Written by Jason Montoya. Posted in Society.

How We Plan To Vote (Evaluate Candidates) Is Fundamentally Guided By What Matters Most To Us — We Must Align Our Values With Reality

How do we end up with fundamentally opposing viewpoints on politics?

You might have wondered, as a Christian, how another Christian can support candidate x.

Or, how can a member of my party vote for a candidate in the other party?

There are two layers to finding this clarity. First, it's about understanding what we believe is most important. What are the cardinal (most important) values that hold up the others?

Second, it's about discovering whether this understanding matches reality.

We experience tension between what we think is most important and what is actually most important — possibility versus reality.

The human body is one way to think about this idea. If someone accidentally gets their finger cut off in their wood workshop it's a different level of importance to someone being stabbed in the heart. If they've never experienced a stab to the heart, or it's not a potential threat, chopping off their find may seem like the worst-case scenario. And yes, it is bad.

So, we intuitively know there are more and less urgent and consequential threats. In a complex multi-generation society, it may not be as intuitive or we may not have enough experience to recognize the larger spectrum of threats that undermine our society; this is key with threats that we've never experienced directly or through historical research.

So, if I believe getting my finger cut off using the table saw is the biggest threat, it doesn't mean it is. In comparison to being stabbed in the heart, killing us in the process, the finger wound pales in comparison.

But, when it comes to our society, so many people are acting like a wounded finger is the end of the world. For them, they must expand their vision. And we who see the threat must help demonstrate why it is relevant to them.

This is the dynamic we need to recognize to fully understand what makes America (or any society) great and what threatens that greatness.

Clarity here provides a foundation on which we can work out and improve all other less vital, but still important, considerations.

beach house

A Beach House on Stilts: A Visual Metaphor For Understanding Our Hierarchy of Values

Another simple way to visualize this concept of our values hierarchy, as it relates to what makes our society (America) great, is by imagining a beach house on stilts.

Without those stilts, that house falls. Without America's foundations in place, our country will fall.

This visual metaphor is a way for us to think through what is most important in our life, and in this post, our society as a whole.

That which holds up the house, the stilts, is that which, if damaged or destroyed, would lead to the house collapsing. These stilts are the cardinal societal values.

What we believe those values are, is how we imagine the house to be. Whether or not they are fundamental is a bet we all make. If our bet is correct, it'll drive culture and beliefs in a way to hold up the house. If we're wrong, it'll lead to the collapse of the house.

We can overlay this metaphor with our country.

What makes the house of America work? Why is our country so prosperous and powerful? What are the foundational stilts holding it up?

That's the question we must all answer, and one I've gotten wrong.

Let's explore.

Democracy protects our rights. And it provides a way for us to change leadership and direction without violence and deception.

"Democracies do two things. They protect our basic rights better than any political system in the world. All the rights we take for granted, without democracy, they simply can't be protected without a democracy. Democracy is the only political system in the world where you can get rid of a leader if you don't like him, in a peaceful way." - Daniel Ziblatt, United to Preserve Democracy: Daniel Ziblatt & Rep Conor Lamb on How Democracies Die

Day-to-day, we care about the economic and liberty benefits of our governmental system, but we don't appreciate what generates those economic benefits (the beach house stilts). We care about freedom of speech, but what makes that right possible?

People value the economy, as a specific example to explore. The strength of the American economy is based on the foundations (beach house stilts) of our constitutional political system. So to care about the economy is to care about what makes that growing economy possible. The same goes for other rights we care about, including freedom of speech.

What Keeps America Great & Allows Is To Improve It?

So, what are the stilts holding up the American beach house? And not just what we believe them to be, but in reality. What is holding up the house?

Again, if we're to have a productive debate, it must be anchored in the answer to this question about what makes America work so well. We should be debating about what this foundation actually is and then, through that foundational perspective, evaluate our leaders, institutions, and culture through that perspective. This is how we can also understand how others can see something so drastically different; they have different fundamental beliefs and stories.

Responsible Freedom

Here is my answer to the question of what is most important and foundational to the survival and flourishing of America (If someone disagrees with my assessment here, they must provide an even stronger and more reality-matching alternative).

At the core is our country's founding and enduring narrative; responsible freedom over contemptuous tyranny.

This story is embodied in our country's history and constitution. Most fundamentally, the structural distribution of power between the presidency, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the states is how this narrative practically manifests. Power is distributed across these areas and a variety of people, including additional subcategories of shared power.

This shared power structure proactively prevents the consolidation of power into any one person, but it is not immune. If enough people in positions of power relinquish their power or defy the power of their superiors, it can destabilize the whole system and cause significant harm or destruction to the system, and by extension, our rights, economic benefits, and freedom of speech.

The other important system that facilitates this shared power is our honest election outcomes. Free and fair elections allow us to change our bad leadership peacefully.

These systems enable us to continue our multi-generational tradition of transferring power from one president to the next.

The Impending Threat: Applying This Metaphor To the 2024 Election

Our tradition of peacefully transferring power was disrupted when, after Joe Biden legitimately won, Trump deceived a large number of Americans into falsely believing the 2020 election was stolen. He then worked on consolidating power from the states through his illegal alternate electoral scheme.

And when his efforts to unconstitutionally overturn the election results failed, he resorted to threats, intimidation, and violence to pressure his vice president (Hang Mike Pence!) and Congress to keep him in power.

Simply put, Donald Trump took a chainsaw to the stilts holding up the American beach house. And now he wants another chance at running the beach house. And a large number of Republicans want to give him that chance.

What About Policy Preferences?

So, when we talk about policy, we're metaphorically talking about decorating the beach house bathroom or upgrading the kitchen cabinets. These matter when we all agree and value protecting the stilts that hold it all up. When we share the cardinal values, we can discuss the house itself (policies).

But the beach house decorations don't matter when someone is smashing the foundational pillars holding up the whole house and endangering everyone in it!

The reason I believe we should vote for Kamala Harris and against Donald Trump, even as Republicans, is because Harris is committed to protecting the beach house stilts while Donald Trump is actively working to cut them down and bring down the house.

To discover this claim, one must pay attention to his words and actions in light of clarity on the cardinal values (stilts) holding up the American beach house.

Voting for Harris and against Trump is based on the reasoning I've provided throughout this post and past articles as well.

For those that prefer Republican policies, these cardinal values are why when Harris wants to design the main bedroom differently than I want (policy differences) it's a secondary matter to the fact that we must work together to prevent the house from being significantly damaged or destroyed by those attacking the foundational stilts.

In this 2024 election, that threat to the foundations is, unfortunately for Republicans like myself, from Trump and the Republican party. This is the reality in which we must align our values.