Our Election Approach is a Poor Value Proposition for America

Voting Against, Rather Than For

If you ask most voters over the last few presidential elections why they voted the way they did, you will almost always hear something about their opponent.

They are less able to articulate support for the person they voted for than they can state clear arguments opposing the other side of the ballot.

This means we are not voting for a president so much as against the other.

We are voting to prevent someone else from becoming president.

This is both troubling and inevitably destructive.

After the 2016 election (and leading up to it) I asked a host of folks I know who voted for Trump why they voted the way they did. Nearly to an individual, it was to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming president.

Similarly, I asked many folks why they voted for Clinton in 2016. There were some smatterings of excitement at the thought of our first woman president, but the predominating tone was one of defense — preventing Donald Trump from becoming president.

Not only does this encourage a spiral of deficiency in our elected leaders, it inevitably divides us further and further as we accept that the election of the opposition is going to be the end of the Republic.

The threat of the other is so fomented in the partisan mind that their victory is not only a failure of American virtue but a threat to our very survival.

A Different Take

Let’s look at this from an investment perspective, not simply a financial investment, but let us consider each election as a national investment.

The presidential election in particular is an investment decision for the next four years with implications that trickle down the stream of time.

It’s a purchase and hold strategy without an option or a put.

It isn’t day trading where you can switch and change your strategy on the fly.

To be successful in this approach you need to do research, think it through carefully, and approach it with the intent to sit on the investment, in this case for four years.

This is where the principle and character of leaders become important factors in determining how to invest.

Neither you, nor I, nor the President of the United States can predict the future. This means that when the unexpected occurs, the character, knowledge, experience, temerity, and honor of the individual are paramount.

Warren Buffet is famous for his careful consideration of the CEO and leadership team in his investment decisions because he recognizes the importance of finding people who can lead, manage risk, and build teams that can then exploit competitive advantage and financial position. He does this because he knows you can’t read the market any more than you can read the future. Both of them are the realm of the Magic 8-ball and the astrology section of the newspaper.

While the government should not be run as a business (I cringe whenever I hear this), there are themes of personal character which indicate leadership success in both arenas.

Frequently, I hear folks espouse their support for a candidate by holding their nose and saying they “agree with his policies.” Yet, when those policies are driven by the result of polls rather than principle, you need to understand that those policies may change or shift with the currents of the day.

In essence, they don’t have policies. They are catering to polls, their party platform, and likely their own base. They are enacting or pursuing policies based upon popular opinion rather than careful consideration of impacts, nuances, or even their own principles.

Policies must be driven from principle. If an elected official doesn’t have any detectable principles, then you cannot rely on his/her policies.

Poll-driven policies are both volatile and unreliable.

America Deserves Better

We are increasingly tolerant of a rapidly deteriorating political meritocracy.

While American history is full of leaders possessed of ego, ignorance, and malice, it is also full of larger-than-life figures of character and even heroism.

These figures still exist in America today, but our bureaucracies, fear of change, and anti-hero addictions too often deter them from increasing roles of responsibility and leadership.

America loves to tear down its heroes. And as we become increasingly divided, America loves to tear down the “other’s” heroes even more.

We do not think in a both/and framework (someone can be both heroic and imperfect) and increasingly see ideas, and people, as entirely good or bad.

This is childish thinking and does not serve our nation well.

It leaves us blind to failings in those we support, and ignorant of legitimate arguments that might force us to question our own positions.

Both/And vs. Hypocrisy

Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of extraordinary principle and power. His cause is a shining example of America’s unrealized promises.

But he was an adulterer.

Does that diminish the value and importance of the principles he fought for?

Certainly not!

Was he fighting against adultery and infidelity, or was he fighting for a greater vision of American equality and racial justice?

Teddy Roosevelt was a megalomaniac who expanded government power in unprecedented ways, setting dangerous precedents in executive influence that rebound today.

Does that diminish the good he fought for in ending child labor? Instituting minimum wages? Battling worker exploitation? Establishing national parks?

He wasn’t fighting for the principle of government power, he was fighting for the principles of opportunity and human dignity, so no, the impact does not detract from the principle.

Government power was the method for enacting principle (whether you agree with him or not), not the means of enriching oneself or perpetuating party agendas to create moats around that power.

On the other side, there are plenty of other examples of hypocrisy in the public sphere which do undermine the principle.

Jerry Fallwell Jr.’s recent fall from glory is a pretty clear example of hypocritic self-interest. He made a fortune proclaiming the centrality of family values in American politics but was found to have a rather unconventional and scandalous formula for his own life. You can’t fight for family values and then lead a lurid Bacchanalia in your private life.

Similarly, Newt Gingrich’s ‘I had an affair because I love America’ while pursuing his “righteous” effort to impeach Bill Clinton for his own extra-marital activity rings with the tinny echo of hypocrisy.

