I don’t accept the two-party dilemma. It is based on the lesser of two evils fallacy, or LOTE—a false choice that carries with it a serious consequence: enlarging the scope of evil. Democrats will continue down the neoliberal path if labor does not hold them accountable for their anti-working class policies. Democrats will never be held accountable if labor votes out of fear rather than collective long-term interests. Believing that they can take labor’s vote for granted, Democrats only have to do the bidding of the ruling class, since they could easily lose big business to the Republicans. When labor votes Democrat it legitimizes the Democrat’s pro-business agenda. It’s self-destructive behavior, and the proof of this is what has happened over the last several decades.
Why should we continue on for several more decades being drawn into the downward spiral into greater evil? Surely it is obvious to everybody that Democrats can always be portrayed as a little less evil than Republicans, who can always be portrayed as more evil than Democrats. But voting to make greater evil is clearly a less desirable outcome than Mitt Romney living in the White House for a few years. Better to work from a long-term class interested perspective than to continue with that losing proposition called the Democratic Party.
If we are going to use the ballot box for something, perhaps it should be to hold our elected representatives responsible for their failure to represent us. Otherwise, the two-party system remains what it has become: the dictatorship of the capitalist class. And we will keep losing. After all, Obama’s victory in 2008 was clearly a loss for labor. If he wins re-election, labor will suffer yet another loss.
freedom and reason 