How I'm Voting

A friend on Facebook asked me who I’d be voting for in November. For whatever they’re worth, my thoughts:

I think reasoning tends to be more interesting and useful than conclusions, and going into my reasoning would take a while. But to try to summarize: I don’t think America has two political parties; I think we have two wings of a single party that faces no meaningful competition. And as in any system devoid of meaningful competition, the monopoly power increasingly serves only itself at the expense of its customers. Here it does so by screeching every four years that this is the Most Consequential Election Ever(™) (can you imagine the extra super duper existential stakes in 2028?).

I can’t play that “lesser of two evils” game any more. One, because if I do, I’ll vomit up my soul. And two, because I think the duopoly has become so fundamentally parasitical and detached from reality that we’re closer to nuclear war today than we have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis (don’t take my word for it; take Joe Biden’s, something he said in a rare lucid moment two years ago. Or if you prefer, see what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has to say). At best, current duopoly trends will lead to an increasingly polarized economic landscape reminiscent of the movie Elysium, but things could easily become far worse than that, “far worse” meaning another world war and/or the extinguishing of most of humanity in a nuclear war.

So I’ll vote for the Green Party. Many people will tell me that in doing so I’m wasting my vote. To me, this is more of the propaganda we’re fed; I could make the same argument--and it would be stronger and also consistent with the Kantian Categorical Imperative--in the other direction.

Ordinarily, I try to focus on frameworks rather than conclusions. I’m not trying to persuade anyone to vote one way or the other. Mostly that kind of thing is a waste and it’s almost always self indulgent. But I appreciate your asking and so I’m responding. Cheers.