The race has been decided. Apart from a few stragglers in the Bernie camp who believe he can somehow flip more than 70 percent of the super delegates needed to win the nomination, we are looking at a Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump race, that for many leftists, leaves us with no mainstream party options.
The truth is, it doesn’t leave many on the right with a good option either. Donald Trump offers next to nothing that appeals to the moderate conservative, who may find themselves being more fiscally conservative but maybe socially liberal, or at least more liberal that the Tea Party, or the Republicans tripping over themselves to endorse Trump.
Yet, on the left, we still feel an obligation to do what we can to stop Trump from reaching the White House, but for many of us, doing so while supporting the hawkish, anti-left rhetoric of Hillary Clinton is just not an option.
Our liberal friends are strongly put off by this and believe we should rally behind the Democratic candidate as they believe this is the only path to stop Trump. They argue voting for someone like Jill Stein, the presumptive nominee for the Green Party will be this year’s election spoiler. They argue we must support Clinton because we can’t risk Trump having the ability to appoint Supreme Court justices. On the latter, they make a good point. Trump’s ability to appoint far right, racist, Supreme Court Justices is a very scary thought.
What our liberal friends get wrong, however, is that our only option to stop Trump is by supporting Clinton.
In fact, our best bet for stopping Trump is actually reaching out to the moderate Republicans and independent voters who tend to vote Republican at the end of the day.
According to Gallup, 32 percent of Americans are registered as Democrats, while only 26 percent are registered Republican. 38 percent of Americans are independent, and of that group 48 percent are likely to vote Democrat, while 40 percent will vote Republican.
That statistic alone says that the Democrats can win the election in a landslide every time, without the need to pick up the remaining 12 percent who did not claim to lean either way or possibly support third-party candidates.
We don’t need to flock to the Democratic Party to stop Donald Trump, we just need to stop enough independents and a small amount of moderate Republicans, if any, to make sure he never reached the Oval Office.
Many may ask why we would do all this work when in turn we could just vote for Clinton and stop Trump more easily, but doing so means we must compromise our own values and beliefs and put our stamp of approval on a candidate who is likely to send American troops into battle, kill innocent lives in the Middle East with drone strikes, and fail to tackle the important issues of poverty, healthcare, and the environment at home.
We believe there is a better way forward for this country, be it by supporting Jill Stein, abstaining from the presidential box on the ballot, or supporting other parties such as the Socialist Party USA. We can cast our votes, make our voices heard, be a force that works to change the two-party system that is currently choking the life out of democracy in the United States and still manage to keep an evil, racist, tyrant out of power.
We do all of this and more while at the same time talking to our fellow Americans about the danger of Donald Trump and why they should look at other options. We don’t have to move them to Clinton, Stein, or any other candidate, we only need them to realize, as we have with Clinton, that voting for Trump is not only against their own personal self-interest but for the country as a whole.
This puts the power of democracy back in the hands of the voters, allowing us to dictate how these elections play out and who gets our votes and who doesn’t. We no longer need to rally behind mantras such as “vote blue no matter who,” because we know that path is a dangerous one and hands all power back to the Democrats by saying we will simply do whatever they want.
