The Last of the Election Takes
The Last of the Election Takes
On voting third party as a radical.
Real quick up top: I’m now giving all my Substack income to help Ghazal and her family survive in Gaza. In October 2024, we sent $100! Thank you so much to my paid subscribers! If you want to help too, consider upgrading to the paid tier; if you do, you’ll get four hot takes per month instead of two!
Note that at time of writing, Ghazal’s GoFundMe is down, so donations will be going to: https://paypal.me/ashleighshields25
Hey folks, I had one more election take to get off my chest before Tuesday. I decided it was best for TikTok and Instagram, so here is the video on both of those platforms followed by the full script. I feel as though I have little else to say before Election Day other than remember to take care of yourselves and that if you have any problems voting, you should report it to someone. My concern lies with what Trump supporters will do if they lose the election, up to and including the “bloodbath” that Trump is promising, so stay safe out there in the next few weeks.
Go to vote.org to make your voting plan ASAP!!
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Video Script
As a former green party organizer, here’s why I voted for Kamala Harris. Here’s me in 2020, getting out the vote for a local Green Party candidate.
I clearly believe that voting third party can be viable and really important at the local and state level, but despite having values that align most closely with the green party, I have never voted third party at the Presidential level. Not in 2016, not in 2020, and not now. I’m an eco-socialist, they’re the eco-socialist party, what’s the problem here?
Like I said in my last video, I’m not interested in dunking on green party voters, so as a show of good faith, I’m gonna make this whole video without claiming that Jill Stein is a Russian asset or a grifter. I think those claims are dubious and misleading. I’m gonna talk exclusively about political strategy.
And before we get into it, Ghazal and other Gazans are facing famine right now, so please go to the link in my bio to donate OR sign up for my newsletter where I send the proceeds directly to her.
Tell me how I live in one of the most progressive parts of the country, and yet 5 elections on my ballot this year were candidates running unopposed? Like I talked about over on the newsletter, there are 17,058 uncontested elections in 2024, meaning that 73% of all U.S. elections this year will be won because nobody ran against them.
You would think that the Green Party would be able to capture some of these seats, even without much financial backing. In small towns, winning elections is not expensive; it takes maybe a couple thousand dollars of ad spend in local papers and having good policies, which the Green Party has in spades. But, the Green Party’s presence at the local level is still pretty low, and the Green Party **has never won** a seat in the federal House of Representatives or Senate, and no state has ever had a Green Party Governor. These are connected!
I’m no political strategist, and I don’t have the data on the Green Party’s finances in front of me, but in my mind, blowing millions of dollars on a presidential race that is unwinnable as long as the electoral college exists is FAR less effective than spending that money on local- and state-level races and gradually working your way toward mainstream political relevance. In my mind, the Green Party should say, “Look, here are 10 counties across the country that are progressive strongholds, we’re gonna spend $100,000 on state-level races in each of those counties, and see how it goes.” Investing in your local candidates means investing in the future of your party; your local candidates become state reps, who become governors, who then go to Congress. Imagine if over the last 20 years, the Green Party focused on local races, and gradually worked its way toward having more and more Congressional seats. That say, when we were ready for a Green Party president, there would actually be members of congress who could back them up!
I know that getting 5% of the popular vote would qualify the Green Party for lots of federal funding, and it’s not unreasonable to strive for that. But that’s what the party has been trying to do for decades now, and it’s clearly not working. It’s like “investing” in cryptocurrency instead of contributing to a Roth IRA; sure, there’s a tiny, tiny chance you might win big, but if you take the longer, more boring road, you’ll be much more successful.
Believe it or not, the Green Party used to be respected in this country to some degree. They were associated with the future, with sustainability, with working-class power, with the anti-war movement, they were understood to be truly progressive. But under Dr. Stein’s leadership, the party is culturally associated with splitting the vote and allowing Trump an easier path to victory.
