Voting. Think of it like public transportation. Think of it like a bus service. There’s a place you want/need to go to. But there’s no bus line that will take you directly to that place. So what do you do?
You take the bus that gets you closest to where you want to be.
For me, that bus is driven by Joe Biden. Yes, he’s old and believes that the institutions of democracy will save us. Yes, his role in aiding the Palestinian genocide and his actions in support of Netanyahu are unforgivable. I could provide a long list of his faults and flaws. But he’s also the bus driver that will get the bus closer to where I want this nation to be. It might only a few blocks closer, but closer is closer.
Trump, on the other hand, wants to take the bus in the opposite direction. A big chunk of the US population is in favor of that. There are also a few third party bus drivers who have plans for the bus, and they all have their supporters. But let’s be honest about that; no bus driven by a third party driver is going to leave the terminal. That’s just a fact.
Here’s a True Thing: you’re on the bus. Whether you like it or not, if you’re a US citizen, you’re on the bus. That gives you the right to vote to decide who’ll be driving it. But here’s another True Thing: your choices are basically limited to two old white guys: Biden or Trump. Sure, there are those third party folks out there who’d LIKE to drive the bus. Some of them might be much better bus drivers than either Biden or Trump. But the reality is, it’s going to be one of the two old white guys. That’s just another fact.
So what do you do if you don’t like those two old white guys? You can choose NOT to vote; you can forfeit your right to choose the bus driver. You can opt out. You can tell yourself there’s no difference between those two old white guys. You can claim they’re both awful, that one is only marginally less evil than the other. You can argue that less evil is still evil and you won’t vote for evil.
That’s fine. But you’re still on the bus, as are all your friends and family. If you opt out, you have to be willing to ignore the fact that less evil is still less evil. You have to ignore the fact that less evil is a better choice than more evil.
You also have the option to cast your vote for a bus driver other than Biden or Trump, one of those third party drivers. You can, in fact, choose to vote for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver. You can tell yourself that voting for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver–that voting your conscience–is absolutely the right thing to do, the moral and ethical thing to do. But you know the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver isn’t going to get enough votes to drive the bus. You know either Trump or Biden IS going to be driving the bus. No matter how much you hate knowing this, you still know it’s true.
In effect, voting for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver is passively accepting whichever old white guy eventually wins. Whoever wins, you can tell yourself (and others) it’s not your fault. You can blame everybody else for not being wise enough to vote for the BEST POSSIBLE bus driver. You can’t be held responsible for the direction the bus takes. You can take comfort in that, if/when the bus goes in the wrong direction.
The bus isn’t going to wait. The bus is on a schedule. Come November, one of those two old white guys will be chosen to drive the bus in January of 2025. You can help choose which one. Or you can shrug it off.
It sucks. But here we are and there it is.
gregfallis.com 
My take on voting for the Best Possible Candidate is “save it for the local elections where they might actually have a chance of driving the smaller bus or Meals on Wheels van or whatever vehicle that particular office is in charge of”. That’s where the real trickly up is.
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Yes, that’s exactly right. The way to build a successful 3rd party is to establish yourself at the municipal level–school board, city council. Then get candidates at the county level, then the state, and eventually federal.
You have to build the foundation before the steeple.
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That’s how the Republican party has been doing it for decades, now.
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I love this. So well put and so applicable to the UK right now as well. We both face elections with imperfect candidates and we both have thousands of people declaring they won’t vote for X or Y because of this or that and will be voting Green, or Lib Dems or even smaller parties with good ideas but no possibility of driving the bus. Most could not even climb the steps into the bus.
It really worries me, this cutting nose off to spite face attitude that is so prevalent.
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It takes a long time to construct a nationally viable political party. Y’all at least have a long history of multiple political parties, even if many/most of them are only successful at local or county levels. The US is effectively a 2-party system and will stay that way until alternate political views organize at more local levels.
Until that happens, it just makes sense to vote for the most viable party that comes closest to fulfilling your political goals.
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Yes, we do have a variety of parties, but because of the way First Past the Post voting works and the constituency boundaries, only 2 of them, Labour and Conservative, ever get into power at a country-wide General Election. The third biggest party, the Liberal Democrats, only ever get to power by the back door, if someone chooses to go into coalition with them in a hung parliament. Shame, as they are much more of an even keel, middle of the road kind of party. I lie, they did get into power in the past, but not since politicians wore frock coats (1906).
We have a far right, used to be small, now worryingly bigger and full of thugs and morons and rich manipulators, and a far left who would be communists if they could. They are also pretty thuggish. Neither are welcome in a caring society, but we loose votes to them at the big elections so important vote areas can have low voting for the main parties. American politics is quite right leaning by our standards, and pushing much further that way under fools like trump. You don’t really have a left. The Democrats lean to the mid and right when mapped with ours. But of course if I lived in the US I’d be a Democrat. As you say, there’s no other choice.
It’s very worrying right now, politics. But it’s also very interesting and shows us all sorts of things about ourselves and how we are doing as a species. Right now, no one seems to be doing very well.
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Exactly, thanks for reinforcing my thoughts
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It’s frustrating to have your choices limited to which candidate is least offensive. That said, Biden has accomplished more than I thought possible–especially given the hot mess of the House GOP. He’s been great on unions, on student loan relief, on the infrastructure. It doesn’t mitigate the disaster of Gaza or his inaction on SCOTUS reform…but here we are.
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