A statement about voting third party usually results in vitriol from those who feel stuck to the dated two-party system. The same arguments about why the left should vote for Democrats that we hear over and over are once again being repeated during this election cycle. These arguments are simple and easy to believe, which is why they are used repetitively. The purpose of the arguments is to keep us stuck in the exact same two-party despondence that we will continue to be stuck in unless we collectively do something about it. What I’m talking about, of course, is “Well, the Democrats are a lesser evil,” or “But a third party vote is a wasted vote,” and the quintessential “But, Project 2025.” To counter these arguments in a concise way would require too much research and too much effort. This is why I, as someone who regularly puts in too much effort, wrote this piece.

I am not towing the line with Harris, and I encourage other leftists to do similar. These are my responses to the concerns about this choice. 

“I don’t particularly like Harris. But she, and by association Democrats, are less evil than Trump and the Republicans.”

Not really. The only difference is that Democrats are trying to appeal to left-wing voters that care about issues such as workers rights, climate change, abortion, and social justice issues. Republicans are appealing to people who couldn’t care less about any of those. Thus, it’s easy for Trump to be overtly bigoted and greedy. It wouldn’t be easy for Harris to do so. To highlight what I mean by this, let’s talk about immigration, abortion, and Palestine.

If you tuned into the 2024 debate between Trump and Biden, you probably remember that Trump was blaming immigrants for everything under the sun. Some may remember the outrage caused by one of the more infamous policies Trump passed – the decision to detain immigrant children, but turn down their families. He later ended this policy in response to criticism, as documented by NPR’s Richard Gonzales in “Trump’s Executive Order on Family Separation: What it Does and Doesn’t Do,” in 2018. The Democrats have thus earned a reputation for being slightly kinder because at least they don’t separate children from their families at the border. Yet, this simply is not the case. Rebecca Morin of USA Today published “Biden Continues to Use Title 42, a Trump-era Immigration Policy…” in 2021, which reported on Biden’s usage of Title 42, a policy Trump enacted during the pandemic to turn away undocumented people in order to prevent the spread of COVID. Under Biden’s extension of the policy, immigrant children were taken in, and their families were sent away, which sounds awfully familiar. The Department of Health and Human Services released photos of the conditions, revealing that unaccompanied immigrant children were sleeping on mattresses with tin foil blankets. Not too far off from Trump-era policy. Although accused of being the “Border Czar” by conservative opponents, Harris’s job was merely to assess root causes of immigration, wrote NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán and Jasmine Garsd earlier this year in “Harris’ Struggles with Immigration Policy Expose Political Vulnerabilities”. Yet, she is also remembered for one of her greater blunders in Guatemala, where she told the Guatemalans simply, “Do not come.” In 2019 during a campaign for president, Harris had cited a proposal for Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to have a pathway to citizenship. Biden and Harris later promised something similar in 2020, which never came to fruition. This theme of promising something that never gets mentioned again will come up once more when mentioning abortion.

Many of us are still outraged over the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022. The restoration of nationwide abortion rights is a common thing the Democrats run on. In 2009, Sheryl Gay Stolborg wrote “On Abortion, Obama is Drawn into Debate he Hoped to Avoid,” in the New York Times, chronicling Barack Obama’s fence-sitting on abortion. Back in 2007, Obama had promised to codify Roe v Wade with the Freedom of Choice Act, going as far to say it was the first thing he would do as president, only to later declare it not his highest legislative priority. With the overturning of Roe v Wade, Democrats had a new thing to campaign on, with the promise of a slim chance that we’d manage to get our rights back, but with no plans to protect such rights from future right-wing attacks. Many may also point to the slim chance that Democrats would ever relax support for Israel.

So, let’s talk about Israel. You would be hard-pressed to try and get Democrats to budge on their support for them. The relationship between Biden and Netanyahu was explored by Reuters’s Matt Spetalnik, Jeff Mason, and two others in their “‘I am a Zionist:’ How Joe Biden’s Lifelong Bond with Israel Shapes War Policy,” published last year. Yes, Biden declared himself a Zionist. Biden and Netanyahu have been lifelong friends, and during Biden’s 36 years in the Senate, he received the biggest amount of donations from pro-Israeli groups. With such an incredible profit to be made, why stop the support for the genocide of Palestinians? Harris herself likes to flip-flop on this issue. This is best explored by Josephine Riesman and S.I Rosenbaum in their article titled “Kamala is Sending a Subtle Message on Israel. Is Anyone Listening?” published for Slate this year. Sometimes she has made comments on separating anti-semitism from anti-Zionism. She has received less money from pro-Israel lobbying. However, she’s also made a speech to the Democratic National Convention about endorsing Israel’s “right to defend itself,” and later following up with a nod to Palestinian self-determination. Some are hopeful about her stance. Yet, the Democratic base is deeply entrenched in Israel and money from their lobbyists. If Harris is more pro-Palestinian, her hands are tied by the Democratic base that has to defend Israel, lest it lose money. Riesman and Rosenbaum highlight the confusion and vagueness of her stance, and how it’s been interpreted in many different ways. Simply, she is playing a fence-sitting game where we have to figure out what she really means whilst human lives are being buried under rubble.

