As American politics approaches its quadrennial climax, presidential campaign claims and counterclaims multiply. In evaluating this cluttered stream of information, voters need to keep clear three distinctions between interests and values, mistakes and lies, and tolerance and complicity.

Politics often tests the tension between a person’s interests and a person’s values. Never has that been truer than in the impending presidential election. The starkest choice facing citizens is beyond politics. It is a profound moral test. However one frames the policy issues that separate the candidates, the gravest challenge concerns whether to endorse or repudiate the values and character of a candidate. There is more than one way to define that challenge, but there is no escaping the duality of judgment conveyed by voting. In defiance of the biblical admonition to “judge not that you be not judged,” every ballot is a verdict on both the candidate and the one who casts it.

Consider that factor as it relates to the distinctions above. One must make allowances for people caught up in frantic activity to make honest mistakes. Political campaigns are that type of activity. Everyone is pressured by deadlines, saturated with ideas, brimming with advice to candidates, and anxious to court voters by appealing to their preferences and prejudices.

However, a known mistake deliberately repeated becomes a lie. A habit of such repetition is the hallmark of Donald Trump’s politics. He has proven himself the least trustworthy source of information in modern politics. In tabulating his deliberate mistakes—falsehoods of which he was repeatedly informed and urged to correct—the numbers mount into the thousands. To enumerate them is tiresome, but examples abound. The 2020 election was not lost but stolen; those convicted of assaulting the Capitol are victims of political persecution; Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating the pets, and so on. 

To be clear, all candidates—Kamala Harris and her allies included—should be held accountable and pressured to correct mistakes or repudiate lies.

Just as there is a sharp distinction between a mistake and a lie, one needs to draw a similar line between tolerance of error and complicity in deception. To be honest with themselves, voters need to reflect on that distinction as well. It is one thing to forgive a preferred candidate for mistakes and quite another to bless falsehoods by continuing to support their election after a pattern of deliberate lies has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

The matter is not uncomplicated. In public life, it is difficult to alter a position once annunciated, whether honestly or mistakenly. Every candidate strives to earn the trust of constituents, and that effort usually requires a reputation for predictability and reliability. Frequent switches of positions or declarations tend to undermine the electorate’s confidence in a candidate. Does he or she mean what they say or understand the implications of their pronouncements? Toggling from one stance to another, even if required by new evidence, is not a recipe for building the solid reputation sought by anyone looking to win public office.

A key question for a person endorsing Trump is whether they believe his lies are, in fact, truths or are justifiable assertions, even if unfounded. A citizen cannot be expected to do complete research to assess the accuracy of every claim a candidate advances. Still, it is reasonable to demand that, when such claims are challenged, they remain ready to reconsider the evidence.

Rational elections require voters to exercise a degree of continuous quality control, evaluating the stream of information they imbibe until ballots are cast. That is an arduous task, and, not surprisingly, some voters default to acts of faith, settling into decisions based on a melange of perceptions, philosophical inclinations, and opinions about positive or negative attributes of candidates’ personalities. A campaigner’s veneer may be more persuasive than the values he actually embraces. 

A realist must acknowledge that voting behavior is often transrational—beyond reason—if not irrational—contrary to reason. That is why politicians can sometimes mold blocs of voters into cults, coalitions that rely less on evidence than on assumptions and anticipations—not to mention antagonism toward contending candidates. Once committed to a candidate, psychologically but especially publicly, a voter faces a problem similar to a candidate who has taken a specific position on one or more issues: decommitment is hard to pull off. It implies admitting an initial error of judgment, though that should not be the case if fresh evidence has come to light arguing for reconsideration. That factor explains a good deal about the difficulty of communicating between polarized political factions in America in 2024.

By definition, a vote is a relative matter that reflects judgment about the qualities of competing politicians. Perhaps the most important thing that can be expected is that, while respecting the right of every citizen to express their own opinion at the ballot box, each of us demands a conscientious verdict on the fundamental question: Am I voting for an honest person? Does my support condone or condemn duplicity?

Beyond any issue of policy, every vote conveys a signal regarding the perceived character of a candidate. Even if one favors the policies advocated by a candidate, is the beneficiary of my vote a person of integrity? Or am I complicit in dishonesty? On that point, exhortation is not sufficient, but it is certainly appropriate. 

Alton Frye was staff director for Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA) and longtime adviser to former Republican Senate leader Howard Baker (R-TN).

Image: Phil Mistry / Shutterstock.com.