app right after covid started up.

I went to the website and they immediately it was like Taylor. They just had all these like an agenda that was preset to go once covid is is is a point of discussion.

Now we can talk about reforming education, rethinking education. We can think about climate change initiatives like every conceivable issue that globalists have ever wanted to shove down our throats was now in their minds reachable.

They could they could use. Honestly, it's the fear of individuals to then get them to listen to the experts.

That was one of the things I kept seeing is we're so glad that people are finally listening to the experts. Maybe they'll listen to the experts when it comes to education.

We can supply the curriculum and the laptops and everything that poor countries need.

And with no strings attached, you know, we'll just somehow the money is just going to magically appear. Well, it's redistribution of some kind.

So anyway, I've talked about this. These are these are global elites. Look at some of the foundations and people associated with this.

I'm encouraging you to do some of your own research. I mean, I can't bring to you everything that I've seen. But what

I can do is I can show you. We're to skip that. I can show you some of the things that they've been saying.

Now, this is a video from 2016. OK, from the World Economic Forum, it says eight predictions for the world in 2030.

Watch this. You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.

Whatever you want, you'll rent and it'll be delivered by drone. We've already seen some of that.

I mean, I'm going to pause this for a minute. We've seen some of that. The delivery by drone is already happening in some places.

Right. So some of this stuff they knew they could project and see where technology was going. But you'll own nothing and be happy.

What does that sound like? No ownership. The U .S. won't be the world's leading superpower.

That's number two. A handful of countries will dominate. OK, this is

I mean, this is the Wilsonian dream. This is the League of Nations. This is the United Nations.

This is this. This is the Tower of Babel coming back. You won't die waiting for an organ donor because we won't transplant organs.

They're going to be able to print organs. You'll eat much less meat. Now, will you own that transplanted organ?

I just got to wonder, is that yours or does that belong to someone else? Since you'll own nothing and be happy. So you're not going to eat meat.

So we're going to be vegetarians. A billion people will be displaced by climate change. Wonder where they'll go.

We'll have to do a better job at welcoming and integrating refugees. Now, remember what was happening in 2016.

And it's just interesting to me. I think the climate change is connected to that.

Polluters will have to pay to emit carbon dioxide. There will be a global price on carbon.

This will help make fossil fuels history. Wait, a global price on carbon? So there's going to be some kind of centralized authority.

Governmental authority. Global governmental authority that's going to be able to regulate carbon. You could be preparing to go to Mars.

Scientists will have worked out how to keep you healthy in space. The start of a journey to find alien life.

Alien life. There's a religious connection to that one,

I think. And this one, check this one out. Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.

So where are the checks and balances going to come from? This is a globalist utopia.

You're not going to own anything, but things are going to be regulated from a global centralized authority of some kind.

This was in 2016 they put this out. Here's another video on the Great Reset. We have the power.

We have the power. To capture imaginations and influence how the world behaves.

But we've used that power without thinking about its effect. Doesn't it sound so spiritual?

I mean, really, doesn't it sound like the fall? This is the fall of man.

We were given all this power, but we are the problem somehow. This is what we've done. And it's consumerism.

That's what they're trying to show you. Consumerism is the problem. Buy me signs and eat all this food.

Pause. And reconsidered what was essential. And for a moment, we only made what the world truly needed.

We only made what the world truly needed. By whose standard? Who's going to determine what the world truly needs?

The world, not the United States. The world truly needs. We now have an opportunity to use our influence for society and the planet's best interest.

This is redemption. This is redemption, guys. We now have the opportunity. So we fell.

We mismanaged. We were consumers. Now we have the opportunity, the collective we, to redeem ourselves.

And join the Great Reset. This is thegreatreset .com.

This is an advertisement, guys. This is trying to persuade us into this. Now, if you don't think this is related to social justice in some way, you're wrong.

It is related. Now, let me show you this chart here. The Great Reset chart.

I'm going to make this bigger so you can see it here. So look at all the things that are part of this.

You have COVID -19. It's part of the Great Reset. Biodiversity, cities and urbanization, climate change.

I mean, it's everything, guys. Everything is part of this. Forests, human rights, LGBTI inclusion, gender parity, drones, 5G, digital identity.

This is everything. The Great Reset touches everything, every part of your life.

It fundamentally transforms the world. That is the utopian scheme. You can go on Google and just Google this if you want.

I prefer DuckDuckGo. Go to DuckDuckGo and search this in an image search and you'll find what

I'm talking about here. Now, I know for some of you this is kind of new stuff, and I get that, and it can be a little overwhelming.

But this is something that I've been looking into now for a while, so it's not a shocker to me.

But I'll put it this way. I'm not a big conspiracy theory guy, but 2020 has shown me on some level, because the proof is there, that there are global elites chomping at the bit to take away our national sovereignty, to control, to bring in their experts, fundamentally change the way that Western values, you heard it in the video, to the way that the

United States functions, our law, everything. Check out this video. We had already income inequality that was fueling income, race, gender inequality.

