The Real Privilege is Voting to Kill People Overseas

There’s a general type of post going around social media in recent weeks claiming that supporting a third party candidate over Hillary Clinton, or not voting at all, is an act of privilege and that people owe it to their brothers and sisters of color to vote Clinton.

This is ridiculous.

Voting for Clinton, and claiming that Clinton deserves the votes of those who have real concerns about her murderous foreign policy and allegiance to capital, is privilege defined.

Voting for Hillary Clinton is an act that will result in people’s deaths.

Her domestic policies will be a continuation of the past 36 years of economic decline and rising domestic authoritarianism.

I’ve seen no credible indication Trump would be much different, mainly due to his general stupidity and the fact that the people who would surround him would push for similar technocratic neoliberalism.

The difference between Trump and Clinton is in who their election would embolden in US politics. Trump’s supporters are by and large more openly white supremacist and vulgar than Clinton’s — but Clinton’s are bad too, supporting a more humane and clean version of white supremacist violence and hate domestically and around the world.

The fact is that when it really comes down to it, there won’t be a lot of daylight between the realities of a Clinton and Trump administration as far as policy goes.

But that’s not even the point… even if there were a major policy difference between the two, voting for Clinton is still an act of voting for someone whose foreign policy will crush the skulls and bodies of children across the world.

Not acknowledging this fact, or pretending it’s not important, is absolutely an exercise of privilege and one I would argue is greater than choosing to vote third party for moral reasons.