by Calculated Risk on 10/10/2016 02:01:00 PM

Important Note: I've been writing this blog for 12 years, and I've written about economic policies, but I've avoided politics - until this year.   On economics, I like to be able to link back to my posts about the housing bubble, that house prices might fall 40% or more in some areas, that the economy was bottoming in 2009, that house prices bottomed in early 2012, and on and on.   In the future, I expect I will link back to my posts about Mr. Trump - and show that I criticized him early, often, and in the harshest terms - and show that I was on the right side of history.

The presidential "debate" last night was disgusting. We heard every extreme conspiracy theory, and a "candidate" for President having to apologize for his sexual comments.

A few truths: Trump lies repeatedly, he knows nothing about economics, and he is a disgusting person (his comments were not locker room comments). And his threat to jail his political opponent will be discussed and criticized for centuries.

Back in May, I wrote A Comment on Litmus Test Moments. I gave an example of some litmus test moments (issues that will come back and haunt people if they were on the wrong side - like the housing bubble). I argued that rejecting Trump will be a "litmus test" in the future.

I updated the post in August, see: Update on Litmus Test Moments.

Some advice: Rejecting Trump sooner is better than later, but publicly rejecting him before the election is critical. Here is a Republican Congressional Candidate rejecting Trump today:

Dr. Christopher Peters, the Republican candidate in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional district, is announcing today that he will not vote for Donald Trump for president. ...

“I should have spoken out against him much earlier, and regret that I failed to do so,” Peters adds.

Send a message to the future! It is important that Trump loses and loses badly. You will feel better about yourself in a few years when you can honestly say you didn't vote for Trump.  It will be even better if you can point to a public post opposing Trump written before the election (twitter, Facebook, blog, etc).  You will thank me later.