The Leftist Case for Voting—Yes, Even for Biden – Slate
There’s a surplus of despair in the American far left these days.
Between Joe Biden’s ongoing support for the mass slaughter in Gaza, the Supreme Court’s abysmally craven decision to grant Donald Trump near-total legal immunity, and the chaotic fallout from the first presidential debate, those who once might have voted for Bernie Sanders are finding quite little to feel hopeful about. As a result, more than a few people on the left are thinking about not voting altogether. I see the grim, burn-it-all-down sentiments stream past my eyes on my social feeds all day, every day.
First of all: I get it.
Let’s say Biden remains the Democratic candidate. If a leftist thinks of a vote as a moral endorsement of a politician, then the case for them abstaining is straightforward. They don’t want to empower Biden, who has been tepid (at best) on core left priorities like restraining state violence, defending abortion, enshrining trans rights, and—perhaps most importantly—stopping the carnage in Palestine. This was all the case before he showed himself to be perhaps dangerously infirm.
Leftists who don’t like Biden don’t want to see him in office again, so they don’t want to vote for him, or they want to withhold their vote until he changes course. Seems simple enough.
But that’s not how politics works.
The point of electoral politics, as it is lived, is not to vote for a friend; it’s to vote for your preferred enemy. You will never find a morally pure candidate, or one whose positions perfectly align with your own preferences. So you must find one whom you can effectively bully.
It’s often said that desiring to be president is a psychosis that should disqualify anyone who actually wants the job. I happen to agree. Never, in the history of this country, has there been a president who hasn’t engaged in what the left would regard as unforgivable crimes. This is the nature of presidents, and politicians in general. If you, like me, are on the far left, you should never fully trust or have faith in any elected official.
But when I look at the Biden administration, I see a group of people who can be bullied in a leftist direction on some policy priorities. They have, at times, responded to pressure from their left wing in Congress (the so-called Squad and others), as well as pressure from unions and advocacy campaigns. They’ve already made huge strides on climate, they’ve brought forward anti-monopoly cases, and they pulled out of Afghanistan, among other actions.
It’s far less than what is needed, to be sure—but it’s far more than what we’re going to get if the left withholds its vote in significant numbers.
Whenever I get into arguments about voting with my more hardcore friends, the conversation always turns sour when we get to this question: What happens when Biden loses in November?
The answer, of course, is that Trump becomes president again. And Project 2025 flies into effect. And the country goes mask-off fascist. And trans people like me become illegal by our very existence. And Israel “finishes the job” in Gaza with vocal cheering from the White House. And Trump has his enemies imprisoned or worse with impunity. And the world teeters on the brink. And so on.
Usually, when I get to this portion of my rant with these friends, they say they think all that stuff will happen whether or not they vote. There’s a tendency to say Biden is just as bad as Trump, or that Trump will be able to take power even if Biden gets more votes. They’ve completely lost faith in the system.
Once again: Yes, this system is broken! It’s always been broken! But are you really going to argue that elections don’t have consequences?
When I was 14 years old, I was a huge fan of Ralph Nader. As a teenage anti-sweatshop activist, I believed that he was the only candidate in the 2000 presidential election who was speaking the truth and advocating for my policy goals. I went to a Nader rally in my hometown of Chicago, where the great journalist Studs Terkel spoke. I’ll never forget what he said in his nasal bark: “Gore or Bush, what’s your choice? Influenza or pneumonia, what’s your choice?”
It all sounds like nonsense to me now. Can anyone today truly argue that the world wasn’t drastically changed by Gore’s loss in 2000? Even if you don’t accept the argument that Nader’s candidacy is what lost Gore the election, how can you argue that the world wouldn’t have been at least a little better if all of those Nader votes had gone to Gore and put the Dems over the top?
It’s difficult to understand what the don’t-vote leftists think they will accomplish as a result of Biden losing. Do they hope that the worsening conditions will bring about the Revolution? Be serious. Where is the radical left that could make such a thing happen? Where is the leftist infrastructure, unity, or discipline that would be necessary for a triumph at the national level from American communists, anarchists, or even socialists?
In Weimar Germany, where the German Communist Party was far more robust and ready to fight in the streets, the revolution-oriented strategy—allowing a fascist victory to raise urgency and bring about a more lasting leftist one—didn’t work. Infamously, in the fateful early years of the 1930s, the German Communists viciously opposed the governing center-left Social Democratic Party. Calling the centrists “Social Fascists,” they declared that there was no substantive difference between liberalism and Nazism. They refused to ally themselves with the center.
Although the Communists did not originate the much-quoted phrase “Nach Hitler, kommen wir” (“After Hitler, we’re coming”), it was very much their policy. The belief was that Hitler might come to power, but that Nazi misrule would only rally support to the Communists, leading to a glorious revolution.
Well, it didn’t go that way, did it?
Instead of echoing the hardline leftists of 1931, the American left should look to their counterparts in France of 2024. The world has breathed a sigh of relief over the shocking upset against Marine Le Pen’s far-right party in the recent legislative elections there. The key to that victory was a last-minute alliance of the centrist liberals and the radical left. It worked.
With any luck, the French left will follow through by using their legislative plurality to bully their centrist president into being better. It won’t be a revolution, but I’ll certainly take it over Vichy 2.0. Let us follow their example.
There’s still time to avoid the omnicatastrophe that would be a fascist takeover of the nuclear-armed United States. We don’t have to play the organizing game on the highest difficulty level, which is what the left is looking at in the event of a Trump victory. The man all but wants to formally establish a Christian dictatorship, dismantle the very idea of federal regulations, outlaw contraception, and round up and deport millions of immigrants. And that’s just a taste of the hellish chaos that looms.
The ballot box might not be enough, but we cannot abandon it out of depressive nihilism. We must build an alternative political structure and put pressure on politicians every day, not just once every four years. But we won’t have the opportunity to do that if Trump is president and makes such organizing illegal.
Leon Trotsky himself urged the German Communists to reconsider their foolish pride in 1931. “Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank,” he declared, accurately. “Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!”
Once again, the hour grows late. This November, leftist apathy can only bring disaster. Workers of the world, unite with your liberal foes; if you do not, you have everything to lose.
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