Finessing the Green Vote?

Sanders' supporters, take heed! A write-in vote for Bernie is a vote for Trump! A vote for Dr. Jill Stein is a vote for Trump! Or so we hear. (Way too often.)

And yet a vote for Hillary is a vote for the corrupt DNC. What to do?

Up to this moment I've stood against the tide and advocated a vote for conscience. A moral stand for whomever you felt should be president. And if everyone did that--if everyone was informed--my guess is that Jill Stein would make a run for it. But the vast majority of people do not even know her name. Do not even know there is something called a Green Party.

The media has black-balled her. No debates. Few interviews. Of course this is a chicken and the egg problem: She cannot get traction unless she gets some of the free corporate media bestowed on Trump. (The reader is left to form his/her own opinion if this has anything to do with Stein's anti-corporate platform.)

Would Stein's platform appeal to all those millennials who supported Bernie? Of course it would: the platform is even better than Bernie's for appealing to those with college loans and anyone concerned with the future of this planet.

But wishing doesn't make it so. We are left with a Corporate Clinton vs a Troglodyte Trump.

Both would harm the nation; both are false choices. No one wins with either candidate.

I have been lectured to that this is not the time to throw in with the Greens. Work for the Green Party in off-year elections, build up support little by little. Now is too dangerous, what with Trump threatening our very stability as a country. We just cannot risk a Trump presidency, I am told.

Thing is, it is only during a presidential election that the focus can be put on the Green Party. In off years even Democrats don't turn out to vote. Does the average voter even know who their congressman is? No. Vice-President, even?

The typical American is ignorant of all politics. All economics. History. And that is the problem.

There has to be a focus--this year--on the Green Party. Bernie's supporters are too critical to lose. Next year they will go back to voting for corporate candidates within the Democratic Party. Now is the time to get the Green Party message out.

But...Trump.

I can understand someone voting for Hillary in a purple state, such as Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina. But in a state like Vermont, like New York, or Hawaii, or Rhode Island or the District of Columbia, which will all run Blue for Hillary, these are the states where many more people are needed to vote Green. There is no --ZERO--chance of Hillary losing in these states. But if the Green Party could pick up ten percent of the vote it would be considered viable. The media would then have to turn the spotlight onto it. The movement would have a foothold.

And on the other side of the aisle, if you live and are a Bernie supporter in Alabama, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nebraska, Oklahoma...your vote is meaningless. You and Hillary are going nowhere. But if the Green Party got a sizable increase in their vote tallies it would count a great deal. Trump still wins your state but a progressive voice has been shouted from the mountaintop. Believe me, the DNC will hear it.

And we would not be blamed (as Nader so often is, wrongly) for a possible Trump presidency.

The Greens can have their cake and it it too. It just takes a bit of finesse.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Does God Care About Football?

Today I finally received the answer to the question I’ve asked nearly all my life: Does God care about football? Richard John Mouw informs me [TU, Voices of Faith, 2/3/18¹] that “God cares much about how the game is played. And it is not simply about how the players treat each other.” Has Mr Mouw read the New Testament? I get that the Old Testament is quite football-worthy, what with all that smiting and so forth, but it sure seems that the NT becomes quite un-football-esque in places. But maybe that’s just me. It’s not as if Matthew 25, or the Sermon on the Mount comes down on the side of how we treat one another. Did not Jesus say it best when he offered us, "Do to others what you want them to do to you...and hit ‘em hard! Knock his block off. Role the replay!" No, he didn’t say exactly that, but one can imagine him saying it...if you pretend for a moment that you live in the universe of Richard John Mouw. I’d leave football out of the equation. No spectacle where
Read more
Bad bugs the new white meat? As reported by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times recently (Sun, Mar 15 th , "Pathogens in Our Pork), hog farms are now infected with the dangerous bug known as MRSA (pronounced " Mersa "). As estimated by the University of Minnesota, up to 39 percent of pigs on hog farms harbor the superbugs which are resistant to almost all forms of antibiotics. (More people die from MRSA in the United States than from HIV.) Why? Same reason as why doc's give out prescriptions to treat viral infections like colds and ear infections: mis -use of antibiotics. As Kristof writes, more antibiotics are given to livestock in North Carolina alone than goes to treat the entire U.S. population. This is all due to the tremendous leverage that the agribusinesses have on Washington politicoes . The citizenry is being plowed under for the sake of increasing the yield of hog, cow and chicken farmers. It's as if the Congress is doing as Marie Antoinette, s
Read more

Favorite Line in a Movie...

My favorite movie, a movie I believe to be a perfect gem, is The Third Man . There are many wonderful lines in that movie, both by the author, Graham Greene, and by that genius Orson Welles. But the line I choose to be my favorite is from Dr. Zhivago, a line that I must have heard many times yet when I hear it again I will weep again. General Yevgraf—Yuri’s half brother—is attempting to convince young Tanya Komarova (listed as “The Girl” in IMDB casting, played by Rita Tushingham) that she is the long sought after daughter of Yuri and Lara. There’s no proof, but the general tells her to consider the tale he has told her and that she should think it all over. She leaves along with her boyfriend. Tanya walks away, beneath the floor above where Yevgraf watches her. As she slings a balalaika over her shoulder he notes it and asks if she plays. “Does she play? She’s an artist!” the boyfriend exclaims. The general hears this and smiles, knowing exactly what it portends: “Ah. Then it’s a
Read more