Why is it when it comes time to elect a president, we confuse the candidates with saints, or worse, with prospective spouses?

Some of us seem to think when we elect a president we are entitled to a saint or the lead in a Hallmark romance movie.

We have a fairy tale notion that the person we vote for should fill all our dreams and complete us.

And if they have a hair out of place, we will show them; we’ll change the channel and watch another version of perfection.

Some voters nitpick a perfectly good alternative to a candidate who will cheat his way through the Constitution to line his pockets with our hard-earned money and wreck our democracy.

They will come up with reasons galore for sitting out the election. Maybe they don’t think the challenger has “likeability,” or the tone of his or her voice grates on their nerves.

As if they are being asked to place the family fortune on the line to cast a vote.

Or, maybe they think they risk life in prison if their choice comes up short in the final tally so they will sit out the election rather than look like a loser.

We’re electing a president, a person, a human being.

Count on them having flaws, on traits you won’t like, on positions you oppose from time to time. Perhaps more often than you would like.

It happens even when you have a candidate who is closely aligned with your values and principles.

In the upcoming election many people think we’re voting about policy.

But this is not a typical presidential year. Yes, there are policies at stake, but taxes, the environment, immigration and foreign policy are not front and center.

If you think they are, you’ve been living under a rock.

Following the debate this week, a news outlet canvassed several undecided viewers about whether the confrontation between the two candidates helped them make up their minds.

None of the five persons interviewed was swayed, even after the president refused to disown white supremacist supporters and tried to undermine our confidence in the election process.

They talked about liking Trump’s approach to the economy and taking offense at Biden’s environmental views.

I wanted to kick my television. Haven’t they been paying attention?

They spoke as if they were considering a marriage proposal. As if the questions were whether the intended would be a good provider, or leave crumbs in the bed. Do they leave the toilet seat up or down?

What do policy issues have to do with voting this year?

What does the economy matter if the man running the country is robbing us blind and has no plans to leave office? So what if you won’t vote for his opponent because he was rude and called the president a name?

Toss away your vote this year, and you may never get another chance to have a legitimate election and bicker about economic proposals because the incumbent is planning to become a dictator.

No joke. Listen to his words. He says ballots are a problem. Give him 12 more years. He’ll just stay in office. He won’t guarantee he’ll leave.

That’s un-American.

It doesn’t really matter if we disagree on tariffs and whether we should go solar. We’re not voting for policies this year. We’re not voting for a saint or a spouse.

This year we’re only voting for one thing: the survival of our democracy.

And we can only save it if everyone votes, and casts a vote for the man who will protect us. No, you won’t like everything about Joe Biden or every decision he makes.

But we will have a democracy going forward, that’s for sure. You’ll have a system of government that will allow you to argue with him, to argue with representatives you elect who will listen to you. You’ll have a candidate who will do everything in his power to protect the vote so you can vote him out next time if you wish.

If you pay attention to the actions and words of the incumbent president, he is doing everything possible to wreck our system of voting, to delegitimize our right to vote, to suppress the vote.

He emulates dictators who hold elections that have voting in name only, who assassinate their opponents. In four more years, we won’t have voting worth defending.

As Thomas Paine said in his Dissertation on First Principles of Government, “The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.”

As Thomas Paine said in his Dissertation on First Principles of Government, “The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.”

Well, we’ve already had slavery, and we know how that worked out.

Let’s not split hairs about whether you think Joe Biden lost his cool for a moment and was rude to Trump during the debate, or you don’t like his health care plan, or don’t think he has a good enough recovery plan.

If he’s in the White House, you can put a major worry to rest. In four years, if you don’t like Joe’s performance, you can vote for a different president, because our democracy will be intact. If we allow Trump to remain in office, assuming he recovers from COVID-19, we may never get him to leave.

Now I’m not saying Joe Biden’s a saint. But just because you don’t like his stand on farm subsidies or whatever, doesn’t mean he’s the devil.

You can put up with four years of a policy of his you don’t like. Look what we’ve endured since 2017 with Trump.

Save your picky judgments for your marriage proposals or a car salesman who wants to sell you a clunker.

Don’t get them confused with a vote for a president. Or we could have more trouble than crumbs in our bed for the rest of our lives.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for reading.