I spend too much time on the internet, especially on social media. It’s a compulsion, but I like to think of it as a professional necessity. All that scrolling? That’s research. The internet is real life, after all, populated by real people, with real thoughts, concerns, preferences, and intentions. Lately, one word keeps surfacing in feeds and forums when people talk about a certain leader: reasonable. Guess who that is?

In a recent Liberal Party ad, actor Mike Myers says he’s supporting Mark Carney because the prime minister is “reasonable.” As Myers puts it, “I think the world needs more grown-ups. We need more adults, dude.” I wonder if that’s the first time anybody has ever called Mark Carney “dude” to his face, or anywhere else, but I digress. In the mind of a certain type of voter, Carney is thoroughly in the running for most reasonable among the party leaders. That type of voter probably includes the near majority of Canadians who currently view him favourably.

Being able to claim the throne as a reasonable leader right now, in the face of domestic and foreign chaos and threats, is an electoral godsend. We can deconstruct what counts as “reasonable”—or its cousins “common sense” and “pragmatic”—and whether particular conceptions of either are good or bad, but everyone has a rough sense of what’s reasonable and what’s not. We use it all the time. It’s what makes board-game nights and pickup sports possible.

Strictly speaking, definitions of “reasonable” revolve around being fair, sensible, and moderate and having good sense and sound judgment. Voters, who tend not to be policy experts or........

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