The Lesser of Two Evils:
A Note on Voting 2024
~~Bill Ayers, Chicago
Two different things can be true at the same time: the lesser of two evils is still evil; the lesser of two evils is lesser. More than one thing is happening at once. Contradiction—the universal experience of all humanity.
Think about the coming election: There are many, many reasons not to vote: perhaps you’re disconnected from politics and turned off by all the phoniness and mindless bickering; perhaps you recognize that the options are almost indistinguishable on the big issues—a choice between Teweedledum and Tweedledummer—and you agree with Karl Marx that bourgeois democracy offers nothing more than a ritual to decide, in effect, which member of the ruling class will misrepresent us; perhaps you see the ways that voting is corrupted by big money and manipulated by power, and you note that the political class represents a monied minority and that the electoral college makes voting irrelevant; or perhaps you’re organizing and acting toward more substantive change, and you embrace Rosa Luxemburg’s insight that if we could bring about a revolution through elections, voting would be illegal.
I get all that.
Still, I’ll go out and vote on election day, as I always have. And I always will. Here’s why:
~~Because I work as an organizer, activist, and engaged citizen, and I fight for a world at peace and in balance, a community built on joy and justice and powered by love for 365 days a year, and because voting takes 15 minutes and in no way distracts me from the substantive work I’m committed to doing day in and day out.
~~Because for me voting is, in the words of Rebecca Solnit, a chess move and not a valentine. My vote is not a love letter to any candidate, and it never has been. It is, rather, a tactical decision about the preferred landscape on which I’ll carry out my political work—my movement-making, community-building, abolitionist organizing, and pivots to peace. It’s also a recognition that, while the difference between the two major capitalist political parties is only an inch, a lot of vulnerable people exist within that inch. I also like Barbara Ransby’s analogy: voting is like brushing your teeth—it takes only a few minutes, but if you don’t do it, bad things could happen.
~~Because non-voting doesn’t strike a blow for reform nor does it do a thing to diminish or abolish the core archaic institutions of anti-democracy—the electoral college, the supreme court, the senate—nor does it gesture toward a robust or participatory democracy. A coordinated collective campaign can be powerful—the movement to write in “Undecided” or “Gaza” during the 2024 Democratic Party primary was a brilliant tactic, and part of a larger strategy to put genocide and occupation on the national agenda. But not voting does not stick it to the man—it doesn’t even send a message.
~~Because you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. See cataclysmic capitalist climate collapse, for one clear example, or see the Dobbs decision for another
~~Because voter suppression is real—blatant ideological gerrymandering, new registration and ID requirements, shortened voting periods and fewer voting sites, limits on mail-in ballots, intimidation and bullying, felony disenfranchisement, vast sums of money poured into colorful and entertaining but rarely educational or illuminating ads, and more—it’s clear that the ruling class doesn’t want people to vote. So I’ll vote.
~~Because voting is a practical, not a moral matter, and it takes nothing away from my deeper and more sustained forms of engagement: organizing, demonstrating, acting up and acting out.
~~Because we are living in perilous times: a new and escalating cold war with China; a hot and destructive proxy war in Europe and a preannounced genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza underway; raging and racialized police violence unchecked; environmental collapse on full display; fragile and often anemic democratic institutions on life support; religious authoritarianism on the rise; women’s bodily integrity under sustained assault. And because we’re also living in hopeful times—twenty-six million people took to the streets in 2020 in response to the police murder of George Floyd, the largest public outpouring for racial justice in history; the militant resistance to the US partnership with and complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, including the brilliant campus encampments and the widespread public disruptions; women across a wide political spectrum have refused to accept a medieval definition of their rights; labor has won historic, game-changing victories, from the Writers Guild of America to the United Auto Workers, and from Amazon to Starbucks; and broad forces are on the march worldwide to resist plunder and extraction and to preserve life on earth. Once again, more than one thing is happening at once, and so I wake up every day and glance at these words written on my wall: “Just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” Contradiction.
~~Because I worked shoulder to shoulder with people who fought and died for our right to exercise the franchise, and I take that seriously. I think about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Civil Rights martyrs James Chaney, Micky Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. My vote is a blood debt to them.
~~Because people all over the world are dying—literally dying—for the right to vote. Voting is a fundamental right and responsibility in a free society—without the right to vote, and without exercising that right, we’re all a little less free.
~~And, finally because I think self-righteousness is annoying and always wrong, and so I don’t want to unite with my comrades and friends who are acting holier-than-thou as they smugly announce, “I’m so smart and wide awake that I didn’t even vote—like you suckers and pathetic sheep. How cool is that?” Not that cool.
So, here we are—in a place not of our choosing. And no matter what you do, and no matter what I do, there will be a national election in November. Among other things, a president will be elected. I don’t actually think democracy is on the agenda as the Democrats say—and I wish it were—but a unique American fascism is surely on the agenda.
Here are four reasons you might want to vote for Donald Trump:
- If you think that “America has forgotten how to win wars,” and that the American-endorsed and funded Israeli assault on the Palestinian people has been too restrained, and that Israel should “finish the job,” then vote for Trump.
- If you think that women should have no right to control their own bodies, and that politicians should determine reproductive rights, vote for Trump.
- If you think “global warming” is a hoax, vote for Trump.
- And if you think the filthy rich should be allowed to live tax free, and that corporations should be allowed to function without public oversight, vote for Trump.
And here are four reasons to stay home and skip the election:
- If you think that “America has forgotten how to win wars,” and that the American-endorsed and funded Israeli assault on the Palestinian people has been too restrained, and that Israel should “finish the job,” then skip the election.
- If you think that women have no right to control their own bodies, and that politicians should determine reproductive rights, skip the election.
- If you think “global warming” is a hoax, skip the election.
- And if you think the filthy rich should be allowed to live tax free, and that corporations should be allowed to function without public oversight, skip the election.
I don’t think peace and justice organizers should spend our time staring at that castle up on that distant hill, or those sites of power we have no real access to like the White House or the medieval auction block we call the Congress or Wall Street or the Pentagon. Rather we should lean into mobilizing the awesome power within our reach—in the neighborhood or at the point of production, in the school or the classroom or the house of worship. This is not only more productive, but it will help keep us centered and sane. Remember that the real work of the powerful Civil Rights struggles and the movement against the American war in Vietnam was in the communities and among masses of people; the ruling class adjusted, conceded (a bit), and backed up. But the central work then, as always, was not begging for change from above, but igniting and building an irresistible fire from below.
Whether you vote or not, I hope we can all open our eyes and pay attention to the world as it really is, allow ourselves to be astonished at the beauty and ecstasy in every direction as well as the unnecessary pain—exploitation, oppression, degradation—that people suffer, and then speak up and act out. Take up the most urgent work right now: join a community or a labor union, create a community coop, build a community group to monitor police activity, plant a community garden—note that the operative word here is “community.” Move from apathy and alienation to engaged participation, from toxic individualism to solidarity. Dive into the wreckage, arm-in-arm, shoulder-to-shoulder, heart-to-heart, and work to reimagine and rebuild this broken world on a foundation of generosity, grace, and love.
Let’s go!