I do not think I can vote again for a defender of our capitalist system, at least as it is currently manifest. Voting for a candidate who wants to protect the current system is to vote for a status quo that is the most damaging humanly controllable force in the world. I used to be able to hold my breath and vote for the “best” one of them. If I wanted to vote, I had to vote for one of them because there was no “viable” alternative. I knew that none of these were really viable in the sense that none of them would do much to solve the basic problem responsible for most of what is wrong in and with the human world. In fact, they were all, to varying degrees, promoters and protectors of the system.
So I do not really care much about viability–electability is another word for it–because for one of these to be elected means not much in solving the problems that are the most terrible, that consistently result in the tragic–people dying, people living miserable lives, people denied basic services such as education and medicine, destruction and degradation of the environment, and the promotion of a nasty ethos that pits this one against the other in a stupid game that ultimately serves a few at the expense of the the many.
I can vote for a candidate who does not want to get rid of or destroy capitalism but only if he or she sincerely wants to change the rules so that no one goes wanting and the quest for capital does no harm to people or planet. I think there are some candidates who do sincerely believe that such change is necessary but I fear that I will not be given the opportunity to do so as the leaders of the two viable parties are not apt to allow for the nomination of candidates who would offend those hold the wealth they are dependent upon and who, like them, benefit greatly from the system as it is.
A real protest against the capitalist party system could bring about the election of someone terrible, the re-election of the current president, for example. In the short-term, more of terrible what already is. But, enough people showing their unwillingness to support a less than decent–as in decent human being whose humanity guides his or her decisions–could open the path to the possibility of having something better that was at least, good enough.
