Letters to the Editor: Voting third party isn’t ‘against Kamala Harris.’ It’s about so much more

To the editor: While I appreciate any argument against voting for Donald Trump as someone who could ever bring peace to the world, columnist Robin Abcarian’s assumption that voting for a third-party candidate is simply “against Kamala Harris” is misguided about the state of our country and the world.

It is insulting to assume that voting for the status quo that Democrats (and non-Trump Republicans) represent is what any logical and peace-loving person would do.

It ignores the fact that there has been a bipartisan effort since World War II to foist “free-market capitalism” onto our lives either at the point of a gun, or with the threat of impoverishment if one does not participate in the globalized system of deregulated environmental and economic exploitation and competition.

For hundreds of millions of people around the world, freedom consists not only of defeating those who threaten reproductive rights and mass immigrant expulsion. It consists of meaningful social safety nets, actual environmental protections and the end of U.S. economic and military imperialism.

Gaza was destroyed on a Democratic president’s watch, yet we are to believe a vote for Harris will save it? Pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are toothless, and we are to believe that our grandchildren will not suffer immensely from climate change?

Matthew Neel, Sherman Oaks

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To the editor: Abcarian’s pitch to voters outraged by U.S.-supported abuses of Palestinians boils down to this: Things are bad for you under President Biden (but not for the rest of us), things will remain bad for you under Harris (but not for the rest of us), we think things will be worse for you under Trump (and probably for the rest of us too), so kindly keep the rest of us comfortable and don’t vote your conscience.

In effect, Abcarian tells us that we and our concerns don’t matter enough to warrant defined policies to end U.S.-funded Israeli war crimes. I hope for her sake and that of others equally comfortable with hollow arguments that Democrats motivate plenty of other voters to join them — because we aren’t moved by this reasoning.

Nadir Elfarra, Los Angeles