Voting in a Time of Fascism

“I went to jail in Washington, D.C. for women’s suffrage in the fall of 1917,
but I have never voted.”

—Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, September 1980

There is much about the Catholic Worker that leads critics and sympathizers alike to roll their eyes and offer us their opinions. Many houses do their work outside of the tax-exempt status that permits supporters to easily write off donations. Many communities are committed to living in a way so simple that it seems rife with inefficiencies and irresponsibilities. And for some of the movement’s faithful anarchists, to vote is inconceivable.

The reasons for this electoral avoidance are specific to each person, but stem mostly from three interconnected beliefs. Within the United States’ profoundly violent systems, to willingly participate in anything that maintains them betrays the trust God has asked of us, ignores the value system Jesus advocated, and ultimately makes us complicit in the throwing away of vulnerable people. “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24).

There is much I admire and respect about this striving for purity of faith in action. Many of the prophets who have come before me have served as both a lighthouse and fuel-source for my journey. They have helped me recognize that the only thing I control is how I choose to live my life. In a world constantly pushing easier paths and pliable values, there is a sacred place for those who will not go against their conscience or God. As Joshua said to the tribes of Israel: “Decide today whom you will serve!” (Joshua 24:15).

Despite this, as another political season comes upon us, I find myself awash in questions and conversations about how to understand and respond to the particular challenges of this political moment. While I tread with caution, knowing that it is easy and common for people to assume that their times are more complicated than previous generations, I cannot help but believe this moment is uniquely dangerous. So, what are we facing?

There is no denying that when I look at the landscape before us, I only see one political party that has so willingly chosen to lay in the den of white nationalists. I have only heard of one with such an extensive plan to decimate key structures of our democracy and erase decades of gains in civil rights struggles. And I only know of one that has made people of faith so giddy about the prospects of Christofascism.

Paraphrasing a movement strategist I also call my friend, Jason David writes, do “we have a responsibility as residents in the Empire to strike a blow to the world-wide fascist movement?” Is there anyone in the world—here or anywhere—who “is better off if Donald Trump has the reins of the Empire”? And central to the heart of these musings: Does it matter if this election might dramatically alter the material conditions under which we will have to struggle for change in the future?

But we must zoom out, too. How do we navigate the reality that we are situated within an oligarchy, where the ruling class at the helm of both major political parties sits at the center of power, holding a firm grip on the institutions and apparatuses of the State so as to line their pockets at the expense of everything and everyone?

Do we see within neoliberalism, in this phase of late-capitalism, that the leadership of both parties push U.S. supremacist practices and policies that devastate our communities and earth? Do we recognize how the Democratic Party prioritizes the interests of its biggest funders over the hopes of its constituents by, among other things, refusing to shift policies in their approach to the genocide in Gaza or their anti-democratic practices of wielding superdelegates (among others)? Is the Democrat’s slower creep really any better than the Republicans’ gallop further into fascism?

While neither party is a true friend to marginalized communities, do Trump’s overt promises of harm and Project 2025’s calculated destruction mean something worthy of different attention, condemnation, and action? We may not trust either side to fully realize (or honor) their commitments, but do the north poles they take aim at suggest different levels of risk people of conscience should consider in this go-round?

Now, I must admit, as the article “Voting is Not Harm Reduction” invited me to consider, it seems like hubris to try and imagine that there is some formula that will help us calculate “less harm” in the battle between two clear evils. And so I wonder, does my discernment risk whitewashing the diverse violence of both major political parties and allow some lives to be valued more than any others?

And so for the last months, I have joined radical activists, faithful believers, and committed abolitionists to talk, pray, and discern how to view our relationship with electoral politics. People seeking to live in greater integrity with God, who bemoan our truly corrupt systems, who want neither to be building systems we will later have to tear down nor growing the legitimacy of the State, are asking ourselves: Is it possible that the specifics of this moment—and our obligation to honor God and love our neighbors—are calling us to change how we think of participating or not in this election?

With each call for ideological purity, I find myself wondering: Is coloring in a circle on a ballot the only way we are or I am complicit with the violence of the U.S. Empire? I purchase gasoline won through imperialist wars and utilize technology built with metals mined by children and slaves abroad. Before my income was less than poverty level, I did not withhold war taxes in my yearly filings. But now that it is, I reap the (insurance) benefits of an economy buoyed by capitalism and buy products in stores cheapened by the violence of free trade. Where, then, is the line I draw in the sand on complicity, and why? Are many of us simply reaping the benefits of systems we then suggest a refusal to “participate” in? In our deeply interconnected world, is non-complicity even possible?

And yet I know my inevitable hypocrisy need not lessen my commitment to living prophetically. Our shortcomings and self-centered tendencies do not undermine our dreams and our work, nor sever us from God’s continual invitation to discern what faithfulness asks of us next.

And what do I do with the fact that, though our electoral system may appear to be one of the most developed avenues available to us for change, anyone who has struggled within it knows its profound resistance to growth or change. And yet, the nightmares we face today are the twisted fantasies of a small group of people who have seized control of these systems. How can these systems be both impervious to progress but flexible enough to keep getting worse at the same time? Watching unions wield tens of thousands of principled members to win concrete, moral gains from companies, politicians, and popular culture leaves me to believe something quite profound might actually be possible if we who believe in justice were to build analysis, power, and strategy together.

