Written by Jason Montoya. Posted in Society.

Voting in Confusing Times: Four Bi-Partisan Pro-American Rules To Help You Vote In The 2024 Election

2024 is a confusing time for our society. I want to navigate it as well as I can while helping others do the same.

My goal with this post is to provide some simple bipartisan and pro-American rules for evaluating your political candidate.

These rules used to be default expectations for most of my life, but now we’re in an era where that is no longer the case. What was assumed must now be made explicit.

These easy-to-use rules are grounded in the ideas of American Freedom (freedom based on taking responsibility), the constitutional separations of power structure, and honest elections.

We Chose Hard Mode. Will We Now Choose Nightmare Mode?

In life, issues we don’t deal with tend to cycle back around at a larger scale. This is part of why I’m sharing these rules because more Americans speaking up is part of the solution to what ails us. To avoid nightmare mode will require Americans to choose freedom, responsibility, and honesty.

The 2024 election is about whether we want to keep feeding our core problems, growing them into more difficult challenges ahead.

Since no rescue is coming, how we vote in November will dictate the answer to whether we transition from hard to nightmare mode.

Where does that leave us for 2024?

In many ways, it’s going to be chaotic and confusing this year. Here we are in July and the volume of new and wild events has been unprecedented. We’re going to hear dramatically conflicting claims, so it’s going to come down to who do we trust and what/whom do we place our trust in.

At the end of the day, when we can’t make sense of what’s true or not, which direction are we to go?

A couple of simple starting questions to ask about the people we vote for are as follows.

Which of these candidates is more like Mister Rogers (truthful and good)?
Which one is more like Al Capone (deceptive and nefarious)?

These questions married with the following rules can help us choose better people and stop spiraling downward with worse and worse leaders.

Freedom or Tyranny? My Rules Basis for Voting in 2024: Freedom, Honesty, & Responsibility About the Highest Stakes Things

In the past, I struggled with how to vote responsibly. Party affiliation used to be an easy way to figure out who I should vote for but that only worked when the parties held core American values. Since that’s no longer the norm, we need baseline filters before we consider supporting candidates in either party. We need filters to keep tyrannical extremists out of leadership.

These voting rules are based on the core ideas that make America great; freedom, shared power, and honest elections. These are formalized rules that I've developed since 2016.

Rule 1: A) Vote For People Who Tell The Truth About Biden Winning the 2020 Election (American Freedom). B) Vote Against People Who Deceive About Biden Not Winning The 2020 Presidential Election (Tyranny).

“A would be officer holder must unwaveringly adhere to the truth and refrain from self-justification to cover missteps” - David Koyzis, 7 Essential Qualities of a Political Leader

This specific rule helps us discover if the candidate values truth over losing and whether they’re willing to leverage deception to win power.

When it comes to the presidential elections, I won’t vote for a presidential candidate who has chronically lied about the election results and deceived others about past outcomes. And, I won’t vote for a non-presidential political candidate who participates in this deception.

This rule is specific to the 2020 election because it’s easily verifiable. We have facts and evidence from 2020 and after, to inform this rule. This makes it more concrete so political candidates can’t weasel themselves out of the rule.

Tyranny has and will pervade both parties. We need to support those who will speak truth to tyranny. Bonus points if they do it against those inside their party.

Why does telling the truth matter? Jordan Peterson encapsulates this core reasoning well in the following quote.

"No one can have two selves... part of the reason why you have to be very careful about what you say and do is that when you practice falsehood, you become false. It's not like those are beliefs that are just in your head. You rewire yourself so you start to literally see the world through the frame of your falsehoods. That's a very bad plan... It's even worse than believing lies, you become the lie. The [lies] are built into you as implicit axioms." - Jordan Peterson, How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs, Modern Wisdom With Chris Williamson

Because the presidential elections are so consequential, lying about the outcomes of them is a top priority.

What’s tragic is that while I am using this rule to filter OUT bad leaders, Republicans are using it to bring them into the fold.

In Trump’s interview for Time magazine, Trump candidly laid out his thoughts. Here’s a portion of the interview as it relates.

The RNC is holding litmus tests on employees, asking if they believe the election was stolen or not. Would you do the same? [Editor's Note: While the RNC is reportedly asking job applicants this question, it has denied it is a litmus test for employment.]

Trump: I wouldn’t feel good about [hiring someone who didn’t believe the election was stolen], because I think anybody that doesn't see that the election was stolen… [is wrong.]

The dividing line here is going to be between those who embrace the election lie and those who embrace the truth about the 2020 election.

Rule 2: A) Vote for People Who Condemn Trump’s 2020 Unconstitutional Power Grab and The January 6th Capitol Attack (American Freedom). B) Vote Against People Who Dismiss Trump’s Unconstitutional Attempts to Stay in Power & Defend The Jan 6 Storming of the Capitol (Tyranny).

“A would-be office holder must be loyal to the country's constitution and abide by its provisions, even to his or her own disadvantage.” - David Koyzis, 7 Essential Qualities of a Political Leader

The heart of America is the structural distribution of power across the states and federal branches of government. Those who work to consolidate power into the role of the presidency so they can do anything without accountability, are a threat to our democratic republic and unworthy of the presidency.

