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| Swing states in the 2020 election |
By Alex Steiner
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Note: This is a
continuation of the discussion that began in the previous essay by Frank
Brenner, Backing Biden betrays socialist policies, http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2020/10/backing-biden-betrays-socialist-politics.html.
See the comments in that essay for the context of this discussion. |
I think Frank Brenner and Jim Creegan have provided an excellent response to Mitchel Cohen’s and Walter Daum’s support for a vote for the “lesser evil” candidate in the 2020 Presidential election, namely Joe Biden. I don’t think I can add too much to what they have already written. What I would like to do is explore the general form of the “lesser evil” argument and expose its inner fallacies.
Those arguments change every four years in
their outward expression, but their inner structure always remains the same. When
you boil them down to their essence they go something like this:
“I would love to support a genuine alternative
to the two-party duopoly that dominates politics in the United States. If this
were an ordinary election, I would happily cast my vote for a third party
socialist candidate running independent of the Democrats. But this election is different. We are living
in a special moment that requires that we vote for a Democrat while holding our
nose. (The holding our nose metaphor seems
to be required in all these explanations.) We will go about doing our
organizational work despite voting for a Democrat whom we loathe, knowing that
this organizational work is what is really important.”
This is the basic template of the argument.
Before getting to the details, I would like to put it into its philosophical
and historical context.
The force of the argument is based on the
premises of a utilitarian world outlook. What characterizes all utilitarian arguments
is the engagement of a cold calculus of benefits versus risks. Moral and
political imperatives beyond the immediate considerations of what action
maximizes ones odds for survival in a Hobbesian world are considered
irrelevant. On the face of it, such
arguments are quite compelling. It seems that the only way to challenge them is
to dispute whether in fact a particular course of action does result in a
greater benefit, or if not a benefit then at least a lesser evil, than another
course of action. Those kind of details can be legitimately debated it seems,
but there is no challenge to the basic premises of the debate, that one must
always chose that course of action which results in the most benefit – or least
evil – given the circumstances. [1]
What the cold calculus of a risk vs benefit
assessment characteristic of utilitarianism misses is that human beings and
human values are not quantifiable. It is not like projecting the value of an
investment. A notorious example of what can go wrong when decisions are made
purely on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis is the case of the Ford Pinto.
Ford’s engineers discovered a design flaw in the Pinto of potentially lethal
consequences. A cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ford concluded that it was
not cost-efficient to add an $11 per car cost in order to correct the
flaws. The upshot was that approximately 500 people died as a result of
Ford’s failure to ameliorate the problem. While the consequences of the cost- benefit
analysis were particularly horrendous in this case, cost-benefit type planning
is not the exception but the norm in the business world. It’s “what comes
naturally” in capitalist society where all considerations for how we should
live are subordinated to the need for profit. And its applies to all manner of
human behavior beyond the strictly economic.
The “lesser evil” argument in politics is not so different than any other kind of a cost-benefit analysis. One justifies a course of action that is undesirable because the alternatives are considered worse. When we trace this argument back to its philosophical and historical context, we are in a better position to understand the hidden premises that lay beneath the surface. When we do that the argument is no longer as compelling as it initially appeared to be.
In the present instance, we can see that in
addition to challenging the validity of the judgment itself, that in fact a
vote for Biden really is a “lesser evil”, as if that is obvious, it is also
possible to challenge the basic premises of the risks vs. benefits logic of the
argument. In the case of the 2020 elections, we are not dealing with ethical
considerations that try to quantify the value of a human life, but with social
and political considerations that hold vast implications for those on the left
wishing to see a fundamental transformation of society. How do you quantify class consciousness? And
what price is paid in the coin of your political credibility when you advocate
a vote for a candidate you admit is terrible?
In the argument justifying a vote for the
“lesser evil” candidate, what changes every four years is the identification of
what is “special” or “exceptional” in the current election that requires that
the left “hold their noses” and get behind the current anti-socialist
Democratic candidate. Often one finds references to Hitler or Nazism thrown
into the discussion as a way to stop any further consideration of the issues
and drum up a panic reaction. That is certainly the case in Mitchel Cohen’s
argument. Daum on the other hand provides a somewhat more nuanced take and
admits that a Trump victory would not be “game over”. But then he goes on to say,
“…it would be a huge setback and, yes, it would embolden
the fascists. So why not do everything we can to prevent that, including
holding our noses and voting for the rotten Biden?”
