Voting and the Problem With the Lesser-of-Two-Evils Argument

In just three months, millions of Americans will go to the polls. They will go excited for their candidate or furious at the other one, or generally depressed about both of them. Many Americans in the last category will entertain the idea of not voting at all. They will, no doubt, be heckled, berated, and generally opposed in this by their friends and family members, aghast that they might actually be acting independently instead of accepting the status quo (after all, Americans have certainly never been known for acting independently. Oh, wait.) Among the many arguments that will be arrayed against these independent-minded Americans will be the following: "Yeah, Candidate A is bad, but Candidate B is worse, so just vote for the lesser of two evils."

Now, this line of thinking sounds perfectly logical. It is entirely true that America is, for all practical purposes, a two-party system. Sorry, Libertarians, Greens, Constitution-ers, and the like, but it's just that way. Barring some cataclysmic event or some incredibly unlikely mass movement, the next President of the United States will either be a Democrat or a Republican. What this means is that any third party vote won't be an actual effort to get the third-party candidate elected, rather, it will be a protest against the main two parties. The question then becomes, "is a protest vote a good idea?"

Again, many people will say no, and bring out the old lesser-of-two-evils argument as a reason why. For example, a number of conservatives this year are very unhappy with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. They feel he's too liberal, too close to the Democratic platform. On the other hand, these same conservatives dislike Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, with equal fervor. To them, he's unquestionably liberal. Ergo, since neither candidate is acceptable, some of these conservatives are planning either to cast write-in votes for Ronald Reagan or Ron Paul, or to stay home. McCain supporters naturally oppose this decision, since, to them, conservatives staying home in protest of the possible liberal McCain will help to elect the definitely liberal Obama. Aka, vote for the lesser evil of McCain as a move against the greater evil of Obama. Again, it seems like a reasonable argument.

But is it? I argue no, and here's why. The big problem with the lesser-of-two-evils argument is this: at what point does the lesser-of-two-evils become too much of an evil to support? To elaborate, let me introduce a rather macabre analogy. Let's take two candidates, Bob and Fred. (Yeah, I know, not terribly original. C'est la vie.) One day, Bob throws a press conference and announces that, if he is elected, he will attempt to slay all the puppies in America. Not to be outdone, Fred responds by saying that he'll only kill half of the puppies in America. Either way, puppies are going to die. So, logically, you should vote for Fred, so at least half the puppies will survive, right?

Wrong. Yes, half the puppies will survive, but half won't, and no one in good conscience could vote for a puppy-killer, however many puppies he or she actually kills. In the same way, for you conservatives, yes, John McCain may not be as liberal as Barack Obama. But how liberal is liberal enough? If you excuse McCain's partial liberal-ness now, what happens in the next election when you have an even worse candidate? On what grounds will you oppose him or her then? In my view, instead of accepting compromise and lesser evils, voters should stand up for their principles, and if that means casting a write-in vote or staying home, then cast a write-in vote or stay home. Be independent. The Founders certainly would've approved.

A quick postscript: I used the example of disgruntled conservatives to work out the lesser-of-two-evils argument. I did not mean to slight those on the other side of the aisle. There are liberals unhappy with Barack Obama as well, and some may very well be considering a third-party vote, or staying home. I encourage you to do so as well. Democracy's a wonderful thing, no?