Your family always votes for this person.

Your family always votes for their opponent’s party, and you want to spite them.

Your spiritual advisor told you and a bunch of other people it was your duty or calling to vote for this person.

A celebrity you really like endorsed this person.

A celebrity you really don’t like endorsed their opponent.

The one place you get your news always praises and uplifts them, and is always critical of their opponent.

They were shot at by someone with a mental illness.

You like their race a lot.

You like their gender a lot.

You don’t like their opponent’s race very much.

You don’t like their opponent’s gender very much.

You like the dopamine rush you get when they bash their opponent.

They made promises to accomplish something very difficult for a leader to do, without any mention of how they would do it.

They have a slogan you like.

They once posed for a photo next to someone who’s occupation is similar to yours.

A graph you saw once shows that the economy was doing well during at least part of their tenure doing something related to the economy.

A graph you saw once shows that the economy was doing not so well during at least part of their opponent’s tenure doing something related to the economy.

They are successful in something that is not government-related.

They seem like a person you’d want to hang out with.

They’ve told you that they are pro something you like, and anti something you don’t like.

They have many powerful friends.

They have many powerful enemies.

The other person is corrupt.

You’ve been told they’ll fix everything, they’ll clean up the whole mess, they’ll restore the former good times, they’ll lift us out of the bad times, they’ll form a utopian society, because a person can do that, single-handedly, in a country where, crazy as things can get, even this powerful position is designed to have checks and balances on it that prevent a person from doing sweeping actions that entirely change the course of the entire nation overnight, even if those changes are all in your favor.

You enjoy the AI-generated memes depicting this person as superhuman.

You’ve never felt anything this exciting before, not even about your god.

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None of these addresses a candidate’s policies, reputation, or character in any meaningful way. All of these either skim the surface who a candidate is or miss it entirely.

If you’re going to bother to vote, do better by why.