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.
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.
they have thrown tens of millions of dollars down the drain for absolutely no benefit.
As opposed the tens of trillions thrown down the drain by Democrats, conservatively speaking. The Iraq War alone, which Democrats supported almost 100%, estimated to have cost upwards of 20 trillion dollars. The Democrats’ response to the trillions lost in the Great Recession was to ensure that the rich lost nothing and were never imprisoned for their crimes. The workers, meanwhile, had to take to the bread lines.
I think if you look at Democrats’ governance objectively, it’s easy to see why Socialists and Democratic Socialists are hostile to them, as Democrats fight harder against democracy than they do to enact progressive policies. It also becomes clear why so many Americans don’t bother to vote at all, as they get the same results no matter who is elected.
It doesn’t change the fact that in 2016, Democrats lost due to their own choices as elected stewards of this country, and that will be the reason they lose in 2024 if they aren’t elected.
As opposed the tens of trillions thrown down the drain by Democrats, conservatively speaking.
we’re not talking about the Democratic Party here. we’re talking about whether the Greens are a vehicle for electoral success, and even a basic evaluation of the facts is that no, they aren’t. they lose 99.8% of their races above the local level–none of their ostensible local success, which itself is fleeting, translates above the local level.
again: there are more elected socialists in New York’s legislature currently–who caucus together on a shared radical platform–than there are Green Party candidates who were elected to a legislature total in the party’s now 30ish years of existence. those eight socialists got the Build Public Renewables Act enacted into law (which “will require the state’s public power provider to generate all of its electricity from clean energy by 2030. It also allows the public utility to build and own renewables while phasing out fossil fuels.”) and they’ve pushed for things ranging from the the Clean Futures Act that would “prohibit the development of any new major electric generating facilities that would be powered in whole or in part by any fossil fuel” to the All-Electric Building Act that would prevent “infrastructure, building systems, or equipment used for the combustion of fossil fuels in new construction statewide”. what do the Greens do that come anywhere close to this? where is their equivalent of the BPRA being signed into law?
retroactively correcting myself here: the All-Electric Building Act is actually another thing NYC-DSA won and i just didn’t realize it. it’s pared down from our demand, which was “the state energy conservation construction code shall prohibit infrastructure, building systems, or equipment used for the combustion of fossil fuels in new construction statewide no later than December 31, 2023 if the building is less than seven stories and July 1, 2027 if the building is seven stories or more.”, but the actual law ensures the core of the demand is adhered to: going forward most NY buildings will be all-electric.
We are talking about the Democratic Party here.
As I stated in my initial post above, there are myriad reasons why Democrats are resorting to a meme campaign instead of discussing the actual things they’ve done (and chosen not to do) with the power that we gave them in 2020. They can’t. Republicans don’t have to lie about Democrats’ governance,.
The Green Party is not the reason they are failing. They are failing because of their own broken promises. Workers can’t subsist on memes.
We are talking about the Democratic Party here.
i’m noticing that you’re refusing to engage with the points i’m making describing all the ways in which the Green Party–in contravention of your assertion that they “have to actually work to live”–fails to be a vessel for any sort of serious political action, electoral success, or winning radical demands that would help avert the worst effects of climate change.
anyways, did you know that one of those socialists in office i’m talking about in New York–Jabari Brisport, a guy i know pretty well and who really walks the walk (devout environmentalist and vegan)–ran as a Green Party candidate in 2017 with the backing of New York City Democratic Socialists of America? because he lost 70-30 when he did that (that was a “respectable performance” for a Green Party candidate) and the Greens reaped exactly nothing from him running besides a “moral victory” that they haven’t improved on or built off of since.
and strangely, when we ran Jabari again as a Democrat in 2020, he actually won. and because he won, he’s a big reason we got the Build Public Renewables Act passed–and a reason why bills such as the Clean Futures Act and the All-Electric Building Act get introduced and debated at all (because he helps introduce them and fight for them on behalf of the chapter). thanks to him, there are now material, working class victories that socialists can point to for why people should elect us over moderate Democrats who don’t care about any of this. if he just kept running as a Green, we probably wouldn’t have been able to do any of that. running as a Green was a quixotic strategy that accomplished nothing for the working class, and he’d be the first to admit that.
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.
The Democrats could, as a party, elect not to rule as conservatives too, but they never seem to do so. They’ve had the power several times over the last 16 years to make life better for the working class and the poor, and they seem to always elect to protect and promote the lives of the billionaire class.