Part of the barrier to change, it seems, is that the power we wield as individuals—either by utilizing our systems or by protesting against them—is dwarfed by that of corporations and billionaires. Add to this that the work of organizing a movement of people capable of a fighting chance against these requires such hard and complicated efforts that individual purity can easily take priority. Thus it was not surprising that some Catholic Workers refused to join the Black Lives Matter uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 until all protesters agreed to sign contracts committing to nonviolence.

The North Star Socialist Organization (NSSO) poignantly recognized that many of us on the Left are often “resistant to the kind of honest reckoning, disciplined organization-building, and difficult tactical choices that are required to carry out liberatory strategy.” But their suggestion that there may be a way to strategically (and integriously) navigate the broken electoral system in this moment relies on the belief that voting for the Democrats, however sickening and counter to our principles it may seem for those of us who see through their performance of progressivism, leaves us in a better position to fight again tomorrow. But no one has named the plan we might proceed with afterwards to make the shifts that our community needs but seems unable to achieve.

And so again I wonder: Is electoral politics really a lever available to us, one tool for change that we can utilize in the belt of options at hand? Or is it at least a tourniquet to help stop some of the bleeding?

Additionally, is it possible for electoral politics—which activates and mobilizes so many people seeking change (but who often lack an analysis as to what will really bring it)—to serve as a way to inspire and recruit more people to our work and vision? Are the elections a corner we can meet people at so as to do the long work of walking them to our home? Should our propheticism focus less on the one minute they give to casting their ballots and more on how we all must use the other 525,599 minutes of each year?

Just as I believe it is unreasonable to suggest that refusing to vote keeps our hands clean, I am equally repelled by the suggestion that we should risk the bigotry and violence of a second Trump presidency in the hopes that people will rise up and fight back. Sitting in the skin and identities I do, occupying land in a U.S. city and state that provides more protections than many others, I have little time for this privilege-talk.

Though it feels odd to uplift a quote from an economist whose financial values I am diametrically opposed to, I know that the only way to make political change in this system is not from “electing the right people,” as Milton Friedman recognized, but by “making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.” Politicians politrick, but our current systems do respond to power. After all, what was Jesus building but a powerful base of people to resist Empire, to wield the systems against themselves. Maybe it is the collective withholding of our votes from the Democrats that will finally force them to respond to our demands such that we can use our votes integriously to change things.

So, while we wait for the Kin-dom on earth as it is in heaven, how do we build a powerful and activated constituency who will work for the world God dreams of instead? For those who will vote, what personal and movement work will you throw yourself into once the sun rises on November 6? For those who will not, how will you ensure that the work you are doing to resist these systems of death is growing and deepening relationships, expanding our strategy, and building power?

I was hoping that writing this article would make it clearer how I should act in this moment, but I find myself no less uncertain on how to move with compassion, courage, and wisdom. I want to be faithful, to know where I stand and stand there as Dan Berrigan invites us, to follow in the lineage of those spiritual ancestors who opened themselves to death before succumbing to betrayal, idolatry, or complicity.

And I am tired of being bested by the efforts of those who do not care for the health of our communities and use our systems to hurt us. I am tired of watching the infighting of the Left, the pompous pontificating and performance of doing smart and principled work. I am tired of witnessing the hypocrisy and violence of revolutionaries whose small actions too often reflect those we oppose, who are guided not, as Che Guevara suggested, “by a great feeling of love.” Any system built apart from love will never love anyone, and we struggle to build even our own small, principled projects.

And so, faced with the certainty that we need to build power to stop this fascist descent, I chose to be open to new paths forward, or old paths done for new reasons and in new ways. I proceed not with the presumption that Democrats are moral or more organizable, but with the conviction that overt fascism will bring (and encourage) a degree and frequency of violence and repression that—and I say this with all due respect—I do not believe many of the anarchists I know are ready to face.

“There is no escaping empire,” adrienne maree brown writes. “Resistance is the only answer.” And if there are any tools that can help us resist, organize people, and create change in the landscape, I want to consider them all. And I will be prepared to pray for forgiveness, should the future lead me to look back in remorse. But as progressive political strategist Linda Burnam said of moments like these, “People need to be experimenting, mixing things up in real time.” And so I open myself up.

At the end of the day, though, you must “follow your conscience,” Dorothy Day told a young man thinking of going to war. To try and force anyone down any other path would be to fall into the very authoritarian inclination we are fighting to resist. But at the end of time, I imagine each of us will be asked: What did you do with your “one wild and precious life?” as Mary Oliver called it. How did you do the hard work of navigating disagreement, of growing with others, of casting your lot with the vulnerable?

This is not where change is probable. Holding our values alone seems insufficient; faith without works—without encounter, without the messiness of humanity—is dead. God expects too much of us (and has given too much to us). The work has always been hard and the progress slow, but short of Christ’s second coming, we are Christ’s hands on earth.

If I must someday account for my life at the pearly gates, I imagine God will ask, “Where are the others?” Though I know I will have much to apologize for, I hope also to name how I tried to grow my work to protect the discarded amongst us. Until then, Dorothy Day, pray for me. Ω

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Matt Harper is a Los Angeles Catholic Worker community member and
co-editor of the Agitator.