Oct 28, 2024

Why Purity Politics Is a Trap: Real Impact Requires Material Strategy, Not Symbolism

Strategic materialism + activism > symbolic protest at the ballot box.
By Tim Hjersted / filmsforaction.org
Why Purity Politics Is a Trap: Real Impact Requires Material Strategy, Not Symbolism

To those who argue that voting for Harris means being "complicit in genocide," I want to share an alternative perspective, rooted in justice and our movement's goals, that I hope will help us bridge the divide.

Choosing not to vote, or voting for a third party that is structurally set up to lose, may feel like a principled stand. I get that it can feel like it keeps one's hands clean, and I respect the moral clarity that often drives this choice. But to me, that decision can also risk placing a premium on expressing personal virtue over doing what is necessary to give our movements the best shot at getting an arms embargo and ending the genocide.

I don’t say this to offend anyone—believe me, I understand the impulse. If we had Ranked Choice Voting, I would put third parties at the top every time. I just want to share why, for me, abstaining or casting a protest vote isn't the best path forward.

Solidarity Amid Disagreement

I should emphasize here that I won’t cast aspersions against those who refuse to vote for Harris. To all my Stein and West brothers and sisters, I see you as my family and how you vote won't change that.

What bothers me is seeing some people hold up their non-vote or third-party vote as a morally superior stance, while accusing anyone who votes differently of supporting genocide, blindly sheep-dogging for the establishment, or worse, being a puppet of a monstrous system. From where I'm standing, this position prioritizes personal purity over clear-eyed tactics that prioritize what best serves our movements.

An Inconvenient Truth

There's a reason Netanyahu wants Trump to win, because he knows our chances of getting an arms embargo goes from difficult to impossible should Trump take power.

What's more important: Giving a middle-finger to one half of the duopoly while the more vicious half of the duopoly carries on unaffected, or voting to best serve our movements, preserving the best political terrain for the next four years to secure an arms embargo and dozens of other progressive goals?

I wish we could honor both positions—the anguish of those who see voting as complicity and the resolve of those who see it as the grim necessity of choosing our adversary. But time and again, I find myself confronted by purists who insist that only by abstaining, or by voting for someone rigged to lose, do we keep our hands clean. This is the only way to prove you're a good person, in their book.

The tragedy of this stance is that it leaves us strategically straight-jacketed, unable to make decisions that best serve our long-term goals. For me, the best way to stay in integrity with my values is to spend a day every couple years voting to best serve our movements, then get back to the real work, which is the activism that is necessary all year round.

Third-Party Voting in Swing States Functionally Supports the Duopoly

I'm sorry to anyone I'm going to offend with this, but I need to be blunt here. 

Voting in swing-states in a matter that functionally helps Trump win is not a brave and moral act of rebellion. 

I've voted Green in Kansas for multiple elections and I'm sorry to report it's gotten us no closer to toppling the status quo and it certainly hasn't “sent a message” to elites that's pushed them left. That's a painful reality we have to grapple with if we're serious about contesting power. Any concessions we've won from Democrats over the years have been through sustained organizing between elections, not from how we voted. 

Without Ranked Choice Voting, a third party vote in swing states merely empowers the more extreme half of the duopoly over the other.

Until then, this tactic of protest remains completely neutralized by the system and functionally supports the status quo, giving radicals only the "illusion" of resistance. Buying into the illusion, to the idea that voting third party or not voting is somehow revolutionary, doesn't make one a radical.

True radicalism demands organizing, building mass movements, and taking collective action that disrupts the status quo and forces those in power to respond. As the Sunrise Movement says, “Democrats don’t respond to persuasion or symbolic votes: they respond to brute force from mass movements."

Voting within a radical framework means forgetting about “protest votes” and “sending a message” to elites. Instead, radicals use their vote to choose the most favorable opponents and political terrain for our movements’ campaigns.

The problem with most third party strategies in the US is that they actively disregard this holistic approach. With absolutely no shot at winning, and a slim chance of even breaking 5% of the vote, they continue to champion the virtues of symbolic protest while dismissing or denying the concrete harms that will affect our movements for years should Republicans take power again.

Case in point: When Mehdi Hasan asked Jill Stein how a vote for her would functionally help end the genocide, she said it would be a “shot across the bow” of empire, but that’s a purely symbolic gesture.

Third parties have been getting 1% of the vote for over two decades. They haven't won a single senate or congress seat in all that time. My friends, that is no threat to the establishment. They are laughing at us, and it's appalling that the Greens, after two decades of trying the same strategy, are still promoting the virtues of symbolic protest over material outcomes.

Allowing Trump to win in material terms means weakening our own movements, weakening our leverage against those in power, and making the chances of getting an arms embargo go from difficult to impossible.

