Why You Should Still Vote, Even If You Hate The Democratic Party
If you spend enough time online (and in real life, too), you will inevitability come across people who believe that elections are futile. I am not referring to anti-democratic fascists who want to dismantle democracy, but those who fundamentally believe that our current system cannot guarantee meaningful reform.
From this perspective, it doesn't matter whether you vote for Democrats or Republicans; neither side will lead to any substantial change. In fact, this logic claims that there are many areas of policy where there is no substantial difference between these two factions. They are simply "two sides of the same coin." As one person laments on Quora:
“Democrats and Republicans are both funded and lobbied by the same banksters (s.p.), corporations, and financiers. Both mostly push for the same wars. THEY’RE ALL IN THE HANDS OF BIG BUSINESS AND CORPORATIONS, y’know? The people who run the nation. That’s what it means that they’re two sides of the same coin. It doesn’t matter who gets in. They all sellout.”
I am pretty adamant about being in favor of elections and disagreeing with the perspective that they are useless. However, I am also on the Left (AKA one of those radicals who goes bump in the night). Anyone who follows me knows that I am deeply dissatisfied with the United States and how our leaders govern. I want to have the systemic, revolutionary change that advocates of the above viewpoint claim is impossible to achieve through elections.
And so, I wanted to give my leftist perspective on why participation in electoral politics can be useful and how it might lead to that better world after all.
A Quick Disclaimer
Firstly, when we have this conversation, we need to highlight that those who defend elections can be very condescending towards those who are critical of them. Many conversations often devolve into name-calling, as lost elections are quickly blamed on those who refused to participate in them. "If you don't vote, that's a vote for Trump," former President Obama infamously said of nonvoters shortly before the 2016 election, and we all know how that strategy turned out.
Even if you agree with the sentiment that nonvoters are to blame, it should be stressed that it's not particularly helpful for convincing someone to come to your side (again, shame did not help Obama convince nonvoters to support Clinton). It's very hard to get someone to change their opinions once they have made up their mind, with group affiliation having a huge impact on their worldview. Some research indicates that correcting others can cause them to double down and might even worsen their misperceptions (see the much-debated 'backfire effect').
If someone believes that elections are a waste of time, telling them that they're wrong and should feel bad isn't effective — a statement I realize will not change the minds of those seriously invested in this strategy, but I am a glutton for punishment. If we continue to use this tactic, then know that it's more about making ourselves feel better emotionally than convincing someone that we are right.
Furthermore, we have to acknowledge that there is a lot of valid criticism coming from this disenfranchised wing of the Left. When we look at establishment Democrats, they often have an outright hostility towards leftist candidates. For example, when socialist India Walton won the Democratic primary in the 2021 Buffalo mayoral election, she was not met with a "vote blue no matter who" response but rather intense resistance from more conservative Democrats. They teamed up with Republicans to stage a write-in campaign that ultimately assured the incumbent Democrat, a moderate who lost in the primary, received victory in the general — a strategy that potentially cost the Democratic Party the general election for Erie County Sheriff. Conservative Democrats were more concerned with stopping leftists within their own party than expanding political power.
Plenty of these examples exist. From all staff members in the Nevada state party resigning after DSA members won seats to New York Democrats trying to eliminate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's seat, these antics do not make leftists feel listened to or respected within the party. You may not agree with the perspective that elections are inherently flawed (I don't either), but this resignation comes from a valid place. The Democratic establishment does not seem interested in allowing everyone in its tent to hold positions of power. This gatekeeping has created a lot of bad will within its coalition. Many leftists know that their vision of the future will not be listened to and will often be mocked and derided as childish by party members, so they have checked out. I don't think yelling at activists who have spent years fighting for social change, only to be belittled for those efforts, is going to win over any converts.
That's what we call a bad look, folks.
And so, if you are a leftist with the perspective that elections are futile, know that I am not here to judge you. I often agree with your frustration with establishment Democrats. If you are committed to the fight in other ways (e.g., mutual aid funds, direct action, etc.), I applaud your efforts and consider you a friend. We may disagree on the issue of voting; however, I do not think you are my enemy, and I will not treat you as such.
I am here to explain my perspective on why I think participation in elections, the system, electoralism, "bourgeois politics," or whatever you want to call it, can be effective.
The Arguments
I will not wax poetically about systemic reform because if such an argument worked, there would be no need for this article.
Let's assume for argument's sake that the "elections are futile" position is right: that elections within our current system will never seriously abolish institutions such as racism, sexism, capitalism. If you hold this perspective, I still think there are some vital reasons to participate in electoral politics.
