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September 2004

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Election Logic

By Michael Albert
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September 2004
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J ohn Kerry is a rich, white, male, Yale, Skull and Bones, Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States. George Bush is a rich, white, male, Yale, Skull and Bones, Republican Party candidate for President of the United States. They are both lifetime members of the community of capital and are both, as a result, committed to maintaining and, when possible, expanding the rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else. 

Despite these cookie cutter similarities, if we consider the likely implications of their respective Administrations for abortion, affirmative action, environmental protection, global warming, the minimum wage, nuclear testing, overtime pay, same-sex marriage, health care, taxation, and a host of other issues, most people will see a difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. 

How big a difference we see and how we react to it will depend on how consequential we find it that a million or more people don’t have work or how important we think the right to safe and legal abortions is or whether we value people getting overtime pay or whether we care about having an increased minimum wage or having cleaner water to drink. 

Such differences, if improved by Kerry instead of impeded and reversed by Bush, will be modest even compared to what caring liberals would like and will certainly be tiny compared to the difference between our society as it is now and our society as it ought to be in a better future. On the other hand, many people will find the prospective gains very large when referenced in terms of the pain and suffering associated with a Bush program versus a Kerry program. 

But what about the price of supporting a Democrat? Some may feel that voting Democrat and telling others to do so compromises their integrity and undercuts the potential for opposing Democrats later. But which is going to be easier, (a) activists trying to get average U.S. citizens to agree that more jobs, better pay, better conditions, and most likely less war and repression don’t matter enough to warrant voting; or (b) activists proposing that people vote for Kerry but also realize that doing so is not the end of the battle, but only the beginning. 

Regarding working for a Democrat, which is to say actively celebrating the Party platform, the implications for our integrity seem far greater. We would be literally lying or we would have to transform our views so we weren’t lying. It would be transferring time, energy, and assets from more radical and movement oriented work to less—or at least it would be in the eyes of many activists. 

Some may say, in contrast to the above, that electing Bush is actually even better in the long run than electing Kerry. He is so much more brutal, so much more open about his motives, that it will be easier for dissenters to rally after his reelection than after Kerry’s election. Of course, this thinking implies that if Hitler were running against Kerry we ought to vote for Hitler and celebrate his victory as he is even more brutal. This is an odd, but not entirely unprecedented mode of thought. In Hitler’s election, the slogan of the German Communist Party was “After Hit- ler, us.” 

Perhaps, in addition to such duplicity and callousness, when the country swings rightward, the opposition against what has happened tends primarily to seek a return to the middle and not a sharp turn to the left. Those with this perspective will tend to think voting Kerry is not only better for the less vile outcomes we will endure, but also because an opposition against Kerry may focus on institutions and build, as a result, a long-term movement; while an opposition to Bush will always just be longing for a return to sanity. Thus, it would be “Not after Bush, liberation, but after Bush, Kerry” (if not catastrophe).  So why not Kerry now?

Paraphrasing Stephen Shalom, we face in the 2004 election an unusually retrograde Republican administration. It is presiding over one of the largest upward redistributions of wealth in U.S. history, one of the most serious challenges to civil liberties in a half century, and one of the most aggressive foreign policies in years, all made more dangerous by Washington’s status as the world’s sole superpower. More, the Bush administration has been manipulating the political system to entrench its hold on power. After stealing the 2000 election, it has been gerrymandering Congressional districts to give it a lock on the House of Representatives. A Bush victory might give the Republicans a firm hold on all three branches of government and the power to make the conservative Supreme Court even worse. 

So should a good and caring leftist work for Kerry? Some will say yes, justifiably afraid of Bush. But others will say no, that would mean using our limited time to canvas for Kerry rather than to build radical movements and expending our scarce financial resources on the corporate-backed Kerry rather than on cash-starved grassroots projects. More, our message would be the false one of trust in Kerry rather than the radical truth that Kerry and the system are fundamentally flaw- ed. Making believe they like him so as to get additional votes for him is outweighed by the ill effects of the duplicity and the large-scale reduction of more radical efforts. 

But should we vote for Kerry? Almost everyone will agree that the answer depends not only on the points raised above, but also on what alternative exists. Other than abstention, of course, the alternative to voting for Kerry is voting for an alternative candidate—David Cobb of the Greens or Ralph Nader who is running pretty much on his own.Why would one vote Cobb or Nader and not Kerry? 

The reason to vote or work for these alternative candidates is partly to send a message that could be uplifting to a portion of the public (who could see the results and learn that a significant proportion of the population has serious activists inclinations), partly to pressure the Democrats, and largely to build alternative electoral and movement infrastructure that can grow and have a larger impact on future elections. 

Voting for Kerry will not lead to Cobb or Nader losing a state but the reverse could arguably occur in highly contested close states. Most people will, as a result, see a difference between how to vote in Texas or Massachusetts and how to vote in Ohio or Florida. If one prefers Cobb or Nader to Kerry in the former safe states, why not vote for them? There is literally nothing lost and there is a gain of all three types noted above. In contested states, however, one has to weigh the small gain of each additional vote for Cobb or Nader against the potential loss of one less Kerry vote, possibly costing him the election. 

What about the relative choice between Cobb and Nader? Nader is going to get more votes, undoubtedly, and will be more visible. Cobb is going to do far more per vote to help build lasting infrastructure, at least if Cobb’s and Nader’s attitudes, agendas, and past actions are any indicator for their future choices—which we have to presume they are. So assessing these attributes will go a long way to differentiating these candidates, for those in safe states or in contested states who choose to vote third party. 

There are two key questions then: What should we do about our differences? What difference will any of this make to the election outcome in November? 

We should admit our differences, of course, but then get on with positive business. Given that the debate is ultimately about what is best for improving further trajectories of progressive change, we can be fairly certain that neither berating people who hold their nose and vote Kerry as sellouts, nor berating people who vote Cobb or Nader as callous is going to change anyone’s mind or help the effort we must make post election day. 

As to what will happen in this election: consider what is happening in the media, on TV news and talk shows, on talk radio, all over. If there is a kind of near stand off, or Kerry isn’t losing the battle for media minutes and isn’t treated too badly, it is likely he will win the election. The U.S. public, even just the voting public, would not willingly place a liar who is hell bent on destroying the past century’s social programs and endangering the rest of the planet back into the White House with a mandate to do even worse than he already has, if the public can make a choice freely without being petrified of imminent incineration. On the other hand, if the media is overwhelmingly spinning Bush as the last barrier between gas poisoning or nuclear annihilation or rampant terrorism while spinning Kerry as the naive do-gooder who will give away the house, Bush will likely win. 

What determines which way the media swings in a case like this? Well, the bad news is that most corporate leaders will happily swallow their integrity and push for Bush, and the gigantic spigot of profits he promises, if they believe he can pull off his agendas without it leading to Armageddon, ecological dissolution, or political destabilization. We have nothing much to do with their assessment of the likelihood of the first two eventualities. But the good news is that left opposition, and whether it appears likely to grow aggressively, may have a lot to do with the last calculation. By this logic, the real work of the left, now as always, is to grow, deepen, diversify, and display its strength, over and over, on the road to eventually producing a new world. Elections are part of the process, but very far from the main story.  

Michael Albert is an activist and staff member of Z. He has published numerous articles and books, including his most recent: Parecon: Life After Capitalism (Verso) and Thought Dreams (Arbeiter Ring ). 
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