MADISON, Wisconsin — On an oppressively hot August day in downtown Madison, the signs of this famously liberal city’s progressive activism are everywhere. Buildings are draped in pride flags and Black Lives Matter signs are prominently displayed on storefronts. A musty bookstore advertises revolutionary titles and newspaper clippings of rallies against Donald Trump. A fancy restaurant features a graphic of a raised Black fist in its window, with chalk outside on the sidewalk reading “solidarity forever.”
Yet the Green Party, which bills itself as an independent political party that has the best interests of self-described leftists at heart, is nowhere to be found. It has no storefronts, no candidates running for local office, no relationship with the politically active UW-Madison campus, which has almost 50,000 students.
Where it does have purchase is in the nightmares of local Democrats, who are deeply afraid of the effect the third party might have here in November. As one of the seven presidential battleground states, Wisconsin is a critical brick in the so-called Blue Wall, the term for the run of Rust Belt states that are essential to Kamala Harris’ chances of winning the presidency. It’s a deeply divided state that’s become notorious for its razor-thin margins of victory — a place where statewide elections are so close that even tenths of a percentage point matter. Against that backdrop, the Green Party looms very large this year.
The election hasn’t even happened yet and they’re already blaming us for for a Harris loss. Naturally, though, they (Democrats) aren’t doing any introspection on their own record.
They’ve spent the last year arming a genocide that is killing children en masse, actively targeting civilians, and now making war against other countries and, as of today, attacking Irish military resources in Lebanon. They’ve made hundreds of billions, which we don’t have, appear out of thin air to produce more WMD’s and resources for wars abroad, money people here need to feed themselves and their families.
They’ve sat on their hands while tens of millions are forced to work 2-3 jobs to survive, and even that only covers the bare minimum needed to live in most areas of the country. Most people can’t even think of going to a doctor or obtaining higher education now, because both are cost-prohibitive.
They ran an evidently cognitively-impaired man for president and, when they couldn’t stage manage him on national tv, that man’s brain condition made itself painfully evident.
Instead of discussing their record (which they can’t) and their plans (which people don’t think they’ll actually put into place), they’ve used their two months of campaign time to repeat memes: “Weird” and “Joy”, but when you have to work 80 hours a week to live, memes ring hollow.
These and other reasons are why the Democrats are watching the polls even out now, and what will explain their loss if it happens, not Greens engaging in democracy.
TLDR: If you want progressive votes you cannot rule as conservatives.
Oh my god, how many times does it need to be said?
Shoot for the impossible and earn yourselves a dictatorship by splitting the vote and electing Trump. Be ready with the champagne if he wins because you’ll’ve been a big part of that and you should be proud.
Why do you think she was hobnobbing with Putin? The only question is whether she knows she’s being played for a fool here.
If you want to convince people who’re upset with the Democrats’ poor policy offerings to vote for them, you aren’t going to do it by shaming them into settling for less. It does not and will never work.
If the Democrats want to win, it is on them to offer an actually appealing platform. Blame them for failing at that.
That doesn’t matter in the US election system. You’re going to get Kamala or Trump, so pick the one that is more tolerable to you.
Being frank, the Green Party and Socialist Party do so little organizing when it’s not a presidential election year that it ought to be a joke among all leftists. They aren’t doing the outreach or work necessary to implement any of their grand promises made every four years, because they’re not getting local party members elected in downballot races. I’ve been on both party’s mailing lists for 22 years and in three different states and have almost never seen anything come of it. Well… besides fundraising emails every four years.
They aren’t doing the outreach or work necessary
Greens have to actually work to live, unlike Democrats and Republicans, who are backed by billionaires and dark money. That is why most of what they’ve achieved is at the local level.
That is why most of what they’ve achieved is at the local level.
the Green Party in my state is opposing a ranked-choice voting initiative because it’s not good enough for them and they want proportional representation–when they haven’t even run a non-presidential candidate in my state in at least the past four years despite liberal ballot access laws.
their best performing candidate in presidential history is a guy who thinks mom and pop capitalism is fine, and that the real issue with our country is “corporate capitalism” (“It’s corporate capitalism that I’m against. Not small business, Main Street, mom-and-pop capitalism. And the difference is far more than a difference in magnitude. It’s the difference in the quality of power.”). his theory of change is fundamentally progressive-liberal at best, but indistinguishable from what people like Elizabeth Warren believe.
there are more open socialists in just the New York state legislature right now (8, all caucusing together, will be 9 next year) than have been elected total above the local level for the Green Party (5). even accounting for party switching, this expands to just 9 people in history. this is not a party which is ever going to be a serious vehicle for left-wing organization, and i would argue it is genuinely detrimental to socialist and left-wing organizing to send people to organize with them. i would literally prefer people not electorally organize than organize with the Greens; they have thrown tens of millions of dollars down the drain for absolutely no benefit.
