American politics, especially now, does not offer us a choice between a party that favors the rich and one that favors the poor. Clinton cannot be called to account by an electorally nonexistent left. We must choose between a party that neglects the poor and one that savages them, between a party that defers to the rich and one that deifies them, between a party that abjectly apologizes for government and one that demonizes it. One party signs a Faustian contract with the devil. The other party offers the contract. Better Faustus than Mephistopheles.

The above is from a piece Garry Wills wrote in 1996 after President Bill Clinton was nominated for a second term at the 1996 Democratic convention. Wills noted with regret the party’s ongoing efforts to prioritize the interests of rich campaign donors at the expense of rank-and-file Democrats. He may have already sensed that the Dems’ embrace of neoliberal ideas — deregulation, globalization, etc. — might help get Clinton elected again but was alienating a large percentage of working-class voters.

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit read the article and said, “I don’t know about this Faustus guy, but the election racket ain’t changed much since 1996. We still gotta choose the lesser of two evils.”

“This is no time to be cynical,” I told him. “There’s only one evil person running for president, and it’s not Kamala Harris. The left is still ‘electorally nonexistent’ in this country, but it’s important to make the best of things by electing someone who’s more likely to work for the common good than make common cause with billionaire reactionary pigs like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. It’s common sense.”

Swamp Rabbit tugged on his wispy goatee. “What you mean by common sense? Americans knew Trump was a lyin’ hateful fraud in 2016, but he got elected anyway. “

It was a valid point, but I shrugged it off. “People do stupid, spiteful things when they feel betrayed or threatened. They went for Trump in 2016 but rejected him in 2020, and I’m confident they won’t go back to being stupid in 2024.”

Footnote: Harris can be inconsistent but, as the New Yorker’s John Cassidy recently noted, she thinks “being accused of flip-flopping is a lesser threat to her campaign than giving her opponent the ammunition to brand her as a radical.” I’ll buy that; she’s less than honest at times, like all politicians, but she’s clearly pro-choice, pro-labor and even pro-environment, despite backing off from her previous anti-fracking stance. She’s unlikely to sign a contract with the devil. (Trump already did that, long before he went into politics.)