Clint Schnekloth
Once women won the right to vote, Dorothy Day never voted. Spending time recently with Blythe Randolph and John Loughery’s new biography of her, I’ve been meditating on this decision of hers, arising as it did out of her deep and abiding Christian faith, and specifically her opposition to war.
I’ve been through more than one phase in my life when I honestly thought about joining her act of protest. Voting is, after all, an act of complicity. If you think the whole entire system to be rigged or immoral, the only way to not play is to not play.
The point at which I was most convinced voting was immoral was the long stretch when I was very committed to pacifism. From a pacifist perspective, it really doesn’t matter who gets elected to our government, the Democrats or the Republicans: they all love war.
It might help some readers to know the general trajectory of the political perspectives I’ve inhabited. I grew up in a staunchly Republican household. My grandfather served for many years as a Republican legislator in Iowa.
By my second year of college I was already moving quickly away from the Rush Limbaugh-enamored Republicanism of my youth and toward the Democrats and beyond. By the time I was serving as a missionary in Slovakia and going to seminary, I was sometimes voting Democrat, but more likely Green Party as frequently as possible, and I’ll admit I’ve still very rarely voted for the Democrat contender for the presidency (really only Obama and Hillary Clinton).
As a Christian, I have trouble identifying very well with the overall perspective of either of these parties. With the Democrats, it’s simply because I lean so far Left as to be beyond their moderate stance on things like health care and basic income.
In many ways, I think I identify most closely with the Roman Catholic bishops on a lot of social issues, like immigration, refugees, economics, and more. It matches many of the social positions of my own denomination. Which is very Left, until it isn’t.
Why does all this matter? Well, it now gives you two reasons why a (hopefully) reasonable faith-based voter would struggle with aligning completely with one of the two parties available in our bicameral system.
But there is a third, and this has emerged as the most important to me. It’s the issue of disenfranchisement. There are many of us who simply feel like we have no home. You can see this in the rates of voting among many voters, in particular the working class, the young, and the poor.
They don’t vote. And they have good reason. They believe (rightly) that the system in place really isn’t for them, and isn’t ready to really work on their behalf. In fact it is rigged against them.
I was so saddened when I watched state after state tip toward Joe Biden while the youth all voted for Bernie. I was sad to watch the passion of so many burned out and disappointed as Elizabeth Warren dropped from the field.
Those who are struggling to vote for Joe Biden have many, many good reasons for their concerns. You can find long lists of these concerns many places, so I won’t enumerate all of them here.
But it’s important for anyone reading this, especially if you tend to just run to the polls and vote blue, and see this as aligning with your religious faith, to understand how lonely all of this makes so many of us feel. Because we can’t at all in good faith vote for the Republicans, energized as they are by racism, sexism, nationalism, and greed.
But the Democrats have also brought us to the status quo we all live in, which embodies a class war that has made the rich ever richer, the poor ever poorer, all the while funding perpetual war.
There’s this old saying: there’s no life outside a party.
That’s true, as far as truisms go. In the kind of political landscape we inhabit, you can’t negotiate much power from the leverage of coalitions of parties. You have to work with one of the two parties that are “given.”
Ultimately, this is why I’ve decided this go-around to throw my hat in with Joe Biden. What I see is that Bernie Sanders has been able to, through an amazing and inspiring career as a politician, do something I wasn’t sure was possible: he’s convinced the actual candidate emerging as the Democrat contender to consider real progressive policies.
Would I rather Bernie was the actual Democrat candidate? Of course!
Am I impressed with the rapprochement that has been accomplished with Bernie’s endorsement of Biden? Yes, with a bit of trepidation.
Am I going to take Bernie’s endorsement of Biden as a guide for what I should do and how I should vote? Of course. Without hesitation.
Do I think Joe Biden is a great choice for president? No.
Do I think he is better than Trump? Yes, but… only in a very limited sense, and only because a lot of the abuse of his policy-making is hidden under a greater level of civility.
Trump performs all of his immorality, lying, and corruption out in the open, to a watching world.
One of the reasons in my 40s I’ve now decided to join the parties more than I have in the past may have to do with an emerging pragmatism. Perhaps I’m less purist than I used to be. I’m not sure. I think my puritanical streak runs pretty deep.
But I see a lot of wisdom in the arguments many make that this is simply a moment when we are called to put aside illusions of purity and take actions that resist the evil of the Trump regime.
I’m thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer here (and worried that alluding to Bonhoeffer will overstate the case, since he is a saint and a martyr–nevertheless, it’s the analogue that comes to mind), when he said, in support of the resistance planning to assassinate Hitler (Bonhoeffer was a committed peace activist):
“Who stands firm? Only the one whose ultimate standard is not his reason, his principles, conscience, freedom, or virtue; only the one who is prepared to sacrifice all of these when, in faith and in relationship to God alone, he is called to obedient and responsible action. Such a person is the responsible one, whose life is to be nothing but a response to God’s question and call.”
Some of my reason, principles, and conscience stand against a vote for Biden. However, in this particular instance, I think I’m called to sacrifice some of those (certainly less than Bonhoeffer had to) in order to work for the defeat of Donald Trump.
Will this usher in a wonderful new era for the United States of America? No.
Is this the only faithful option? No. I can see good reason to vote for a third party candidate, especially if you live in a state like Arkansas that will go for Trump no matter what?
Is a vote for a third party a vote for Trump? No. Because if that were the case, then a vote for a third party is also a vote for Biden.
What is my main concern with Biden? He represents the status quo that brought us Trump in the first place.
Why do I think Bernie is endorsing Biden? Because Biden seems to be actually listening and incorporating, Borg-like, the policies of some of those who have endorsed him.
What about the millions of disenfranchised Americans? Well, nobody is doing a good job of reaching them right now other than Donald Trump, so Biden and his team better get real busy.
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