We have a climate emergency which we can't walk away from. There's no doubt that the very survival of the human race requires us to act.

Any recovery stimulus should have green conditions attached to it. Energy prices should reflect real costs.

You need private sector capital, private sector ingenuity, private sector technology, and private sector capabilities to come to the party.

You need enormous trust between the private sector and the public sector for this to actually work.

We have to change our economy dramatically in the next 20 or 30 years, and the next 10 years is absolutely decisive.

The recovery has to be greener than any of the previous recoveries. And in order to do that, we need to ensure that the stimulus package, including fiscal and monetary, are much greener than they were before.

All right. So that was just a clip from a world. I mean, these kinds of World Economic Forum live streams, etc.,

they're available all the time. They have these meetings constantly. And these are some of the experts, and they're talking, and this is what they're saying about the plans.

The globalist plans. So check this out. The role of religion is part of the Great Reset. The role of religion is part of it.

One of the things that struck me as I was looking at this, I'll be honest with you guys. Do you remember that website,

Trusted Voices, The Church in COVID -19, or Church in Coronavirus, I think is what it was called. I remembered this when

I was looking at the role of religion, and I was thinking about it. And just how, I don't know, there was something similar about this.

I can't put my finger totally on it, but some of the words that are used in these articles, some of the topics.

But they're constantly churning out articles. How religious groups and services have adapted during the coronavirus pandemic.

Diversity is top of the corporate agenda. Why doesn't that include faith?

Have a little faith in places where religion matters most. I mean, some of these could be gospel coalition headlines.

I mean, they're kind of general. But every single one of these is meant to help usher in the

Great Reset. The gay imam story, the dialogue, is open in Islam. Ten years ago it wasn't.

There's changes going on in Islam. You think the social justice stuff is just in Christianity? No, no.

This is bigger than that. And that's what I want to kind of help you see.

Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to feature model in burkini. This is last year, 2019.

But anyway, this is all part of something bigger. I just want you to see that there's something bigger going on.

There are global elites that do have a plan. And the United States can't be exempt from that.

This is a video. This is from the World Economic Forum, yes.

What is the fourth industrial revolution? I encourage you, go watch the whole video. But I want to just play for you a clip at the end.

More quickly on this disease. One of the things that I think is so essential to free and open societies is freedom of thought.

And up until now, the conversation we've been having is around freedom of speech. Once we can access people's thoughts and access people's emotions, we have to create a space that enables people to think freely, to think divergent thoughts, to think creative thoughts.

And in a society where people fear having those thoughts, the likelihood of being able to enjoy progress is significantly diminished.

We need to take responsibility at every level of society, from the individual and the personal to the institutional to the global, to adapt to these technological challenges and changes, which are redefining what it means to be human, what it means to work, what it means to be completely embedded in this world.

People always ask me if I'm an optimist or a pessimist. The technology exists, but how do we get it and implement it at the scale we need at a price that people around the world can afford?

All right, let me just, I'm going to stop it there for the sake of time. Go watch this video. What is the fourth industrial revolution from the

World Economic Forum? I wanted you to hear that we're going to have to think about creating a space for freedom of thought, because basically we're going to have to make a decision whether we want to be humans or not, because technology is going to blend with humanity so much, that's kind of the point of this video, that what are we going to do if we have the capability of reading your mind, changing your thoughts, and that kind of thing.

The next interview in this little promo has someone saying, well, we are going to have to take responsibility at every level, from the individual on up.

So the collective we, again, we are going to have to be the ones to regulate our own thoughts.

How does this work? Do I trust the collective we to have that kind of power over me?

It's part of the Great Reset. Here's a story from Fox Business.

Joe Biden's disturbing connection to the socialist Great Reset movement. A pledge by Biden to support the

Great Reset would pose a grave threat to liberty and free markets in the United States. I can't read the whole thing for you right now.

I'll tell you this, I am completely convinced that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, more

Kamala Harris than Biden, but that they are completely hook, line, and sinker sold on this kind of thing.

Absolutely sold. They are in bed with the globalists. And whether they're just corrupt politicians or not,

I mean, they're going to, even if the motivation is for themselves personally, or if it's because they're ideologues, we're going to get this one way or the other in a

Biden administration. So this explains better, this article, why they think that Biden would back this.

But he's already signaled that he would. The AOC wing of the Democratic Party, this is what they believe in.

So knowing that, hearing that, this is what concerns me.

And I want to get back to, this is not the only thing that concerns me, but this is something that concerns me, because I want you to think through the implications of this.

If we give up our constitution, if we go for globalist control, if we have oversight,

I mean, the president can make treaties, binding treaties. If we start doing, going down this road, the capacity for domination and losing our civil liberties is enormous.

If you go to China today, they have what they call a social credit score. In a lot of the urban areas, there's cameras everywhere.

