How to Vote Your Conscience in a Rigged System:
A Vote for a Lesser Evil is a Still a Vote for Evil
It is impossible to engage in any form of social media and not see the passionate rhetoric of people exhorting the need to vote for their candidate of choice or if not of choice then for their candidate of lesser evil. As we move closer to the primary conventions the bombast grows stronger and deeper. This year’s election rhetoric is akin to the sickly and nerdy kids in grade school trying to decide which of the schoolyard bullies has their best interests at heart or which one wont beat them up as badly and in the process bloody each others’ noses.
Donald Trump is, barring any last minute hail Mary passes by the Republican National Committee, the Republican nominee. The July convention in Cleveland is, fittingly, being held at the Quicken Loans Arena named after the mortgage lender that was sued in 2015 by the US Justice Department for fraudulent lending. Quicken Loans made a killing in the mortgage bubble burst through government backed loans to clients it knew could not pay them back. It also lost in a Supreme Court decision in which it was ruled that Quicken must pay its employees overtime pay denied them. So it is fitting that the convention be held where it is because, while the GOP is traditionally perceived as the party of fiscal responsibility, small government, and States’ rights, its real values lie in fraud, unfair labor practices, racism, homophobia, and rip-offs of US citizens as well as wars of aggression abroad to exert US imperialism. The Cleveland police department has announced that it has prepared its new military grade weapons and crowd control equipment for any protests at the event.
The Democratic convention in Philadelphia, also in July is, fittingly being held at the Wells Fargo Center. Wells Fargo was also involved in receiving bailout funds from the federal government for loans in which, according to an investigation by Rolling Stone Magazine,
“Wells Fargo wrongfully certified more than 100,000 mortgages as being eligible for federal mortgage insurance. Basically, Wells Fargo screwed the FHA and HUD by mass-approving loans without regard for whether they were defective or not.”
The Philly police, the town notorious for bombing an entire block of its own citizens, also has its paramilitary police force prepared for any attempts at free speech in the form of violent or non-violent protest. And there is every reason to believe that there will be violent protest as this election cycle has ramped up the bluster and bravado of the supporters of the two remaining candidates and violence has already played out at numerous primary rallies although mostly at those of Trump.
Hillary Clinton is the presumed winner having had the Super Delegates stacked in her favor from before the primaries began. Bernie Sanders has whittled away every lead that Clinton had in every state leading up to their respective primaries, but he has not come away with a lead in delegates even in States where he overwhelming won. Plus, there are Super Delegates who have pledged to vote for Clinton regardless of where the majority of votes went in their states. Ironically, even in Sanders’ own state of Vermont, the other Senator, Patrick Leahy, a supposed progressive, has pledged his Super Delegate vote to the right-of-center Clinton even though Sanders won there by a large margin. The Democratic Party is traditionally perceived as the party of the working class, women’s rights, civil rights, LGBTI rights but its real values lie in cuddling up with big labor every four years while undercutting the rights of workers, mass incarceration of blacks, and taking huge amounts of donations from and bailing out the banksters all of which hurt women and people of color disproportionately. Oh, and they are proponents of wars of aggression abroad to exert US imperialism.
Both Cleveland and Philly will put on a dog and pony show for the citizenry to “elect” the office holder of the most powerful public relations position in the world. Don’t confuse “office holder” with “the leader of the free world” though. No president, with the possible exception of Roosevelt (thus it was his presidency that ushered in term limits) has led the world and many of his policies were forced out of him by the protests of rank and file members of the working class. Presidents are led by economic powers who have no interest in whether you and I live a decent quality of life. These powers only need us to do the labor that increases their wealth. This is the bottom line. As the empire crumbles, they will throw us a bone when there is enough of a rumbling or if the bone lends itself as an issue of political expediency, such as abortion rights, Social Security, Medicare, and the newest wedge issue Obamacare. These and any other of a dozen or so domestic policy issues that are used to keep people stuck in the ouroboros of voting for the lesser of the two evils.
