Yes, you do have an obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils. Here’s why.

[ehrnst]

Sometimes the desire for a clean conscience leads to immoral behavior.

What about the option to vote for an ideologically attractive but electorally marginal candidate? This option may be attractive for someone who desires to keep his hands clean by not lending support to candidates he finds morally reprehensible.

That’s a noble reason for action. Moral integrity is an important character trait.

But the search for a clean conscience may result in immoral behavior. If our vote is part of a set of votes that will contribute to the defeat of the realistically electable “lesser evil,” therefore electing the “more evil” candidate, then we force society to pay a high price for our clean conscience. Sometimes, our concern for feeling morally impeccable should give way to a concern for what type of society we can help to create for the sake of all, including ourselves.

If we have a duty of aid toward society, our duty becomes even more stringent when there are real prospects that a scarily unpredictable leader would take power, a candidate who, if elected, could harm society. Under such circumstances, the duty to vote for the lesser evil would be a very serious one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/06/01/yes-you-do-have-an-obligation-to-vote-for-the-lesser-of-two-evils-heres-why/

[randome]

1. Don't vote for your own selfish interests. Keep the rest of the country in mind.

We're all in this together.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[ehrnst]

3. I understand - but this makes the moral argument, not just the political one.

I thought it was important to include that in the discussion.

[ehrnst]

11. I don't think it's heavy handed to point out that inaction is also a choice of action.

Last edited Wed Jul 27, 2016, 02:08 PM - Edit history (1)

But I understand about the delicate feelings. Even in the face of booing over Elijah Cummings.

I would think that Bernie making the decision to support Hillary, and asking his supporters to do the same would have been more effective in getting people to think in terms of the election. Perhaps in three weeks, as you say. I'm certainly not pushing any of the Bernie supporters I know to 'suck it up.' I was enraged at Bush being handed the election in 2000, and my mother could not forgive Gore for conceding after the SCOTUS decision, because it was so disheartening to his supporters. I kept from rolling my eyes, and saying that a futile effort helps no one, and we need to freaking roll up our sleeves and get to work, and it took her a year, and I tolerated the "how can you just give up??" being shoved down my throat for that year.

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." - MLK

[Snotcicles]

17. The moral argument was lost before the race even started. Most of the

endorsements were determined even before the candidates were revealed.
And was confirmed to have been lost when the polls indicated Sanders stood a better chance at defeating all republican contenders.

[Snotcicles]

19. Edit to add. By greater margins. nt

[ehrnst]

21. So your moral obligation is moot. Got it.

Someone else may have done something that you find amoral - conspiracy theories aside.... you are now morally free to stand there and do nothing to prevent a greater catastrophe, and by doing so, possibly enable it happening, because you know - that other thing.

Maybe you have the privilege to move out of the country if Trump wins, but I don't. I have a child and a life that I find worth living.

Well Bernie isn't sitting on his ass, marinating resentment, because he actually cares about this country, and is working to keep Trump out of office, because he isn't going to be able to beat Trump now. Maybe you think he's a fool or amoral for 'participating in the evil' - to each his own. Reality sucks sometimes, but you move forward.

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people." - MLK

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[Snotcicles]

23. Don't make an assumption about what I'll do with my vote.

It seems like intellectual debate is like rat poison on DU anymore.
Maybe it's time for my exit.

"Not everyone does evil, but everyone stands accused"
Antonio Porchia, again

[ehrnst]

24. Right, you've been very enigmatic about that.

“Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.”
― Margaret Atwood, Surfacing

[Snotcicles]

28. Ben Goldacre: “You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.”

Good day to you.

[ehrnst]

39. Don't believe everything you think.

Good day to you.

[yallerdawg]

4. Why would anybody vote for...

less evil?

[csziggy]

44. Yeah, go straight for Cthulhu!

Why chose the lesser evil?

(I don't have his campaign poster handy or I'd put that in.)

[anoNY42]

6. This all depends on your time horizons

If you are concerned with long-term consequences, you could easily vote for a 3rd party candidate in an attempt to "change the system" (in this case, the two party system) by getting that 3rd party into the national debates.

[ehrnst]

8. If the long-term consequences are rendered void by Trump presidency

then you don't really gain anything. You have to have a functioning government to have two parties, let alone three.

This election has stakes beyond anything we have seen since the Civil War. That is not hyperbole.

[Democat]

27. Long term goals like letting Right Wingers ruin the country?

If that's your long term goal, why are you posting on DU?

[anoNY42]

29. Uh

I listed a different long-term goal in my comment. Note that I did not say I was voting for a 3rd party. I just understand why people would do it (something many DUers don't seem to get when they get all insulting)...

