Why It’s Ok Not to Vote in Every Race

Last week, when I wrote that I hoped Abdul El-Sayed would lose the Michigan Senate race, the comments section was set ablaze with righteous indignation.

To put it in the most clinical terms (which they did not) my correspondents claimed that I had two choices and they were El-Sayed and a potential Democratic Senate majority or his Republican opponent Mike Rogers and more Trump/MAGA corruption, bungling, wars, tyranny and general chaos.

Up until about two years ago I would have agreed with them. I always had disdain for purists in my own party who demanded that every candidate agree 100% with them, or else. I often lectured people about American politics almost always coming down to a choice between only two candidates and if you didn’t like what your party had on offer, well, you sure as heck weren’t going to like what the other guys were selling any more. So, suck it up.

What changed is that I don’t recognize the Republican Party at all any more, and increasingly, I find it hard to stay attached to my own. American politics was once played between the 40-yard lines, then it moved out to the 20s. Now, the teams don’t play in the same stadiums. Too often now we’re given a choice between extremes: blood and soil white Christian nationalists or socialists.

Because I reject both extremes, I’ll reject both candidates. By choosing either one, I encourage extremism. So the best, most logical thing to do, is to not provide any oxygen to either destructive fire.

Of course, I don’t vote in Michigan, so this is all theoretical anyway. Here in Wisconsin I’ve only put this theory into practice once — so far. In last April’s state Supreme Court race, I didn’t vote for either partisan candidate in what’s supposed to be a nonpartisan race. Instead, I wrote in the name of David Souter as a statement in support of the kind of thoughtful, impartial justice I wanted to see on the ballot.

In two previous Supreme Court races I voted for the liberal, not because I wanted to vote for a biased candidate, but because those were awful choices between a Republican-biased court and a Democratic-biased court. Since I’m left-center in my views, I chose that direction. But what I really wanted was a court of seven justices, none of whom is predictable on any given issue. With nobody like that on the ballot, I chose the liberal poison over the conservative poison. But I didn’t like it. This time around, with the court’s majority secure no matter what, I felt free to do what I wanted. Thus, my Souter vote.

I applied the same logic to my El-Sayed argument. The Democrats will surely take back the House. That will be enough to stop Trump, so I don’t see any compelling reason to hold my nose and support El-Sayed. Sure, the Senate confirms Trump’s nominees and a Democratic majority could stand in the way of those, but i feel that sending a message to my party that if you nominate hard-leftists you will lose was more important in the long-run. The greater good is to push back the extremists in my own party while also seeing MAGA extremism held in check by a Democratic House majority. Also, most Americans (myself included) prefer divided government. Had the House been a lock for a continued Republican majority I might have looked at the Senate races differently.

It’s likely that there will be more of this to come, unfortunately. The Democrats came close to nominating a Democratic Socialist for Governor and, if they had, I would not have voted for her or for MAGA man Tom Tiffany. I might have written in Tony Earl.

Here’s the thing, people, If we keep on accepting the lesser of two evils, we’ll keep getting two evils. I’m not so much a Democrat as I am a liberalish moderate. I will vote for moderates whenever I have the chance and I will vote against extremism — whose name is populism — whenever I feel forced to do that.