They make promises they have no intention of fulfilling and people suffer. Then they repeat those promises every four years, but eventually, they turn to excuses, and the Green Party is a convenient one.
You can’t blame the Green Party when Dems shoot themselves in the foot. The number of people who vote Green is far outweighed by the number of people the Democrats have convinced, by the way they choose to wield power, that voting is a pointless exercise.
They’ve had the power several times over the last 16 years to make life better for the working class and the poor, and they seem to always elect to protect and promote the lives of the billionaire class.
Someone took the time to politely correct this misconception a few days ago, their reply from then is pasted below:
In the past you have stated that the Democrats had control of Congress and the presidency under Biden and Obama, yet they were unable to do things like get a public option in the ACA or codify roe v Wade. However this continues to be a misunderstanding of the situation.
While I can agree I am disappointed in the inability to get these things done, and Obama saying it was no longer a priority, I don’t see how you can pin this all on the Democrats as some kind of monolithic entity.
The fact of the matter is during Obama’s terms, there were anti abortion Democrats. These Democrats were enough to keep abortion access out of the ACA and prevent roe being codified.
Fast forward to Bidens terms, and we now have a filibuster rule that requires 60 senators in order to pass stuff in the Senate. There were not 60 senators who supported roe codification when the Democrats “controlled” the Senate.
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The fact that there are still anti choice democrats in our legislatures is a failing on the part of all the left-leaning voters in their districts and states (myself included) to organize and replace them with people who will advocate and vote for our policy goals. Alternative parties could capitalize on those races by representing the wants of those left leaning voters in off election years but choose not to.
I, and many others, do not blame other parties when the dems shoot themselves in the foot, we blame the dems for their poor decisions. Likewise, we blame the green party for running a quadrennial grift on the disaffected leftists who know enough to be upset but who wrongly believe the extent of their voting power is only this one race.
It’s extremely telling that whenever they are presented with these facts they refuse to respond
Tbh I’m fine missing out on it if it’s as dismissive as the reply to @alyaza’s direct firsthand experiences working with a local politician who faced issues campaigning which are completely germane to this conversation.
I’ve felt this way for months now to be honest.
Nobody’s obligated to continue a debate ad nauseam. Bowing out is a healthy skill, and we should not be shaming that.
Besides, if your interlocutor leaves the discussion, that means you got the last word. There’s no need to sling mud. Just take the win.
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
Given how obvious it is that there are many different groups amongst left-wing politics and a great degree of nuance therein, I cannot possibly see your post as anything other than a deliberately bad-faith interpretation.
Your argument wont mean much if one side eliminates elections and deports/arrests leftist dissenters (as they have promised). If you care about change its irresponsible to not vote against the dictator this time around. Harris wont outlaw protests, criticism and elections, for example. Trump and Vance will.
None of that changes anything about the fact that this is still the entirely wrong way to go about trying to win an election. The Democrats are letting people down and trying to win solely off of Trump being worse. You shouldn’t be surprised that this strategy does not resonate with people. If everyone here pressured the Democrats to do better instead of yelling at folks for not being jazzed about milquetoast-at-best non-promises, I can guarantee you voter turnout would be much better.
If everyone here pressured the Democrats to do better
i don’t know why your assumption is that people–especially in this thread–aren’t simultaneously doing this. i am literally a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America (and have been since… 2019, 2020?) for example. and that activism is a big source of my problem with the arguments in this thread in the first place. there are about 60 DSA state legislators and probably 200 or more local DSA elected officials doing exactly what you’re asking right now. two of our members, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, explicitly lost their Congressional seats this year over their activism for Palestine and pressuring the Democrats to do better.
what do the Greens have comparable to that? and how does voting third party do anything to pressure the Democrats that Cori Bush’s eviction moratorium protest, or Bowman’s DSA-led Green New Deal for Public Schools, or any of the policies i mentioned downthread at Flashmob like the Build Public Renewables Act don’t do more effectively? i can show you that Bush fighting for an eviction moratorium helped get that extended; Bowman’s GNDPS has led to a surge in activism pressuring local school districts and cities to do the same; and of course, policies like the BPRA are law now. i don’t know what voting Jill Stein in 2016 or even Howie Hawkins in 2020 did (and i love Howie, he’s a cool guy).
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.
