A vote against Trump is a vote for a third Obama term

With Donald Trump down in the polling averages before Election Day, some Republicans have wanted to abandon the nominee, sensing he is destined for defeat, though the recent Hillary Clinton email developments should shake that view.

Abandoning Trump would be a cataclysmic mistake; for the sake of the next generation of Americans, every Republican must unite now behind Trump to propel him to the White House.

{mosads}As of October 30, Bloomberg’s Poll Decoder has Trump down 7.4% to Hillary Clinton, which is a lot of ground to make up in a very short period of time. Notably, Trump is only ahead by 74.9% among republican voters, well below historic averages.

Considering Republicans are about 33% of the electorate, if we were 100% unified behind Trump, the national polling average would be tied, and this race would be too close to call. Rallying behind our nominee creates a path to victory.

Donald Trump is not perfect; I didn’t vote for him in the primary. However, perfect isn’t on the general ballot, and Trump is a wiser choice than Clinton, who is under a criminal investigation and could conceivably be indicted before she is inaugurated.

Conservatives must recognize how devastating a Clinton victory would be. Handing Democrats a third term in the White House will alter the course of America not for four year but for a generation.

One party controlling the presidency for three straight terms is very rare because voters recognize it fundamentally shifts the political center of gravity. Maintaining power for over a decade cements policies into the fabric of society, making them status quo, and as we have seen, the status quo becomes the political center with each party reshaping around it. Recent examples bear this out.

The five Roosevelt-Truman terms transformed government’s role in society, inserting it into everyday life in the name of fairness. Government expansion did not end when they left office. It continued with Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” and republicans even got in on the action with Eisenhower never cutting a top marginal tax rate of 91% while Richard Nixon created the EPA.

Some good policies, like the Civil Rights Act, were spawned, but several terms of Democratic dominance ensured a more expansive federal government until 1980. Letting Roosevelt cement his New Deal policies shifted the policy center for 40 years.

Then came Ronald Reagan who argued for free markets, individual freedom, and less government. With George H.W. Bush’s presidency largely cementing this worldview, these policies became the norm. Even Democrats had to adjust with Bill Clinton declaring the era of big government over and cutting capital gains taxes. A third Republican term under Bush shifted America rightward, creating a new political center until 2008 when Barack Obama won.

Third terms only last four years, but they shape the next twenty. By opposing Trump, conservatives risk a leftward spiral that takes decades to undo. By 2020, ObamaCare will be the status quo. The fight won’t be to repeal it; the fight will be blocking further expansion into a single payer system.

Considering the just-announced 22% jump in premiums, that will be a devastating outcome for America’s middle class. The regulatory structure holding back our energy, financial, and manufacturing sectors will harden into permanence.

Worse, continuing Obama economic policies that have left real median household income no higher than 1998 and created the slowest GDP growth since World War II for four more years will only strengthen the redistributionist elements of the Democrat Party that nearly got Socialist Bernie Sanders the nomination this year as stagnation foments anger.

Obama set about to make America look more like Europe, despite the fact that continent is riddled with slower growth, massive debt, and higher unemployment. Four more years of Democrat control make his policies extremely difficult to reverse while worsening the economic discontent in which leftist parties thrive.

Conservatives have a decision to make. Either we get behind Trump and make Obama’s eight-years a temporary setback in the revolution Reagan started, or we stay divided and let Clinton win in which case we finalize the creation of an “Obama era” that accepts a more intrusive, unwieldy federal government as the norm. Trump is our only chance to stop this.

This election isn’t about the next four years; it is about the next twenty. In these closing days, let’s put aside our differences and unite 100% behind Trump before it is too late. Otherwise, my generation will grow up in a center-left nation with slower growth, fewer opportunities, and less freedom.

Ruesterholz is a politically engaged conservative and a millennial who works in the financial services industry.

The views of Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill