Endorsements of candidates, put very simply, do not matter very much at all anymore – either of anybody, or by anybody. It’s hard to imagine, at this moment, any endorsement that would make a difference in a presidential election. Earlier this year, when he still was planning to run for reelection, Joe Biden’s incompetent team of advisors – the same people who thought an early debate was a brilliant idea for him – reportedly were desperate to get a Taylor Swift endorsement.

At first glance, that seems reasonable. Surely, as the world’s biggest superstar, that would move the needle, right? Now, for Joe Biden, it might have, but, well, probably not. It certainly didn’t affect anything for Kamala Harris when Taylor Swift endorsed her in an Instagram post, which, curiously, was all she apparently did for her. She didn’t suddenly start campaigning for her, or do a private concert as a fundraiser; she just did the post and moved on.

All of that gets right to the root of the real purpose of endorsements these days: to make the person doing the endorsing feel good, not to really convince any voters of anything at all. That was the real purpose of Swift’s endorsement of Harris, and the same goes for many of the former Republican elected and appointed officials endorsing her. The highest profile of these so far has been Liz Cheney and (even more quietly) her father, Dick Cheney, but all of them follow the same pattern.

First and foremost, they’re always from former officials, never current officeholders, and they’re not popular, beloved or particularly well-known ones. They’re often lower-level officials who never reached the heights they imagined or long-since retired ones. When your highest-profile Republican endorsement is from the Cheneys, who are, these days, reviled by most of the Republican base, and were never particularly popular to begin with, it says something.

Even though they have a well-known feud with Trump, dating back to the 2016 race, none of the prominent Bushes have ever endorsed Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. Not George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, or Laura. While former Vice President Mike Pence hasn’t endorsed Trump, he hasn’t endorsed Harris, either. Neither have Republicans like Larry Hogan, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski, all of whom have had their fair shares of battles with, and criticisms of, Trump.

All of that is perfectly understandable because, at the end of the day, they’re all still conservatives. They still care about conservative principles, and clearly none of them are buying into the argument that Donald Trump is some unique threat to the country. That’s always the primary selling point of these endorsements: they’re making the endorsement for the good of the country, policy be damned. They’re all so generic that they could be written by a poorly trained, incompetent, large-language model, never mind ChatGPT. Just expand “Democracy is at risk, policy doesn’t matter, vote for Harris” into a longer word salad and you’re done. Toss in references to Trump’s indictments, questionable character or Jan. 6 for some bonus points. If you want to appeal to a more highbrow crowd, quote the Federalist Papers; if it’s for a more liberal audience, actually mention an issue.

Seriously, go read any of them. They’re all the same.

There are a couple of problems with these pieces. One is that they rest on a false premise. Policy always, in fact, matters. No matter how flawed, corrupt or inept their opponent may be, when you endorse a candidate publicly, you’re endorsing their entire agenda. While you may be able to take a piecemeal approach to a political party – agreeing with them in some areas, disagreeing with them in others – it doesn’t work that way with candidates, especially presidential candidates. If you’re endorsing either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, you’re endorsing their entire agenda, no matter how many caveats you spin up.

Another is that, as I’ve pointed out before, Democrats aren’t behaving as if democracy is at stake. If they were serious, they’d have nominated a more centrist candidate than Joe Biden, never mind Kamala Harris, or they’d have formed a bipartisan ticket, like Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War. They haven’t done any of that. Instead, they’re trying to advance a liberal agenda by ducking behind the idea that democracy is at risk if a particular candidate wins. Don’t buy into it, and don’t waste time reading op-eds that were submitted to make the authors feel better about themselves.

Vote your conscience, not their conscience.