Voltaire and Camus are voting for...

I do not think that Voltaire or Camus would vote for either candidate in the upcoming election. Both of these men had political beliefs that would not be supported by either candidate in my opinion.

Voltaire’s views were quite extreme. Voltaire believed in enlightened despotism, which meant that he believed one ruler should have absolute power. In our current political system, that does not exist. He did not trust in democracy and therefore would not even approve of our political system. He felt that democracy spread stupidity among the people, so I do not think he would support any candidate.

Camus was against political realism, which meant that he did not approve of one trying to maximize their power, and therefore probably would not want a president to have so much power over the people living in his country. This view of politics is completely opposite of Voltaire’s views. I think that Camus would prefer no one to be in charge and would approve of people making decisions for themselves and not having an authority telling them what to do, within reason I’m sure. In The Stranger, the reader possibly gets a sense of his political beliefs through his character, Meursault. Meursault sees no meaning in life and wants to just do whatever he feels like to get through the day. I feel like Meursault would not even want to bother understanding the candidates’ views on how to run the country because to him, it just would not matter. Perhaps Camus had similar feelings and just would not care either.