If you cross the street and it's not a green light, your social credit score could go down because there's facial recognition.

The cameras can see who you are. And that's the kind of, that's the system they have implemented in China, to keep their citizenry in line, to keep them slaves, civil slaves of the government.

And this is the kind of thing that we don't want happening here or in the

Western world. We want to keep our American way of life, our American identity, our

American documents and constitution. We want to ensure that we can have an election in four years that's meaningful, where we are able to vote and actually choose our leaders.

I'm not so certain that's even going to happen. We're having rights taken away from us so quickly.

The discussions about rights, I should say, are being taken away from us, are happening so quickly that if the people discussing that get into power and they want to force us to have the vaccinations and we're going to have to have our little travel card or a chip or something, but something proving that we've had our vaccinations.

I mean, you let the government into that, you give them control of healthcare and then connect that to globalist elites and their thoughts on healthcare and climate change and all the rest, we're going to lose our sovereignty real quick.

And so why do I bring this all up, John? Some of you, oh, you're just trying to scare us. No, I'm not trying to scare you.

I'm not. I don't talk about this stuff much, but I'm just being personal with you. This is what concerns me a lot more than it did before.

This year has shown me what globalists really want to do.

And I didn't view globalists as a huge, huge threat. I knew they were out there. Now I see more clearly what's happening.

I see that there is an alliance between the social justice progressive left and globalist elites in Europe.

And I'm talking about the Soroses. I'm talking about the Gates Foundation, members of the

World Economic Forum. They want control. That's what they're after.

They're after power. Everything's about power. And so that's why

I think that the binary choice issue actually has changed for me.

This idea that there's a binary choice. See if I can get rid of that. Because the Great Reset is a binary choice.

It's a question of whether we're going to have it or not. Are we going to accept the Great Reset in the

United States? And if Biden gets in and Kamala Harris gets in, we will. I really do think that on some level.

And you say, oh, we have Congress maybe. Well, maybe, but how much are they going to be able to do? I have some experience of seeing

Congress pretty feckless. They don't do a lot when the president oversteps the boundaries.

And we know Kamala Harris and Joe Biden will overstep the boundaries. So I think that the binary choice is not whether or not we have

Trump or Biden. The binary choice, in my mind, is whether it's a policy choice. Are we going to accept the

Great Reset or not? In my opinion, that may be the biggest issue of this election.

What is being talked about? Are we going to go down the globalist path? Or are we going to stick to having the

United States and being unique? When Trump spoke, you can look it up. I probably should have queued it up to play it for you.

But Trump did speak at the World Economic Forum. I think it was, what, a year or two ago? And he, what he said made people very mad there.

Because he said that, I think he cited Brexit. And he said it's the time for nation states.

And basically stuck a needle in their eye and said, basically, I believe in not giving up national sovereignty.

We can cooperate, but we do not give up our national sovereignty. So, to me, this is a very clear, that's a clear distinction,

I think, between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump's not going to be going down that path. Biden will be going down that path.

I understand more now, 2016, in a way. And why Trump was going after China so hard.

And I can't go into all the details about China. And I'm not even an expert on it, but I've done enough study to know. There's a lot of globalist games going on.

A lot of geopolitical things. And Trump is, was, he saw an issue, I think, that I didn't see quite as clearly as he saw it.

And that is, that was the whole America first thing. That we don't want to lose our national sovereignty.

And so, I'm seeing that issue as a bigger priority to me now. And Trump, I think, is fairly, he's decent on this issue.

Now, I'm a localist, so does he erode our localism? In a sense, yeah, but I think that was eroded a long time ago.

I mean, I don't know how, I want to think local and act local. I don't know exactly how to get that back. I argue for it, but I don't think that's, the pressing issue right this second is, are we going to be the

United States of America or not? I've waxed too long on that. Let's go to the next one. And you can do some of that research yourself if you have questions.

Just go to the World Economic Forum. I mean, they're not hiding it anymore. I think Trump did govern more conservative than expected.

And I mean that. I think that, let's see, did I put, yeah, I want to just start with the pro -life stuff.

Because this is one of the things that's brought up a lot, is that, well, even if you do overturn

Roe v. Wade, then they're just going to get abortions in the states that allow it. And, you know, it doesn't really matter that Trump appoints conservative judges.

I actually beg to differ. And I'm going to give you why. He is the first president to speak at the

March for Life. And you think, oh, that's just, that's not that significant. That's just a speech. Well, the first president?

I don't know. That's definitely an encouraging thing that tells me, because I was very concerned he wasn't going to be pro -life.

One of the reasons I couldn't vote for him, I don't know if he's pro -life. He might be lying. I don't think he's lying.

And he's proven it. The GOP platform, I don't know why I put that in there twice. Anyway, the

GOP platform is also pro -life. But he nominated 242 judges so far, which is like an unprecedented amount.

And he is, he's doing better, at least with his Supreme Court picks, we can see, he's doing much better than Bush did, and possibly even

Reagan. Not perfect, but it's, you know, he's trying to get originalists in there.

