I’ve been hearing an idea for the past few months – people claiming that they don’t like either presidential candidate in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. They claim that neither one is a good choice, setting up the idea that somehow both are equally bad, or that they’re equivalent. While I have my own suspicions* (see end note) on this phenomena, assuming this is truly how people feel, I thought it would be helpful to create a candidate quiz to help educate those who view these two presidential candidates as equally bad choices.
You’ll notice a pattern below, which I think will make clear that one candidate in particular is far worse than the other. I’m hopeful that this will make clear that the choice is not a toss up. At any rate, you may learn about some important aspects of these candidates that you didn’t previously know about.
Judicial
Which candidate has appointed judges (supreme court and federal) throughout the country who are against women’s right to choose and make decisions about their own bodies – judges who through their decisions uphold Christian nationalism and white supremacy?
Note: this seemingly boring and uninteresting privilege of Presidents is one of the most important considerations you as a voter need to remember – the judges who are appointed can change the meaning of laws, create and uphold systemic racism, change or otherwise influence elections unfairly, disenfranchise people of color and other minority groups from their ability to vote, prevent meaningful changes to gun reform laws, make it illegal to sell or mail ANY KIND OF BIRTH CONTROL and allow people in power (from President and down) to potentially be immune from prosecution. So this is kind of a big deal and more important than how much it might cost you to fill your car with gas. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Which candidate directed his attorney general to investigate and arrest his political opponents? 1, 2, 3
Foreign policy
Which candidate tanked a bill that would have increased border security and did it because he thought it would him win the next election? 1
Which candidate appears to owe Putin a favor due to Putin helping interfere in a prior election for him via propaganda? 1
Who believed Putin’s word over the information given to him by our CIA, NSA, FBI, etc, and publicly said this in front of the world? 1, 2
Bonus: Who does Putin know can be manipulated by simply saying nice things about him? 1, 2, 3, 4
Which candidate is obsessed with what people say about him in public and which one is obsessed with crowd size and ratings?
Which candidate claims to be tough on dictators and tyrannical leaders but claims to also have a love for Kim Jong Un? 1, 2
Which candidate said that he’d like to be a dictator for the first day of his next term in the presidency? 1
Which one asked if some protestors could just be shot in the leg by our military to send a message? 1, 2
Which one was impeached for trying to withhold military assistance from a country in return for asking that country to try to start an investigation into his political opponent? 1, 2
A common “business” strategy of mobsters is to “offer” protection in return for payment of some sort: True or False
Yes men
Which candidate gets angry when they hear intelligence (gathered by our NSA, CIA, FBI, etc) that they disagree with or don’t want to hear . 1, 2, 3, 4
Which candidate drew on a map with a sharpie marker because he disagreed with the hurricane track predicted by NOAA scientists? 1, 2
Which candidate is having his sons find loyalist “yes men” to serve in his next administration because he’s too fragile to hear opinions which might not be exactly what he wants to hear? 1, 2
Extra credit assignment: why might someone get angry and refuse to listen to high value, top secret information?
Jan 6/election fraud
Which candidate was rebuked by his own cabinet members when they resigned in protest and due to the candidate’s responsibility for the January 6 attack, or more specifically, the candidate’s lack of action to quell it? 1, 2, 3
Which candidate told their vice president to break the law and not certify that someone else had lawfully won the election? 1
Which one’s vice president doesn’t think that the candidate should be president again? 1, 2
Which candidate called up two low level election officials in Michigan after having lost the election – causing them to refuse to certify the votes in their jurisdiction, despite this being a process which is supposed to be a formality in paperwork. A process which is normally taken for granted in the background of an election – the nitty gritty details of which are just dotting i’s and crossing t’s – which somehow became a sticking point for the national election of the President of the United States. 1
Which candidate fired the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) chief after the CISA chief said the election was the most secure in history? 1, 2
Which candidate’s attorney general (AG) resigned 1 month early, ostensibly after the public deterioration in his relationship with the candidate after the AG publicly stated there was no evidence of election fraud? 1
Which candidate seems to get rid of people who tell him hard truths he doesn’t want to hear?
Does a good leader surround themselves with only yes men?
