The progressive case against Obama
Bottom line: The president is complicit in creating an increasingly unequal — and unjust — society
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/27/the_progressive_case_against_obama/
I am not totally sold on the author’s case for the third party. There is the plausible case (as DaWei has argued) that we know unequivocally that Obama is evil and since there is the greater than zero case that Romney might not be evil (because he lies constantly no one knows what the hell he thinks (and I believe it is quite plausible that he doesn’t actually think anything, so any policies will be by his advisers (of course, he won’t tell us who those might be either, but how much worse can it get than what Obama has?))), so we are better off not voting for Obama. However, since Romney appears highly likely to continue the Bush/Obama path of strengthening the oligarchy at the continued expense of the middle class, rather than staying home or voting for the lesser evil (as I have made the case regarding Obama), the author argues that by voting for a third party candidate you are creating power for the future. At present, since we are left with a binary choice of death by hanging vs death by firing squad, most intelligent people will choose not to choose, thus abandoning the process all together. By casting a vote for a third party (why are they _all_ third parties?) you are lending credence to the alternative and creating/amplifying a political voice. It might mean diddly squat in the near term (almost certainly, anyway), but in the longer term, when we have the inevitable next crisis, a vote cast for a third party helps to create legitimacy for any actions championed by third party actors.
Writing this has shifted my attitude (reading the article did, but to a much lesser extent; I guess writing forces me to focus on arguments and reading doesn’t), I think I will start to promote third parties to my reader(s). If you believe, as I do, that there really isn’t any significant daylight between the two parties (I am convinced they are entirely beholden to the oligarchy and am repeatedly confounded when wealthy people (and relatives) label Obama as a socialist), then it is very easy to elect not to elect and just stay home (something I was intending to do prior to reading this article). However, the idea of lending support to the concept of third parties (though with the attitude that it will be a long-term effort to build support and knowing that that support probably won’t be ready for the next crises (or several)) helps to elevate the idea from pointlessly/uselessly casting a vote to helping to build a consensus that could lay the groundwork for some way of swinging the pendulum away from the feudal lock in by the oligarchy.
Of course, it might still be a waste of time, but if you cynically view the situation as a lost cause already, as I do, then it really costs nothing to cast your vote to a third party and since it has a non-zero chance of helping, then your vote is not 100% wasted. Of course, first you have to do the research to find out who the heck is on the ballot, expect to see some of that here in the future…
I tend to agree. I think, without any proof whatsoever, that Ross Perot’s success had some influence on Clinton’s actions in the economic sphere. I don’t think we’ll ever see success, though, so long as we stick with the winner-take-all philosophy. It disenfranchises huge numbers of voters.
Well, until I heard of this strategy I was totally convinced that a third-party vote was totally wasted. I am thinking now along the lines of the coalitions that are cobbled together in other governments (Isreal leaps immediately to mind, as does the UK) where smaller groups have disproportionate influence on the dominant groups because the dominant group lacks full power. I think that by making a third party vote (and not even coordinating, so _any_ third party vote; though to me it seems clear voting for third parties at lower levels (i.e., local and state) has more leverage than at the top end) we can help (ssssllloooowwwlllyyy) creat some polital power for alternatives. At least I hope so. While I think the chance is low, I am now convinced it is infinitely better than staying home or choosing the lesser of evils, which translates to a vote that is worth zero for altering the status quo.
I don’t think the dominant group SHOULD have full power. A coalition that disregards the overall will of the electorate can be much more easily broken up at the next election than our parties.