The Evils of Lesser Evil Voting

[status quo buster]

The Evils of Lesser Evil Voting

Joel S. Hirschhorn

Condemn progressives for voting enthusiastically for Democrats and the inevitable response is something like “just imagine how much worse voting for Republicans would be.” Similarly, many true conservatives and Libertarians see voting for Republicans as a necessary evil. With many progressives regretting giving Democrats a majority in Congress and many conservatives regretting putting George W. Bush in the White House, it is timely to refute lesser evil logic.

Inevitably, lesser evil voters face personal disappointment and some shame. Politicians that receive lesser evil votes do not perform according to the values and principles that the lesser evil voter holds dear. These voters must accept responsibility for putting ineffective, dishonest and corrupt politicians in office. Though they may be lesser evils, they remain evils.

All too often lesser evil voters avoid shame and regret and prevent painful cognitive dissonance by deluding themselves that the politician they helped put in office is really not so bad after all. Corrosive lesser evil voting erodes one’s principles as pragmatism replaces idealism. This makes the next cycle of lesser evil voting easier.

Lesser evil voting helps stabilize America’s two-party duopoly that greatly restricts true political competition. Third party and independent candidates – and minor Democratic and Republican candidates in primaries – are defeated by massive numbers of lesser evil voters. Despite authentically having the political goals that mesh with many voters on the left or right, these minor “best” candidates fall victim to lesser evil voting. Lesser evil voters are addicted to a self-fulfilling prophesy. They think “If I vote for a minor candidate they will lose anyway.” They ensure this outcome though their lesser evil voting. The truly wasted vote is the unprincipled lesser evil vote.

Effective representative democracy requires politically engaged citizens that vote. Lesser-evil voters support the current two-party system with its terribly low voter turnout and chronic dishonesty and corruption. Lesser evil voters help put into office disappointing politicians, not the best people that would restore American democracy and show more citizens that voting is valuable. Lesser evil voters demonstrate the validity of turned-off citizens’ view that it really does not matter which major party wins office.

Politicians knowingly market themselves to lesser evil voters by constructing phony sales pitches, especially to certain audiences outside of their more certain base constituents. Democrats make themselves look more progressive than they really are, and Republicans make themselves look more conservative than they really are. Lesser evil voters are phony, and they produce a phony political system. Lesser evil voters contribute mightily to the travesty of our political system that no sane person respects and has confidence in.

Lesser evil voting demonstrates the worst aspects of political compromise. This is the common cause of terrible laws. When citizens surrender so much of what they truly believe in, they enable compromise politicians to create bad public policy that, in the end, satisfies very few people and puts band-aids on severe problems. Lesser evil voters concede victory to the other side – the side they view as the worse alternative because the people they vote for will not stand up for what is right and necessary. Think Iraq war. Even when their lesser evil side wins, they do not have the principled positions that would prevent awful compromises, often in the name of bipartisanship that is a clever way to justify our corrupt two-party mafia.

Lesser evil voters deride the alternatives of not voting or voting for minor candidates. The outcome should the “other” side win is deemed unacceptable. There is worse and there is worst. The core problem with lesser evil voters is that they are short term thinkers. They fail to see the repeated long term consequence of their style of voting – a system over many election cycles that persists in delivering suboptimal results. The “good” outcome in the current election (from their perspective) is the enemy of the “better” solution in the longer term (from an objective perspective). The better solution is major reform that will never happen as long as lesser evil voting persists.

Understand this: Lesser evil voting is not courageous. It is cowardly surrender to the disappointing two-party status quo. Lesser evil voters should trade regret for pride by voting for candidates they really think are the best. Voters in this presidential primary season have some remarkable opportunities to transform fine minor candidates into competitive major candidates – more honest and trustworthy people like Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich, for example.

Finally, the deadly decline of American democracy results in large measure from lesser evil voters electing lesser evil politicians. When virtually no elected public official is there because most voters have embraced his clear principled, trustworthy positions we get a government that is easily corrupted by corporate and other moneyed interests. We get what we have now. And if you are dissatisfied with that, then reconsider the wisdom of lesser evil voting. We will only get the best government by voting for the best candidates. Otherwise, we get what we deserve and what the power elites prefer.

[Totally Committed]

1. I wish I could give you about a thousand recs!

I gave you my one.

