The point of protest voting isn't to "pull Democrats left"

The quadrennial strawman appears again.

PHOTO CREDIT: Gage Skidmore. Licensed by Creative Commons 2.0.

We’re two weeks out from Election Day, and liberals are laser-focused on making an affirmative case for Kamala Harris and rejecting the case for Trump. OK just kidding — they’re actually rehearsing the usual lines about the uselessness of protest voting. And Dave Weigel’s latest headline is typical: “No matter who wins, the US is moving to the right”. (See also Vox, which makes the same case.)

I’m sure that some leftists have made “we can pull Democrats to the left” their pitch for protest voting, but this is a pretty weak argument. The direction parties move in after defeat is unpredictable and Weigel may very well be correct in guessing that the Democrats are going to continue shifting right. If the entire point of protest voting is to shephard Democrats in the correct direction, I’d advise against it; this just isn’t a good gamble.

But that’s not the point of protest voting.