I’m a progressive Californian, a Black man, and I didn’t vote for Democratic presidential contender Kamala Harris this 12 months or Donald Trump. I voted for Claudia De La Cruz, the Peace and Freedom Occasion candidate for president.
The choice was straightforward. With two exceptions during the last 4 a long time of presidential elections, I’ve all the time voted for a progressive third-party presidential candidate. (The 2 exceptions? Hillary Clinton in 2016 as a result of I appreciated the thought of breaking the glass ceiling. And Walter Mondale in 1984 due to my distaste for Ronald Reagan.)
I reject the guilt-trip knock about how a third-party vote is a throwaway vote, or worse, one which opens the door for giant, dangerous bogeyman candidates. And I don’t make my selections pondering it doesn’t matter as a result of in my blue state a Democrat will win anyway. I mark my poll the way in which I do as a result of it displays my conscience and deepest political views.
I’ll admit that this 12 months I didn’t inform most of my family and friends my plan. I might have been ripped from pillar to submit, verbally mugged: “It’s a wasted vote.” “It’s going to harm the trigger.” “It’s downright foolish to vote for somebody who virtually nobody has heard of in a celebration that hasn’t been related because the Vietnam Warfare.” My family members and associates have been passionate supporters of Harris. Their enthusiasm was comprehensible. They might have regarded my vote as wrecking the history-making probabilities for a Black girl with East Indian roots to take a seat within the Oval Workplace. I understood, and I had no phantasm that I might change their minds.
In any case, the problem for me was not Harris, her coverage positions or her marketing campaign. (I received’t have interaction within the onslaught of second, third and fourth guessing about what sunk her.) The problem was and is the two-party system itself.
Republican and Democratic politics are an iron chain that tethers the American voters. Voting for De La Cruz was my means of taking a hammer to that chain. I prize independence, the best to train freedom of alternative, and I imagine that extra selections are true to the spirit of democracy.
This isn’t a starry-eyed delusion. Many international locations have a pluralistic consultant system with a number of political events. Their residents have an actual option to vote their beliefs and pursuits. The events they will vote for will not be on the perimeter. They win workplaces. They maintain seats in parliaments and assemblies. They usually type coalitions with different events to achieve a extra highly effective seat on the desk. The multiplicity of events provides extra folks a definite voice in how their authorities works.
However baked into U.S. politics is the notion that there can solely be two events, and the winner takes all. The Structure doesn’t demand it, and each 4 years, I hear folks wishing for different selections, different events that might have a shot at making an influence.
With both a Republican or a Democrat assured to take energy, particular pursuits make their bets. This 12 months, each campaigns had king’s-ransom struggle chests flowing with donations from common folks however primarily from fat-cat firms, trade and commerce teams, big-gun labor unions and a parade of millionaires and billionaires.
The 2-party system additionally assured that solely Republican and Democratic agendas acquired media publicity, main endorsements and nonstop public consideration. Different approaches to our challenges, our safety or our function on the planet simply didn’t have an opportunity.
Let me be clear once more. My vote for De La Cruz was not a deliberate snub of Harris, and I’ve no regrets. I merely imagine that for our democracy to be a democracy, the folks will need to have selections, and people selections shouldn’t completely come marked with a Republican or Democrat label.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s newest e-book is “ ‘President’ Trump’s America.” His commentaries may be discovered at thehutchinsonreport.internet.
