Election Year Slogans Aren’t Just Dumb, They’re Completely Wrong

Yet no one ever seems to question them

Another presidential election is upon us and, as usual, there is really no way to avoid it. Less than three weeks from today, either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will begin preparing to assume the most terrifying, destructive power the world has ever known. And regardless of which one wins, the relentless destruction of our lives, liberties, and estates will continue.

The one thing we can look forward to after November 5 will be the temporary cessation of ritual election year slogans blaring at us from every corner of the media sphere. It isn’t merely that these slogans are hysterical and dumb. They are mostly completely wrong.

Let’s take one we hear every presidential election year that no one seems to question: “We need a president who will unite the country.” Heated arguments occur between pundits over which candidate is more “divisive” and even supporters of a candidate will say he is better but reflectively ask, “Can he unite America?”

If anyone has any idea what this means, then please tell me. I have none. It seems to suggest that 330 million people are all supposed to either believe the same thing or pretend they do. It is suggested there is some common thing these 330 million are working on that will benefit them all equally if only the right dear leader would show them the way.

The truth is the whole “unite the country” premise is wrong. It’s the opposite of the truth. A free country is one where people are left alone by their government to pursue their very separate interests. It is that from which all good things come as Adam Smith so astutely observed during the USA’s birth year. The only time the whole country is united behind a president is during a war. And those are all disasters.

A related sophism is the hackneyed refrain about the president “moving us forward.” Every presidential candidate promises this and virtually no one stops to ask what it means. It is just another variation on the theme that “we” are all working on some project vital to each and every one of us. What that project is I have no idea. This one employs fictional start and end points as metaphors for achieving this great work.

Most people, when not under the spell of these incantations, are working on their own lives, taking care of their own families, and at most helping make their own communities a nicer place to live for themselves.

And that’s perfectly ok. That’s what they’re supposed to be doing. History shows that leaving them alone to do precisely that makes the whole world better for everyone.

Mao Zedong had everyone united and working on the same project, whether they liked it or not. About fifty million of them ended up dead. Do you know what his project was called? The Great Leap Forward. I kid you not.

Really, as soon as a politician utters the word “we” or “us,” you should be suspicious. Nothing good ever follows. When you hear the words “move forward,” run like hell. Or prepare to defend yourself.

Then there is the perennial call for a president who can “get things done.” Every incumbent brags about what he’s “got done” and every challenger accuses him of “not getting anything done.” Congress is also accused of “not getting anything done.” This, unfortunately, is the reason it has such low approval ratings. Refusing to rubber stamp every new government program, no matter how disastrous, is “not getting anything done.”

First, when a bill is put to vote in Congress and it fails to pass, it is not true that Congress “got nothing done.” It is their job to vote on bills, not to pass them. There is no minimum bill passage requirement for Congress in the Constitution. And to the extent that elected representatives voting on bills represents “democracy,” voting them down is just as democratic as passing them.

In reality, there is an inverse relationship between the percentage of bills passed by Congress and the well-being of the American public. Unless they have the word “repeal” in them, voting down bills is the one thing Congress “gets done” that actually benefits us.

Unfortunately, every president and Congress in our lifetimes has gotten far too much done. All the legislation needed to wield the powers anyone agreed to give the federal government were passed long before we were born. Anything new the government proposes to do requires a constitutional amendment. That is how consent to new powers is obtained (and even calling that “consent” is a stretch). Elections are only supposed to decide who will run the government, not what it will do.

Most of what the federal government is already doing is unconstitutional. Another way to say that is most of the power the federal government now wields was seized without the consent of the governed. No one ever consented to the federal government being involved in education, healthcare, retirement plans, or agriculture. Some president just came along and “got it done,” occasionally with the help of Congress.

America is in dire need of precisely the opposite. We need someone who can get things undone. And it really doesn’t matter what. Write everything the federal government currently does on a wall. Then, blindfold the next president or speaker, spin him around, and have him throw a dart. Abolish whatever he hits. As Vivek Ramaswamy so eloquently put it, “absolutely nothing will break.” On the contrary, every dart will be an improvement.

Finally, there is “just get out and vote.” This is one we can expect to rise to a deafening roar over the next three weeks. It’s another idea Americans of every political stripe accept without question. It’s probably the worst idea in a sea of bad ideas at election time.

Why would anyone believe that badgering people into voting who otherwise wouldn’t bother is going to lead to better government? Just what would these people who have to be dragged to the polls or browbeaten into filling out a mail-in ballot be basing their decision on?

Except for a few principled nonvoters, these are for the most part people who aren’t interested in the political process, whether that’s wise or not, and certainly aren’t equipped to decide who will wield such enormous power over everyone’s lives. Not being interested in politics and therefore not likely knowledgeable about the candidates’ policies, they have made the very responsible decision not to involve themselves in the process. And the establishment responds by demanding they vote anyway.

That should tell you everything you need to know about “getting out the vote.”

Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?