With the 2024 presidential election not long off, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to conduct a thought experiment for members of both parties. So, here goes: Suppose in the 2012 presidential election that President Obama narrowly lost to Mitt Romney. President Obama then proceeded to claim that he lost because large numbers of dead people voted, voting machines were rigged to switch votes from Obama to Romney, and state election workers were running fraudulent ballots through voting machines. Furthermore, Obama called the governor of the state he narrowly lost and asked that governor to “find” him enough votes to overturn the result.

Would members of the Republican Party be OK with President Obama’s reactions to the election outcome? Would members of the Democratic Party rally around their candidate simply because he supposedly represents their political views, regardless of how they feel about his actions?

If Republicans answer in the negative and Democrats answer in the affirmative, then it appears that they value party loyalty above all else. While party loyalty can be a virtue, when taken to the extreme, it can easily become a vice.

When it comes time to vote in November and people step into the ballot booth to cast their vote, they should think about the advice Polonius gave his son Laertes in “Hamlet”: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Samuel Rosenthal
Portland