Those who’d defend, dismiss, or valorize Trump or the Jan 6 storming of the capitol are unfit for office.

This is an important litmus test because how we judge the past is an indication of what we want to happen in the present, as Timothy Snyder points out below.

"Your attitude towards a specific event in the past reveals your specific intent towards the future… When you deny a specific crime that people with whom you identify carried out in the past, you're affirming that crime." - Timothy Snyder

Rule 3: A) Vote For People Who Will Accept the Election Results and Participate in the Peaceful Power Transfer, Even When They Lose (American Freedom). B) Vote Against People Who Won't Commit To This Rule of Law & Claim the System is Corrupt Only When They Lose (Tyranny).

“A would be officer holder must honorably concede to his or her successor when defeated in an election.” - David Koyzis, 7 Essential Qualities of a Political Leader

When candidates and supporters are asked about this next election, pay attention to how they’ll respond to the outcome.

Candidates must respect and promote the integrity of the election, including when they lose. That's because the integrity of an election is more important than someone winning or losing.

Vote against those who spread lies about the integrity of the election and those not committed to discouraging violence upon a loss.

“People often seek power in an attempt to overcome deficiencies, but power only aggravates the nature of sin and does not palliate it. In other words, whatever sin tendencies or weakness we have, a position of power will make it worse, not better, as we seem to suppose.” - Diane Langberg, Suffering and The Heart of God

Rule 4: A) Vote For People Who’ve Publicly Acknowledged & Turned Away From Their Failures On Rules 1, 2, & 3 (American Freedom). B) Vote Against Those Who Support & Endorse People Who Break Rules 1, 2, & 3 (Tyranny).

"If someone admits they made a mistake, have the grace to let it go. Holding it over them ensures they won’t be quick to admit they were wrong in the future. Outcome over ego." - Farnam Street

We all screw up. So let’s make room for those who screwed up and want to make it right. So, if someone vocalized that Biden lost the 2020 election to fraud, but now recognizes they were going along with the lie and now they know Biden legitimately won, consider supporting them.

If they defended Trump’s power grab attempt and dismissed the Jan 6 attacks, but now realize and vocalize both that they were wrong and now realize how dangerous it was, consider supporting them if they demonstrated enough examples over a long enough period to warrant your support.

While I’m skeptical if a political leader or influencer screws up and says so privately without going public, I am willing to give someone a chance if they acknowledge it publicly, especially when they habitually do whatever they can to make things right.

We will get more of the behavior we reward. Reward American freedom and penalize tyranny. Reward people doing the right thing and penalize those who do the wrong things.

Rule Guideline: Apply The Rules Before Party Affiliation. If Candidates Pass the Rules, Choose Your Preferred Party. And, Remember We Can Choose Not to Vote In A Race Too If No One Passes Or We're Uncomfortable With The Remaining Choices

These rules are an evolution of ones I’ve used and developed since the 2016 election. Take the rules and apply them to the candidates to filter them down to acceptable options. Candidates that are left are the ones who are more likely to value what makes America great.

Wrapping Up:

To wrap it up, here are the rules again.

Rule 1: A) Vote For People Who Tell The Truth About Biden Winning the 2020 Election (American Freedom). B) Vote Against People Who Deceive About Biden Not Winning The 2020 Presidential Election (Tyranny).
Rule 2: A) Vote for People Who Condemn Trump’s 2020 Unconstitutional Power Grab and The January 6th Capitol Attack (American Freedom). B) Vote Against People Who Dismiss Trump’s Unconstitutional Attempts to Stay in Power & Defend The Jan 6 Storming of the Capitol (Tyranny).
Rule 3: A) Vote For People Who Will Accept the Election Results and Participate in the Peaceful Power Transfer, Even When They Lose (American Freedom). B) Vote Against People Who Won't Commit To This Rule of Law & Claim the System is Corrupt Only When They Lose (Tyranny).
Rule 4: A) Vote For People Who’ve Publicly Acknowledged & Turned Away From Their Failures On Rules 1, 2, & 3 (American Freedom). B) Vote Against Those Who Support & Endorse People Who Break Rules 1, 2, & 3 (Tyranny).

If we keep spiraling downward, we’re going to end up with candidates in both the major parties that violate these rules and we’ll have no one to vote for. That would be a point of no return because we’ve spiraled so far down, there’s no way back up.

This means we'll sometimes have to partner with our political rivals, with whom we disagree on policy.

“Collective abdication—the transfer of authority to a leader who threatens democracy—usually flows from one of two sources.

The first is the misguided belief that an authoritarian can be controlled or tamed.

The second is what sociologist Ivan Ermakoff calls “ideological collusion,” in which the authoritarian’s agenda overlaps sufficiently with that of mainstream politicians that abdication is desirable, or at least preferable to the alternatives.

But when faced with a would-be authoritarian, establishment politicians must unambiguously reject him or her and do everything possible to defend democratic institutions—even if that means temporarily joining forces with bitter rivals.”

- Steven Levitsky, How Democracies Die

Start using the rules now so we can spiral our way up and towards flourishing for all Americans and protect ourselves from the worst type of societal tragedy.