They are just attention who trolls that want Republicans to win.

But as to Cornell West, I think his tax evasion issues have likely sunk his attempt at a campaign

Including in the close states that affected the electoral college. People always ignore that for some reason. Somehow, all the Green votes would've gone Democratic, but the same portion of Libertarian votes wouldn't have gone Republican? I think that's the claim.

I mean, I know the reason for this willful disregard of mathematical reality - scapegoating the Left for every problem that ever happens is very narrative friendly in some quarters.

Looking inward is difficult and forbidden.

...our votes are shaved by the left leaning parties.

And again, there is an assumption that anyone who voted Green would've voted Democratic had they not been on the ballot.

That's an assertion and assumption without evidence. It's a claim snatched from the air. It's an arrogant proprietary feeling that any vote for a Green was one that belonged to our party, and that it was somehow misplaced or stolen away.

If someone's in a battleground state, and they still vote third party, that means they really, really, really don't like the options they're given. It's very much a protest. This idea they'd all run to you if only Greens didn't exist is very magical thinking.

But it's thinking with an agenda. So I get it.

If the "Greens", who we both agree, are to the left on the political spectrum, spent their resources and energy trying to get their priorities in the Democratic platform and run a candidate in the Dem. primaries, they could attempt to get their agenda before a sympathetic audience. After the primaries, they should marshal their recourses to get as many people who agree with them to support the Democratic candidate for President, as well as down ballot candidates.

If they did this for the past 25 years, we definitely would have had a President Gore and most likely have had a President Clinton. That would have advanced every cause they claim to champion, and everyone in the world would have been better off than they are now.

By "multiplier affect", I mean rather than give cover for those who consider the election a "lesser of 2 evils", they explain to their supporters the benefits of a half step forward versus a full step backwards. Rather than spending time, energy and money subtracting votes, they could use those efforts to add votes to the candidate they most agree with.

Last edited Sun Aug 6, 2023, 01:32 AM - Edit history (1)

I wasn't hanging out at DU in 2016, but in the places where I was hanging out, I heard an awful lot of people claim they were voting for Jill Stein because they didn't like Trump but didn't think Hillary was good enough, either. I was amazed at the the time that so many people who claimed to despise Trump couldn't seem to grasp that the only way to keep him out of the White House was to put Hillary in.

Of course, there is no way to know who, if anyone, those people actually voted for, but there was an awful lot of that kind of talk, and that sort of thing tends to stick in people's minds, rightly or wrongly.

I have no idea how the actual numbers turned out, but if nothing else, Stein's name being on the ballot gave the Hillary haters the illusion of another option, and, imo, made it easier for them to avoid grappling with the reality that either Trump was going to be elected or Hillary was. The whole thing drove me crazy at the time and still does if I think about it too much!

Roughly 2% of the people who voted in 2016 left the presidential line blank.

They flat out refused to cast a vote for anyone for that office while still voting in other races.

Did Jill Stein play a role? Of course. Her campaign probably swayed some votes. It would be silly to say she had zero effect. However, I think she's given a very out-sized role in what happened, and I think it's done so because it's the most desirable of scapegoats. The people who go on and on (and on) about her are usually the ones who never want to discuss that perhaps some poor decisions were made in 2016 that perhaps were not so great.

I mean, it's done. It's a tiresome topic to me. It just feels like deflection. "Look over there so you don't look in my direction when it comes to bad, election-costing choices." The objective data and reality reflect very clearly that there were all kinds of problems in that whole mess.

But since we can't discuss those (because self-criticism isn't a thing), we discuss Stein.

She sucks. But she ain't all of it by a very long way.

of the Comey Letter in the election.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

...but Stein and Sarandon still make the list.

I bet that motivated some Trump-leaning independents.

the comment by Hillary was 100% correct.

But, in a close campaign, why poke the bear?

… because they’re not “your” votes. Assuming they should be voting for Democratic candidates is likely a big part of the problem (where the “problem” is failing to actualize a platform that engenders broader support).

A bunch of my friends, including me, were for Bernie Sanders.

Some of us were Democrats, and some were either Greens or unaffiliated.

