As you know, Democrats often promote the idea that you should vote for the lesser evil, and while I’m certainly not going to tell you what I think you should do given the immoral nature of the choices available (unless you live in a non-swing state), I do find that argument to be persuasive. The problem, of course, is this:
Those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.
And I think that’s the bottom line. I’m old enough that I remember the Obama administration well. I voted for Barack Obama, and I was grateful to have such a polished, intelligent-sounding leader after the years of embarrassing Republican administrations. However, in terms of real progress, Obama came nowhere close to the promise of the marketing campaign that got him elected. He ultimately folded to pressure from the far right, failed to get control of the Supreme Court, implemented a right-wing health policy as his signature legislation, forgot to prosecute the big Wall Street bankers responsible for the financial panic, and killed a bunch of people in foreign wars. This is what Democrats always do, apparently. We (meaning anyone who voted for him) were told (by self-described Democrats) that we were not allowed to criticize him.
We’re in a moment now that is very similar to the pre-Obama moment in the sense that people are desperate for the Harris campaign to win, and are insisting that things will change under Harris. However, it seems like we now understand that things can’t really change under a new Democratic president; they can only get worse more slowly. Moreover, we now understand that the promises of the Democratic Party are essentially lies. Whether the politicians running for election on the Democratic ticket really want the things they are proposing is unclear, but it is no longer reasonable to believe that they believe they can really implement those proposals. We know they’re going to kiss up to conservatives. Self-described Democrats are in on the con.
But still, we prefer that the Democrats win because the Republicans are so much worse. So how is that going? The fact that the Democrats must put their donors before the average voter results in some weird marketing choices — choices that only make sense if you accept that the Democrats ask the donors what they want (or, rather, they are told explicitly before even having to ask), and then have to sell that vision to the average Democratic party voter.
- Replacing Biden was a fantastic choice. Biden is clearly no longer up to the task of being President of the United States and another 4 years simply did not make sense. However, the second reason to replace him was because of his crazy, homicidal-sounding, “I am a Zionist” bullshit; my hope was that Harris would just shut the fuck up about Israel and Gaza. The real reason he was replaced is solely because the donors (specifically) were afraid he could not win, and that was solely because of his age-related cognitive issues, not because of any policy positions.
- Israel and Gaza could cost the Democrats the presidency. I don’t know whether this is one of those cases where Democrats are trying to appeal to a few “moderate” (right wing but not far right) voters at the expense of alienating a greater number of progressive voters, or if instead it is a valid strategy because so many American voters are right wing. It is clear, however, that you cannot get to the right of Republicans on any subject. If supporting the genocide is a good and practical position to take from the perspective of American electoral politics, Republicans will always be able to support it more. In this case, Democrats are saying that the US should support Israel (by giving them billions in weapons) but they need to stop indiscriminately massacring civilians (with those weapons) and the Trump position is that we need to pressure Israel to finish the genocide. The Democrat’s position on Israel and Palestine is a direct result of them trying to do what their donors want while still appealing to the voters. (Regardless of what either party does, Israel is unlikely to make it to 100 years old thanks to climate change.)
- Kamala’s Glock is a really interesting feature of the Harris campaign. You would think that her owning and apparently carrying around a loaded weapon would turn off the Democrats. However, the Democrats are not anti-gun — they’re just opposed to civilians owning guns. Democrats (meaning people who self-identify as Democrats, not people who begrudgingly vote for Democrats) love the police. When people call Kamala Harris “Kamala the Cop”, Democrats literally see that as a good thing. The “the gun is OK because she’s a cop” angle is readily apparent to both Democrats and Republicans, so I don’t think it will make any difference in the election.
- Harris recently announced that she would attempt nationwide legalization of recreational marijuana, and I have to say, I was impressed that the Democrats actually chose to embrace that strategy. The fact that marijuana was villainized for so long is a testament to the glacial pace of cultural change and the effectiveness of racist scaremongering. To really do it right, they could release everyone who is in prison on a marijuana-related charge, but the lesser evil strategy means being grateful for the rare case where the lesser evil does something marginally good. Clearly, Democratic Party donors are ready to accept nationwide legalization because otherwise the party would not be promoting this idea. I think we might be looking at nationwide legalization in the next 4 years if the Democrats win, and perhaps eventual nationwide legalization even if they don’t. The only question is whether marijuana legalization will outweigh the Democrats’ terrible position on Israel and Palestine enough for them to win.
