I am not optimistic about converting a lot of "Sandernistas" to Plan B, as Brains calls it, voting for Jill Stein. And, I accept that.
That's not what this post is about.
It's about the defensibility of third-party voting in general.
And, I'm not just talking about third-party voting of the left.
I disagree with most true libertarians on almost all non-social issues, though some actually do — with what they say is coherent libertarian-based justification — support single-payer national health care, a guaranteed annual income, or both. (I disagree even more with fake libertarians like the Paul family, who actually belong in the Constitution Party.)
I support their third-party voting, though, and even more, their defense of third-party voting. Donald Trump may seem to them as much as "lesser evil" as Hillary Clinton does to me.
I support their voting, and their defense of voting against people who make "wasted vote" claims. And, on my side of the aisle, I support "us" against "oh the SCOTUS" claims.
Above all, I support all two, three or more (per Idries Shah) third-party angles against people who claim (quite wrongly) that we don't really understand the system, that we're doing little more than mocking voting, or that we're unintelligent in general.
These are the "electoral bigots" of the header.
Indeed, I'll defend not voting at all, if done on intelligent principles, against these electoral bigots.
Oh, something else? You electoral bigots get more off-putting and even infuriating, the more you do it.
As for one of those "electoral bigots," who said that even Bernie Sanders within the two-party system was failing on getting parts of his message out, most notably about single-payer national health care and the true costs of it after we largely stop buying private insurance? Well, the fact that even 40 percent of Republicans would prefer single-payer to Obamacare kind of refutes that claim, doesn't it?
And, on Facebook, I'm glad to have dropped one person, and glad that pseudoskeptic Mark Boslaugh, an ears-in-fingers Clintonista, dropped me. (Well, I'm sad I didn't drop him first.) But, that's about Clinton, or Clinton vs. Sanders, not about third parties.
And, thus, per good friend Brains, in Part 5 of his "revolution" series, it's time to push Plan B, voting Green, harder, against electoral bigots, or people who just have cold feet about voting third party. Got nothing to lose, this election.
A skeptical leftist's, or post-capitalist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Free of duopoly and minor party ties. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more.
Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill.
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I'm a proud Nader voter (yes, still). That was partly to improve ballot access for the Greens and party a protest against the Dems. The DLC/DNC and the Clintons lost me before Nader ever entered the race (picking Lieberman was the last straw). All Nader did was give people like me a voice -- if the Dems had listened they might have gotten me to vote for them. They didn't so I didn't.
ReplyDeleteThey could have fought against the stolen elections. They didn't. While in office, Bush would have done a lot less damage if they had resisted his policies. Instead they supported some of his worst actions.
This time around the Dems could be choosing to run a popular, honest, progressive candidate with a good chance to win and to improve their party and the country. Turns out that's the last thing they want. I don't feel any compulsion to abandon my own political goals in order to try and compensate for their corruption.
I'll be honest, I didn't vote for anybody in 2000, because I thought Nader had a bigger ego than even Gore or Bush. But, I've voted Green every presidential election since, and one Congressional race where I had the opportunity, too.
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