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.
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.
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).
Believe me, I’ve got no qualms with you, in this thread or elsewhere. I upvoted several of your comments here because insofar as I can tell, you are right. I’m not defending the Greens in this thread and never have. I do not care for them.
But I’m sure you’ve seen as I have the negative reactions that so frequently occur from so many when Harris’ platform or campaign are criticized. Anytime anyone tries to suggest that she is doing a terrible job of appealing to anyone left-of-center, all while playing ads that play up conservative talking points, it feels as though a barrage of comments is immediately launched to decry it. This is and has been extremely frustrating for me to constantly see, hence why I push back so much on it in this thread.
And I can probably guess as to the feelings that motivate this; people quite possibly fear the criticism will undermine the election’s odds of not going towards a fascist. But this is still misplaced blame. If the Democrats lose this election, it’ll be their fault, not the fault of people like Flash Mob.