COVID-19 has dominated every aspect of our lives, and in fact, it’s even revealing why the upcoming elections matter. At iVoterGuide, we hope these six reasons will encourage you in your passion for our country’s government.
Reason #1: COVID-19 reminds us that elected officials can make life and death decisions.
In America, “we the people” govern, and we get the government we deserve. Elected officials can make life and death decisions that affect massive numbers of people, the viability of the entire economy and the future of generations. Elections aren’t just about “politics.” They are about life, death and the future. Voting, and voting wisely, is vital.
Reason #2: COVID-19 reveals how vulnerable our religious liberties are.
Some elected officials in various states and localities singled out church services for special sanctions. Legal organizations defending religious freedom were busy in many places across the country defending churches. While most locations had no problems with accommodations such as drive-in church services, enough did to elicit warnings from religious liberty experts. These experts cautioned that the surprising measures of some officials threatened to set bad precedents.
Reason #3: COVID-19 reveals how vulnerable our civil liberties are.
One dismayed police veteran in California wrote that Los Angeles’ skid row, rife with open crime, was untouched by law enforcement. Yet a lone surfer was fined, and police ticketed 22 people in cars watching the sunset on Easter. A man was arrested for playing T-ball with his 6-year-old in a park (apparently lawfully). And pro-life sidewalk counselors in North Carolina were arrested even though they were legally recognized as “essential” and were practicing social distancing.
Reason #4: On the other hand, COVID-19 showed that many elected officials still support religious and civil liberties.
Many elected officials pushed the other way, allowing as much religious freedom as allowed under the law. Judges struck down some of the most blatant acts of anti-religious bullying by other officials. President Donald Trump called a national day of emergency prayer. The Coronavirus Task Force prayed. The U.S. Attorney General warned that local officials who violated constitutional rights would be treading on hazardous ground.
Reason #5: Politicians used the COVID-19 crisis to stuff special-interest pork into laws meant to help average Americans.
The federal relief legislation helped millions of employers and employees. But it also resulted in “relief funds” being funneled to wealthy universities, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and other dubious destinations that were favorites of lawmakers.
Reason #6: COVID-19 showed that the worldviews of politicians matter.
An effort to save human life pervaded the nation. Those concerned for lives of the elderly or at-risk people affirmed an innate realization that humans are God’s image-bearers and worthy of protection. Tragically, many of those same politicians used the crisis as a platform to try to deny the same sanctity of life to the very young—the unborn. The crisis was very telling in that sense. It revealed the following:
- Secularism versus respect for religion.
- Lust for power versus limited government.
- Socialist tendencies versus the free market.
- “Let’s see which way the wind blows” pragmatism versus a fidelity to principle.
- Private ambition versus a public spirit.
All the violations of rights mentioned above confirm the principle James Madison wrote in Federalist 51: “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” For that reason, the Founders created a limited government to avoid too much power in too few hands. In the crisis, we’ve seen elected officials given an inch of power and then taking a mile. As one governor warned, “If a leader will take too much power in a time of crisis, that is how we lose our country.”
For these reasons and more, it is critical that voters really know what a candidate for office, including those already in office, believes. It is also critical voters know who supports a candidate. And it’s essential to know an office holder’s record.
That’s why iVoterGuide has a team of 20 staff and hundreds of highly trained volunteers with a goal of supplying Christian and conservative voters the information on 8,000 candidates at the federal, state, and often local levels in primary elections and in November.
If Christians have this information, they can and will vote their values. If more Christians have information, more Christians will come to the polls. And we will deserve, and get, the government we desire—and it will be a better one!