We finally got what we wanted… what now?
Greetings,
The 2024 election officially started on September 20 with early voting in Virginia, Minnesota, and South Dakota, and all States are in their early voting phase now. If you’re not an early voter, then the Big Day is next week… Tuesday, November 5.
One of my biggest concerns is the absolute vapidity of US political campaigns, shared by people across the political spectrum for years. Serious citizens may search for policy specifics to help make their decisions, but the campaign process seems designed to eliminate any usable information at all. We’re left with candidates tossing out evasions, platitudes, and zingers, and have to decide between manufactured and misleading masks. “The Selling of the American President”, as Joe McGinniss called it in his 1969 political classic. It’s politics over civics, and the cheapest form of politics at that.
Fortunately and accidentally, we were treated to real information this year. Neither of the Presidential Debates presented any specifics, but both told us more than we could ever possibly have asked about the candidates themselves. Our choices have never been clearer, yet Trump and Harris are locked in a statistical dead heat across the country. How, oh how, can we possibly decide between them? Concentrating on the civics instead of the politics may help.
Our revered Founders explicitly told us what the government was supposed to do: “…form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Their sole justification for government was to bring life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the governed. That’s it. That’s all. THAT is what our government, and by extension our politicians, are supposed to do.
The first question to ask of any individual politician, particularly a Presidential candidate, is whether they’re qualified to carry out that task. If they clear that low bar then the only way to decide between any two candidates is to decide which one is MORE qualified to do it. In a perfect world of unicorns and butterflies we could decide between clearly articulated policies and well researched positions. For a change, even in a world without unicorns and butterflies, I think we’ve been given more than enough to make an informed decision. That’s civics, not politics.
Giving our best answer to this deceptively simple question is our prime job as citizens, and in just a few weeks we’ll be asked to do our job yet again. Sadly, only about a third of us will step forward to answer the call. And no matter who you decide is better for the job, it seems almost half of the rest of the voters disagree with you.
Vote anyway.
Make a great day,
