A brief reminder: Duverger’s law.
That’s how it works. Candidate A vs. Candidate B. Party A vs. Party B.
Moral purity and moral perfection will not be on the ballot.
Those seeking moral purity and moral perfection pleasure themselves by imagining that theirs is a superior ethical responsibility. But this is delusional — an embrace of irresponsibility. It’s the claim that one is not responsible for any outcome, consequence or action in this world apart from maintaining, above all, one’s own impotent but unsullied moral purity.
You voted for Candidate A? Then you are responsible for every evil act and poor decision made by Candidate A. I refused to vote for Candidate A, or for any candidate because they’re all corrupt and all the same. And therefore I am not responsible for anything at all in this world. You are tainted. I am pure.
I do not accept that irresponsibility is a virtue.
As Tony Kushner said:
Listen, here’s the thing about politics: It’s not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this.
Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said:
Responsible action must decide not simply between right and wrong, good and evil, but between right and right, wrong and wrong.
That is all.
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