Harm reduction
The most cited one is "harm reduction," or the idea that this will lessen the total harm done to certain people. The argument goes that even if Democrats are corporatist shills with no intention of passing systemic reform, there is still some good to be done in endorsing them in the issues where they are not absolutely awful. Democrats, the argument goes, mainly support the status quo when it comes to reproductive justice, queer rights, and preserving our imperfect safety net programs, as opposed to Republicans who will (and are actively campaigning) to overturn these issues at a moment's notice.
If the argument of harm reduction works for you, then great. It's probably partially true, depending on the issue being discussed. There are traditionally some material differences in Democratic and Republican leadership.
Abortion is a key one. For the past couple of decades, presidential administrations have used Title X funding, a federal grant program devoted to providing money for family planning and health services, to determine what type of "options" recipients like Planned Parenthood could advise. Ronald Reagan instituted a gag rule that prevented recipients from advising or giving out referrals for abortion to people with an unintended pregnancy, even if they explicitly asked for this information. Clinton repealed the gag order. Bush reinstituted it, and back and forth, this dance went like clockwork, continuing to the present day under Biden, who has recently repealed the gag order once again.
Another slight difference is healthcare funding. Democratic governors are far more likely to expand Medicaid funding under the ACA than Republican ones. Although that law may be imperfect, it still has given millions of people access to health care. In these states, this coverage translated to an increase in quality of care, particularly among adults without a college degree, patients with cancer, and patients with diabetes.
There are a lot of issues like these that aren't going to change the fabric of our society fundamentally, but they do make a material difference in people's lives. This reality doesn't make the Democratic Party perfect. There are plenty of issues where there is honestly no material difference between the two parties, especially in fiscal and foreign policy areas. Still, these above reasons are enough for some Leftists to resign themselves to vote blue.
From this perspective, harm reduction between Democrats and Republicans is like the option between a turd and an uncooked potato. Sure one of these options is difficult to consume and will kill some people who are allergic to it, but the other is a pile of shit. Most people can cook a potato with the right tools, and while we should seriously work on giving people other types of healthier foods to eat, no one can eat shit.
Despite harm reduction being the most frequent argument, however, I think it is the weakest one for convincing people to support elections because determining the harm a party can do is difficult in the moment. The repercussions for policy are not felt until years if not decades later. Bill Clinton was a Democrat, and he helped change our nation's safety net programs in a way that materially made them more difficult to access and use. The two political parties both support neoliberal fiscal policy, so harm reduction is not a very effective argument for mobilizing people who hate that paradigm.
Votes for us because we are slightly better than Satan is a terrible campaign slogan, even if it's true.
Successful elections make activism easier
No, I think you should vote because it lets you get away with more effective forms of activism (e.g., mutual aid funds, direct action, etc.) far more easily.
My problem with the "those in charge will never permit real reform" argument is that it's so hyperbolic to the point of not being helpful. To be clear, if "the powers that be" will not allow true reform through elections, they are not going to allow it through direct action or militia groups either. The United States spends more on its military than any other country in the world, and it has a long history of squashing leftist movements and organizations both abroad (see all of Latin America) and at home (see Project MERRIMAC, Project RESISTANCE, COINTELPRO, etc.). Any outright attempt to challenge that hegemony has and will be met with violent suppression.
That's how colonizers think pretty much across the board. Anything that makes them uneasy is often met with a disproportionate amount of violence. Rome didn't just defeat Carthage but, in what is often considered a genocide, destroyed the city-state (though the literal salting of the Earth probably didn't happen). No one will “call the manager” harder than a colonizer having their worldview challenged.
However, this reality does not mean that the type of government opposing you is irrelevant. While activists are never friends of the status quo, the response they receive varies dramatically depending on who is in power. Rome didn't genocide everyone who opposed it, and neither does the United States. There is a spectrum of violence used by imperialist powers to preserve the status quo. Longtime activists know that the enforcement of the law is not done so equally. Getting genuine leftists into power on the local level, especially in city council and sheriff offices, means more hesitancy to mobilize punishment against protesters.
Conversely, when we do not focus on winning allies in positions of power, the job of the dissident becomes that much more difficult. The city council of Los Angeles, for example, recently passed a slew of laws that restrict mobilization, such as requiring a 300-foot buffer around a private residence targeted for demonstration and limiting disruptions at City Hall. The LA police already have a history of misusing force, which means these laws will give them even more wiggle room to rough up protestors. As Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, told the LA Times: "I am concerned about this type of legislation that says, 'Let's make it that much harder to protest.'"
