No, We Shouldn't "Just Let It All Burn"

On voting discourse, cultural amnesia, revolution, and community care.

Back in 2016, there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the two presidential candidates up for election in America. While the Right was largely unified in its support for a draft-dodging rapist who’d been married four times (ah, but you see, he was racist and that’s what truly mattered), the Left was hugely disappointed with the Democratic Party nomination of Hillary Clinton. Dissatisfaction with the Democrats for shafting Bernie Sanders and other seemingly-better candidates led many to vote third party. Discourse about voting third party always abounds in the months leading up to an election (though rarely on “off years” when coalition-building at the state and local levels would actually produce a successful third-party candidate), and this discourse usually arrives at a central question:

As leftists who want to push the political establishment in a positive direction, do we “vote blue no matter who” as a form of harm reduction, or do we vote third party to “send a message” to the Democrats about their leadership?