I originally wrote this piece in 2016 for a liberty face-off on studentsforliberty.org. It’s still relevant today.
What reason could lovers of liberty possibly have to participate in the democratic process?
With the elections between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump drawing to a close, this question is more relevant than ever. While my opponent argues that we stand to win a lot by selling our soul to the devil, I’m here to show you that we’re really shooting ourselves in the foot.
Why?
Well firstly, we need to realize that participating in the democratic process means lending legitimacy to a fundamentally immoral system.
After all, under democracy, everything is up for debate. Law and justice are arbitrary and subject to what the majority thinks those things mean at any given moment. As Mark Twain put it:
“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe when congress is in session.”
The whole system is based on the premise that your rights don’t exist when you’re outnumbered.
The only excusable reason, then, to participate in this system that is so fundamentally anti liberty, would be out of pragmatism: voting for the lesser evil as a form of damage control.
However, the whole idea that voting can help at all is based on this romanticized idea of democracy as a battle of ideas and principles, rather than the strife of interests that it really is.
Because even if you assume that politicians have good intentions and are not power-hungry sociopaths, they can only change things when they’re in power. So priority number 1 is always going to be getting elected. And there are only two strategies to effectively do this.
One way is by buying the votes of particular groups in society by promising them stuff. Free college to students, higher wages to teachers, jobs to the unemployed, tax cuts to the middle class, deregulation to businesses. This works well, because the average voter is not going to vote against his or her own interests.
Alternatively, you can try to convince people that you’re going to save them from some grave and imminent danger. Things like climate change, economic collapse, trade wars, mass immigration and terrorism work very well, as history has shown over and over.
Whichever strategy the candidates choose, the winner of the elections is going to be the one that most effectively manages to either bribe or scare the masses into voting for them.
This is why those of you that see this election as the ultimate opportunity to prop up the libertarian candidate are still missing the point. Participating accomplishes nothing because the democratic system is fundamentally rotten to the core. Not only is it immoral on principle, but it’s also set up in such a way that the best demagogue with the lowest level of integrity will always win.
Bottom line is that we have nothing to win and a lot to lose by participating in the democratic process, because we lend legitimacy to a system that deserves none.
What should we do then?
We should join the ranks of the non-voters. And as non-voters, we should send one message loud and clear and that message is this:
We did not vote for you. We did not participate in your popularity contest and we do not care who won it. The laws you sign are illegitimate, the taxes you take are still theft. If we obey, it’s out of self-preservation only. Because we don’t want you, we don’t need you, and we will never recognize the authority you claim over us.
If we do this, we will send a clearer message than any vote ever could.