Since both of these aim more at the right of the political spectrum, I will also highlight Democratic support for #metoo, which seems to have turned into #metooexceptforjoe — effectively shutting out any discussion of lingering questions in Biden’s past. Kamala Harris’ flip on this appears particularly egregious.

Or perhaps the growing number of Americans living on less than $2/day as a result of President Clinton’s Welfare Reform? (Intentional or not — President Obama’s failure to revamp this sits heavily on the Democrat record).

And the Republican mantra of limited government sounds hollow in light of complicit acceptance and participation in an unprecedented expansion of government spending/corporate welfare and executive immunity. The clarion call for a strict interpretation of the Constitution is noticeably muted when their presidential favorite won’t commit to a peaceful transfer of power and hints at discarding Constitutional Amendments (in fairness some Republicans did eventually speak out on these issues and President Trump has kind of backed away from such suggestions).

*It is worth noting that both parties seem only to be able to see the hypocrisy of the “other.” Republicans are blind to their own hypocrisy and Democrats to theirs.

Bad Marketing and Fatal Competition — Flipping the Script

I was reading a book on investing the other day that captures well the failures of our current political trajectory:

“The bitterly contested presidential election of 2000 is a case study in bad marketing. When you focus obsessively on your competition, the best you can hope to create is parity. Only by focusing on your customers can you innovate and create competitive advantage.”

-The Entrepreneurial Investor

What is Biden’s campaign about? The failings of President Trump. What is President Trump’s campaign about? The threats to democracy that candidate Biden presents.

This is parity, of sorts, in an ever-declining trajectory of decency, opportunity, and American character.

Who is the customer in an election?

It *should* be the American people.

It *should* be the vision of a better America.

It *should* be the responsible stewardship of today to create a better tomorrow for future generations.

Yet, for the last two decades (at least), elections have focused more on attacking the “other” podium. And the natural result is division and a rapid degradation of customer service.

The customer, the citizen, is lost in the constant vitriol and unending struggle for power.

Policies revolve around polls aimed at capturing the particular flavor of American voices the pollsters were contracted to identify.

(Have you been contacted by a pollster recently? Talk about dishonest question formation!)

I’m sure most people reading this already recognize this, so what is to be done?

Instead of focusing on the competition, focus on refining and improving the value proposition of your own political affiliation.

If you’re a Republican, focus on keeping Republicans honest and building a viable and integrated platform. Stop making excuses for them and performing mental gymnastics to maintain a defensible position.

If you’re a Democrat, be intolerant of hypocrisy in the party and pursue policies that genuinely help while minimizing secondary and tertiary fallout. Don’t let hope become naivete. Recognize inherently unreasonable proposals and focus on unity and progress rather than revolution.

Tomorrow, Not Today

This election cycle is nearly over. But in two years we have another election for the U.S. House of Representatives and a pile of Senatorial contests.

Two years after that we have another presidential election, another House election, and more senators. The landscape of American politics can change quickly and dramatically when the American people shoulder the responsibility of carefully selecting their elected officials and holding them accountable.

When we stop scapegoating the other party and focus instead on improving the position of our own we transition from defending to building.

Stop listening for policy (which is really about imposing our own limited understanding upon the nation) and start listening for character.

Listen for principles. We do not know what tomorrow is going to bring, we need someone who knows how to pilot a boat, not someone who brings a pretty map for a place we may never be.

We are a republic, not a democracy. That does not mean our voices aren’t important, but it does recognize the impossibility of an accountant, a school teacher, or even a soldier being able to command the breadth and nuance of topics ranging from international monetary systems to national security to federal legal and constitutional boundaries to oceanic environmental policy and so on and so on and so on from the foxhole in which we live on a daily basis.

It means that we find, and elect, the best folks we can find and trust them to guide the future and destiny of our nation.

We need skill, experience, and principle, not a well-polished stump speech or a carefully poll-tested platform.

A better tomorrow requires actual thought and consideration, nuance and philosophy, character and honesty.

A better tomorrow is not a slogan or a ten-word zinger.

The ten-word answer and the pith of modern politics is dangerous, not commendable.

Don’t vote for a sales pitch. Vote for value.

This isn’t trading where you can switch in and out.

Too often our political landscape is about here and now-quick fixes and immediate returns.

President Trump’s tax cuts were a bribe to the American people, with a bill coming tomorrow. So are his current efforts to pass a last-minute stimulus bill of “Huge” proportions.

I imagine most people who have the interest and dedication to read this far have already voted, so my effort here is not to influence today.

Instead, we should refocus on the reality that voting is an investment for tomorrow.

It has little to do with our own personal bank accounts or circumstances. Voting is about our children’s opportunities and their bank accounts. It is about the world we are handing down. It’s about the world in which they raise our grandkids. And great-grandkids.

Both sides of the aisle have positive things to offer, and dangerous traps of hypocrisy.

The only way out is to vote for something and then hold those we elect accountable for a better future regardless of party.

We need to vote to build, not to defend.