Lesser-evilism is not a vote–it’s a strategy

At the end of June, the liberal establishment began to ask whether Biden needed to be replaced following an abysmal performance at a debate held, at his request, against Trump. With Kamala Harris anointed as the nominee, suddenly the national tone changed from open questioning of Biden’s capacity to serve and a party unable to operate in its own interests to adoration of Biden’s willingness to sacrifice for his country and absolutely nauseating praise for his legacy.

The shift reflects a relatable sigh of relief that it’s not a foregone conclusion that Trump will win in November. But something has been fully erased in this newly constructed narrative. Biden should go down in history as an unapologetic supporter of genocide who faced nine months of unrelenting protest, thirty uncommitted Democratic Party delegates, and whose approval rating fell to 36 percent in May. Israel’s war on Gaza and Palestine exposed the imperial core of the Democratic Party and the lengths it will go to maintain the relationships necessary to lead an empire. Despite not winning the core demand of a ceasefire, the Palestine movement transformed the political terrain and should be credited for Biden’s demise.

Despite the palpable presence of anti-Zionist consciousness and action at the level of high politics and mainstream media, national conversation about the election reduces it to the proposition of Harris vs. Trump–and how to strengthen the liberal face of U.S. politics as the way Trump will be defeated. The very premise that asserts the only possible options as being strictly limited to an electoral choice of two ruling class parties is one of the clearest examples of how much we lack independent left horizons, and organs of political activity in the United States.

For most working class people, limited electoral participation (where we are encouraged to vote every couple of years, send money, or, at most, volunteer to canvas) is presented as the only possible way to participate in politics. We need to understand why that is and be able to engage with people who are going through the chaos of life in the 21st-century U.S.–a reality that is hard to imagine being overcome through an election.

But whether we like it or not, national elections shape the dominant understanding of politics and are the filter through which most people understand their current situation. Sometimes understanding the current situation compels people to vote, and sometimes it leads to apathy and resignation to the idea that the world is shit and will never change. Revolutionary socialists have to have something to say about national elections. It’s an important part of contending as a left pole against a two-party regime, a regime of extremely limited capitalist so-called “democracy.”

In contrast, we must advocate a struggle-based strategy of self-activity though the building of infrastructures of dissent. However, this doesn’t mean that we can afford to wave away the reality of what is confronting us. Sometimes far left individuals and organizations inadvertently minimize the deeply felt fear of Trump that could drive one to accept lesser-evil politics. Many working class people and the oppressed are (rightly) terrified about what harm and violence a Trump presidency would do. To not acknowledge this and identify with it is to potentially alienate those who would be won to an alternative strategy.

Trump and Harris are both dangerous, but they do not represent the same danger. And rejecting lesser-evilism should by no means imply that we are simply writing them off as being the same. That’s not convincing because it’s not true.  There are logical reasons why someone might want to vote against Trump.

What’s at stake here has very little to do with how someone votes. Where there is no galvanizing left alternative on the ballot to rally around, we should be doing everything we can to steer conversations away from individual voting choices and toward what will actually transform the situation. The question is what strategy is actually going to be needed to stave off the growth of the far right and advance the struggle against genocide. Lesser-evilism is not about how individuals vote; it’s an insidious strategy that disarms our side, one that wrongly claims that supporting a liberal whose goal is to protect and serve the ruling class is how we stop the spread of far right ideology, imperial violence, and draconian social policy.

It’s because we understand the threat of the growth of Trumpism that we absolutely cannot concede any ground to Harris and her firmly centrist coalition. Liberal politics not only strengthen the right’s policies (see the Democrats adopting Trump’s immigration policy), they also, in the absence of a visible and clear left alternative, leave nowhere for radicalizing people to turn except to the vile solutions of the far right. Is it any wonder that Trump is attempting to make inroads into working class, Black and Latinx communities given the parade of merely symbolic “equality” and “change” under a Democratic administration? When the Left throws its weight behind the party in power, how can it distinguish itself or its strategy from the ruling apparatus (an apparatus that is openly hostile to our demands)?

It’s been stunning to see how quickly the disgust and outrage at Biden’s incompetence has shifted to outright excitement and support for Harris. This has shifted as sections of the Left who were advocating lesser-evilism (i.e., Biden is terrible, but we need to support him to defeat Trump) now actively celebrate Harris. In doing so, they are giving up on the issue of democracy and profoundly weakening our ability to take necessary steps towards the development of an independent left force that can actually represent an alternative and defeat the far right.

What better example do we have of this slide away from stated goals than where the social democratic strategy (centered on Sanders) has landed since the height of national influence in 2016? Once hailed as attempting to oppose the Democratic Party right, now the squad’s main role has been to serve as the last defenders of Biden at exactly the time when millions of people were questioning the ability of the Democratic Party to take on Trump. In exchange for trying to pressure Biden to support canceling debt, the Squad (Tlalib excluded) sold out genocide and any semblance of building something to the left. The Democrats are experts in absorbing and neutralizing those who claim to be changing it from the inside. This time was no exception.