TC

[phantom power]

2. I reject the premise.

I have never experienced either regret or shame for "lesser evil" voting.

[elocs]

4. I reject it also.

What if in 2004 I found Kerry to be the lesser of evils compared to Bush? What if in 2000 I had found Gore to be the lesser of evils to Bush? Either one or the other was going to win and lesser evil withstanding I was going to do all I could to see that it was not Bush who was elected. I am afraid that I am too pragmatic and reality based to reject having to vote for the lesser of 2 evils. In a perfect world we would each of us have our own personal and perfect candidate. Alas, this is not the perfect world. Even if candidates such as Gore or Kerry were the lesser of 2 evils, imagine how our world would be changed if they were the president.

[welshTerrier2]

5. but take it a step further

it's easy to compare anyone to bush and say you'll vote for them ... but take it a step further ...

suppose, for example, your number one issue is Iraq. or maybe health care. or education. or corporate and big money influence on our electoral process.

let's say both the republicans and the Democrats nominated someone you didn't really believe was going to make any meaningful difference on those issues. alternatively, even if they couldn't win but could help raise awareness on these important issues, you believed that on the issues you considered most important, a third party candidate had the right ideas.

now weigh your choices ... yes, let's say you still believed the third party candidate couldn't win. the argument for taking "the long-term view" is to help bring to greater prominence your views and values and perhaps bring more and stronger voices to the national dialog. in severe cases, like getting rid of bush, i agree with your analysis. the price for voting third party was just too high. but in other circumstances, even knowing the third party candidate couldn't win, i think there are more things than just winning a single election. sometimes broadening the discussion on the issues and helping to build a place, party and platform on important issues is a form of victory too ...

[phantom power]

6. If you want to make 3rd-parties influential, I would recommend...

making certain strategic changes to our constitution. Two come to mind:

1) Instant run-off voting, which allows people to safely vote for a 3rd-party, but list a more popular backup as 2nd choice to avoid throwing elections to an opponent.

2) Change our government into a parliamentary system, where multiple parties can get elected, and act in coalitions.

I don't see either of them as likely to happen, but unless one or both of them do happen, 3rd-party politics in America will pretty much always be of the "throw-the-election" nature. In other words, it will exert it's impact in the negative sense, not the positive.

[welshTerrier2]

3. great post - i mostly agree

two party systems by their very nature force political parties to endorse the status quo and they force both parties to lean toward the middle. good politics? maybe and maybe not. good policy? probably not ... it is foolish to assume that moving to the center is a better policy than moving left or right.

when the events of the day, i.e. the key issues confronting the electorate, are relatively benign, a two party system can potentially, through some lens, be adequate. when the events reach crisis proportion, as they have for example with global warming, the risk-free, politicized incrementalism of the two party system fails to offer adequate alternatives. the first rule of marketing is "do no harm". in a two party system, the marketing types who plan political campaigns do not care for "dark talk" of crises and catastrophes. such subjects are best avoided entirely.

if the Democratic Party truly put democracy ahead of winning, they would push to include all reasonable minor parties in the debates. let's be honest: there's no way in hell they'll ever do that. that says plenty to me.

just to put a small degree of tempering on themes expressed in the OP, I would say that in certain circumstances at certain times, lesser of the evil voting may be appropriate. i strongly support the idea of taking the long-term view. if our votes for our party can be taken for granted, what leverage do we really exert to ensure our "representatives" actually represent us? still, sometimes the long-term view imposes horrific short-term costs on those who can least afford to pay them. in situations where you might be able to stop a war or resist the revocation of our Constitutional freedoms by choosing the lesser of the evils for a given election, i think doing so can be the right thing to do.

for example, if one believed Kerry (in 2004) would have rolled back some of the abuses of the Patriot Act, put an end to bush's war crimes, and perhaps ended the Iraq occupation sooner, supporting him over a "no chance" third party candidate seemed like the right thing to do. i say "no chance" because in 2004, and still, it will take more than just voting for third parties to make them viable. they are still blocked from the two party debates. they are still victimized by abusive election laws that make it very difficult for them to gain ballot access. so, while i fully agree that voting third party can make sense in some circumstances, i still think that view has to be tempered with the unfortunate realities of our very un-democratic two party system.

the overall point is that the right path is situational and not global ...