Policy Over Politics and Party
What guides my voting
What guides my voting is policy rather than politics and party. I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. I’m not voting “red” or “blue.” I don’t want to align myself with the “winner” or the incumbent. I want to achieve a wiser, better, more compassionate, America.
At the federal level, the lion’s share of the budget, almost two-thirds of discretionary spending in fact, goes to military spending, police, prisons, and the like. The Pentagon budget is approaching $900 billion a year. Homeland Security is another $100 billion or so. Roughly one-third of our immense national debt is attributable to disastrous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
So I want to know a candidate’s position on reining in this vast military spending, this support of endless wars, as well as his or her position on the militarization of police forces, and the high rate of imprisonment of Americans.
Two big challenges that we face as a nation are climate change and nuclear weapons and war. (Both are also global issues, of course.) I want to know how a candidate plans to address climate change and related climate catastrophes that are threatening us; I also want to know whether a candidate supports the downsizing of nuclear arsenals. Finally, I want to know where a candidate stands on protecting the environment, ensuring we have clean air to breathe, fresh water to drink, and safe food to eat.
Judged by these issues, I cannot in good conscience vote for presidential candidates like Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Ron DeSantis. I am much more likely to vote for candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Marianne Williamson.
Some people then tell me that I’m throwing away my vote. That I have to vote against the bad or evil man. For some people, that’s Trump. For others, it’s Biden. For me, Trump and Biden are both bad choices who do not support the policy changes I’m looking for.
I want to vote for what I believe in. I seek a candidate who recognizes the dangers of climate change and nuclear weapons. Who is willing to take on the military-industrial-congressional complex. Who knows that war is a horrible thing and who favors diplomacy whenever possible. Who advocates for the working classes. Who favors compassion and equity and who is skeptical of more police forces, more prisons, and more hardening of fortress America.
Candidates like that exist. But they’re not going to be put forward by the two major parties. So we have to seek out third-party candidates like Cornel West. Democrats, I’d argue, have to reject establishment tools like Biden or Kamala Harris or Pete Buttigieg for freer thinkers like Kennedy and Williamson. Republicans have to be wary of the false populism and divisive rhetoric of Trump, DeSantis, and their ilk. For example, gender pronouns don’t worry me; genocidal nuclear weapons do.
How is anything going to change when we keep voting for the same tired and expired products like Biden and Trump?
Exactly! Your last sentence says it all in a nutshell. I keep asking how come we keep electing idiots to congress as well as the presidency - and you have described the problem. Rather than vote for a candidate that you actually like, the vast number of voting citizens vote for "the lesser of two evils" over and over and over. My family tells me I'm "wasting my vote" to vote for a candidate that isn't one of the two main parties. But as you have just said, nothing will change unless we start voting for the person who will make the change. Many of us thought Obama would do that, and we were conned; then we hoped (I certainly didn't actually believe) that Biden would do what he promised regarding the environment etc., but he lied to us over and over. If there is a candidate who will actually try to do what he/she promises we should vote for that one. If there is no candidate that fits the description then we need to write in the name of who we want; that, at least, is better than "wasting your vote" on a liar you know will not do anything you are for and will drag the country down even further.
First, I think a stronger case can be made both morally and practically for not voting at all, but that takes us far afield. I certainly share your desire to end the imperial wars the US has been waging for far too long, and I think the three candidates you mentioned are serious and sincere in their desire to do so.
The problem is twofold; one, they are all three economic illiterates, well-intentioned illiterates, but illiterates nonetheless, that want a large and powerful state to provide all manner of goods and services that theory and history establish would be better provided by a cooperative marketplace. The second problem is that because of their desire for a strong state, there is no way that state will be confined only to doing “good stuff”. There is simply no way to remove politics form political “solutions”. You cannot remove the mendacity, the base impulse, nor the violence from state centered action. You have a better chance of developing an addictive free heroin. It’s a reduction of the state and the rancid politics surrounding it that is necessary for a genuine shot at peace.
The other point I would make is your continual statistic that defense spending is a large majority of discretionary spending. That is true enough, but discretionary spending is only 30% of total federal spending. This puts defense expenditures around 20% of total spending and less than 5% of US GDP. This is a great reduction from the early 1960s, which is what the neocons are quick to point out. The point to make is that defense spending is absolutely too high and far beyond anything related to legitimate US defense needs. This insulates the peace seekers from the neocon retort. This would also go far to underline the 70% of spending that is domestic in nature and is the largest driver of US fiscal insolvency.
As always, differences that we may have will not prevent us from jointly calling out the war machine for what it is. Peace.