Dear ultraprogressives,
Hello, it’s your old buddy Ben here. Life been treating you all right? Had any good ancient grains lately? Is the Prius holding up OK? Hey, I kid. Let’s rap a minute.
I like you, ultraprogressives. On a great many issues, I am one of you. But I’ve been hearing a rumbling lately from some of you that has me concerned.
I have a few friends — people I respect a great deal — who have been saying that they’ll never vote for Trump. That comes with the territory of being an ultraprogressive, so no surprise there.
But then they add that they just can’t bring themselves to vote for Joe Biden in November. They think he’s been too lax in the Israel-Hamas war, and that he should be taking a much stronger stand against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
They cannot in good conscience vote for Biden, they say. It’s a moral issue. They don’t want the blood of dead Palestinians on their hands. And so, this November, they will simply not vote.
Now look, ultraprogressives, I get it. I used to believe in things, too. I’m not thrilled with Biden’s handling of this situation. In fact, there are a lot of things about Joe Biden I’m not thrilled about. I’m tired of every Presidential election being a choice between a corporate Democrat who doesn’t care about me and a guy who actively wants me to die.
But this upcoming election is probably the best example of the trolley problem I’ve ever seen.
If you’re unfamiliar, the trolley problem is a thought experiment. Imagine you’re standing near some railway tracks. A little further along the tracks, there are five people tied up, unable to move. Suddenly, a trolley comes barreling along, and it will surely kill them unless you do something. There’s a lever in front of you, and if you pull the lever, you’ll switch the trolley to a different set of tracks. However, there’s one guy tied to that set of tracks, too.
You have a decision to make: do you pull the lever and play a role in killing one guy, or do you do nothing and allow five people to die through inaction?
There has been much debate over the years concerning what the ethical choice is when faced with the trolley problem, although surveys show that about 90% of people would pull the switch, sacrificing one life to save five. This is the side I come down on as well.
You could make the argument that the whole trolley situation isn’t your doing; you’re an innocent bystander to the whole mess. You didn’t tie anyone to the tracks. It’s not your responsibility to pull the lever.
However, I tend to defer to an esteemed trio of Canadian philosophers, collectively known as “Rush,” who held that “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
I would never tell anyone how to vote, but everyone needs to understand who they’re voting for. If you don’t vote, you’re voting for Trump. If you vote third party, God forbid, you’re voting for Trump. And if you desperately want to vote for a progressive candidate who’s better than Biden, you should vote for Biden because there’s a pretty solid chance that you’ll never get another opportunity otherwise.
Do you think that our two party system is fundamentally broken? I agree completely. That’s why we should all be lobbying for ranked choice voting when it’s not an election year instead of researching the Green Party in mid-October.
If you have a moral issue with Biden’s inaction regarding Israel, you should have a much bigger issue with whatever Trump is going to do to Gaza if he wins.
Do you care about gay rights? Trans rights? Abortion rights? Minorities in general? Climate change? You’re ultraprogressive, so I know you do. I guarantee you a Biden presidency is going to be better for all those issues than a Trump presidency. And I’m not saying that to rile up Trump supporters, I’m describing the man’s campaign platform, such as it is.
Now I hear you out there, ultraprogressives. You’re saying that morals are all we have at the end of the day and you’re not going to compromise your integrity, consequences be damned. And to that I say, there’s a word for that kind of thinking.
Privilege.
Because there’s one thing I’ve noticed about the people who are saying they won’t vote for Biden over moral concerns: they’re not going to be affected either way. They’re not the folks in the firing line.
It’s pretty easy to play around with thought experiments and moral objections when there aren’t any personal consequences. As for the rest of us, we’re going to be pulling that switching yard lever with everything we’ve got.
