Important dates in history for lesser-of-two-evils voters

10 April 1932: Paul von Hindenburg is re-elected President of Germany as a lesser of evils, the greater evil being Adolf Hitler of the NSDAP ("Nazi Party"). Germany was thus indefinitely saved from Nazi rule. No, wait -- that's not what happened at all, so:

What happened was that von Hindenburg appointed Hitler on 30 January of 1933, and also later signed off on the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933, thus putting German democracy to rest until, twelve years and 80 million dead people later, democracy was restored to a portion of Germany, thus allowing some Germans to vote for lesser-of-two-evils candidates once more.

15 October 1991: Eleven lesser-of-two-evils Democrats desert the rest of their party to vote to confirm Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court member. Later, Supreme Court scholar Ian Millhiser, author of the book Injustices, was to grant Thomas a #5 spot on his list of The Five Worst Supreme Court Justices In American History.

13 September 1994: Lesser-of-two-evils President Bill Clinton, with the help of a lesser-of-two-evils Democratic-controlled Congress, signed the "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act," thus continuing a trend in punitive legislation, contributing to a vast increase in prison growth in the United States over the period from 1980 to 2008 (with its consequent increase in the populations of socially persona-non-grata individuals and broken families), and thus also foisting a large and growing tax burden upon those who earn money and who also aren't wealthy enough to evade taxes. Lesser-of-two-evils First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton promoted the Crime Bill with this speech:

22 August 1996: Lesser-of-two-evils President Bill Clinton signs the 1996 Welfare Bill, with the main effect of pushing millions of poor Americans into even more extreme poverty. Lesser-of-two-evils candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was later to promote this as a signature achievement of the first Clinton regime in her 2008 run for the Presidency, promoting it as "ending welfare as we know it." We are all supposed to believe that those ten millions or so who were kicked off the lists went on to glorious futures of happiness and prosperity.

12 November 1999: Lesser-of-two-evils President Bill Clinton signs the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act, which he teamed up with greater-evil Republican Phil Gramm to get passed. This was later to be a contributing cause to the 2008-2009 economic downturn.

12 December 2000: The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, awards Florida's electoral votes to George W. Bush, thus making him President and thus depriving the Presidency from lesser-of-two-evils candidate Al Gore. The deciding vote in this decision was made by Associate Justice Ralph Nader, who also ran as a Presidential candidate and personally went to 308,000 of Florida's Democrats to beg them to vote for Bush. Well, that's not what really happened, but someone had to be blamed for Gore's lackluster campaign, and we all know that lesser-of-two-evils voters are pure as the driven snow. So that's my story, and I"m sticking to it.

4 November 2008: Lesser-of-two-evils candidate Barack Obama ascends to the Presidency. Obama will later be remembered for guiding to victory four important pieces of legislation:

I'm sure we can fit Obama's expansion of Dick Cheney's war on the world, now performed in the absence of a peace movement, and the continued slaughter of Black people on the streets, aided and abetted by new legislation, somewhere in there.

The Republicans, eager to appear as the "greater of two evils" in light of the Obama administration's vast expansion of the grounds for evildoing, greeted the era of Obama by dropping their once-upon-a-time environmentalist agenda and adopting the racism and sexism of the Tea Party, which now achieves living form in the hated persona of Donald Trump. Trump, small-time huckster and know-nothing, today does double duty as the main reason we are all supposed to vote for lesser-of-two-evils candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton while running an absolutely stellar campaign guaranteed to win.

But never mind -- the fact that lesser-evil voting has almost always opened up the grounds for achievement of further evil never deterred the lesser-evil voters. Instead, they twist history and make stuff up. What's important is that the principle of "strategic voting" be used to mask the reality that one gets what one votes for.

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Bollox Ref's picture

His evil sidekick Ludendorff doing most of the heavy lifting.

The Hero of Tannenberg was easily manipulated by 1933. It's a wonder he could put on his pickelhaube.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Cassiodorus's picture

are not all that competent.

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“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

martianexpatriate's picture

whether the problem is competence or that their states goals are so different from the goals they pretend to have.

Similarly when evaluating a candidate, my question is this.

"Is he really insane, or just say all this for the benefit of his insane voters?"

It can be a hard question to answer sometimes.

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WindDancer13's picture

I would refer to them as Evil #1 and Evil #2. There is no lesser this time. Although, we may have to take that a step further as people may not be be able to distinguish which Evil we are referring to at any given time, and because linear numbers tend to indicate one being lesser than the other. Maybe Blue Evil vs. Red Evil?

