Third Party Blind

Less than two weeks ago, I was listening to Election Profit Makers, and they read a letter from a younger fan who said that they were not going to vote for Biden because of his approach toward Israel, and they wanted the hosts (David Rees and Jon Kimball) to weigh on in that situation.

At the time, I didn’t realize this was A Thing.  Sure, I’d heard that there’s a growing movement in the U.S. that thinks that the government of Israel shouldn’t be allowed—much less encouraged—to wipe the Palestinian people from the face of the Earth.  I’d even heard that this utterly radical stance was mostly held by younger people, and that they blamed Biden’s willingness to just go along with whatever Israel does (including offering them weapons to do even more of it) on his being a very old man.  After all, blind allegiance to Israel is sort of an American tradition.  Because otherwise you’re antisemitic ... right?

So, sure, I knew it was a thing, and that it was mostly a thing with younger people, but I didn’t know it was A Thing.  But apparently it is: ABC News says it is, The Guardian in the UK says it is, NPR says it is.  So I guess it is.  Apparently it’s quite popular for political experts to weigh in and say that Biden’s pro-Israel stance might seriously jeopardize his chances next year.

So what did the hosts of EPM have to say in response to their young interlocutor?

Rees: When it comes to young voters saying, “I’ll never vote for Joe Biden, this is a, this is a bridge too far (his support of Israel),” I’m like: all right.  I don’t even feel interested in trying to convince young people that they should vote for Biden because Trump would be worse.  ...  I used to totally be the third-party, protest-vote guy.  Now I am much older than I used to be, and I see electoral politics now as nothing more than harm reduction.  ...  One thing I have no interest in, and I will not support, is older voters scolding younger voters for deciding to vote with their principles, even if I happen to think, like “yeah, good luck, let’s see how that turns out, champ.” I’m not gonna ...

Kimball: Totally agree.

Rees: I’m not gonna get on a high horse and try to shame young people.  I think that’s tactically stupid, and also demeans what’s so exciting about politics when you’re younger, and, for some of us, even when you’re older.  It’s like, it is a mechanism by which you can express your idealism.  And that’s beautiful to have that.

(For the full discussion, check out Episode 237, starting at about 24:20; the quotes above kick in about 5 minutes into that discussion.)

And I identified with what David is saying there.  First of all because I have totally been the person voting for a third party, and second of all because I’m much older now than I used to be, and also when he says that trying to shame people into not voting for third parties demeans everyone’s idealism, young or old.  Beacuse, here’s my dirty secret: I still vote for third parties (sometimes), even now that I’m old.  Now, as I’ve pointed out, I live in California, so I have a luxury that many Americans do not: the Democratic candidate for President will win my state, regardless of how I vote.  Therefore, I’m free to vote for the person whose stated opinions and policies most align with my own.  Sometimes that’s the Democrat, it theoretically might be a Republican—while I have voted for Republicans before for other offices, there’s never been a Presidential candidate who’s impressed me sufficiently to get my vote—or it might be a different party entirely, and I don’t give a flying shit if that’s a Green party candidate, a Libertarian party candidate, or just a raw independent.  Your “party affiliation” is just a box next to your name.  It means nothing to me, especially these days, when people like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema can claim to be Democrats, and the Republican party still (mostly) encompasses people like Liz Cheny and Adam Kinzinger (I could actually see myself voting for that guy for President, depending on the opponents).  What matters is what you (claim to) stand for, and how well your actions match your rhetoric.  If that stuff comes closer to what I want to see than any other candidate, then I don’t care if you’re a member of the Monster Raving Loony party: you get my vote.

But, as I say, I have the luxury of living in California where I actually can vote my conscience and still know that it won’t end up screwing the country.  I used to live in Virginia, where the margin of victory for the Republicans was frequently less than 10 points; I did (sometimes) vote third-party there, but then again I was younger.  If I still lived there today, would I still be so bold as to vote for whoever is the best candidate?  Or would I succumb to the “truth” that you may only vote for the better candidate?

What amuses me most about David Rees’ statement (which so strongly resonated with me and which I found most eminently reasonable), was that I was watching an episode of Democracy Docket with Brian Tyler Cohen and Marc Elias less than a week later, and Elias said this in response to a question from BTC about third parties:

So I, I just got to speak directly to your audience, because I imagine your audience is a lot of good Democrats, but also people who have very high standards for their elected officials.  And let me just tell you something: if you think voting for Jill Stein is doing anything other than electing Donald Trump, you are wrong.  If you vote for Jill Stein you’re voting for Donald Trump. If you vote for Bobby Kennedy you are voting for Donald Trump.  If you vote for the No Labels candidate, whoever he or she is ... if you vote for the No Labels candidate you are voting for Donald Trump.  And I’ll tell you one more thing: if you sit at home, because you’re disappointed, or you sit at home because you think your vote doesn’t matter, or you sit at home for whatever reason, and you don’t vote, you’re helping elect Donald Trump.  So you know I’m tired of the people who are saying ... you know, “I’m gonna have a protest, or I’m gonna sit out ...”.  If you don’t participate in this election, and enthusiastically drag your friends, your neighbors, your family, drag ’em to the polls, make sure they’re registered, drag ’em to the polls and make sure they vote, then you are you are feeding into what Donald Trump wants for this country, which is a dictatorship.

