Wolves as shepherds

Neither Candidate










 Another election, and once again, it will lead to the inevitable dashed hopes for those voters who continue to place their faith in the Democratic party. How much longer can we listen to those who plead “vote for the lesser evil". It should be clear to most Americans that the Democrats and Republicans are political parties bought and owned by the ruling class. Obama and Romney are in general agreement and their differences are largely fictional. Stripped of rhetoric, the political positions of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on most issues are largely indistinguishable. The people who vote Democratic do not do so because they believe what the Democrats say. Most understand that Obama and the Democrats are not on the side of the 99% because the working population of the US has been sacrificed to the profits of the mega-rich. A vote for an incumbent is an endorsement of that politician’s policies. Selecting his name in the voter’s booth is an approving signature on what that person has done and will continue to do as a public official. In a government “by, for, and of the people,” when you vote for a politician, with full knowledge of that politician’s record, you become complicit in his behavior.




The only reason the vast majority of Obama’s supporters haven’t abandoned him is the fear and loathing of Romney an the Republicans conjures up. Lesser evilism remains Obama’s best hope in winning the presidential election.  We hear it said countless times that while Obama has indeed been a colossal failure, voting for him is essential given the alternative in Romney and although Obama has been a failure, Romney will be even worse. It has been said over and over again. No matter how bad the Democratic candidate may be, the Republican will be worse. Democratic voters have mostly resigned themselves to the idea that Obama is useless except for keeping a greater evil at bay. However, in every election one candidate will always be less evil than the other. Deciding on that basis not merely does no good; it actually does harm. The effect of the policy of choosing the "lesser evil" is that over time it makes the choice worse. At first, the “lesser of two evils” voting doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. After all, it rests on the principle that what matters for choosing between X and Y is their relative merit, then one should choose the better (or less bad) of the two. However, it is really all about scaring people into one particular camp. Lesser evil proponents create apathy, not conviction. Voting for the lesser evil produces never-ending cycles of voter dissatisfaction and disillusionment with those elected, both Democrats and Republicans.

The lesser-evil logic is self deception. Many people appear to be absolutely committed to vote for whom-ever they consider to be less damaging. No matter how bad the choices. If the Democrats lose this election (and of course, it is always the most important election) then we can expect the Brownshirts to march into the Oval Office. It will be repression at home and aggression abroad. The wolf and the fox both have the same objectives, to kill and eat their prey but differ only in methods. It doesn't really make any difference whether you are eaten by the "liberal" fox or the "conservative" wolf. As Malcolm X said we don't want to be anyone's dinner.

The inertia of labor unions, civil liberties and civil rights groups to offer resistence to the actuality of hunger, homelessness, unemployment, foreclosures and the vast military outlays, speaks volumes. Obama’s supporters do not wish to be reminded that among his first appointments were Geithner and Summers, architects of business and banking deregulation that laid the basis for the financial crisis. Likewise in foreign policy, Obama amnesiacs forget that he has been anything but a dove. Obama  pretends to be a humanitarian, whilst actually enabling the American military might to reek havoc upon civilian populations. He poses as an anti-racist, despite allowing for a national security policy that explicitly targets Muslim and Arab populations for special surveillance. Obama had been elected in large part as a response to the perceived belligerence and militarism of George W. Bush, yet never before has an American president asserted their ability to act as judge, jury and executioner towards their own citizens. The passage of the National Defense Authorisation Act provides the President with the authority to place Americans under indefinite military detention without trial or even the provision of evidence; a power which extends to citizens abroad as well as to those on US soil. Powers of a president to oppress American citizens comparable to any foreign despot, leaving a legacy of dangerously expanded executive powers behind for future presidents to inherit.

Some will support the candidate who is the “least worst” until such a time that there is a real candidate who truly represents us. However, no one seems to be able to say who that candidate is and when we will ever see him or her. Some are even still caught up in the fantasy that if Obama is re-elected he will finally show his “real colors”. The Democrats aren't moving to the Left. We know that there isn’t much “Hope” for “Change” should Obama win a second term as president.

Many activists point out that there exists differences between Obama and Romney and argue that opting for the lesser of the evils is the best option for voters. The real debate is neither Obama nor Romney, but the system they exemplify. The real debate is our subjugation to a system which divides humanity as never before and sustains the deaths of millions. The power of money controls our society and its influence reaches everywhere. The real political battle in the two-party system is fought out amongst the power elite over which ot the candidates offers the most effective means through which to enact their agenda and it is why we appear to still have elections that are bitterly contested. But no matter how polarized the electoral scene seems, there is little genuine political contestation in it. Our Tweedle Dums and Tweedle Dumbers are all faithful servants of the capitalist order. They are the willing executors of the interests of prevailing elites. The genius of the plutocrats is to create the illusion of important differences between the two parties, and the illusion of political choice in elections. The Democrats are not a party that represents the interests of working people. They represent Big Business and whenever its preferred choice, the Republicans, becomes too discredited to win elections, the capitalists of America can count on the Democrats, waiting in the wings with their compliant policies. Democratic and Republican politicians keep each other going.

