Ajamu Baraka is tired of the “lesser of two evils” argument frequently invoked during this presidential election to encourage support for Hillary Clinton as the only true alternative to Donald Trump. The Green Party vice presidential nominee sees the Democratic presidential nominee not as an antidote to Trumpism, but as a partial cause of it—a warmongering, corporate, right-winger who serves the “liberal bourgeoisie” instead of ordinary working people. He saves his harshest words, however, for Barack Obama, whom he calls a “political hack” and a “moral disaster.”
Tell me about growing up on the south side.
Well, it’s typical. Issues of race, of connecting race to violence, is something many of these opportunistic politicians have used for quite some time, because it resonates. What is sad, though, is that you know it not only resonates with white voters, but also with black voters too. And what we see as part of that conversation, coming from both the right and left, is a suggestion that the only way the issue of violence can be dealt with is if there was some intervention on the part of the state.
What are your thoughts on the Emanuel administration as a whole?
So where does that then leave the rest of us? The line seems to be that we have no other choice but to align ourselves with this new right in the Democratic Party. You see these arguments that we need to defeat Trump, we get Hillary elected, and then we can push Hillary to the left—that’s absolute BS. Ask yourself a very simple question: How much pushing did you do under Barack Obama? The Hillary Clinton administration would be no more than an extension of the Barack Obama administration—the same kind of neoliberal, trickle-down economics, the same politics. And what is it you do? You went to sleep for eight years.
I’m sure this is the question that you usually get—about taking votes away from Hillary, and what would happen if Trump wins by a small margin, and the Green Party gets 5 percent of the vote. I mean, there’s the whole Ralph Nader comparison. How do you deal with that question?
