I recently read several speeches given in the decades
leading up to the American Civil War.
They expressed many shades of opinion, from abolitionism to the defenses
of slavery. They addressed both the
substance of slavery and the politics related to its suppression, existence,
and extension. As I read, what stood out
for me was a subset of those speeches that reflected the debate between
abolitionists and anti-slavery politicians who nonetheless sought accommodation
with the slave holders. The
accommodationists largely sought political stability, but I'm sure some believed
that compromise was a tactic necessity for reaching larger goals. This made me think of the current debate that
is taking place within the Democratic Party over how, in the words of Bernie
Sanders, “to transform America.”
Many writers have observed that the debate between Sanders’s
supporters and Clinton’s supporters is a reoccurring debate between “purists”
and “pragmatists.” I don’t think this
distinction is apt, but the arguments based on this distinction arise often. They surfaced dramatically in the 2000
presidential campaign when Green Party activists ran Ralph Nader for
president. Despite the Green Party
holding many views on critical public policy issues that were diametrically
opposed to Al Gore and the Democratic Party, many Democrats believed that Ralph
Nader’s supporters were “self-indulgent purists,” who out of their purity were
sacrificing political progress or at very least opening the door to political
regress. The same criticism is now being
leveled against Sanders’s supporters in an attempt to persuade them to stop
expressing their views and instead support Hillary Clinton. Too often these arguments (and the arguments
used to rebut them) reflect the one dimensional (left-right) simplicity of the
popular understanding of the political landscape. A more accurate understanding of the political
space would reveal numerous issues, each with multiple dimensions. Arraying people along a single political
spectrum and then dividing them into only two categories (purists and
pragmatists) obscures the complexity of politics. Real political actors stand on principle on
some issues and are willing to compromise on others. Take for example, Sanders’s principled
position on the death penalty and his willingness to compromise on gun
regulation or Clinton’s principled position on gun regulation and her
willingness to compromise on a $15 dollar and hour minimum wage. We all have different and complex opinions
about a variety of issues and we all make different judgments about long and
short term benefits of particular public policies and political actions. Who is or is not pure or pragmatic are questions that are too crude to describe our politics.
Let me illustrate the artificiality of the purist-pragmatist
distinction. In 2001, I was engaged in a
debate within the Maryland Green Party over a party guideline which called upon
Green Party candidates to limit the size of any single contributor's contribution to $100 and donations by the candidates themselves to $400. This was seen by some in the Party as
imposing a needless handicap on our candidates in pursuit of “purity.” In contrast, I and others believed that it
was the only strategy available that could successfully challenge the
domination of money in politics. In our
view, we were pragmatists.
The root of
the disagreement within the Party was in large part related to the goals we had
in mind and how to achieve them. The
proponents of higher limits sought a better chance to get candidates elected in
the current election cycle. They argued
that the more money the candidate had, the stronger the campaign would be, and
by electing such candidates, a law requiring public financing for political
campaigns would be made more likely. Furthermore, in their view, higher or no limits
on campaign donations would net more money for the campaign. However, in our view, there was little to no
chance that our candidates would be elected. (Normally, third party candidates get no more than 2 or 3% of the vote in
state-wide elections, even when running without contribution limits.) Even if a candidate was (or a few
candidates were) elected from the Green Party, our political influence in the
Assembly would not be sufficient pass public financing for political campaigns. Consequently, we believed the strategy outlined
by the proponents of higher limits was doomed to failure.
As a positive alternative, we argued that the strength of a
Green Party candidate would come from highlighting how big money corrupts our
political system and undermines the political influence of the vast majority of
citizens. Establishing low limits on our
candidates’ donations would bring the issue to the public. My analysis of several Maryland Green Party
campaigns showed that whether a Green Party candidate established a $100 dollar
limit or a $1,000 dollar limit had no significant effect on the total amount
the campaign acquired. The loss of
donations above $100 dollars due to the self-imposed limit was made up for by
the number of people willing to make a contribution to a campaign adopting a
$100 dollar limit, particularly when the candidate emphasized the donation
limit to potential donors. By running a $100 dollar campaign, we were creating an opportunity for proponents
of public financed campaigns prominently to enter the political space on their
own terms. This would be both an equally
effective short term strategy of funding Green Party candidates and a more
effective long term strategy of bringing about campaign finance reform. It would also significantly differentiate our
candidates from the Republican and Democratic Party candidates, form a
coordinated body of voters willing to work to transform our campaign finance
system through electoral campaigns, and build the Green Party for future
campaigns. It remains, of course,
debatable whose strategy would be more successful, but that there can be such a
debate demonstrates the meaninglessness of the “purity vs. pragmatism” debate.
