I also shared this related quote by my friend Adam.
If you’re surprised that Tom Morello didn’t vote for Kamala-freakin’-Harris then you’re in the exact same category as people who thought [Bruce Springsteen’s] “Born in the USA” was a patriotic song. What evidence has Morello EVER given you to think he votes for genocide?
A liberal friend of mine, Rebecca, responded . . .
I deeply respect you, Michael Bayly and I struggle with this. Elections are never liberation. They are about harm reduction. I am someone who has done a fair amount of work against the genocide in Palestine. I care deeply about it. And I care about access to reproductive health care and queer and trans people and immigrants and climate justice and . . . By voting for a third party candidate or not voting, the white Christian nationalist movement was able to take control of all three branches of government and cause a lot of damage and authortarian take over.
I responded with the following:
Rebecca, I deeply respect you too and all the incredible work you do in relation to so many justice and peace issues. I just want to note that there’s something you say in your comment that is not supported by the data. It’s the claim that voting for a third party candidate enabled “the white Christian nationalist movement to take control of all three branches of government” in 2024. In actuality, if every left-leaning third party vote was given to Kamala Harris, she still would have lost to Trump. I really think the blaming and shaming energy directed to third party voters is both misdirected and misguided. Our criticism should, first and foremost, be directed to candidates like Harris who very intentionally chose not to do what we all knew needed to be done re. Gaza so as to earn the necessary number of votes to defeat Trump. The Democratic establishment goes to great lengths to smear third party candidates and voters rather than take responsibility for their own bad decisions and failures. I believe this is one reason for why the party is at its all-time lowest approval rating.
In support of what I said, I shared this graphic:
Another friend, Christopher, chimed in . . .
Throwing away a vote has never led to less genocide.
To which I said:
Christopher, nor has voting for the corporatist/oligarchic duolopy. . . . Also, what might be considered a “wasted vote” for one person, could for another be a vote of profound meaning and conscience. . . . I think expending time and energy blaming and shaming voters is what's actually a complete waste. Wouldn’t it be better to use that energy to shift candidates’ policies and positions so that they actually earn the votes needed to defeat their opponents?
Christopher responded with the following:
Yes, it is appropriate to use energy to shift policies and positions. I’ve been doing it professionally for most of my adult life. But little things like Medicare, Medicaid, the right for gays to marry, health insurance for children, and more came from supporting the candidate that was marginally better on the ballot rather than naively pretending someone on Putin’s payroll would be unicorn to fix America’s problems.
In response I said:
Christopher, the incremental changes you cite re. healthcare still leave millions uninsured or underinsured. It’s not surprising then that polls show that Americans’ faith in both corporatist parties is at an all-time low. More and more people are recognizing that an incremental approach that ameliorates people’s suffering at the hands of a profoundly dysfunctional and unjust political and economic system needs to be replaced by a bold and radical approach that transforms this system so that this suffering is eradicated, not managed. There are people, movements, and parties dedicated to such a transformative approach but they are intentionally (and undemocratically) shut out of the current political arrangement by both corporatist/oligarchic parties. All manner of propaganda is also hurled their way, as you demonstrate with your reference to “someone on Putin’s payroll.” The incremental / “lesser evil” / “harm reduction” approach has brought us to where we are today. Moreover it has moved the Overton window ever rightwards so that the Democratic Party is now firmly a center right party and the Republican Party has gone full-on fascist. I've come to the conclusion that a progressive third party is no longer an option but an imperative. For quite some time now it is toward the building of such a party that I am compelled to expend my time, energy and money. That doesn't mean I haven't supported progressive Democratic candidates; I have – Bernie, Marianne Williamson, Nina Turner, Omar Fateh, Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed and others. But in practically every case the campaigns of these candidates have been sabotaged by the DNC. The sad reality is that for every Mamdani there are 500 corporatist Democrats and thus practically no chance of the much-needed transformative change ever being realized. Of course, there are some who say that it’s a “privileged” position to strive for transformative change rather than stick with the incremental approach. I’d argue the opposite. The privileged position is held by those who have the resources to endure the long drawn-out time frame of the incremental approach as opposed to the many others who need immediate transformative change to simply survive, let alone thrive. Again, neither corporatist/oligarchic party is willing to advocate, let alone legislate such transformative change. . . . It’s time to dump the duopoly.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
THE STATE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
• Oliver Kornetzke’s Epic Takedown of the Liberal Tactic of Blaming and Shaming Leftists
• The Time for Illusions Is Over: Henry Giroux on the Democratic Party
• Ashley Stevens: Quote of the Day – August 18, 2026
• “Our Country Right Now Is At a Crossroads”
• Abdul El-Sayed: The Disruptor Michigan (and the Country) Needs
• Scotty T. Reid on James Clyburn as a “Defender of the Political Establishment and Its Policies of Oppression”
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• David Norton: “The Democratic Party Serves Capital, Not You”
• Mike Figueredo: “Elected Democrats Have No Real Interest in Doing What the Base Wants”
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Exposing the Dark Money Network Secretly Funding Establishment Democratic Influencers
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Adam Bates on the Team Blue / Kamala “I Told Ya So” Smugness Tour
• When the “Blue Wave” Is a “Blue Crackdown”
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• Marianne Williamson: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is Not Enough to Win”
• Nick Cruse: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is the Privileged Position”
• Will Democrats Never Learn?
• Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t
THE RISE OF FASCISM IN THE U.S.
• George Conway: The Trump Administration Is a “Criminal Organization”
• Mark Greene on How ICE Is a Weapon of the Epstein Class
• Tommy J. Housman on Reactions to the “Defining Image” of Trump’s America
• James Greenberg: “I Am in Mourning for America”
• An Incident That Feels “Ripped from a Dystopian Novel”
• The “Creeping Fascism of Trump’s America”: A View from Australia
• Will Potter on Trump’s War on Dissent: “This Is What Fascists Do”
• Derek Johnson on the “Courage to Call Fascism by Its Name”
• Jason Duchin: Quote of the Day – September 24, 2025
• Staying Strong in Trump’s Fascist America
• James Greenberg on the Identity Politics of MAGA
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like in Practice”
• Garrett Graff: “America Tips Into Fascism”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
THE GREEN PARTY
• Butch Ware on Why Third Parties Are Crucial
• Campaigning With the Green Party
• With the Green Party at Twin Cities Pride
• Meet Some of the “People-Powered” Green Party Candidates for 2026
• “Green Wave 2026 is Global”
• MPR’s Major (But Unsurprising) Failure
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• Something to Think About – December 8, 2024
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”
• Jill Stein: “Americans Deserve Choices”
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Third Parties and the Historical Record
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
• Cornel West: “The Next Step Is a Green Step, a Progressive Step”
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making? (2016)
• Voting Green: Hope Over Fear
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