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Dear Decaturish – Musings from a 2016 Republican Electoral College voter

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Dear Decaturish – Musings from a 2016 Republican Electoral College voter

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Boaky Vu

Boaky Vu

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This post has been updated. 

Dear Decaturish,

I’ve been active in the Republican Party for many years precisely because it has championed the aspirational ideals of Lincoln, Reagan and Kemp. Our recent standard bearers have proudly and honorably defended those ideas on the political battlefield. From Bush 41 to Romney to Jeb and many of the other 2016 primary contestants, there was never a wavering doubt as to their character, integrity and temperament.

Until now.

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This is the Republican Party of Lincoln and Reagan and Romney and Ryan, not the Party of Donald Trump. As a 2016 Presidential Elector, I am forever grateful to our state Party and our Chairman for bestowing this once-in-a-lifetime honor on me. I take my role seriously and in the face of the difficult choice before us, I will always put America First over party and labels.

Thus, I will not be voting for Donald Trump in the general election. My conscience is clear but my soul is being tested. Born in Saigon, my family knows what it is like to lose a country and my family is forever indebted to America and our allies. I have never questioned the soul, character and goodness of the Nation by who we have chosen as our leader throughout history.

Until now.

Rather than earning the American people’s respect and trust through the duration of the past year, Donald Trump’s antics and asinine behavior has cemented my belief that he lacks the judgment, temperament and gravitas to lead this Nation. Throughout the process, he has hurled insults at our heroes and their families, denigrated the disabled and praised dictators. Forget political incorrectness, this is simply despicable demagoguery.

In this time of global challenges, we will succeed only if we come together. We’ve done it before, from the courthouse steps of Appomattox to the days after Pearl Harbor. And to my Republican brothers and sisters in arms, politics should be a honorable sport. Rather than fighting to defend the indefensible, let’s live to fight another day.

– Boaky Vu

Baoky Vu is a long-time resident of Georgia and a member of the DeKalb Board of Registrations and Elections. His family left Vietnam prior to the Fall of Saigon in April 1975. After a 2-year stint in Australia, the family moved back to the US, eventually settling in Georgia. Baoky is a one-time Presidential Commission Appointee of President G.W. Bush.

Editor’s note: After this letter was published, the AJC reported that Vu had resigned his post as an elector. Decaturish has reached out to Vu for a comment. To read the AJC story, click here. New York Magazine reports that Georgia is among the 21 states where electors are not bound to vote for the person who wins the popular vote. To read that story, click here

Vu has release the following statement explaining his decision to resign: 

Chairman Padgett and the Georgia Republican Party family,

First, thank you for placing your trust in me to serve as an Presidential Elector in the 2016 Presidential Election.  As you know, the Republican Party and its ideals have been close and dear to my heart.  It has been an honor fighting alongside thousands of Georgians over the past decades to ensure a safer, more prosperous future for our children and grandchildren.

My public expressions of misgivings about our Party’s nominee has led to events that would be detrimental to the promotion of our Party’s platform of limited government, free enterprise, and liberty.  Thus, I am tendering my resignation as a Presidential Elector.

I have not lost faith in who we stand for as a Party and will continue to fight for those who uphold our Constitution and our shared values.  It is the least that I can do as a grateful citizen of this great Nation.

Yours in arms,

Baoky Vu

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