Seriously? Stein? Sawant? Suicide?
What should people who hate Trump and Trumpism, fascism and genocide, misogyny, racism, capitalism and ecological suicide do in the upcoming U.S. election? Of course that isn’t the only question people in the United States face. For example, you might also ask how do I best work to win a U.S. arms embargo on Israel to end the horrendous U.S.-Israeli perpetrated genocidal carnage against Palestinians? How do I survive raging flood waters? How do I feed my family and myself? How do I get an abortion? How do I combat the justice system’s injustice? How do I tell truth from lies and vice versa? How do I win some damn dignity? And so on. But what to do on November 5th is certainly another question, and it’s a big one, and it’s imminent, and it bears heavily on all the rest.
One answer for November 5th appears to be: abstain or vote for Stein or West or some other third party candidate in swing states in order to defeat Harris there and hopefully to defeat her in the national election. I am not saying this is what lots of people are intentionally seeking. But I am saying it is what some people are intentionally seeking. Including some people who are long time socialists. Long time anti racists. Long time anti sexists. And committed, hard working, courageous activists. I will get to a case in point of just such a person in a minute. But first, why does it matter?
For a single person to hate Trump but not vote for Harris in Arizona, Michigan, or Pennsylvania, etc., is manageable. But what about lots of people? Based on anecdotal evidence and polls, it seems to me that there are enough people who hate Trump but may vote for Stein or West or some other third candidate or not vote at all to perhaps move some swing states into Trump’s column. And I fear that would matter greatly.
Are you one of those folks? Do you hate Trump? I do too. Are you frustrated to the gills by current events? Most are. Me too. Do you want real change? I do too. And do you so viscerally and cerebrally hate Harris backing Biden backing Israel wage and spread such vile genocidal policies as starving to death, dehydrating to death, and literally burning to death Palestinians as to bring to mind Nazi crimes? I do too. Of course. But if you next think, okay, I will vote for Stein, West, or whoever, or just not vote on November 5th in my swing state, then we disagree. And it isn’t just because I am in a safely blue state.
Do you hope that unlike in the 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 elections, this time to vote for the Green Party (or PSL or whatever) will yield a massive boost to anti imperialist, anti-racist, feminist, anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist and Green politics? And that it won’t instead alienate away potential third party supporters and movement builders? Do you want to have not voted for anyone who alibis and abets genocide? Do you want to have not rewarded such heinous, despicable behavior? Do you worry that it would sell out your true beliefs to vote Harris even to stop Trump? Do you not want to even be thought to have done that?
Even if you do understandably feel all of the above, nonetheless and as emotionally hard as it may be to do, I think one more consideration should enter your/our election thinking. Whatever anger, pain, fear, or strategic hope may cause you to lean toward a vote for Stein, West, or whoever else or to not vote at all in swing states, those choices will undeniably help Trump. Only Trump or Harris will win. Yes, Harris could act in ways to make it easier for Trump-haters to vote for her. And yes, she would be very, very far from a president that you or I would ideally want. But nonetheless, to defeat Harris is to help elect Trump. And to elect Trump would seriously and perhaps even irredeemably hurt every progressive program and prospect that anyone seeks, here and everywhere. When Trump says the real enemy is the enemy within, the “radical left lunatics” who may need to be dealt with by the national guard or the military, he is talking about us. Drill baby drill. Enrich the rich. Abort abortion. Crush all enemies. Get it over with, already. These are not manipulative slogans for him. They are a carefully planned program. Wake up to that on Nov 6th and declare strategic victory? Seriously?
I wonder, do Stein and other third candidates not understand such a trivially simple observation? Are they so ignorant, so unable to reason, that that observation eludes them? I do not think so. But if not that, then do Stein and other candidates and their advocates instead think that getting people to vote for them and not for Harris in swing states is some kind of radical blow for a better future, thereby offsetting the fact that it undeniably helps Trump? Or perhaps they think the act of voting for Harris to stop Trump will inexorably cause such voters to become politically passive and it would be better to have Trump in full power violently working overtime to compel their passivity. I have not been able to personally chat with any of them to ask. I have also not been able to convey nearly as effectively or as widely as I would like the obvious truth that to oppose genocide, to be caring, to be radical, to be revolutionary, and to vote your conscience (where your conscience is cognizant), all entail voting to stop Trump. And I have not been able to ask Stein, West, or other third candidates how and why they disagree with those efforts. How come?
Stein has said, we are in “a very dire situation that will be continued under both Democrats and Republicans. So we say there is no lesser evil in this race.” So I suppose that is her answer. How comes it that she so outrageously denies reality. Is she blinded by the light of her 1 percent campaign? Is she blinded by the lure of the press coverage she gets when she says such things? I don’t know. But now we have another, and I think a more honest, albeit no less disturbing answer to why from an exemplary activist who is arguably Stein’s most savvy and accomplished supporter.
You may remember Kshama Sawant, Seattle’s socialist city council member from 2010 to 2024. I won’t review her history. It suffices to say she has been a singularly successful left candidate and has been on the progressive, radical, and revolutionary side of issue after issue. She has been courageous, brilliant, and committed. One need not have liked her every move or her every allegiance to feel that she has been exemplary in numerous ways.
But according to news reports Sawant recently went from Seattle to Michigan to campaign for and with Jill Stein at a Stein Rally in Dearborn. Sawant is highly knowledgeable. She is no one’s fool. She did not say vote for Stein to express your conscience. She did not say vote for Stein to show you are radical. She did not say vote for Stein to build the Green Party. No. Sawant said, “We need to be clear about what our goals are… We are not in a position to win the White House. But we do have a real opportunity to win something historic. We could deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan. And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan.” And in case that didn’t express her intent clearly enough, she added we are “fighting to defeat Harris, not just symbolically but in reality.” Michigan “is ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her…. We need to break the two-party system, and we need to begin that by breaking this election for the Democrats in Michigan.” Back in June, Trump made his oddly similar feelings about Stein known. “I like her also, Jill Stein, I like her very much.,,, You know why? She takes 100% from them.” I guess Trump could now say the same about Sawant.
