Privilege and the “Protest” Vote

I voted yesterday, and in full disclosure I voted for Barack Obama, something I had refused to do for a long time before yesterday. My arguments against voting for Obama were the same as many of those I have heard on the “protest” or third party side of things – the erosion of civil liberties under this administration, specifically around NDAA and detention without trial, and the increasing use of drone warfare in the Middle East are unacceptable. A vote for Obama is an approval for terror carried out by the state, and the sacrifice of a moral bottom line.

What’s missing in this line of argumentation is the notion of privilege; specifically, the privilege of white, heterosexual males and the lack of consequence that grants us (I, of course, fall into this category).If we vote third party, it doesn’t matter who takes office, as our lives will see minimal if any change, and we’ve “protested”.  Don’t blame us when minorities, women, and homosexuals start taking it on the chin under a Republican president, because we tried our best to change the system.

And there we find the two crucial points:  There is a difference between the candidates on social issues, and this election does matter to those outside the sphere of white privilege. When we look at the erosion of civil liberties, the increasing use of mechanized warfare in the Middle East and militarization of Africa, we must ask if business as usual will change when deciding to vote Democrat, Republican, or third party. Without knowing who Romney would assemble for his foreign policy team and with the realities of a third candidate being voted in less than negligible, the answer is simple: No.  

Now in the above question, what if we replace civil liberties and foreign policy with homosexual rights and civil progression, affordable healthcare for low-income families and women, and progressive immigration reform? Business as usual could easily change, with those not in a seat of privilege taking on the consequences of a Romney administration. If it is safe to assume that those opposed to the erosion of civil liberties and increased drone strikes are also against draconian social changes championed by the Republican ticket – and I imagine that might be a safe assumption – then why not use your vote to block negative social change?

Personal morality cannot trump practical universality when the livelihoods of others are affected by the decisions you make. Drones will continue to rain terror on civilians in the Middle East regardless of who is in office; your third party protest vote will only give you a sense of innocence when reading the reports. But your vote can and will make a difference in the lives of those generally marginalized by the Republican platform, not to mention the possibility of three Supreme Court justices being replaced within the next four years. 

Words are important, and so the word “protest” carries with it a platitude of indignation at what we consider the status quo of the two-party system. Conventional wisdom holds that a vote for the third party is a “protest” against increasingly similar and corrupt Democratic and Republican tickets, and an action that rallies against that long-held tradition. “Protest” the vote, wipe your hands and carry on with a satisfaction of some smug sense of false resistance. Of course, if voting third party is a “protest”, it is hard to find words in the English lexicon to accurately describe the Arab Spring, or simply the Civil Rights movement in our own country. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking a third party vote is cast with a clenched fist. 

I can appreciate the notion that our morals are all we have, and that a vote for Obama might be sacrificing those morals. That said, there is no honor in throwing others under the bus to hold on to morals that will be disregarded by whatever administration is in office. Change what you can with your vote, and use the avenues available to you to try and affect what you can’t fix in November. Your life may not change with a third party vote and a resulting Republican ticket, but your hands certainly won’t be clean. 

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• I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that many of the arguments I have made came from my aunt and uncle, two people much more intelligent than I. My change in thinking is due in no small part to their relentless and sometimes demoralizing exercises in humbling my perceived possession of knowledge.

• Robert Wright of The Atlantic makes a similar argument to why morality should be sacrificed for practicality. His much more composed writing on the subject can be found here.