Ted Grimsrud—September 26, 2024
I still haven’t figured out what to do with my ballot for the 2024 presidential election. Our mail-in ballots arrived the other day and are sitting on our dining room table. There are some things I am certain about—I won’t simply throw the ballot away. I will vote (though not enthusiastically) for the Democratic Party candidates for the House and the Senate. I will not vote for Donald Trump.
However, I don’t know if I will vote for Kamala Harris. Unlike in the past, I will probably not vote for a third-party candidate. But I might leave that line blank. Or, a slight possibility, I might decide at the last minute to go ahead and vote for Cornel West (kind of for old times’ sake, I have greatly appreciated his speeches and writings over the years).
Almost exactly twelve years ago, I wrote a blog post: “Should a pacifist vote for a warmonger?” (plus, two follow-ups: “More thoughts about voting [or not] for a warmonger” and “Faith and politics [including voting]”). My answer, in relation to the re-election campaign of Barack Obama, was a carefully reasoned “yes.” That assertion elicited a truly enjoyable and lengthy conversation in the comments section of my post from a diversity of friends and other readers. Some agreed with me, and some did not. Those who disagreed were generally of a mind that not voting for president was a valid principled stance for Christian pacifists. Some who agreed with my decision to vote for Obama did not agree with my characterization of him as a “warmonger,” but were happy I was not sitting the election out.
What’s different compared to 2012?
Now, though, I am saying that I’m not yet persuaded to vote for Harris. What is different this time around? That is a challenging question for me. Before I looked at my 2012 post, I was not thinking about what I had decided back then. Now I realize that I am changing my argument. Why? Do I think I was wrong back then?
My core convictions definitely have not changed. I am just as adamantly a pacifist now as I was in 2012. I am just as willing to vote, in principle, now as I was then. I was just as negative about war and warism and warmongers twelve years ago as I am now.
However, I do think my distress with and feeling of being overwhelmed by the viciousness of the American Empire has continued to grow. The more I know about it, the longer I live with it, the wider the Empire’s web of destruction and corruption spreads, the harder time I have mustering the kind of rationale that led me to advocate voting for Obama’s re-election.
The main rationale I had to offer for voting for the Democratic Party’s candidate was not really anything positive about Obama’s record in relation to war and warism. It was rather simply a sense that the Republican Party (and its candidate, Mitt Romney) were so bad in relation to warism that a vote for something less bad was appropriate. Ironically, the Republican Party has gotten even worse. I think it is pure fantasy to imagine that Donald Trump by any stretch of the imagination is even remotely a peace candidate.
I fear, though, that the extreme opposition to Trump on the part of many liberals has blunted their critical sensibilities concerning the warism of the Democrats. Joe Biden got elected as a warist presidential candidate in 2020 and has proceeded to double down on his warism and his Democratic Party has essentially silenced any voice of dissent from within the Party—especially in relation to Biden’s disastrous policy in relation to the war in Ukraine.
After Biden pursued his proxy war against the Russians and continued to expand the morally bankrupt American military spending, I felt I could not in any scenario vote for him again. The feeling was deepened greatly with his administration’s amazingly consistent on-going support for Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza that is now expanding to the West Bank and Lebanon—consistent in practice if not always rhetoric.
I recognize that these are Biden’s policies, not Harris’s. I don’t know what kind of voice she has had in their formulation and implementation. My sense is that she is far more peripheral to Biden’s warism than Biden himself was as Obama’s vice-president, not to mention Dick Cheney during George W. Bush’s Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And yet, I don’t sense that she does disagree much—and she is in a position where she seemingly will be forced mostly to go along with them regardless of what she herself thinks.
Are US presidential elections meaningless?
I have long realized that voting in US presidential elections was mostly a meaningless exercise given the stranglehold the power elite have over the selection process and so many other elements of the election system. The last time I actually felt passion for a nominated candidate was with Jimmy Carter in 1976—and that proved to be a major disappointment. However, as I wrote in my October 2012 blog post, I still felt that voting for Obama was a little thing that one should easily participate in.
Now, though, I have a feeling that taking the presidential election seriously at all is to play into the Empire’s propaganda that we actually do live in a democracy. Might not people with radical political convictions be better to be explicit about the brokenness of what we’ve got now? Does going along with the myth that the election matters dampen the recognition that we truly do need to withdraw our consent from our current arrangement? Don’t we need to begin to work much harder to imagine some kind of actual alternative?
I do recognize the counter argument that many of my liberal friends make. Sure, Harris is likely to be disappointingly warist, but Trump will be even worse. And Harris would be less bad on numerous domestic issues—the environment, abortion rights, immigration, the appointment of Supreme Court justices, and so on. These points do seem to me likely to be valid. Which is why I might still vote for Harris.