Which candidate filed over 60 lawsuits alleging election fraud but had all of them thrown out or withdrawn (that is, not even tried due to their ridiculousness) 1
Which candidate still gripes and whines like a petulant 3 year old toddler about having lost said election and pushes the same lies, despite having seen that these lies are directly responsible for killing and maiming American citizens? 1, 2
Which candidate took advice from the conspiracy believing extremists they surrounded themselves with while in office? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Which one tried to get fake sets of electors from multiple states to declare that he had won the presidency after he had in fact lost it? 1
Which one knowingly lied that there was election fraud to whip up their supporters into a frenzy after he had lost the election? 1
Which candidate was blamed by hundreds of people at their sentencing trials for having deceived them into thinking that the election was stolen, encouraging them to act on it and resulting in them now going to jail? 1, 2
Which candidate in a recorded phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state tried to pressure the secretary of state to “find” 10,000 votes for him so that he could flip the state and win the election for himself? 1
Which one now has a criminal trial in Georgia because of this phone call, among other indictments? 1
Which candidate is a convicted felon found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a cover up attempt to help him win the 2016 presidential election? 1
COVID-19 Response
Which candidate used the Dept. of health and human services to interfere with and modify COVID-19 messaging to downplay its impact and align with their politics? 1
Which candidate wouldn’t say if the COVID-19 vaccine they helped to develop worked?
Which candidate is responsible for 350K american lives during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Which candidate refused to wear a mask publicly during COVID-19 pandemic because he was afraid of how it would make him look to others? 1, 2
Criminal indictments
Which candidate allegedly hid classified documents at their residence and then told the FBI that there were no more there? 1
Which candidate has 4 separate criminal indictments against them? 1
Which candidate was found liable in 2024 for sexually abusing a woman in a clothes department dressing room? 1, 2
Which candidate has a business that was found guilty of defrauding the state of New York from tax revenue and required to pay over $300M in damages ? 1
General IQ
Which candidate thinks that magnets are deactivated by water? 1, 2
Which candidate thinks windmills cause cancer? 1
Which candidate thought COVID-19 could be cured by injecting a person with bleach. 1, 2
Which one wondered if a hurricane could be destroyed by dropping a nuclear bomb on it? 1
Which one worked with the National Inquirer to publish a false story about Ted Cruz’s father knowing Lee Harvey Oswald (the assassin of President John F Kennedy)? 1
Which one claims to respect and love the Bible but when asked for a favorite verse, says “it’s too personal to get into”, and when asked which “testament” is his favorite claims both testaments equally? Which candidate 6 months later then stated that their favorite verse was “eye for an eye”?
While not an exhaustive list, these are many of the points that come to mind when I hear people talk about the inadequacy of either candidate. The candidates are not equally bad but it’s clear they cannot be compared. I do hope this guide helps you in your decision.
*About those who believe both candidates are equally bad; I acknowledge that there are many people who are uninformed about politics in general, and so may truly hold the opinion that, to their extremely limited knowledge, both candidates are less than ideal. However, I believe there is a larger portion of this group of people who use this statement as cover to hold their toxic worldview while assuaging their conscience. They know that supporting and voting for a particular candidate is socially unacceptable and in opposition to their stated beliefs. But for some people, it can be more comfortable to convince themselves that the choice is a toss up, and as such, how can they be blamed for choosing one over the other? Consider if we flipped the premise to become “Both candidates are mediocre, I’m having a hard time figuring out which one to choose’. Comically, it doesn’t work, because one side knows that their only chance to hide is to drag the decent guy down to their level. There is another angle to consider in this, however. These people secretly support the cruel policies and views of their candidate. You might ask, why – why would they act with such obvious hypocrisy? One reason is that in a way, it gives them a safe way to test the waters, so to speak. It lets them see if they are in a safe space to show support for the malevolent candidate. By initially coming across as “neutral” ( in saying “I don’t think either candidate is good”™), they can gauge how their audience responds. If their audience immediately agrees that neither candidate is good, then they can feel free to reveal a little bit more of their true and cruel self. It lets them safely begin to discern if their conversational partner also supports the racist and dictatorial candidate. But if their audience protests how the awful one isn’t really a choice, their secret is still safe, as they haven’t revealed that they secretly hold a cruel worldview.
Merely Xtian 