“There
are differences between the two candidates and the parties. But those
differences aren’t enough to save your job.”
by
Kevin Gosztola
When Jill
Stein ran as the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, media
attention to her candidacy was rare. Now, with two of the most
unpopular presidential candidates in history, she has received
widespread attention. There seems to be record interest in third
party campaigns, including Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.
The Nation
published a debate between Socialist Seattle City Council member
Kshama Sawant and Nation contributor Joshua Holland.
The editors
gave Sawant’s column the negative headline—”Don’t Waste Your
Vote On the Corporate Agenda—Vote for Jill Stein and the
Greens”—but column does not hinge on loathing Donald Trump or
Hillary Clinton. Rather, it makes a positive case for supporting
Stein by primarily arguing the need for progressives to build an
alternative to the two pro-capitalist political parties in America.
It has a long-term focus on bringing about radical change.
Contrast the
vision of Sawant’s column with Holland’s column, which is
completely negative. It trashes the Greens and displays a brash
contempt for democracy and those who are working to give voters more
choices and more voices. It wholly ignores efforts for open
primaries, open debates, and the need for reforms like ranked-choice
voting or instant run-off voting, in order to have a system that has
proportional representation and is more democratic.
The argument
is representative of the discourse among many progressive
commentators throughout previous elections, especially since Ralph
Nader ran as a Green Party candidate in 2000. Instead of taking
responsibility for how the Democrats failed to elect Al Gore and the
role progressives perhaps played in selling out, Holland is a
progressive who would rather scapegoat the Greens.
Hundreds of
thousands of Democrats in Florida voted for George W. Bush. Tens of
thousands of African American voters in Florida were disenfranchised.
There were terrible issues with the butterfly ballot. Supreme Court
Justice Antonin Scalia helped deliver the White House to Bush with a
5-4 decision that prevented a recount. Gore did not win his home
state of Tennessee. Yet, these are facts progressive commentators
like Holland would rather ignore because they force them to confront
dismal realities that require intense struggle to change.
It is much
easier to bear one’s insecurity with the presence of the Green
Party in a two-party system that does everything it can to silence
and erase their candidates when they run for office at all levels of
government.
Holland
relies on a fallacy that has become conventional wisdom among
progressives—that the “Green Party’s primary pitch to voters on
the left is that there still isn’t a dime’s worth of difference
between the two major parties.”
A line Stein
has repeated this cycle is the following, “There are differences
between the two candidates and the parties. But those differences
aren’t enough to save your job.” In other words, under a
Democrat or a Republican, voters can expect corporate free trade
deals that will offshore more jobs, privilege business interests, and
ultimately lead to more poverty and hardship for the poor and working
class.
Stein also
told NPR in July, “I do not say there is no difference between
the parties. What I say is that there’s not enough difference to
save your job, to save your life, or to save the planet. And the
scary things, the horrific things that Donald Trump says, Hillary
Clinton has already done. Whether it’s massively deporting
immigrants, whether it’s threatening nuclear warfare.”
In other
words, Clinton was talking about deporting refugees from Central
America in order to “send a message” before Bernie Sanders
confronted her on this issue, and she was concerned it would cost her
politically. She also once threatened to obliterate Iran if it
attacked Israel, a blatant threat of nuclear annihilation.
“Put it
this way: I will feel horrible if Donald Trump is elected, I will
feel horrible if Hillary Clinton is elected, and I feel most horrible
about a voting system that says: Here are two deadly choices, now
pick your weapon of self-destruction,” Stein contended.
Holland
denigrates progressives who would dare to support the Green Party by
claiming the party “provides a forum to demonstrate ideological
purity and contempt for ‘the system.’ But the Democratic Party is
a center of real power in this country,” and it “offers a
viable means of advancing progressive goals.”
It is far
easier to bash those attempting to build something because they
recognize doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a
different result is the definition of insanity. The history of the
Democratic Party is one of stamping down on candidates, like Sanders,
when they attempt to change the party or absorbing uprisings, which
is what seems to have happened with the Sanders campaign.
The
Democratic Party has scarcely been transformed by the Sanders
campaign. His plans for organizing progressives and running
progressive candidates for political office are barely different from
the plans of other groups that failed to seize control of the party
during an election cycle.
So, what do
Holland and other progressive commentators expect to happen when
Clinton wins? Will they organize as if the Democrats are on their
side and offer a “viable” option for creating change? Will they
do the same thing they did after Barack Obama was elected and give
her a chance but then, when it is time to act, hold tight because she
is getting hammered by Republicans and does not need to be challenged
by principled progressives?
Also, what
do Holland and others propose progressives do when it comes time for
Clinton to repay Republicans, who supported her candidacy and refused
to support Trump? She is forming a coalition that will be highly
influential when she is in the White House, and it will impact
domestic policies important to progressives just as much as foreign
policy and national security.
Finally,
Holland contends in the opening of his column 75 to 90 percent of
those claiming they will vote for Stein in November will not follow
through. Why is that? Could it have something to do with progressives
like Holland who actively harp and lecture any progressive,
especially prominent ones, who would dare challenge the two-party
system?
Why are the
number of elected Green Party representatives in all levels of
government shrinking? Holland argues it is dysfunction in the party,
but the system is setup to ensure the party struggles and eventually
dissipates.
While
Holland says he has been to Green Party meetings and found them to be
wildly disorganized and filled with mostly white people, this is
mostly meaningless. He doesn’t share when he went to these
meetings, and one has to wonder what Greens would say about Holland.
Did he ever attempt to make any meaningful contribution at these
meetings? Or did he sit in the back of the room and eavesdrop because
he was afraid to stray too far from the path already blazed by
countless progressive organizations, which are captives to the
Democratic Party?
This is the
problem with many progressive commentators like Holland. It is easy
for them to suggest Green Party organizers are not doing what they
should in between elections to grow the party, but it is not like
they would help if the Green Party was doing a better job. They still
cling to this notion that the Democratic Party grows more receptive
to them each day. Meanwhile, their politics grow more accommodating
of corporate power with each election.
Finally,
isn’t it remarkable all the time progressives like Holland spend
lecturing citizens on why they cannot vote their conscience?
Especially when they believe Stein is unlikely to fare better than
two or three percent in the polls?
Their
insecurity translates into a fear that if Stein wins four or five
percent of the vote or slightly better that will be bad for Clinton
because she is running against Trump and not Stein. To them,
Democrats should only have to worry about candidates that can win.
It’s a winner-take-all system. Yet, to win and take it all, you
still have to win votes. You aren’t owed the votes going to Stein,
especially when you don’t campaign for those votes.
What if
Stein wins five percent and Trump is elected president? It will be a
failure of progressives.
Nader said
on “Democracy Now!”: “It is the time for Senator Sanders to
mobilize, as he can, all his supporters around the country with mass
rallies to put the heat on both candidates. Is anything wrong with
that? He should have a mass rally in the [National] Mall and then
spread it all over the country, so you have civic pressure, citizen
pressure, coming in on all the candidates to further the just
pathways of our society. Why doesn’t he do that?”
Instead,
what voters see most is a bunch of people like Holland fretting about
Stein. This happens every election cycle, and not only are voters
sick of the two-party system but they’re sick of those who use
their platforms to attack dissent and push commentary to defend the
status quo.
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