He reenacted the Mexico City policy. For those who don't know, this is basically defunding of organizations that would promote abortion overseas, around the world.

So our funding for relief efforts and so forth isn't going to abortion.

So this is saving babies' lives. I mean, you can't tell me that this is not. This is, you know, it's not

Roe v. Wade. No, but this is important. He restricted Title X money, so money that an organization like Planned Parenthood would get basically cut off some funding for them because they perform abortions.

Other considerations. And these are more, these are more philosophical,

I guess, but the allocation of pro -life resources. So pro -life organizations, if Roe v.

Wade is overturned, which I don't know if it will be, I would, I mean, this is hypothetical, but if it is, and a lot of evangelicals are arguing that that doesn't really matter because it won't be, and even if it is, it doesn't matter.

But if it is, it does matter because pro -life resources will be reallocated to states in which the battle is continuing.

So think about it this way. We're in all the states doing this national battle. Well, if you can take all those resources and put them in, let's say, 13 states, you know, 20 states, then you can be more efficient.

You can actually, you can overwhelm those states with pro -life advertisements and, you know, put all the resources in there.

So that's one consideration. I haven't heard anyone talk about that. But the other thing is the likelihood of the attorney general taking action against pro -life states.

So if you have a state that decides, all right, we're not going to do abortion, can you imagine that under the Obama administration?

I mean, it's immediately, it's going to be the attorney general is going to come down hard on that. Well, in Trump administration, that's not happening.

That's not an option. And so I think that Trump actually is pro -life. I'll be honest with you.

He seems at least way more than I thought he was. We'll put it that way. So that's one thing to consider.

The other thing I wanted to show you here, this is, see if I can pull it up.

This is on the Trump campaign website. But I was just thinking about Trump trying to keep his promises.

And I think he's done actually way better than I ever thought he would on this. I didn't think, I thought he was lying.

Look, he cheated on his wives. He had three marriages. How can we trust this guy?

You can't be honest in his personal life. But lo and behold, he has been. Look, I'll show you one thing here.

This is economy and jobs, all right? What did he do? He gave tax cuts. And it goes through all the details of the tax cuts.

What else did he do? Federal funded apprenticeship programs. I don't really know about that, but they're touting it.

Let's go to another thing. Foreign policy. I mean, I don't even have to read this to just know that.

Like, look at the, foreign policy wasn't even part of the debates because we're not really in significant wars like we've been in for a while.

I mean, that's Trump basically keeping his word. He believes in peace through strength. He's, I mean, he's gotten,

I mean, I'm not even reading this. I'm just telling you what I think. But he's gotten dictators to the peace table.

He's done things that Obama would never do. He's been hard on Iran. Let's see, what else?

Veterans. I mean, we know that he's done a lot for veterans and for rebuilding our military, et cetera.

I am concerned about the national debt. I'll be honest with you. I'm very concerned about that. I don't,

I don't see a way out at this point. I don't know what the answer to that is right now. But anyway, there's just a lot here.

And there's probably immigration. Why don't we click on that one real quick? Protecting the American people and our homeland.

What has he done to do to protect us? Close legal loopholes that enable illegal immigration.

There's a lot here, man. A lot of this stuff has been popularized because the media calls him racist every time he tries to crack down on, you know, let's say countries that have terrorist connections and he wants to vet people coming from there.

They crack down and say he's an Islamophobe or something. But anyway, that's one of the things that,

I'll give you a little story about this. Someone I know who worked for ICE, I believe it was, they were telling me that Donald Trump, it was like night and day from the

Obama to the Trump administration. There's things that we don't always hear about, but you talk to someone working in that field and they're like, oh no.

With Obama, we had to release people we would catch. We were just, there was all sorts of red tape.

With Trump, he got rid of a lot of the red tape. We can do our job. We can actually deport bad guys from this country.

And so that's, you know, I trust the guy that was telling me this. Anyway, I think

Trump has governed far more conservatively than I thought. Is it perfect? No, it's not perfect. But I just thought he was a

Trojan horse. He was a liberal coming in. I don't see that anymore. I don't think that he was just a liberal coming in.

Is he liberal by standards of even 30 years ago, yeah, on some things,

I guess. But it wasn't my worst nightmare. I'll put it that way.

So I don't have that objection like I did that Trump wasn't going to govern conservatively.

I think for the most part his policies, now we're expanding government. I get that. I understand that.

Socially speaking, especially though, he has tried to hold the line. And one of the things, I should say this, in a culture siege, we are the ones that are on the defensive.

That's the way it is right now. And I think Trump hasn't tried to enact his policies, like his bad policies, the policies that I thought would be really bad if he got his way.

He's been focused on other things. For instance, well, I'll get to that in a minute, but normalization of sexual deviancies, etc.

