The wrongness of Adolph Reed on Clinton, Stein, Greens, third parties

Early this year, as I expanded my left-liberal political reading, via Doug Henwood, I came across Adolph Reed Jr.

Good thought. As an academic, someone in a position to speak freely.

And then ...

He dives not just reluctantly, but vigorously, into the shallow pool of lesser-evilism and says Vote Clinton. And, in so doing, and yes, I'm critiquing a political science professor, I think he offers up an incorrect view of voting as instrumentalism and more.

I too think voting is an instrumental tool. Specifically, he offers the wrong instrumental angle.

Of course, Reed is also apparently ignorant of 1930s Germany. From what I understand, the German Communists DID try to ally with (or co-opt?) the Social Democrats. The SPD repeatedly, and out of principle, rejected the approaches.

Reed nowhere says he thinks the SPD should have denied the approaches. Now, even if he's unaware of the reality, he still could have answered a hypothetical version of this in yes or no fashion.