Contrary to much received opinion, one can as easily argue
that Sanders is the pragmatist in the current campaign, if the goal truly is to
transform America. During much of her
campaign, Clinton insisted that she was a “pragmatic progressive” who got
things done and that political compromise was necessary for governing. Setting aside the difficulty in understanding
the meaning of “pragmatic” and “progressive,” Clinton’s recognition of the
necessity of compromise “to get things done” inside government is clear and
usually correct, but compromise is fraught with drawbacks. Proponents of compromise often sound like
Henry Clay who fashioned the Compromise of 1850. Clay defended his bill on the Senate floor by
observing that the country was divided between forces for and against slavery
and that for the contest between these forces to be resolved, each side would
need to give something to get something.
It was a classic defense of compromise.
The compromise gave California admission to the country as a free state,
but it strengthened the notorious Fugitive Slave Act. It abolished the slave
trade in D.C., but confirmed the right to own slaves in D.C. In the present political context, the country
is said to be divided into “red states” and “blue states.” Today proponents of compromise are in the
same position as Clay. For a president from
the Democratic Party to “get things done” requires fashioning legislation that
is to some extent acceptable to the Republican Party. Proponents of compromise will declare
incremental victory, but there are proponents of compromise on both sides of
the aisle. Consequently, incremental victory
is also incremental defeat. One gives a little to get a little. It isn’t
clear if progressive forces on balance make any headway and even less clear
that they are transforming America.
During the debates over slavery, abolitionists made up a
small minority in Congress and in the country.
Yet their principled stand against slavery divided both the Democratic
Party and the Whig Party. They brought
the issue of slavery starkly before the public with powerful moral and
practical arguments. One cannot be
certain what might have happened if the abolitionists had silenced themselves
in favor of the more conservative Free Soil and Republican platforms of the
1850s, but Wendell Phillips pointed out that all of the arguments
made by the anti-slavery forces originated in the earlier arguments of the
abolitionists. A similar dynamic has
been unfolding for a couple decades now.
In 2000, the Green Party’s platform advanced most of what
Bernie Sanders has been advocating in his campaign (along with additional
public policies that reflect social democratic sensibilities). The Green Party continued its advocacy of
these positions in 2004, 2008 and 2012.
As in the 1850s, one cannot be certain what might have happened without
the Green Party’s campaigns, but in 2011 the Occupy Wall Street movement was
launched. Though famously without a
defined platform, many of the actors in the movement called for prescriptions
that appeared in the Green Party’s platforms, and these prescriptions are now
openly discussed by the corporate media due to the Sanders campaign. I don’t mean to overstate the role of the
Green Party in bringing about the changes in public discourse. I only mean to emphasize that sustained, uncompromising
arguments in favor of particular public policies can have a role in changing
public discourse.
The role of movements like the Green Party, Occupy Wall Street,
and the Sanders campaign is historically common and politically effective. There is a common belief that political
movements must take a backseat to electoral politics during elections. The thought is, “you can’t be transformative
if you aren’t elected.” What this fails
to recognize is that political movements are the motivating cause of political
change and electoral victories are merely the proximate cause. Indeed, electoral victories aren’t always necessary
for the success of a political movement.
Take for example the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This legislation contained goals set by the
civil rights movement at least as early as the 1950s. The act was passed by a Congress that was
essentially the same as in previous years.
In the 1964 congressional elections, only 7 new Senators were elected
and 97 new representatives. Assuming all
of these new members replaced opponents of the Voting Rights Act, their votes
were nonetheless not necessary to reach a majority in favor of the Act. What actually brought about this legislative
success was not victories at the ballot box.
Instead, the civil rights movement stirred the conscience of sitting
members of Congress and persuaded them to change their votes or perhaps members
of Congress simply saw that the civil rights movement was becoming so strong
that their political future required that they accede to popular demand.
Of course in other instances, changes to office holders are
important for the passage of legislation, but significant changes to who holds office
come about because of pressure from political movements. After the defeat of Michael Dukakis in 1988,
members of the Democratic Party (the Democratic Leadership Council or DLC)
determined that the conservative movement which had its origins in Barry
Goldwaters’s 1964 presidential campaign and later dubbed “the Reagan Revolution” had
become so well entrenched that the Democratic Party’s future depended upon
adopting a more conservative platform and by appealing to business and corporate
donors. Running Bill Clinton against
more traditional labor Democrats, the DLC won Clinton’s victory in a three-way
presidential contest. Within a year of
holding office, Clinton used his political capital to pass NAFTA in 1993, a
crime bill in 1994, and welfare reform in 1996.
