It’s Election Day here in the US—though, I dropped off my absentee ballot a while ago. I voted for Kamala Harris, and I still feel some guilt about it.
To be fair, I feel guilt about almost anything I ever do. I also struggle to not internalize so much of the stuff I read on the internet, and there are some leftists (or even just US left-wingers) that seem to be shaming people for voting for Kamala Harris or even for voting at all.
Why do I care? Well, I’d fit under the labels of leftist and anarchist and anti-capitalist and progressive, so that’s what I typically say I am for simplicity’s sake—you could even call me woke. Yeah, I’ve read some theory, I know some names—Marx, Kropotkin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Bordiga, Engels, Hegel, Emma Goldman, Max Stirner, and so on. Now you know that I’m totally legit and super serious. I’ve passed the purity test.
But what are the internet people talking about? I’m going to paint some arguments quickly and with broad strokes, but I’m not trying to strawman any position or put words in anyone’s mouth.
Why I shouldn’t vote for Kamala Harris
The common arguments that I’ve seen are that…
Democrats aren’t left enough. In the US, they represent (poorly) our political left wing; however, overall, they are often labeled as being in the center or even being right-leaning.
Kamala Harris will still support the genocide in Gaza—or, at the very least, she won’t do anything to stop it.
Kamala Harris isn’t the lesser evil—or, even if she is, that’s still not a good enough reason to vote for her.
Overall, a vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for capitalism, genocide, the status quo, bourgeois interests, etc.
The following quote is from the Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League by Marx and Engels:
Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.
Why I shouldn’t vote at all
Well, I’ll just let the Internationalist Communist Tendency explain it. The following quote is from their FAQ about why they don’t participate in elections:
In the bourgeoise social formation, the bourgeoisie owns the production means and so virtually it detains all the power (economic, political e military). For this reason, we say that the current political system, the so-called bourgeise democracy, at its roots is a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”. Elections are simply the puppet theatre of politics to legitimate the power in the hands of the bourgeoisie. They deck the system with a people mandate and, at the same time, they let it appear as “democratic”. Elections are the moment in which the bourgeoise parliamentary democracy concedes, to those exploited, the freedom to elect their own owners – to be chosen among those who have demonstrated to know how to defend the interests of the bourgeoise class at best. To participate in elections means to back this democratic mystification and to help the bourgeoisie in its dictatorship: exactly the one they call “democracy”.
Against the fraud of the bourgeoise parliament, the abstentionism on class positions has to be relaunched; not certainly to legitimate apathy and apolitical individualism, but to engage in restarting class struggle, in workplaces and in streets, and in rebuilding the revolutionary party. Parliamentary roads will never led to abolishing the exploitation of wage work, neither to acquiring any long lasting “right” (as they are incorrectly called today). Only the mounting class struggle can oblige the capital to momentarily concede some space. Only the proletarian revolution can create the conditions to realize a society without exploitation.
Why I voted for Kamala Harris anyway
In the greater context, I don’t think voting for Kamala Harris gets in the way of anything that I want.
A vote for a capitalist is a vote for a capitalist. A vote for a genocide-enabler is a vote for a genocide-enabler. Yet, either way, the US is getting a capitalist and a genocide-enabler as a president, right? I can’t find much wrong (in this context) with choosing the lesser evil.
I don’t feel like I have blood on my hands—well, not any more so than usual—for voting for a capitalist genocide-enabler. On the contrary, I feel like I may have less blood on my hands—less blood of marginalized peoples, less blood of the poor, of the non-white, of the queer, etc.
I could vote for a third party, but any candidate other than Kamala Harris and Donald Trump isn’t viable. And, yes, that seems like a trap! If I don’t vote for a third party, then it can’t be viable! I get it. But here’s a shameful secret of mine: in 2016, I voted third party.
It all makes sense now. I’ve talked about guilt, I’ve talked about shame. It’s clear that I’m just motivated by that shame/guilt from 2016 to not vote for a third party again. Well, yeah, maybe a bit. I think that the “other timeline” where Hilary Clinton was president instead of Donald Trump might’ve been nicer for a lot of people. Would it have led to the fall of capitalism? Or to the dictatorship of the proletariat? No—but Donald Trump’s presidency didn’t lead to that either. (For the oldies, don’t you think an Al Gore presidency would’ve been at least a little better than a Bush one? Hindsight.)
I keep hearing that we need to organize, that direct action is more helpful, that mutual aid is more helpful, and that the only solution is the revolution. I don’t really disagree. But is it really that difficult (for most of us) to take a chunk out of one day to go vote? Like, is the revolution happening today? No? Okay, then there’s time to vote, I guess.
