We are currently in a life or death struggle for the fate of our republic. On one side sits tRUMP, the GOP (Government Of Putin), and their masters in Moscow. On the other side is the Democratic Party. The Presidential election on November 3, 2020, will have massive consequences for our nation and it is absolutely critical that a Democrat wins the election.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Green Party will campaign in swing states and do everything in their power to sabotage the Democrats.
Meet Howie Hawkins, the likely nominee for the Green Party presidential ticket:
en.wikipedia.org/…
en.wikipedia.org/…
In 2016 Hawkins wrote an article that “exposed” the foolishness of voting for the evil corporate Hillary Clinton and he argued that Jill Stein and the Green Party should campaign in swing states:
www.counterpunch.org/…
Hawkins’ advice paid off when Jill Stein won an upset...no wait a minute Stein took enough votes away from Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to ensure tRUMP’s victory in the Electoral College.
Anyways, “supergenius” Howie Hawkins is at it again. In an article he wrote on Christmas Day 2019 the presumptive Green Party nominee advocated campaigning in swing states:
www.counterpunch.org/…
The Green Party is not going back to the “safe states strategy” that a faction of it attempted in 2004. It couldn’t even be carried out. It alienated Greens in swing states who were working so hard to overcome onerous petitioning requirements to get the party on the ballot. Keeping the party on the ballot for the next election cycle for their local candidates depended on the Green presidential vote in many states. It became clear that safe states was dispiriting and demoralizing because the party didn’t take itself seriously enough to justify its existence independent of the Democrats. Few people, even in the safe states, wanted to waste their vote for a Green ticket that was more concerned with electing the Democratic ticket than advancing its own demands.
Howie Hawkins also claimed that “Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody” and “Greens don’t spoil elections.” Suuuuuuuuuuuuuure.
This led to several left-wing intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Michael Albert publishing open letters critical of Howie Hawkins “sabotage the Democrats strategy”:
www.truthdig.com/…
zcomm.org/…
As an aside, the Paul D in the comments section made an interesting statement which I will quote:
I was once an active Green Party member and very active in the Green presidential campaigns. I spent as much of my free time as I could – collecting ballot access petition signatures since the 2000 election.- under Pennsylvania’s until-2016 onerous ballot access rules. I also voted for the Green candidate every presidential election except for 2004 and 2016. In those elections, Pennsylvania ended up being closely contested and the priority became defeating Bush in 2004 and Trump in 2016.
But now, I’m totally finished with the Greens – at least at the presidential election level. I was angry enough at Stein and others on the left rabidly attacking anyone (including Chomsky) who suggested voting strategically in contested states. But what really turned me against the Greens was after the 2016 election when the local Greens here in Pittsburgh went practically apoplectic over the Stein campaign’s decision to pursue a ballot recount in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Why? Becasue they despised Hillary Clinton at practically psychotic levels, and were happy with Trump being elected out of their infantile spite toward Clinton, that they were apparently happy with possible ballot counting fraud. So the accusations of “the Stein campaign supporting Hillary-Shillary” flew out
Even today, they refuse to admit that a Clinton administration would have been at least incrementally better for the left than a Trump administration. But, as a federal employee in the US Dept of Labor, I have zero doubt that Clinton would have been better than the utter catastrophe that has been the capitalist industry hacks that Trump has installed throughout our agencies.
Howie Hawkins brushed off their concerns in an open letter in which he once more accused the Democrats of being corrupt and declared that he would campaign in every state because any state could hypothetically turn out to be a safe state or a swing state depending on how the election goes:
www.gp.org/...
Recognizing the danger of Trump does not mean that electing any damned Democrat should trump all other considerations. The Democrats might beat Trump, but they won’t beat Trumpism. The Democrats should have crushed Trump in a landslide in 2016 because the hard right Republicans he reflects are a shrinking political minority in the US. But the Democrats have lost many state governments and federal offices to the Republicans.
Which states will be the contested states? The open letter says 10. Many analysts are saying closer to 15. Some states will go in and out of contested status with the ups and downs of the polls during the campaign. How do the safe-states strategists determine now which of the states the Greens are supposed to stay off the ballot? Any candidate seeking the Green presidential nomination who refused to petition and campaign in the 20% to 30% states that might be contested would not get the Green nomination at the convention.
So there you have it folks. Howie Hawkins and the Greens are going to do everything in their power to sabotage the Democrats in 2020. I am sure that tRUMP and Vlad Putin are very happy with this turn of events.
Moral of this story:
Old Green Party slogan: Getting Republicans Elected Every November
New Green Party slogan: Getting Russians Elected Every November