Today I had the opportunity to speak to a Republican here in my town who intends to vote for Trump, and he was remarking on the fact that he was impressed we could talk civilly about the election without getting angry. He said he was voting Trump, and I was not, and nothing could change the other’s mind, but we could still be friends.

I smiled and told him “Yes, but I get to be a little smug, because your vote hardly counts here in Washington State. Kamala will have a margin of victory here close to what she’ll get in California, and she’s FROM there.”

He told me, “You might be surprised. I was just talking to a defense lawyer the other day, and he told me he was switching his vote to Trump.” That gave me an opening to lay some harsh news on him:

David Holt, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, the reddest state in the union, just came out and endorsed Kamala Harris. So yeah, random guy I talked to, maybe there are a few people who make a lot of money and made even more under Trump who will be voting for him this time around.

But the tide is turning.

In the first letter to the Thessalonians by the Apostle Paul, you can see what frustrates some Christians who won’t be voting for Donald Trump about those evangelicals who plan to vote for him. Both Jesus and Paul — although some say they contradicted one another in the path to salvation — saw loving one’s neighbor as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s law.

Trump doesn’t love his literal neighbors, let alone the figurative ones described by the founders of Christianity.

But I guess the passage from 1 Thessalonians that Holt quotes in his guest editorial in the Philadelphia Citizen sums up why HE won’t be voting for Trump: “Hold fast to what is good.”

By that, Holt means that he bases his politics on policy, of course, but that policy comes second to whether or not a candidate is virtuous. It’s not a stretch to say that Trump, having been convicted of multiple crimes, having raped a woman, having started an insurrection against the very Capitol he once ran, is not Holt’s idea of virtuous.

Holt went on in his editorial to describe the criteria by which he votes, which he calls the “Three Cs”: Character, competence, and commitment to our form of government.

Then he went into how Donald Trump has failed him on all three counts. In the category of character, he says,

I took for granted that both leading candidates shared what they sincerely believed to be the truth, and either felt a moral calling to strive for truth in their statements, or at least feared accountability if caught lying.

I took for granted that both leading candidates had a heart for service and that personal monetary gain was always secondary.

I took for granted that both leading candidates fundamentally respected all Americans, desired unity, and would at least attempt to foster it … I took for granted that both leading candidates would at least hope to be a president that worked for the betterment of all Americans. I took for granted that both leading candidates would never dehumanize their political opponents, would treat their opponents with basic respect, would not call their opponents names, would never use words like “evil” or “enemy” to describe a political opponent, would never question motives or portray policy differences in apocalyptic terms.

I took for granted that both leading candidates would at least rhetorically maintain America’s longtime moral clarity regarding brutal dictators around the world, and would not just refrain from praising them, but denounce such people when necessary.

I took for granted that both leading candidates would have no tolerance for political violence, extremism, conspiracy theories, racism, misogyny and bigotry. I took for granted that both leading candidates would not only keep their distance from such ideas and those who espoused them, but would actively denounce them if needed. I took for granted that both leading candidates would at least strive to embody the established character traits of a good leader, including decency, empathy, honesty, competence, thoughtfulness, integrity, compassion, humility, civility, dignity, obligation, inclusion, love, selflessness, service, courage and aspiration. I took for granted that both leading candidates felt as I did, that centuries of experience and wisdom have proven these are the traits of effective leaders.

By Holt’s standards, he could never in good conscience vote for a man like Donald Trump, and we haven’t even gotten to the stuff about competence and commitment yet.

For ethical reasons (I won’t quote an entire article from another publication; they deserve your attention too), I’m not going to include his whole epistle to the people of America. But suffice it to say, he found Trump lacking in every area.

On competence: “I took for granted that no candidates suffered from the cognitive decline that unfortunately but inevitably strikes us in our later years.”

On commitment: “I could not have imagined a world where any leading candidate would have ever publicly called for the Constitution’s termination.”

There is, of course, plenty more, all of which you can read here.

The bottom line is, Mayor David Holt speaks for a lot of Americans when he says that Donald Trump is the opposite of what we want a president to be, regardless of our policy preferences. He certainly speaks at least for a lot of mayors; he’ll be the president of the US Conference of Mayors next year, as elected by his fellow mayors of cities across America with populations greater than 30,000.

This kind of critical thinking, no matter what party you’re from, should be essential to the way you vote.

Holt closes his article with the following.

“Perhaps you are like me and you look forward to the day when we can again look beyond the three Cs and consider policy as our presidential differentiator. We should all work towards that day. But that day is not November 5, 2024. On that day, I will hold fast to what is good. On that day, I will vote for virtue.”