A lot of people believe that the fate of the world hinges on the upcoming presidential election; from the wildfires that plagued the west coast earlier this year to the actual plague that has wreaked havoc across the globe, people are counting on our next president to successfully lead our country into a more positive decade. I may not know what inflation is or what the national debt is (like, actually. who are we in debt to? The Avengers?), but I can assure you that these are part of issues that have been here long before this election and they will be prevalent long after either of the candidates leave office, no matter how effective they believe their strategies to be. Personally, I’m going to be voting based on which candidate has the best campaigning strategy, because that’s what’s important to me, and also because I’ve seen the last few debates and no one was actually talking about their policies or political beliefs. 

Let’s talk about our current president first: many remember Donald Trump’s campaign strategies from the last election, including but not limited to: tweeting at 3 AM, making fun of his opposition’s families, and bullying the actual candidate running against him. He continues to implement such strategies this year, by calling Joe Biden’s son a loser and talking about his drug addiction, as well as dubbing the Vice President “Sleepy Joe”. Zero out of ten. Not cool and not effective, dude. Who were you even trying to impress? 

Joe Biden, or rather, the tiktok-savvy millennials who run Biden’s merch team, are much better at making their merch more appealing to teenagers on social media. This would be fantastic, if teenagers on social media could vote in the upcoming election. Unfortunately, nobody over the age of 35 will appreciate the irony of selling a flyswatter after the vice-presidential debate. Both candidates also sell the typical “So-and-so 2020” yard signs, sweatshirts, and coffee mugs. These almost never look flattering, because they always use red and blue- colors have never, and will never look good together. Apparently, none of the founders of America ever studied color theory. Additionally, these products are only technically in season for about two months. What are you supposed to do with them if your candidate loses? Imagine if you were flying a Trump 2020 flag and he lost. That’s so embarrassing. 

Unfortunately, both marketing strategies are pretty abysmal, but it’s clear that one is slightly less abysmal than the other. For this reason, even when it comes to voting based on aesthetics, we must settle the only slightly better candidate rather than someone who’s actually good.