The core question
One way to state the question is this: How far must the Democrats cross the line into warism—supporting Israel’s genocide, pushing Ukraine to escalate their war with Russia to the brink of nuclear annihilation, accelerating hostility toward China ever closer to a breaking point—before we say that we simply can’t offer their presidential candidate any support?
Of course, in my mind, the alternative is not to vote for Trump. And, this time around, I don’t think it is to vote for Jill Stein or Cornel West. The choice is this: (1) Stand aside with the sensibility that our political system is profoundly broken and with a commitment to seek some other path. Or, (2) vote for Harris as a slightly less evil option than Trump with the sensibility that our political system is profoundly broken and with a commitment to seek some other path.
Thinking Pacifism 
I don’t see a clear reason for your position that you might vote for Harris but that you would not vote for a peace candidate. That doesn’t make much sense to me. A vote for Stein or West does show your discontent with the duopoly parties and a strong indication it has to do with opposition to warism. Not voting for President does not. It rather tends to convey apathy, which is not what I really think you want to convey.
I also was confused by you saying both that you are a Christian pacifist and yet you think Harris is better than abortion, where she claims an absolute right to kill any unborn human in the womb. The early Christians were unanimously against all violence, and that specifically included violence, as it logically should. See Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity by Rob Arner and The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment by Ronald J. Sider.
Thanks for the thoughtful questions, Bill. I just now realized that for some reason WordPress wanted me to approve your comment. That’s why it didn’t show up before. Usually, the comments go straight through.
I haven’t thought carefully about either of the issues you raise. My response is mainly just to explain, not to make strong arguments.
I have been disappointed with both Stein or West beginning with their inability to work together. So, I haven’t paid attention to what they are actually saying. I strongly supported Ralph Nader back in 2000 because I thought that he and the Greens might be building something. Since then, not so much.
Regarding abortion, I was simply meaning to summarize the argument my liberal friends seem to make and echoing their list of issues. When I revised this post to put on Facebook, I changed “these points do seem to me likely to be valid” (not at all a strong endorsement of Harris!) to “these points do seem to me to have some validity” (an even weaker statement).
Perhaps you don’t remember that you and I have discussed abortion before. We didn’t fully agree back then and likely don’t now. But I wasn’t meaning to say anything about my beliefs about abortion in this post.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil! Abstaining leaves no record that you oppose the system. Voting for an anti-war candidate, even when they stand no chance, is the only moral alternative. They will only get heard the more people actually vote for them.
Maybe I’m taking your wording too literally on something that I think is central to your point, so tell me so, if I am.
Where you say we need to begin to work much harder to imagine…(and develop) an alternative, I’ll reply similarly as to an earlier post a week or so back. My point was/is that I’d rework that slightly.
I believe excellent, practical work HAS been done on the “imagining”, or theory-construction side, and a bit beyond, into prototypes and initial stages. Not that it’s yet complete….
But I’d emphasize more the need for voters (and purposeful abstainers) to do a bit of digging to see what has been proposed, and is being worked actively on, what responses it’s getting, etc.
Look into the transpartisan movement, the consolidating of movements (such as Generate Democracy on LinkedIn, Bridge Alliance, and others). Check “deliberative democracy”, the Forward Party, etc.
Many of these groups and their constituents basically agree with your assessment or diagnosis of the problems. And some have already worked hard, to short-cut things for the rest of us, on planning doable reforms that CAN amount to deep system changes.
We have a choice between Harris and Trump. You can weigh in on that choice or not. Attention-seeking clowns like Cornel West are not part of that equation even though they might have managed to squeeze themselves onto the ballot in some states with the help of people who think they can tilt the playing field in favor of Harris or Trump by strategically supporting West or the greens as the case may be.
The unseemly exhibition of leading 3rd party candidate RFJ Jr. strategically and simultaneously suing to get off the ballot on some states while at the same time suing to get on the ballot in others based on how his presence might affect Trump should disabuse you of any notion that any of these 3rd party candidates are in any way serious or anything other than an attempt to tilt the results towards either Harris or Trump.
So how should you base your choice? There are at least 10 major issues that should be of importance to serious Christians well-meaning Americans in this election. And they all connect in some way to larger issues of peace and justice.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, ALLIANCES, MILITARY SPENDING. This is what you seem to be focused on to the exclusion of all other issues. Enough has been written here.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE, POLICING, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. This should be a major focus of attention for Christians concerned about issue of redemption and in how the state treats their fellow man.
THE ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE, AND CREATION CARE. Another area of policy that should be of highest concern to Christians who pay attention to God’s commandments with respect to care for his creation.
EDUCATION. God has instructions for how we are to treat the youngest among us. And if you are interested in creating a better world in any of these other areas, then education is where you need to start.
HEALTHCARE. Jesus has instructions for us on how we are to care for the sick and disadvantaged among us. Christians should care about how that is expressed in health care policy.
