Stupid Is As Stupid Does

On Politics, Prudence, and Priorities

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“What do you think about Vance?”

 “Any thoughts on Walz?”

“Can a Catholic in good conscience vote for Harris?”

“Can a Catholic in good conscience vote for Trump?”

It’s election season, which means my inbox is filling up with variations on these and other politically focused questions. I get that. I understand it. I’m honored that any of you respect me enough to care about my opinions on these things.

But unless you’re sitting across the dinner table from me, I’m not going to answer these types of questions.

Let me explain.

One of the reasons I joined Substack was because I wanted an online space more conducive than Instagram for talking about challenging questions. And that’s just what it has given me. Over the past few years, I’ve used this newsletter to write about abortion, IVF, and surrogacy; drag queens, demons and celebrity exorcists; feminists and anti-feminists; Trad Wives and the Manosphere; transgender ideology; yoga; and even Harry Potter.

The one topic I have never talked about, though, is politics.

Now, a couple times I’ve addressed some of the principles the Church lays out for us about voting. But that’s as far as I’ve gone. It’s also almost as far as I plan on going.

This is not because I don’t care about politics. One of my undergraduate majors was political science. I studied political philosophy for a year as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. I worked on Capitol Hill for five years after college, then spent several years writing for a politically focused website. I have many, many opinions on parties, policies, and candidates.

But I don’t write about any of those opinions anymore. Mostly because I am more interested in people’s souls than I am in people’s politics.

I’m not saying politics doesn’t matter. It does. Good governance matters even more. But the people we elect and the policies for which they vote are ultimately a reflection of us—of who we are as a people, of what we value and how we see the world. You don’t get good governance without good people. And you don’t get good people without grace.

I walked away from my career in politics because I wanted to help people encounter that grace. And rightly or wrongly—only God knows for sure—I have come to believe that I cannot do the work of evangelization and catechesis, while also writing about candidates and elections.

As a people, we have become so tribalized in our thinking that taking any public political stand automatically alienates anyone who even mildly disagrees with that stand. Most of us only want to listen to people who echo our own thoughts back to us. We write off anyone who doesn’t. And frankly, I want people to read my writing who don’t agree with me on every single issue. I don’t want to just preach to the choir, and I don’t want to be written off simply for not walking lockstep with a certain party or candidate. I trust that if my writing is helping someone know Jesus better or understand the Faith more fully, then over time, grace will give a better shape to the way they vote than anything I write will.

I also recognize that many questions about politics and governance are questions of prudence, not truth. People of good faith can have different opinions about what is the right and wrong way to address a whole host of issues, from immigration to health care, and there are very few policy hills I want to die on anymore.

But today I do want to write something about politics. Hence why I said my previous comments on voting principles are almost as far as I plan on wading into the topic.

No, I am not going to write about candidates or parties or conventions. What I want to write about is how we think about people who are on the opposite side of the political divide and how we engage with them.

A few weeks back, a woman who I very much respect asked a question on Facebook (I generally avoid Facebook, but I do have to log on occasionally to see something my husband shares, and this was one such occasion.) Anyhow, this woman asked a question. And like most things she posts, it was an interesting one.

The question was lengthy, but the core of it was this: Why do people who agree with me on so many foundational things (like the Faith), not agree with me on other things (like politics)? Or, more simply put: Why is what seems obvious to me, not equally obvious to others?¹

A few different answers immediately popped into my head, but I kept them to myself (because I am sometimes smart like that) and began reading others’ comments instead. The overwhelming majority of the answers offered were the same.

1. They’re stupid.

2. They’re blinded by sin.

3. They believe anything their media of choice tells them.

Some people also blamed the differences of opinion on the effects of radical feminism, Marxism, and the Protestant Reformation … as one does.

None of those answers are necessarily wrong. At least not in their entirety. I am certain that some people who disagree politically with the brilliant woman who first asked the question, are indeed unable to distinguish their right hand from their left. I am equally certain that others who disagree with her have a vision of the world (and therefore politics) that is affected by sin, and that their voting habits reflect, to some extent, the biases of the news media they consume. Heck, radical feminism, Marxism, and the Protestant Reformation probably have something to do with it too.

I am also confident, however, that not everyone who shares this woman’s politics is brilliant, holy, and informed. Stupid is as stupid does, and examples abound of people on both sides of the aisle doing stupid brilliantly. Likewise, sin to some extent or other, blinds us all. And no party has a monopoly on biased reporting.

Really, it doesn’t matter on which side of the aisle we stand: we will have stupid, sinful, and uninformed people standing with us, and we will have stupid, sinful, and uninformed people standing against us. That’s how life in this world goes. Most of us know this.

What we forget, or what many of us struggle to see, is that standing alongside those foolish people who disagree with us will also be people who are intelligent, virtuous, and well informed.

This is something we forget to our own peril, politically and spiritually.

Before I write anything more, I want to be clear: I believe everything the Church teaches. I believe abortion is evil, marriage is only between a man and a woman, no one in America should be on death row, men can’t become women, and women can’t become men. I also believe we have a moral obligation to help the poor, welcome the immigrant, protect families, treat every human person as the image of God, and create societies which serve the common good. I am a huge fan of subsidiarity; I think we should try it more often. Stewardship and Solidarity are non-negotiables. Moral absolutes are real. I am a Catholic. Full stop. No qualifiers.

