VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE.

Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker recently correctly qualified the criteria for preferring a presidential candidate over the others.

“I’m not suggesting there aren’t other names on the ballot. I’m suggesting simply that when people go to the ballot box in November, they’re going to see that there are really only two choices because it’s throwing away your vote if you’re a Democrat and you vote for someone else on the ballot other than Joe Biden,” Pritzker said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And I believe that people will see that contrast of values that I’m talking about and understand that they’ve got to vote for Joe Biden if they want to make sure that the United States does not fall into the hands of someone who is frankly a sociopath, that’s been indicted 91 times and as someone who would take this country backward,” he continued.

Pritzker dismissed concerns that third-party candidates, like independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., could end up changing the outcome of November’s presidential election.

The key to that argument is the "if you're a Democrat."  That is, if your preferred bundle of policies has many of the same things the Democrats are offering, your best choice might be to take the Democrats' bundle rather than a Republican bundle with fewer of the things you like, although if Mr Kennedy's bundle comes closer to your preferred bundle than Elizabeth Warren's, er, Joe Biden's, it's your right to vote for Mr Kennedy.  Never mind what Mr Pritzker, and all the other apparatchiki of both major parties tell you.

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being on the ballot in Michigan, I think is going to have a little effect on the ultimate result. People understand that there are really only two candidates that have a path to victory in this country and in Michigan. And, of course, that’s Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” he said.

It's only a binary choice as long as voters vote under the belief that other voters are treating the choice as binary.  The way to break that belief in other voters is to vote your conscience.  Never mind that Governor Pritzker scolds and Derek Hunter scoffs.

I would, on occasion, refer to myself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. I can’t do that anymore. That doesn’t mean what it used to, it means simply being a contrarian for its own sake.

I get that the party was never going to get behind Trump, but credit him for showing up to ask. They also passed on Robert Kennedy Jr., which would have been smarter for them. RFK is not a traditional libertarian, but those don’t exist anymore anyway. At least they’d have a candidate with name recognition who agrees with them on a lot of issues — an embrace of the idea that their 80 percent friend is not their 20 percent enemy.

They decided to go in a different direction. They always choose to go in a different direction. They’ll call it “being principled,” but it’s really just being irrelevant. It’s easier to sit on the sidelines and complain about how screwed up things are than it is to get in the fight. That’s not what libertarians do anymore, which, in the sea of issues they have, is their biggest problem.

It might be better for libertarians, or socialists of any stripe, or Free Soilers, should any still exist, to devote their efforts to winning elections for dog-catcher, for the school board, for the city council, and only after demonstrating success locally, to either run candidates for Congress or the presidency.  In fact, the best case against running socialists for Congress or the presidency might be the record they are writing in Chicago and Minneapolis.

Now that Mr Trump has been convicted, rightly or wrongly, for falsifying business records to conceal information that might be relevant to voters, the argument for "none of the above" securing a majority of the popular vote, whether in the form of votes not cast for president on ballots with votes for senator or dogcatcher, or in the form of not showing up to vote at all, has even more appeal.  That sentiment even gets onto public radio reporting from Boston's collegians.

Henry Drembus, a student at the Boston University School of Law, said he hopes young people recognize the impact presidential elections have on the Supreme Court. He was among several who also cited the importance of congressional, state and city-level elections. Drembus said that though the presidential election is important, it’s not the be-all and end-all.

“I think the presidential election itself is — usually the impact is sort of blown out of proportion, and I think there are things further down the ballot that are going to have greater impact,” he said.

Many students expressed a vote for Biden as a duty they’ve come to accept, until a time when there are better options. Though many reported a sense of pessimism as November approaches, they said they remain hopeful about what’s possible for the future, especially as members of their own generation begin to run for office.

There won't be "better options" as long as voters continue to grant the false binary.  Those youngsters might run for office on slightly different platforms, but still, they'll have to trim to win.  The political aggregation problem will not go away, nor will pinning all your hopes on the presidency make it go away.