Daum’s criteria then for caving into the
pressure to vote for a Democrat is not quite the absolute evil of Cohen’s
vision of a fascist America the day after the election, but a regime that would
be a “huge setback”.
Cohen seeks to discredit Brenner’s argument by
claiming, falsely, that Brenner sees no difference between a Trump regime and a
Biden regime. This is in fact a common
accusation of those defending “lesser evilism”. Daum on the other hand agrees that Brenner
sees a difference but claims therefore that Brenner contradicts himself by
opposing a vote for Biden while acknowledging that a Trump Administration poses
a huge danger of increasing authoritarianism.
The mistake both Cohen and Daum make is to think
that once one acknowledges a different outcome between a Trump or a Biden
Administration, that there are no grounds for opposing a vote for a “lesser
evil” candidate. But one cay say that in
every single election since the American Republic was founded there is always
the possibility of a different outcome. It has never been the case and never
will be the case that the outcome of an election “makes no difference”. If one follows this logic then one has to
conclude that in past elections, when Daum and his organization, the League for
a Revolutionary Party, (LRP) opposed voting for a Democrat, that they must have
been working under the illusion that whoever won the election “made no
difference.” I have no doubt that some
of the LRP’s political opponents who favored a vote for Al Gore, or John Kerry,
or Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton in past elections must have levelled the accusation
against the LRP that they were “blind to the differences” between a right wing
Republican Administration and a centrist Democratic one. So why is the LRP now supporting a vote for
Biden in 2020 when they opposed a vote for Kerry in 2004? Was not the election
of George Bush in 2004 a “setback” when compared to the possibility of a Kerry
victory? One can anticipate the answer: A second Trump election victory in 2020
would be “a lot more” of a setback than the Bush victory in 2004. I have no doubt that is true. One can expect
a very sharp turn to authoritarian forms of rule in a second Trump
Administration, as a recent article in Jacobin makes clear. [2] Trump’s open encouragement of fascist plots
to assassinate the governors of Michigan and Virginia and the state murder of
an anti-fascist activist in Oregon indicate a qualitative transformation of class
relations away from even the vestiges of bourgeois democracy. But does that
fact automatically lead to the conclusion that we must – for the 2020 election
– abandon our socialist principles and vote for Biden?
There are higher political principles involved
in the 2020 election just as there were higher ethical principles involved in the
Ford Pinto case. Some of
those higher political principles were spelled out in Brenner’s article:
“The position of revolutionary socialists
should be that the Democrats are not the saviours of democracy but the enablers
of the would-be dictator. A call to vote for Biden would obscure this critical
point. In the fight to save democracy, we need to insist that only mass working
class action can make this happen. That fight doesn't stop on Nov. 3, it only
enters a new phase. But if socialists have already come out for a vote for
Biden, then we bear responsibility for having promoted illusions we would now
be trying to resist.”
The struggle over those principles does not mean
that we are oblivious to the consequences of our actions and are instead
captives of some Platonic ideal that has no relation to the class struggle in
the real world. No, it simply signifies
that we are thinking of consequences in the long term as well as the immediate
situation. And the long term political consequences of socialists calling for a
vote for Biden would be disastrous.
Finally, even if one restricts judgment to just
the immediate situation , it is not at all clear who is the lesser evil in the
2020 election. Chris Hedges has convincingly argued that if the measure of who
is worse were the number of bodies buried by the state, Biden has a lot to
answer for. He was largely responsible for the 1994 crime bill which resulted
in the mass incarceration of millions, largely people of color. He voted in favor of the Iraq War. And when
he was Vice-President during the Obama Administration, he supported the use of
drone strikes to assassinate American citizens. It is true that a second Trump Administration
would give more power to extra-judicial forces spreading terror against
American citizens, but a Biden Administration would strengthen the national
security state who would unleash its own forms of terror against perceived
enemies both at home and abroad.
Supporting either camp, no matter the caveats, should be considered
beyond the pale if one takes ones socialist principles seriously.