Also, just in case it’s not obvious, I think that people who will be voting differently than I will this November are wrong. If I thought otherwise, I would be voting differently, too.

What I don’t think is that every Christian who plans to cast a ballot for someone I won’t is stupid, blinded by sin, or mislead by the media.

Instead, I think there are decent, kind, virtuous, faithful, and intelligent people out there, who have thought about the candidates or what is at stake and who, for a whole host of reasons, have reached different conclusions than I have. They’ve lived a different life than I’ve lived and bring different priorities to their decision making. They approach certain problems from a different vantage point. They see what I don’t see. They feel what I don’t feel. So, they have decided to give more weight to one good than another.

Again, I don’t believe this makes their opinions right and mine wrong. Their judgement might be flawed. Their biases may be tilting them in the wrong direction. It’s possible their personal history or circumstances have led them to give too much weight to a lesser good. Intelligent, virtuous, and well-informed people can still make bad decisions. And they do. We all do.

Which means it’s also possible that I am the one making a bad decision. Maybe the prudential call I’m making about who to vote for or not vote for is wrong. Maybe I’m the one whose judgement is flawed or whose biases or temperament are leading her astray. Maybe I’m the one focusing too much on the lesser good or the lesser problem and not seeing the forest for the trees. Maybe I’m making the best decision I can, given everything I see, know, and believe, but there is something else I can’t see right now, something that no one can see, something that will happen at some future date which will make me regret how I voted in November 2024.

I don’t know. I don’t know the future. I don’t know what good or evil will come or not come from our country’s next election. Heck, I don’t know how to convince one of my toddlers to stop pooping in their underpants, let alone how to solve intractable problems like poverty, homelessness, illegal immigration, inflation, anti-Semitism, violence, joblessness, and a thousand evils more. I have my best and most reasonable guesses about most of those things. But I’ve been following politics too closely for too long to think anyone else has the answers either. Most people are just throwing darts at the wall, hoping something sticks.

But here is what I do know.

I know that the worst way to win friends and influence people is by dismissing them as stupid, evil, and uninformed. If you want to shut down a conversation and drive a person further into the opposite camp, that is how you do it. I know this because I have done the same thing myself plenty of times. It never accomplishes what we want to accomplish. Never.

I also know that automatically writing off the opinions of those who disagree with us can all too easily blind us to the errors in our own thinking and the evil in our own hearts. If we want to grow—as thinkers, as Christians, as human beings—we need to approach our interactions with those who disagree with us with both charity and humility, being open to the possibility that they understand something we don’t.

And I know that assuming the worst of people based on their politics always does damage. First, it does damage to us. It does damage to our souls. It is a sin called rash judgement, and it violates the Eighth Commandment. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:

Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty …of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor. … To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way: Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another's statement than to condemn it (2477-2478).

Moreover, assuming the worst of people doesn’t just damage us; it damages society. It’s how we have ended up where we are now, segregated and tribalized, rooting more often for our own teams than for the truth. It’s also how other countries have ended up in civil wars, with neighbor turning against neighbor, and whole cities going up in flames.

I know one thing more. I know that Jesus is not watching our political dramas unfold from afar, wondering how it will all turn out and hoping we don’t get it wrong. Rather, He is here with us in the midst of it, knowing exactly how it will all turn out and working with our every mistake and misstep to lead the world to Him.

So, as Summer turns to Fall and the election consumes our country, this is my advice, my plea, and my prayer: Don’t automatically dismiss everyone who disagrees with you. See their personhood, not their politics, first. As much as you can, assume the best of those who vote differently than you; approach them not as fools or demons or dupes, but rather as thinking human beings who are trying, however imperfectly, to do what is right.

As you do that, share what you believe with respect and humility. Listen with respect and humility, too. Seek to understand why someone thinks you’re wrong before you try to convince them why you’re right. Seek to understand more than just their arguments while you’re at it. Seek to understand them, as persons—who they are and how they see the world and what experiences have shaped them.

Most important, no matter how wrong, foolish, sinful, or uninformed those who disagree with you might actually be (because there are indeed a lot of wrong, foolish, sinful, uninformed people walking around this planet) keep that to yourself. Don’t say the quiet part out loud. Instead, just love them. Will the best for them. Entrust them to the Lord who cares far more about their soul and this world than you do. And pray for God’s grace to lead them to all truth.

I know this is hard. I am, lest anyone forget, a super-opinionated, choleric redhead. I don’t do any of this easily or naturally. But I am trying. And the reason I am trying is because our country’s biggest problem is not a President Harris or President Trump. It’s us. It’s our own fallen, sinful, wounded hearts. It’s also the fallen, sinful, wounded hearts of all those who don’t know Jesus—who have never been touched by His grace or experienced His love. We are breaking as a culture and as a country because we are breaking as individuals. We are lost. And no election will help us find our way home.

This problem isn’t going away soon, no matter who wins in November. But it is a problem that we can make a heck of a lot worse by how we conduct ourselves between now and then.

Jesus can deal with the next Administration, whether Trump or Harris stands at its head. He’s got this. It’s covered. We can trust that. So there is no need for us to run roughshod over anyone’s souls, including our own, in some desperate effort to get our guy (or girl) into office. With friends like that, Jesus doesn’t need enemies.   

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1. This woman, as often as not, asks questions not because she doesn’t know the answer, but rather to see how others answer. I doubt she needs to read this newsletter, so my words are not a reflection on her question, but rather on the answers given by her followers.