Each of these measures was originally championed by Republicans and
other conservatives in Congress. One
might be tempted to attribute the passage of these bills to Clinton, and no
doubt he played a role, but he was mostly the instrument of a conservative
shift in the electorate. The
conservative movement was able to effect a change in the Democratic Party.
These two examples – the Voting Rights Act and the laws
passed during the Clinton administration – demonstrate the power of political
movements to effect change. Electoral
victories and defeats are merely epiphenomena in relation to the movements that
bring them about. This brings us to the
“political revolution” that Bernie Sanders has been promoting.
Just yesterday, Bernie Sanders was reported as saying, “the
goal isn’t to win elections, the goal is to transform America.” This stunned those who believe that electoral
success is necessary to bring about change, particularly House members who seem
to be constantly thinking first and foremost about elections; but as history
shows, the motivating cause of change, particularly transformative change, is
the formation of a powerful political movement.
If one’s goal is transformational change, pragmatism usually requires
that one concentrate on building a movement and not just winning elections and
passing compromised legislation. This
was the shocking message that Sanders was bringing to House Democrats. It would be counter-productive were Sanders
to veer from the task of transforming America by silencing the movement's message in
support of a single candidate who appears not to be dedicated fully to
transformational change. Happily, the
movement for a political revolution appears to be holding together, despite
failing to nominate Bernie Sanders; meanwhile, movements that that support
factions in the Republican Party and the ideology of neoliberalism in both
parties appear to be weakening.
Four important political movements have found an
intersection in the Sanders campaign: the
labor movement, the movement to address student debt, the movement for
universal health insurance, and the environmental movement. Three efforts are significant to the labor
movement: defeating and repealing neoliberal international trade treaties, increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation, and addressing the country’s profound
disparity of wealth. Sanders made these
issues central to his campaign and generated great enthusiasm for them in the Democratic
electorate. So much so, that Clinton has
changed her views (or at least her rhetoric) in a number of ways to roughly align
herself with most of these positions.
This was not entirely due to Sanders’s campaign as her embrace of some
of these policies predated the Sanders campaign, but nearly everyone agrees that Sanders has "forced Clinton to the left." The same can be said of Sanders’s and
Clinton’s positions on student debt.
Sanders has been expressing the full aspirations of students with his
call for “free college education,” while Clinton is advocating “affordable
college education.” With regard to
health care, Sanders again articulates the full aspirations of the movement,
while Clinton advocates expanding the Affordable Care Act. Sanders also made environmental issues central
to his campaign, coming out against fracking, the Keystone XL pipeline, and in
support of a carbon fee and dividend plan.
Clinton insists that she is on board with the environmental movement,
but her record here is quite mixed. On
the positive side, she has promised support for an infrastructure that will
provide renewable energy to 100% of America’s residences, but she supports
fracking and remained neutral at best during the debate over the Keystone XL
pipeline. Most recently, her appointees
to the Democratic Party platform committee voted down a call for a carbon fee
and dividend plan. All this shows how
the most significant motivating movements inside the Democratic Party have
raised up a political candidate and are pressuring the establishment wing of
the party. These movements are calling
for transformational change and are coalescing in opposition to the neoliberal
and corporate control of our society, including the Democratic Party.
One important movement popular among progressives is the
Black Lives Matters movement. It has
forced its way into both the Sanders and Clinton campaign. Both candidates point to previous sympathy
for criminal justice reform, but it is clear that both have raised it to a
critical priority due to the movement’s effectiveness. The Black Lives Matters movement shows how a
docile political establishment can be pressed into action by concerted
grassroots action.
The movements that animate the Republican Party are
different, of course, and they are by and large waning. They have maintained a successful coalition
for several decades and have been able to elect a huge number of officials at
all levels of government. The coalition
appears, however, to be coming apart. It
has been composed of social conservatives, libertarians, militarists, white
supremists, nativists, and neoliberals (who reside in significant numbers in both
parties). Following the election of
Barak Obama, the more radical elements of these movements coalesced into “the
Tea Party,” bankrolled by the libertarian Koch brothers. This movement has had its predictable effect
on Republican office holders. In fear of
a primary challenge, many have adopted quite radical "Tea Party" positions. Again, this is an instance when a movement
has been able to achieve success without always winning office; however, over
time, the extreme views of the Tea Party have created fissures in the coalition. The Tea Party movement is showing signs of
reaching its peak influence.
