Voting Your Conscience vs. The Harm-Reduction Strategy (Plus, Why They Aren't That Different)

October 22, 2024

I want to preface this entire thing by saying that this isn't an "endorsement." This is not to disparage anyone who's voting for Jill Stein, and it is certainly isn't to disparage the anti-genocide movement, because that's a movement I support and believe in. But when all of the options suck, we still have to choose one. So in spite of everything, I'm still voting for Kamala Harris; and I've come here today not to lecture or reprimand, but to vent openly, and defend my 'controversial' decision to vote this way.

"Vote your conscience" are words that have been thrown around a lot this election cycle, usually among leftists, and typically when it comes to the topic of Harris vs. Stein or any other third party candidate. This, of course, is due to the (not inaccurate) sentiment that Harris is helping fund the genocide of Palestinians. It's absolutely true that the Democratic candidate has pledged her support for Israel, sent them countless weapons, and accepts money from AIPAC... just like her Republican opponent and a large majority of American politicians. There's a fairly large movement among pro-Palestinian leftists to vote with their conscience -- which, as they see it, means to vote for a candidate who is openly against the genocide and doesn't blindly support Israel, such as Jill Stein.

Though I understand where they're coming from, and have listened to everything everyone has to say about it, I can't get behind it because of the absolute impossibility of a Stein win.

I've never really endorsed a presidential candidate, nor has there ever been one in my adult life that I was particularly excited about. My stance has always been that both major parties have flaws and the system in general just kind of sucks. My politics are definitely more left-leaning than the Democratic party, which, to me, is just part of the same establishment as the Republican party, though the latter is obviously much farther from my values. So while I might have a preference when it comes to choosing a "lesser evil," I've never had a yard sign, bumper sticker, T-shirt, etc. endorsing a presidential candidate, and I probably never will.

As someone who was barely old enough to vote in 2008, I've only been eligible in the last five elections including this one. Three of these elections have included Donald Trump, which means I've spent 3/5 of my entire adult life trying to keep that man out of office. And in all three of these elections, I haven't been thrilled about his opponent (Clinton, Biden, and now Harris); during this time, I have never truly voted for someone, but only against someone. And I feel even more strongly about it now -- having already experienced a Trump presidency and January 6 -- than I did in 2016.

Four years ago, I wrote an article about harm-reduction voting -- the strategy of voting for someone you don't necessarily like to prevent somebody you view as far worse from getting into office. The same concept as cutting down from 2 packs of cigarettes to only 4 cigarettes a day, or sticking to a diet 5 days a week and having 2 cheat days instead of eating whatever you want every day of the week. I still stand by what I said in that post, although the circumstances of the 2020 election were slightly different than they are this time.

The escalating situation in Palestine over the past year has definitely made voting more complicated from a moral standpoint. "If you vote for Harris, you're voting for genocide" is a common phrase I've heard around social media -- something I won't even dispute.

So yes, I do understand the desire to vote for somebody who's the type of person you'd actually want in office. I did this in the primary election. Although I don't identify as a Democrat -- I consider myself independent and was previously registered under no particular party -- I changed my registration to Democrat in the past couple of elections solely to be able to vote in a primary. The primary candidate I voted for this time around is one who shares my values, is pro-Palestine, and seems like somebody who would be the type of leader I want. I knew Biden (who hadn't dropped out yet at that point) was going to win the primary, but it made me feel better to vote for the person I chose, even if I knew they didn't stand a chance at even a fraction of the vote. In the primary, though I understood that I was still "throwing my vote away," I could afford to do that in order to do what would typically be referred to as "voting my conscience."

Now here is where I'm going to lose some of you, and possibly even be unfriended by some; but I'm about to be the bearer of bad news. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about how they're voting -- we all need to do what we feel is the right thing -- but the fact of the matter, in my opinion, is that any way you vote in the United States this year is going to be a vote for genocide. This includes voting for Jill Stein or any other third-party candidate (because it's impossible for them to win), as well as abstaining from voting entirely (because this also benefits one candidate over the other). That's why, from a moral standpoint, I don't view those options as any better than voting for Harris. It all ends up being the exact same thing and there is no other option. It doesn't matter what we do; we are going to have a president who supports Israel and there's no way around that. So while voting for someone who shares your values might make you feel better, as it did for me in the primary, I don't view it as any more valid than strategically voting to keep the worst candidate out of office. Both are different versions of voting your conscience.