[whatthehey]

32. You could give Greens a free broadcast hour every week for a generation

They would still have no chance of winning the presidency in our two-party system. A first past the post national election will always coalesce into two parties. Getting them into debates will change not a darned thing while we still have the Constitution, and you're not going to change that by voting Green either.

[anoNY42]

33. Think of a true third party

effect on one of the current two major parties. If the Green party suddenly became the "progressive" option, perhaps the Dems would have to swing left to win back some potential Green voters.

Anyway, I am not saying it would be easy or quick. If you look at history, there have been other parties in the distant past, so it's not like it would be impossible for a 3rd party to have an impact (even if they don't win an election).

Furthermore, what about down-ballot stuff? 3rd party reps and senators would probably have a better chance if there was more national focus on their party.

[whatthehey]

36. Depends what you mean by impact

If we go back to the demise of Whigs, we just see a realignment of two parties under different names. If we think of Bull Moose we just see a vehicle for one superstar candidate. If we think of Reform and Naderites, we see spoilers who hurt their respective supporters' causes enormously. There really has never been a real positive impact from an organized mass 3rd party in US politics.

Local? That's where they should be focusing instead of doomed national spoiler runs. Could a Green win a far left district in say WA or CA? Possibly, if they got a rich high profile candidate and a weak Dem. Duverger's applies much more to national elections than constituency levels. Why they don't go that route I have no idea.

[MineralMan]

7. When it comes to presidential elections, I'm an outcome-oriented voter.

As far as I'm concerned, that office is never held by anyone who is 100% anything. This country is too diverse in its political beliefs for that ever to be possible. Voting for President is always a matter of choosing which major party's candidate will be better, generally, than the other one.

This year, that candidate is clearly Hillary Clinton. She is simply the better choice capable of winning.

[ehrnst]

9. The old adage of letting perfection be the enemy of done. (nt)

[Snotcicles]

12. At what point does my obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils

override your obligation to vote for the not evil? I owe evil nothing.

Antonio Porchia:
"One who dwells in evil doesn’t leave, for fear of running into...evil"

[randome]

14. When did you NOT vote for the lesser of two evils?

Did Jesus Christ run for President and I simply don't recall?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[ehrnst]

16. Refusing to act when you can, to prevent the greater evil is also a moral problem.

Which is why Bernie is now working to elect Hillary, and has asked everyone who supported him to help get her to the White House.

To what degree she is 'evil' is something one can debate about any politician at any time, but when 'capable and representing the most progressive platform in history' vs 'incompetent, and capable of destroying our country' - I think that the moral choice against evil is pretty evident.

There is a filmed interview with a survivor of the Holocaust in the Holocaust museum film who was 11 or 12 when she was in one of the camps. She and her sister worked in a weaving work group and had to stand at looms for hours on end. They had a supervisor, a woman who lived in the town and worked at the camp. One morning she and her sister woke up ill and weak. Their supervisor told them to get up - when they told her how sick they were, she whispered, "You must get up and work - if they think you are sick, they will kill you. She got them up, helped them dress, and helped them to the loom so they could stand. The survivor said, "When she reached down to tie the laces of my shoes so I would not have to, she pinned a lie to everyone's lips who said that they could do nothing in the face of that evil."

That woman may have been making an immoral decision to "dwell in evil' in the mechanisms of that genocide, but her conscience was clearer than those who refused to do anything out of fear or disgust. (To clarify, I am no way comparing people who don't vote, or vote for someone that they know will not win as a protest with people in Germany who did nothing in the face of the Holocaust. Just using it as an example of someone participating in something they find immoral as a measure of damage control when the only other action is to not participate at all.)

[Snotcicles]

18. See #17, nt

[ehrnst]

22. See my response to #17, nt

[renie408]

13. You vote for the lesser of two evils because if you don't, THE MORE EVIL THING WINS.

[RonniePudding]

20. Or as Bill Maher put it, if you can't have the chicken have the fish.

His point was at times we don't always get what we want politically, but we still have to make choices based on what's best for the country. Anyone who thinks what's best for the country is a Trump win, hasn't been paying attention or is too obtuse to notice.

[insta8er]

25. How about, the restaurant tells you that the menu consist of Chicken AND Fish..but we know

actually that we don't have Chicken but only rotten Fish. The waiter will make the case at your table to go with the Fish as it is the best option and by the way it is also the most tastiest option. Moments later you get the fish you didn't want in the first place, you reluctantly eat it...it doesn't taste good, leaves a bad aftertaste...later that evening you get a case of explosive diarrhea because it turns out the fish was indeed rotten. You look back at the experience and think, why did I let that waiter shove that rotten fish through my throat.

