A Letter to Leftists on (Not) Voting for Obama

Dear Leftists,

Many of you are considering voting for Barack Obama on November 4. Before you do, I urge you to think again and consider your Leftist principles.

Many of you are attracted to Obama for his ability to inspire. Agreed: the man’s lofty rhetoric can be uplifting. Inspiration aside, however, his policies are largely just old wine in a new bottle.

Many of you are attracted to Obama because he’s different; he’s not the usual “old white man.” He may be black (well, half-black) and he may have a funny name, elements which may change the face of America, but these attributes are only skin deep, so to speak. He is still a Democrat beholden to a realist foreign policy philosophy and a willing prisoner of an unjust capitalist system.

“He’s transformational,” some say. “He’s a transformational figure.” Yet if Obama were to win he’d do so with about 51-55% of the popular vote—half the country is hardly transformational. That’s not even a mandate.

Obama will put a different face on American foreign policy, many claim. In many ways, yes, but it’ll be the same face responsible for the deaths of innocents at the hands of a military with a budget exceeding all other nations combined—a fixture that will not change with Obama in charge, even if his middle name is Hussein.

But a vote for Obama is practical, more than a few allege, because it gets the Left’s foot in the White House’s door. Maybe. But why keep bending over for the Democrats, a party that keeps leaning toward the Middle and Right? Why not take the opposite tactic of forcing them to come to us for our vote? They are winning because, in this sense, we are weak.

No candidate and no party are perfect. But I bet the Leftists (i.e. Left of Democrats) reading this see more eye-to-eye with the platform of Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party than with Obama’s and the Democrats’ agenda. Still, you are willing to hold your nose and vote for the Democrats… again… or “just this once.” Did you use the same rationale when you pulled the lever for Kerry in 2004?

Obama’s record makes it clear: he is a calculating, dedicated political centrist. He admits as much himself, telling Leftists who express shock at his middling policies, “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.” Obama says NO to the Leftist ideals of: public financing for campaigns; gay marriage; single-payer, universal health care; reducing the Pentagon’s budget; ending the Cuban embargo; bailing out Main Street; immediate withdraw of troops from Iraq; canceling NAFTA; abolishing the death penalty; national living wage; impeaching Bush and Cheney; repealing Taft-Hartley Act; and so on.

Obama says YES to anti-Leftist agendas like: dividing Jerusalem, (or not, depending on his audience); FISA; funding private military firms; “war on terror” language and tactics; government funding for religious groups; off-shore oil drilling; bailing out Wall Street; and so on.

I won’t go into detail, but suffice to say that the Green Party comes down on the rights side of the above issues. And so on.

In fact, I’m just going to say it now so I don’t have to say it later: I told you so. Those who cling to the notion that somehow Obama is a cloaked “true” progressive or a Manchurian-Leftist are only fooling themselves.

Obama is popular, but so is liquor—it doesn’t mean we should all get drunk. It is insufficient that the Left simply keeps the Republicans out of the White House. Voting for a third party candidate is not a wasted vote. If a third party garners 5% of the popular vote, their party is awarded public funding for their presidential bid in the next election—a goal worthy of our efforts. Obama just dropped a few million dollars for 30-minute, nationwide television spots; with public financing a third party candidate has the same opportunity. How democratic is it if so many of us are disenfranchised each election cycle because our candidates and parties are locked out of a corporate-driven, two-party system?

If a Leftist votes for Obama in a solidly “blue” state, what point is being made? Indeed, if you are a Leftist in a solid blue state and you cast your ballot for Obama, you are wasting a vote and an opportunity to send a message of protest.

Isn’t it time you left the Democrats behind for good? Or rather, isn’t it time you led the Democrats away from the center-right to which they so obstinately cling? This takes courage and persistence, and it starts at the ballot box.

I’ll leave you with a quote: “The average man dislikes to be thought unpractical, and so, while frequently loathing the principles or distrusting the leaders of the particular political party he is associated with, declines to leave them, in the hope that their very lack of earnestness may be more fruitful of practical results than the honest outspokenness of the party in whose principles he does believe” (James Connolly, “Workshop Talks,” 1909).

Revolutionary politics is never practical.

Vote your conscience. Vote Green.

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October 30, 2008