FORGET THE LESSER EVIL AND FIGHT FOR THE GREATER GOOD

When the choice is between corporate politicians like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the defeat comes in accepting the limitation to this choice.

“Look, rich people and business people do well whether there’s Republicans or Democrats in charge”, Mitt Romney, former Republican presidential candidate, speaking at a US Chamber of Commerce forum on October 27.

WITH LESS THAN A FORTNIGHT to the election, the news channels are desperately trying to maintain the fiction that there is a real democratic contest underway between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. A bewildering array of 'expert' commentators roll into the studios of CNN, Fox News, BBC and the rest to offer yet more 'insights' into a political charade that will inevitably result in Hillary Clinton walking into the White House as President.

Despite the fact that all the polls show that both Clinton and Trump are deeply unpopular with the American people with millions strenuously opposed to them, the system has demonstrated yet again that while it may allow a degree of political disagreement to be shown, it will not countenance any challenge to the status quo . So Bernie Sanders - who attracted some 13 million votes and inspired the imagination of America's young people - is now reduced to addressing poorly attended meetings where he has been regularly booed whenever he has attempted to promote the cause of Clinton.

It is little wonder that comedian Bill Maher recently told his television audience: "Our system sucks. The Constitution needs a Page One rewrite.”

Clinton, supposedly preferable to Trump , is a loyal servant of the rich and powerful and a committed advocate of US Empire. There can be no argument about this because her historical track record condemns her. Similarly while some will vote for her because she will be the first female president her record on women's issues is also less than impressive.

But, apparently, she is still preferable to the other barbarian waiting at the gate - Donald Trump.

But America has been through the electoral circus of 'lesser evilism' before.

Most vividly, in 1964 Democrat Lyndon Johnson was elected president as the 'peace candidate' as opposed to the reactionary and enthusiastically pro-war Republican Barry Goldwater.But once Johnson was elected, he escalated the war in Vietnam. Those who voted for the lesser evil to stop the greater evil ended up with a combination of both.

US socialist Hal Draper wrote an important article on lesser evilism in 1967. In 'Who's Going to Be the Lesser Evil in '68?', Draper referenced what he described as the "classic case of lesser evilism". This was the 1932 election in Germany, when the Social Democrats encouraged a vote for extreme conservative Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg in order to defeat Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Wrote Draper:

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein

"So the Lesser Evil, Hindenburg, won; and Hitler was defeated. Whereupon President Hindenburg appointed Hitler to the chancellorship, and the Nazis started taking over...the people voted for the Lesser Evil and got both [the greater and lesser evil]...This is exactly why 1932 is the classic case of the Lesser Evil, because even when the stakes were this high, even then, voting for the Lesser Evil meant historic disaster."

Draper recognised that America needed a political alternative that challenged the Democrat-Republican dictatorship. He recognised that in political situations just like we have today, where the choice is between one capitalist politician and another, "the defeat comes in accepting the limitation to this choice.'

Today more and more Americans are not prepared to concede defeat and accept that they must vote either Democrat or Republican. As Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein says, "Forget the lesser evil and fight for the greater good."