Dear Protest Voters,
If you do anything other than vote for Kamala Harris, Donald Trump will win this election.
Many of you say you refuse to vote for “the lesser of two evils.” I find it a stretch to call Kamala evil, even in a lesser way; she has flaws, as we all do, but she is a decent person and would be an effective president. Especially compared to the alternative.
But for the sake of conversation, let’s say Kamala is the lesser of two evils. To acknowledge this is to acknowledge that by not voting for her — including by voting third party or not at all — you’re enabling the greater of two evils. As so many did in 2016 by refusing to vote for Hillary. And how did that work out for us all?
Enabling the greater evil can’t possibly be considered a moral choice. If you had the power to choose the path of a train that would either hit 100 people or one person, with no other viable option, would you refuse to act because you didn’t want to facilitate the lesser of two evils? Or would you do your part to save as many people as you could?
When a choice is between bad and worse, it is a moral imperative to choose whatever does the least damage. And there is simply no doubt that Trump will cause infinitely more damage in countless more ways than Harris would.
For progressives, Gaza seems to be the main issue. Putting aside how hurtful it is that so many of you are unwilling to call out both sides in this war and treat any innocent life lost as a tragedy, Trump’s solution to the war is to “get it over with” through devastating Israeli force that would demonstrate, in the most horrific ways imaginable, just how restrained Israel has actually been this past year compared to what they are militarily capable of. Death and destruction mean nothing to Trump; as January 6 proved, he sees it as entertainment.
By contrast, Kamala wants the war in Gaza to end humanely. She wants the bombing to stop, for the scores of remaining hostages that Hamas kidnapped to be returned, and for Israelis and Palestinians both to thrive within their own autonomous countries. Trump will do whatever the person who flatters him most tells him to do, and Netanyahu is extremely good at such flattery. So if you truly care about innocent Palestinians, then this should be a very clear choice for you. And if you sit that choice out, you aren’t helping anyone. You’re just taking out your own anger in a way that will make things much worse for the very people you claim to care about.
In fact, the impulse to punish Harris comes at so many people’s expense. Under a Trump presidency, there will be so much more suffering. People of color will suffer. Muslims and Jews will suffer. Indigenous people will suffer. Women will suffer. LGBTQ people will suffer. The Earth will suffer. We already saw it clearly during Trump’s first term, and we continue to endure the ramifications today. It will be even worse — for all — in his second term.
For anyone with genuine concern and empathy, this is more than enough justification to vote for Harris with head held high. But even if you do it with a pang of resentment or regret, I beg you to do it anyway — especially if you live in a battleground state. Because if you don’t, you will bear responsibility for what happens in a second, unrestrained Trump presidency. And Trump has been very clear about what that will look like: in his own words, it will include “one really violent day” to crack down on crime, using the military against “the enemy from within” (Democrats and all nonpartisan government officials who do not declare loyalty to him personally), “a bloody story” of mass deportations for the people who are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and…
…and I won’t keep going, because you already know all this. You also know that as flawed as our country and democracy are, they are still worth preserving as we try to do better. You know that love is better than hate, that truth is better than lies, that democracy is better than autocracy, and that service to the many is better than service to one.
Stand against the greater of two evils. Vote for Kamala Harris.
Originally published on Medium.com
Featured illustration of “The Trolley Problem” by Allie Wang
