Recently, Steve Deace has been featuring some excerpts from 5 Steps to Political Epiphany on his show.

Though I have in the past year or two pretty much reached the conclusions found therein, I have found them very intriguing and enlightening.

If you’re like me, you’re no stranger to choosing the lesser of two evils. I’ve voted the lesser of two evils many, many times. I fully understand the reasoning: if you have the choice between someone bad and someone worse, choosing the less bad official will (you hope) result in less evil done to your society.

However, over the course of the past eight years or so, I began to doubt the efficacy of that reasoning. While I still believe there is some truth in it, especially in the short term, I have begun to be convinced that in the long term, it only produces more evil.

What happened in 2006 when the people of the United States saw that a Republican president and a Republican congress had allowed government and spending to continue ballooning–and also saw Republicans like Mark Foley behaving no better than Democrats? They lost confidence in the Republican brand as the party of morality and limited government. As you might expect, the American people refused to support the GOP, and congress fell into the hands of the Democrats…bringing more evil.

But obviously not all Republicans refused to support corrupt Republicans. If the base had completely repudiated the corruption in the GOP, the corrupt leadership would have been forced to learn that corruption would not be rewarded, and would have rehabilitated itself.

In 2008, that realization by the American people continued, fueled by more big-government behavior from President Bush and other Republicans, as well as more immoral behavior from Republicans like Larry Craig. Throw in a GOP presidential nominee (John McCain) who seemed determined to spit on the conservative values that made the Republican Party distinctive in the first place, and you get…the American people further abandoning the GOP, and more evil.

As the darkness of a Marxist, anti-American president and Marxist, anti-American Democrat congress settled over the land, grassroots Americans rose up in defiance, and the Tea Party movement was born. Republicans quickly learned the error of their ways and started to talk conservative. But did they really learn the error of their ways?

After restoring Republicans to power in the U.S. House and reducing the number of Democrats in the U.S. Senate, we saw these newly elected Tea Party Republicans…quickly start behaving like the same old tax-and-spend status quo “Republicans” who got us into the mess in the first place.

But did all Republicans walk away from that nest of betrayers and teach them the lesson they needed? No. In 2012, the establishment forced yet another RINO on us, resulting in another term for the man who had been the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate.

You would think people would have learned by 2016, yet here we are (again), with the man who is probably the most liberal pro-Democrat GOP nominee in American history.

Well, maybe I’ve finally learned the lesson. In 2012, I wasn’t going to vote for RINO Romney, but after the Supreme Court urinated on the Constitution yet again with its ObamaCare decision, I allowed desperation to drive me to hold my nose and vote for Romney.

In 2014, the GOP establishment in South Dakota managed to ram the biggest RINO in the state down our throats in the U.S. Senate race. For the first time in my life, I voted for an independent for U.S. Senate. It was sad, but very liberating, not being held hostage to the lowest common denominator.

This year, as we again ended up with a liberal RINO for the GOP presidential nominee, I knew I couldn’t do the “lesser of two evils” thing anymore. Not even to stop someone as evil as Hillary Clinton. The fact that Donald Trump has thrown more than $100,000 her way, and agrees with her on many issues, made the decision much easier (I documented those reasons here and here). To boil it down, in addition to all of Donald Trump’s lies and liberal positions, supporting him would only invite even more long term damage to our ailing republic.

So as I listened to Deace play excerpts from Step 4 today, I recognized many observations I had already made myself. But the way Pastor Gordon laid it out in the video made it clear that the damage I had been contributing to by supporting “the lesser of two evils” was even deeper and wider than I had suspected.

If you aren’t a Christian, the heart of this step won’t mean much to you. But if you are, it should stop you in your tracks to really think about it. If Satan wanted to damage America and multiply evil, what would be the most effective strategy?

1. Find a way to convince Christians to be “situational” in their thinking, in their priorities, in their application of principle, and compromise on what is true. Use fear to drive Christians to compromise on what is right (and OH BOY have I seen Christians and conservatives guided by fear this election season).

2. Give the generally moral people a clearly identifiable and extreme evil to fear…then give them an option that looks, in comparison, better than that extreme evil. With the Democrat Party’s embrace of the culture of death (abortion, euthanasia, etc.), their love of evil (always siding with Marxist thugs and other despots throughout the world, as well as siding with the lawbreakers in American culture), their love of depravity (sexual promiscuity, adultery, homosexual behavior, sexual confusion, debauchery of all kinds), their hostility toward morality and virtue, their fondness for lawlessness, and their love of government tyranny to advance the aforementioned things…the Democrat Party is the obvious extreme evil.

