The Evil of Lesser-Evil Voting: Bernie supporters should vote Green

Amid multiple lawsuits claiming election fraud, leaks of Democratic National Committee emails showing collusion between the party, the media, and Hillary Clinton to undermine Bernie Sanders ’ candidacy, and the protests of tens of thousands of activists who showed up in Philadelphia to protest the theft of their votes, Hillary Clinton has secured the Democratic nomination. And while many of us who supported Bernie Sanders are deeply troubled by the extensive evidence of election fraud, not to mention the serious progressive shortcomings of the nominee, we are repeatedly admonished to forget our misgivings and vote for Clinton.

The stern rebukes come even from many former Sanders supporters who can see nothing beyond their fear of a possible Trump presidency. For these voters, there is no longer any discussion of Clinton’s hawkishness or corporate allegiances, only an all-consuming fear of the alternative. 

And while it goes without saying that fear of Trump is well-founded, this silencing of debate is an insidious evil all its own. The danger in promoting a lesser-evil voting strategy is that we gloss over the very real evils represented by what the Democratic Party and its standard-bearers have become.

Clinton’s positions on trade and foreign policy are among the greatest concerns. Though her position has shifted since encountering Sanders’ critiques of the disastrous effects of free trade agreements on American workers and the environment, Clinton as Secretary of State was an enthusiastic cheerleader of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—the global trade deal that would undermine environmental, consumer, and worker protections to an unprecedented degree. Its provisions, shaped by lobbyists for the multinational corporations who are its beneficiaries, include rules that—for exampleallow corporations to sue national governments for regulations that diminish their profits, and that allow pharmaceutical companies to maintain longer patents on brand-name drugs and block distribution of cheaper generics. Many of its other provisions are equally chilling, and should result in its rejection out of hand by any candidate who brands herself as a progressive. And yet Clinton’s allies refused to incorporate rejection of the TPP into the Democratic Party platform, and the authenticity of Clinton’s professed opposition is widely disputed .

On foreign policy, Clinton has not even made an effort to conceal her hawkishness—which, if Trump’s campaign rhetoric is to be believed, places her firmly to his right. In addition to her support for the war in Iraq, for the bombing of Libya, for U.S. pursuit of regime change in Syria which led not only to the displacement of more than 10 million Syrians but to the death of more than 250,000, she has given every indication that her actions as president would do nothing to ameliorate long-festering global conflicts. When the U.S. already gives $3 billion annually in military aid to Israel—aid that has contributed to the deaths of over 2,000 Palestinian children—when settlements in the Occupied Territories continue in violation of international law, when even George W. Bush spoke in favor of a two-state solution and when Netanyahu humiliated Obama by brazenly accepting an invitation to speak before the Republican U.S. Congress just last year, a “progressive” candidate might be expected to at least soften the pro-Israel hard line. Yet Clinton’s speech to AIPAC this spring might have been written by the belligerently pro-Israel lobby group  itself, with promises for even more aid to Netanyahu and not even a passing acknowledgement of Palestinian humanity.

These are but a few examples of the ways in which a Clinton presidency would represent enormous rollbacks of progress for consumers, the environment, and global peace. It may be that Donald Trump represents the greater threat to the well-being of more living creatures—from Muslim-Americans to the trophy-hunted species killed by his sonsbut this does not negate the very real evils represented by Clinton and the establishment that surrounds her. It is only through open acknowledgement of these evils that we can have any hope of battling their further entrenchment should Clinton become president.

So rather than directing their energies toward browbeating Sanders supporters into a “hold your nose” vote for the establishment that has trampled their hopes for a more inclusive and sustainable society, Clinton supporters could learn a thing or two from the historic Sanders campaign. Having called over 7,000 voters, attended activist training camps, canvassed door-to-door and handed out flyers over many afternoons prior to my state’s primary, and spoken to low-income seniors about Sanders’ positions on Social Security and Medicare—and encountered many activists who did much more—I would suggest that those who really wish to avoid a Trump presidency devote themselves to massive voter outreach efforts of the kind that made the Sanders campaign a force to be reckoned with.

Though Clinton’s flaws as a candidate will make an uphill battle out of any undertaking to inspire greater enthusiasm for her candidacy, surely these efforts will be more fruitful than attempting to convince committed Sanders supporters to rally around the embodiment of everything they have fought against.

In fact, Sanders supporters –particularly those who do not live in swing states—can do far more with their votes by casting them for Green party candidate Jill Stein than by falling in line behind Clinton. Unless you live in one of the only fourteen or so battleground states , your reluctant vote for Clinton is a waste of an opportunity to register a meaningful protest of the rigged election, the distastefulness of either nominee, and the two-party system itself. If Jill Stein and the Green Party poll at 15%, Stein participates in the presidential debates; if she receives just 5% of the vote in the presidential election, the Green party becomes eligible for public funding in future elections. And these are developments that might eventually force the two parties to address the abandoned constituencies—working people and the environment—whose cause Bernie Sanders and the Green Party have finally championed. 

Jill Stein may not be Bernie Sanders, but a vote for her is not just a vote for the progress we began to believe was possible when Bernie announced his candidacy. It is a message to the establishment Democratic Party that it is on the losing side of history.  And in non-swing states, it is a message that has no downside.

In swing states, voters must decide which brand of evil they can most easily stomach: the brash, reckless evil that puts bigotry and hatred on full display, or the more subtle, insidious evil that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few and further tramples the vulnerable. But pretending the latter is somehow benign merely because it is less blatant only undermines our power to resist it, and to organize an effective progressive movement that will ultimately transform it.