DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

In a remarkable example of random coincidence, or synchronicity (or maybe futility), it was exactly four years ago today that I first publicly fulminated against what I’ll call “protest votes.”  As election day 2020 draws nearer, I fear that some folks are beginning to overthink the upcoming presidential election, which will lead them to counterproductive conclusions.  Here’s an updated version of the argument I offered four years ago. 

There are conscience voters, and there are strategic voters.  My sense is that those two groups are largely talking past each other.  Conscience voting plays out as “Trump is terrible but I can’t bring myself to vote for Biden, so I’ll vote Green.”  Strategic voting plays out as “I like the Greens better than Biden, but because Trump is so terrible, I’ll vote for Joe because realistically he’s the only candidate who can beat Trump.” 

So once more, with feeling, here’s why you should vote for the Democratic candidate for president.  My foundational premise is that our next president will be the nominee of either the Republican Party (right now, that looks like Donald Trump) or the Democratic Party (right now, that looks like Joe Biden). 

Of course, there will be other candidates on the ballot.  You’ve got Howie “Huh?” Hawkins, the presumptive nominee of the Green Party.  Hawkins, as his Wikipedia entry notes, “has run for twenty-four offices, all unsuccessfully.”  Spoiler alert:  the next presidential election will be his 25th unsuccessful run. 

You like a lot of Green Party positions?  Me too.  You think Howie Hawkins is ever going to be in a position to implement them?  Spoiler alert:  Don’t be silly. 

Oh, but maybe you think Howie can use 2020 to build the Green Party into a contender in 2024?  Again, don’t be silly.  The Green Party has fielded candidates in the past six presidential elections.  How did they do?  The Greens’ share of the vote in those elections was, 1996: 0.7%, 2000: 2.7%, 2004: 0.1%, 2008: 0.1%, 2012: 0.4%, and 2016: 1.4%.  It’s hard to see much Green-mentum there.  The Greens made an impact twice, not by winning but by taking votes away from Al Gore in 2000, and from Hillary Clinton in 2016.  An honest summary of Green Party accomplishments since 1996 would give them at least partial responsibility for both the Iraq war and for our current descent into madness. 

Honestly, I think the Green Party’s secret is that they are NOT trying to win.  They exist as a refuge for progressives who would rather engage in virtue signaling than get their hands dirty in retail politics.  When I hear or read someone using phrases like, “hold my nose and vote for,” or “just can’t bring myself to vote for,” or “I’m looking for someone worthy of my vote,” – or especially “vote my conscience” – it says to me that their vote is about them, and about how they want others to see them. 

I understand the appeal of conscience voting.  I did it in 1968 and 1980.  But lately, conscience voting has begun to look pretty narcissistic.  Some people seem to be saying “I cannot, in good conscience, help save my country from disaster by voting for a flawed candidate.”

Four years ago, I let Tony Kushner, author of ANGELS IN AMERICA, make my closing argument.  In an interview with MOTHER JONES in 2003, Kushner said:  “Listen, here’s the thing about politics: It’s not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this….  The country doesn't elect great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world.” 

Of course, conscience and strategic voters need not reach different conclusions.  I came around to voting strategically as a matter of conscience.  I’m old, I’m white, I’m heterosexual, and I’m well off financially.  If all I cared about was me, I’d be a Republican.  Or if I were a real asshole, a Libertarian.  But I have younger, poorer, gayer, and blacker friends who are in a more precarious position than I am.  I’m going to cast my vote as much for them as for myself.  That makes me a strategic voter.

As a strategic voter, it appears that I’ll have the choice between a mentally unstable oligarch who’s leading an overtly racist Republican Party, and a well-intentioned but fairly conventional Democratic politician.  One of those two people will be our next president.  I’m rooting for the conventional Democrat.   

When I wrote the above paragraph in 2016, a reader remarked that my position “looks like a lesser evil vote.”  Not exactly.  Although I’d supported Bernie Sanders during the primaries, I didn’t (and don’t) view Clinton (or Biden) as evil.

But – and here’s the key point – even if I did see Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Joe Biden in 2020 as a lesser of two evils candidate, I WOULD STILL VOTE FOR THEM.  Because lessening the amount of evil in the world is a good thing. 

And having said all that, I should acknowledge that I’m not nearly as worried about conscience voters this year as I was in 2016. 

First, four years of Republican misrule have demolished the Greens’ favorite talking point.  It is no longer possible to argue with a straight face that there are no real differences between the Democratic and Republican parties.  Anyone who’s serious about fighting climate change, anyone who’s serious about working for social justice, anyone who’s serious about saving American democracy – in short, anyone who’s been paying attention – knows that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are their enemies.  If Trump is re-elected, we’re screwed. 

Joe Biden wasn’t my first choice among Democratic presidential candidates.  He wasn’t in my top five.  But I’m going to vote for him on November 3, and I hope you do too.  I think he’s “a good man,” as the saying goes, but I’ll vote for him because, of all the names that will be on the ballot in November, Biden is the only one who has a chance to beat Donald Trump.

I want to see Trumpism repudiated, root and branch.  I want to see a Democratic landslide in both the popular vote and the Electoral College.  I want veto-proof majorities in both houses of congress.  I want the Republican Party to wander in the wilderness for forty years.  I want a more progressive United States. 

I want to see progressive Supreme Court justices, support for public health and public education.  I want to see an intelligent, federally coordinated response to COVID-19.  I want to see an end to the militarization of law enforcement.  I want a president who doesn’t hate African-Americans.  I want people like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to have more influence on American policy. 

Joe Biden isn’t my ideal candidate, but he’ll deliver those things.  Howie Hawkins won’t.  Neither will Jo Jorgenson or Kanye West, or anyone else on the ballot, whatever policies they claim to support. 

If there is a path out of this current crisis (and there may not be – I’m beginning to wonder), it lies with the Democratic Party.  Not just with Joe Biden, whose role will clearly be transitional.  Biden’s job is to evict Trump from the White House and start the recovery process.  Biden’s election is key to empowering the new wave of progressive Democrats who have mastered retail politics and begun to win elections.  If you want change, winning elections would be a good place to start. 

Or I could vote for someone I agree with more than Biden.  You know who that guy is?  Robert Mitchell, that’s who.  If I were going to throw my vote away on someone with no chance to win, for no better reason than that he agrees with me on everything, I’d vote for myself.  Would that make me a good citizen?  Spoiler alert:  don’t be silly.