Like many Americans, I’ve finally made peace with voting for the lesser of two evils.

As a conservative, I could not in good conscience vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I also could not vote for Trump, a person who is not conservative by values, lifestyle or philosophical commitments.

But by 2020, it was clear that, for all Trump’s failures as a person, his presidency had been a conservative success and was the only thing standing in the way of a regime that embraced the politics of BLM riots, COVID lockdowns, and transgender ideology in elementary schools. So, I finally voted for Trump.

Now, after four years of an administration that doubled down on every bad idea I voted against in 2020, I am more firmly resolved than ever to support Trump. Not because I think he’s great now but because he’s what stands between us and an America that could be much worse.

This is how honest Trump supporters look at him.

This is also the same political calculus used by ordinary people who plan to vote for whoever the Democrats nominate, even though they know Joe Biden was not really running the country. They disagree with the Democrats’ culturally Marxist social agenda and they are not better off than they were four years ago.

They see the awful things Trump has said and done and conclude he poses a bigger threat to what they ambiguously call “our democracy.”

Polling shows most Americans did not want Trump or Biden (or presumably Harris) as the major parties’ nominees. They are just trying to accept the bad hand the system dealt them.

Of course, there are die-hard partisans who think Trump is a moral man, just like some sincerely believe Joe Biden was really of sound mind the last four years. Regular Americans know better.

But recognizing that we vote for lesser evils is not some kumbaya call to greater “unity.” We may not like our presidential options, but the ideas that divide us are quite real.

I’m no longer naïve enough to think that we all basically want the same things for our country but have different ideas about how to get there. That may have been true generations ago, but no more. Today’s political divisions reflect fundamentally different understandings of the human person and what kind of economic, political and cultural conditions promote genuine human flourishing.

These competing visions of what Plato called “the true, the good, and the beautiful” leave little room for compromise because only one is true.

No matter who wins this election, those divisions will remain until we peacefully meet our neighbor across that philosophical divide, not to find some mushy middle ground, but to respectfully seek to convert them to a different way of looking at the world.

In the long run, Americans must choose something more important than the lesser of two flawed political candidates. And that is the real choice “our democracy” ultimately depends upon.

— Gary Houchens, director, Educational Leadership Doctoral Program professor, School of Leadership & Professional Studies WKU.