I haven't seen Trump do a whole lot on that. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. But I think because it's a culture siege and the conservatives, if you want to call them that, the traditionalists are constantly under fire,

Trump is reacting to that stuff all the time. So that's one of the reasons I think he has governed a little more conservatively than I thought, a lot more than I thought, was because he's constantly in that battle mode with the left.

All right, so the other objection. Oh, conservatism has already been rebranded.

So I thought, okay, Trump's going to change the GOP, conservatism, no one's going to want it anymore. But the thing is,

I think conservatism, I'm realizing how bad it actually was. Trump trying to keep his word on things has been unique, which is sad.

Trump trying to keep the issue of immigration so front and central until 2020, that has been unique, which is sad.

So I think Trump hasn't hurt conservatism, is what I'm trying to say. I think he's actually hurt it.

In some ways, he's actually made it better. In some ways, he's made it worse, but I don't know that it was actually him making it worse.

I think the culture is just going left. Trump is a symptom of that. He's not the cause of that disease, necessarily.

You know, Trump's statements on sexuality, sometimes it's more what he says than his actual policies that he tries to enact.

Trump's fiscal, in some ways, irresponsibility, these kinds of things, they're becoming just kind of the warp and woof of American politics and the

American culture. It's a reflection of the American culture. That doesn't justify it at all, but I'm just telling you, the

Republican Party's caved on so many things, and they're caving fast. Trump is actually, because things are moving so fast, he's looking more and more conservative every day because of the

Overton window shifting. So I think conservatism is doing a great job of rebranding itself in a more progressive direction.

I don't necessarily attribute that to Trump. I don't think he's the one leading the charge on that. If anything, he's the one that's actually keeping it back.

That's just what I'm seeing. So I don't think he damages conservatism.

I think conservatism is already damaged, and we need to think about another solution to this.

It's not just getting Trump in the White House or getting someone else better than Trump in the White House.

There's something more fundamental going on, and I've had conversations with political guys about this.

I think we need to be way more involved in cultural stuff. We can't just be putting all the money into elections and stuff.

We have to be thinking about the heroes that people put on pedestals and think of as role models.

We have to be thinking about how do we get people to understand what true character and virtue is?

What about how weak our churches are? These are the kinds of things Trump can't do much about that, unfortunately, and I don't expect him to necessarily.

Trump's morality. Let's talk about this because I thought, man, this guy's immoral. I can't trust him. Now, the main reason that that's an issue is because if you can't trust someone in their marriage or in their personal life, how can you trust them to be at the helm of a country?

Like I said before, I think Trump has actually shown that he is way more trustworthy than we thought, which is sad.

It might just mean that we've been used to pretty bad. It's not that Trump is so good, but he's been the occasion for realizing how bad it's really been.

We're used to crummy candidates for office that don't keep their word.

We're used to being lied to. We know that they're not going to actually enact what they're talking about. Their policies really don't matter.

Their policy is more practical, I have to say, and I like that. I think that's a populist thing. Maybe I'm changing in that way. I just like the fact that he says what he wants to do and he tries to do it.

That shouldn't be so unique, but sadly it is. And with Trump's bad character, which he does have, in many ways, bad character, it's better than when practically applied to politics, it's been better than,

I would say, even Bush in some ways. With him trying to get things done, to move the needle, to do what his constituents put him there to do.

Many of Trump's moral failures also relate to decorum. Oftentimes people will say,

I don't like how Trump tweets, and I don't always like that either. I don't like how Trump's braggadocious this or that.

Some of that stuff isn't so much a moral outrage.

He's really just breaking a law of God right there. It's also the personal customs that we've had, what we've been used to in the way the president relates to the media.

Trump breaks those barriers. Some of that is actually, I think, good. Some of those barriers need to be broken. When the media is basically an arm of the

World Economic Forum and the Democratic Party, then the president has no obligation to treat them like they're not the enemy and they're some objective journalists.

So some of this stuff, I don't know if I always agree when people say, oh, he's just so immoral.

Now his past sexual things, his marriages, that he cheated on his wife, these kinds of things.

Yeah, does that bother me? It did in 2016. I've heard through the grapevine.

These are rumors, guys, and I'm not telling you these are true, and I don't necessarily believe them. I don't know what's going on.

I've heard through multiple sources, though. Some of them, you know, I'm not going to tell you how close to the president, but close enough that there has been a change in Donald Trump.

One source I heard said he's a Christian now. He got saved. Something tells me if you got saved, you're going to be talking about it, and I don't see

Trump doing that. I mean, Trump, last I heard before the 2016 election, he didn't have anything to apologize for because he was never wrong.

I mean, that's horrible. There has been a change in him. I think we've all seen that.

Yeah, he's aggressive, you know, all that kind of thing, but we don't see him running around on his wife.

I mean, he doesn't even have time to. He's so busy working for the American people who elected him. I don't see those moral failings.

