The consequences of voting for the lesser of two evils

In today's political climate, progressive politics has become heavily orientated toward a single short term goal - defeating the Republicans at any cost.

Unfortunately, this obsession of voting against one party, instead of voting for what we believe in, has prevented us from engaging in the important work of coalition building between Progressive Democrats, Independents and Greens that is essential for building a fair and just society.

A large part of our inability to challenge the political elite is that we have inherited a highly undemocratic winner-take-all voting system, which insures the political hegemony of the two party system. This traps the majority of us into voting defensively, instead of voting for candidates we believe in.

The consequences of voting for the lesser of two evils

In today's political climate, progressive politics has become heavily orientated toward a single short term goal - defeating the Republicans at any cost.

Unfortunately, this obsession of voting against one party, instead of voting for what we believe in, has prevented us from engaging in the important work of coalition building between Progressive Democrats, Independents and Greens that is essential for building a fair and just society.

I recently received a disturbing e-mail [please see below] from the Green Party's national headquarters.  It seems that Democrats in Congress are determined to make a joke out of grassroots demands for electoral reform.  Just when everybody had come to the painful realization that the "new" Democrats are more of a problem than a solution, along comes proposed legislation that is transparently designed to assure that future elections will offer voters nowhere else to turn than to the two 'major' parties.  

Here, the country is going to hell in a locomotive with Bush & Company in the driver's seat, and apparently the Democrats' biggest (or only!) concern is that they all be allowed to keep their seats on the train. Just when they have been exposed as weak and ineffectual, Congressional Democrats decide that, rather than reconsider their own party's shortcomings, they will instead change the rules so that no one else will have a fair chance of criticizing--and correcting--those shortcomings.  Apparently, they would prefer that the train run off the tracks than to risk allowing steadier hands to take the throttle.

The Democratic Party is right to be 'running scared' these days; but its current strategy will do nothing to win votes from those of us who hold dear that Party's past principles.  Many of us who used to be registered as Democrats, before that party sold out to the big money corporate interests, are demanding the opportunity to campaign for (and vote for!) candidates who actually represent The People's interests.  This legislation  would effectively scuttle any of our efforts in that direction.

It is obvious that this legislation has been deliberately--and cynically--crafted to subvert  any third-party movement that would seek to bring a measure of sanity back to a government that is clearly broken...and which neither of the 'major' parties seems inclined to fix.   Why else would ANY politician sign on to a scheme to limit our choices and undermine our democracy, leaving us with a perpetual "lesser-of-TWO-evils" politics?  In any fair election, a candidate should be willing to let his or her character, proposals and public record determine his or her showing at the polls....against ALL comers.  

As we have seen already, much to our collective dismay, when politicians put party before principle, we all suffer the consequences.  I suggest that we encourage, cajole, and threaten those who came up with this outrageous proposal until they respond to our demands for MORE voices in the political debate and MORE choices on our ballots.  Let's force them to withdraw this plan, and force them to come up with a NON-partisan plan for genuine electoral reform.  The future of our nation depends on it.