Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket (Again)

 I think I'm noticing a pattern here. 

In my role as public commentator, I'm always making these arguments that sound like they are in favor of the "Establishment" or "centrist" part of the Democratic coalition. 

I appeal to electability. I say things like: look, people, regardless whether you prefer Medicare for All, or a public option, or just increasing subsidies under the ACA—none of it will make the least difference if Democrats lose every election and the government is run entirely by Republicans who proceed to cut Medicaid and axe even those few other health care benefits we currently have. So our first priority needs to be to win, then we can iron out differences between us later on. 

I appeal to the "Popular Front" ideal too. I say—look, there will be time later on to debate our various proposals for a better society. But now is hardly the time—not when the fascist barbarians are at the gate! We need to make common cause with everyone who opposes Trump, at least until he's defeated. 

I make these arguments, and appear to find them sincerely convincing. 

Then primary season rolls around, and I go out and vote for the furthest left, most progressive, most anti-establishment Democrat on the ballot. 

In my defense, I've spent most of my voting life in such safely blue districts that the "electability" arguments don't really apply to me. These are places like Somerville and Providence, where the Democrat would still win the general election even if they sprouted three horns and favored merging governments with North Korea. 

But still, a friend of mine mocks me for my fickleness. "You go out and vote for the DSA?" he says; "don't you know that nine times out of ten, they just end up making everything worse?" 

Indeed, I am not oblivious of their illusions. I do know that the DSA is not actually popular among the working class voters they purport to represent; I know that the winner of a mayoral election is not actually going to be able to transform society; that their "stance on Gaza" does not make the least difference to whether the U.S. federal government keeps shipping arms to Israel; that problems like health care affordability and housing scarcity require comprehensive national solutions, and that local DSA-backed policies like rent control, etc. may actually make some of these things ever worse. 

And yet, when election season rolls around—there always seems to be some canvasser for the progressive candidate who shows up at my door and makes the case for how they will change the world; whereas no one from the Establishment side ever seems motivated or inspired enough by their candidate to even knock and say hello.  

And then, the only arguments I hear people making on the other side—for the "centrist" candidate—are naked appeals to self-interest. The DSA candidate, they say, will raise your taxes. Whereas the Establishment candidate will cut them or at least keep them the same. 

It is a principle of mine that—no matter how far I manage to stray from the lofty ideals of my socialist youth—I will never go so low as to vote for no reason other than to cut my own taxes. 

Kingsley Amis, in that favorite novel of my leftist youth—Lucky Jim—mocks the snooty artistic Tory Bertrand for having nothing better to say against the Labour government than that it wants to "soak the rich." 

The once-Communist Amis lived long enough to become a Bertrand himself—a Thatcherite conservative.

I swore to myself, though, that I for one would never be a Bertrand; and I intend to keep that vow. 

Even if I can see through some of the illusions of the DSA and progressive left candidates, then—I know that the only reason I would vote against them would be for self-interested reasons; and that to frame any such action in a more idealistic light would be an equal if not greater illusion.

As Stephen Spender once put it, in trying to explain why so many wealthy Oxbridge-educated youths of his day went in for Communism—it's not that they were so naïve as to believe that Communists never told a lie; it's that: "the lies which they suspected in their own hearts were nearer to them than the lies told by the communists." 

The lie in my case would be to tell myself that any vote I cast against the socialist candidate in my district would be out of principle; I would know in my heart that the true reason was self-interest. 

And look, I am self-interested. We all have self-interest and a will to power. I don't want to sacrifice my money to taxes any more than anyone else. 

But the ballot box is one place where—in a single choice—and if only for a moment—we can transcend a bit of our self-interest. 

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.

My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness. (To quote Vachel Lindsay.)

And that—to echo Lindsay—is "why I voted the socialist ticket" in today's primary elections.