The point of this “lesser evil” argument is to try and justify feeling better about casting a vote for a politician that is not going to represent you as they should. Yet, a lesser evil is no proper defense against an evil. They’re both evil. Democrats standing back and watching you bleed out whilst putting band-aids on you from time to time is no less evil than Republicans actively stabbing you. Why? Because although they didn’t necessarily stab you, they have the supplies to be able to save you, and actively choose not to. This is a murder by proxy. Voting Democrat is continuing to cover stab wounds in band-aids from time to time, and this simply makes the Republican stabber more bold. We can keep touting this slogan of “Anybody but Trump!” all we want, but the fact of the matter is that the right has learned that Trump worked. We have politicians like Ron DeSantis now that feel comfortable being overtly bigoted, because they learned they will not be stopped. And our only defense is to keep supporting politicians trying to play the middle-ground on our rights, our life, our humanity?

“Well, fine. The Democrats aren’t the greatest. I still feel as if casting a vote for a third party would be a wasted vote. They’re not going to win anyway.”

Contrary to the two dominant parties in the United States, third party candidates share real concerns that often go overlooked. Making their presence known by casting a vote for them can boost attention to these problems. An example of a third party candidate that gained considerable traction was Ross Perot, a member of the Reform Party in 1992 that won 19% of the vote. Perot was one of the first candidates to declare that the federal budget deficit was an issue – something that, since his platform, other candidates have started sharing concerns about. Other examples of third parties bringing issues to the forefront was the activism of the Socialists in the 1800s and 1900s on women’s suffrage and child labor laws, wrote Kristina Nwazota in “Third Parties in the U.S. Political Process” for PBS in 2004. So, no, casting a vote for something you believe in is never truly “wasted.”

Further, my vote being cast for a third party is not “taking votes away from Harris,” because I was not going to vote for her anyway. Jill Stein was commonly blamed for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, but many Stein voters, as discussed by FiveThirtyEight’s “Jill Stein: Democratic Spoiler or Scapegoat?” in 2016, likely would not have voted in the election anyway if Stein was not an option, according to pre-election polls and national exit polls. Politicians have to earn your vote. They are not entitled to it.

I also have no legitimate reason to believe that a Democratic presidency would save this country from future right-wing attacks, as I’ve mentioned prior. Democratic presidencies barely even safeguard this country. They, too, serve corporate interests. Whilst Democrats pretend to be pro-labor, worker’s compensation has barely risen at all since 1979, despite the growth in productivity, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s “The Productivity-Pay Gap” updated this summer. Furthermore, looking at a possible Harris presidency, it is unclear what she would even offer us. A study done this summer by The Economist titled “Kamala Harris has Revealed only the Vaguest Policy Platforms” reveals that there is very little that Harris has even set in stone. Her policy proposals are vague promises such as “the freedom from gun violence” and “the freedom to vote” with no concrete answer as to what that would even mean. It seems she is proposing a continuation of Bidenomics. Funnily enough, she endorsed a proposal to get rid of income tax on tips weeks after Trump launched the same proposal, prompting him to accuse her of “policy plagiarism.” Harris is hoping she’ll get into office because “at least she’s not Trump” but offering you very little of what she’d actually do for you. We already know what Trump is capable of, and Democrats don’t really seem that concerned beyond empty rhetoric.

Thus, even if a third-party candidate does not actually win, we force politicians to start paying attention to the issues that lost them the win. We bring third-party solutions to the spotlight. We demand more than this same moderate fence-sitting that we’ve been seeing for years.

“With all that being said, I would cast a vote for a third party, but I’m exceptionally scared of Project 2025.”

Which is a valid concern, considering how it has been framed as your reason to vote for Harris. However, in the context of history, grand right-wing plans are not new to this country, unfortunately. This summer, Rick Perlstein of The American Prospect analyzed the Heritage Foundation’s history of trying, time and time again, to get this “Mandate for Leadership” off the ground in “Project 2025 … and 1921, and 1973, and 1981.” One notable example was the presidency of Richard Nixon, who had a plan to move the country so far right that it was unrecognizable. In fact, Project 2025 is the ninth version of this series, and shares a similar format to the one published in 1981. Not to mention that there are contradictory chapters within the project with opposite interpretations – “The Export-Import Bank Should Be Abolished” and “The Case for the Export-Import Bank,” for example. Right-wingers have been trying for years to damage this country, and they’ve already been successful multiple times.