Bernie was able to attract people outside the party to vote for him.

When Bernie lost to Hillary, although disappointed, the Dems among us voted for Hillary. The others gravitated to Jill Stein.

At the time, it was rumored, but not clearly established that Stein was backed by Putin.

I think a lot of people didn't realize just how bad it would be under Trump and that even if you hated her, no matter how you look at it, clearly Hillary was the better choice.

Do they blame themselves for Trump? Certainly not. Right or wrong, they blame the whole political system for not giving them better choices.

This small group of ultra-lefties are there every election not giving their votes to Dems. There was nothing new about this.

...because too many voters don't understand a "binary choice."

An old quote is "all it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men (and women) to do nothing".

I contend that not voting or wasting a vote by casting it for a person who has no reasonable chance of winning, in our current political system, is equivalent to doing nothing. The ironic part is that the people who chose not to vote for Hillary lost the most under Trump.

I think people don't like the idea of binary choice.

People want their vote to be an expression of their personal politics.

In 2015, people told me flat out that they would never vote for Hillary and that Bernie was the only acceptable choice.

The implication was that Hillary was too well connected to the establishment and the oligarchs who run the world.

And so, because some people so decreed their choice of never-Hillary, they'd vote for neither Hillary nor Trump.

The winner of virtually every partisan race will be either the Democratic candidate or the Republican one. If you are on the Left, if you don't vote for the Democratic candidate in the general election, you are only helping the Republican one. Here in Wisconsin in 2016, Jill Stein received more votes than Trump's margin of victory and those votes overwhelmingly came from the Left.
I'm not whining or complaining, just stating a fact.

It's not a question of philosophy, it's about math.

49 of the 51 contests (50 states and D.C.) are winner take all individual state elections. If Trump is the candidate, nearly every extra party candidate, from the political left or right, helps Trump. Hypothetically, if Liz Cheney, a 95% Conservative ran, her candidacy would help Trump. Same with Chris Christi or Mike Pence. Only a DeSantis 3rd party run would help the Democrats.

Contrast that with Greens, who basically believe in everything Democrats do, they just take it to the furthest extreme to the point that they become unelectable even in super liberal areas.

I went point-by-point of what Greens believed in vs. what Democrats believed in during one of the recent elections and the only difference was the Democrats believed in using nuclear power and Greens did not. And even that could be considered a difference in nuance vs. actual ideology since the underlying principle is being pro-environment and moving away from fossil fuels.

Contrast that with Republicans vs. Libertarians, where Libertarians were fully in favor of abortion up until very recently (now their stance has been muddied as more ex-Republicans infiltrate their ranks and try to co-opt their party, I'm not sure where they stand on the issue now and I'm not sure they do either).

Glad to educate you on this issue!

But one always appreciates a non-sequitur.

You falsely equated Greens playing spoiler for Democrats to Libertarians playing spoiler for Republicans, and I pointed out to you why that rationale is completely wrong.

Greens pretty much believe everything that Democrats do; the only difference is in extremes.

Libertarians do NOT believe in everything that Republicans do and have a completely different ideology. Sometimes it overlaps with Republicans (anti-taxes, anti-regulation), but sometimes it overlaps with Democrats (pro-choice with the caveat I mentioned in my previous message, pro-same-sex marriage as long as government is in the business of issuing marriage licenses, pro-marijuana legalization/decriminalization, anti-death penalty, etc.).

As it stands, Libertarians make sense as a third party because they actually believe in a variety of ideas not currently represented by any one of the two major political parties.

Contrast that with the Green Party, whose views are damn near a Venn diagram with Democratic views on the same subjects, with the only difference in being they often propose unviable solutions that are politically radioactive, which is why they have failed so much when it comes to achieving actual political representation and their claim to fame is screwing over the party that almost completely aligns with them politically in favor of throwing major elections to the party that is completely against everything they stand for, with their one shared belief being their hatred for Democrats.

I meant I disagree with your characterization of Libertarians, and thus find an assertion of "educating" about them irrelevant to the subject at hand. I wasn't being educated, rather I was being led toward a dead end and waved it away before even getting on the road. But since we're here now . . .

