The question of the lesser evil rears its head with every election cycle. This year it is particularly relevant when looking at the US elections, and it is worth exploring. In short, the argument goes that when the options at the ballot box are not exactly appealing, one should then seek to discern which of the bad options available is the least bad. Which is the lesser evil? The argument being that the lesser evil is subsequently also the greater good of the options available — even if all the options are otherwise bad from the voter’s perspective.

This argument seems obvious: out of two bad options, surely the better option is the least bad one? Often, you will hear this explained as grown-up politics, of having the political maturity to recognise that, while we cannot always get what we want, we should be willing to hold our nose and make do with the least bad option. Occasionally, one may even hear this or that leader put forward the lesser-evil argument as a self-affirmation to justify their decisions along the lines of leadership making the best choice out of limited bad options.

To reject outright the notion that choosing between two bad options is a problem in the first place is often met with accusations of childishness — or of privilege, in the sense that government decisions often have a greater impact on the have-nots than on the haves, who can then afford to ignore elections. To a degree, this does lead to a paradox where it can be said that voting does not really change anything, and yet it can have a great impact on the lives of the least well-off.

Even if one may well make a point that one’s vote between two bad options does not really change things in a fundamental sense, one may well counter that while there may well be other things we should be doing, one still should hold one’s nose and vote for the least bad option in the meantime. A “yes, but” and “walk and chew gum at the same time” kind of argument.

Certainly, the least bad option makes sense. Why would you vote for something that would be the worst possible option, after all? And yet, where does one draw the line? And how do you avoid a progressive creep towards even worse options? Often when faced with lesser-evil options, one sees the lesser evil becoming normalised to the point that in the subsequent election what was once the lesser evil is now the norm and one is faced again with another choice of lesser evil, with the centre of evil constantly moving to more and more forms of evil. By constantly choosing the lesser evil, one ends up with a greater evil over time. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We can see this in the British context. The Conservative Party has gone from moderate, centre-right One Nation Toryism to basically adopting the policies of the British National Front from the 1970s as regards immigration, the European Union and international aid, as well as the war on the poor. And, in turn, the Labour Party today, under Sir Keir Starmer, is only slightly distinguishable from the Tories. The 2005 UK election is particularly interesting in that it was argued — and I would agree — that Labour was the lesser evil relative to the Tories. And yet by re-electing Labour, one also sent the message that one can conduct illegal wars — remember Iraq? — despite mass opposition and people will still vote for you. And we’ve all seen the massive waste of treasure and humanity that such actions paved the way for, right up to our present moment of global instability, war crimes, genocide and a resurgence of slave markets, along with domestic austerity in Britain — although money always seems available for imperial wars.

If we look at the United States today, we are faced with the stark reality that almost half of the American population is supporting an overtly racist, misogynistic and homophobic candidate in Donald Trump, while the Democrats, so desperate for a “reasonable” Republican Party, have effectively worked to transform themselves into one. Not only have the Democrats actively moved to rehabilitate war criminals such as Dick Cheney and his neocons, they have moved to the Right on issues of immigration — albeit with less racist trappings relative to Trump. And while Trump would be likely even worse for the people of Palestine and Lebanon, the Democrats have presided over a genocide in Gaza, war crimes in Lebanon, a revanchist apartheid regime in the West Bank and, essentially, torn up any pretence to international law, adopting Orientalist and racist positions as regards the victims of Israeli violence.

Are the Democrats the lesser evil versus the Republicans? Certainly. However, they’re still evil, even if they have better positions on women’s rights. You cannot aid and abet a genocide and claim the mantle of “good” or the guarantor of international law.

The problem with the politics of the lesser evil is that it ultimately involves a constant moving of the goalposts of what is acceptable. The lesser evil becomes increasingly more and more evil, even if there is always a greater evil to avoid. Or, evil in a different way. Which is more evil: murderous austerity and racism at home or murderous invasions and violence overseas — almost always with a racist dimension?

Of course, if one chooses to reject the politics of the lesser evil, what are the alternatives? How do we shift from a politics of the lesser evil to a politics of the good? And how does one define what is good or evil in the first place? These are questions that we must confront in these dark times, guided only by the faint candle of hope for a better world.

• Jonathan Starling is a socialist writer with an MSc in Ecological Economics from the University of Edinburgh and an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning from Heriot-Watt University