Reading through the actual comments, they’re not great, but they’re hardly monstrous. Note, in this smear campaign, you mostly see headlines that just vaguely describe the comments. They keep it vague because the comments themselves really aren’t that bad, judged by the scale of contemporary discourse.

Frankly we really shouldn’t crucify people or some comments they made on an pseudonymous reddit account years ago. Unless someone is actively advocating Nazi policies, has actually committed sexual assault or rape, etc. There are perfectly valid reasons to cancel someone; some off-the-cuff remarks on a message board aren’t worthy of that. If you post something under a pseudonym, it shouldn’t be taken seriously unless it’s an actual threat of violence. These are the type of comments people have been making since the dawn of time, but past generations have had the privilege of not risking their old off-the-cuff remarks being preserved forever.

It’s really time we mature our expectations and stop pretending like it’s still 1970. This smear campaign would make sense if these were speeches given in public, or formal writings published under someone’s name. In other words, if they were words carefully chosen and meant to really represent someone’s view. Random reddit comments today should be treated like anonymous drunken bar room talk of 50 years ago. Maybe if some drunk guy in a bar threatens to lynch the governor you should take them seriously, but otherwise we really should just get in the habit of ignoring smear attacks based on pseudonymous social media posts. It’s the modern equivalent of drunken bar room talk. Unless someone drunkenly threatens or confesses to actual serious crimes, such talk should be ignored.

Because the problem with your approach is that you are inadvertently selecting for absolute psychopaths. Everyone has said some things in their lives that may disqualify them from office decades down the road. What if the AI rights weirdos actually take off into a movement, and 20 years from now “clanker” is seen as a disqualifying slur? Or what if saying anything good about trans people is considered disqualifying 20 years from now, or saying anything bad about them? You can’t predict how political norms will evolve.

You have to let people move on. There has to be a place for crude but low-stakes communication. Otherwise you are creating a political system that aggressively selects for absolute psychopaths as leaders. The only people who will ever be able to run for office are those that deliberately craft their entire public image from a very young age. Unless your parents started grooming you for political office before puberty even hit and carefully controlled your social media use, then you yourself likely have something in your past that would disqualify you from office if it came to light. If every word you had ever said was aired out publicly, something you said at some point will serve to crucify you.

The approach you are advocating for selects for absolute psychopaths who fundamentally do not live real human lives. The only people who will be able to run for office are people who are, from a very young age, able to completely control their public image. Every comment. Every gesture. Every look. All carefully choreographed to never produce a comment or sound bite that someone might later object to. Someone who arranges their entire life around the goal of achieving power.

Is that really the type of person you want to lead you? Or do you want actual, real, flawed human beings, who sometimes make mistakes but are willing to acknowledge and own up to them?