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Cassiodorus's picture

people stop paying attention. What's important is "omigod the other candidate!"

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“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

WindDancer13's picture

"Omigod! The candidates."

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

They were released from the box that the cat brought in

Thing One and Thing Two

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

The Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 was more responsible for the economic crash of 2008 than repeal of Glass Steagall.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000

As with repeal of Glass Steagall, the Clinton White House pushed hard for this bill so that Clinton could later claim a veto-proof majority. This was a favorite tactic of Clinton with legislation he knew might come back to bite him.

Bill Clinton

In June 2013, film producer Charles Ferguson interviewed Bill Clinton who said he and Larry Summers couldn't change Alan Greenspan's mind and Congress then passed the Act with a veto-proof supermajority. Ferguson revealed that this was inaccurate and, he said, a lie, while commenting that he thought Clinton was "a really good actor". In fact, Ferguson wrote, the Clinton Administration and Larry Summers lobbied for the Act and joined Robert Rubin in both privately and publicly attacking advocates of regulation.

id.

Hillary Clinton tried to hang this bill around Sanders' neck during one of the debates. However, Sanders was then in the House and the toxic provisions were not in this bill when the House voted for it. Later, it was wrapped into a 2000-page bill, passage of which was necessary to prevent a shut-down of government, which, in 2000, seemed unthinkable.

Great thread. Thank you. The lesser of two evils is only lesser in the short-term, if that. In the long term, electing Trojan Horse Democrats at all levels of government, as we've been doing for decades, only insures that no one will ever push back against bipartisan evil that Trojan Horse Democrats try to palm off on Republicans, or in the case of Bill Clinton and Obama, on Congress, including fellow Democrats.

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Cassiodorus's picture

Politics has otherwise intelligent people behaving much less than intelligently.

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“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

The ruling SPD had maintained power in part through an alliance of convenience with the Communists. In the 1933, the Communists abandoned them, because the Communists thought the Nazis would hasten the worldwide revolution and help birth the Communist utopia. In a roundabout way, they may have been right, at least in part, because at least part of the country did become Communist within 15 years, although it was not exactly a utopia.

There's a good review here:

http://socialistreview.org.uk/378/lessons-of-defeat

Effective opposition to the rise of the Nazis would therefore depend on the strategy pursued by the Communist Party. Tragically it was at this time that the party adopted what was called the "Third Period" line. At the very time when the crisis of capitalism was destroying the lives of millions and Hitler's Nazis were making huge electoral gains (rising from 2.6 percent of the vote in 1928 to 37.4 percent in 1932) the KPD concentrated its attention on attacking another part of the left. It made preposterous accusations against the socialists, accusing them of being "social fascists" and "1,000 times worse than an open fascist dictatorship".

This was a disastrous distraction from the real issues of the time - the economic crisis and the threat of fascism - and opened up a division in the forces of the left from which it would not recover. The result was that the most powerful labour movement in the world was in turmoil and Hitler rose to power virtually unopposed. It was not until 1934 that the first major challenge came with the rising of the Austrian workers. From here there developed mass struggles against fascism in France, Spain, and ultimately during the Second World War.

The German Communists actions also triggered a strong rebuke from Trotsky in exile (colored in part by his hatred of Stalin -- although his commentary in 1933 ended up being fairly prescient)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330314.htm

The policy of the Stalinist bureaucracy in China was no less disastrous than it is now in Germany. But there, the affair took place behind the back of the world proletariat, under conditions which were incomprehensible to it. The critical voice of the Opposition hardly reached beyond the Soviet Union to the workers of the other countries. The Stalinist apparatus went practically unpunished for the Chinese experience. In Germany, it is entirely different All the stages of the drama developed before the world proletariat At each stage, the Opposition raised its voice. The whole course of development was announced in advance. The Stalinist bureaucracy slandered the Opposition, imputed to it ideas and plans alien to it; expelled all those who dared to speak of the united front; helped the Social Democratic bureaucracy demolish the united local defense committees; cut the workers off from the slightest possibility of setting out on the road of the mass struggle; disorganized the vanguard; paralyzed the proletariat. Thus, by opposing a united front of defense with the Social Democracy, the Stalinists found themselves with the latter in a united front of panic and of capitulation.

