Written by: Arthur Floyd
Famous in art is the idea of separating the art from the artist.
Or rather, it’s more of a question: is it possible to separate the art from the artist? What about a normative perspective: should we separate the art from the artist?
Central to this line of inquiry is the idea of separation, the idea that the artist can stand independently on one side of the room and their work can stand on the other. You may not like a comedian personally, but can you still laugh at their jokes? Some theoretical, objectively evil man out there—what do we do if he paints the most beautiful painting we’ve ever laid our eyes on? Can or should we still appreciate the art for what it is despite our having significant issues with the artist?
This general notion of separating a person from their work can be applied to almost anyone that creates or does something tangible for an audience. The professional athlete that’s had off-the-field issues—can or should I still clap for him when he scores a touchdown? The CEO that received backlash from the media for harboring a toxic work environment—can or should I still purchase his company’s products?
The controversial former President, who’s had too many accusations levied against him to name—can or should I still vote for him? Is it possible to, or should we, separate the politics from the politician, the person from the policies?
Clearly, there are many of us who adamantly answer in the negative to both the former and latter questions.
And I think I know why.
There’s a lot of reductionist logic that happens with anti-Trump arguments. He said X, Y and Z, so therefore I can’t vote for him. You’ve probably heard or seen that before. A classic move by left-leaning media organizations is to take one of Trump’s contemporaries, or someone at all on the conservative side of the aisle, and say, “Trump said X, Y, and Z. What do you think about that?”
It’s unfortunate and curious, though, because you rarely hear questions along the lines of, “Trump instituted policies X, Y, and Z. What do you think about that?”
There’s an irrational amount of weight that gets placed on the things that he says, rather than the things that he does.
Another way of saying that would be that Trump’s biggest detractors are commonly preoccupied with Donald Trump the person, as opposed to the policies that come from Donald Trump.
Lying underneath all of this is one of the most famous fallacies in the book.
The ad hominem fallacy occurs when someone attacks the personal character of an opponent, rather than addressing the substance of their argument.
It’s done, most often, when the “substance” of said argument is of relatively high quality and the person behind said substance is of some theoretically poor character. By highlighting the character, you place less emphasis on the substance; by focusing so deftly on the person, you place less weight on the policies.
Which invites the question: which of the two aspects of a politician is more important, the person or the policies?
Though I think the answer is no doubt the latter, given that a poor policy yields significantly more harm than a poorly worded speech, the question remains as to how much weight should be applied to each. Though some of us do indeed like Donald Trump the person, I’ll assume for the sake of argument that his personal attributes are further on the negative side (which is the most common opinion anyway… it also happens to be my own).
Because even if you don’t like Donald Trump the person, when an appropriate amount of weight is applied to “the person” vs. “the policies”, it’s still entirely rational to vote for him. Many mistakenly skew the balance such that the former aspect is constantly highlighted and discussed; the result is that folks are exposed perpetually to the bad things that he’s said but are rarely exposed to the good things that he’s done.
There are a lot of us who sit in this boat; we may not love Trump’s rhetoric, but what we lose in that context is made up for by significant contributions made elsewhere. You know, things like having a secure border and staying out of foreign conflict and working to protect the middle class. I struggle to get behind Trump the person, but it’s relatively easy for me to get behind the policies.
It’s ironic, though, because even if you did want to place that irrational weight on Trump the person, the folks typically making that move most often support someone who has significant issues in that department as well. It is quite patronizing to constantly be told that I shouldn’t vote for someone because their personal history/behavior renders them impermissible, but yet voting for an allegedly corrupt 81-year-old who struggles to speak is a-okay.
To apply this inquiry more directly, let’s turn to the 2024 Presidential Election and the respective Biden and Trump campaigns.
The fact of the matter is that while the Biden campaign is pushing Trump into the center of the stage, the Trump campaign is trying to pull him off of it.
Biden’s strategy this time around is very similar to the one that worked last time; cast an abhorrent, moral indignation upon Trump and his supporters, convince those undecided that a vote for Trump is ethically wrong (“How could you vote for someone that said X!”), and that’s that. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, really has nothing to do with Trump; they’re focused on reviving traditional conservative values, crafting an America First agenda, and repairing the damage that the Biden Administration’s done over the last few years (inflation, border crisis, rampant spending, etc.) The former campaign focuses on the person, the latter on the policies.
So as November slowly but surely approaches, and our country’s constituents start to compare Biden and Trump, Democrat and Republican, I hope they too weigh the scales of “the person vs. the policies.”
Separating the two for some is impossible, for others a choice, but for many a necessity.