Furthermore, the relative popularity of Donald Trump within the Republican Party has alienated many
of the coalition’s most powerful elements, deepening the divide between the
factions. It is not clear whether the Republican
Party coalition can be held together following the likely defeat of Donald
Trump or even if it continues to exist today.
Under the circumstances of a rising social democratic
movement and the decline of the movements in the Republican Party, it makes
good sense for Bernie Sanders to concentrate on building the social democratic
movement and not focus only on elections.
This is particularly true as the administration of the Democratic
Party’s presumptive nominee is likely to take much more cautious steps toward
transforming American politics than the rising movements would like. In all likelihood, Clinton will be elected
president. Respected poll analyst Nat
Silver gives her an 80% chance, and it is hard to imagine that Donald Trump’s
astonishingly high unfavorable ratings (60%) can be turned around. Furthermore, the electoral map strongly
favors any Democratic Party presidential candidate. In the last quarter century, democrats have
won five of six presidential elections (counting the 2000 election as a
“victory” for Al Gore based on the national popular vote and what the outcome
would have been had all of the votes been counted in Florida). Furthermore, if Clinton wins all of the states that Democratic presidential candidates have won in each election since 1992, she only needs Florida to win the Electoral College votes. If she loses Florida, there are a host of other states that combined will put her over the top. Consequently, there is no good reason for the
proponents of transformational change to silence themselves in hopes of greater
electoral success on the part of a candidate with a clear neoliberal record.
Finally, I should say something about the two-party
system. Much of the pressure to accept
compromise and “pragamatism” relies on the argument that a worse candidate
might be elected. Setting aside that
this is currently quite unlikely, one should recognize that voting not only
adds a tally to a candidate’s total, it serves to give them the illusion that
their policies are favored by the voter.
It provides them with a degree of political legitimation when the voter in
fact might not favor their policies nor feel they have a legitimate claim to
authority. Given the power of money to
determine who can appear on our ballots in November, the winner of an election
can hardly claim democratic legitimacy.
Not voting for one of the two establishment-sponsored (plutocratic) candidates is a
way of refusing to accord them the basis for claiming a higher degree of
legitimate authority. Additionally, the
two-party system will not be dismantled by members of those parties any more
than the private funding of campaigns will be ended by candidates who are
successful at raising private funds. By
voting for third party candidates, one escapes the trap of legitimating
officeholders that one finds illegitimate and one builds an electoral
organization that can demand the transformation of our politics to a
multi-party democracy.
Regardless of these considerations, one might still be
convinced that voting for “the lesser of two evils” is rational. I believe this is true at times; however,
it is never true for the vast majority of voters during presidential elections. Given that our electoral process involves
state-by-state elections of delegates to the Electoral College, one’s vote for
the president counts only in a few swing states. In nearly all states, one is free to vote
one’s conscience without fear that “the greater of two evils” will be
elected. If voting one’s conscience
becomes common enough for this to happen, then the movement for a multi-party
democracy will have been (or will be on the verge of being)
successful.
Much to the surprise of many of my fellow Green Party
members who have heard me make the case for voting for Green Party presidential
candidates even in swing states, this election has me concluding that there is
a strong argument for swing state voters to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton. I don’t expect this election to
be close, even in traditional swing states; but one issue stands out for me
that makes me dread the election of Donald Trump: the unfolding sixth great extinction of
species on the planet.
It is not
controversial that our population and global industrial society have initiated
a precipitous decline in the number of species the planet harbors and that if this
decline to continues, we will witness one of the six great extinctions of life
on the planet that natural history has recorded. During the last great extinction, 66 million
years ago, 75% of all species were wiped out.
At the end of the Permian period, roughly 250 million years ago, 90% or
more of all species were wiped out. That
is, life was nearly extinguished from the planet. We are currently risking an event of such
magnitude by our continuing disregard for critical ecological systems,
particularly the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans. Donald Trump appears to be poised to put in
place officials who do not recognize the gravity of this situation. Hillary Clinton, while also not recognizing
its gravity, will likely appoint officials who will take it somewhat more
seriously. This might create openings for
activists to make progress toward mitigating the effects of our ecological folly. At this point, the urgency of the problem is
so extreme that increasing the possibility for mitigating action, even in the
slightest, overwhelms any other consideration. In relative terms, no issue comes close to
averting or at least mitigating a sixth extinction. Consequently, I believe the political
progress that might be made by voting for a multi-party democracy must take a
back seat in swing states this election cycle. If I voted in a swing state and if the contest for Electoral College delegates was close, I would vote for Clinton.
