With the 2020 presidential election nearing the corner of Mayhem and Catastrophe, most people have made up their minds.  Many millions have already voted.  With the social and professional isolation effected by the government response to COVID, social media have become an ever larger influence, and unfortunately, they have arrogantly arrogated to themselves the role of Censors in Chief.  From this perilous perch, they have opted to pursue a blatant agenda of pernicious interference and distortion.

Egged on by the bloated egos behind Google, Twitter, and Facebook, a growing army of trolls are sprouting like dandelions in springtime to insert themselves into any discussion of the election to promote Progressive ideology or criticize Trump's every action, real or imagined, and particularly every tweet.  It's appalling to see how many people are influenced by such manufactured and mass-produced propaganda — not matter how absurd — such as that Trump has murdered hundreds of thousands by ignoring COVID.

My last-minute voting advice is for anyone who has not voted to spend some time looking at a simple fact: ultimately, neither Joe Biden's supposedly affable and grandfatherly demeanor nor Donald Trump's supposedly crass personality and mean tweets matter.

What is important are the policies pursued in fulfilment of promises made along with platform positions that the two candidates and their respective political parties embrace on the issues facing the country.  All else is just "sound and fury / signifying nothing."

In the face of personality differences and press distortions, the public must focus with single-mindedness on the two very different agendas of the two candidates and the two vastly different political platforms of the two parties on key issues.  I recommend the YouTube video of Pastor Gary Hamrick of the Leesburg, Va. Cornerstone Chapel, who preaches an election sermon every four years.  The Rev. Hamrick presents an excellent compilation of facts about the historic importance of religious voices in politics and excellent documentation of the two major party platforms.

For me, the top issue is religious freedom/freedom of speech.  Far too many people are seemingly unaware of the threats undermining religious freedom and freedom of speech in this country.  Even with the riots and looting that have decimated many American cities this spring and summer, too many are not connecting the dots and are falling for the "mostly peaceful protests" line the media and the Democrats are promoting.

The political correctness movement has declared that people cannot speak truth about current events; only certain approved perceptions can be spoken.  Facts are irrelevant; there is "your truth" and "my truth."  The perceptions of an event or incident become the "fact" regardless of further investigation or other information that shows that distortion has occurred, such as when a person with a history of violent actions charges the police with a knife in hand and commits "suicide by cop."

Silence, even, is forbidden.  If you refuse to agree with them and stay silent, according to the social justice warriors, you are "racist."  No!  A thousand times, no.  We must vote to preserve freedom of speech and freedom of religion for all Americans.  The choice is clear that Donald Trump and the GOP platform promote both of these cornerstone freedoms, while the Democrat Party and Joe Biden want to silence those who hold to conservative religious values in their personal life and in the public square.

Equally important to me are the social issues — marriage, family, sexuality, life, and individual responsibility.  There is no way to exaggerate the differences between Trump and Biden on these important social issues.  With Biden and Harris leading the way, the Democrats have staked out far-left, progressive positions on these.  Former vice president Biden went so far as to endorse transgenderism — recommending that kids as young as eight years of age be able to "choose" their sexual identity despite the fact that "[t]ransgenders increasingly want to revert back to original gender after having surgery."  On the life issue, the Democrats increasingly are endorsing abortion until actual birth — even saying abortion is OK after birth if the baby is unwanted or has problems the parents don't want to handle.  The Sexual Revolution with its permissive attitudes toward cohabitation, disdain of marriage, promotion of redefining and watering down marriage, and abortion has created new cultural norms that are destructive to national strength and cohesion.  This election is a crossroads determining which direction the nation will go in terms of cultural trends — toward greater national cohesion or further cultural disintegration.  Make no mistake about the seriousness of your vote — your vote will help determine that direction.

