This sort of comparison goes back at least as far as 2016 (“Imagine if Frodo was all ‘Sauron’s bad, but Gandalf’s done some morally gray stuff, too, so I’ll stay home.’ Don’t get eaten by orcs. Vote.”), and to liberals who like to situate themselves as being the ultimate good and voting as the ultimate political action, it makes sense why this is so appealing.

However, J.R.R. Tolkien’s political ideology can unironically be described as a sort of “anarcho-monarchism,” and that does seem to actually inform the sort of book series he wrote. So, if we can for the moment set aside Tolkien’s fondness for nobility as “an Englishman’s weakness,” let’s look at this as a matter of anarchism, of opposition to bosses and coercive power.

In the Lord of the Rings, the issue is actually not whether, as a binary choice, free people should support giving the One Ring to Sauron or Saruman. The issue is not how to best effect “harm reduction” by supporting Isengard since it’s the only thing that can stop the armies of Mordor.

The issue is that no one can be trusted with the power of the One Ring — even Gandalf! even Galadriel!— and the ring’s agents must be opposed everywhere because, to an Ent, it doesn’t really matter who is chopping down your forests, and, to a Hobbit, it doesn’t much matter who is scouring your Shire. Actually, a major, intentional theme of Lord of the Rings is that none of these demigods from a past age are going to be able to save us, and since their time is passing, we must become the heroes we need for our salvation.

Now, that’s fiction and it’s still an analogy, but that does seem to be the way many people need to approach this sort of thing to understand it. In this analogy, the One Ring is the state and the imperial hegemony of the USA. You cannot defeat fascism by installing someone else in the seat of power who fundamentally wants to do many of the same things fascists do, who will continue building up power to destroy others abroad and crush dissent at home. Democrats bomb funerals and sell military weapons to authoritarian states. Democrats build Cop Cities. Democrats generously fund the violence of racist, anti-queer enforcers like NYPD and LAPD/LA County Sheriff’s gangs. Democrats love the power structures of the status quo, of capitalism, private property, and the carceral legal system. Democrats want to buttress these things against all challenges as much as possible because Democrats love wielding power, and Democrats know but don’t care that these tools will inevitably fall into the hands of open fascists who will use them even more brutally than they themselves do.

Anarchists always have a “three-way fight,” not just against the fascists but the status quo that produces and empowers fascists, and we want more liberty than choosing our jailers.

To be clear: vote or don’t vote. Major party, third party, write-in, or not at all. It is not actually that important. However, it is absolutely critical that you as an anarchist do not mistake voting as being meaningful political action or limit your imagination of the possible to that of “rhetorically affirming, functionally hostile liberalism”.

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[Note: This idea popped up yet again in October 2024 with McSweeney’s satirical article, “I’m an Undecided Hobbit, Torn Between a Dark Lord Who Promises an Age of Chaos and an Elf Queen Whom I Just Wish I Knew More About” pitting Sauron against Galadriel this time. This joke of course goes completely contrary to the message Tolkien makes explicit when Frodo offers her the One Ring and Galadriel imagines herself with its power: “In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”]