My politics are based in anti-imperialism, environmental activism, refugee/immigrant activism and socialism, in roughly that order. On all of those issues, the GOP are worse than the Dems. On all of those issues, both parties are disastrously bad.
The massacre of Yemen was not Trump’s creation; he inherited it from Obama. The crimes of AFRICOM, likewise. Same goes for Libya, and many others.
The climate crisis obviously also predates Trump. The lack of any meaningful action on climate was probably the greatest failing of the Obama Presidency.
Again: Trump is worse than the Dems.
But the policy of either party guarantees a global climate disaster of a scale that makes WWII look like a beach picnic. Trump would likely get us there faster, but in the long term we’re dead either way.
The same story holds on immigrants. Yes, Trump is worse. Yes, Trump is dangerous. But it remains true that Obama deported more immigrants than any other President, including (so far) Trump. Children in cages predates Trump.
The Dems are obviously not to my taste, but they are not fascists. The GOP are fascists. Not just the street thugs, the whole party. This is why I spent the Presidential campaign advocating a vote for HRC, despite our extreme political differences.
Trump is a fast catastrophe. The 21st C Democrats are a slower catastrophe. But it’s a catastrophe either way.
No. The cheating by the Clinton Campaign and the DNC is well documented, and admitted by the DNC whose explanation was, if I may paraphrase, “we’ll do whatever the f-ck we want”, end paraphrase.
No amount of cheerleading by the neoliberal centrist democratic party changes these facts.
Make no mistake - we would have been so much better off under Clinton than Trump, but the middle class and the poor still would have been screwed.
The problem, then is this: what is an American citizen to do?
Their options, as far as I can tell, are basically the following:
Vote (and campaign, donate, volunteer etc.) for the Republicans. This makes everything worse.
Vote etc. for a third party. This may achieve something on the purely local level; on the Federal level, especially in the presidential election, it will at best achieve nothing, and at worst will make things worse by sabotaging the less evil choice.
Throw your hands up in disgust and abstain from voting. This achieves absolutely nothing, but at least you get to feel morally pure.
Hope (and agitate, plan, and prepare) for a revolution. Not only the chances of pulling this off are minuscule, the odds are the resulting revolutionary society is even worse than what you started off with.
Or
Vote etc. for the Democrats, who are consistently the least bad alternative who can actually gain power to do anything, and who can be moved in a more progressive direction through hard work and consistent voting.
So basically, voting for the Dems, as well as working with (and against!) the party to steer it in a better direction is pretty much the best available option to an American concerned about the things. If all roads seem to lead to a catastrophe, then it behooves you to choose the one taking the longest time to get there, because that means you have the best chance to find a new road and actually avoid the catastrophe!
tl;dr – Choosing the lesser evil is unglamorous, and achieving political change is boring long-term gruntwork full of compromises and disappointments. But it’s the right choice, nevertheless.
Well there was the standing rules for the DNC to have no bias towards candidates, but essentially you are correct. The DNC operated as a non-democratic entity in the primary, and that exposition contributed to the undermining of Clinton. The moral ground could have been reclaimed if Clinton stepped down and gave the nomination to Sanders - people have dropped out of races for less. Instead they established that they were corrupt, while the GOP sat on their hands and let Trump win.
A case could also be made that Trump and his tactics were so nasty and odious and gross that he forced his opponents to get equally nasty and gross to counter him, and it resulted in pushing tons of Americans away from the entire process of paying attention to politics in general.
I understand the sentiment, but you’re massively oversimplifying.
I voted for Jill Stein because it was the most significant vote I could place - morally, ethically, pragmatically and strategically.
When I was in the voting booth, I believed there was zero chance of Hillary Clinton losing the election in my district, county and state, and that it was highly unlikely that Donald Trump would lose the election at the national level.
So, given my (ultimately correct) beliefs, voting Democrat or Republican would have had absolutely no positive impact and would have had the negative impact of endorsing a corrupt political machine. It would have been morally wrong for me to vote for Clinton since she does not support my issues and beliefs, and pragmatically my vote could do nothing to prevent Trump’s election.
Meanwhile, supporting the Green Party in presidential elections has quantifiable positive effects for my community, nation, species and planet. It’s extremely important that 3rd parties receive votes not just in local elections but in presidential elections.
And right now, the Greens and Jill Stein are the only political party I know of mounting an offensive against the use of unauditable voting machines (read the links provided by @jerwin to find out about that, since mainstream media do not provide positive coverage of Greens, they are too busy paving the way for President Trump’s probable re-election).
If you want a slow motion catastrophe and vast human suffering, vote Democratic. If you want to accelerate the catastrophe and increase the suffering, vote Republican. If you want real positive change, ignore party attempts to exploit normal human tribalism and vote strategically - and given my goals of building a sustainable and joyous human culture, that means voting third party whenever possible.
Ah yes, so glad that the voters in Ohio’s recent special election got to choose a high-quality third-party Green candidate rather than prevent a Trump crony from getting elected. (Which enough did that it looks like said Trump crony is heading to congress)
I agree that third party candidates are vital and necessary and often an excellent choice. I’ve voted Green and third-party in the past myself. But sometimes (as with Ms Stein) a bad candidate is a bad candidate.
Unfortunately we first have to combat the various GOP efforts to further break our already broken electoral system
Giving people a vote that counts seems a GREAT way to accomplish that.
Until enough Republicans are out of office, the fundamental fixes that need to be made won’t happen.
Or:
Until the fundamental fixes that need to be made are implemented the Republicans will stay in office.
(edited)
Same problems and solutions, but in a different order.
The voting system really is the utter bedrock of democracy, when that’s broken that HAS to be fixed first to have any chance of improvement* going about it the other way would be MUCH slower (As you’re trying to fight a broken system from within said broken system that is biased against you, to have a chance of fixing it)
*NB I am a UK resident, but we do share many of the same problems with voting systems…
I am not familiar with the candidate or election, but it sort of sounds like you’re saying it’s better to have literal Nazis and corporate tools in charge of our fates than weirdos. I don’t think you meant to say that!
But anyway, you know perfectly well that for every nutty Green you can find, I can find you an outright criminal Democrat or Republican. Former Congressman Mel Reynolds (Democrat - Illinois) is a convicted rapist, Neil Goldschmidt an admitted pedophile, and let’s not forget Republicans like Scott DesJarlais and Dennis Hastert.
The solution, I think, is for people like you and me to run as 3rd party candidates or independents. If Donald Trump has done anything positive, it is that he’s gotten progressives off their asses to fight him; I just wish those fighters weren’t taking the easy road of joining the Democratic Party political machine. In my state, at least, that machine is completely corrupt, and it will corrupt them.
Not in ten million years would I say that, no. What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t be dealing in absolutes, i.e. “a vote for a Democrat is a vote for vast human suffering and catastrophe” (which is what you stated above). As you say, we should vote strategically – there are times when a Democrat is a far better candidate than the third-party offerings, as was the case in the recent Ohio special election. I would much, much rather vote for someone than be forced to simply vote against someone worse.
Utterly valid point, overall - I was happy to vote for my local Republican representative, who co-sponsored Delaware’s marriage equality bill, and equally happy to vote against local Democrats who fervently oppose recycling and sustainable land use. And when I was having my multi-year battle with the corrupt state employees who were running the illegal dump, I was happy to receive help from politicians from both parties (although sad that none of them would act until some rich people complained )
Strategic voting starts with jettisoning party loyalty. Party loyalty in the two majors (and the Libertarian Party, too, these days) is a one way street anyway.
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