No matter how you vote this November, one of two people is going to be in office: Harris or Trump. And Trump, if you're unaware, also supports genocide, in addition to all the other qualities that we all hated about him four years ago, and eight years ago, and every day in between. It has even been reported that Trump encouraged Israel to go further with its attack on Palestinians, to complete the genocide and "finish the problem" (or in other words, wipe out an entire people). Just because Harris is a party to something horrific doesn't mean that Trump is suddenly a better person or candidate, when he also supports the exact same horrific thing, and wants to escalate it further, and has an entire cult that wants to make him king, and is the candidate endorsed by Project 2025, and has said that he wants to remove many of the fundamental rights we've fought for such as legal gay marriage, and refused to leave office peacefully at the end of his last term, and ..... so much more.

In light of both of these candidates being supporters of Israel, I understand why a pro-Palestinian candidate like Jill Stein is desirable. Especially because she is Jewish and her running mate is Muslim; that's a huge show of solidarity and unity, and I think that's beautiful, at any time but especially right now. Ideally, a ticket like that would actually have a chance at winning; but clearly, that's not the world we live in.

So when it comes to voting our consciences... I cannot, in good conscience, vote in a way that I know will put us closer to another Trump presidency.

Some people's consciences are telling them to vote for the candidate who aligns with their values, but my conscience is telling me to choose the least destructive option that is actually possible. And anybody besides Trump and Harris is not possible, which strikes them out even if they would be the least destructive in general... leaving Harris as, in my opinion, the least destructive possibility.

You can believe me or not believe me, but I am thinking about Palestinians when deciding how to vote, in addition to thinking about all these other things.

I thoroughly believe that things will get even worse for Palestinians under another Trump presidency, as well as for any pro-Palestine Americans who have the nerve to speak up. Yes, it's already terrible, but we've been watching things get worse and worse ever since last October. Just when you think it can't get worse, it does anyway. So right now, although you might think it can't get any worse if Trump is re-elected, I'm positive that Trump is waiting to prove you wrong. We already lived through one Trump presidency, and saw the kind of executive orders that happened as soon as he was in office. Does anyone really think the man who brought us the infamous Muslim Ban days into his presidency is going to do anything that improves the situation for Palestinians? With some Trump supporters making delusional claims that there wouldn't be any wars if he were in office, it makes me worry even more about the way he might try to "end" the conflict if he had a chance to do it, just so he could take the credit.

I'm a Muslim woman. As a convert of pasty complexion, and who doesn't wear hijab full-time, I definitely have privilege that visible Muslims do not; but I am still a proud Muslim. I don't want to see anyone suffer the way Palestinians are, but to imply that my vote for Harris is based in Islamophobia would be particularly ridiculous. I won't shame other Muslims for choosing not to vote for Harris. But I'm definitely going to have extremely complicated feelings about it if Muslims are responsible for getting Trump elected again. In the last poll I saw, Muslim voters were split approximately 50/50 between Harris and Stein. Half of the Muslim vote isn't enough to actually help Stein win an election, or even to have any effect on the electoral college... but it could be enough to tip the scale in Trump's favor. If that happens, the irony of Muslims handing the election to Trump after he's made it so clear that he hates us is something I'm going to be struggling with for a long time.

Plus, not only is Trump hateful and destructive himself, but he's also an idiot who's easily manipulated by far more intelligent and sinister people within his party. We've all read at least a summary of Project 2025, right?

At least under Harris I'm pretty sure our constitutional right to protest will still exist. It's being suppressed to some extent, yes; but it's still right there in the first amendment, allowing us to speak our minds about Israel's genocide and still have some legal protections. While under Trump, propped up and supported by the developers of Project 2025, who knows? Apparently they want to restructure the entire government, rewrite the constitution and give Trump unlimited power like some kind of less-intelligent Emperor Palpatine. I'm not willing to vote in a way that will give him that power. I admit it might sound a bit "doomsayer," but far-right Republicans have gone completely off the deep end, and I don't think it's wise to underestimate their level of hatred or desire for control.