Of course, all of those things are worth fighting for (except for Obamacare which should be scrapped and Medicare expanded for all). A woman’s right to choose her own health care is a no brainer and the religious zealotry around the pro-life canard is just that, an untruth used to keep emotions high, church pews and coffers full, and right wing donations flooding in. Politically it does nothing more than keep the lesser of two evil rhetoric alive. The same goes for providing a means of sustainable living for the elderly and those with disabilities as an emotional wedge issue. Social Security came out of Roosevelt’s New Deal, but it didn’t come about out of the kindness of FDR’s failing heart. It came from struggles in the street by labor unions and true socialists. Nor did pro-choice legislation spring from some legislator’s testicular laden groin. The right for a woman to have choice and access to healthcare came from centuries of women in the streets fighting against second class citizenship. Interestingly, Obamacare did spring from the groins of legislators and it is exactly what we get when we rely on change to come from within the system, a carrot that only feeds those who need it up to a point while greatly benefiting those whose greed it at first promised to reign in, namely the insurance industry. The stick part of this particular carrot and stick scenario is in the forms of high deductibles and out of pocket expenses and paying a penalty if you don’t participate in the scheme.
All of the advances for working people and the poor have come from the seeds sown by the blood of martyrs struggling in the streets for better living and working conditions. From Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 which, in part, included white indentured servants joining black slaves in an uprising against the Governor of Virginia; to 1887 where the Haymarket martyrs who fought for workers rights were murdered at the hands of the government which sowed the fight for the 8 hour work day; to the 1909 uprising of 20,000 female shirtwaist makers in a strike in New York against sweatshop conditions, and that same year unorganized immigrant steel workers went on strike in McKees Rocks, Pa. and won all their demands. Additionally, three years later, there was the Bread and Roses strike in Massachusetts begun by immigrant women which led to the increase in wages and betterment of working conditions and giving women a stronger voice in labor unions. Every year of FDR’s 12 years in office were bastions of labor struggles which left US workers with better benefits than anytime before and have been whittled away since starting with the implementation of the Taft Hartley Act in 1947 which restricted union activities. And then of course the Civil Rights Movement, Gay rights movement, feminists movements, immigrant’s rights movement, et. al.which have the bodies of martyrs strewn through each movements history and the great advances sown by their blood.
This is something lost to the majority of citizens especially in the US and most especially amongst the white population and those in the middle and upper classes. The rhetoric of “A vote for Sanders is a vote for Trump,” “Third party voting is a waste of a vote,” “You must be sexist if you don’t vote for Hillary,” “Remember, Nader voters stole the 2000 election from Gore,” all goes to the psychosis of the lesser of two evilism. Any attempt to discuss the farce or corruption in the system gets silence or is questioned with, “what’s the alternative, if you don’t vote than you are just letting them control it.” It really is like dealing with a person with psychosis stuck in a loop of circular reasoning. Fear is instilled by suggesting that their beliefs are the result of disorganized or dysfunctional thinking. Getting them to see alternative ways of behaving or thinking brings anger and paranoia. Thus the vitriolic rhetoric spewed across social media. The way to interact with someone who is experiencing a psychotic episode is to not reinforce the delusions and to calmly reassert rational thinking, Something almost impossible to do on Facebook or Twitter,
So, then, back to the question in the title of this piece, how do you vote your conscious in a rigged election? You can’t! Voting in a rigged system is akin to reinforcing the delusion. It adds legitimacy to the corruption. That is why primary seasons and run ups to General Elections appear so much like a circus, to get the audience engaged in the illusions. It was, after all, B.T. Barnum, the circus impresario, who coined the phrase, there’s a sucker born every minute.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” -Frederick Douglass
So, what now? Just sit on the sidelines and do nothing? For way too many people this seems to be the only alternative they can envision when all that I’ve stated has been pointed out. Voting as the only option to participating in the social order has been so ingrained in our psyches that only two options seem apparent, vote or sit on you hands. But voting is the absolute least action required in a democracy so much so that if that is all you do you have actually subverted democracy by leaving it up to “representatives” to fight for you. Representative Democracy too easily converts into a representation of democracy and then to what we have now, an election with candidates all beholden to those who don’t give a rat’s ass about you.
“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” ― Frederick Douglass
So let’s break through this delusion by means of voting with our feet, in the streets, disrupting business as usual. We can make our voice heard by organizing. Organize with your coworkers, your classmates, your neighbors. Find an organization that is already working and join in their efforts. Seek out groups with people from different cultures and backgrounds and, at first, shut up and listen. Learn. Find out what commonalities you have with their oppression or ways that your lifestyle has added to it. Offer to help in their struggle. Stop participating in those things that cause the oppression of others. Wake up!
