Next week, the US will hold a presidential election.
At that time, we will vote not for a presidential candidate but for an impression of the candidate we see on TV and at campaign events, read about in newspapers and blogs, and hear about from our friends and family.
Like Plato’s shadows on the cave wall, our impressions will reflect only whatever somebody chooses to show us.
Modern politics overwhelms us with images crafted and cultivated to fit what we want to see rather than the truth. We latch onto the fragment of reality that we perceive. We never see the full picture.
Outside of a few insiders, nobody has enough information to make an informed decision about anybody they vote for. I certainly don’t.
Who’s good? Who’s bad?
You may think the answers are obvious. Often, it’s not so easy to tell.
The devil you don’t know or the other devil you don’t know
For example, Congressman Tom Emmer, one of crypto’s most powerful advocates in Congress. He’s the guy who yelled at SEC Chairman Gary Gensler for missing the FTX fraud, among other grievances.
Did you know FTX was one of the biggest donors to Tom Emmer’s campaign and gave almost $3 million to the GOP’s Congressional Leadership Fund while Emmer was in charge of it?
Did you also know that Emmer was one of several Congresspeople who wrote a letter to Gensler asking him to stop investigating FTX (among other crypto entities)?
If you support crypto and politicians, have you ever asked Emmer how he feels about protecting a scam? Taking money from a fraudster? Did he give the money back?
Or, do you not care because Emmer says nice things about crypto and criticizes people you dislike? Because he shares your views?
If you don’t support crypto and politicians, do you support Gensler’s nonsensical application of obsolete financial rules to stifle a new technology with arbitrary lawsuits and bizarre standards?
Or, do you not care about people trying to build or use crypto, so you ignore it?
Presidents don’t matter for your financial markets
Why does market performance always seem disconnected from politics?
The crypto market crashed more than 50% several times under Biden. It crashed more than 70% several times under Trump.
Obama was even worse — multiple crashes of 80% or more.
On the flip side, it went up 100% after Biden took office, 2,500% after Trump took office, and 5,500% after Obama took office.
Seems fishy until you compare that with legacy assets.
People make a big deal about the economy under one party or the other, but the economy — like crypto — seems to do whatever it wants regardless of who’s in office.
Look at the stock market performance under Republicans and Democrats, adjusted for GDP. Red is Republican, blue is Democrat.
Can you see any trend? Neither can I.
You can extend this to the wider economy. Let’s do GDP. I counted the number of negative half-years in white:
What about inflation? Same.
What about employment? Same.
What about budget deficits? For statistical consistency, we’ll calculate it as a percentage of GDP. Same.
What about oil prices? Same.
From a purely investing perspective, you get no advantage or disadvantage under Democrats and Republicans. On the whole, the US economy and its major assets perform as well or as poorly under one as the other.
You can take these charts and move the boxes one or two years forward to account for the lag between a change of party and the results of their actions. You’ll get the same result.
Know what matters
Am I saying presidential elections don’t matter?
No. They matter a lot.
Every election carries high stakes for your business, employment opportunities, living standards, moral or religious beliefs, mental health, and many aspects of your life.
But presidents can’t save your marriage, get you to lose that extra 10 pounds, or fix your financial problems.
For people who work in crypto, you won’t find a better friend than Trump.
That’s important for people trying to run businesses, build crypto apps, and create new tokens. What about the rest of us?
Doesn’t matter.
Sure, government policies can tinker around the edges, but crypto is a global asset. Prices come from buyers, sellers, and circumstances beyond any president’s control.
The past two years saw a wave of innovation from non-US talent and US companies working abroad. Thousands of new projects have been launched. Hundreds more are waiting for market conditions to improve.
Oddly enough, crypto is bigger under Biden now than Trump and Obama. Bitcoin’s hit three new all-time highs!
For all those reasons, vote your conscience, not your crypto portfolio. If neither presidential candidate resonates with you, write somebody in. You can scribble “Bitcoin” on your ballot.
Most likely, you live in a state where your presidential vote doesn’t matter — any of the 43 states painted red or blue in the image below.
Partisanship has already made your decision irrelevant. Why not vote for somebody or something you want? You have nothing to lose.
I dive more deeply into this topic in a recent post, The US Presidential Election Matters for You, Not Your Crypto Portfolio.
Mark Helfman publishes the Crypto is Easy newsletter. He is also the author of three books and a top Bitcoin writer on Medium and Hacker Noon. Learn more about him in his bio and connect with him on Tealfeed.