Okay, I admit that I can’t imagine that Sawant will read this essay, or that Stein will, but maybe some people will who are understandably feeling that if they vote for Harris in Michigan, or in any swing state, it would seem to say genocide is okay. The system is okay. The Democrats are my champions. Or it would deny their own personal past. Or it would seem to accept a supine future. And so, they understandably hesitate.
I have been trying to hear, empathize with, and take those types of fears and concerns to heart, not least because I share many of them. And I of course know that Arab Americans and Palestinian Americas have tragically lost family members. I likewise know that American progressives and radicals are rightly and righteously furious at American complicity. But Sawant is being honest. Can you hear her? Is her intent your intent too? If so, then I guess yes, you should vote for Stein and on election night if Harris wins and you are happy about it, or if Trump wins and you are despondent or worse about it, I guess then, perhaps you might want to reconsider the path you chose.
Let me try another route to the same point. You may think that to vote for Harris to stop Trump on Nov 5th will cause people to not seek change for the next four years. But why would you think that? Is that true for you? How about for me or for Bill Fletcher or Norman Solomon? How about for Noam Chomsky? For many months I have over and over and in many different ways urged voting for Harris in swing states to stop Trump. Does that mean I will become neoliberal? Does it even mean I feel an iota of pressure or allure to do so? Why do some think it does?
I say that instead of what strikes me as a strange and even degrading belief that radical and even revolutionary commitment is that tenuous, what would actually seriously hurt activism for the next four years and maybe for way, way longer, is if Trump wins. With Trump in office, beholden to a surging supportive MAGA movement, our opposition will have to fight to prevent negative change—and even fascism. With Harris in office, our opposition will be able to fight for positive change, including to win conditions suited to win still further gains in the future. If you think that is wrong, why do you think it is wrong?
I am also curious, what does Stein herself do or others who might vote for her do, between elections (even just to grow a third party) that she couldn’t do if in swing states she now told her supporters to vote for Harris to stop Trump? For that matter, I think that for her to urge supporters to vote for her in safe states but to vote for Harris in swing states would add more safe Green votes this Election Day than her campaigning to take away Harris votes in swing states would subtract. And it would alienate no one. And it would not aid Trump. So, again, how is that wrong?
If like Stein you say there is no lesser evil, then yes, I am wrong: for you to vote for her would be consistent, despite the claim being utterly ludicrous. If you go a step further to realize and favor the true dynamic at play, like Sawant does, so you recognize that the reason to campaign for Stein in swing states is to try to defeat Harris, then again I am wrong: for you to campaign for and vote for Stein in swing states would be consistent, albeit, I am sorry to say, not simply erroneous or ignorant or manipulated, but overtly grotesque.
Alternatively, even if you are now leaning away from voting for Harris, there is still time to recognize that to be radical doesn’t mean to wave a banner saying imperialism sucks even when everyone who will see your banner already knows its message. What is instead radical is to act within the bounds of the possible, to act in context of what is actual, and to act in light of empathy for and solidarity with those who suffer current injustices and also the injustices that this election may add, as well as in light of our own suffering, and most of all in light of the consequences of our choices. In other words, this November 5th, being radical means voting with our conscience, yes, but with our consciences clearly accounting for actual, probable, and predictable real-world consequences.
My assessment that Sawant’s call to defeat Harris is “grotesque” may sound overly harsh, not least after saying Sawant has been a singularly successful left candidate and on the progressive, radical, and revolutionary side of issue after issue, but honestly, to me it seems rather timid and indeed so gentle that I fear it may seem to border on paternalism. So here is the straight up truth. I think that what Sawant is doing, what Stein is doing, and what West and others are doing in not urging those who appreciate them to vote for Harris in swing states to stop Trump is either incredibly dumb—which, I don’t think these three people are—or is incredibly self-serving, as in seeking publicity for oneself or for one’s pet project regardless of implications for others—or is incredibly delusional as in favoring some sort of sincerely heartfelt but stupendously ill-conceived strategy.
And to those who respond to this election in a swing state by voting for Stein, West, or whoever else, or for no one but not for Harris—where all these choices will help Trump as Sawant so clearly acknowledges and even celebrates—well, I absolutely understand your pain, your frustration, your wanting to scream and fight and not reward Harris, but the idea that you are being radical or revolutionary or even most effectively caring about and addressing injustice by objectively aiding Trump is, honestly, simply, not what is happening.
Although it will no doubt infuriate some, I admit that I think this entreaty is sort of like the fact that I understand and empathize with the pain, frustration, and wanting to scream and fight of Trump voters but I nonetheless decry their choice—in that I also understand and empathize with the pain, frustration, and wanting to scream of Sawant, Stein, and other non-Harris advocates and voters, but nonetheless decry their choice.
Finally, my entreaty isn’t only about the choice of candidates and voters. I also wonder why any U.S. leftist who writes, or who could write, or who publishes or could publish, doesn’t prioritize to address and reverse this particular imminent trend even while also addressing the U.S.-Israeli war, ecological suicide, Ukraine, inequality, racism, misogyny and whatever other injustices and needs you tend to focus on. And yes, trying to compel Harris to enforce laws by at the very least refusing to send military materials to Israel is essential. But the fight to stop Trump also ought to be all hands on deck. He is no ordinary lesser evil. Trump in office will make all worthy pursuits including especially Palestinian liberation, ecological sanity, and development of movements for a new world much, much harder. The situation is that serious.
Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc.