by Virginia Rodino and Kevin Zeese*
(written shortly before Kevin Zeese's passing)
It is important to realize we have had two parties of the millionaires governing the United States since its founding. People have always had to pick between which of the millionaire parties we should choose from when neither put the people's interests first. Some people have found a successful third way that builds people's power.
Those in the Green Party view popular movements and third-party candidates (who cannot win elections in this rigged system) working together to change the direction of the country. We would rather vote for what we want and not get it in an election but use our vote to build a national consensus for the changes we need. That is a better alternative than voting for what we do not want, i.e. "a certifiable, lying, murdering war criminal" and a racist mass incarcerator, and getting it.
This emphasis on popular movements is the key difference between those building eco-socialist alternative parties like the Green Party, and those who actively or tacitly support the Democrat Party which deliberately deactivates mass movements such as Obama quashing the black players' wildcat strikes or the DNC twice suppressing at all cost the Sanders campaigns and the vibrant mass of youth and people of color which built a movement around them to lift Sanders' democratic socialist platform in 2016 and 2020. Socialists understand that movements of the people are what change the conditions of our class. Those who remain shackled election after election to the corporate parties do not have faith in ordinary people, instead relying on corporate politicians to change the conditions that keep 99% of the world's population down, with most unable to thrive and lacking in their basic needs. Relying on capitalists in capitalist parties who preserve the needs of capitalism and corporate profit to make the fundamental changes needed to have an equitable and just and non-racist society is what spoils elections, and spoils our chances for a better world.
The history of ending slavery, ending child labor, winning the 8-hour workday and union rights, breaking up monopolies (trust-busting), women's voting rights, ending alcohol prohibition and winning the New Deal - came from the platforms of the Socialist and Progressive parties and were won through social movements. In this century, it was Ralph Nader who ran on single payer, Medicare for All, and Jill Stein who ran on the Green New Deal (after Howie Hawkins first did so at the state-level in 2010). Every Green candidate has called for raising the minimum wage and taxing the wealthy.
This year we are facing multiple crises and the bi-partisan failed state of the two millionaire parties is handing none of them well: the pandemic, the economic collapse, racist police violence, and climate chaos, as well as the long-simmering deadly crises of inequality, inadequate healthcare, and a renewed nuclear arms race. Only one presidential ticket is right on ALL of these issues and that is Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker.
Voting for Biden is immoral in the current electoral reality. Trump is the worst president in our lifetimes and has to be removed from office. Unfortunately, U.S. presidential elections are determined by the Electoral College so battleground or swing states are the key to winning. Because the presidential "voting system assigns each state a number of electoral college votes, which" go to the state's victor regardless of the" margin of victory, a handful of swing states will "probably decide the election and are targeted heavily by the corporate parties, commonly ignoring voters in the remaining 38-42 other states. The swing states are comprised of mixed populations (urban, suburban, rural, etc.) and tend to flip between red and blue each election cycle. They include Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Six battleground states that are close calls right now are interesting because they are all Republican states. The fact that these are now the only battleground states shows Trump is fighting off a landslide defeat -- a well-deserved landslide. Swing states will not determine who wins, but whether there is an anti-Trump landslide.
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