You Don't Have To Vote

A lot of people think you have to vote. Pretend you have two choices: chocolate and vanilla. You may not like either of them, but you must choose one. Because you are doing your civic duty, or something like that. You are participating in the political process, which is something that we should all do.

Boo. Let me tell you my voting history. In 1992, at age 18, I voted for Bill Clinton. My political beliefs weren’t fully formed at the time, I was a product of liberal Connecticut, and I just did what everyone else did. I repeated the vote for Clinton in 1996. After that, I started getting interested in philosophy, and within a few years, I was identifying as a libertarian. I was spending a lot of time on Thomas Sowell’s online Capitalism Magazine and stuff like that.

So when the 2000 election came around, did I vote Libertarian? No, I voted for George W. Bush. Because Al Gore was running a pretty far left populist campaign (at least by the standards back then) and I did not want to see him win. Bush prevailed, and as a 9/11 survivor, I supported the invasion of Afghanistan, but was embarrassed by the 2003 Iraq invasion. In 2004, I really did vote Libertarian, for a guy I never heard of before, and you haven’t either—Michael Badnarik.

I have not voted since. Though in 2016, I made a decent-sized donation to Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, for which I received a T-shirt. But I did not vote for them. That was a great campaign (remember “Feel The Johnson?”) and the Libertarians were polling double digits in some states, up until Bill Weld self-destructed and said that he was trying to get Hillary elected. Still, I’m a big believer that fiscally conservative, socially liberal blue state Republican governors are the candidates that bring the most peace and prosperity. But Larry Hogan has no shot in this environment, and neither does Charlie Baker.

You might ask, why did I donate to Gary Johnson, but not vote for him? Easy answer: voting is the least impactful way to participate in the political process. You may be highly educated, conversant with all the issues, and have well-formed opinions, and your vote is canceled out by a complete idiot. Sounds like a big waste of time to me. By donating money, you can have a much greater impact. The conventional wisdom is that it takes $30 to “buy” a single vote. So by donating $250, you can persuade 8 people to vote for your preferred candidate. If you donate $1000, you can persuade 33 people. In this way, you can have a lot more impact than by simply voting.

Voting is a fool’s errand. Of course, elections are decided by votes, so someone has to vote, but a better use of your time is by persuading other people to vote. A while back, I came up with what I call “Levels of Political Participation,” ranked from least effective to most effective. Here is the list:

1.     Posting political stuff on social media (typically counterproductive)

2.     Participating in a protest (sometimes counterproductive)

3.     Voting

4.     Donating to a campaign

5.     Writing a letter to the editor of the local newspaper

6.     Writing op-eds on a small scale

7.     Running for local office (school board, city council)

8.     Getting a local radio show

9.     Writing op-eds on a large scale (NYT, WSJ)

10.  Running for state/national office (Congress/Senate)

11.  Becoming a cable TV host

12.  Running for President

When you look at this list, what do you see? I’ll tell you what I see:

1. Zero influence

…

…

12. Lots of influence

But more importantly:

1. No skin in the game

…

…

12. Lots of skin in the game

In order to have political influence, you must take personal risks. Primarily, reputational risks. You must be willing to take the risk of becoming humiliated. Not many people are up for that. Not much risk of that on your couch, tapping away on Facebook. And nobody will hold you accountable for your anonymous vote that you will later regret. If you really want to change the course of history, you have to lay it all on the line.

Personally, I am at level 9: I write op-eds on a large scale. Though I don’t often write about politics—mostly finance. And most of my writing doesn’t have much of an effect. But one time it did, when I was writing for Forbes.

Ahead of the New Zealand elections, I wrote a scathing critique of Jacinda Ardern’s economic policies—basically, I said she was a repudiation of the free-market revolution that happened in the late 70s in New Zealand, which set New Zealand on a path to become one of the most prosperous countries in the world. I posted it, thinking it would get 500 clicks, and that was it. Nobody cares about New Zealand.

And then the National Party (the center-right party in New Zealand) tweeted it out, and the place went bananas. My social media blew up, with every TV and radio station in New Zealand trying to get me to come on for an interview to talk about the article. I would have, but it was actually on Thanksgiving Day, and I wasn’t going to interrupt my Stove Top stuffing over that. In any event, it forced Jacinda to tack to the right on economic issues for a time. She did get elected, and now, she’s more known for her pandemic restrictions, and ended up winning a second term. But I had an impact—through words.

But I don’t vote.

Sometimes people say to me, if you don’t vote, then you don’t get to complain! Oh, I absolutely get to complain, motherfucker. I’m a writer. That’s my job, I’m a professional complainer. And at least I’m not embarrassed about my vote, like you. I voted for nobody in 2020. I am not embarrassed by that vote. About 81 million people voted for Biden, and 74 million people voted for Trump. About another 120 million people voted for nobody. Therefore, nobody should be president! Not voting is a vote. How much trouble have we gotten into over the years by lesser-of-two-evils voting? By not voting, you’re saying that you’re finding both candidates unsatisfactory. Turnout in 2020 was 66.2%, close to the all-time high. Some people look at this and say, civic participation is good!  I look at this and say, those people were voting for their lives in a period of extreme political instability. Take me back to that 1996 Clinton/Dole election, where turnout was in the 40s, and nobody gave a shit. Sounds like nirvana to me.

But here is my real issue with voting—when you vote, you are trying to impose your preferences on others using force. You are putting in place a political apparatus with armies and police that will impose your political will on the other half of the country by passing laws and using physical force to administer them. Voting is actually an act of aggression, and judging from the look on people’s faces when they walk around with those ridiculous “I voted” stickers; they look pretty smug about their aggression. Is there a better solution? Of course not. Democracy is the least bad of all possible political systems. But it doesn’t mean you or I have to participate in it. Some people think that voting should be compulsory, but I prefer to live in voluntary society, where nothing is mandatory. Whenever you pass a law, you create a whole new class of criminals. If you criminalize not voting, which in my case, is a matter of principle, well, that just sucks.

Vote if you want to. But you can do better than that. And to those people who say that their vote makes a difference, the number of elections in this country that have been decided by one vote is…practically zero. Voting doesn’t make a difference. Voting Republican in California and Democratic in West Virginia is just pissing into the wind. We’ve created this whole mythology about how voting makes a difference. There is a meme floating around that says that if it made a difference, it wouldn’t be legal. I’m not that cynical; I just think there is more that you can do. Besides, if you really wanted to change the world, you could get an economics PhD from MIT and become Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Unlimited power, and accountable to no one.

Go fuck yourself,

Jared

Music Recommendation: People liked the trance tune from last week, so I will do another one. Anjunabeach – Above and Beyond. Those chords. I don’t know where they come up with those chords, but it is just incredible.

P.S. We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards will always be free. Please forward to whoever you like.