Why voting is not the only tool of democratic politics

Now that Robert F Kennedy Jr has dropped out, some of his voters appear ready to move their support over to Jill Stein, the Green Party’s candidate. They say they can’t abide by Kamala Harris’ position on the war in Gaza. If I understand their view correctly, they believe that voting for the Democratic nominee is voting for genocide.

Ihavealreadyexplainedwhy I think third-party candidates who are seeking the presidency are scammers. They can’t win. They know they can’t win. And they know they are lying to people when they say they can. But I want to address something else: that third parties give the impression that voting is the only tool of democratic politics.

It isn’t.

Small democratic politics happens continuously. It’s all around us. It is the force by which normal people are able to make the world a better place. It happens when we voice opinions about this or that issue. It happens when we give money and time to important causes. It happens when together we decide matters of right and wrong. Wherever there are Americans who are arguing over history, ideas, interests, resources and the law, there is also democratic politics.

Because democratic politics is a feature of the American condition, it is larger than electoral politics, which is to say, elections and voting. Democratic politics is so normal as to be invisible, but electoral politics comes around only occasionally, every two years for congressional elections and every four for presidential ones. Because electoral politics is recurring, not ongoing, it gets our attention, and because it gets our attention, we tend to think it’s more important.

Americans shouldn’t forget that democratic politics is part of the air we breathe, but unfortunately, we do. And when we forget, I think we become susceptible to ideas that are fundamentally anti-democratic. In the case of third parties, we become susceptible to the idea that we must vote for third party candidates, or not vote at all, if or when the major parties espouse policies that we believe are unconscionable.

When it comes to America’s military support of Israel, and Israel’s devastation of the Palestinian people, this appears to be the most common question: How can I get Kamala Harris to change America’s stance – or, if you will, how can I get her to stop supporting genocide – when supporting her gives her reason not to change? Not only is this question common, it appears to be persuasive among young Americans who have little or no feeling for US-Israeli relations.

In fact, Kamala Harris struck a new balance at her acceptance speech. By “new,” I mean she put more and better emphasis on the side of the Palestinians than Joe Biden has so far. After describing the horror of the Hamas attacks nearly 10 months ago, Harris said: “What has happened in Gaza … is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again.

“The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

Young people don’t know much, but their ignorance isn’t the problem. The problem is the lessons the rest of us teach them. Somehow, we are teaching them to think that voting is the only means of exercising their democratic power and that the choices on Election Day are their only choices. As a consequence, we are teaching them to see third parties as an expansion of choices when the truth is they are the illusion of it. You throw away a vote and you throw away possibilities and hope.

Voting for Jill Stein or any third-party candidate in protest of the Democratic Party’s position on Gaza is going to yield nothing. Third-party candidates, no matter what they say, can’t win. If there’s no winning, there’s no power, and without power, you get nothing for your vote. Nothing, except perhaps victory for the Republican nominee. The immediate impact of third-party candidacies is taking votes from one of the other two presidential candidates. As things stand right now, a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump.

But they take more than your money, time and vote. They take your hope. They convince supporters that the system is rigged in favor of the major parties. (It isn’t.) Then, when they lose, and they always lose, the loss seems to prove that third-party candidates were right. Supporters either keep throwing away their votes by sticking with third parties or they throw away their hope by refusing to vote at all.

Whenever I write about third parties, I risk being accused of shilling for the Democrats. What I’m actually doing is shilling for democratic politics. I’m reminding people of the choices they already have. If young voters fully understood their true democratic power, rather than seeing it as reduced beyond recognition to one day every two to four years, they might not be so attracted to third parties and their false promises. Third-party candidates want you to believe that your choices are limited and that the system is impossibly rigged against you. They want you to believe that because then, you will need them.

In that sense, they are demagogic.

They are anti-democratic.

Fortunately, there are good people, and good young people, who are refusing to learn bad lessons. They are reminding us that elections are just one of the many productive tools of democratic politics. They are remembering that their choices are not limited by parties but by the creativity they put into solving the problems of a democratic society.

For example, one of the Connecticut delegates to the Democratic National Convention is Essam Boraey. He voted “present” in the roll-call vote for Harris’ nomination. He didn’t vote against her but he didn’t vote for her either. During President Joe Biden’s speech last Monday, he held up a banner demanding the US “stop arming Israel.” Though he declined to be interviewed by local news media, his vote and protest made headlines throughout the state. He honored his conscience while seeming to leave room to pressure the party.

Swaranjit Singh is another delegate from Connecticut who seems to understand. He has called for a ceasefire, but in his interview with the Connecticut Post, he said: “At least [Harris] included Palestine in her remarks, and the struggle of people … and self-determination, which is big. How are we going to reach that? It’s going to be a lot of work. First thing we have to do is elect her and keep the conversation going.”

That’s the way to do it.