I Honor Difference

Now for those who simply can't vote for Harris, regardless of the tactical considerations, I get it, and I'm not going to judge anyone that makes a different choice than me or others. For real! I completely respect the Muslim and Palestinian Americans who can't stomach voting for someone who's been complicit in killing their loved ones. While there are many people in these communities who believe Trump must be defeated even if it means voting for Harris, there are many who just can't do it and I completely understand and respect that.

My commentary here is a response to the many self-professed radicals I see everywhere online who accuse leftists who vote for Harris as "voting for genocide" or "endorsing genocide" in bad faith.

Can we please reign in the spurious accusations?

This accusation is particularly maddening because Netanyahu and the far-right in Israel and the US both want Trump to win. That alone is enough for me to want to do everything in my power to deny them that victory, and that means encouraging everyone I know to vote for Harris.

Voting or Not Voting Won't Keep Our Hands Clean

No matter what, let's be clear: voting for Stein, Harris, or refusing to vote at all won't stop the genocide, so no one can claim to keep their hands clean by virtue of how they voted. 

Far from being radical, the idea that how you vote is a way to keep our hands clean is sadly the most liberal assertion ever. It actually recuses us of true responsibility.

The only way you and I build integrity is by speaking out and engaging in activism all year round regardless of who is in power and regardless of how we engage with elections.

 


 

Post-Script Objection:
“It's unfair to blame Ralph Nader and Jill Stein for costing the Democrats the election in 2000 and 2016. It's also wrong to blame those who voted for them.”

Democrats are always to blame, first and foremost, for their losses. But that doesn't mean we have to vote in non-strategic ways that harm our movements either. Data shows those elections could have been swayed by the margins that went to third parties, and while no one owes the Democrats their vote, it's still on us to survey the material conditions we face and make strategic choices that best serve our movements. 

Surveying the fallout of past Democratic losses and the lack of power built by the Green Party in that time, I can't say this strategy is worth continuing.

As this statement by Palestinian, Muslim, Arab and Progressive Democrats in Arizona wrote:

"Some argue that if Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim voters and our allies vote for a 3rd party candidate and intentionally throw the election to Trump, taking credit for defeating Harris, it will prove our power to decide a close election and “punish Democrats” for complicity in genocide. Unfortunately, this is not how power, politics, or change works in our country. 

When Ralph Nader helped throw the election to Bush in 2000, he was rejected by millions for whom he was once a hero, banished ever since to the political margins. When Jill Stein helped throw the election to Trump in 2016, she remained relegated to the political fringe, becoming less powerful not more. If our communities ally with the Green Party to defeat Harris, we risk marginalizing ourselves as they did by alienating the tens of millions of voters who support the cause of Palestinian freedom and are fighting to defeat Trump by electing her.

Instead, by helping to elect Kamala Harris, we can say, “Despite it all, we gave you another chance and helped put you in office to defend democracy and uphold our highest American values. Now uphold them: end the genocide and secure Palestinian self-determination. We will fight every day to hold you to it.” If Harris and Democrats win, we will wage that fight with more allies among the American people, Congress, and the White House than ever before. If they don’t deliver, we will have a mandate and mass support to hold them accountable through every nonviolent tool of democracy, including protests, resignations, civil disobedience, primary election challenges, and even potential mass noncooperation. It’s a difficult path, but the one that offers the most hope.

The first step –– and our best choice in this horrible situation –– is defeating Trump by electing Harris. We urge you to join us."

It is a great detriment in my view that the Green Party has effectively repeated the same strategy for over two decades and failed to build power in all that time. We ought to be honest about that. They are up against incredible odds, no doubt, and the Democrats and Republicans deserve scorn for their duplicitous attacks on third parties at every turn. But the machinations of the duopoly can't excuse poor strategy executed by Green leadership. 

In my book, it makes no sense to run for POTUS with zero Green Party seats won in the senate or congress. If one were serious about building real power, you'd build it from below, focusing on winning seats in congress and the senate first, gaining a third of the seats in both houses, which means you've built real constituent power that can win elections. You’d also focus on getting Ranked Choice Voting in every state.

When you're 38 moves into the game, THEN run for POTUS. As it is, they are attempting to checkmate their opponent after 3 moves on the chess board, despite losing the same way multiple times in a row. I just can't get behind a poor strategy that's failed to deliver results over two decades. 

I've suggested a few ways the Greens could shift their communications strategy in a previous article. There's a potential win/win strategy they could pursue, but it's doubtful they'll shift gears at this point. They seem entrenched in a symbolic approach to challenging power, and without those in the Green Party to challenge them and demand they do better, it's unlikely they will.

The Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement, and NDN Collective have a much better organizing strategy, in my view.

As it happens, the NDN Collective just released a video on “how to vote like a radical.” It’s one of the most beautiful and succinct expressions of radical politics, and I couldn’t agree more.

 

Tim Hjersted is the director and co-founder of Films For Action, an online library for people who want to change the world.

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