Howard Zinn Quotes

There's a terrible danger in voting for the lesser of two evils because the parties can set it up that way.

If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.

Against these two [Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton] I would [vote], but I never voted for [Barack Obama]. I always voted third party - the ones who say their gonna jail the bankers.

To be honest, in 2012, I was against both candidates, and so I just picked any third party because I thought if more people voted for third parties then they'd have to take third parties seriously.

A wasted vote is voting for someone that you don't believe in

I am not interested in a third party. I do not believe it has any future.

I don't consider Hillary Clinton to be the lesser of two evils.

Every time we have had a presidential election where there is "White or Black," you always have to choose between the lesser of two evils, so you either vote for "Satan" or the "Devil," and you catch hell with either one.

the two major parties too often present us with a choice of the evil of two lessers.

The two-party system is a bad joke on the American people; when it comes to Republicans and Democrats remember they are two sides of the same coin. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil and not an answer to our problems. A vote for a Republican or a Democrat will not fix anything and is a wasted vote.

I would say that a wasted vote is voting for anybody you don't believe in. If you believe in the third party, that's the guy you need to voice for. That's how you change things.

Abstention means you stayed at home or went to the beach. By casting a blank vote, you're saying you have a political conscience but you don't agree with any of the existing parties.

Its easy to view politicians as corrupt and voting essentially an act of picking the lesser of two evils. I understand that perspective and feel it's valid.

There's a temptation not to vote at all as a protest, but it's definitely not a protest. In fact, all it does is keep the people in power in power, and I don't think they should be.

I think I can really make people go and vote against the system - voting for Ksenia Sobchak.

I would like to have seen millions of votes left blank for president to send a message there are millions of voters out there who do not like ideologue or Donald Trump.

Sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote for the person who is going to do the least damage or who is maybe going to pull you back from the brink.

You will vote for first choice candidate whether or not you think he'll win. But I'm saying you may find yourself for a candidate, a middling candidate, a candidate you don't think very well of, really. And you really don't like to avoid a catastrophe. Well, maybe that's a good thing. You can argue that back and forth.

Hilary Clinton said you know, it takes a village to raise a child and somebody said it takes a village idiot to believe that … it is part of the whole thing of third parties wanting to make decisions for which they pay no price for when they’re wrong.

Politically, the weakness of the argument has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.

Sometimes the difference between two candidates is an important one in the immediate sense, and then I believe trying to get somebody into office, who is a little better, who is less dangerous, is understandable. But never forgetting that no matter who gets into office, the crucial question is not who is in office, but what kind of social movement do you have. Because if you have a powerful social movement, it doesn't matter who is in office.

Some people say we need a third party. I wish we had a second one.

There is no question that I would be the better president. But as for the campaign, are Americans ready for a general election in which both major party candidates are ADD? Quite frankly, it could provide an opening for a third party candidate, maybe someone backed by the evil Koch brothers.

We live in a two-party tyranny that doesn't believe in competition, can enforce it with penalties and obstructions, and they're getting closer and closer to being both one corporate party with two heads having different labels.

This is a very crucial period and we have got five fantastic candidates. All of them would make excellent leaders of the Party.