I monitored Donald Trump’s acceptance speech from a bourbon-fogged pit of despair. My clearest memory is the Wonkette live-commenter who simply put up a frame of Gerald Scarfe’s goose-stepping hammers. So let us agree: it’s happening here.
I’ll posit for the sake of argument that Hillary Clinton is the Lesser Evil – although, in the starkest terms, how many will people will die if a particular candidate assumes power, I do not consider that a settled question.
Since her supporters are always hectoring unconverted progressives of not being realistic, let’s begin with cold math. In order for my planned vote for Jill Stein to bring Donald Trump to power, he would need to both: A) win the Electoral College by less than six votes, which is likely, if he wins at all, and B) win the state of Utah by a single vote, the odds of which are indistinguishable from zero.
[As it happens, Trump is so unpopular among Mormons – whose culture carries strong memories of religious persecution and places a high value on civility – that Hillary might be competitive in this historically reddest of states. But it would only happen in the context of a 1984-scale blowout.]
So the argument typically shifts to that of collective responsibility. The best presentation that I’ve come across is from No More Mister Nice Blog:
I dislike both types–both the ones who are grudgingly giving her the vote, or acting like its just tacky to be uncool enough to vote for her wholeheartedly, and the Bernie or Buster single issue voters. These people are relying on a kind of political herd immunity. They are like people who don’t get a vaccine that might save their life from an epidemic illness and who simply count on everyone else getting the vaccine to lower the danger to themselves. They know that Hillary and Bill and Obama and everyone else in the Democratic Party is going to raise the money, fight the fight, do the GOTV, and then fight to run the damned country regardless of their single vote. And they either believe that Trump getting in won’t affect them, or that the rest of us will work our hearts out for Hillary and get her over the finish line and we will keep fighting for progressive causes and they can bitch from the sidelines. …
For herd immunity to work, for the most vulnerable parts of our body politic to be protected from disease, everyone who can get the vaccine must get the vaccine. Babies, children, old people, pregnant women, sick people–these are all people who have compromised or vulnerable immune systems. Often they can’t get the vaccine. They rely on herd immunity to protect them from epidemic diseases sweeping through society. Anyone who is healthy enough to receive the vaccine owes it to everyone around them to take it. Anyone who has the freedom to vote, the ability to vote, the luxury to vote owes it to the rest of us to vote in this election, for the Democratic nominee. The health and safety of the entire country depends on it.
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2016/06/herd-immunity.html
As I understand it, this argument boils down to “What would happen if everyone did what you’re doing?”.
I could argue that scenario is… not realistic. But in this case, what would happen is that Jill Stein would be elected President. And the vulnerable – which includes the Muslim civilians of the world, even though NMNB, like most Democrats, is too much of an American Exceptionalist to see it – would be much safer than they will be with Hillary Clinton.
[While I have all the customary objections to her record and character that you would expect from someone in the Green Party orbit, I could force myself to tolerate most of them under these extraordinary circumstances. But her actions leading up to and in the aftermath of the destruction of Libya show her to be as much of a sociopath as Trump. That she is better groomed and more articulate makes her more dangerous in this respect, not less.]
In fact, I do believe that my moral imperative is to act as if the future hinges on my personal decisions. I also believe that a vote driven by fear is irresponsible, regardless of how valid the fear might be.
But in the end, if Trump comes, it will not be because I voted my conscience. It will not be because of Bernie Sanders or Ralph Nader. It will be because of historical forces that neither you nor I control.