Tin Can Economy | Lesser-of-two-evilism is bunk
- Published: September 15, 2024
As of press time, we’re less than two months away from the general election and, clearly, everyone is having a really great time. No one’s stressed beyond measure, neighbors are chummier than ever and the future has never seemed brighter.
Wait — is it getting hot in here or is it just me?
If not for the kaleidoscopic splendor of autumn in a small town, this would be my least favorite time of year. Yards are again littered with vapid slogans and last names-turned-brands — political signs that interrupt the golden patchwork of fallen leaves, insisting that the fate of the country again lives in the ballot box.
Every four years, we’re told the same thing: “This is the most important election of our generation. Vote like your life depends on it!” Will the 2028 election be the most important one of my life? I thought that was the 2020 election — er, no. This one. It’s hard to keep up.
How do these existential stakes rise so precipitously each election cycle?
It’s not just that our “one-or-the-other,” two-party system is ill-equipped to address the death drive of our economic system; rather, it’s one that profits handsomely from our collective march toward the cliff. (I hear there’s a lot of money to be made lobbying against planet-saving legislation.) We all know one party is bad and the other is worse. What a revelation.
Every time a voter attempts to break from the stranglehold of Pepsi vs. Coke, N*SYNC vs. Backstreet Boys, him or not him, they’re often browbeaten into submission. Just last week I overheard someone say in the produce aisle how Stein cost Clinton the 2016 election, immediately followed by a derisive remark against the “Bernie-or-Bust Bros.” Well, I guess we’re stuck with what we’ve got — Democrat vs. Republican until the rising sea level keeps us from voting at all.
Surely this either/or conundrum is a symptom of a deeper malady in our political economic system — one that capitalizes off decision fatigue and the illusion that politics begin and end with the casting of a single vote. So what do we do? We choose the quintessential lesser of two evils: the less bad, the not-the-other one, the one who I believe will do less harm to my material conditions.
This lesser-of-two-evilism is why, I believe, this summer is hotter than the last and this election is more consequential than the previous.
By reflexively choosing the “less bad” candidate time and again, we’re continually moving the left-right American political spectrum farther and farther to the right. Liberal candidates must soften their plans to acquiesce to the fabled moderates, to the undecided. They must draw hard lines on sovereignty, war, police budgets and more if they are to stand a chance at bringing dissatisfied Republicans into the fold — to make them pinch their noses and switch sides.
We do this over several decades, then our Democrats wind up far more right than even the staunchest neocons elsewhere in the world. Our “lesser of” tendencies in the ballot box render progressivism an ideological caricature of itself.
“Yes, I’ll don a kente cloth to show my solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement,” said Democrats in 2020. “But will I support legislation to demilitarize police departments that disproportionately target, criminalize and kill Black folks? Heck no! Now’s not the right time.”
We saw a similar deflection last week at a rally in Detroit held by Vice President Kamala Harris. Two University of Michigan students interrupted Harris at the podium, shouting, “Kamala, you need to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. We demand an arms embargo and a free Palestine.” The students then chanted, “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide, we won’t vote for genocide.”
The vice president dispatched a swift and stern response: “If you want Donald Trump to win, say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” Her scolding was followed by roaring applause from the stadium and the students were escorted out.
Personally, I think asking a presidential candidate not to pour my tax dollars into an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people — with a death toll approaching 40,800 since last October — is a perfectly reasonable request.
For others — the “blue no matter who” folks — perhaps not.
I’m not here to pull votes away from Harris, but instead to sketch a picture of where we are. A Black woman president would be a welcome breath of air, but let’s at least be honest about who and what we’re voting for: the continuation of status quo world affairs that come at the mortal expense of those just out of frame. Her record as California’s attorney general shows a similar prosecutorial overreach.
As for Trump — what a heinous, knuckle-dragging huckster. He’s a proven sexual assailant, racist, war-mongering cretin hell-bent on duping working class people into believing that his stolen wealth will one day come to them, and that immigrants are wreaking havoc in the streets. His pick for vice president is one of Ohio’s greatest (worse) carpetbaggers. To be sure, don’t vote for them.
So, one candidate denies the patent worsening of our global climates, while the other (and former) denies the right to life of a child in Gaza. Which is worse? Whom to choose?
The point of this particular column is simply to ask, “Why?” Why have we allowed our collective politic to slip into such a dismal state wherein we must choose between committing more war crimes and committing more grand larceny?
Vote for whomever you will, but please do not begrudge those with misgivings over checking the “lesser” of the two evil boxes on Tuesday, Nov. 6. Let us instead turn our attention to imagining and advocating for new systems of representation — systems in which political candidates and representatives are willing to listen to legitimate grievances, instead of threatening their constituency with a graver alternative.
To that end, I will be voting for Claudia De la Cruz, the presidential nominee from the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
*Tin Can Economy is an occasional column that reflects on object, form and scale. It considers the places and spaces we inhabit, their constituent materials and our relationship to it all. Its author, Reilly Dixon, is a local writer, gardener and amateur winemaker. He is also a reporter for this newspaper.
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