This is an indication of how far to the right national politics have shifted since 2020. In 2020, with the George Floyd uprising and in the context of the Democratic Party primary, Harris didn’t think she could speak to her strength as a prosecutor without losing support. But now, fitting with the co-optation of that movement, Harris’ campaign is preparing to project itself as “tough on crime” in defense of “security” both in our communities and as the leader of this empire. And it’s not like there has been any reprieve of state-defended police killings, as the murder of Sonya Massey reminds us. Another example of the rightward shift is how Biden and now Harris align themselves with the murderous politics of “border security.”

Following the Biden campaign, Harris is attempting to build a solid coalition of the so-called “center.” Now that Harris has announced Tim Walz as her Vice Presidential choice, a chorus of union leaders and socialists are hailing this as proof that the Presidential candidate is listening to the Left and that politics are bending to the pro-Palestine pressure. Certainly Walz isn’t as rabid of a Zionist as is alternative Josh Shapiro, and sure, that’s good. But even if the consideration of the need to appeal to the Palestine movement played a role in this decision, it’s not the only factor, and it’s important not to fool ourselves into thinking that this decision is evidence that Kamala Harris is somehow more open to socialist influence than Biden.

Despite what some are implying, Walz is not a socialist and he’s certainly not someone of whom the Left can afford to be uncritical.  The point here is that rather than push things to the left, the lesser-evilism of 2020 pulled the forces of the Left most focused on Biden–and the entire mainstream continuum–to the right, with many moving away from the acknowledgement of lesser-evilism as a problem to now cheerleading a rightward-moving liberalism.

On Palestine, Harris has the optical advantage of being one step removed from Biden’s open support of the genocide. Her statements on Palestine acknowledge the suffering and desire for a policy change. She skipped Neytanyahu’s visit to Congress (opting to meet with him separately instead) as an opportunistic ploy. Policy-wise she’s clear on her full fledged defense of Israel and her excitement to attack Palestine activists during the Netanyahu visit is telling. But this is to say that she has been effective at bringing in sections of the liberal Left, who might have been skeptical of Biden due to the genocide in Gaza, into her coalition.

I’ll never vote for Kamala Harris. But, again, I want to stress that I’m also not going to spend my time or resources arguing with individuals about how they vote as individuals out of their fear of Trump. What I care about is how left organizations, unions, and publications use their resources, time and energy. Are we seriously going to sell “Copmala” Harris as the way we build a pro-Palestine, immigrant rights, anti-racist, tax-the-rich Left?

Within 36 hours of Biden dropping out, Harris raised more than $100 million, double what the Biden-Harris campaign had on hand at the end of June. Imagine what the developing organizations of the Left, movements, and unions could do with even a fraction of those resources. Instead of throwing the weight behind getting out the vote/campaigning for Harris, imagine a scenario where thousands of independent organizations were positioned to talk to millions of people about why we can’t put our life in Harris’ hands. We could have an impact by advocating the need to organize ourselves to confront the far right regardless of who wins.

Imagine if even a fraction of the time, energy and money that goes to Harris were directed toward rebuilding the institutions of the working class and oppressed that are actually capable of confronting the absurd pretense of democracy that is so clearly an apparatus of the ruling class that plays with our lives like pawns. That is something that we could do in the 2024 election cycle. There is nothing subjective preventing broad left and progressive forces from taking a strategy that is honest and clear about who Harris is and what we need to build. It’s a political choice, and not making that choice has gotten us where we are.

It’s honestly sad and pathetic that the discussion on the Left is so limited even when we are talking about a political apparatus that supports genocide and demonstrates undying commitment to the ruling class in its successful stabilization of the economy on our backs. But such is the U.S. Left.

Until we are able to build the constituent parts of a Left and independent political alternative, the strategic argument for rebuilding the independent institutions of working class organization, however small our forces are today, becomes all the more important. We will never magically get where we are trying to go, which is why we cannot let go of our horizon.

We need to build a Left that is clear on a strategy, that sees the participation and ideas of the working class and oppressed in democratic, independent organizations – not their vote – as what is needed to stop the march of far right victories and to win demands in the name of solidarity and justice. When you give up on that strategy, you give up on the possibility that we can change the world in exchange for pragmatism.

Strategies are how we get from A to B. We’ve seen where the strategy of deferring our demands down the road in the service of a liberal against the right gets us. It is time we focus on what it is going to take to build more organizations, publications, and struggles that refuse to bend to the pressure to compromise on liberatory demands in the service of our oppressors.

Thank you to members of the Collective whose thoughts and arguments contributed to the development of this article.

Featured image credit: Av Gage Skidmore; modified by Tempest.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”