I’m not a fan of early voting for a number of reasons but on Tuesday afternoon I decided it would probably be for the best that I cast my ballot the first day the polls were open.

First, I wanted to be able to be done with this election ASAP.

Secondly, I wanted to ensure that I voted for what was my seventh consecutive Republican presidential candidate.

Or to put it another way, I was concerned about the possibility that Donald Trump would do or say something between now and November 8^th that may have made a voting for the Republican presidential nominee that much more difficult.

Yes it has come to that.

And considering the number of times he’s appeared on the Howard Stern show, I’m certain the Clinton campaign and the media have a doozy of a Trump quip to pair with every Wikileaks dump between now and election day.

Though I have been a registered Republican since the day I turned 18, supporting the GOP candidate for president has not always been a joyous task.  Sometimes I really wanted to vote for someone else.

I was not an enthusiastic Bob Dole supporter.

I didn’t support him at the 1996 convention and I really wanted to pull the lever for the US Taxpayers (now Constitution) Party.  But in retrospect, I’m actually pretty damned relieved that I went with Dole.  Though he was a lousy candidate, I can take satisfaction that I at least voted for a good man in lieu of a gadfly.

Who knows, twenty years from now I might actually be more at peace for supporting John McCain before I jubilantly recount what I did on October 25, 2016 when I cast a vote for Trump after opposing him in the primary, convention, and numerous editorials, blogs, and tweets.

Philosophically Trump does not reflect my views and his character does not represent the traits I expect to see in leaders.

But when forced to choose between a thug and the mafia, go with the former who can potentially be held accountable to the law.

Think about this for a moment: the 22^nd Amendment to the Constitution was enacted to limit a president to two terms.  Isn’t electing the spouse of a former two-term president a repudiation of the spirit of that amendment, since we will in effect have a former president returning to the White House?

That he’s running an international organization that takes millions from governments should have kept his wife out of the state department let alone the oval office.

President Obama has already demonstrated his contempt for the Constitution, the legislative branch, checks and balances, and separation of powers.  Just imagine what the White House is going to be like when it’s once again occupied by people who get away with everything.

But wait, there’s more!

A unilateral broad range immigration amnesty along with an accelerated path to full citizenship will be a part of a Clinton 2.0 administration.

And with millions of people suddenly added to the rolls, the GOP will see its hopes at a presidential comeback in 2020 or any other year diminished.  If you think the next Democratic administration is going to lay down on the railroad tracks and merely accept the seemingly inevitable political pendulum swing back to the GOP, you’re naïve.

The Democrats will not rest until they become the American equivalent of the Mexican PRI with the Republicans set on the same path as the Federalists.

And if the Democrats succeed, America will become something very very different.

With a radical leftist activist majority ensconced on the Supreme Court for decades to come, how could it not?

So on Tuesday afternoon, I did my part to cling to what’s left of the Constitutional Republic and can be counted as part of the group that actually tried to stop the Clinton machine by voting for the only practical alternative.

Some sincere conservatives are debating whether to bury their vote under the political asterisk Evan McMullin, whose success as a candidate can only be measured in whether or not he helped elect Hillary Clinton president.

Picture McMullin standing under a banner that reads “Mission Accomplished” and before a television screen showing Hillary Clinton’s victory party.

I hope the Pharisee conservatives too proud and holy to vote for Trump enjoy their protest vote.

Don’t get me wrong, if you believe Donald J. Trump is both undeserving of both the presidency and your vote, you’d be right.

But ask yourself this question: does your local church deserve to have their tax-exempt status threatened because they refuse to perform certain marriages?

While Hillary Clinton is not running on that, you can bet it will be one of the outcomes of her administration.

And the folks at Wikileaks have provided us what Team Clinton thinks they should do to churches with doctrines that run counter to leftist social orthodoxy.

So by all means, go full Buddhist monk with your ballot and everyone else’s religious liberty.

When conservatives reflect on this Salvador Dali painting of a presidential election many years from now, what role will haunt them more: that they voted for an obnoxious man who represented the only credible opposition or that they nobly stood athwart political reality and punted.

If you walk in that voting booth and vote for any candidate but Trump, then you will own a share of the basket of terribleness that will be a Hillary Clinton presidency.

And then you’ll really learn the true meaning of regret.