My third important consideration is the issue of Economic Mobilization and Progress.  There is no question that the nation has encountered a huge setback with the international COVID pandemic.  The Democrats blame the Trump administration for the deaths — even blaming Donald Trump personally (as though he could have known from the outset what this strange new virus was like and how to deal effectively with it).  For months, Trump held daily COVID briefings with the CDC and infectious disease experts at center stage talking about the virus and best information and treatment at the time.  The COVID Task Force suggested preventative measures, and those were implemented immediately.  As a result, preventive equipment was rushed into production and readily available, protective measures were put in place, and the country has begun the long process of eliminating the virus as a threat to the people — through preventive measures and the development of a vaccine.  As things return to normal, the nation is enjoying record economic recovery.  There is no way to downplay the miracle of the recent economic recovery or the potential for further economic progress if Trump is re-elected.  Instead, if Biden is elected, who knows what we face as a nation?  Certainly, the Obama-Biden administration's record does not encourage economic hope for a nation poised on the precipice after a historic pandemic.

With the media refusing to report any progress from the Trump administration's actions, no one should be surprised that roughly 62% of the country believes that things are going in the wrong direction (most current summary of polls by Real Clear Politics).  After all, the pro-Democrat, pro-Biden news reports downplay the incredible economic recovery that has taken place with a partial easing of the shutdown.  Only one headline was positive: "Economy roars back in third quarter with 33.1% growth in GDP."  Other headlines were pessimistic about the great recovery, couching it in dire warnings about "tapering off" or "high risk of resurgence in coronavirus is halting the economic recovery."

Every time I have written positively about President Trump, there are people who accuse me of sacrificing my Christian principles to support an "evil" man.  Aside from the fact that we are not supposed to judge — only God knows the heart — when we vote, we are choosing policies as much as or more than we are choosing persons.  Further, we are choosing an administration and procedures as much as or more than the president himself.

In addition, there are those who are calling any Christian who supports Trump a hypocrite.  This pernicious epithet is especially painful, even though it is the height of historical ignorance for anyone to think previous presidents have been of irreproachable character (Franklin Roosevelt had a mistress during his presidency, John Kennedy had the Secret Service sneak women in when Jackie was out of town, LBJ was crude and vulgar and had no respect for his marriage vows, and Clinton famously had an affair with an intern in the Oval Office, just to cite four examples) or that the affable Joe Biden — who has plagiarized from college days through major addresses during his political career, who has lied about his personal achievements as well as his record, and who has become a multi-millionaire on a government salary — has better character than the bombastic and brash Donald Trump, whose major public sins were before he became president.  Others accuse any Christian who gets "involved" in politics of violating church-state separation of powers.  That dichotomy, by the way, is a protection of the church from government control rather than the other way around!

There is no question in my mind that Donald Trump genuinely loves America and is working to make this country great.  He is far from perfect (do you know anyone who is?), but he has functioned effectively and racked up an incredible number of accomplishments even though he and his family have faced relentless personal attacks based on a "resistance movement"; a NeverTrump coalition; and a concerted effort to promote a hoax based on a false document that everyone involved knew was a fraud, yet the Deep State spent upwards of $40 million to investigate it.

The fact that the Democrats have been unwilling to accept the results of the 2016 election by itself is enough to make me unwilling to believe that they should be entrusted to handle leadership at this critical juncture in our nation's history.  Too much is at stake to allow a weak, failing Biden and the aggressive far leftist Harris to lead us into the future.  With "AOC plus Three" and Bernie Sanders as key advisers, we know that a Biden-Harris administration will immediately put in place government control over more and more areas of our lives.  We know this because they've already promised and because Democrat governors have already used the COVID virus as an excuse for draconian policies.

Electing Biden/Harris would lead this country toward socialism and destroy the Judeo-Christian foundations of religious freedom, freedom of speech, strong social policies supporting marriage and family, and a strong economic foundation for growth and prosperity.  Call me a hypocrite all you like.  I'm not going to vote for Joe Biden.

Image: Tom Arthur via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.