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Green Vanity Candidates, Bane of the Progressive Agenda, and Yes, They gave TFG the EC in 2016. [1]
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Date: 2023-09-09
For the record, I voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary, and Warren in 2020. I voted for Clinton and Biden respectively in the general elections. My philosophy has always been vote for the most progressive candidate in the primary, and for the most progressive of the candidates who can win in the General.
I have a bias against third party vanity candidates for President, the Green Party in particular. That bias is not against third party candidates down ballot.
For starters, vanity candidates for President have no constituency in Congress, so would be powerless if elected. If I had my druthers, a requirement of eligibilty would be 'x' percent of seats in Congress as is the case in parliamentary systems.
To those who think such a person could forge a consensus to advance an agenda to the right or left of the parties in Congress, all I can say is I have a bridge across the Kerch Narrows to sell you.
Running vanity candidates is also self defeating. They undermine whatever political agenda the party espouses by drawing on the voting base of whichever of the two major parties most aligned with it.
That is why I dislike the Green party in particular. They draw votes from the more progressive of the two major parties by preying upon a foible not peculiar to, but highly prevalent among progressives, virtue signal voting.
Why should either of the major parties more closely align with the green agenda when there will always be a greener than thou alternative on the ballot? Ironically, they push the major parties to the center, and admit as much when they blame swing voters and moderates for deciding the one party isn't centrist enough, and vote for the other instead.
Their 'duopoly' complaint becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nothing epitomized that more than Nader in 2000. Nader, a guy who pushed deregulation of the transportation sector in the 70s, ran against the greenest major party candidate since Carter.
Did he cost Gore the election? Well, he sure didn't help, now did he. Perhaps Gore should have run a more centrist campaign to pick up all those moderates Greens like to blame instead.
As for 2016, Clinton won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College due to subversion of our electoral processes by Republicans, and the perennial foolishness of a statistically significant portion of progressive voters. But for the former, the latter would likely have not mattered.
Republicans capitalized on the recent Supreme Court rulings to subvert our electoral processes by engaging in unprecedented strategic voter suppression in key states. That rendered poll modeling inaccurate which in turn affected campaign decisions such as where and when to campaign.
Republicans also collaborated with an unprecedented Russian information operation to amplify disinformation such as the rigged primary narrative. That also suppressed turnout of key demographics.
Comey subverted the system when he breached investigative confidentiality to amplify disinformation narratives about corruption and fitness for office. Polls, skewed as they were, markedly reversed direction in the days that followed.
The foolishness of some progressives to which I refer is that which I have witnessed my entire life. They fail to see that their vote is an exercise in power, not simply a reflection of their personal values. They bought a lot of that disinformation and instead of voting to deny power to those 180° antithetical to their agenda, they chose to waste that power in a virtue signaling exercise by either sitting on their hands or voting for vanity candidates that handed it to them.
So did Stein cost Clinton the election? Well, she sure didn't help. Under the unique circumstances of subversion in 2016, I come down on the side of yes.
With all the crucial issues on the table, from climate change to Ukraine, the Green Party should learn from the past and just sit this one out. Run candidates for Congress instead. That's where more progressives are needed most and that's where they can actually win and have a positive impact.
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