Lesser of Two Evils

The “lesser of two evils” dilemma — choosing a flawed candidate to block a worse one — surfaces in John Quincy Adams as Kyle’s annotation that this is a perennial feature of American electoral politics, not a modern complaint. The grounding instance is the 1824 election, where Adams’ camp argued that “a vote for Crawford was a vote for Jackson, and a vote for Jackson was a vote for mad populism and social tumult — a calamity for a man of property.” The lesser-evil logic is the rationale that delivered Adams the presidency through a contingent House vote, the same compromise the biography frames as the moment he “threw off the Macbeth policy” of iron principle to actually win office.

Context: “Lesser of two evils” voting is the practice of choosing a candidate one dislikes in order to prevent the election of one disliked even more — a recurring theme in two-party systems where third options are non-viable.

Where this appears

• John Quincy Adams — Kyle notes the lesser-of-two-evils choice “has always been around,” grounded in the 1824 case for Adams over Crawford/Jackson