The cliché about picking the lesser evil always recirculates around presidential elections, so frequently that it can almost pass for a nugget of wisdom.

It’s not.

Why would you want to vote for the greater of two evils?

We expect so much from the person in that office—and think we learn so much about them—that we’ll inevitably find something distasteful in the political program or persona. As major party candidates try to pander broadly, all sorts of inadequacies become visible.

Really, Donald Trump’s abundant intellectual, temperamental, and moral deficiencies are all part of his brand.

Because we often expect too much, our choices—and electoral politics more generally–will always disappoint. There’s a temptation to treat our vote as a sacred expression of self and vote to “send a message” through pulling the lever for a third party candidate standing on a shorter and sharper platform that feels more authentic.

And it represents a fundamental misunderstanding about electoral politics.

No matter how much we infuse our deliberations and debates with moral concern, elections are about choosing a person to do an extremely difficult job, knowing that they are bound to let us down—at least a little.

Of course, people will infuse their misunderstanding with strong moralistic language, and maybe even get a feeling of self-righteous affirmation by refusing to compromise their ballot in any way. Speeches and writing infused with purist polemic are always more powerful rhetorically than assessing the compromises and disappointments associated with pragmatic choice.

“Don’t vote, it only encourages them,” makes for a great tee shirt—but not much of a political strategy.

They don’t need your encouragement; the election will take place and someone will win and take office.

As the major party candidates work to assemble extremely broad coalitions of support (Chomsky to Cheney for Kamala Harris), they’re likely to fudge the issues you care about. A major party candidate isn’t going to attack capitalism, military spending, or the automobile industry. And this year, there’s the war—or rather, US support of the Israeli military, as it devastates civilian life in Gaza.

On television and the internet, we can see horrific pictures demonstrating the power of American weapons wielded by the Israeli Defense Force: houses reduced to rubble, maimed children, and starved families. We hear the numbers.

Vice President Kamala Harris has basically affirmed the Biden administration’s policies: supporting Israel’s right to defend itself with weapons and urging, apparently ineffectually, the Netanyahu government to protect civilian lives and provide humanitarian aid.

Trump has blamed the Biden administration and encouraged Israel to finish the job faster. Ulp.

Neither major party candidate has a strong claim on peace and restraint.

This is hardly the first time the American electorate has faced such an apparent lack of choice on such an important issue.

In 1968, Vice President Hubert Humphrey supported Lyndon Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam War, kind of. And Richard Nixon offered a “secret” plan to end the war quickly, a plan that turned out to be comprised of extending US air forces and bombs more broadly through Southeast Asia. Maybe that’s a bad choice and a worse one.

The worse one won.

I can think about two arguments for refusing to vote, pragmatically, for the less dangerous and offensive candidate.

The first refusal is a self-righteous assertion of personal pride: I don’t want to throw my vote for someone who doesn’t live up to my moral standard or political principles. Maybe it’s easier to sleep through the night when you can ignore the consequences of your actions.

The second is a kind of political argument: voting for a third party or staying home is a way to send a message and “heighten the contradictions” spurring a reinvigorated protest campaign.

The argument has recirculated since at least 1968, and was particularly salient and damaging when likely Democratic voters chose not to vote for Humphrey in 1968, for Jimmy Carter in 1980, and for Hillary Clinton in 2016. It’s only partly wrong, but it’s a big and tragic part. You may get bigger protest movements—but less impact.

The election of conservative and or crazy presidents has spurred intensified protest movements. Nixon faced massive demonstrations against the Vietnam War, including a half-million protesters during the

Moratorium of 1969. Ronald Reagan grappled with very large popular movements against the nuclear arms race and US military intervention in Central America. And Donald Trump’s presidential term was punctuated with even larger protests on all kinds of issues. (I edited a book on this with Sid Tarrow.)

But in all case, the political center of gravity shifted to the right. Liberals and those further on the left engaged powerfully, but on defense, trying to stop things (wars, climate change, immigration policy, etc.) from getting much worse. The successful Democratic presidential campaigns that followed were more conservative.

It’s less difficult to mobilize large protest movements against more provocative administrations, but it’s much harder to get the kinds of policies you want.

Successful movement politics sometimes means taking very modest victories in the moment, and trying to push the political center.