So, I decided to give this a shot. Look, I think that strategically, those of us who are left of the democrats, and want more than what the democrats want to give us on policy...have to rethink our position here.
I'm not your typical vote blue no matter who type. Like you, I hate the two party duopoly. I've written extensively on this topic on this blog, going all the way back to 2016. In 2016, I voted for Jill Stein over Hillary Clinton. In 2020, I voted for Howie Hawkins over Joe Biden. But in 2024, I'm likely to support Biden in the general election.
The fact is, I have to ask you, what do you think you're going to accomplish here if you vote for a third party? Sure, you can vote for them simply because, like me, you believe in voting your principles regardless of the outcome, and that's fair, you're free to do that, and I'm not gonna voter shame you for that.
However, as I indicated with some of the posts I linked above, my view to vote for a third party is driven by a certain perspective on influencing policy. As I see it, the two major parties are driven by coalitions of voters. And the democrats have been poor choices to represent the left. They think they can take the left for granted and bully them into voting for democratic candidates. And they quite literally do put their thumb on the scale in primaries, basically forcing their candidates on us, and then telling us we have to vote for them or else.
And I will admit, this is a lot like holding people hostage and saying "you better vote for us or the hostage gets it". And normally, I would be inclined to not do so. I've said before that I would be willing to throw one election away in order to win 40 years of ideological dominance. And I do think that if the left ultimately wants to have more of a say, that they do need to basically pressure the democratic party to adopt more left wing positions. Theoretically, if the left defected from the democrats en masse, sure, it would implode the democrats' election results, basically throwing away the results to a republican. But...it would also send a message to the democrats that they have to do better next time, that if they want left wing votes, certain demands need to be reached first, otherwise we will not support their candidates. For me, those demands were, and still are, basic income, universal healthcare, and free college/student debt forgiveness. I was willing to vote for bernie sanders or andrew yang to achieve some of those priorities, but let's face it, centrists like joe biden and hillary clinton never will give us that stuff unless we push them to.
Except...here's the catch. We kind of have a big problem right now, that suspends the rules that normally govern my logic on these sorts of things. And that problem is called "Donald Trump". I know, I know, the democrats have been hammering us with "Trump bad, vote for us as an alternative" since 2016, and you're probably rolling your eyes. But this is...uh...a big problem. You remember what Trump did on January 6th? How he told his followers that the election was stolen and encouraged his supporters to storm the capitol? yeah, that actually happened. And it's actually kind of scary. This nutcase literally tried to overthrow the election and overturn american democracy. I mean, holy crap, that's crazy.
And it's not just that, he's gotten worse since then. He's called for suspending the US constitution. He's talked about using the insurrection act to violently suppress any protests against him. He's called his political enemies, which include us by the way, "vermin."
This guy is a psychopath. And if he wins the next election, there might not BE any more elections. He's literally as much of a danger as Hitler was in the 1930s in my opinion. January 6th was his beer hall putsch. And then the nazis won in 1932 in part because the left and the center kept fighting each other while the far right were able to sneak in and win it. And then Hitler took over the government and dismantled German democracy, leading to the Third Reich.
Look, the idea that we can defect from the democratic party only works...if there are future elections to be had. As I said, the goal is to pressure them to move left and adopt progressive policy to win us back. But if the other party that wins in the short term is so psychotic that it literally undermines the very electoral system we're trying to work within, then this strategy is pointless.
As such, I would like to encourage anyone thinking of voting third party to support Biden in 2024. This doesn't have to be a permanent thing. I understand your concerns and likely share at least some of them. I admit I'm not AS far left as I used to be due to focusing my own political ideology over the past lull between election cycles, where due to my UBI fixation I'm a bit more centrist on other policies to compensate, but I still want a lot of progressive things the democratic party just isn't willing to give me, and I do know that eventually, we might have to fight them in order to make our voices heard.
But we have to do that at a time when our political system isn't in very real danger of being destroyed by an psychopath with a fake tan. So I'm going to have to encourage people to vote blue for the time being just to keep Mango Mussolini out of power.
I don't care what happens after that, as long as we shift the GOP away from the fascism that they're currently flirting with. If we end up with a more moderate GOP that still respects our institutions and the rule of law, go ham. Vote third party. I don't care. I probably will too. I'm just asking that for this time, we consider voting for the democrat here.
This really MIGHT be the most important election of our lives, and this ISNT the time for a "protest vote". I know I know, it sounds cliche and democrats say it every election, but as someone who voted green in 2016 and 2020, yeah, I think it's actually the truth this time. We CAN'T allow Trump to win. None of this matters if we end up with a fascist dictatorship. Really, if that happens, then we can say goodbye to whatever ideal vision for the future exists in our heads. It will never happen. And we'll probably be rounded up and put in camps just for daring to think about such things. Really, Trump IS that psycho this second time around. Hence the "vermin" talk.
If this still doesn't convince you then, idk, I tried. I'm not gonna shame you for voting third party. I'll only shame you if you actually support Trump himself at this point. You have a right to vote for whomever you want, and I'm not trying to take that away from you, because unlike some people I value democracy. I'm just trying to offer an impassioned and reasoned plea for why we should probably just support the democrats this time around. You might not agree and that's okay. Unlike dem apologists...I get it. I've been there. I just think that this time the stakes really are too high, and whatever we're trying to do can backfire hard if we don't vote for Biden.
No comments:
Post a Comment