I’ll Vote for the Lesser of Evils, if There Is One - WSJ

In the governor’s campaign, heads Illinois loses; tails, it also loses. Ditto in the last two presidential races.

I am one of those American political misfits known as an independent voter.

I voted for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008. Four years later I pulled the lever for Mitt Romney. I didn’t vote in the last two presidential elections because none of the candidates were people I wanted to lead the country. I find little reassuring in either of the political parties, whose members collectively strike me as ignorant, sanctimonious, meshugana.

My…

I am one of those American political misfits known as an independent voter.

I voted for Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008. Four years later I pulled the lever for Mitt Romney. I didn’t vote in the last two presidential elections because none of the candidates were people I wanted to lead the country. I find little reassuring in either of the political parties, whose members collectively strike me as ignorant, sanctimonious, meshugana.

My nonaffiliation frees me from the obligation to defend the nuttiness of Marjorie Taylor Greene or the anti-Semitism of Ilhan Omar. I like to think it also provides a certain perspective unavailable to those locked into party loyalty.

I grew up in Chicago, where it was understood that all politicians are guilty until proven innocent, which few ever were. I can’t think of a politician in recent years whom I have admired without extensive qualification. I can think of only two or three whom I should care to meet for coffee. Every two years, when elections arise, I nonetheless feel I ought to vote, and vote I do, even though my vote, in the royal blue state of Illinois, seems negligible.

Occasionally I have the satisfaction of voting a grudge. I have voted several times, without avail, against my congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky. What I have against her is that she boycotted Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2015 speech to Congress about Mr. Obama’s flimsy and dangerous nuclear deal with Iran. I look forward to voting against her again next month and in future elections.

I now live in the suburbs, so I can’t vote this February against Lori Lightfoot, the worst mayor in Chicago history. I’d like to vote against all candidates who believe the 2020 presidential election was rigged and are thereby backed by Mr. Trump. I don’t go in for political predictions, but one I feel confident in making is that American politics has little hope of returning to anything resembling normality until the shameless former president departs the scene.

All I look for in candidates is that they constitute a lesser evil than their opponents. Evidence of this often isn’t easily detected. In the current race for Illinois governor, which pits incumbent J.B. Pritzker against state Sen. Darren Bailey, detection of the lesser evil is all but impossible. In a recent televised debate, each man called the other a liar, which struck me as one of the few times that evening when both of them told the truth.

Mr. Pritzker is heir to the Hyatt Hotel chain. He’s an obese billionaire who specializes in braggadocio about his record, neglecting to mention that it features increases in tax and crime and many businesses and citizens departing the state. Mr. Bailey is a husky downstate farmer who issues obtuse pro-life comments, the most noxious of which is his claim that “the attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn’t even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion.” He is backed by Mr. Trump.

When it comes to voting for one or the other of these Periclean figures, I must remember to bring along a coin when I step into the voting booth. Heads Illinois loses; tails, it also loses.

Staying in the lesser evil category, I shall probably vote for personal-injury lawyer Kathy Salvi over the vastly favored incumbent Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Ms. Duckworth is an untiring platitudinarian whose banalities play off nicely against those of Illinois’s other senator, Dick Durbin. His specialty is a deeply unconvincing sensitivity over the various plights of his constituents.

What I should really like to vote for is term limits for senators and representatives. What I have in mind is roughly two months in office, then out with no chance of return. Always reasonable, I am of course willing to negotiate.

Mr. Epstein is author, most recently, of “Gallimaufry: A Collection of Essays, Reviews, Bits.”