Camosy on voting, prudence, and Sanders

Here is a piece by moral theologian Prof. Charles Camosy (Fordham) - author of (among other things) Beyond the Abortion Wars (which I blurbed) -- called "Yes, Catholics May Vote for Bernie Sanders."  Charlie reminds readers that Catholics indeed may vote for political candidates, notwithstanding those candidates' unsound views in support of serious moral wrongs, in some cases.  And, I think he's right:  A conscientious Catholic "may" vote for Sen. Sanders, notwithstanding the Senator's deeply misguided views on (inter alia) abortion.

I believe there are more than a few things to like and respect about Sen. Sanders (and more than a few things -- e.g., his past sympathies for the Soviet Union -- that are highly objectionable).  I would hope that not just Catholics, but thoughtful people generally, would see that many of Sen. Sanders's views and proposals are unsound and impractical, wholly and apart from their consonance or not with Catholic moral teaching.  That said, as Rusty Reno and others have pointed out, Sen. Sanders (and Donald Trump, for that matter) are, notwithstanding their failures on other fronts, calling attention to the alienation many middle- and working-class Americans feel and to some of the often-overlooked costs of technological innovation, globalization, urbanization, and mobility.  This alienation needs to be addressed. 

In his post, Charlie asks us to assume a voter who honestly believes that (a) "Republican lawmakers rarely sacrifice other concerns in defense of prenatal children"; (b) "women are structurally pushed toward abortion"; and (c)  "Catholics must favor the poor first."  He thinks that such a person could have "proportionate reasons" for voting for Sen. Sanders.

There is no denying that Republican politicians have often disappointed when it comes to abortion.  That said, I believe that Charlie here (and he's not alone on this) is probably not weighing heavily enough (to be fair, though, he's simply constructing a hypothetical) the reality -- a reality that has to be confronted and cannot reasonably be disputed -- that (i) the Supreme Court's caselaw constrains what can be done on the pro-life front; (ii) within those constraints, non-trivial progress has been made in terms of reasonable regulations of abortion; and (iii) this progress is due nearly-entirely to the efforts of Republican politicians (and the permission of GOP-appointed judges and justices).  The argument that "the GOP talks about abortion but never actually does anything" does not square with facts (even if many of us wish more had been accomplished and are frustrated by those occasions when "other concerns" have unnecessarily trumped).

I want to put that matter aside, though, and not "fight the hypo." I'm wondering:  more generally, with respect to the "proportionate reason" inquiry:  Can "Candidate A supports Good Policy X (for example, "comprehensive immigration reform") be a "proportionate reason" for supporting Candidate A, notwithstanding Candidate A's support for Immoral Policy Y, if (i) Candidate A's election will almost certainly not result in the enacting of Policy X and (ii) Candidate A's election will almost certainly result in the enactment of Policy Y?  Given what I take to be the givens in current American politics, the more ambitious social-welfare policies that Sen. Sanders and Charlie's hypothetical voter support are not particularly likely to emerge from a Republican Congress (or, for that matter, an American Congress).  If (as I imagine) the arguments about social-welfare and economic policy are likely to stay "between the 40 yard lines" in American politics, but arguments about (say) school choice, religious freedom, and the equal dignity of unborn and elderly persons could turn out dramatically differently, depending on who is in the White House, staffing the administrative state, and picking judges . . . then it seems to me that any prudential judgments about "proportionate reasons" would need to take these likelihoods into account.