This morning, at the behest of Jessica, I confirmed my registration to vote.
This year’s election is very much for me like the 2016 election. A third of my friends (close and afar) voted for Trump, a third for Clinton, and a third for Johnson (or didn’t vote at all). This year is the same: a third for Trump, a third for Biden, and a third for Jorgenson (or not at all).
I left the presidential portion blank in 2016. I will either do that again or perhaps put Jorgenson down, or write in some Christian political hero of mine like Chris Hedges, Cornel West, or…the Pillsbury Dough Boy, to show my disrespect for the two-party system and the sociopaths that control the machinery of government. The philosopher Natalie Wynn recently uploaded a video on voting, and I think her reasoning is reasonable. But I ultimately find some of her conclusions (not all) unsatisfactory and a somewhat unrealistic game of political calculus, at least when it comes to the gamble between two evils.
Also this year, like in 2016, I fully understand the choices of my friends for each of their candidates.
Many Trump supporters believe “the left” is out to destroy society, western civilization, persecute evangelicals, and take away all the wealth by creating a secular collectivist/communist state, so what’s needed is a “tough guy” to resist this avalanche of ungodliness and absurdity (e.g., abolishment of binary bathrooms). As Rep Michelle Bachman put it, “black transgender Marxists” want to overthrow the government in a violent revolution. Others support Trump simply because they want to avoid tax increases that will disrupt their financial plans – whether sending their kids to college or purchasing a new home or increasing savings by stock market investments. Still others vote for Trump because of party loyalty, or because they believe Mexicans are taking their jobs and want someone to close the borders, etc. Many evangelicals support Trump just because of the abortion issue or to get “conservative judges” on the Supreme court. Most of these reasons, it appears, are based on elevating one fear or another.
Many Biden supporters (most?) simply want Trump removed from office. They also have more progressive views that seem more probably achieved under Biden’s plans, despite his largely non-progressive history. Many Christians are loyal to the democratic party (Billy Graham was a lifelong registered democrat) because its welfare programs seem to be more in align with the commands of Jesus to take care of the poor and help the vulnerable. Many Biden supporters want to duplicate the welfare states of those in Europe and Canada, and see them as superior to the current state in America.
People vote third party often because they align more with the principles of the voter. There is little sacrifice or compromise necessary (e.g., “the lesser of two evils”). While third-party candidates rarely win, their continued presence and gradual growth seems may erode the foundations of the two-party system, which many view as toxic, unnecessary, and even unAmerican. Third parties include the Green party (environmentalist, progresssive), libertarian party (minarchist and minimalist), constitutionalist (speaks for itself) and others. People vote libertarian because they seem more principled, less hindered by popular rhetoric and controlled by corporate interests, and resonate with some of the classically-liberal ethos of America’s early founding fathers. Or, people just want to smoke weed, not pay taxes, and not worry about their M4 carbine being taken away.
The internal logic of each of these broad groups is fairly straightforward and coherent from inside. Internally, many or most thinking political persons have understandable reasons for their choices. It’s like all “worldviews.” They are inherently cogent; they make sense to the person holding them. I never tried to directly persuade someone’s election choices in 2016 largely for that reason.
Something I’ve also learned is the high level of isolation these three groups often seem to have. There are media outlets and info-sources designed to re-affirm one’s predisposed inclinations. As the documentary The Social Dilemma points out, social media has made this an extreme problem so that it seems nearly impossible to have any common ground with those whom we disagree, and thus impossible to have any meaningful conversation. I am continually amazed at how one group of my friends characterizes the other; as countless people have expressed in recent times, the demonization has escalated and become normalized, especially in the context of red vs. blue duality.
Sometimes, there is a delineation in within the internal logic of these political perspectives, however. While there are perhaps as many red’s as blue’s that want to really see their political opposites fail and faulter, some people’s voting decisions are less to do with obtaining power and benefiting themselves.
