Every August, my family spends a week at the Jersey Shore, down the southernmost tip of Cape May. Politics tend to work their way into our conversations, and even the smallest differences in our views play out in full force. This year, with the presidential election right around the corner, we spent hours speculating Harris’s running mate and debating her campaign strategies. But when my brother announced that he would not be voting in the presidential election this November, his announcement hung in the air—a marked shift from our usual spirited discussions.
I should note that we live in Chicago, Illinois—a Democratic stronghold that hasn’t had a Republican mayor since William Hale Thompson in 1931. The city has held Illinois blue since 1992, and in 2020, President Biden beat out Trump by 17 points. My brother’s vote would be purely symbolic, another drop of water in an already overflowing bucket.
And yet, when we broke the silence, it was with immediate criticisms. He was throwing away a right that millions of Americans have died protecting, or so my family said. How could my brother, a community organizer who has spent countless hours picketing and protesting across Chicago, refuse to cast his vote? How could he reject the most direct avenue for political change he has available to him?
At the Democratic National Convention this past August, numerous high-profile Republicans— Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Olivia Troye, and Stephanie Grisham, to name a few—endorsed Harris over Trump, denouncing their own party’s candidate. In giving Republicans a platform at the convention, Democrats are attempting to garner support from moderates by convincing them that Harris is the “lesser of two evils”—echoing the message from the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. It failed in 2016, but in 2020, this appeal to morality worked, and voters backed President Biden in hopes of a better America.
Despite the hopes that propelled Biden into office, the realities of his presidency have left many disillusioned, and his promises have been slow to materialize. The Biden administration is on track to match Trump’s deportation numbers, with some figures suggesting he will surpass Trump’s total. He has failed to fulfill his 2020 campaign promise to codify Roe v. Wade. His tenure saw the most single-year school shootings since Columbine in 1999, and his military spending and defense budget is up almost 20 percent since 2019. And he has continued to bankroll Israel in its war on Gaza, providing billions of dollars to fund the Palestinian genocide.
These policies are simply incompatible with being a “lesser evil.” The use of this phrase suggests that we should accept President Biden and Harris’s proposals because the alternative might be worse—because Trump, or some other candidate, could enact policies even more reprehensible. By accepting this strategy, we render our voices moot and relinquish our power to fight for change. Politicians can go one step further than their empty promises of an improved America—they can run on a platform of “not as bad” and win elections because of it.
This “lesser evil” precedent is dangerous because it incentivizes politicians to fight at the margins instead of for radical change. Consider the climate crisis. Instead of advocating for sweeping measures, like drastically increased investment in renewable energy research and development or implementing a Green New Deal, politicians seeking to win support from the climate-concerned will only have to slightly undercut their opponent’s targeted emissions. They may propose modest improvements to existing environmental regulations rather than confronting the fossil fuel industry head-on or investing heavily in green infrastructure. Most importantly, they do not have to commit to and accomplish real change. In other words, they can promise to put a slightly bigger bandaid on a gaping bullet hole, and they can get away with it.
Since Chicago and Illinois will continue to vote blue for the foreseeable future, my brother’s vote in this election is insignificant. Voting for Harris would do nothing but drive up the party’s numbers and signal further support for Harris, Walz, and the Democratic Party. His decision to abstain from voting is a statement—that he is dissatisfied with the options presented to him, and that he refuses to lend his endorsement to a system that has repeatedly failed to deliver on its promise of being a “lesser evil.” We use our votes to voice our opinions, and by not voting, he is voicing his.
In swing states that Democrats are desperately trying to win, many feel differently about the idea of not voting. In these states, votes matter—last election, President Biden won Georgia and Arizona by less than 12,000 votes. And yet, in these states, a vote for Harris would signal the same—that President Biden and Harris’s actions in office are permissible, and that Harris and Walz should be allowed to continue them, as long as they are the lesser evil. The Democratic Party would have no incentive to change.
Come November, I will still cast a vote I know is insignificant. I am not calling on any voters—in blue states or elsewhere—to refrain from voting. Still, amidst the calls for undecided voters to back the “lesser evil,” we should consider the long-term consequences of settling for candidates whose actions are incompatible with our morals. By allowing this argument to win us over, we reward leaders for being less damaging than the alternative rather than truly effective. My brother, along with the millions of Americans dissatisfied with the options before them, are not throwing away their one chance to voice their opinion—they are doing the opposite, expressing the need for candidates that cater to their constituents.
Jonah Karafiol ’26 (jonahkarafiol@college.harvard.edu) is the News Editor of the Independent.