It will surely come as no surprise to readers that the US electoral system is, to use a polite expression, really messed up. Messed up, that is, if you believe that the system should represent the will of the people.
There is no clearer example than the electoral college. This vestige of the era of slavery permits a candidate with a minority of the popular vote to become the next president. This happened most recently in 2016, allowing Donald Trump to become president with a popular vote deficit of about 3 million votes.
Although the entire US electoral system, from the presidency to city and local offices, is blatantly undemocratic, it has nevertheless remained intact for over two centuries, with only minor changes. The reason why is clear. By offering only limited choices between Democrats and Republicans, it all but assures only candidates loyal to the private-profit-based capitalist system and its two parties will realistically win elections, especially for state-wide and national offices. And that is without considering the role that cash-drenched superPACs and their billionaire donors play.
For the likely readers of this article, none of this will appear controversial. But there is something that has become divisive within the US left that flows from this system. That is, the question of lesser evil voting.
Kamala Harris is the centrist continuity candidate. Few policies of the Biden regime are likely to change if she were to win the presidency. Trump, a racist, anti-woman, reactionary billionaire narcissist, can only bring increasing harm to the already frayed social and economic fabric of our lives. From this standpoint, Harris is the lesser evil.
If this were all we needed to know, the choice would be clear: a vote for the lesser evil. This position is held by many on the US left. Yet this does not exhaust the problem of lesser evil voting.
We should recall that there is much on which Harris and Trump agree. Both support the Gaza genocide, and an imperialist system led by the US. Personally, I cannot vote for a genocide enabler, regardless of their political label. Gaza is separate and apart from lesser-evilism.
But Gaza, as important as it is, lies on narrow grounds against lesser evilism. Let us consider two more positions: the “vote your values” position, and a position that rejecting the lesser evil builds an alternative vision of society. Both support voting for the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
The “vote your values” position rests on the belief that neither of the two party nominees stands for my values, while the Green Party does. Further, it recognizes that in most states, the electoral college outcome will not be affected by voters like me in the so-called safe states, where the votes reliably and predictably go to one of the two major parties. This includes more than 40 of the 51 states (and Washington DC). It is only a handful of states (like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia, for example) where the Presidential contest will be determined. Voting your values outweighs any so-called “damage” you may commit to the likely winner.
The second argument, rejecting the status quo to build an alternative vision, looks at the election spanning a narrow time window in a broad, ideologically evolving continuum. We should consider the effect of our choices to influence systemic change and popular consciousness.
Voting third-party rejects the choices forced on us by the current electoral system. We know the current system acts in the interests of the ruling class (principally for industrial and finance capital). They will not change it unless forced to. They will never be forced to unless we no longer support their candidates. We will never win systemic changes, like ranked choice voting, proportional representation, the abolition of the electoral college, and public financing of election campaigns, by supporting their candidates.
If we do not break with the system in thought and action, we will never escape from the system.
Electoral abstention is not enough for meaningful change. About 40% of eligible voters don’t vote already. We need to vote for left, third-party candidates in sufficient numbers to make it clear the current system is fundamentally dysfunctional.
A vote for the Stein/Ware ticket is not merely symbolic or performative. Unlike a one-off independent candidate, Jill’s campaign will strengthen the ongoing organizational work of the Green Party well beyond the 2024 election.
The ruling class maintains hegemony through its control of the ideas and institutions of society, specifically in its social, political, and ideological domains. The social domain includes the institutions of production, distribution, and social reproduction (or family life). The political domain includes the apparatus of the state. The ideological domain entails control of media, education and other cultural institutions, including the electoral process, to disseminate views consistent with its continued dominance.
But what do we mean by ideology? This is a complex question. There have been a variety of definitions and considerable debate, as Terry Eagleton1 among others has observed. Here I will adopt the view that ideology entails a set of interconnected beliefs that serve to structure our understanding of the social universe which we inhabit. From this position, ideology is a neutral, not a pejorative concept. We all embody an ideological consciousness, though our ideologies may be internally contradictory, and will vary qualitatively depending on our background, experience, and social class, among other factors.
Following Italian revolutionary theorist Antonio Gramsci2, we can understand that ruling classes rely on ideological hegemony to maintain their political and social authority. If we want to transform our current social and political system, we can only do so through winning the battle of ideology, creating and propagating a mass counter-hegemonic ideology. Electoral politics can be one important front in this battle of ideologies. We cannot win this by conceding our defeat in advance, that is, by continuing to vote for the lesser evil.
“But what might happen if Trump wins the election?” you might ask. Although Greens and others may be scapegoated for Trump’s hypothetical victory, the problem lies not with us, but rather with the system that brought us to this point. Regardless of the details, our post-election strategy remains the same. We need to help organize popular resistance to the post-electoral regime, in our workplaces, in our schools, and in our communities.
As Hal Draper observed in 19673, “you can’t fight the victory of the rightmost forces by sacrificing your own independent strength to support elements just the next step away from them. […] [M]aking the Lesser Evil choice undercuts any possibility of really fighting the Right.” Relying on the Democrats to defend our interests, let alone the interests of the Palestinian people, has not and will not work. If not now, then when? If not us, then who?
Notes:
- Eagleton, Terry. 2007. Ideology: an introduction. Verso Books, London. Ch. 1
- Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Eds. Q. Hoare ad G. Smith. International Publishers, New York, 1971. p. 245
- Draper, Hal.1967. Who’s going to be the lesser evil in 1968? https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1967/01/lesser.htm
Good job Rick!
Mr. Greenblatt,
Doubtless, we all feel a sense of futility sometimes, particularly in the work needed to build, as you say, a mass counter-hegemonic ideology. Thankfully, the sense of futility I feel today is more circumscribed. Instead of despair with the world as it is, I merely find myself unable to escape Gramsci in my own private reading. You mention, of course, the ideological hegemony employed by the ruling class that Gramsci noted even in his own time. In a recent article in the New Left Review, Nathan Sperber brings Gramsci to bear on the current political situation in France. Sperber’s article focuses on the difference between Gramsci’s concepts of organic crises and conjunctural events. I read this article and not even two days later I then encountered your piece.
Since I cannot escape Gramsci’s grip, I have to ask, does he have anything to offer us, not just in describing how ruling classes employ ideology, but what Greens in the United States can do about it today? Can Gramsci provide any effective insight when it comes to pursuing that post-electoral strategy you mention near the close of your article? If so, should readers be mindful to separate the silver from the dross of his thought and, if so, which elements constitute which? Would a Prison Notebooks study group be a good use of time and would the acquisition of a hard copy of those writings be a sound purchase?
Regarding the question of whether Gramsci has any insights to offer US Greens: Green political discourse is often (but not always) superficial and arguably incoherent at times, This is one reason that we felt the need to launch New Green Horizons as a medium for discussion of Green issues, politics, history, and ideology. You might say, in Gramscian terms, we hope to encourage the emergence of a layer of organic (Green) intellectuals, Among other things, We need to take the long view of our tasks, or, as Gramsci might say, we are fighting an ideological war of position. In other words, a critical engagement with Gramsci may aid in our understanding of contemporary Green politics.
I can’t really answer your question regarding the value of reading the Prison Notebooks. This is partly because I have not read them myself in their entirety. It is a question of the most productive allocation of your time and the goals that you have set for yourself. I can, however, suggest a secondary source that I read several years ago and found to be helpful: The Gramscian Moment, Peter D. Thomas, Haymarket Books, 2009