There's a movie. I was thinking about this. There's a movie, and it's based off a true story called Beckett, and the main character in the movie, you can go watch it, basically, you know, rabble rouser, and he goes around, he's sleeping around, and just low moral character, and then he's appointed to be, what is it?

I'm a history guy, but I'll tell you, British history is not my strong point, and it's been a while since I saw the movie, but I think it was the

Archbishop of Canterbury, and the king appoints him, and the king thinks, he's going to work with me, and then when he gets in the position, he actually changes, because he says, well,

I need to take responsibility now. It's kind of like when fathers have a child. Oftentimes, if they were rabble rousers before, a child can change that.

I've seen something similar with Trump, and so I don't know that he has the same character he did four or five years ago.

I see him trying to take responsibility, even in his marriage. It seems like that's,

I'm just telling you what I see. So, it doesn't, those things don't bother me as much.

I mean, I wish he, he doesn't have to apologize to the American people. It's not them that he wronged in those situations, necessarily.

It would be nice, though, if he made a statement and said, yeah, my hunger days, or even just five, whatever, ten years ago,

I don't even remember when that Access Hollywood tape was. I haven't heard that.

Maybe he said it, and I just haven't heard it, but I have seen a change in him. Trump has fought hard to keep his word.

That means a lot to me. Trump's evil positions don't seem to be actual positions. I want to talk about that for a second.

Let's talk about Trump's. This is the hardest thing, guys. This is the hardest thing for a conservative Christian to swallow.

And so, I'm going to just tell you how

I'm thinking about this. Trump's policy positions on the LGBTQ plus normalization issue.

I was looking at his rhetoric, and his rhetoric has been all over the place for years. He supports traditional marriage, but transgender can come in the bathroom at Trump Tower, and that's fine.

My conclusion with Donald Trump is he has not thought this out very well at all.

And he's not the kind of guy, I mean, he's very on the spot. He doesn't really think through things very well.

I don't think he's connected dots. I don't think he's thought through this. I don't think he has a formed view on it, to be honest with you. I think it's like kind of whatever he feels at the time, and it's not very principled.

So how do we get a clear indication of where he's really at? Looking at his policy positions.

So here's some of the main ones. He tried to end homosexual criminalization around the world, the death penalty to be a homosexual, or to practice homosexuality, to be caught in homosexuality, that kind of thing.

And so he tries to end that. Here in the United States, he's kept the policy concerning transgenders in the military in place.

The media portrays this as he's barred them from serving, kind of like he's holding them back. Well, he's holding the line.

He's opposed extending Title VII to LGBTQI. So essentially, he did not want what the

Supreme Court ended up trying to, well, they did. And just including in civil rights legislation, we're just going to include

LGBTQI plus identities in that. Trump was actually against that.

And what I've been hearing, and what seems to make sense of this as well, is that Trump does have some political conservatives who are socially conservatives around him advising him, helping him on these issues.

Personally, even recently, he said things like he's proud to have the approval, high approval ratings amongst transgenders and these kinds of things.

That seems to be Trump with every demographic, though. Does he approve of transgenderism?

On some level, it seems like he does, or he's okay with it. It doesn't offend him that much. But when it works its way into policy, he seems to be on the right track.

So what do we make of this? I've decided that...

Here's how I think about it. Because it's a culture siege and we're always on the defensive, it seems like,

I don't expect Trump to do anything aggressive. He's not going to be like,

I propose that marriage should be between a man and a woman. I want you guys to create some legislation so I can sign it.

The president's not supposed to initiate legislation anyways, but I don't see him doing that. What I do see is as the left tries to push harder and harder and harder, like Joe Biden wants to sign in the

Equality Act immediately after becoming president. Joe Biden wants an 8 -year -old to be able to decide whether he needs gender reassignment surgery.

Trump's not going to do any of that stuff. So on the issues that are going to be coming up in the next few years culturally,

I expect Trump to actually hold the line and to make the decisions that we would normally make.

His inadequacies in some of his rhetoric on this, the wrong positions, the evil things he said, they're so all over the place.

I don't know if he actually has thought through it and means it. But when he gets down to the brass tacks and he's doing policy, for the most part, it's been decent.

Now the whole trying to end the homosexual criminalization around the world, I never heard anything about it after I heard that he was going to do that.

I don't know what happened with it. I don't know if the ambassadors did pressure these countries. I don't know if it had any effect.

And I don't know all the ins and outs of it. It doesn't sound great. It sounds like this was trying to normalize homosexuality, possibly, in some countries.

But this is where, honestly, this is where just about every conservative, quote unquote, political conservative is at now, which is almost sad that this is like a priority to them, that they think they need to go into these countries and try to end criminalization.

And that's not, I think before I portrayed it as this is just like death penalty stuff. It's not just that. And I think it's more than that.

It's if it's, you know, that kind of activity is illegal. They don't think it should be illegal, that kind of thing. So, if that bothers you too much and you say,

I can't vote for him because his administration did that, I get it guys and I'm not going to judge you for it. I would just try to ask you to think about sort of the culture siege.

