I am still learning how to vote

My two oldest children will have the opportunity to vote in their first Presidential election this year. I started writing an email to them with some suggestions about getting ready. And then I decided to write this article, because they are slightly more likely to read my posts than my emails.

Emotive

The first thing I try to keep in mind is that everyone has visceral reactions to other people. Like and dislike. We all engender both and we all feel both. Neutrality exists, but it is rare in politics.

The second thing is remembering that our brains are really good at reverse engineering explanations for our feeling. If you go to a movie theatre, you know you are enjoying yourself before you can articulate why. You generate explanations later that align with your feelings. Otherwise the dissonance would be uncomfortable.

I like to think of these as System 1 and System 2 activities*. You use System 2 to explain System 1.

Politicians know this as well. Candidate A knows that some people "like" them. We will call them the Like-As. "Like" is a rich composite of signals and priors. And identity. Candidate A also knows that some people do not like them. Dislike-As. Some of those can be converted into voters, but they have to appeal to system 1 or 2. Their campaigns engage the Dislike-As to try to get them to vote for A despite their dislike.

If Candidate A can help Dislike-As dislike Candidate B MORE than A, they may be able to motivate them to participate in the election on their behalf. Or they can give a voter positive reasons to vote for Candidate A and overlook their dislike. Making them system 2 voters. They may dislike you, but if you pledge to cut taxes, for instance, you may get their vote.

In this election I dislike both of the candidates. One much more than the other.

I started with the emotive because I think that is where most people leave it. They like a candidate more than the other, and they engineer an explanation to rationalize it. I am not saying that this is wrong, just incomplete. It halts our search for information, or at least biases it.

Analytical

From a content perspective I ask myself two sets of questions:

1. What issues does the candidate prioritize? Are those my priorities as well? (for the nation and myself)
2. What is the candidate's position on those issues? How in or out of alignment are they with me?

For this I try to rely on the candidate's words, not the opinions of the talking heads. I only entertain third party views when mine are relatively formed.

An important thing to keep in mind is that to some extent the policy positions are what the candidate believes -- but often they are shaped to attract a winning coalition. Practical but less than genuine.

For me this is one of the major reasons I have never thought of running for political office. I have made a living from having a point of view and there is something impure in molding my positions into something more popular. This is very naive of me.

Politicians may highlight issues not because they are important to them, but because they are trying to activate certain groups to vote for them. Often these issues and positions have the largest distance from the center. Bringing fringe voters into their fold.

Beyond policy priorities and positions there is a "world view" of the candidates that we are trying to assess. This is difficult because my guess is you do not completely understand the world view of even the intimates in your daily life. And you clearly know them better than the candidates.

You can take in a lot of signal. Looking at the whole corpus of their writings and speeches. But also, what is their lived experience? It is important to realize that assessing worldview is the most subjective part of this process. Bias enters in. Stereotypes of an Attorney General or CEO can tilt your assessment substantially.

I have read books by both of our candidates. I am sure neither of them want me to judge them only on those books. They both seem like foolish caricatures.

Information

If you like someone you can cherry-pick their best attributes. If you dislike someone you can dumpster-dive and always find something to trash them with. The truth is between the cherries and the garbage.

A case in point is what has happened with both Vice Presidential candidates. There are incredible appeals to our visceral selves. Trying to get us to strongly dislike both men. This is in part because both were much less known before this electoral cycle than their Presidential partners.

There is also a tendency to ignore one of the most important sources of information -- a lot of people support each of the candidates. Now you can certainly discard this by demeaning people who prefer the "other" candidate as uneducated or uninformed or angry.

I think this is a mistake.

Both candidates have large bases of support and there are plenty of imbeciles who like each of them. But there are also plenty of well reasoned voters. Some are only operating at a visceral level. But both candidates have System 2 led voters who have reasonable reasons for supporting them. Understanding why people might be voting for the other candidate might be about priorities, positions and world view.

Character and Capability

This election has been very informative on the importance of these two issues. The debate provided evidence on both dimensions.

For example, I liked Obama and believed he had a good character. His priorities and positions were not that aligned with mine, but I did not fear him becoming President. I felt he was not yet capable because of lack of experience in executive roles. A virtuoso of rhetoric no doubt. I think he did well as President.

I group Character and Capability together because I find them related. A candidate weak at both (and it makes sense to think through what capabilities a President needs) is usually not a serious contender. Perhaps one just dropped out this week in a noble decision to not undermine such an important election.

Character is very subjective when the person is not well known. That is one of the reasons a track record is so important. It is still subjective when they are better known, but it can be argued. You can evaluate character with system 1 in the lead or system 2. I suggest using both. Assessments of character are highly emotive.

Final Thoughts

A few trailing points that I think are important to share:

• Many people decide not to vote because they know their state is 80% Blue or 80% Red and therefore think their vote will not matter. There are two dimensions in play: who wins, but also how strong the mandate is. Voting for the Red Candidate in a dominant Blue State does have an impact. Not in the electoral college. But in the strength of their mandate. Vote. For outcome and mandate strength.
• When politicians talk about what they want to do it is easy to get stirred up on a single issue. Try not to be a single issue voter. Know that this is a campaign tactic. For example, if immigration is your only issue (a personal and national priority) you can find yourself voting against a candidate that might truly be more aligned with your interests. Make a list of what issues are important to you. Being a good voter is knowing yourself. And over your life your views will change.

There are always some deeper issues at play. I share these not to be alarmist but to catalyze consideration:

• Global political risk is very high. I am a lover of foreign affairs (and Foreign Affairs the magazine) and sometimes this makes me focus more on international rather than domestic issues. I suspect I am the inverse of most people. Recognizing my tilt is part of the battle. But the role the US plays as a stabilizer (being principled, using carrot and stick) is crucially important. Does one candidate fit this better than the other?
• We have been dancing with a constitutional crisis for a while. Some would say 248 years! But over our living memories the designed roles of the three branches of government are structurally under attack. The Supreme Court has been vilified by some and exploited by others. Congress has shirked much of its responsibility by letting the Executive Branch make rules that accumulate to law. The power hungry Executive Branch is critical in times of international crisis, but not above the law. These structural challenges to our democracy are important. The candidates views matter. And the strength of their mandate.

To close this out, let me say that it is important to look back at your prior voting record and assess yourself. Voting is ex-ante. Ex-post you can inform your next vote.

Voting should feel like a heavy responsibility. If you pull the lever because you hate one candidate more than the other you might have avoided the hard work of system 2.

Through this process I have decided who I want to vote for (pending the final debate) but also the strength of the mandate I want the winner to have. I may vote for someone I want to lose.

*System 1 is fast, automatic, and intuitive thinking, operating with little conscious effort. It handles everyday tasks like recognizing faces or reacting to sudden dangers.

System 2 is slow, deliberate, and analytical thinking, requiring conscious effort and attention. It's used for complex decision-making, solving problems, and logical reasoning.