Rhetoric dominates elections. What did Trump just say? How did Kamala answer that question? Vance and Walz said what?

Yes, this matters. How a candidate speaks is important. A person whose words invoke hate and fear is not a good leader. Because the President is the country's primary spokesperson. They are the primary representative of 345 million people, the top diplomat to every other nation. How presidents communicate matters, how they see the world matters, and what they say matters.

And yet, rhetoric is not the best criterion for evaluating candidates.

For one, lies are nothing new to politics. Candidates have lied for the entirety of this country’s elections, starting with the very first one. Adams called Jefferson a coward, accused him of having an affair with one of his slaves, and claimed he would emancipate all slaves if elected. Jefferson decried Adams as a wannabe king and called him fat.

Sound familiar at all?

You might then ask, well, how do we choose presidential candidates if not by their rhetoric? One word: record.

The candidate’s record is the most important evaluation criterion. What have they actually done, what have they voted for in the past?

This is partly what made Trump such an outlier in 2016; we had never had a political candidate who had zero political, military, or governmental experience. There are only five other people who became president without previously holding an elected office:

• Zachary Taylor - career military officer

• Ulysses S. Grant - career military officer

• William Howard Taft - former lawyer, Secretary of War under Teddy Roosevelt

• Herbert Hoover - Secretary of Commerce under Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge

• Dwight D. Eisenhower - career military officer

Right or wrong, these five men had all previously worked within the government or the law, either directly in the military, or through a Secretary position. So they all had some political experience, even if it was minimal or merely by extension.

Trump truly had none. Of course, this doesn't mean that a person with zero experience is a bad fit for president. Nothing in the Constitution says you must have previously held an elected office. However, in 2016 at least, all voters could evaluate was Trump's rhetoric, because he had no record of political action.

Well, 8 years later, there's a lot more evidence to evaluate. And that’s where to start: with their record. Sit with it and determine whether you approve or agree. Did they sit out any important votes? How did they vote on the things you care about most? Did they always vote according to the party line, or did they display some courage by voting against their party in certain circumstances?

Once you have an understanding of their record, you can more reasonably know what to expect from them in office. It's unlikely a person would completely change their voting behavior, especially if they've been in politics for a long time. (Of course, if someone is in office for a long time, it's easier to see trends and how their opinions may have shifted over time, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. People should change their opinion if presented with new evidence.) Something else to note: it doesn't have to be a voting record. Trump has never 'voted' on anything within a legislative body of the United States government. However, you can look at the bills he vetoed versus the ones he signed. Same with any previous executive official—what they sign into law is evidence of their work as an elected official, and a strong indicator of what they may do if they get into office again.

You can then compare this record to the candidate's rhetoric. Does what they say on the campaign trail match what they've actually done in the past? If not, why could this be? This is where you have to make a judgement—do you think they've truly, fundamentally changed on an issue? Or are they just moving with the political winds of popularity, saying what they think voters want to hear, simply to get elected? Large divides between a candidate's words and actions are likely cause for concern.

This method of starting with record, then moving to rhetoric, is better than just relying on one or the other, or starting with the rhetoric itself. It enables you to start with the evidence, so you can hold a person’s words against said evidence. It grounds the rhetoric within reality. The bluster matters—it’s how a president represents us as a people. But bluster often correlates little with policy. Hold the rhetoric, and review the record.