Daum tries to justify his position by citing
precedents in the Marxist tradition for supporting bourgeois parties under
certain conditions. His argument here is not very convincing. Let’s just say
that the examples Daum cites, supporting the liberal bourgeoisie in Germany against
Bismarck’s anti-socialist laws or supporting the liberal bourgeoisie in Russia against
the Tsarist Black Hundreds have little
relevance today. The corporate Democrats represented by Biden in no way
constitute a wing of the liberal bourgeoisie opposed to authoritarianism. They are simply a wing of the bourgeoisie, in
fact the predominant section of the bourgeoisie, who have tactical differences
with Trump and the Republicans. They
stand for a more aggressive military policy against Russia while Trump is on a
trajectory for a confrontation with Iran and China.
There have been in recent years attempts to build
a progressive faction in the Democratic Party, most notably the movement
inspired by Bernie Sanders candidacy. Now that those progressive, left-leaning forces
have been abandoned by Sanders, doesn’t it make sense for revolutionary
socialists to encourage a break from the Democratic Party and begin the process
of building a socialist party independent of and opposed to the duopoly of
Republicans and Democrats? That cannot be done if one supports a vote for
Biden.
Does this mean that it is not possible within
the Marxist tradition, to ever under any circumstances, support a vote for a
bourgeois party? It is not necessary to
delve into such hypotheticals. Suffice it to say that this is a general
principle that is more relevant than ever in the period of the decline of capitalism on the world stage, not
an abstract moral imperative. Nor is a discussion of this general principle a justification
for supporting this bourgeois
candidate in this election. All
the attempts to do that claim that we are in an exceptional situation that impel
us to set aside this principle. But why is this “exceptional situation” so much
more “exceptional” than other “exceptional” situations? If we extend that
argument to its logical conclusion, we can say that every election of the past
few decades presented an “exceptional” situation. It seems that the time is
never right to openly campaign for a socialist candidate against the
Republicans and the Democrats.
Perhaps we need to examine the dynamics of mass
psychology behind the rationalizations of a vote for Biden. Unquestionably
there is an element of fear of the consequences of a second Trump Administration. I don’t discount the material
basis of that fear, but fear is hardly a sufficient basis for making political
decisions. There is also the pressure felt by many rank and file activists to
participate in the Sanders movement despite Sanders’ personal betrayal of this
movement. Paying attention to these currents in mass psychology help us make
sense of the sudden political turn we see among diverse groups of radicals and
Marxists who had previously held out against the pressure to accommodate to the
Democrats. The about-face of long time radicals is not unrelated to the 180
degree turn of the LRP, which in 2016 denounced a vote for Clinton while in
2020 calls for a vote for Biden. This
about-face on the part of long-standing opponents of the status quo was
anticipated in the most dramatic fashion by the sudden dissolution of the International
Socialist Organization last year. These are all related symptoms of the same phenomenon.
Finally I want to comment on one aspect of this
election that I find particularly troubling. There has been a public campaign
orchestrated by some of the advocates of “lesser evil” politics in the 2020
election to pressure the Green Party candidate for President, Howie Hawkins, to
stand down lest he damage Biden’s chances of winning in the swing states. This campaign has gone so far as to bombard
Mr. Hawkins with letters from his former teachers asking him to reconsider his candidacy
for President. I find this campaign thoroughly reprehensible. While I have
political differences with Mr. Hawkins and the Green Party, I would have
thought his teachers would be proud of him for taking such a courageous stand
in the face of near universal condemnation from others on the left, even if
they disagree with it. Instead they
berate him and urge him to stand down. They should be ashamed of themselves!
[1]
The prototype of this argument is the tale of the survivors in a lifeboat
facing death by starvation. They debate
what must be done in order to survive and come to the realization the only
possibility of survival is to murder the weakest member of the crew and eat his
remains. In jurisprudence the this is called the argument of necessity. This tale is often discussed in the abstract
in a class on Ethics, but in fact it is based on a real event that was tried in
the British courts in 1884, The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens. (http://www.duhaime.org/LawMag/LawArticle-1320/Cannibalism-on-the-High-Seas-the-Common-Laws-Perfect-Storm.aspx
). In that case the judges ruled that necessity did not justify murder.