Then you have the corrupt GOP establishment (i.e. the RINOs) who embrace just some of the things the Democrats embrace. Instead of fully embracing abortion on demand like the Democrats, the “Republicans” just want some “exceptions” to allow killing your own child in the womb. Instead of outright euthanasia of inconvenient people that Democrats like, the “Republicans” want just a little “sensitivity” for the “suffering.” Instead of the Marxism the Democrats openly promote, the “Republicans” want just a little “fairness” and “compassion” that violates the U.S. Constitution and limited government principles. Instead of openly defending belligerent despots like Democrats do, “Republicans” just want to “live and let live.” Instead of openly embracing sexual depravity like the Democrats, the “Republicans” just don’t want to be “bigots.” You get the picture.

You end up with a “hard Left” (the Democrats) and a “soft Left” (the RINO “Republicans”). Evil and evil-lite.

3. (HERE’S THE HINGE PIN) Make sure the “soft Left” (i.e. the “evil-lite”, i.e. establishment Republicans) figure out that evangelicals and other conservatives will always support them no matter what. Why? Because “evil-lite” is always the lesser of two evils. As long as they stayed to the Right of the hard Left, they would be the lesser of two evils. In this scenario, the “soft Left” never has any incentive to conform to truth, to adhere to principle. Why not? They know Christians/conservatives will support them anyway, just so long as they take care to not be quite as bad as the “hard Left.” Instead of the Church being salt and light like it’s supposed to (i.e. influencing culture toward what is right), the Church is seduced into believing it must conform to culture, that it must “go along” with evil so long as that evil is the lesser evil.

As illustrated in the video, the “hard Left” always keeps pulling EVERYONE Leftward toward evil. That means the “soft Left” can move further toward evil and still look good, so long as they stay to the Right of the “hard Left.” And the Christians and conservatives who are supposed to be standing for right and for principle…well, they get dragged along Leftward to where they’re deep in the Left/evil territory that used to be recognized as extremely Left/evil. But hey–they can still feel good about it because they’re still to the Right of the “soft Left” and way to the Right of the “hard Left.”

Instead of any movement to the Right (toward those Christian values upon which this nation was founded), culture is always moving to the Left–including Christian culture. Instead of being the anchor that keeps the culture moored to what is right, Christians/conservatives are allowing themselves to be dragged deeper and deeper into evil territory by embracing “the lesser of two evils.”

And of course if you do it slowly (like the frog being boiled in the pot), almost no one notices until the process is far along.

That is the conclusion I’ve come to, though I’ve never articulated it nearly as well as this series has.

By teaching the “soft Left” that we’ll support them no matter what (as long as they stay to the Right of the “hard Left”) we are teaching them to give us and our values the middle finger with impunity. We have taught them that we are their little puppy now. We are their obedient lapdog; we will come running when they whistle, and will jump up in their lap where we can be properly controlled. We think we have a seat at the table by doing this (I’ve seen conservative groups I once respected sell out for a “seat at the table”), but we only have a seat in their lap.

And those who figure it out, and refuse to go along? Marginalize them. Demonize them. Destroy them. I’ve seen it countless times in the past eight year. Liberals go after them, “soft liberals” go after them, and sadly these days I’m even seeing conservatives go after them–go after the people who continue to stand for the principles those conservatives used to stand for.

I just can’t do it any more. I repent of having done it in the past, and ask God’s strength to never do it again.

There’s only one way we can stop the Leftward creep. That is to stop the “soft Left” from following the “hard Left” Leftward. How do we do that? We stop rewarding the “soft Left” with our unconditional support, and teach them that in order to obtain our support, they must adhere to the principles that are right. Yes, things will get worse for a while; after all, we’ve spent years teaching them we’ll support them blindly, and it’ll take years to get that notion out of their heads.

Are you up for some real change? By God’s grace, I am. The only alternative is to continue allowing our country to continue creeping Leftward…toward evil, toward tyranny, toward suffering, toward destruction.

That’s no alternative at all, to me. Is it to you?

The men who founded this nation once decided to draw a line in the sand and not allow their culture to continue drifting toward evil. Can we not do so now? Or will we not do so now? If we can, why don’t we? It starts with you and me. I’m willing to start.

Are you?

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*** Bob Ellis *** Is a conservative author  and Life and Liberty News contributor

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