two different valid projects
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/voting-president-not-personal-expression
“Voting for President Is Not an Exercise in Personal Expression. Whatever flaws you may see in Joe Biden, he is the only actual alternative to Trump’s reign.”
or: “it’s objectively too important to treat the situation subjectively”
I’m not an absolutist. Yes, I think the Republican and Democratic parties are both part of the problem and not part of the solution. I believe that to the extent that I won’t vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate. A vote of that kind sends a message of support for one of those parties.
But I can understand and I can sympathize with the viewpoint of the above linked article. The presidency of the most dominant country in the world is a big deal. I can understand if a person says to me: “Work to advance the Green Party in all kinds of ways, vote for Green candidates for lesser offices; with critiques and petitions push Biden as far to the left as you can … but in the voting booth do the thing that will keep Trump out.”
I don’t deny that things would be better if no Republican was ever again elected to the presidency. So the project to work for that is understandable. But so is the project to work persistently, every election, to open up the system and to keep sending a message that the Democrats are far from good enough; to keep advocating for the Green Party platform. In fact, one issue, all by itself — the US military-budget-cum-nuclear-arsenal, fostered obscenely by Republicans and Democrats alike — suffices to me to always cast an alternative vote:
“Nuclear war (and militarism, to widen the focus) is the existential threat par excellence.”
