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Dems and Greens don’t live in a parliamentary political system. But are we smart enough to act, as President Trump did, as if we did?
This came in from the Green Party (I think intended for publication here), so those of you who want to see and possibly communicate with Dr. Jill Stein, you’re about to have your opportunity:
Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for President in 2012 and 2016, will visit us at Heritage Park in Irvine:
14301 Yale Ave, Irvine, CA 92604-1901
Tuesday, March 14 at 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM PDT
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1812660018985335/
This is part of an eight-day speaking tour of California that she will be making from March 8th to 15th. [See link above]
She will be accompanied by David Cobb, her campaign manager, and Green candidate in his own right in 2004.
Admission is free. Bring a snack or beverage to share as a potluck item.
I won’t be going due to work and family demands, but I stand by my previously expressed opinion that ANY time one Californian spent arguing with another Californian about who they should support in the general election was so completely wasted as to reach the point of being self-indulgent. There was no way, at all, that Hillary Clinton was going to lose by fewer than two million votes. (Obama twice won by over three million.) So a million people could have cast protest votes for Stein shaken up the political system as they wished, and Hillary would have still been expected to win the state by two million votes — or, as the case would have been, 3.2 million votes (about the same as Obama did.)
If I had anything to say to Stein, it would be to encourage her NOT to run in swing states. Sadly, and what Democrats seem not to understand, is that it might not have made a difference: the huge numbers of write-in votes for Bernie Sanders — cast AGAINST HIS EXPLICITLY STATED WILL! — suggests that many non-Trump voters from the Left were not willing to vote for Hillary EVEN in swing states. (Personally, I would have voted for Hillary in a swing state without regret, despite that we’d now be in a purge of Dems like me from the party right now had she won. By that I mean a more effective one that we’re seeing now. But I’d have wanted to see us Dems make some concessions to Stein as the intelligent price to pay for getting people to do that. Apparently, other Dems simply think we’re DUE such support, which is not particularly perspicacious.) (N.b.: haters, you’re at a computer! Ask Google to define it.)
Without Jill Stein on the ballot, more people would have voted for Gloria La Riva (the national second-tier candidate who was to the left of her AND of Bernie Sanders); or they’d have found another protest candidate to support; written in Bernie Sanders against his pleas; not voted at all; — or even (without the benefit of hindsight) voted for Trump based on his trade policies, supposed opposition to intervention, and opposition to the CIA.
But it could be that enough swing state voters truly WERE equivocating between Stein and Hillary that they would have changed the result. I’m not at all convinced of that, though: most Democrats seem to have absolutely failed to come to grips with how much Hillary alienated much of the Left, especially the Left only grudgingly interested in electoral politics.
If I were to speak to Stein, it would not be to try to shout her down — as I expect various Democrats in attendance will be inclined to do. (And, if they succeeded in making such a speech impossible, I hope that Dean Erwin Chemerinsky would be among the first to demand their arrest based on the opposition to the “heckler’s veto” that he championed in the case of the UCI students who protested the Israeli Ambassador years back.) I would want to say that I think that it is in HER self-interest to stay out of swing states — ideally as part of some agreement with Democrats that we will stay out of enough semi-safe red seats that the Green Party could concentrate on electing someone to Congress.
In our country, we DON’T have the sort of parliamentary system that would bring Greens into a government coalition — but I think that it makes sense to start acting as if we were. (Arguably, this is what Donald Trump did in deciding that he could bring right-wing extremists like Steven Bannon into his fold — and that his more Establishment Republican followers would have to suck it up if they wanted Justice Neil Gorsuch and huge tax breaks for the 1%.) If we WERE in such a system, it is virtually certain that the Democratic Party and the Green Party would be seeking to become coalition partners in order to form a government — something that would ratchet down some of the tension that you now see between the Democratic Party and the non-Democratic Left. If we’d do so there, why not do so here?
If, like me, you think that that factional tension is hobbling us, then you see the Greens as a group with whom we need some rapprochement. If you think that instead that we need to destroy them and alienate those attracted to their message — then you may be making yourself feel warm all over by coming out to trash Stein — but you don’t know much about actual voter behavior, and you don’t care whether you’re making things worse. That’s not real grown-up!
We’ll see what happens this week. As usual, expect the worst!
Wow, I’m the first Green to reply.
Well, it was pretty disappointing from your perspective, I think. No Dems showed up to harass her. It was a nice love fest among Greens last night.
As for the swing state thing, this reaches back to ancient feuds among Greens that have never quite healed. You remember David Cobb, mentioned in the notice? In 2004 he published a “strategic states” plan which simply recognized that a Green candidate was more likely to get more votes in certain states (like, for instance, “safe” ones), and that a campaign trying to reach 5% overall to qualify for federal matching funds should concentrate its campaign on those states.
A large part of the party interpreted this as a “safe states” capitulation to the Dems. He ended up with little support from the party after his nomination. It was when Nader decided to run as an independent, rather than a Green, and half the party wanted to simply endorse Nader. Big brouhaha over nothing.
Anyway, I think as Jill’s campaign manager he still liked that strategy when in doubt.
I’m not at all disappointed that she wasn’t harassed. Surprised a bit, yes, given the amount of crap that I have to deal with by being “soft on Stein,” or however my party’s right flank would put it. But I’m also not surprised, I guess, that Stein critics within my party didn’t go beyond their “safe spaces.”
As I mention in the story, I think that Dems and Greens have to start acting as if we are ALREADY in a coalition. And yes, that sometimes does mean dividing up turf – the way that adjacent parties sometimes do in a parliamentary system. I put the onus on both of us to do so.
One of my main problems with the Green Party is that if it ever DID become sufficiently successful in elections, it would either be coopted by the same interests that I face as a Dem or would withdraw into its shell so as to remain small enough for those who truly hew to its platform to control.
Sorry Greg, were you accidentally invited to attend?
No, not at all. So far as I can tell I was intentionally invited to attend.
The wonder of the Greens is that with a majority of the population endorsing green ideas for lo these 30 years, they can’t beat the Libertaryans- a party that doesn’t campaign! The greens have to look at their own monumental failings- dillytantish image, awarding elections to Republicans, and their continued Birkenstock brand of self righteousness. I humor the humorless, many of my college friends are greens. They are so deeply flawed I cannot abandon them. Have a nice day, Mudge and Matt!