I’m not going to argue for any of the candidates in this post. That’ll come later. For now, I think there are three main factors that should be considered in a president. They are all interrelated, and in order of importance. However, if a candidate doesn’t meet any one of these criteria, it is practically impossible to meet any of the other criteria.
- Character – This consists mostly of the the moral standards and honesty of the candidate. If I do not trust a candidate, their competence becomes irrelevant, as it will not be used ethically. Their positions become meaningless because they will abandon policy and ethical standards at will. Character also includes temperament and personality, as an angry, irrational, and unstable candidate is a danger to the world and ineffective in diplomacy.
- Competence – The proven experience of the candidate, their intelligence, and their ability to implement policies effectively. If a candidate isn’t politically competent, their policies won’t matter because they will never be implemented. Intelligence is not measured by IQ, but by the candidate’s understanding of the world, their rationality, their education, and their working ability.
- Policy – The stated positions of the candidate. If every candidate could be trusted to follow their policy statements exactly and implement them effectively, this would be the only issue. Despite its importance, policy is by far the least-discussed issue in this election.
On Electability
Electability, for me, is mostly a non-issue. Of course, a candidate must have some chance of becoming president, or we will be divided into minuscule factions and candidates will only have to win a small portion of the vote to take the election. However, “some chance” is a low margin. For example, Zoltan Istvan, the transhumanist candidate, is not on the ballot in any state and is not polling at more than 5% in any state (source). This is below the “some chance” margin, as 25 days from the election, he has no path to the presidency. However, Evan McMullin, an independent candidate, is on the ballot in 11 states (source), has a significant chance of winning Utah (source), and has a growing campaign nationally. If a candidate passes this minimum threshold of electability, we should move on and consider the three most important factors.
Our democratic obligation is to vote for the candidate we support. Otherwise, our system degrades and no longer represents the population, as the contemporary philosopher Slavoj Zizek described:
We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligence to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be.
If we do not vote our conscience, we as a population fail to represent ourselves. We do not ‘throw our vote away’ when we vote for an unlikely candidate we genuinely support, rather, we throw our vote away when we do not vote what we believe. We are not voting for ourselves, but for someone else, for the polls, for the average. Popular opinion becomes the popular opinion of what the popular opinion is; democracy devolves into regressive guessing at the average. Furthermore, government is only legitimate when it represents the governed. When we do not represent ourselves, our government becomes illegitimate.
Finally, there are a ton of misconceptions about voting power in our democracy.
First, statistical analysis shows that, in general, your vote has the most power if you vote for a third-party candidate, not for a major party. I don’t really see the point of explaining this, as the linked post explains it very well. I’d definitely recommend reading it.
Second, the power of a single vote is extremely close to zero. This election, your vote will probably be around 1 in 125 million. Therefore, the best reason to vote is not really to control the election, but to represent ourselves. Don’t do it merely for the results; do it because you believe in your candidate.
Third, a lot of the time, your publicly expressed opinions matter more than your vote, because these opinions influence a significant amount of votes. Who you support actively matters more than who you vote for quietly.
Fourth, whether or not your candidate is elected is not the only measure of voting power. You could say all the Bernie Sanders votes this year were wasted because he didn’t win, but he still radically influenced the election and changed American politics permanently. Winning ≠ success.
Fifth, when you vote for a third party candidate, you break out of the mold. This draws attention far more than obediently voting for established candidates that adhere to the two-party system. Therefore, votes for a third party candidate are more influential than other votes.
That’s why I don’t think electability matters, and why don’t think it should matter. Vote your conscience this election.