In other words, many or most people vote because they would benefit from the policies and person who wins; few people vote, however, to benefit those who should benefit. (The Golden Rule is rarely cited for one’s voting choices.) So I post that question and will leave it: which makes more sense, especially from a perspective that values some sort of rightness or justice? To be politically active to help those who need it, or to help oneself regardless of one’s position in society?
Of course, the whole idea of voting to control the machinery of government—the monopoly on coercion—is problematic to me. The driver isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that the car even needs a driver. The “peaceful transfer of power” is a problem just a like a “violent transfer of power” is a problem. The problem is that there are centralizations and concentrations of power to begin with—offices in place that allow one person or a small group to force everyone else to do things they don’t want to do. This anti-hierarchical, anti-power-concentration perspective technically makes me an “anarchist.” All governance structures in society, in my view, should be as decentralized as possible, and individuals as well as groups generally have the right to be free from violence. Actually, I would go further: both the economy and political/governance apparatus must be decentralized, because “power corrupts,” and private economic power can be just as dangerous as public political power. (…And that means distributed ownership and responsibility—from egalitarian marriages to worker-owned cooperatives on the micro level all the way to emergent, autonomous governance structures at the macro-level.)
The American democratic experiment has generally improved on this score, I think, since monarchy. That whole “three branches” + elections thing. But as long as those with money can buy-out political positions (…and everything else), voting is just a mostly (though not entirely) meaningless formality that gives the illusion of public control. Whether Biden or Trump wins, we can be sure that: the wars will probably not stop, the federal reserve will still control the economy, police brutality will continue, and above all, the offices of the president and congress will not be abolished or reformed into something better.
This is not to trivialize the real differences voting can make (as Wynn rightly argues in her video). If Clinton was in charge right now, the situation at the southern border and policies of Muslim immigration would surely be different, as probably a number of other very impactful and practical issues. Many things are speculative: maybe there would be more Middle-eastern violence, maybe less. Some things aren’t speculative: Hillary would not be using the justice department to block a required DNA test to verify if she raped someone.
Cynical as I am, I’m a long-term optimist. (Given the history of our species and survival, how can’t we be?) I think the American empire will end (as all empires do) and better things will come around that more effectively distribute power and achieve justice for those who most need it (though it might take thousands of years…and many setbacks.) But just like the abolition of slavery and segregation, it takes constant resistance and intolerance for systemic injustice to get anywhere.
Heck, women weren’t even allowed to obtain a business loan in the U.S. without a male relative co-signing until 1988. (Think about that for a second.) These anti-human fears and prejudices are deep, and they don’t magically go away on their own. No, talking about racism and sexism doesn’t “make it worse” and things won’t automatically fix themselves anymore than refusing to talk about an abusive father’s domestic violence will make everything better. We may not be ready for these conversations (I rarely am), but it is another thing to say they aren’t necessary and in fact should never take place. I think this is an important observation when we live amongst the largest protest movement in American and possibly all of human history—and these are specifically some of the central problems they involve.
As a Christian, I cannot but see Trump as Caesar, and the religious elevation of Trump as the equivalent of the imperial cult. Given that the entire identity of Jesus as “Lord,” “Savior,” and “Son of God” were terms specifically designated to Augustus and ripped off by Christians to be applied to Jesus—specifically to identify who it was they worshipped and what identity they were apart of, I have every responsibility to run as far away from Caesarism and other such idolatries. They are fundamentally the opposite of the meaning “Christian.” We were also warned that “If we claim, ‘We don’t have any sin,’ we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8), and, well…
Late last year, Trump told Republican pollster and focus-group guru Frank Luntz that when the real-estate mogul has done something wrong, he tries to correct his error without getting God involved.
“I am not sure I have,” Trump said when asked if he’d ever asked God for forgiveness. “I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so,” he said. “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”
I must finally note that the evangelical vote for Trump wasn’t despite his character, but because of it. This has been thoroughly demonstrated in the powerful work of Christian historian Kristin Kobes DuMez, and that is a recommendation I want to leave with: