Our first order of business is to support what politicians we believe
will provide our nation the best leadership.
Before voting, set down and write out your positions on the major
issues facing us today. Then take a look at the platforms proposed by
the political parties entering candidates. Vote for the Party that
comes closest to meeting your needs.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/25/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
An Open Letter to the Green Party for 2020
Green Party leader Howie Hawkins.
Green Party leader Howie Hawkins. (YouTube screenshot)
As the 2020 presidential election approaches the Green Party faces the
challenge of settling on a platform, choosing a candidate for president,
and
deciding its campaign strategy. In that context, Howie Hawkins, a contender
for Green Party presidential candidate, recently published a clear and
cogent essay titled "The Green Party Is Not the Democrats' Problem." It
represents a precedent Green Party stance which may guide Green campaign
policy. We agree with much, but find some ideas very troubling.
The stance offered in Hawkins' article says "the assertion that the Green
Party spoiled the 2000 and 2016 elections is a shallow explanation for the
Democrats' losses;" that in 2000, "the Supreme Court.stopped the Florida
recount;" that many factors "elected Trump in 2016.including black voter
suppression, Comey publicly reopening the Clinton email case a week before
the election, $6 billion of free publicity for Trump from the commercial
media, and a Clinton campaign that failed to get enough of its Democratic
base out;" that the Electoral College "gave the presidency to the loser of
the popular vote;" that most Greens are "furious" at a Democratic party
"that joins with Republicans to support domestic austerity and a bloated
military budget and endless wars;" "that the Green Party's Green New Deal
science-based timeline, would put the country on a World War II scale
emergency footing to transform the economy to zero greenhouse gas emissions
and 100% clean energy by 2030;" and that "the Green Party want(s) to
eliminate poverty and radically reduce inequality" including a job
guarantee, a guaranteed income above poverty, affordable housing, improved
Medicare for all, lifelong public education from pre-K through college, and
a secure retirement;" and finally that the Green Party strategy "is to
build
the party from the bottom up by electing thousands to municipal and county
offices, state legislatures, and soon the House as we go into the 2020s."
We agree that many factors led to Democratic Party losses and that the
Supreme Court was a big one as was the Electoral College, and we too are
furious at Democrats joining Republicans in so many violations of justice
and peace. Likewise, we admire the Greens' Green New Deal and economic
justice commitments, and also support a grassroots, local office approach
to
winning electoral gains.
So with all that agreement, why are we sending a critical open letter?
The stance the article presents, which may guide the Green campaign for
president, says, "To hold all other factors (contributing to recent
Presidential victories) constant and focus on the Green Party as the
deciding factor is a hypothetical that is a logical fallacy because it
assumes away a factual reality: the Green Party is here to stay." However,
our finding Green policy a factor in Republican victories in no way
suggests
that the Green Party should disappear. And our focus on factors within our
reach to easily correct (for example, the Green Party role in contested
states) is in fact sensible.
The stance also says "the Green Party is not why the Democrats lost to Bush
and Trump," but even if true, that wouldn't demonstrate it won't be why
this
time. In any case, let's take Trump and Clinton, and see how Green Party
policy mattered.
If Clinton got Jill Stein's Green votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and
Michigan, Clinton would have won the election. Thus, the Green Party's
decision to run in those states, saying even that there was little or no
difference between Trump and Clinton, seems to us to be a factor worthy of
being removed from contested state dynamics, just like the Electoral
College
is a factor worthy of being removed across all states.
We realize many and perhaps most Greens will respond that if those who
voted
for Stein in contested states in 2016 hadn't done so, they would have
abstained. We don't know how anyone could know that, but for the sake of
argument we will suppose it is correct.
Still, if these voters who preferred Stein did indeed erroneously believe
that there was no difference between Trump and Clinton, surely to some
degree that was a result of Stein refusing to acknowledge the special
danger
of Trump, and insisting that while it would be bad if Trump won it would
also be bad if Clinton won, and refusing to state any preference.
Similarly, if these Stein voters did indeed erroneously believe that no
harm
could come from casting a vote for Stein in a close state in a close
election, that also to some degree was surely a result of Green campaigning
insisting that Green voters bore no responsibility for the 2000 election
result.
And finally, if these voters did indeed erroneously believe that it was
immoral to contaminate themselves by voting for Clinton or for a Democrat,
surely in part that too was encouraged by Green campaigning that treated
voting as a feel-good activity ("vote your hopes, not your fears") as if
fear of climate disaster, for example, shouldn't be a motivator for
political action.
The stance says, "The Green Party is not going back to the 'safe states
strategy' that a faction of it attempted in 2004." This means they will not
forgo running in contested states where Green votes could swing the outcome
as happened in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan in 2016, and they will
not run in only 40 safe states where the outcome will be a foregone
conclusion.
But why reject a safe states strategy?
Like Stein in 2016, some might claim doing so can't help Trump win again
or,
in any case, that Trump's re-election would not matter all that much. "He
isn't that much worse."
We write in hopes that no one in 2020 will rationalize campaign actions by
making such irresponsible and patently false claims.
And, indeed, in his recent essay, Hawkins instead claimed a safe states
strategy "couldn't even be carried out. It alienated Greens in swing states
who were working so hard to overcome onerous petitioning requirements to
get
the party on the ballot. Keeping the party on the ballot for the next
election cycle for their local candidates depended on the Green
presidential
vote in many states. It became clear that safe states was dispiriting and
demoralizing because the party didn't take itself seriously enough to
justify its existence independent of the Democrats. Few people, even in the
safe states, wanted to waste their vote for a Green ticket that was more
concerned with electing the Democratic ticket than advancing its own
demands."
This claims there is a price the Green Party has to pay for a safe states
strategy. Okay, let's take that as gospel. Where is an argument that this
price is so great that avoiding it outweighs the price everyone, including
Greens, will pay for re-electing Trump?
We have no way to assess the claim that Greens would find it dispiriting to
remove themselves as a factor that might abet global catastrophe via a
Trump
re-election. But wouldn't Trump out of office much less Sanders or Warren
in
office not only benefit all humanity and a good part of the biosphere to
boot, but also the Green Party? For that matter, weren't more potential
Green Party members and voters driven off by the party's dismissal of the
dangers of Trump than were inspired by it? Which grew more in the last four
years, DSA or the Greens?
And weren't the Greens in the late '80s and early '90s winning elections to
city councils and other local offices across the country, consistent with a
grass roots strategy, though for much of the past 20 years, they've largely
abandoned local and state contests, devoting nearly all their attention to
increasingly harmful races for president? Hawkins' own exemplary races for
Senate and Governor in New York state, and especially the Greens'
successful
mayoral races in politically important places like Richmond, CA, as well as
less visible ones like New Paltz, NY, were exceptions, but how many Greens
have used their hard-won ballot access to run for Congress or state
legislature? Might the massive focus on presidential elections mark a
decline in prospects for the localist strategy, not an advance for it?
We are told, "Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody" but how can
that be if Greens would vote for a Green candidate, and not for Sanders,
Warren, or any Democrat in a contested state knowing that doing so could
mean Trump's victory?
If during the 2020 election campaign, the Green candidate campaigns in
contested states knowing that he or she might be winning votes that would
otherwise have gone to Sanders or to Warren or whoever, causing Trump to
win
the state and win the electoral college, how could that possibly evidence
wanting Trump to lose as much as anyone?
Indeed, if a Green candidate weren't telling everyone who was a potential
Green voter to vote for Trump's opponent in contested states, how could
that
evidence that Greens want Trump to lose as much as anyone?
Let us put our question another way. It is election night 2020. The vote
tallies are in. Which way would the 2020 Green candidate feel better? Trump
wins and the Green candidate gets 250,000 votes across the contested
states,
more than enough for Sanders, Warren, or whoever to have won? Or, Trump
loses and the Green candidate gets no votes in the contested states, but a
bunch extra in other states as a result of having more time for campaigning
there?
Greens tell Democrats "to stop worrying about the Green Party and focus on
getting your own base out." We agree on the importance of Democrats getting
their base out, starting with nominating Sanders, or, at worst, Warren. But
how does that warrant the Green Party risking contributing to Trump
winning?
The stance asks, "So why are we running a presidential ticket in 2020 if
our
strategy is to build the party from the bottom up?" The stance answers,
"Because Greens need ballot lines to run local candidates. Securing ballot
lines for the next election cycle is affected by the petition signatures
and/or votes for our presidential ticket in 40 of the states."
Greens will pay a price for not running in contested states. Our advice to
Greens would be to notice the infinitely bigger price that millions and
even
billions of people will pay for Trump winning.
The stance says "Greens don't spoil elections. We improve them. We advance
solutions that otherwise won't get raised. We are running out of time on
the
climate crisis, inequality, and nuclear weapons. Greens will be damned if
we
wait for the Democrats. Real solutions can't wait."
But real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will become
far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. Real solutions will
become somewhat more probable even with the likes of Biden in office.
To conclude, is a Green candidate running for President after the summer
really going to argue we shouldn't vote for Sanders in contested states not
just to end Trumpism but also to enact all kinds of important changes
including urging and facilitating grass roots activism and thereby
advancing
Green program?
We offer this open letter in hopes of prodding discussion of the issues
raised.