Frame it that way. Look at the big picture and kind of what questions are going to be coming down the pike. And then also look at the bigger picture with the globalism versus national sovereignty.

Because I think that, look, if Biden gets in there, it's, and he goes down the

World Economic Forum path, then will we even have free and fair elections in four years?

Will we even be able to have the choice to vote for real conservatives, the kind that you think would be better than Trump? That's a question guys.

And that is a binary in my opinion. all right, Exodus 18. I want to just go over this real quick because this is, this is one of the passages about, we often go to as kind of a model for how leaders are supposed to be.

I want to just read for you. This is Exodus 18, verse, we're gonna start at verse 20.

Jethro is counseling Moses. Hey, get someone to help you out to take the burdensome leaders, teach them the statutes and laws and make known to them the way in which they are to walk and work they are to do.

Furthermore, you shall select out of these people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain, and you shall place these over leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.

So, so we're looking at able men who fear God, men of truth, who hate dishonest gain.

Now, compare that to Donald Trump. Is he an able man? Is he able to do the job?

Seems like he's able. Is he someone who fears God? I mean,

I don't, I don't have evidence that he's a Christian. I don't know that on certain issues he does, but it does seem like there is a reverence there of some kind.

There is an acknowledgement with him that God is in control, that he is thankful for God, and I've heard him make these statements.

Those around him seem to think that he knows that there's a gravity in this situation, that there is something bigger at play.

So, I'm going to say that that's a maybe. Maybe there is some fear of God somewhere along the line there.

Insofar as someone who I don't think is saved can fear God. There's at least a recognition of divine rewards and punishments of some kind and a greater plan and God's going to hold people accountable and that kind of thing.

Something along those lines. Alright, men of truth. Is he a man of truth? Does he lie? I haven't known him to lie.

Does he misspeak? Yeah. Does he exaggerate? Yeah. I think now that we're seeing his, the way, his personality,

I think a lot of things that before, well, Trump lied here, Trump lied there,

Trump lied there. Now we're seeing that not, it's almost the,

I would love to meet his Scottish mother. It's almost a way of Scottish politicking to kind of exaggerate into, and the audience all knows.

I mean, how many times has the media been so angry that Trump says something and like everyone else is like, we know what he meant.

We know what he was saying. He was joking or he was exaggerating on purpose or, so I don't see him to be a dishonest man, at least in his job.

I don't, I don't see him to be that way. Just my opinion. Who hates dishonest gain?

I actually do think Trump hates dishonest gain. He's taken, I mean, he's not even accepting his salary. He's not, and trying to enrich himself out the presidency.

One of the first guys to not do that. That's amazing to me. That's, that's actually, that says a lot about his character right there, in my opinion.

So, it's a little bit of a mixed bag. I don't know that there is anyone running that I know of who would match this completely.

but that's, I just want you to know that's what I'm trying to look at. That's what I'm trying to measure. And I don't immediately see

Trump as someone who's like completely disqualified here. For the questions he's facing, for the time in which we live and the issues we know that are confronting us right now,

I don't see him as being a problem in regards to this. Now, I could be wrong about that.

But, as I was reading this, I was actually encouraged to, especially from four years ago, to think that, okay, actually, he's not as bad as I thought.

You know, and maybe that's because he's taking the position more seriously. So, here's the review. I view 2020 as a culture siege.

It's like the siege of Vienna. It's one of those moments, guys. The siege of Vienna, as you know, that was when the

Turks were coming in to Europe. They got to Vienna. And it was on 9 -11 they were defeated.

And they, and this was, Europe was going to fall unless Vienna held. And Vienna held.

And the winged Hussars came in and Polish winged Hussars and they took care of business.

But the thing is, we are at one of those moments now. I really think that. This is a siege of Vienna moment.

And we are under siege. Make no mistake. Just because you don't see, you know, I was going to say, you don't see guns on the streets.

Depending on what city, you might see guns on the streets. It's a lot of, it's digital, a lot of it's behind.

There's a lot of stuff going on. We are in a defensive position. That also changes, in my mind, how to view this whole thing.

The offense is going to be done mainly by those, it has to be a cultural offense, a spiritual offense.

That's going to be done mainly by us as individuals. We're going to have to get busy. If Trump wins, we got to get busy. But politically,

I think we're in a defensive position. That's what we can expect for the next four years. Is Trump going to hold the line?

I believe Trump has proven himself in most of the important areas for the challenges awaiting us in the siege.

I see the lines this year as between globalist elites and populists. So World Economic Forum versus nation states.

It's not just the World Economic Forum, but they're, you know, the most prominent organization I can point to.

And I see it more that way than American progressives and conservatives. Though that's a valid issue.

That's a line we can draw as well. But I see this election as over a different issue.

I believe we are under judgment. And I said that at the beginning, I think, but I really do.

I think as a country, God is judging us. I do believe that. And as a result, my expectations have lowered to more practical considerations, which is really, can

I buy four more years to evangelize, to pray, to practice my faith? What can

I get done in the next four years if Trump is in that I could not get done if Joe Biden was in?

That's how it's affecting me personally. So for those reasons, I am voting for Trump.

Now, here's some objections, and I want to take these seriously. And you should know about them before you're gonna make your decision.

One of the objections is situational ethics. And situation ethics essentially is, well, you know, you could lie in this situation, but not in that situation because, you know, it's permissible, you know, morality changes depending on the situation.

I don't believe that for a second. I think that's absolutely wrong. I think that God completely disagrees with that.

His law disagrees with it. It's actually absolute, unchanging, invariable. Wherever you are, no matter what time,

God's law applies. And so this is why what

I'm doing falls under situational ethics because if it was, then this is what would have to be the case.

Voting for Donald Trump would have to be morally wrong. If voting for Donald Trump is morally wrong, if he really does not match the principles we're given for leadership, and we know that objectively, we know he is the wrong man, biblically we can prove

Donald Trump is not qualified to be in office. All right? And if you think you can do that, okay,

I don't think so. But if you can do that, and then I said, well, but the situation demands it, that would be situation ethics.

I don't actually think it's morally wrong to vote for Donald Trump. And I knew people four years ago who voted for Donald Trump, and I don't think it was morally wrong for them.

It may have been unwise, but I don't think it was wrong in and of itself. And I was very strong on this being unwise.

Now, I may have even said the word wrong. I don't know. But I thought this was a catastrophic compromise. I think I used that word.

We're compromising. But I had people that I knew who voted for Donald Trump, and I don't think they were sinning.

I don't think it was a wrong decision for them to make. So, like, morally wrong.

Like, it was a sin. So I don't think the situation ethics applies to this, that objection.

The other objection would be that I'm, you know, bringing about or trying to forward this idea that there's a false dichotomy.

That there's only two choices when, in reality, there's more than two choices. There's third parties. We can do write -ins. So practically,

I think it is between globalism and national sovereignty. That's where my dichotomy is. And those are issues.

Those are not people. Those are issues. Now, because those issues are so important, and they're so embodied in two individuals,

Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it's not that I think that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are, you know, you gotta pick the lesser of two evils, and it's a false dichotomy, or it's the only dichotomy.

You gotta pick one. It's those issues are so important. I think you gotta choose the best way to make sure that the

Great Reset doesn't happen. that's not a false dichotomy.

That's just the reality. Practically speaking, one of these guys is gonna get into office, and based on that, it will trigger a chain of events that will lead to either the

Great Reset or not the Great Reset. So here's the other objection, pragmatism. So you're just being, you're being a pragmatist.

You're invoking ends justifies the means. So, you know, Trump isn't good, but hey, we gotta achieve an objective, so let's get

Trump in there. And the problem with this, though, is that being practical is not the same as pragmatism.

So if voting for Trump is not objectively wrong, which I don't believe it is, then you can't use necessarily ends justifies the means.

Now, me saying all this, I can't remember everything I said four years ago. It's possible I'm starting to contradict myself.

I don't know. But I do think that based on everything I've just shared with you, there's a lot of things that have changed, including

Trump himself. And I know I told some folks this. I don't want to take the Al Mohler road on this.

When Al Mohler first announced he's voting for Trump, it's just because, well, the situation's changed. And he didn't bring up globalism,

I don't believe, which is kind of what I'm looking at as the main thing that's changed. But that's not the only reason

I'm doing this. I actually do think Trump has changed. And I, you know, what's my evidence for that?

I mean, I don't, I see him working tirelessly. I see him not being about his own financial gain.

I see, I mean, these are character things. I see him not running around on his wife. I see him seeming to have actually a good relationship with his wife.

And she seems to have a good relationship with him. He seems to be a family man for the most part.

He seems, the things, the moral things that I was so concerned about, I don't see those things as much. And I see him trying to take responsibility and keep his word.

That means something to me. I'll be honest, it means something to me. If he was a train wreck for the last four years, if he kept that lifestyle up and he got divorced from Melania and he was, you know, running around and doing his own thing and trying to get rich and promote his own name, you know, and that was all he was about, then

I would think very differently about this. I would. So anyway, those are the objections.

I am not perfect and I am the first to admit that, but I think the stakes are so high in this election.

I really do. And I would encourage you to think through what I've shared with you. Pray about it.

If you're someone that's like me who's conservative and, you know, couldn't do it four years ago, pray about it and see if it's something that you can do now based on all the things that have changed since that time.

Whether you do or you don't, though, we need to rely on God's sovereignty, look up at those stars the night of the election, realize the

God who reigns in heaven is still reigning, and he knows who you are.

He knows the hairs on your head. And then get busy, especially if Trump wins. Get busy. We've got to take advantage of the religious freedom we'll still have and we need to go proclaim the gospel.