I will not be voting for any federal candidate and will probably be writing in third parties for local elections, if I even step into the voting booth.
There is a strong heritage among some New Yorkers—both aristocratic WASP Republicans and ethnic progressive liberals—that voting is a civic duty that cannot be avoided, even if you prefer none of the candidates. Try as I might, I cannot make any sense of this position. If you believe that none of the candidates presents an attractive option, why vote at all?
In this election, we face choosing between a “maverick” with a penchant for militarism who has been part of the Washington power structure for over two decades, and an inexperienced figure who wants to save us from ourselves, or, as my friend Gene Healy puts it, “the Messiah vs. the prophet of doom.” The only thing they agree on is that Washington is where the power is. Add to that a supine Congress busy giving away its war-making power to the executive, what’s left of the economy to the Treasury secretary, and the decision over any controversial issue to the courts. It is hard to see why voting for one rather than the other would make any discernible difference.
To say that this system has nothing to do with the original constitutional order is a laughable understatement. The candidates trade talking points, but their common assumptions about the centralization of power, the omnipotent power of the president, and the use of American power abroad remain unchallenged. The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre once wrote, “when offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to chose neither.” That advice is well worth taking.
Gerald J. Russello is the author of The Postmodern Imagination of Russell Kirk and editor of The University Bookman.
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