[RonniePudding]

26. So your implication is what?

Rotten fish is a metaphor for Clinton?

[whatthehey]

30. Universalization is a true, but limited, concern

There are others.

1) What is wrong, or even ill-advised, about lessening evil when evil is unavoidable?
2) Why is politics supposedly immune from our normal acceptance of discomfort for the sake of avoiding greater pain? Root canals hurt, but less than abscessed teeth. Vaccinations hurt, but less than disease. Limiting spending in your prime decreases pleasure, but less than an impoverished retirement.
3) Far fewer people concern themselves with tertiary indirect effects when considering moral responsibility for other choices than they do in politics. Why are people concerned that their vote for HRC leads to her presidency which leads to her, say, signing the TPP, which, hypothetically, causes US job losses when almost none of them are concerned with, say, buying a car from a dealer who will use that money to help him order a yacht from an Italian builder which will cause layoffs in US yachtbuilding companies?

[MichiganVote]

31. I don't consider HRC an evil and neither should others. She is qualified, T is not.

[Buzz cook]

34. Mainly because

One of the choices is evil and the other is someone I disagree with sometimes.

[Fiendish Thingy]

35. So, hypothetically, one should vote for Darth Vader over Emperor Palpitine?

Given the choice between a mouthful of bees and a mouthful of wasps, I wouldn't be comforted by the fact that the bees could only sting me once...

Just sayin...speaking hypothetically in a philosophical sense...

[tblue37]

37. Remember how Christine "I am not a witch" O'Donnell said she would NEVER NEVER NEVER

soil her pure Christian conscience by telling a lie? When asked if she would lie to Nazis if they directly asked about a Jewish person hiding in her home, she said she would tell them about the hidden person because it would be immoral to lie to them.

Same moral issue. Some bad things are far worse than some other bad things.

[TheKentuckian]

38. At some point the shovelers of lesser evils need to help toward a better good

instead of lecturing those who have to help them get their way which the first are sick to death of, a way they largely claim to not be overly fond of themselves.

Folks get frustrated to say the least of being held hostage and seemingly being at the mercy of how low the right wing is willing to go which in turn provides cover for the folks who are supposed to represent us to be poor at doing so.
We can't wait until each general election to rise together, it must start way before that or eventually more and more will boil over, run out of patience, and have a desperate response.

If you want continuing unity of action there must be more unity of purpose and yes of tactics or the wheels will eventually come off and bad will be worse.

Fear, guilt, and appeals to better angels only has so much mileage in the tank. It is wearing thinner than some wish to contend with or admit but we have crossed the playing with fire line. If you think this way of doing business is sustainable then you are mistaken, more and more will slip away and then we will all be well fucked.

[ehrnst]

40. And sometimes you work with what you have. That's reality.

[uponit7771]

42. That starts by selecting the better good no? Also, tossing out adequate cause perfect isn't availabl

... is counter productive at best.

Just ... seems like the logic is simple.

After last week the "Hillary is Satan" folk sound like jokes at best

[uponit7771]

41. +1, "Sometimes the desire for a clean conscience leads to immoral behavior"

[Vattel]

43. The argument here is unconvincing because it does not explain why, given that one vote will not

change the outcome, one shouldn't "keep one's hands clean." I live in Maryland and know with certainty that Clinton will take my state regardless of who I vote for. So I know that no harm will be done by me (or by any group to which I belong) if I do not vote for Clinton.

Side note: In the expression "the lesser of two evils," "evil" does not mean "morally reprehensible."

[democrattotheend]

45. Even the leader of the Bernie Delegates Network (the group leading some of the protests)

Said that Bernie supporters in swing states should hold their nose and vote for Hillary.

Good article, although I think it is insufficient to frame it as the lesser of two evils. I think we need to try to convince some of the holdouts that a) Hillary is not evil, and b) Jill Stein is not so great. It's not enough to just say that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump - we need to attack Stein on the merits.

[Shandris]

46. No, you don't, and it's a disingenuous suggestion to begin with.

Evil is evil. If you are contributing your energy to something you know is evil, then you are responsible for that evil. If you are not, then you are not, even if that evil still occurs. You are not responsible for the energetic creation of other individuals.

Note that my answer is not meant to be strictly read as "I refuse to vote for {insert name here}", but rather as a statement across all platforms of discussion (although as with all general statements, I do keep the distinct possibility, nay likelihood, that an exception or five can theoretically exist).

[zappaman]

47. I don't consider Clinton evil. n/t