For 364 days a year, most Trads live, breathe and work in the secular world, engulfed by its wordliness, and aware of its open sinfulness.  We strive to remain catholic in a non-Catholic world and yet we constantly fail, since we are all humans. None of us is perfect, not by a longshot.  Yet we continue to pray for God's mercy that we may grow into the saints He wants us to be.
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Then presidential voting day comes, and for 1 day out of the year, Trads judge presidential candidates based on the most strict, letter-of-the-law idealism, which no TRAD could attain.  If a candidate is not the second-coming of the holy Philip II of Spain, then he is an evil sinner, our country is modern-day Jericho worthy of destruction, and all voting is meaningless.
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It's truly a bizarre phenomenon.

Well said!

A classic case of "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Think of it this way: the liberal bastards aren't so picky. They NEVER get discouraged or give up. Even when doomsday arrived (Trump, who spelled doom for the deep state and most evils) they didn't give up: they did everything they could to attack him, slow him down, occupy him with defense, tried multiple times to remove him, constantly produced propaganda to sway the masses against him --

Why can't the good guys (US) be this tenacious? We're so yellow-bellied and lily-livered. When a Traditional Catholic isn't on the ballot as a viable candidate, we all stay home on Election Day and pray for the Chastisement.

So many Trads throw up their hands, "Forget about fighting with everything we have, fighting to the last man, doing everything we can to slow/impede/fight the march of satanic evil. If I can't have my perfect candidate I won't vote at all. The country can go to hell for all I care."

Such pusillanimous cowardice!

I wish the Left would give up so easily. But they don't. SO WE CAN'T EITHER!!!

I think it is justifiable, based on Trump's Pro Life record and based on the prospect that Ginsburg will likely be done before the end of his next term, using the principle of double effect, to vote for Trump.  When we need to apply double effect, that is the theological equivalent of saying that we'll cast the ballot for Trump while holding our noses.

Now, in terms of double effect, what complicates the reasoning is that we're dealing with POTENTIAL effects, and not certain effects.  Could Trump start a campaign exterminating innocent people at the bidding of Israel?  Yes, he could.  How likely is it to happen?  Well, he hasn't done it yet.  Could Trump magically change course and appoint some dirtbag to the Supreme Court to replace Ginsburg?  Yes.  It doesn't seem likely, but who knows what leverage various parties have against him (Jєωιѕн financial leverage, blackmail material ... since Trump is not exactly morally upright)?  So we're dealing with speculation and probabilities.  Plus, we need to realize that it is very likely that we are all just being played by the true puppet-masters and power brokers (i.e. the Jєωs).

I reluctantly voted for Trump in 2016 based on these considerations.  But to try to get us to be enthusiastic about it, that's asking too much, and in fact it's asking more than a good Catholic can do.  This doesn't mean one should not actively work to help him get elected.  That's OK.  But to pretend that this guy is a new Pat Buchanan?

I think it is justifiable, based on Trump's Pro Life record and based on the prospect that Ginsburg will likely be done before the end of his next term, using the principle of double effect, to vote for Trump.  When we need to apply double effect, that is the theological equivalent of saying that we'll cast the ballot for Trump while holding our noses.

Now, in terms of double effect, what complicates the reasoning is that we're dealing with POTENTIAL effects, and not certain effects.  Could Trump start a campaign exterminating innocent people at the bidding of Israel?  Yes, he could.  How likely is it to happen?  Well, he hasn't done it yet.  Could Trump magically change course and appoint some dirtbag to the Supreme Court to replace Ginsburg?  Yes.  It doesn't seem likely, but who knows what leverage various parties have against him (Jєωιѕн financial leverage, blackmail material ... since Trump is not exactly morally upright)?  So we're dealing with speculation and probabilities.  Plus, we need to realize that it is very likely that we are all just being played by the true puppet-masters and power brokers (i.e. the Jєωs).

I reluctantly voted for Trump in 2016 based on these considerations.  But to try to get us to be enthusiastic about it, that's asking too much, and in fact it's asking more than a good Catholic can do.  This doesn't mean one should not actively work to help him get elected.  That's OK.  But to pretend that this guy is a new Pat Buchanan?