And one of the most common ways people underestimate them is by making them and Democrats out to be equally bad. Are they both bad? Yes. But one of them is obviously far worse. I'm not going to let my dissatisfaction with the center-left trick me into being complacent about the far-right and their plan for complete domination.

When I was visiting Atlanta in 2015, I missed my flight home when my alarm didn't go off. I still went to the airport and explained to the airline, and they made me a stand-by passenger for the next flight headed west, which would take me to Dallas, TX. It was a far cry from where I needed to go (Phoenix, AZ), but I took what I could get. Then I was a stand-by passenger for a second flight that took me to Las Vegas, NV -- a little out of my way, but a lot closer than I had been when I started. Then, finally, a third flight took me back home to Phoenix.

What should have taken only a few hours and only one airplane instead took an entire day and three separate airplanes. But it was the only way for me to get where I needed to go.

Obviously I would have much rather had a direct flight, but that was no longer an option. So of all the available options, the flight to Texas was what made the most sense, because I would at least be closer to my destination that way. It would not have made any sense for me to say "Well, if I can't get a direct flight to Phoenix, I might as get on a plane to New York instead."

Being unhappy with where I was (Atlanta) and the other viable option (Dallas) didn't mean that I should just go in the complete opposite direction. I still went in the direction I wanted to go. Because even if it wasn't very far in that direction, at least from there I could catch another westbound flight at a later time. Future flights would be shorter if I were already part of the way there, and I wouldn't be adding even more time to my trip by going the wrong direction first.

I apply the same approach to voting. I know that my desired destination isn't an option right now, but I can still go in the right direction, even if it's just a short distance. Then I'll do the same thing again and again in hopes that I'll eventually get where I want to be. I'm not going to give up and go the opposite direction instead; and that's how I view third-party voting, regardless of how well-intentioned.

So I will stick with my harm-reduction strategy, because if I'm going to be stuck with a pro-Israel president regardless, then at the very least I want one who will peacefully leave office when their term is up.

I know that part of the reason for voting third-party is to send a message: that the people won't vote for somebody who supports genocide. Unfortunately this is not going to be a loud enough message to make someone like Harris actually pay attention. Because, frankly, she doesn't care. When her only opponent (the only one who's actually a threat to her) isn't anti-genocide himself, she's not going to pay attention to that message, because she knows, just like the rest of us know, that a third-party candidate isn't a threat. The only way this message would be loud enough to be effective is if the other candidate actually amassed enough votes to win, and not just the popular vote, but the electoral college too. There might be enough third-party votes to skew the election in Trump's favor, but that isn't going to drive the message home when Harris can simply point to the fact that another pro-Israel candidate won.

It isn't just about the president, either. It's also about the cabinet, the Supreme Court, and any other position or appointment that the president has a say in. By giving this election to Trump, we're giving control of the nation to Republicans in general -- and the Republicans of today are not the same as they used to be. They are far-right extremists, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep them out of office, even though I know that "everything I can" is very little. I'm still going to vote against them because it's literally all I can do as a powerless American.

I 100% believe that the two-party system needs to be destroyed, and hope that someday I might live in a nation where we're given actual choices. A nation where a pro-Palestinian Jewish woman and her Muslim running mate might actually be electable. But that just isn't reality, right here, right now, where this election is taking place.

I guess the bottom line for me is what possible outcomes do I see and how will I feel about each outcome if it happens? Will my conscience be clear or guilty because of the way I voted?

If I vote for Harris, she wins, and things keep getting worse for Palestinians -- I'll of course feel awful, as I have since last October, about the situation unfolding there; but I'm not going to regret voting against Trump because I will always believe that there's no way in hell things would have been better if he'd won.

If I vote for Stein, and Trump wins, and things keep getting worse for Palestinians as well as getting ten times worse for marginalized Americans -- then I will always regret that I didn't do enough to prevent Trump from winning, even after experiencing his presidency once and knowing that he was unfit for office.

To me, that's what it means to vote my conscience. It might be different for you, and I certainly can't tell you you're wrong; but at the same time, no one has the right to tell me what it should mean to me.

tags: politics, elections, voting