If I hear one more otherwise intelligent progressive say that Obama sucks, but they’re going to vote for him anyways because choosing a lesser evil is their best and only pragmatic and moral choice, I might just lose it.

In the spirit of starting a new blog on the right foot I’m going to start the party with a good old fashioned grenade. Lesser evilism in electoral politics is immoral and counterproductive and I’m going to lay out an argument explaining why.

The argument for lesser evilism usually goes like this: Democrats are consistently disappointing, but whatever their faults may be their policies are usually a little better for the county than those of Republicans. Because Republicans are a little worse than Democrats on issues of importance to progressives it makes sense for them to try to influence the system in what little ways they can. A related argument is that little differences in policy actually make a very big difference in a country of three hundred million people. Corruption in politics is a fact of life, but if a few more people get good healthcare and funding for their school programs voting will have been worth it.

There is some truth in this, but this outlook is problematic for two reasons.

The biggest problem with lesser evilism is that it encourages Democratic politicians to ignore their base in favor of potential votes that require more effort to capture, and the lobbying pressure of monied interests. By refusing to make their votes for Democratic candidates conditional on supporting progressive goals progressives reinforce a dysfunctional relationship that makes it safe for their concerns and goals to be ignored. By refusing to withhold their votes they participate in the cyclical machinery of their own class exploitation.

Secondly, the surrender of the progressive base’s goals to “pragmatism” requires an enormous opportunity cost of misdirected activism. In 2008 thousands of activists who would otherwise have donated their labor and capital towards traditionally left social movements and causes unwittingly directed their energies towards a presidency that would betray the very causes the activists thought they were supporting.

I am putting forward the economic argument that the small victories to be gained by supporting the Democratic status quo are not worth the price being paid for them. Occupy Wallstreet has proved that direct activism unaligned with traditional powers can have an enormous impact on national politics. I would also argue that Democratic loyalists need to stop fancying themselves as hard nosed pragmatists and recognize the naivete of their stubbornness to recognize what everybody else has long known.

Your party is just not that into you.