Privilege of the pure protest vote

The actress and lefty activist is right about the basic parameters of what ails us as a nation, and she’s right in her critique of Hillary Clinton. But Sarandon, in making the claim that a) there is no difference between Clinton and the Republicans and ) the election of a proto-fascist like Donald Trump is both ahistorical and replete with the kind of privilege she should be decrying.

Let’s get this out there first: I plan to vote for Bernie Sanders in the New Jersey primary, provided he gets on the ballot. That does not mean I am endorsing him, which would imply that I am imploring others to follow my lead. I’m not (I am following Ta-Nehisi Coates’ thinking on this); my vote is based purely on philosophical and ideological grounds. Sanders is the candidate whose views are closest to mine.

In this respect, Sarandon and I agree — Sanders is right on income inequality, health care, the influence of corporate money on politics and culture, and the need to demilitarize our foreign policy.

And Sarandon is right that Clinton is likely to be an extension of the current status quo, a center, to paraphrase Yeats, that can’t hold.

Where Sarandon and I differ is on the foolish and dangerous notion that we can afford a Trump presidency. Or a Cruz presidency. And that it is Sanders or bust.

I understand her argument. I’ve made similar arguments in the past — such as when I publicly announced my vote for Ralph Nader and foolishly ignored the difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush. I just don’t buy it any longer, partly because the differences between the parties has grown more pronounced since 2000 — people like John Kasich were considered to be part of the more conservative and extremist wing of the GOP back then and are now seen as reasonable, establishment
Republicans — but also because the system under which we operate forces us to choose a lesser of two evils.

I don’t like that that is the case, but it is the reality under which we live. We on the left can choose a third-party candidate or opt to stay home, but doing so only allows our politics to drift farther to the right. I’ve come to realize that it is better to work on multiple fronts — choose the lesser evil electorally, but agitate (through protest, direct action, good works, writing, etc) to push the least-worst option in the right direction.

More telling, however, is the disconnect between Sarandon’s position — she refused to rule out staying home in November and said “some people feel Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately” — which begs the question of what kind of revolution and who will get screwed. A Trump presidency — which likely would bring with it a Republican House and Senate — means conservative court picks and a rash of legislation that would target Latinos and Muslims (and possibly African Americans and Jews), an assault on civil liberties, a hyper-militarized foreign policy, and so on.

Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post called out Sarandon — and those who, like her, can’t see the potential consequences of a Trump or Cruz win in November — by decrying the “inability or unwillingness of too many to see that their insistence on political purity could lead to calamity.”

It defies logic that a progressive would find anything redeeming about the Trump candidacy. Sure, the Republican presidential front-runner “will bring the revolution immediately” if, God help us, he’s elected. But that revolution would be fueled by a campaign that thrived on racism, xenophobia and misogyny. And, as far as we know, that revolution would involve deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, restricting all Muslims from entering the United States and alternately treating women like pretty prized possessions or objects of ridicule. 

Perhaps for someone like Sarandon, the potential fallout would not be great. She is a wealthy actress and would not face the existential threats that much of the minority community would face under Trump (assuming he means what he says) or Cruz (whose policy proposals are not that much different from Trump, but tinted with a bit of theocracy). This is an issue of race and ethnicity and it is no accident that the people pushing the “Sanders or Bust” narrative tend to be white.

This is not a criticism of Sanders — remember what I said above. Sanders is the better candidate when it comes to issues of race, criminal justice and income and wealth inequality. This is a criticism of those Sanders supporters who refuse to see that there will be real consequences for people of color should enough liberal voters stay home in November.

Shane Ryan in Paste Magazine attempts to deconstruct the privilege argument — first by shifting the meaning of the word privilege so that he is talking about the “underprivileged,” which is a different argument altogether, and then by claiming that Clinton and Trump’s negatives will lead inexorably to failed presidencies and that a failed Clinton presidency will do more harm by ushering in a new Republican era. I can’t prove him wrong, or course, but it is (at best) a stretch to make this claim. He then attempts to insulate himself from criticism by acknowledging his “white male privilege” and dismissing it by pointing to Sanders’ history and then saying — rightly — that Sanders is “an aspirational figure for his supporters.” That, of course, has nothing to do with what happens if Sanders does not win the nomination and is forced to leave the race — and it is on this point where the privilege of writers like Ryan stand out.

Michael Arceneaux, writing for The Guardian, summed this up nicely in a column earlier this month, when he criticized he called out people unwilling to see the dangers of a Trump or Cruz presidency as a position that “only people with a certain level of privilege can afford to have.”

People who refuse to vote for a less-favored Democrat on principle are just punishing a second constituency unlikely to vote: those who know very little about the power they yield because they are so marginalized they feel their say doesn’t matter.

Cling to your self-righteousness all you want, but be very clear that only some people can afford this kind of sacrifice. I’m not saying fall in line with Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders, should a miracle happen), but there are other ways to express your disapproval besides sitting out the vote altogether.

Push for more progressives at the local and state level. Help rally more voter participation for key congressional races.

Do something besides pretending that your lack of vote does anything but suit your own moral superiority at the expense of others.

Look, everyone should vote their consciences — but they also need to understand that there are consequences to elections. Arceneaux points to the 2000 election as an example, reminding us that the consequences of liberals bailing on Gore (mea culpa) included the Iraq War and the botched response to Hurricane Katrina — and the deaths of thousands of Americans. (I would add 9/11 to the list, which occurred after the Bush administration ignored intelligence assessments.)

Yes, affluent, mostly white progressives survived the last Republican regime, but those who literally cannot afford to act as piously as y’all suffered.

And that is my criticism of Sarandon and others. There will be consequences should Trump or Cruz win and they will be far worse than the damage maintaining the status quo with a corporatist like Hillary Clinton.

Vote for Sanders in the primaries, push him to the nomination — I’m with you on this — but don’t be so smug as to assume that staying home and allowing Trump or Cruz to take the White House is not a decision with existential consequences for many.

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Sam Seder on The Majority Report makes some of the same arguments here.