(Again, if you want to follow along, this was the 12/11 episode, and the question and answer happens at about 8:10.)

And, if you don’t know who Marc Elias is, he’s sort of the epitome of what David Rees was talking about when he said “older voters scolding younger voters for deciding to vote with their principles”: he’s a balding, old white guy (not quite as old as I am, according to Wikipedia, but damned close), he’s a lawyer, and just listen to what he’s saying there.  “If you don’t vote for my political party, your vote worse than doesn’t count: it counts for the bad guy.” If a salesman was telling you, if you don’t buy their product, it’s the same as giving your money to burglars so they can come take your stuff, you’d roll your eyes at them.  If a realtor told you that, if you didn’t buy this house, you’re just giving permission to people to come knock your current house down, you’d probably look for another realtor.  But, when it comes to politics, we not only don’t think twice about this sort of rhetoric, we expect it.  Worse, we believe it.  And, regardless of whether it’s true or not, our belief makes it true.

Here’s a simple example: two Democrat groups (Third Way and MoveOn) have issued a statement about the potential new “No Labels” party.  An article says:

Third Way and MoveOn followed up Tuesday by asking the staffers to convince their bosses to publicly denounce the effort.

“We, the undersigned elected officials, recognizing the urgent and unique threat to democracy in the form of right-wing extremism on the ballot in 2024, call on No Labels to halt their irresponsible efforts to launch a third-party candidacy,” reads the statement for the lawmakers’ signatures.

“Their candidate cannot win, but they can and would serve as a spoiler that could return someone like Donald Trump to office. I therefore commit to opposing a No Labels third-party ticket in 2024 for the good of the country.”

Now, I’m not saying voting for the (potential) No Labels candidate is a good idea—I’ll have to make that determination when we’re closer to the actual election, but I will say that so far I’m unimpressed with any of the names being floated—but just look at this statement.  This is what oligopolies do: a small handful of companies in a space very aggressively lobby their customers against considering any possible competition.  You may think the Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on anything these days, but they absolutely agree that they don’t want any more players on the field.  You get to pick one of these two, and yes they’re both shitty, but that’s just the way it is and no one can change it so you might as well get used to it.

Definitely don’t look over there.  Yes, the UK has nearly a dozen major parties, 5 of which have 10 or more representatives in Parliament; Japan has the same, only with six parties holding 10 or more members of the National Diet; Germany has 8 parties with 10 or more members in the Bundestag and closer to two dozen in total; France has only 5 major parties, but every single one has more than 60 members in their Parliament.  But pay no attention to those countries.  Just pick one of these two shitty options.  It’s your duty to do that.  And also not to question it.

Look, it’s perfectly acceptable for you to do the electoral calculus and come to the conclusion that, if you don’t vote for Biden, you’re throwing your vote away (or, worse, that you’re effectively voting for Trump).  That’s a lovely thing for any individual “you” to do.  But don’t think it’s okay to try to shove that down everyone else’s throat.  And maybe also think about whether it’s okay to just accept that blindly and not believe it can ever change.

While researching this blog post, I came across this article from The Nation.  Now, The Nation is, admittedly, a pretty liberal news outlet, and it should be read with the understanding of that bias going in.  But this article (which you really should read in its entirety) makes some pretty compelling points, which I will quote here.

The astute reader will note that I’ve been comparing Trump to Biden as if this will be the choice facing American voters next fall. But this is a false choice—a false binary that I subscribe to, but that many young voters do not.  ...

...  Many young people felt pressured into voting for him in 2020 because of the unique threat to democratic self-government posed by Trump. That threat is no less real in 2024, but this time around, Biden’s foreign policy is giving young voters a moral stance to pin their dissatisfaction to. And many voters of color who already viewed voting for Biden as merely a harm-mitigation strategy are wondering how the guy who ran against white supremacy now lets his team smear protesters who call for peace as equivalent to the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Responding to these valid moral criticisms with “Well, I hope you like it when Trump deports your family and takes away your voting rights” might feel like a cutting retort, but it’s actually a schoolyard bully’s threat masquerading as a political position.  ...

...  But just know that your use of Trump as a threat is not convincing them. The people saying they won’t vote for Biden know that Trump would be worse. They’re saying Biden should be better.

Perhaps the primary difference between Marc Elias and the author of this piece, Elie Mystal, is that Mystal is not an old white man.  He’s not necessarily a young man either, but being a person of color perhaps gives him a much better perspective to see how this “strategy” is becoming tiresome.  The Democrats tell us that democracy is at stake ... just like they told us the last time, and the time before that.  Even if they’re right—and I’m certainly not saying they’re wrong—they need new material.  And they need to stop using it as an excuse to muscle out any other party that tries to horn in on their territory.