Most local candidates have to work to live, and making outlandish statements to these effects weaken a person’s rhetorical standing. From the article you posted:
While they have little infrastructure in the county, within the last decade, Madison has nevertheless elected 10 Green candidates to different sorts of local office, more than almost any other city of its size in the nation.
Across the country, the Green Party barely has a footprint. It has little money or political organization, no members of Congress or statewide officeholders and just a few local ones. Every four years, though, the Greens run a candidate for president
In fact, they’ve [the Greens] pursued the opposite tack — they’ve directed efforts toward close battleground states where the party is sure to get more attention.
The Green party could clean house in Maine where we’ve actually got Ranked Choice Voting and they could win seats, but we’re not a swing state and the greens don’t act like they’re interested. Neither does the Socialist party, or SocDems for that matter. But I do see their campaigning in battleground states, promising things out of their presidential candidates that are squarely the purview of congress, in which they’re clearly not interested in having representation.
Uhm, the Green Party’s primary donations are Home Depot and other Republican donors. Talk about billionaires and dark money.
Speaking of Green Party at the local level, I have only been able to find a very, very small handful of Green Party members who have been elected.
In fact, I can only see 3 since 2020.
Sorry, but why is the GOP donating huge amounts to Stein and helping keep her on the ballot if she isn’t running as a spoiler? Im sure theyre just concerned about democracy as they are in other parts of the country.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/republican-allies-jill-stein-green-party-democrats-ballots-battleground-states/
This being said, I wish the green party really was a viable option at the moment, but not with Stein in charge. Shes been helped by the GOP and Russia for a long time:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/20/jill-stein-green-party-no-regrets-2016-215281/
Sorry, but why is the GOP donating huge amounts to Stein and helping keep her on the ballot if she isn’t running as a spoiler?
That’s democracy in a country where money equals free speech, and Democrats, by doing nothing to change campaign finance laws, have demonstrated that they’re content to operate in a country where money equals speech.
Also, I don’t think that participation in a democracy deserves to be invalidated simply because it’s inconvenient for your side, especially when your side has held power twice in sixteen years and their policies have pushed voters away.
I gave several examples of how Democratic governance has been actively harmful in the US and throughout the world.
They had the power to do better, so it’s a tad silly that they feel entitled to the votes that may go Green in November.
Given that there’s only two sides in the US, you are admitting that you are solidly on Trump’s side
They’ve sat on their hands while tens of millions are forced to work 2-3 jobs to survive, and even that only covers the bare minimum needed to live in most areas of the country. Most people can’t even think of going to a doctor or obtaining higher education now, because both are cost-prohibitive.
We both can look out on society and agree that the way things are can and should be better, but I find it funny that you’re ostensibly arguing for progressive policy reform using logic that parallels the logic used by proponents of school choice. Stay with me, and I’ll explain how.
I think we can both agree that in order for schools to function and be effective, they need some level of financial support to operate. It’s no secret that for decades, financial support for education has been slashed across the board.
Proponents of school choice typically argue that if public schools will not or cannot perform at satisfactory levels, the students should be able to go to another school, and some level of pro rata funding should follow them to that new school. This effectively punishes schools that have been long-underfunded with financial support, which plays a factor in that under-performing, and then takes away even more financial support.
Assuming you’re familiar with the procedural aspects of how governing works, you understand that to enact legislation and policies you’re in favor of takes a threshold level of support to accomplish that. Because of gerrymandering, antiquated frameworks for distribution representation, and the the Electoral College, Democrats have hardly been in a position to enact progressive legislation that isn’t obstructed by a president, one of the legislative chambers — or even once it is passed, that isn’t overturned by a Supreme Court detached from precedent and reason.
In both cases, the support necessary to operate a sufficiently resourced school, or to get a piece of legislation across the finish line, is clearly lacking. The solution to that problem is more support, not less. Schools need more financial support to reach their goals, and Democrats need more support in Congress to pass legislation. The position you’re defending right now is now is effectively expecting schools/Democrats to do more with less.