I agree to a certain extent. To me, unless you live in a swing state: Texas florida Ohio Pennsylvania etc, it’s pointless to vote. However if I were in one of those states I’d feel compelled to vote for trump out of necessity. Both options, any democrat or trump, are less than ideal but it’s like if someone says to you “would you like your country to be ran by Muslims or protestants” you wild undoubtedly pick the protestants because they are so much better than the other choice.

Is trump great on the abortion issue? No he falls short. But the other option is murder on demand. When your faced with something of this caliber you have to choose trump 

I agree to a certain extent. To me, unless you live in a swing state: Texas florida Ohio Pennsylvania etc, it’s pointless to vote. However if I were in one of those states I’d feel compelled to vote for trump out of necessity. Both options, any democrat or trump, are less than ideal but it’s like if someone says to you “would you like your country to be ran by Muslims or protestants” you wild undoubtedly pick the protestants because they are so much better than the other choice.

Is trump great on the abortion issue? No he falls short. But the other option is murder on demand. When your faced with something of this caliber you have to choose trump

Yes, and you raise a very interesting point about swing states.  Since voting for Trump is a tactical maneuver, what if I live in a solidly Democratic state that has ZERO chance of going for Trump.  What then is wrong with just not voting or writing someone in?  I do live in a swing state (Ohio), so I'll feel the need to vote for Trump.  But if I lived in D.C., for instance, I would not bother to vote (for President) or else I would write Pat Buchanan in.  What's wrong with that?

I agree to a certain extent. To me, unless you live in a swing state: Texas florida Ohio Pennsylvania etc, it’s pointless to vote. However if I were in one of those states I’d feel compelled to vote for trump out of necessity. Both options, any democrat or trump, are less than ideal but it’s like if someone says to you “would you like your country to be ran by Muslims or protestants” you wild undoubtedly pick the protestants because they are so much better than the other choice.

Is trump great on the abortion issue? No he falls short. But the other option is murder on demand. When your faced with something of this caliber you have to choose trump

Eh, you'd be surprised what can become a swing state on the day. Wisconsin and Michigan have been solidly blue for decades, and every pollster called PA for the Democrats. Yet all three went for Trump. Minnesota is so blue that it was the ONLY state to vote Democrat in Reagan's landslide, yet it was within a whisker's breadth of voting for Trump. New Hampshire nearly flipped too.
So point is, a state that no one predicts to flip could still very much be in play. Unless you live somewhere like New York or California, there's always a chance, however slim, that your state may slip.

Eh, you'd be surprised what can become a swing state on the day. Wisconsin and Michigan have been solidly blue for decades, and every pollster called PA for the Democrats. Yet all three went for Trump. Minnesota is so blue that it was the ONLY state to vote Democrat in Reagan's landslide, yet it was within a whisker's breadth of voting for Trump. New Hampshire nearly flipped too.
So point is, a state that no one predicts to flip could still very much be in play. Unless you live somewhere like New York or California, there's always a chance, however slim, that your state may slip.

Sure.  I imagine we're both thinking of the places where there's no chance at all ... e.g. NY or CA or DC.  In those places, unless there were a local candidate in a conservative district, I would not even waste the gas money to drive to the polls.

I would avoid language like "end justifies the means" or "lesser evil" ... since those are inimical with Catholic moral theology. 

Yes, good point.  But I was making the additional point that you (almost) can't apply catholic moral theology to American politics.  The system is anti-Catholic and almost beyond repair.

We need to stick with "double effect".  I am voting for restrictions on abortion, with the double effect of all the bad things Trump may or may not do.

More correctly, (and this is where most people get confused) we don't look at the POTENTIAL evils Trump may do, we look at the ACTUAL and PROMISED evils of the opposition.  A vote for Trump = a vote against the democrats.  We're voting against democrats much more than for Trump.  Because we know, with 100% certainty, that democratic evils are real and we have evidence they've done such things in the past.  Any imagined/potential evils from Trump are irrelevant.

Minnesota is so blue that it was the ONLY state to vote Democrat in Reagan's landslide, yet it was within a whisker's breadth of voting for Trump. New Hampshire nearly flipped too.

In the landslide of 1984, the Democrat candidate was from Minnesota. Candidates usually carry their home state; the only recent exception was 2000. (Not including 2016; they couldn't both win NY/.)