Should Democrats Vote Lesser Evil?

I find one of the biggest obstacles and a continuing point of dismay and contention among the Left is whether or not when faced with the Democratic corporate stooge of the corrupt charade that is our two party system, versus the corporate stooge of the Republican party we should just not vote.

My opinion is we should vote the lesser evil and here’s why. As I see it, no amount of “not voting” is going to pressure anyone into changing anything. Why would it? The guy who gets two votes out of 350,000,000 wins against the guy who gets one. Why does anything change? These pricks don’t get paid on a per-vote basis.

Voting in an of itself is not what will, or even can, fix this mess. The charade as it plays is designed to throw a ten or twenty percent mix of centrist policy into the Corpora-Dem stooges agenda with lot and lots of blubbering (a la Barack Obama) about actually doing what the greater part of the country really wants.

MORE: http://bit.ly/i9psRq

and we may be coming to that time --

that a Republican rt wing stooge wouldnt dare try.

See Clinton's support for the Reagan wish list for an example.

No Republican would have dared to pass half the pro corporate bills he promoted and signed into law.

I want to unrec this. Not going too, but I want too.

many years.

Obama took the cake. I was thrilled when he was elected. Now I want him out! He has betrayed the principles of the Democratic Party and the New Deal. When he agreed to cut FICA contributions it was clear he wants social security cuts. Besides, he should never have agreed to extending the Bush tax cuts because ending them was central to his campaign.

If we had media fairness no one that voted to extend the Bush tax cuts could go on TV and say with a straight face, "We must cut entitlements to rein in the deficit."

None of us should be waiting until we're face-to-face with the ballot to be making the decision between a (D)-Corporate or (R)-Obviously Corporate candidate.

That said, we also need to work on all the races, down to dog-catcher, to ensure a qualified field of candidates for future higher office.

You are absolutely correct when you say that not voting accomplishes nothing, and does not in any way put pressure on either party. So the bigger question for me is, not whether to vote for a Democrat who represents the DLC rather than progressive values or to not vote at all; rather, the larger question I struggle with is whether and when to give serious consideration to voting for third party candidates, even if they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning, because that kind of protest vote (especially if done by a sufficiently large enough segment of Democratic voters) would put pressure on Democrats. That's a tough call, though, and not something to be undertaken lightly or without a great deal of thought as to the actual outcome that might result (thinking here of Nader's impact on John Kerry in 2004).

Indeed, I have a brother-in-law who voted for Nader in 2004 because, in his words, "I just didn't see much of a difference between Yale '66 and Yale '68." I had to admit he had a point, although I think in retrospect he would admit that, on balance, Kerry would have been a significant improvement over a second Bush term.

The trouble with the whole DLC strategy of "moving to the center" every time Republicans make gains at the polls is that, while it might, in the short run, enable an electoral victory (or stave off a GOP rout), when the rightmost end of the spectrum is continually moving radically further to the right, so then does the so-called "center" move continuously rightward. On this score, the Republicans have been playing Democrats like a fiddle for years. And with each new move to a center that itself is constantly moving rightwards, the Democratic Party strays further from what were once the party's core principles, and leaves itself ever weaker in its ability to define the national conversation, until we eventually find ourselves in a position such as the present, with a Democratic president who is, domestically speaking, slightly to the right of Richard Nixon.

The DLC's ideas have been a compromise with the Devil, who now seems to own the party's soul.

I could understand some compromise, but today's Democrat is pretty much a Republican of 20+ years ago. The real progressive Democrats are few and far between. When I find one (my Congressman Lacy Clay, MO 1 seems pretty good) I will vote for them or continue to do so. When I find they are not to my liking (it is My vote) such as my Senator Claire McCaskill, then they will not get my vote. I will either skip that particular office or look for an alternative. I know I won't get everything I want, but I am frankly tired of being lied to over and over again.

voters elected Gore President in 2000?

Republicans and the Supreme Court made sure that enough votes were not counted to ensure the Presidency to the candidate with the second highest number of votes.

Republicans have cheated some where in the US in every election since Nixon and probably long before that.

Ann Richards was the incumbent Governor of Texas with a 60% approval rating when Bush ran against her. How do you win and election when 60% of the votes are going to go to your opponent? You cheat big time.

So please, no lecturer about how our votes count and more thought about how we protect the safety of our votes and ensure that they are counted.

Then lets talk about finding and supporting an actual liberal to run for the Democratic ticket instead a the smooth talking NeoCon the party gave us in 2008.

Yes, Democrats should (continue) voting for the lesser of two evils; unless we are will to live with, what the OP has acknowledged is the greater evil.

After all, it is lesser evil.

If the one who gets elected is working deliberately, consistently against my values in the large majority of issues, does my having voted for them, or having not voted for them, give me more of a right to tell idiots to shut up when they tell me I should 'support' the bozo in office.

I think we need a proportional representation system that is not susceptible to the spoiler effect, otherwise it doesn't much matter whether one votes or not.

Voting for the lesser of two evils. Voting for the lesser of two evils. :wtf: It's an excuse that is past it's prime, and when you really really think about it, it makes absolutely no sense. Unfortunately I have to admit that I have done exactly that in the past, but I now see what that mindset has done to the Democratic Party, no longer an advocate for the people, and I can assure you I will not cast a vote for the perceived "lesser of two evils" again. Evil is evil and does not deserve to be supported.