What Nixon did achieve under his plans to bring forth a right-wing country was setting the groundwork for a push towards neoliberalism, and breaking down the crucial protections of the New Deal. Had this been a modern situation, and we were voting to try and save the New Deal, we would have settled with the Democratic Jimmy Carter. However, it was actually Carter who deregulated multiple sectors of the industry with the consequence of plummeting wages. Taxation was increased on wage-earners and lowered under investors under Carter, revealed David N. Gibbs in an interview with C.J. Polychroniou for Truthout this year. This article, titled “Neoliberal Policies Associated with Reaganomics Actually Started with Carter,” provides an interesting point of view: the reason we do not think of Carter with these right-wing economic policies is because he didn’t overtly tout symbolism associated with the right, unlike Ronald Reagan’s proud declaration of being pro-free market. As in, the Democrats mask that they have been complicit in breaking down barriers for workers for years. We should see “Project 2025” as an actual decades-long project, contributed to by both Republicans and Democrats, especially since Democrats do not fight back. You would not be protected by a right-wing attack on this country if Harris was in power. The inability to actually push back right-wing changes to this country is one of the reasons these changes charge forward.

So, the United States has given far right leaders power before. But how has the center ever countered these efforts? Carter essentially let Reagan break down more barriers because he really just did a lot of the preliminaries before him. Is a moderate really going to combat the problem of right-wing leaders getting too comfortable? How many more elections are we going to bend the knee and say, “Okay Democrats, maybe you’ll actually give us what we want this time,” as the right continues to get bolder? We have taught the Democrats to expect our vote when they offer next to nothing. All this does is delay the inevitable of future right-wing attacks, not prevent nor stop them.

“Okay, well who do you suggest voting for? And what should I do, moving forward?”

The independent left has some fair choices for this race. One of the more well-known candidates is Jill Stein from the Green Party, with more ballot access. Independent Cornel West and Socialist Claudia De La Cruz also have thrown their hats in the ring. An analysis of these campaigns would take up more pages than I’ve already written. That is because the purpose of this article was to mainly expose the failures of the Democrats. Thus, I encourage independent left voters to research their options. I am personally fond of West’s campaign, and his support for worker’s unions, a ceasefire, abortion rights, and more published on his website. Stein and West likely have the best chances to garner the most votes in our current climate, but we should pave the way for more left-wing options by giving them a spotlight.

A majority of us may want another option. In fact, Jeffrey Jones of the Gallup Poll published “Support For Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%” in October of last year. I’d reckon a lot of Democratic voters don’t really vote for Democrats because they’re enthusiastic about them, but because they feel as if they have no other option. Unfortunately, Democrats continue to lay the base for future right-wing domination, and at some point, our majority desire for another option needs to make headway. Why vote for someone you don’t really believe in? They’ll continue to disappoint you, and do nothing to prevent what is already happening, as I’ve illustrated.

The local level is a very important way to enact changes for third party candidates to start making ground. An example was socialist candidate Kshama Sawant, who was on the Seattle City Council and claimed a victory over a plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 back in 2014. However, candidates like these still have to fight and need support to do so, as Huffington Post’s Ryan Buxton covered in “Kshama Sawant, Seattle City Councilwoman…” In fact, Sawant actually faced a recall vote in 2021 that she won by an incredibly thin margin. Her tactic for winning was to get on the offensive, and her mobilization for tenant’s rights (such as the right to counsel for those facing eviction, ban on evictions during school years for children and their families, and so-forth) won her the approval and support she needed to survive the recall, according to reporting done in 2021 by the Urbanist’s Doug Trumm in “What Sawant’s Close 310-Vote Recall Victory Means for Seattle Politics.” All this to say, for work to really get done, mobilization for these third party candidates is absolutely necessary, so they can do the work they want to do for you.

You may respond that mobilization for the left is much harder in red states, so they’ll be forced to tow the line for the center – yet independent candidate Dan Osborn’s campaign for U.S Senate in Nebraska says otherwise. By ditching the Democrats, he has a much better shot at dismantling the Republican stronghold, according to “Could Nebraska Cost Republicans the Senate?” published this year by David Faris in Slate. The race between Osborn and Republican incumbent Deb. Fischer is surprisingly tight, to the point Fischer is afraid to debate him. Osborn has real union backing from the United Auto Workers. Of course, it is true he may not win, but it is clear that what we need to pose an actual opposition to the right-wing is independent, working-class, viable options that refuse ties to the corporate Democrat machine. The two parties do not actually represent us. Our living situations are getting worse. It’s time to work outside of them.

Overall, the United States needs election reform. Options such as ranked-choice voting would eliminate the stigma of third parties “spoiling elections,” and even broader reforms such as proportional representation would put a certain percentage of each party in a legislature proportional to how many votes they received. Zaid Jilani explores this in more detail in “Why Third Parties Rarely Win and How America Can Change That” published on NewsNation and updated in 2023.

If you’re still with me after all these words, I thank you for your consideration. The best chances we have are not just federal elections, but active work on the ground. It will be hard to break a corporate duopoly, but it certainly will not be broken by continuing to participate in it in the slight hopes it will eventually get better. This (and more that I left out of here for the sake of time) is why I am voting third party.