 The Chomsky position to hold their nose with one hand and vote for Obama with the other in swing states leads to the situation where if Democrats know that they always have the support of the Left safely in their pockets, they will always pander to the right-wing in the search for more votes. That’s why those who vote for the lesser evil usually get both the lesser and the greater evil. If people invariably rally to lesser evils, all the rulers have to do in any situation that threatens their power is to conjure up a threat of some greater evil. We should reject this constant blackmail of an “even worse” alternative. Both candidates represent the interests of business and the corporations and they both agree upon the suppression of unions and workers. What is the point of a vote on November 6 when the outcome is the same? Why vote to lend your support to the continuation of your own exploitation? What do they have to do to lose your vote? At what point do you decide that you’ve had enough? What is your breaking point? How much injustice has to happen before workers begin shouting, 'We're not going to take it anymore!'?

The only force capable of putting up a true fight is the power of organized working people, who, by putting faith and resources in the Democratic Party, are squandering their potency. The public sector union struggles and Occupy movements inspired people across the country, and it struck fear into the heart of the system. And while the Democrats did their best to co-opt both movements, the potential for independent political action still exists. The only way out of the irrationality of the capitalist system is for working people to organize independently and use their own organizational resources to build their own socialist party, to represent all working people. This remains the task of the day in the United States. The Democrats cannot be reformed. Their “progressives" and "liberals" serve only to give political camoflage to the capitalist core of the Democratic Party. Almost weekly, "progressives" and "liberals" are faced with some new betrayal that they require to rationalise and justify, yet they remain bound by the self-imposed restraints of the lesser of two evils. The longer it takes our movement to reject all versions of lesser evilism, the longer it will take to build a movement powerful enough to win through. It was struggles from below that real social victories have been won – not by relying on politicians, no matter how "liberal" or seemingly well-meaning. The chance to re-kindle an authentic alternative vision is worth taking.

Working people are overdue for change, and we should not be fooled again by fake promises of hope. The Occupy Movement took a step in the right direction, but it is only a step, and the goal is still a long way off. Socialists have succeeded in identifying the contradictions of capitalism but we have not done as much in the task of creating a picture of our alternative future. What would a economy society of free-access actually look like? How might it work? A detailed description of a post-capitalist order is impossible, since it is the process of getting there that will determine the specifics but we should endeavour to at least broadly outline what a genuinely socialist system might look like. We must engage people with a vision, while at the same time building a real party of opposition to capitalism. People rarely hear the socialist message, and if they do hear it, it is fleetingly short, and usually presented in a dismissive negative context. The socialist case being unfamiliar needs a lot of repetition and lots of space and time to counter the prevailing propaganda. It never gets that. This partly reflects the fact that socialists have, at the moment, no solid power base, so it can’t relay their messages and can’t demonstrate their understanding of todays world. Organized labor is the only social force among working people, at this time, with the resources capable of challenging the parties of Big Business. The labor movement, the natural power base, has not focused on the case for socialism. We cannot build an alternative to a political system where the only real choices come down to different versions of the status quo. So long as there is no political party presenting the working classes with a socialist aspiration, the current balance of forces will continue to work increasingly against the working people.

“Yes, in the long run you might be right that things have to change,” the lesser evil voter pretends to concede, but adds that we must “be realistic and do what we can in the here and now. After all, he revolution is not around the corner!” but by voting for the Lesser Evil they are, in fact, working against radical transformation and social change by sanctioning and thereby strengthening the institutions.

In this election, the argument doesn't pit capitalism against socialism. It's about trying to decide what kind of capitalism the United States will have - a choice of capitalisms. Sometimes not voting is the way to be heard yet non-voting is often indistinguishable from apathy. It sends no message at all. The only thing that can transform "apathy" into an actual political force is to organize the non-voters. This is why the World Socialist Party of the United States and the World Socialist Movement always advocate workers to vote even when there is no one to vote for, as there almost never is. We suggest a spoiled ballot or as we describe it, a write-in vote for socialism. It may not help much – it might even seem to some just a pointless gesture — but at least it can’t hurt. Don’t degrade yourself by sinking to the “lesser of two evil” mentality.

Romney is at least right about one thing: the last thing we need is four more years of the same.