And now, already standing just short of ruin, the leadership of the Comintern fears light and criticism more than anything else. Let the world revolution perish, but long live vain prestige! The bankrupts sow confusion, bury the evidence, and cover their tracks. The fact that the Communist Party of Germany lost “only” 1,200,000 votes at the first blow – with a general rise in the number of voters of three to four millions – is proclaimed by Pravda as an “enormous political victory.” In the same way, in 1924, Stalin proclaimed as an “enormous victory” the fact that the workers in Germany, who were retreating without battle, had still given the Communist Party 3,600,000 votes. If the proletariat deceived and disarmed by both apparatuses, has this time given the Communist Party almost five million votes, this signifies only that they would have given it twice or three times that number had they trusted its leadership. They would have raised it to power had it shown itself capable of taking and holding power. But it gave the proletariat nothing save confusion, zigzags, defeats, and calamities.

Yes, five million Communists still succeeded in reaching the ballot box, one by one. But in the factories and on the streets, there are none. They are disconcerted, dispersed, demoralized. They have been broken away from independence under the yoke of the apparatus. The bureaucratic terror of Stalinism paralyzed their willpower before the turn came for the terror of the fascist bands.

It must be said clearly, plainly, openly: Stalinism in Germany has had its August 4. Henceforth, the advanced workers will only speak of the period of the domination of the Stalinist bureaucracy with a burning sense of shame, with words of hatred and curses. The official German Communist Party is doomed. From now on it will only decompose, crumble, and melt into the void. German Communism can be reborn only on a new basis and with a new leadership.

So, if we want to talk about "lesser of evils", the 1933 election in Germany is actually one the few counter-examples, where I think you could say "yes, hold your nose and support the lesser of evils". The burden then becomes demonstrating why 2016 is not 1933. Part of the argument that I would make for that, is that the Nazis in 1933 had a paramilitary wing, they had a national political organization that they had built up over a decade. Hitler had years in politics and was clearly the main power broker in the party. Donald Trump couldn't even organize a state caucus, he has no real national organization to speak of. At the establishment level, he has little support. If he wins, his first day in office he is going to face a united front on the Democratic side, and on the GOP side there will be resistance and distrust. Unlike 1933 Germany, the U.S. has had a democracy and a set of institutions that are older than 20 years. It would be harder to consolidate power. Trump is also 70 years old. I think he's more Berlusconi than Hitler.

For people who live in a non-competitive state, go for Green. In swing-states, I think people have a much harder decision. If it was 1933 Germany, however, the choice would be easier and strategic voting would definitely be the best course of action.

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Cassiodorus's picture

Nor for that matter Louis Proyect's, in annieli's diary?

https://louisproyect.org/2016/07/14/misusing-german-history-to-scare-up-...

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“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

and that I think she is the perfect embodiment of a our political system's corruption.

However, I don't think 1932-33 Germany is a particularly good argument against Lesser Evilism. The split in the political left in Germany played a contributing role to Hitler's rise. If the Communists and Socialists had maintained a united front in the early 1930s they could have denied Hitler a governing plurality in 1933.

The reason that I don't think 1932-33 Germany is instructive for this election, is because I don't think Trump (or Clinton) is analogous to Hitler. If either was, then I would use the 1932-33 German elections as a strong argument for when "lesser-evilism" is a viable voting strategy.

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Cassiodorus's picture

He appointed Hitler.

How again is this an argument for "lesser of two evils" voting?

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“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

I will not be a "better than the alternative" voter, rather I want to be a voter who votes for the future and our country, go Jill Stein

Hey for anyone interested I believe I have figured out why Trump who obviously had another choice in mind selected Pence.

I know all the asshole talking heads on TV say it is the religious conservatives, geography etc. Bullshit to all, this is The Donald we are talking about and it is always and on ly ever about him and his $$$.

1. Trump loaned $50 million +/- to his campaign (probably in actual $$$ a lot less)

2. Trump does not want to spend anymore of his own $$$

3. Pence is supported and tied in with the Koch's

4. The deal, Pence on the ticket for the Koch $$$

5. Sweetener to make it all work, Trump gets to repay himself all or part of the $50 million out of the Koch $$$$

With Trump 100% of the time it is about him and his $$$

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

then this move backfired big time. The Kochs' haven't given a dime to the Republican convention, which is part of the reason that organizers are scrambling to raise $8.1 million for the convention three days before the start of the convention.

http://gawker.com/the-republican-national-convention-cant-pay-its-bills-...

If Trump had selected Gingrich, Adelson might have actually made good on his $100 million pledge. The conservative movement doesn't have any shortage of deep-pocketed billionaires.

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