Protestors need to be involved in the political system to prevent this legislation from hindering their efforts. You may never get the entire political system to support your cause outright. Yet, that doesn't mean that active allies within the electoral system or even passive ones (i.e., people who willfully do not get in your way) are useless. Support is not a binary between enemies and allies. Even if someone isn't backing your cause explicitly, if they are not mobilizing the full force of the law against you, it becomes substantially easier to organize protests and other forms of political disobedience. In some cases, it can be the difference between an activist getting jail time or a bullet and walking away to fight another day.
The more people in power you get not using the full force of the law directed at your efforts — either through active support or indirect assistance — the more of your resources can go to other things. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars a year, are spent on bailing activists out of jail, and pretending like we would not be in a better position if those resources were directed towards expanding our base (rather than defending the existing one) is counterproductive.
We should want allies in the political system because it makes other political activism easier. I'd rather have people in the streets than behind bars, and elections can sadly make that difference for some activists.
They help with radicalization and engagement
Lastly, while you may think that elections might not change the system, they do perform the secondary objective of radicalizing people to your cause. Campaigns are hotbeds of political mobilization and one of the few areas of civic life where people can explore their political identities.
For example, thousands of people were radicalized by the Bernie Sanders campaign. He may have lost both the 2016 and 2020 elections, but it still had a material difference in what people believe. As one far-left anarchist said of Bernie's bid for the presidency:
“…let's go back to 2015. That's when I was starting to pay attention to politics again for the first time in years. There was an old bald guy named Bernie Sanders and he was saying things that I’d never heard a presidential candidate say before….Bernie Sanders energized me and pointed out flaws in my way of thinking that I never knew I had. I did something I have never done before and I donated money to his campaign. Not just once but over and over again. I was firing off campaign donations on an almost weekly basis. I couldn't shut up about him on Facebook. I had the zeal of a convert….He unlocked something deep inside me and I met people through all my online campaigning for Bernie and they exposed me to even more radical ideas and that is how eventually I became an anarchic communist and it didn't take long.”
There are so many people who have this story. The primary objective of winning the presidency did not happen for Bernie Sanders, but the secondary objective of radicalization did occur for millions around the globe (myself included). This emergent enthusiasm for leftist causes has made a material difference on the level of leftist mobilization in the United States. The Democratic Socialists of America, for example, went from having about 6,000 members before 2015 to now nearly having 100,000 (that's over a 1,500% increase), and we see a similar uptick with leftist groups around the country.
The truth is that non-radicalized people are far more likely to be amenable to politics during a campaign than they are during any other period in their lives. When we close ourselves off to those avenues of radicalization, it hinders our ability to recruit people. You have to meet people where they are, and modern "bourgeois" politics are where they are.
This support can also spill over into other things. Elections generally excite people, and it's very easy to link issues a person supports in a candidate to more direct actions like mutual aid funds and working groups. Suppose a person likes Bernie Sanders because of single-payer. What's more effective in this situation: 1. telling them that you are doing similar work and directing them to a healthcare working group within your organization or; 2. telling them that caring about electoral politics is pointless and that they are naive for bothering with it.
Belittling liberals for believing in the system is just as counterproductive as belittling nonvoters. Even if you are not into the idea of elections, engaging with people where they are is a great way to get them excited about the work you are doing. This outreach may not lead to the gains we want in the immediate (very few things will), but on top of all the other things I have mentioned, it is a great way to spur engagement in your group or organization.
Conclusion
In the end, no single set of actions will accomplish the all-encompassing task of overhauling our current oppressive system. That's going to involve countless different actions and tactics. It's going to be a slow and painful whittling away at this terrible regime until it comes crashing down, and we can get the system we want.
That work will be far easier with allies within the electoral system who can repeal laws that make organizing more difficult and prevent new, reactionary ones from being implemented. We need to mitigate not just the harm the system does to its citizens but the barriers the system creates to successful organizing in general.
Additionally, secondary objectives like radicalization and engagement became even more important because they are what is achievable in the short term. You might not be able to get a single-payer law passed or to create a lasting autonomous zone successfully, but you can convert people to your cause and fight for small changes on the local level. Those tangible victories can galvanize people to support your cause and funnel them towards the types of activism you consider more effective.
Of course, all of these justifications are based on the assumption that elections cannot lead to systemic change, and even with that in mind, we see here how participation in elections can still be effective. Changing systems of power is tedious work where progress is judged in the span of decades, not years. You will lose most of the time when you are going against the default system. I understand the frustration with the status quo. Trust me, I am there with you, but if we want to create a seismic shift in society, building temporary allies within politics can still be useful, even if it doesn't lead to the change we want in the immediate.
We might not get a new system through electoral politics, but participation in it can move us in the right direction.