An underappreciated comfort of being elected Publisher for a presidential election year lies in the certitude that one of the year’s issues will concern the election, which in turn makes for one less issue theme to be brainstormed by the editorial team. If this observation approaches the stature of a rule, it is because elections in a constitutional republic such as ours are eminently worth thinking and writing about. After all, our civic duties neither begin nor end at the ballot box; they pervade our discourse, our thoughts, our interactions, and our expressions. The awesome responsibility of casting our vote for those who govern us is not satisfied by the mere act of inking or signing a ballot. Rather, we, as bearers of full citizenship, entitled to a universal adult franchise hard earned, must fulfill this particular responsibility of citizenship as holistically as we find ourselves able. At the very least, this consists in serious deliberation about the election and the range of our communal interests invariably affected by it. Or, it means convincing our fellow citizens to vote, or vote for particular candidates, by use of reasoned arguments. A number of us also cast votes on behalf of more than ourselves. We vote for family members and friends who cannot, for various reasons, fulfill that duty themselves. But, in a more fundamental sense, we all vote for a path to a future which we may never live to see fully laid. By our votes, we signal our desire for a state of the world that will one day be inhabited by sons, daughters, grandchildren, and other members of future generations yet to be born. However we rationalize the marks in ink that constitute our vote — and there is an infinitely populous set of ways to do so — the bottom line is that we discharge our civic duty when our vote is guided, not by the noises of the perpetually braying masses, but by the twin lights of reason and purpose.
On that note, highlighting the importance of thoughtful deliberation, it is my unique pleasure to introduce an issue of Tory articles, each of which, in its own way, attempts to do justice to the high ideal of reasoned, deliberative discourse. The student-authors do not all approach the question of voting from the same angle, and they certainly do not all agree in the arguments they employ or the conclusions they reach. But, whether they advocate for Vice President Biden, President Trump, third-party voting, or “political disinterestedness,” they each exhibit a desire to think deeply and reason critically about the positions that they stake out in their pieces. It is that singular desire that lies at the very heart of a healthy civic society, and it is consequently one that I am proud to emphasize in this important and timely issue. To show in the stead of telling is the standing admonition to all writers, to which, now, paying heed, I merrily yield to the thoughtful students whose reasoned arguments illuminate this Tory issue.
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