Now of course, we should critically assess these claims–there’s no way of knowing whether everyone who voted Green in 2016 *would have* voted for Hillary if they could have–but that’s the *narrative* about the party. A narrative that has stuck so much that even at the local level, where a Green candidate may have a good shot and the electoral college isn’t a thing, everyday people think “oh man, I better vote for the Democrat so that the Republican doesn’t win”. They have a serious image problem that they need to shake off, which is demonstrated by the fact that the European Green Party and even Jill Stein’s former high school classmates have called on her to step down. We shouldn’t just fly by that point; on November 1st, the leaders of 19 different European country’s Green Parties called on her to step down because they recognize the threat that Donald Trump poses to the climate, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and so much more.
Also, in the past week, Stein’s running mate called trans women “biological males” who shouldn’t compete in women’s sports and spoke in favor of restrictive abortion bans; who’s liberation are we fighting for, again?? ‘Cause it ain’t mine! You’re telling me on two of my most important issues, the Democrats are better than the Green Party? What are we doing??
This is why I think the Green Party should sit out a couple of Presidential elections and divert their existing funding to the local and state races they have a shot in; the future of the party. At the very least, Dr. Stein needs to drop out and never run again; her image has now been so tainted that she is just unviable, there’s no fixing her reputation. On a bigger scale, if the Left actually took electoral politics seriously and attempted to capture some of those 17,058 uncontested seats instead of just showing up every 4 years to proclaim that “both sides bad” and getting a bunch of young people to be disillusioned, we might actually have a viable socialist Presidential candidate one day. Basically, if you want a Green Party president to win in 2036, you need to start organizing for them today. That’s the timescale we need to be working on.
If you vote for Jill Stein on Tuesday, which you are totally free to do, I better see you out on the streets in 2025, 2026, and 2027 for other LOCAL candidates, not just in 2028. That’s what I did, and guess what, it WORKED. Our candidates WON. We can get better leaders in this country, but it has to start LOCALLY.
For an alternative example of how voting third party could work, we need look no further than the Working Families Party. This left-leaning party has been way more successful at winning elections by running fused tickets with progressive Democrats, and NOT running a Presidential candidate for themselves. Fusion voting allows people to vote for the Democratic candidate—and not siphon votes thus allowing a Republican to win—while also voicing that they’re not “voting blue no matter who”, but rather voting in favor of a candidates’ progressive policies. When I lived in CT, I voted almost exclusively for the Working Families Party, which meant I voted for progressive candidates without making it easier for Republicans to win. This strategy has caused the WFP to have a national presence and affect actual policy. This is what it looks like when third parties work in coalition with (and not always against) the mainstream parties; they actually win!
To really drive home the importance of real-world practical strategy versus online culture war: earlier this year, The Working Families Party endorsed Kamala Harris for president in a move that 95% of their members approved of. They got a lot of hate comments on Instagram for it, but that’s just it; Instagram comments. Again, 95% of people who are actively engaged in third-party politics in real life are in support of a Harris presidency, whereas The Internet People were upset. Do you see what I’m getting at here?
Organizers know how to compromise to gain power; organizers know that a Kamala presidency would allow the Left more time to get our act together, whereas a Trump presidency would be devastating; organizers know that while she may not be everything we want, real change takes far more time than the length of any one election cycle.
My thoughts can basically be summarized as, I think stopping Trump is the most important thing we can do in this political moment. We are allowed to grieve the fact that this country is not politically prepared for a third party president, and I did so weeks ago over on the newsletter. (I do talk about my feelings on the Internet, but only for money.)
Voting for self-preservation instead of one who most aligns with your values is not a new idea; Black Americans have been voting that way for as long as they could vote. It’s only a new idea to young white leftists who became politically activated in the past couple of years. I’ve been paying attention to American politics since 2012, and voting every year since 2016. As long as the current political conditions stay the same–the electoral college, a winner-take-all political system, and no leftist presence at the federal level–I’m gonna keep voting blue.
What do y’all think? Is my assessment of the Green Party’s strategy accurate, or am I way off base? I’m happy to discuss further in the comments. Again, no matter how you vote, you still SHOULD vote. And you should be politically engaged year-round. This is my last election video for the year, and I’m SO excited for this election season to be over, it’s been exhausting y’all. Take care and happy learning!
And now, your weekly Koko.
In community,
-Anna