Glenn Beck and Moral, Ethical Choice

Glenn Beck and his choice. From the NY Times. Written by Liam Stack. Wissai's Comment: We are defined and tested by the choices we've made. People look at us and make a judgment of who we are by/via the choices we've made. Trump, as a Presidential candidate, is indeed a barometer of who we are. If you vote for him, you're saying to yourself and others that Trump's immorality, lewdness, and depravity don't bother you at all; and that you maybe are even comfortable with these transgressions and may commit them yourself, if given the opportunities. A man is only an animal if he is ruled by his animalistic impulses, and not governed by morality and ethics. This is an issue of abiding interest to me because I've struggled with it all my life. I've always wondered if I am indeed a moral man. 

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Glenn Beck, the fiery conservative media personality and former Fox News host, says that he briefly considered voting for Hillary Clinton and called opposing Donald J. Trump the “moral, ethical choice” — even if doing so leads to Mrs. Clinton winning the presidential election.

His comments were made after the release on Friday of a 2005 recording of Mr. Trump boasting about sexual assault that set off a war between the presidential nominee and a broad swath of the Republican establishment, including Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker.

Reacting to the recording, Mr. Beck wrote over the weekend that each person “must decide what is a bridge too far” and said he supported calls for Mr. Trump to withdraw from the presidential race.

“It is not acceptable to ask a moral, dignified man to cast his vote to help elect an immoral man who is absent decency or dignity,” Mr. Beck wrote on Facebook. “If the consequence of standing against Trump and for principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it. At least it is a moral, ethical choice.”

Mr. Beck was a high-profile symbol of the Tea Party movement whose show on Fox News ran until 2011, when he founded TheBlaze TV, a subscription-based online streaming network. He left the Republican Party in 2015 after accusing it of being insufficiently conservative.

Mr. Beck has spoken at length over the years about his dislike for Mrs. Clinton and was an ardent Trump opponent during the Republican primary campaign, likening him to Adolf Hitler and advocating on behalf of Senator Ted Cruz. With Mr. Trump in the general election, though, Mr. Beck said in an interview on Sunday with Vice News that he had considered voting for Mrs. Clinton.

[Video: VICE News Tonight: Glenn Beck Preview Watch on YouTube.]

“I will tell you that it has crossed my mind to vote for Hillary,” he said in the interview, which aired Monday night. “It has crossed my mind. I think Donald Trump is so unstable, so dangerous, that it has crossed my mind.”

In the end, though, Mr. Beck said that he decided against voting for Mrs. Clinton. He said that he would instead back a little-known third-party candidate, Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party. “I reject the notion of a binary choice,” he wrote on Tuesday on his personal website. “I will not vote for the ‘lesser of two evils.’ ”

On Facebook, Mr. Beck said he wanted his fans to know that “the world does not end” if Ms. Clinton wins the election. He said pushing back against a Clinton White House through protests, the media or “political and procedural maneuvering” would be a worthy effort, but warned conservatives that they would be morally tainted by a vote for Trump.

“If one helps to elect an immoral man to the highest office, then one is merely validating his immorality, lewdness, and depravity,” he wrote.