The emergency we all worried would come is finally here: the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes a 6-3 partisan Republican majority on the Supreme Court a virtual inevitability. This could mean the end of abortion clinics in 21 states. It could mean the Supreme Court decides the next election—and possibly every one after that. I can spend disaster scenarios forever. It seems that’s the case for everyone else, too. My social media feed has been filled with people proclaiming the end of democracy, asserting that fascism is inevitable, and proclaiming their intent to emigrate to a better country. I get it. I’m scared, too. But these disaster scenarios give the far right exactly what it once.
Two years ago, after Anthony Kennedy retired, I wrote that authoritarianism thrives on demoralization. A demoralized populace doesn’t fight back. It recoils in fear. So if you want to do something right now, stop fanning the flames of hopelessness. Hope exists as long as we are alive, as long as we are hopeful. That’s because people only take action to change the world when they are hopeful that doing so might work.
Right now, the single most important thing any of us can do, the most profound act of resistance, is to vote—even better if you can get people who are on the fence about voting to do so.
If you’re on the fence about voting, or know someone who is, please know that at a moment like now, voting is a profound act of resistance. Indeed, voting may be the only way to ensure future resistance is legal, or even possible.
I keep hearing that the two-party system is a distraction, that voting doesn’t change anything, and that is a conspiracy by the powerful to convince people to buy into a broken system. There’s no doubt that much about our democracy is broken. Asking people to vote is not a conspiracy.
The real conspiracy is convincing people not to vote, or to vote for candidates who can never win. The real conspiracy is giving a small minority progressively more power because most Americans do not consistently vote.
I’ve spent the last year talking to people about voting, trying to convince them to vote, and educating them about how our system of government works. Ignorance is rampant. So too are pipe dreams about mass write-in campaigns and a socialist revolution. I’ve managed to convince a few people to vote, and a lot of people to stop voting third party. Here’s the information that has helped.
Why Vote for an Imperfect Candidate?
The two-party system is broken. The Democrat candidate opposes policies that have widespread, majority support. He’s to the right of the average American. He does not have a plan for many of the issues that affect the most marginalized Americans. No wonder so many of them want to vote third party, or not at all.
Even so, the cavern between Trump and Biden is enormous. Most significantly, a vote for Trump will kill people.
Children will die in ICE detention camps.
Hundreds of thousands more Americans will die of COVID.
Police accountability will get even smaller, allowing them to kill more people with impunity.
If Trump wins, he could get even more Supreme Court nominees. Enough court gains could truly mean the end of democracy as we know it. A packed Court might support whatever Republicans want—a federal ban on abortion, jail time for women who have already had abortions, prison for people with debt, the death penalty for drug crimes, poll taxes, an infinite number of horrors.
It is very possible that, should Trump win, there will not be another presidential election—or at least not one that women and minorities are allowed to participate in.
We can still fix what is broken. We can still bring this country back from the brink and build something better. That will become much more difficult with a second term of an authoritarian president who has no checks on his power.
An imperfect candidate is better than a fascist one. Sometimes all you can hope for is incremental change. Now is one of those times.
The Folly of Third Party Voting
I’m already hearing people say they intend to protest it all by voting third party. After all, if everyone voted third party, we could break free from the two-party system.
I’m not going to try to convince anyone that a Biden win will bring about a better world than a Green Party win, or that Biden was truly the best candidate, or the most representative of American values. He’s not. But he’s the candidate we have, and it doesn’t matter if a different candidate would be better. A different candidate won’t win. This, at its core, is the reason not to vote third party.
It doesn’t matter if you think a different candidate could win if everyone voted their conscience. Everyone will not. Most people do not even know who else is running.
If that’s not enough to convince you, consider this scary statistic: In several states Trump won in 2016, Trump’s victory margin was smaller than the number of people who voted third party. The Trump electoral victory ultimately came down to just 80,000 people in three states. Trump won Michigan by just over 10,000 votes. If just one out of every five people who voted for Jill Stein had voted Clinton instead, she would have carried that state.
Those who want to change the two party system sometimes claim that the short-term discomfort of a Trump presidency is worth it if we can get better candidates on the ballot. This is a lie. People will die under Trump. More than 200,000 already have. Third parties are doing almost nothing between presidential election cycles to become more legitimate or electable. They’re not typically running in local elections. Instead, they’re using an election they know they can’t win as a PR stunt. Until that changes, and until the fate of democracy no longer hinges on a single election, third party candidates do not deserve anyone’s vote.
4 Ways to Convince Your Friends to Vote
It’s frustrating when people don’t want to vote, or don’t see the value in doing so, at such a terrifying moment. Maybe that’s why the Internet is littered with pieces mocking non-voters, dismissing their concerns, and treating them as people who don’t matter.
Please, if you want your friends to vote, don’t do that. Calling people stupid does not change their minds. Dismissing very real human concerns—the inability to pay medical bills, lack of accountability for police, starvation wages, and so much more—will not convince non-voters to trust or listen to you. So if you can’t talk to a non-voter without mocking them or showing contempt, leave the work to someone who can.
Here are 5 ways you might be able to convince friends to vote:
- Help them vote. Voting is increasingly difficult, especially during a pandemic. Most people do not know how to vote. Some wait to register until it is too late. Today, look up voting rules in your state. Write down the deadlines and application information and voting information. Then take it upon yourself to do whatever it takes to get a few struggling friends to vote—absentee or early if possible, so that they can send in their votes as soon as legally possible.
- A lot of people on the far left think that voting delays a more progressive world. Some think that staying home will bring about a progressive/liberal/communist revolution. Help them understand that the only revolution staying home will spark is a fascist one. When people don't vote, it creates the illusion that the electorate is more conservative than it is. This empowers far-right leaders like Donald Trump. Rest assured, his base is energized and becomes more excited to vote for him the worse he becomes. Don't allow their views to count more than yours.
- Acknowledge Biden’s flaws. He is not a perfect candidate. He’s the candidate we get. You are more credible when you can empathize with a non-voter and correctly identify their concerns.
- Talk to them about how our system of government works. Civic education in the United States is terrible. Most people do not understand what the Supreme Court is, or what it does. Identify the person’s specific concerns,
Rinse and repeat. Talk over and over to skeptical non-voters. Those of us who always vote, who know the power of doing so, must inspire others to join us—not berate them, not separate ourselves from them, not make them feel even more disenfranchised than they already do.
Democracy itself is in danger here. The only vote of conscience is a vote for the Democratic candidate. You are voting to save lives. You are voting for the United States to have a chance at a better future. Please don't throw that vote away. If you do, your chance at ever voting again is truly at risk.
