Rosenberg Fund for Children

Dump the Lesser Evil?

Part 1

Have you ever had an event trigger an understanding of something you thought you already knew, but apparently did not grasp fully? That’s the way I felt on January 20th, the morning after Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts special senatorial election on January 19th. Then I had my face rubbed in it by the Supreme Court’s decision giving corporations even greater power over what is left of our feeble democratic process.

I’ve been wrestling with the “lesser of two evils dilemma” since the first time I voted in 1968. In that election I rejected Nixon and Humphrey and chose Eldridge Cleaver. Since then, in national, state and local elections, I’ve vacillated between voting for the Democratic candidate or a left-wing alternative. I’ve been torn between two positions that appeared equally valid.

On one hand, in several important ways it has mattered whether Democrats or Republicans have been in control. For instance, I believe that Bush caused much more pain and suffering than Clinton did. A Democrat in office also meant a slightly better Supreme Court, a little less racism, a few more civil liberties, a little more butter for the downtrodden and a few less guns for the military. There have even been a few times when I felt the Democrat really was enough better to earn my vote.

But much more frequently I only voted for the Democrat because the Republican was so awful. The system never changed. In fact, I wonder if I’ve reinforced the status quo by participating in the electoral process. Perhaps Eugene Debs, who ran for President from his jail cell and garnered almost 1,000,000 votes on the Socialist Party ticket in 1920, summarized the second position best. He said: “It is better to vote for what you want and not get it, than to vote for what you don’t want and get it.” I’ve been consistently unhappy for almost all of my 40-plus years of voting with the results of pulling the lever for the lesser evil. It strikes me that the only time I’ve not been dissatisfied with this course of action is when I couldn’t be disappointed in the lesser evil’s post-election performance because the candidate I voted for lost.

I knew all of this when I voted for Obama, and when I held my nose and voted for the lackluster Martha Coakley on January 19th. So what was left for me to realize on the morning of the 20th?

(Continue to Part 2: www.rfc.org/node/445)

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Liberal Democrats- It is Time to Join the Left

It looks like the Democrats are really going to get their butts kicked in November. They should get their butts kicked from the left, but since there is no mass electoral party to their left, the voters will either stay home or vote for the right. While I find this distressing, even terrifying, I don’t find it surprising. I wrote here over a year ago, “I believe we are in a radical moment, a time when caution is a guarantee of failure.”

The Obama administration and Democratic congress proceeded with caution, and their unwillingness to demand and push for dramatic change even if they were unable to achieve it has left them looking incapable of ending the recession. Then I wrote last January, “When people really desire change and the Democrats fail to deliver it, voters have nowhere else to turn but back to the Republicans.”

Yet I have friends who agree with me about many other things, but still say you’ve got to pull out all the stops to prevent a Republican take-over of Congress because they will make things much worse. I agree that in the short term there can be very good reasons for voting for the Democrats over the Republicans. That was the case in the 2008 Presidential elections and it remains so now. But, if in the long term putting less repulsive Democrats into office brings about precious little real change as well as the steady strengthening of right wing opposition, it is a long-term strategic disaster.

American progressives have been divided on this question since the 1960’s. The majority have chosen to hold their noses and vote for the Democrats. They’ve criticized those on the left who have refused to join them for making themselves irrelevant to the political process. In fact, some have even blamed those to their left for being at least partly responsible for the long-term ineffectiveness of their decision to support the lesser evil. This last claim has never carried much weight with me because there really aren’t that many of us who are further to the left and we don’t wield that much electoral clout or political power.

I think instead of us joining them, they should join us. I think it is time for those who have been holding their noses and voting Democratic, to admit that their course of action is doomed. There are a lot more of them, they have a lot more clout, money and power than those of us who are a little further to the left. If we joined our less radical friends in voting Democratic it wouldn’t make much difference, but if our less radical friends were to join with us in forming a left-wing political alternative to the Democrats it would have a much bigger impact in the long run.

True, in the short run this would help the Republicans and they will make things worse. But the lesser of two evils strategy appears to produce the same result, and going down that path has resulted in decades of futility. So why not try to build some real power on the left and alter the terms of the political debate in our nation? The current terms will never work for us.

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Liberal Democrats – Take Two

I summarized a key point of my last blog in its penultimate paragraph:

“I think instead of us joining them, [liberal Democrats] should join us. I think it is time for those who have been holding their noses and voting Democratic, to admit that their course of action is doomed. There are a lot more of them, they have a lot more clout, money and power than those of us who are a little further to the left. If we joined our less radical friends in voting Democratic it wouldn’t make much difference, but if our less radical friends were to join with us in forming a left-wing political alternative to the Democrats it would have a much bigger impact in the long run.”

One reader wrote in response: “I agree with this analysis to a point, but there is another alternative and that is support primary challenges within the Democratic Party ... to move the Democratic Party to the left. This is part of the inside/outside strategy of the Progressive Democrats of America. Third parties have never done well in the US. It seems a better strategy is change the Democratic Party.”

Since Tuesday (9/14) was primary day in Massachusetts and electoral matters are on my mind, I’ll take the unusual (for me) step of writing a second blog to reply to this thoughtful comment.

I’m skeptical that this strategy will move the Democratic Party to the left, but I won’t argue that point here. Instead, I’ll concede that I’d probably vote for a truly progressive candidate who mounted a primary challenge to a more mainstream Democrat. And as long as this strategy did not degenerate into endorsing the least obnoxious candidate in the field, rather than confining support to real progressives, I see its value.

But what will you do after your candidate loses in the primary? At least in the short run that is likely to happen most of the time. If you plan to hold your nose and vote for the mainstream Democrat who won the primary then you will fall into the same trap I described in my blog last week. Are Progressive Democrats of America willing to participate in the development of a true left-wing party formation after their candidate has lost a primary election? Are Progressive Democrats of American willing to mount a primary challenge against Barack Obama in 2012?

In closing I’ll reiterate my main points from last week. I think the American public is fed up with the way the country is being run. That makes this a radical moment. If the Democrats won’t even push for basic change, let alone succeed in delivering it, any ascendency they attain will be brief and voters in the next electoral cycle will either stay home or vote the Republicans back into power. I do not believe that the Democrats are the same as the Republicans. Instead, I believe that the minor benefits Democrats bring will discourage those who want real change and, thus, in the long-term, only lead back to more Republican major damage. I propose that we attempt to break this cycle by developing a left-wing alternative.

What do other readers think about this controversial subject?

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Rosenberg Fund for Children

Part 1

(Continue to Part 2: www.rfc.org/node/445)

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