- Democrats continue to tout their economic successes, but they continue to define economic success in ways that don’t really reflect the material conditions of the average voter and are frankly alienating. For example, yes, the stock market line keeps going up, but most voters do not own stock. Similarly, the rate of inflation has dropped dramatically, but prices are still far above what many working class people can afford. Telling people that the economy is great and they should shut up isn’t helping the Democrats’ cause.
- The best thing about the Democratic Party continues to be that it is not the Republican Party, and the best thing about Kamala Harris continues to be that she is not Trump. The complete insanity and, yes, weirdness of the Republicans makes the normalcy of the Democrats (despite it being a dystopian normalcy) seem delightful, and Harris and Walz’s ability to be coherent, knowledgeable and upbeat makes Trump and Vance seem that much worse in comparison. Being less bad just isn’t a very reliable strategy toward winning a lesser-evil election, though, and it is starting to look like the Republicans will replace Trump with Vance right after Trump takes office (via the 25th Amendment). This magnifies the ambiguity of the “What would a second Trump term look like?” question by making it unclear whether Trump or Vance would actually be the President. Hopefully, Democrats can spin that into anxiety for potential Republican ticket voters rather than allowing them to project their aspirations onto that ambiguity.
- On that note, the Harris campaign continues to make stupid mistakes by kissing up to right wingers, such as saying that her cabinet would include Republicans. You do not win over consumers by telling them how similar your product is to the competition. You will not make enthusiastic supporters out of those voters who are terrified of the next Republican presidential administration by promising to allow Republicans to influence your administration. The peculiar and self-destructive impulse on the part of Democrats to kiss up to Republicans also seems to have manifested in Tim Walz — who was, for a short time, their greatest asset — having been effectively neutered. I suspect his trouble during the debate with Vance was largely because he had to try to remember all the things he couldn’t say while also remembering the ultimately meaningless double-speak phrases they wanted him to recite.
- The Democratic Party still does not appear to have a strategy to deal with the obvious plot by MAGAs to steal the election. It feels like being in a bank while some robbers are slowly cutting a hole in the vault with a blowtorch and the bank employees just keep saying, “Oh, yes, it’s very naughty, which is why we all have to set a good example by following all the banking procedures to the letter!” because, you know, the robbers could be future customers, so we don’t want to make them mad. Thanks to the corrupt Supreme Court, Joe Biden has been granted God Mode — he can literally do anything he wants to neutralize this threat — but has so far done nothing except tell people to vote harder and send money. I can only hope that the FBI will arrest everyone who has been plotting this coup on the morning of the election and hold them for 24 hours so they can’t implement their evil plans, but honestly, I don’t think they will do shit.
- Finally, the Democrats continue to completely ignore the environment. On October 8, the moderate faction of climate scientists (contrasted with the more extreme faction that is more often correct in their predictions) released an article that says, in part: “We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.” They go on to talk about how nothing substantive has been done to forestall this disaster which has resulted in climate warming gasses in the atmosphere continuing to increase even during the Biden administration; despite the fact that the percentage of energy produced by renewables during that time having increased, the absolute amount of fossil fuels burned also increased. The default plan for climate change, which is the Democratic Party’s plan because it is their donor’s plan, is to just let it happen, and allow billions of people to die while they ride out the catastrophe in their luxury bunkers. Those who self-identify as Democrats despite not being part of the party apparatus seem to have a different climate change plan: To just shove their heads so far up their own asses that the have no idea what’s coming.
There it is. Lesser-evilism continues to be a terrifying roller-coaster, like if the Prowler at Worlds of Fun had been hastily re-assembled by a crew of carnival workers on meth the night before you rode it, and they also left out most of the bolts, and have a whole truck full of parts that they just didn’t bother to use. I’ll say something here that should be obvious: Having evil people run your government is a bad idea. You can’t necessarily predict what they will do, but you know it is going to be bad. When lesser-evil people run your government, it isn’t good — it’s still bad.