5 questions to ask yourself before you cast your vote for president

This is the dilemma many of my friends face: Despite their serious concerns about Donald Trump, they have been Republicans for years, even decades, and, as it has been for me, being a Republican has been central to their political identity.

For the most part, they have been Republicans because, at some time in their political odyssey, they were drawn to a particular candidate — Ronald Reagan, perhaps — or disagreed with Democrats, or preferred Republicans on some issues they cared about, and once they chose a team, their instinct was to remain loyal to it, even if the issues and the candidates took on different shapes. In for a Reagan, in for a Mitt Romney.

So they ask me why, after decades of activism in both the Republican Party and conservative politics, I am now supporting Kamala Harris, a lifelong Democrat, for president.

Here’s why. It’s not just about Harris, although I’ve known her for nearly 20 years and believe she would be a very good president. And it’s not just because she’s not Trump, although that is a good enough reason to support Harris, or almost anyone other than the former president.

What it’s about, and what every presidential election should be about, are these very specific concerns:

That is not a rhetorical question. The United States is pretty much in a class of its own — an electoral democracy embedded in an institution-based constitutional republic. At the heart of American constitutionalism is the separation of powers designed to create checks against dictatorship. The United States does not have a king, and unlike Great Britain, it doesn’t have a parliament in which the prime minister is the leader of the majority party in the legislative branch.

Here, Congress is independent of and politically equal to the administrative branch led by the president. It is the president’s job to see that the laws, which are established by Congress, are “faithfully administered” by the departments and agencies of the executive branch.

Someone who says “I alone can fix it” substitutes hubris for responsible public leadership. Someone who insists that government agencies do as he wills neither understands nor respects constitutional government.

This is a step beyond recognizing that there is a Congress and one must deal with it. The democratic process is more than deliberation and compromise. American democracy includes a recognition of innate equality — the rights of one citizen are the rights of all citizens. It is that understanding that plays out in honoring the rule of law, protecting every citizen’s right to vote, ensuring the guarantees of the Constitution are honored.

Candidates who vow to turn law enforcement agencies of the government into vehicles for personal retribution do not believe in the most fundamental aspects of American democracy.

This requires not chaos and bluster, but knowledge, thoughtfulness, and wisdom. It has been the fault of the media to demand from candidates for president fully spelled out details of what they will do — even what they will do on “Day One.” One does not lay out policy goals — laws and regulations and priorities that will affect almost every one of America’s more than 330 million citizens — on the fly.

A president must have the patience to gather facts (not rumors or social media posts), to seek out and listen to experts, and to make decisions based on analysis, not pique or personal advantage. Preparedness matters: A president who refuses to read intelligence briefings or consult people who actually know things is a risk no nation can afford to take.

Presidents are not required to run marathons, lift weights, or shed off tacklers (except metaphorically). But age matters. The strength that is required is the ability to get up early and stay up late when emergencies require it, to stay mentally focused when difficult decisions must be made.

A candidate who rambles erratically from point to unrelated point, cites as a basis for his beliefs something he read on a social media thread, and appears to be unable to discern fact from fable has the potential to do great harm.

The importance of preparedness and study is that one is thus able to separate realism from wishfulness and to understand the consequences of actions that may look reasonable today but carry the potential for serious harm over time.

Giving an avaricious dictator like Vladimir Putin the go-ahead to pursue his expansionist agenda threatens Ukraine today, but may endanger all of Europe tomorrow. One need not be a chess master to be president of the United States, but the inability or unwillingness to consider long-term consequences is a time bomb waiting to go off.

It is not an abandonment of one’s political party or a dereliction of one’s presumed partisan duty to recognize that the party with which one has long been affiliated has taken a misstep, that it has placed within reach of the presidency a person unfit by any measure to hold that office, and whose election would pose great dangers to every fundamental aspect of what it has meant for 250 years to be an American.

It is not an abandonment of one’s political party ... to recognize that the party with which one has long been affiliated has taken a misstep.

So, yes, after devoting nearly 60 years to the Republican Party, holding offices within it, and working to advance it, I am going to vote for Harris for president. Every person who truly believes in the principles of the Republican Party — and in American constitutional government — should do the same.

Mickey Edwards is a former eight-term Republican member of Congress and former chair of the House Republican Policy Committee.