Am I some liberal apologist? Some neoliberal bootlicker? Am I a coconut-pilled Biden-maxxer? Have I been brainwashed? Have I succumbed to propaganda? I’m so full of guilt and doubt, and I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. You know what a brainwashed person would say? “No, I’m not brainwashed.” So, how would I know? How could I ever trust myself? Yet, if that’s the case, how could I ever trust anyone else?
This is how I see it:
- A vote for Kamala Harris is a vote for Kamala Harris.
- A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Donald Trump.
- Withholding a vote for Kamala Harris (whether by voting for a third party or by not voting at all) is essentially a vote for Donald Trump.
Well, I don’t want Donald Trump to win, so I voted for Kamala Harris.
I’m not going to say that we will push Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party more left. Project 2025 is scary, but maybe it’s just another boogeyman to coerce us into voting blue no matter who.
Yeah, this is all pretty annoying. Yeah, I’m not, like, super excited and thrilled about it. No, I don’t think voting is going to save the day, but, again, I only had to save one day to vote.
When is the revolution coming?
I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem like it’s coming today. So, like I said, I think that means that many of us have the time to go out and vote.
But there’s one last snag, isn’t there? If the only solution is a revolution, what if accelerationism is the only (or fastest) path toward it?
The people will be too complacent and comfortable under Kamala Harris to start the revolution! Because, if you want to boil a frog, then…
The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly.
Having Donald Trump as president is the only way to ensure that the revolution is hastily on its way! Maybe.
Though, could a “slow boil” allow people to better organize and take direct action in the meantime? Also maybe.
Is this just the trolley problem?
You know the one. There’s a trolley heading down a track. The track splits into two tracks. On the straight track, five people are tied to the track. On the diverging track, one person is tied to the track. In this scenario, the trolley will continue from the starting track to the straight track, which means that five people will be killed by the trolley. You are there, standing next to a lever that controls the switch rails, which means it controls whether the trolley goes down the straight track or the diverging track.
Do you pull the lever?
I say yes. All other things considered equal or equivalent, I’d intervene to save as many lives as possible.
Some folks say no. The arguments seems to be that one takes responsibility by pulling the lever, but, if one does not pull the lever, then one does not take responsibility. If you do not pull the lever, then five people die. If you pull the lever, then you kill one person.
Action vs. inaction. Intervention vs. non-intervention.
But what if action and inaction are the same? What if there’s no fundamental difference? What if not pulling the lever does mean that you killed five people?
It may seem scary or absurd because that line of reasoning would seem to imply that I’m responsible for every single bad thing that I don’t prevent.
Yet, I think that’s more true than not.
Oh no. We’re back to guilt. I know, I know. I may be biased, but I do feel some amount of guilt for every single bad thing that I don’t prevent. Yet, it’s not black-and-white. The guilt, theoretically, would be proportional to my power to prevent said bad thing. I have very little power to immediately stop the murder of innocent children in Palestine, but I still feel guilty about it. Why? Because I’ve justified not exercising that power.
I’ll explain. I know this person who bitched about the fact that no one had killed a particular former president (PFP)—whether recently or during their presidency. They’d say that it seemed unbelievable that not a single person around PFP had killed them. They’d say it seems like one person with a ballpoint pen could just kill PFP. But I asked the person why they wouldn’t just kill PFP then. If it’s just that easy, if it’s attainable, then why isn’t it that person’s responsibility? Why doesn’t that person just get a ballpoint pen and make it happen? Why is it someone else’s responsibility to “defeat” the “evil” that the person wants to be rid of? Ugh, but this person has a spouse and kids, so it shouldn’t be this person’s responsibility! As if that’s some kind of unique or special situation. No, we justify our actions to ourselves, including justifying not exercising our power, and it often feels easy and convenient to try to offload that entire responsibility onto someone else. At the very least, it’s easy to ignore one’s own potential responsibility (even if very small) while focusing on someone/something that has a greater potential responsibility. (Another good example would be climate change, pollution, carbon emissions, etc. Yes, this shit is mostly the fault of governments and corporations and billionaires, but I can try to contribute to the solution while also trying to hold those others accountable.)
Pull the lever. Either way, I assign you responsibility—whether you like it or not. That’s really how “responsibility” works.
This is just propaganda!
I mean, yeah. I’m pushing an agenda.
Find me the agenda that doesn’t get pushed with propaganda.
It’s propaganda all the way down.
We’ve all been indoctrinated.
I just think that my propaganda and my indoctrination is better.
Plus, this is all a bit too little, too late. Only half of Election Day remains, and I doubt I’m changing any minds at the last second. I stand by what I’ve said here, though, and I think it will be interesting to come back in a year or four or eight to see how I feel about it—like a little time capsule.
Well, future Greyson, did you remember to come back and read this? What did/do/will you think? Hmm. Maybe I should print this out just in case the internet no longer exists because of WW3 or something.
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