Choosy Voters

I've had better things to do than follow the election coverage, and so I'm a bit behind the curve. I understand that former Vice-President Biden appears to be leading and likely to win, but I'm not invested enough in the outcome to look deeper. Looking for something else to read about, I'd check out The Atlantic, and found the following: A Large Portion of the Electorate Chose the Sociopath. My first thought was "Of course they did. We are talking about people who run for President, after all." Sociopaths are something of an occupational hazard at that level.

But a bit less snarky, and more to the point was the thought that he headline may as well have read: "A Large Portion of the Electorate Chose the Person Who Said That He Would Advance Their Interests at the Direct Expense of People They Don't Like." Just as accurate, if not as click-bait. But also nothing new. This has been a habit of the electorate for a while now. And not simply because the American public has somehow become more evil when no-one was looking. Politicians buying into partisan animosity and offering to have one side win at the other's expense are common, because angry partisans require that as a precondition of voting and other voters aren't driven away by it. And I feel that I'm repeating myself here, because I'm sure I've noted this before.

Because the Electoral College system breaks down the Presidential election into 51 individual elections, one for each state and one for Washington, D. C., relatively small numbers of angry partisans in contested states can really make the difference, and so the candidates need those votes. And the primary system doesn't quite guarantee that the angry partisans will have a candidate who will listen to them, but it comes close. And so while the overall number of angry partisans may not be large, they tend to be the ones leading the parade. And for them a sociopath who shares their anger, or at least reflects it back for them, is miles better than an upstanding citizen who doesn't.

And for everyone else, a sociopath who is openly on their side, is better than an upstanding citizen who is likely to ignore their concerns, because he works for the angry partisans on the other side. Electoral math is like any other math, one doesn't have to like the answers for them to make the equations work.

And a Dollar Short

So I received a text message today, asking me to call three friends in swing states and remind them to vote for one of the major parties. Even if I had close enough friends in important swing states who I could call on, election day seems like a little late in the season for that sort of thing. This is a message that should have shown up two months ago, along with a link to resources (or more than likely, just talking points) that could be deployed to explain to people why a vote for Candidate X would be in their interests.

The best way to reduce the influence of money in politics is for people to be effective salespeople for the candidates they support. This doesn't seem to be that much of a secret, but there also doesn't seem to be much will to formalize it. Even the most politically engaged of the people I know come across as much more eager to talk politics when the next election is at least a year out. Perhaps they would be more involved in pitching their candidates if they they more information to work with in campaign seasons.

I think that part of it is that in a nation of hundreds of millions of people, coming up with reasonably detailed plans that might sway someone is difficult. Platitudes and attacks on the opposition are significantly easier to come up with, and they don't have that large of an attack surface in return. But it seems that there would be something of a payoff to political campaigns understanding how they would put their money where their mouths are, and sharing that information with their supporters early. Friends and neighbors will always be more trustworthy sources of information than random talking heads. It's strange that conspiracy theorists seem to have a better grasp of this than political organizations. Or maybe it simply didn't cross anyone's mind until the last minute.

Two Can Play

Fall during an election season always produces a bumper crop of signs. They pop up everywhere. But certain places reliably grow a new batch every season. The area across the street from the local Costco is one such area.

One thing that becomes evident with signspotting experience is that professional signs are easy to spot. The art of the campaign sign is well-established by now, and the guidelines are simple. Large fonts, limited text, high contrast. If the colors of a favorite local sports team can be worked in, so much the better. Slogans are best saved for very large signs, and even then, they need to be short; there isn't much time to read when cruising by at between 30 and 45 miles per hour. Of course, not all of the signs that embrace these rules were placed by professionals. But one can be fairly certain that those that don't follow the rules were not.

These two residents of the Costco-area sign patch illustrate the point. Even "Trump Weak" doesn't stand out very well, being red on black. Even in the Middle Ages is was understood that this brought contrast problems. And the broader message? There's no way that anyone who wasn't stopped right next to one of these signs was going to read it. (These signs are two sides of the same thing, one message to a side.)

In any event, what stood out about these signs for me was the messaging. It seemed to be little more than taking a Trump-style message and turning it back on the President. And this is another thing that marks signs as amateur for me. Who is really going to be swayed by this messaging? Who out there was thinking of re-electing the President, but now that they've seen someone engage in calling him "weak" is rushing to reconsider?

For all that they're definitely not professional-grade, someone likely spent a decent amount of money having this printed up. I wonder if they received the value that they hoped for.

Like Everyone Else

So, with the general election for President of the United States (among other things) being tomorrow, there has been quite a bit of rhetoric about how this is the "make or break" election that will forever define the nation going forward. Partisans on both sides seek to rally their supporters with the threat that if they don't make the one correct choice, their nation, as they knew it or as they want it to be, will be forever lost.

I don't know that there is any problem with the concept of "America," writ large, that cannot be solved by simply accepting that Americans aren't in any way intrinsically superior to anyone else on the planet. The population is not naturally smarter, more ethical, harder working et cetera, than anyone else. Americans are absolutely average specimens of humanity, and that's okay. The history of the United States may be full of exceptions to the rules as otherwise laid down by history, but the nation is not unique in this. There are many places around the world that are exceptions to some or another otherwise consistent rule. The degree to which there is a desire in the United States to predicate national worth on being genuinely exceptional people seems to produce more anxiety than actual good.

Hues of Autumn