Is Political Pragmatism Surrender of Personal Integrity?
After President Donald Trump released a blatantly racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes in a jungle, a Trump voter from New Mexico called into C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Friday, February 6, and attempting to hold back tears said:
“Oh, my word. I am a registered Republican,” he began. “My dad was the president of American Pipeliners Association, so I came by it rather naturally. Voted for the president, supported him. But I really want to apologize. I mean, I’m looking at this awful picture of the Obamas. What an embarrassment to our country,” the caller continued, adding:
“All this man does is tell lies. He is not worthy of the presidency. He takes bribes blatantly. And now he’s being a racist blatantly. They were supposed to deport the dangerous criminals. They were not supposed to go after small children, storm schools, bring terror upon, you know, the little kids and the women and children — not just the immigrants in the school. All the children are scared.”
The caller stated how sorry he was in voting for Trump during the late three presidential elections:
“He’s pathetic as a president. And I just want to apologize to everybody in the country for supporting this rotten man.”
After I heard this caller’s pain and remorse and knowing that virtually all religious and spiritual philosophical foundations center on the concept of forgiveness, I wrote a short meme on my social media platforms:
“If you ever voted for Trump and are sorry, apologies accepted here if you vow to vote all Democratic in 2026 & 2028.”
The overwhelming majority of responses I received were positive in emojis and words. A very few obvious Trump/MAGA supporters roundly criticized me and the Democratic Party while attempting to rationalize the Trump administration’s policies and further attacking the Obamas.
A small minority, though, decried my statement from the left side of the political spectrum. This respondent’s response could summarize that disagreement:
“We need to vote Leftist! Not Republican, Not Democrat!,” the person empathized. “They are 2 sides of the same coin! They both support Imperialism, Capitalism, Zionism, Prison Industrial Complex, and Military Industrial Complex! Democrats are actually Center-Right on the political compass. We need a president that’s actually on the left wing such as Democratic Socialism or Green Party.”
Though I do support a Jewish homeland, I did not comment on this person’s specific claims, and I did not outline my political background. On many of the respondent’s points, however, I do agree.
All of my adult life I have defined myself as a “Democratic Socialist” even before I had heard the term. I value the Scandinavian governmental political model.
Unfortunately, the United States of America has always existed overall as a Center-Right country politically. Though the fulcrum shifts to the left and to the right depending on the times and the parties’ changing strategies to achieve power, the distance this fulcrum pivots on the full spectrum is relatively narrow.
According to the World English Dictionary, socialism involves “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole,” where each of us has a stake and advances in the success of our collective economy.
I responded to the person who challenged my meme by writing:
“If you’re waiting for a political candidate or party to promise and give you a Utopia before you will vote for them, you’re destined to get a Dystopia.”
And this is the reason why we find ourselves in this current desperate political moment within our seriously declining democracy: many potential voters refused to cast their ballots because they found some fault in candidates — recently for example, Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris, or the Democratic Party overall — because they were not “left” enough, or because they believed that the political parties “are 2 sides of the same coin!”
I have worked most of my life to bring the United States in closer alignment with a Democratic Socialist vision. But one simply must not wait for the perfect candidate before one engages in the political process.
One must work to develop the infrastructure to usher in the type of political party that connects closer to one’s political perspective, while simultaneously acting pragmatically by donating to and working and voting for the candidates and parties that can at least limit or halt our decline into autocracy.
Some call this “voting for the lesser of two evils,” and yes, I find this often to have been the case. But is it really?
While my candidate, Eugene McCarthy, won by far the largest percentage of the popular vote in the Democratic general primaries in 1968 (approximately 3 million or 38.7% to Hubert Humphrey’s 161 thousand or 2.1%) in a crowded field of candidates, and Humphrey didn’t even bother to enter some of the state primaries, Democratic Party officials gave Humphrey the right to carry the Democratic banner as its Presidential nominee.
The Democratic National Committee did this by awarding Humphrey the vast majority of overall delegates in the non-primary states, thereby bringing him over the top in terms of the number of delegates needed. Talk about “rigged elections”!
By the time the election came around in November, I was so angry and discouraged by the electoral political process, I decided that if I were going to maintain any sense of integrity and ethical standards, I could not and would not vote for anyone that year, even though I considered Hubert Humphrey the least reprehensible compared with Richard Nixon.
The day before election day, two friends and I drove south down Highway 1 along the beautiful California coastline. We camped and played our acoustic guitars and violin beneath tall ancient redwood trees overlooking crashing waves at Big Sur. Two days later, as we returned to San José State University, by choice, we remained unaware of the election results.
At the time, I regretted nothing for my decision to opt out. I didn’t even feel troubled by losing all the points on the surprise pop quiz given by the professor in my Music Conducting class. My integrity remained in tack.
Well, at least that’s what I thought until I reflected on the potential consequences and then the actual realities of a Nixon presidency.
For a full five additional years, the body bags carrying the fallen continued to pile up. The people of Vietnam, combatants and civilians alike, continued suffering the horrors of incinerated flesh and scorched fields and forests from the massive airdrops of Agent Orange from U.S. bombers, increasing the already massive profits by Dow Chemical Company and other corporations.
Race relations worsened, as did the already large gap in wages and accumulated wealth between the socioeconomic classes. Charges of corruption and bribery against Vice President Agnew and his resignation from office combined with Nixon’s involvement in Watergate and his eventual resignation further divided the country.
So, in retrospect, I perennially ask myself the two-part question,
“By failing even to vote for ‘the lesser of the two evils’ in 1968, did I really maintain my sense of integrity on the micro level, and did I serve the best interests of the country on the macro?”
Looking back now, I realize that in 1968 at the age of 21, I was functioning on a dualistic or binary cognitive developmental level. I perceived the world, people, and events as either “good” or “bad,” and pragmatism as “surrender.” Viewing both Humphrey and Nixon as “bad,” I believed that I could not honestly vote for either without surrendering my ideals and ethical standards.
Using this event as a constant touchstone in my personal history, I now understand the cosmos more in its multiplicity, its nuances, along a continuum rather than as a binary. I also often consider pragmatism not so much as surrender, but more as compromise and as a necessary give and take in a democracy.