brendan halpin

I have some national policy priorities that are pretty far outside the mainstream:

—drastic cuts to our bloated military budget, closure of overseas military bases, and basically a dismantling of the American empire.

—open borders because if capital gets to move freely around the world, so should labor

—universal basic income

—Abolition of the electoral college and reform of the US Senate so states that don’t even have the population of the city I live in don’t get an outsized say in federal policy

—Free higher education and free healthcare to include birth control and abortion on demand

—confiscatory tax rates on the ultra rich

—a ban on private aviation

That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some important stuff. My point here is that no serious candidate for President of the United States in 2024 is going to advocate all that.

No, third party candidacies are not serious. They’re weird vanity projects. Call me when a third party starts electing city councilors and state reps and governors and federal reps and senators because they’re actually trying to build a party apparatus. Until then, I’m not interested in voting for any of these clowns, even if they advocate for my priorities, because they can’t win, and a vote for them does nothing to build a movement, so why bother?

I feel like a lot of people look at the Presidential election and think, well, neither candidate matches my outlook, so why should I vote? Here’s the answer I’ve come up with.

My vote in an election isn’t an unqualified endorsement. It doesn’t require me to sign on for every policy position and decision. Ultimately it’s about which candidate is going to get me closer to what I want, even if the difference is pretty small.

Both candidates are committed to the project of an American Empire, so nobody’s going to give me what I want on that. I think the difference between the candidates on this issue is actually very small.

But on domestic issues, the differences are pretty huge, and so even though I don’t support American Imperialism, I’m voting for a candidate who does because of the harm her opponent has promised to do. Again, this doesn’t mean I support US foreign policy. Hell, even most of Harris’ domestic policy probably won’t please me. But again, I’m not Team Kamala. I’m Team No Mass Deportations. I’m Team Women Are People. I’m Team Queer People Are People. And so my vote for Harris will be a step in the right direction for those issues.

I know that it sucks to be presented with a choice between two candidates who don’t represent your politics, and that, furthermore, that you feel like you’ll be implicated in the immoral things the US does around the world if you vote for either of them. But if you fail to vote for the one who will prevent some morally repugnant stuff from happening, well, you’re signing off on that. You’re not doing one of the most meaningful things you can do to prevent terrible things from happening.

Voting isn’t the end of political engagement, so you don’t have to wait for a perfect candidate. Just the least bad one will do. With American Christofascism in serious danger of taking control of the country, we have a responsibility to engage in harm reduction.