I doubt, though, that the conviction of Donald Trump for buying the silence of an adult film star will change many minds.  That "Snake" poem Mr Trump likes to recite is equally relevant for the behavior of his most loyal voters.  They knew full well he was carrying on with side chicks long before he announced for the presidency, and that Billy Binion tape didn't tell them anything they didn't already know.

There are, all the same, reasons for people who don't like the bundle the Democrats offer, whether it was the reprise of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton that Mr Biden ran on, or the Obama-Sanders-Warren Weimar America he's been pushing, to use Mr Pritzker's logic and vote for the Republican bundle if that's closest to the bundle you'd most prefer to receive.  Paul Mirengoff spelled that out a month ago.

Trump’s policy views are similar to those of his two main rivals for the nomination, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. There are a few areas of disagreement, obviously. However, any backer of either losing candidate should feel comfortable with Trump when it comes to most policy questions.

The problem Trump’s GOP critics had (and still have) with the nominee is his personality and character. But while personality and character are important, it’s normal to view policy as more important, come voting time. There’s nothing wrong with putting personality and character first. After all, a candidate’s positions on policy often change once in office, whereas character is a constant. But, equally, there’s nothing wrong with prioritizing policy. Indeed, as I just said, doing so is more common than the reverse.

I can't help but conclude, though, that whilst either of the other leading Republican hopefuls would have run on a similar policy bundle to "Make America Great Again" the reason Mr Trump became the 2016 nominee, is likely to be the 2024 nominee, and might have a better chance of winning precisely because of Democrat lawfare, is anger among the Normals with business as usual.  Power Line's John Hinderaker elaborates.  "First, it is now absolutely essential that Trump be elected president. The Democrats cannot be allowed to get away with this effort to turn America into a banana republic."

That's right, there are arguments from voters supporting either party to the effect that the other party is a threat to Democracy and the Rule of Law.  The establishment and its media enablers have the narrative Mahablog summarizes.

Joe Biden himself for years stayed within the lines of what was acceptably not radical in Washington, however arbitratily those lines were drawn. As POTUS he has leaned more toward his party’s New Deal heritage than he did as senator, but he hasn’t proposed anything unparalleled in American history that I’ve noticed. And even the feared and much ridiculed Squad of the House hasn’t proposed anything I can think of that puts a gun to the head of American democracy. Not even close.

One can’t say the same for Trump, can one?

I love the understatement of "leaned more toward his party's New Deal heritage," don't you?  Tax and tax, spend and spend, print money and print money, regulate and regulate.  If that's not your bundle, Governor Pritzker's logic is equally valid for voters generally inclined to vote with Republicans, who might have their own ideas about who is the sociopath and who is taking the country in the wrong direction.  Mr Mirengoff elaborates.

The Post also calls out Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, who courageously stood up Trump during the former president’s attempt to reverse the 2020 result in Georgia. It notes that Trump called Kemp “a fool” and “a clown.”

But Kemp’s explanation for backing Trump is straightforward: “He’d be better than Joe Biden.” Obviously, the Post disagrees. But there’s nothing puzzling or shameful about Kemp putting aside Trump’s insults and supporting the candidate who, from his ideological perspective, would be the better president. In fact, a less partisan outlet might find this commendable.

The Post also cites Eric Levine, a GOP fundraiser. According to the Post, Levine was thinking about not voting for either Trump or Biden (as, frankly, so am I). However, he decided to back Trump after the Biden administration abstained from voting on a UN resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Levine told the Post he was also influenced by what it calls a “laundry list” of other grievances with Biden: open borders, the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, Bidenomics and its consequences, and the president’s social justice agenda.

To the Post, this may be a “laundry list.” To a reasonable non-leftist voter, it’s a list of good reasons to back Biden’s only viable opponent.

The palace guard media, on the other hand, would rather scold and shame people than, oh, make a stronger case that FJB is a worthy successor to LBJ and FDR.  "Democracy could die in that kind of imperiousness," indeed.

No less than former attorney general Bill Barr, who has reason to be displeased with Donald Trump, to have better reason to be displeased with Joe Biden.

