The Problem of Voting and The Politics of Strategic Expression or Why Being Very Right Can Be a Little Wrong

  Recently there have been published two very dramatic considerations on the use of the ballot. At The Atlantic Conor Friedersdorf argues in Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama that the president's foreign policies have set unprecedented examples of presidential abuse of powers and undermine the very fabric of the Constitution and thus the Republic. These actions in short are

1) The continued use of drones to assassinate Al Qaeda operatives and the resulting damamge done to Pakistani civilians.

2) The President's decision to assassinate US citizens that have affiliated with terrorist organizations without due process and

3) The commitment of US forces to the Lybian uprising against Qaddafi without congressional approval.

These are valid points and as Friedersdorf states his refusal to vote for Obama is a clear statement of his political and moral conscience.

  In an unrelated but relevant piece Joel Bleifus  in In These Times argues that the Left should avoid thinking of voting as an act of "self expression" and adopt John Sanbonmatsu's Gramscian idea of strategic voting. Carl Davidson, former member of the Student's for a Democratic Society said about Sanbonmmatsu's work, “In the long run you need both self-expression and strategy. You need the inspiration that can be provided by self-expression, but you need a smart strategy that enables you to win.” These are not new ideas regarding the path to power. The most notable recent exponent of this idea is Saul Alinsky  who wrote, "The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action."
  However the two articles ask a deeper question for me which is what is the nature of the vote? Friederdorf's view seems to be that the vote is a personal decision wherein ones personal views are expressed in their purest form. Sanbonmatsu and Bleifus encourage us to think about the vote as a strategic positioning in a war of maneuver. I like to think of voting as a rare thing in US society, that is, one of the last remaining secular rituals where someone is not making cash and that can express regard for the entire nation. What neither Friedersdorf nor Bleifus ask is, "What does my vote mean for someone else?" Every single vote is a drop in an ocean whose wave hits some distant shore. The effects of that wave, like any other, are what determine its force. What we must think about, and especially the Left, is where my vote (or lack of voting) will push that wave. Who will benefit, who will suffer, who will get needed support and who will not if I do not vote? The "problem" that Alinsky refers to has to be more than the problem of efficacy. It has to be the problem of the vision of the community and its relationship to power and ideology.  It has to be a consideration of the problem of the one and the many, the problem of I and Thou, the problem of the pebble in the pond. Moral and political purity along with strategic visioning are noble qualities to have but ones vote has to be an expression of something broader, deeper and a re-affirmation of a commitment to our fellow citizens.