But how does someone prove integrity to you? You see the bind here, right?
You're putting everything on these vague handwavey qualities like "integrity" as if you, like Anubis, can put their souls on the scale and measure their exact weight. What you're describing, ultimately, is just vibes, and voting on vibes has never gotten us anywhere good.
Policies can be lied about, sure, but integrity, compassion and humility can be faked. That's literally the essence of being a con artist. The CPC loved to talk about how Harper was a salt of the earth guy who rolled up his sleeves and drank Timmy's instead of Starbucks. It didn't mean shit. At least policies are an objective standard you can hold someone to; a yardstick to measure their integrity against. And all the integrity in the world is worthless if its being devoted to policies that will do no good.