WEALTH AND POVERTY. If there is any topic that Jesus spends more time on than war and peace is is wealth and poverty. The two parties are proposing dramatically different paths in this area of policy in everything from tax codes to assistance for people like unwed mothers.
HOMELESSNESS. Another subject that should be of import to Christians. The two parties propose different approaches to housing and addressing the acute issues of housing and homelessness in our society.
IMMIGRATION. What does the Bible tell us about how we should treat immigrants and displaced people within our midst? Every serious Christian should be concerned about the immigration policies implemented in our names. This might be the biggest area of difference between the parties.
RACISM AND HATE. This is a separate topic but connects to immigration, education, criminal justice, and even the environment when we start to talk about environmental racism. How should a Christian view the two candidates in this area?
CULTURE OF LIFE. This is a general category including everything from abortion to capital punishment to gun policy to how we treat the youngest and most vulnerable in our society. Christians should be concerned about all of these issues
Those are 10 areas of policy that should be of enormous concern to Christians that are just off the top of my head. I’m sure you all can come up with more or your own tailored lists. And the candidates are proposing dramatically paths for the nation in every single one of these areas.
And in response to the “lessor of two evils argument”. The trite answer is that if you pick the lesser of two evils then you, in fact, get less evil. Which would seem to be a good enough argument in itself. But I would suggest that this choice is much larger than just two candidates. There are multitudes of people behind them who will actually be doing the real work in the next administration are many are actively seeking to do real good in each of these areas of policy. From war and peace to protecting and restoring the environment to healing the sick. And some who are indifferent or seeking to do the opposite. The candidate you choose in November will determine which kinds of people our nation is empowering in all of these areas of policy.
In summary. A serious Christian (or any serious moral person) is going to consider the entire sweep of policy affected by our choice of leaders and not just focus on one. The president is a figurehead. The government he or she will lead is vast and affects nearly every aspect of our lives. We have real choices and they involve whether we will be empowering people seeking to actively do good compared or people who may be indifferent or worse.
I would suggest that when you go into the voting booth in November or sit down to fill out your mail-in ballot at your kitchen table, think about the poorest and least privileged people among us. Those who Jesus was most focused on throughout his ministry. And consider how your vote will affect those people. Because it will.
Kent, you make several great points. To stay simple and brief, your point that all policy issues are interlinked one way or another is important.
I, also, have been emphasizing that the path to dismantling at least much of US warism will necessarily involve major restructuring at fundamental levels, but in a planned and somewhat sequential way (though not fully predictable or controllable). Elected officials MUST come to be accountable to their constituents, AND the influential core of them, in congressional districts all over the country must be incentibized and assisted in becoming much better informed. Among other things, with specific information on bills coming up (or likely to) for votes.
One implication? The kind of educational work Ted, Kathleen and others are great at needs to continue and become a source for that education, which is actually more than a “pipedream”.
“warism” isn’t any sort of Biblical word or concept. And peace is not simply the absence of war. And an enforced peace in the absence of justice is just another word for totalitarianism.
I also don’t think the fact one can make linkages between policy issues is what makes them important. They are all independently important. I listed 10 issues above but anyone can come up with their own list of issues.
An interesting exercise is to weight them according to your own personal theology and sense of morals. Take 100 points and assign those 100 points any way you want to those 10 issues I listed (or your own list) and see how you rate them. Do you assign equal weights to all? More weight to some issues than others? I doubt any thoughtful person is going to assign all their weight to just one issue to the exclusion of all others.
And then think about how a vote for Trump or Harris or Cornel West or RFK Jr. is most likely going to promote the greatest progress (or good) in the areas of policy that you find most important.
For me personally, I rate the environment/climate, education, poverty/homelessness, and racism/social justice as my highest issues. Not just here in the US but worldwide. And tackling those issues are at the heart of creating a more peaceful country and world.
I am not particularly engaged with military affairs and alliances overseas. Every since ancient times, waring nations have formed alliances. In Gaza and Lebanon we have one waring faction allied (or the puppets) of Iran and some other Gulf states. And we have Israel which is allied primarily with the US. Take away US support for Israel would simply shift alliances and you would wind up with Israel forming a new axis of opposition to Iran, perhaps with Turkey or maybe India which is growing increasingly anti-Muslim. Israel is a nuclear state, it isn’t going anywhere. And this war isn’t fueled by weapons anyway. It is fueled by politics within Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon. I think the ability of the US to influence military affairs overseas is overstated both by US hawks who advocate interventionism, and by US doves who oppose it. And one thing we know with absolute certainty. A withdrawal of US influence in the middle east or anywhere else won’t lead to a more peaceful world. Other state actors will simply rush into the vacuum.
Great points. Especially agreed on the conclusion and on alliance-making. Also on overstated role of US… by both “sides”.
Thank you for your posts.