The belief that a presidential election is a choice between two individuals is probably the biggest fallacy in American politics. What you are actually voting for is an entire Executive branch of government, along with the judges or Justices it appoints. Unfortunately, too many people conceptualize the presidential election as a one-on-one contest between individuals, rather than between two potential Executive branches. ... People need to realize that this race is about two massive entities -- GOP Inc., and Democrats, Inc. -- and not two individuals. And what's really at stake in this election is which of these two entities will get to place its people throughout the entire Executive branch.

And incidentally, he makes a interesting point:

When you think about it, reducing everything to an individual level is actually a common cognitive error in American thought. For example, terrorism is not a systematic phenomenon, but something caused by Osama (and which can be fixed by killing Osama) -- which is the wrong way to think about it. Or, people think that capturing al-Sadr will end the uprising, which is an equally wrong way to understand the situation.

As he says, it's a cognitive error, which is the most difficult kind to guard against, since errors of cognition and perception are so intrinsically linked to our mental hard-wiring. They're what we fall back on because they come so easily and naturally to us, and they presumably had evolutionary value or they wouldn't exist (unless, of course, they are mere by-products of some other process necessary for survival). But whether they had value at one time or not doesn't mean that they're necessarily valuable to us now, in a world that is in many ways different from that one, more complex, less personal, and fundamentally warped by our own amazing ability to re-shape the landscape through cooperative efforts. Its hidden pitfalls and trapdoors have serious consequences, many of them along the lines that Publius writes about.

(Not so incidentally, Legal Fiction is among the best blogs going, and well worth keeping up with.)


Update: Alan Blevin sums up some people's Kerry dilemma well with the title of his website: JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButI'mVotingForHimAnyway.

Right, there really isn't any choice about the matter, it's either Kerry, whatever one thinks about him, or Bush, and we damn well know what we think about him. Blevins provides evidence in these essays:

• Instances of Doucheitude and Why it Doesn't Matter


• How Fucked We are Right Now


• How Fucked We will be With 4 More Years of George W. Bush


• Why This is Not the Time or the Place to Vote for a 3rd Party Candidate


• Why Every Conservative Should Seriously Consider Voting Democrat this Fall

[via Wonkette]