"So it’s not about me. I think that, that I’ve said this all along. If faced with a choice between two people, neither of which I think should be president, I feel it’s my duty to pick the person who I think would do the least damage to the country," Barr explained. "And I think Trump would do less damage than Biden. And I think all this stuff about a threat to democracy, I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the Biden administration."

"The Biden administration, or President Biden himself," [CNN reporter Kaitlin] Collins asked.

"Biden’s support for the progressive agenda," Barr explained.

Collins was, of course, dumbfounded, and asked Barr how he could say Biden is a greater threat to democracy.

"Well, where are we losing our freedoms?" he replied. "How are our freedoms being constrained. They’re being constrained by, the progressive government and, you know, democracy, especially, you know, from the Anglosphere democracies, the Five Eyes and so forth, the threat's never been from autocratic government on the right."

Collins asked for specifics, and Barr pointed out the obvious.

"The threat to freedom and democracy has always been on the left," he pointed out. "It’s the collectivist, socialist agenda. And that is where we’re losing our freedom. Parents are losing the freedom to control their children’s education. And, you know, people can’t speak their mind without losing their jobs and things like that. This is worse than the McCarthy era. Where is that coming from? It’s not coming from the right."

Collins then brought up Trump's challenges to the results of the 2020 election, a humorous position from someone whose network devoted countless hours to covering the Russian collusion hoax. Barr replied by pointing to the border crisis, the rise in crime in our cities, and increasing regulations, like the push to ban gas stoves and gas-powered cars via regulation.

"Those are the threats to democracy," he pointed out. "Major changes are being made in our country without the democratic process. And they’re being made by bureaucrats in these agencies."

A grumpy aside before I go on, are all the variant spellings of "Caitlyn" necessary?

It's unlikely that any Democrat would mention, even very quietly, a full review of dated regulations in the Federal Register.

The Federal Register, once bloated with bureaucratic dictates, witnessed a substantial pruning, shedding nearly 25,000 pages — a feat unparalleled in presidential history. Trump's imprint extended beyond federal boundaries, with initiatives like the Governors' Initiative on Regulatory Innovation, aimed at catalyzing similar reforms at state and local levels.

Moreover, executive orders were wielded deftly to foster transparency, protect small businesses, and expedite infrastructure projects, exemplifying a commitment to streamlining governmental processes.

In the crucible of economic policy, Trump's deregulatory agenda found expression in targeted interventions.

If the latest servings of warmed-over Great Society were improving on the original, wouldn't we see more support for them?  (Put another way, why isn't Mr Biden leading by fifty points?)

We’re now seeing the results of Biden’s self-consciously big-government economic agenda. Turns out people don’t like it very much. Republicans were both correct on policy and politically smart to unanimously oppose the [American Rescue Plan] and the [Inflation Reduction Act], and Democrats don’t seem to be gaining much political advantage from the two “bipartisan” laws.

“Under Biden’s presidency, the number of Americans who favor less government services and lower taxes grew rapidly, with 50 percent in favor, versus just 19 percent preferring more services and higher taxes,” Glock writes. “A supply-side agenda that met this demand would likely prove popular and could help restore America’s economic dynamism.”

Thus, there might be good reason to put policy ahead of personality, and in the twilight struggle of the gerontocrats, for all his faults, the Trump platform offers a better bundle of policies.  Nikki Haley, whose campaign is still suspended, says as much.  "Haley said that while Trump had not been 'perfect' on issues that matter to her, like foreign policy and the national debt, Biden had been a 'catastrophe.'"   Or, as Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green puts it, "[P]lease don't take anything in this column as a defense of Joe Biden. He remains the worst human being ever to occupy the White House and (after Buchanan and Wilson) probably the third most destructive."

There are strong arguments to continue the Biden policies, there are strong arguments to restore the Trump policies, and there are strong arguments to deny either of the gerontocrats a mandate.  Vote your conscience, whether it is for continuation of the major parties, or for a change of course.  Recognize, though, that the ongoing election might be the best argument for dialing back the Cult of the Presidency and the obsession with presidential politics.