Libertarians are generally conservatives who like pot and are pro-choice. But at the end of the day, they are very much not Democrats.

Given binary choices - which is what is actually being discussed - would put Libertarians far more in the Republican column and Greens far more in the Democratic column.

If we are forcing them to make a binary choice at gun point.

But we're not. People seem to think that should be the case. But people are weird, so. Meh. I cannot account for "The way the world should work" assertions that have no solidity in the real world where actual humans live.

Less swatting at rhetorical cobwebs that way, in my experience.

Not to mention pretty comical to try to hand wave away one of the main reasons a large swath of Republicans are actually Republicans (i.e., abortion).

And given binary choices, Greens/Libertarians would both be in the Democratic column if the issue was abortion.

Greens/Libertarians would both be in the Democratic column if the issue was the death penalty.

Greens/Libertarians would both be in the Democratic column if the issue was legalization/decriminalization of marijuana.

Greens/Libertarians would both be in the Democratic column if the issue was same-sex marriage.

In what issue would Greens be in the Republican column, outside of hating Democrats?

Yeah, so, no, it isn't so clean cut and Libertarians actually have a separate identifiable ideology that does not neatly align with Democrats or Republicans. They make sense as a third party because neither of the major parties are completely for what they are for. Contrast that with the Greens, who pretty much believe exactly what Democrats believe in and instead just differ on the lengths that should be taken to achieve those same principles.

So, when people bring up the idiocy of Greens and how they have absolutely sabotaged their own self-proclaimed beliefs over the past few decades by playing spoiler AGAINST Democrats and FOR Republicans, and they don't bring up Libertarians doing the same for Republicans, this is why.

Just like not all Green party members are liberals.

You do know that...right?

A substantial bloc of those who vote Liberturdian crowd are simply ornery cusses who vote that way to "send a message" that they don't like the two big parties. They don't care about issue, only about sticking it to "The Man."

A shocking percentage vote Liberturdian for one reason only: Because the Liberturdians often support legalizing marijuana. These voters also don't care about the party's longtime support for laissez-faire economics, or their isolationist foreign policy. They want legal pot.

That's it.

It's the rare person who votes that way because they actually buy the Liberturdian nonsense. The people who do buy it already have a party that has enough power to make a go of making those economic and foreign policies real, and the letter next to their names on a ballot is (R).

You do know that, right?

And, in my experience in this space, a lot of people don't know what Libertarians "are like". It's usually just made up, "I want to think of them this way, so I characterize them this way." It's funny, because I usually just see "Libertarians are all secretly right-wingers!" and suddenly in this case - because it's helpful for the argument to not be true - I see people who have made that assertion in the past suddenly going full reverse on it.

Which is very amusing. I are amoosed.

Reducing Libertarians to pot-smokers is little different than right-wingers who try to reduce our side to socialism. It betrays a lack of depth or serious thinking or exploration of who people are and what they believe in. There are stereotypes on any side, but that's generally not the bulk of people.

If you don't know any actual Libertarians - and I do - well, that's nice. A lot of them take their shit seriously. And they're sometimes interesting folk. I'm a civil libertarian liberal. Like old school ACLU before it got . . . weird. So sometimes I find things in common with them. Particularly on speech and expression issues that our side has grown hostile to in recent years.

Stepping outside the bubble is good. There are a lot of people who are concerned about the authoritarian turns being made in various quarters and seek different options. I'm not with them outside of a few issues - I'm a reliable Democratic vote - but I get it and see it and know quite a few people who make those choices.

Reducing them to, "They're just pot-smokers!" isn't useful.

The burnt fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back towards the fire” Kipling- The Gods of the Copybook headings.

Red Ken's favourite

...to a Parliamentary System and the shit show in the US that we claim is a Democracy.

A party with similar beliefs can add their seats to a likeminded party and form a coalition and government in a Parliamentary system.

Here, in a winner take all, electoral college apartheid system, a likeminded party takes votes away from the party of a potential ally and helps hand the government to their opponents.

I have lived under 3 different political systems (UK, US, Sweden).

I am very well aware (one of my uni degrees is from a political science/international relations hybrid programme) of the differences and of course the spoiler effects of 3rd parties in the non proportional representation, single member district, first-past-the-post majoritarian American system. The US system auto-defaults to 2 main parties (see Duverger's law) because its basic constructs.

The two parties, whilst very divergent in their two main overall ideological superstructures, are also internally (far more the Dems than the Rethugs at this point) fairly heterogeneous. You see that Democratic Party heterogeneity play out every day here on DU, and of course in the real world of legislative power.




https://archive.org/details/politicalparties0000duve

…of our current problems thru different lenses, depending on their cultures and experiences.

He will only succeed in taking valuable votes away from the Democratic Party. Surely he must be from another planet if he thinks he could do any better than Biden in this atmosphere where the country finds itself up against the MAGA Party. Robert (the fraud) Kennedy, Marianne Williamson and Cornell West should go and get some political experience before striving to take on the presidency. We all know what happened the last time someone with no experience became president.

Obama bashing. It is unlikely West will pull many Black voters away from President Biden. He certainly won't get this vote.

Getting
Republicans
Elected
Every
November

What's she done lately except spend the leftover campaign money? James Carville has her number. She's a russian troll.


https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/07/18/james_carville_jill_stein_cornel_wests_campaign_manager_is_almost_certainly_a_russian_agent.html

it has to start from the ground up and start campaigning in local elections and build a base.

Modern third parties fail because they always try to grab the brass ring, and don't bother getting on the ride that will get them to it.

No group has done more to harm their own cause than the Green Party USA

As it turns out, no organization has done more to harm the environment, world peace and Democracy than the Green Party in America.

there is no political pundit who does not believe Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the Presidency. that single event set environmental issues back decades.

In my OP, I cited in numerous places "unintended consequences". World political history is replete with examples. None more glaring than the 1932 election in Germany.

They come from non-Democrats. Independents.

If someone feels strongly enough that they don't want to vote for one of the major parties, they won't. This remains true regardless of whether an alternative (such as the Green party) exists on the ballot. If that party didn't exist, chances are much greater that they'd leave the choice blank.

For the zillionth time, nobody in this country owes their vote to anybody.

But go ahead and stir shit up again... and pardon me while I add you to my very short "ignore" list.

My OP got 28 recs. I'll take 28 to 1 all day long.

You see, unlike the supporters of the Green Party, I really can do math.

If you don't think that Nader's 80,000 votes in Florida in 2000 wasn't a net of at least 600 votes for Gore, you really aren't paying attention.

I agree with you that Green Party voters are not ours to command.

I disagree with you about the nature of the OP. There's nothing offensive here.

I think Jill Stein destroyed the Green Party's virtuous reputation and intentions.

I think she started with good intentions, but was a fool, and desperately tried and failed to prove she wasn't one.

About that picture of her at the table with Putin, I find her explanation to be vague.

It's likely that Putin and the RT network had her there to manipulate her, but only one other person spoke English at the table.

we would not be in the situation we are in now. And many of the issues the Greens care about would likely have happened. That is the point of this OP.

Multiple parties make sense in a Parliamentary system, which we do not have

thank you

to shave off independent votes from Democrats. That's a damn fact.
Trolling for low information voters is what they do. Republicans invariably
are lock-step types that vote for the Republican candidate. Hence
the "Green" party only as green as its under the table contributions from
righties.

...agitation with no viable legislative vehicle.

There are several non-Republican (overtly, anyway) candidates since 2000 whose actions have been favorable to the Republican presidential candidate, and among these, I would include several who supposedly were not running for the Republican nomination.

Declaration of Independence, but if the line is left in, the South would not agree to a new nation at all. So Benjamin Franklin in his wisdom, advises Jefferson to strike the line out because they needed a new nation first. Ending slavery would have to come later. As the Rolling Stones used to say, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need."

The Green Party would be similar to Jefferson putting in a line to end slavery and not getting a new nation at all. It defeats the entire purpose of what you are trying to accomplish.

..."them's the facts".