The moves of a desperate party
and a losing campaign? I guess
the Democrats’ internal polls
must be devastating.
The Democratic Party’s ongoing efforts to smear Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein continue to backfire spectacularly.
First it was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s cringe attack video against Stein and the scathing backlash it received. Since then various other Democratic “vote Blue no matter who” sycophants have been furiously tweeting and penning smear pieces, including a recent op-ed by Thom Hartmann over at Common Dreams. Somehow, though, I don’t think Hartmann expected the barrage of critical responses he received from readers of this would-be “progressive” platform. You can peruse these responses here or check out the following sampling.
• The Democrats made their bed and now they can die in it. They had a choice of catering to the Cheney voters or to the Stein voters and they chose wrong. There are no “progressives” left in the un-Democratic Party. Don’t blame Jill Stein and those of us who support her for the Democrats’ immorality. No party that condones genocide should receive anyone’s vote. Harris could still change course and call for a cut-off of weapons to Israel. She could call for Medicare for All. She could call for removing the Social Security cap. She could call for an end of using federal land for oil and gas production. She could call for massive cuts in the military budget. She could call for an end to ALL wars, coups, and sanctions. But she won’t. That Democratic Party died a long time ago. It’s not the Greens who murdered it, Thom; the Democrats committed suicide. Don’t blame Jill Stein for that!
• Right now, progressives are totally unrepresented. There was a time the Democrats welcomed progressives. Those days are long gone. Democrats now use the Schumer strategy which reasons they’ll gain more votes by moving right than they’ll lose. If that’s true, they should STFU when progressives vote third party. The Democrats have become the party of Cheney. They can whine all they like about losing votes to the Greens but they are the sole reason this is happening. They have no one to blame but themselves.
• It’s flippin’ right in the dang article! . . . “There’s a fair amount of data now that suggests the Democrats have lost. Unless they give up their genocide.” Yet it is the Green Party’s fault they are working to build a coalition with people who are against genocide? As [Green Party vice presidential candidate] Dr. Butch Ware said in an interview, “Would a Jewish person vote for the Nazi Party?” These people aren’t voting for the Democratic Party because of the Dem’s own actions!
• The fact people can and have voted for Jill Stein as president disproves [Hartmann’s] claim that the system cannot have more then two parties by design. That she cannot garner more then a small percentage of votes is on the voter and has people like Hartmann as an underlying cause when he suggests the world will end unless people vote for the Party he backs. Hartmann and the mainstream media is part of the problem even as he points fingers elsewhere.
• I’ll be the first to say Jill Stein will not win. That being said, she didn’t cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. . . . In my state of Michigan, Harris should try harder to get Arab American votes by breaking away from Biden on Israel. Or don’t and lose. It’s really her choice. Nobody can cause you to lose but yourself in an election.
• Common Dreams has every right to publish whatever point of view they choose. Thom Hartman has/had a rather large following, so it probably wouldn’t have made sense, as an entity seeking to gain/keep readership, for them to push back before accepting the level of vitriol in this article. But as a long time reader, and with an awareness that electoral politics isn’t the route to achieving the changes many of Common Dreams’ readers would like to see, especially in the area of U.S. imperialism, I have to say I am very disappointed to read this type of article here. It certainly got my attention and inspired me to act, but probably not in the way the author and publisher intended. I will very likely vote for Jill Stein for President of the United Stares, and stop reading Common Dreams, for all the excellent articles their staff writes, until they stop publishing Democratic Party propaganda.
• Whatever her motive might be, and propagandists like Thom Hartmann would assume to know, Jill Stein is telling the truth, far more than Harris, Biden, Blinken, Sullivan or Trump would tell. Of course, partisan pride precludes acknowledging that your party is now the party of George W. Bush, stoking conflicts around the globe and working directly against the public interest. When your presidential nominee is anointed and is “proud” to receive an endorsement from Dick Cheney, it should trigger reflection as to why your party has become so desperate and what you are doing making excuses for right-wing warmongers.
An important endorsement
As podcaster Sabrina Salvati highlights in the 20-minute video below, this is an important development not just for the Stein/Ware campaign but for third parties in general.
At this point I should note that from here on out I’m going to refer to “third parties” as independent parties. I do so after hearing Green Party vice presidential candidate Butch Ware say in Minneapolis last month that “independent parties” is a better term as it speaks to how the Green Party is independent of corporate funding and thus control. Another term to describe this type of party is “people-powered,” as they are funded and supported by citizens, “the people,” not corporations.
A progressive Democrat weighs-in
Ths past weekend (October 12-13) the Democratic Party released a Kamala Harris-approved attack ad against Jill Stein. According to Jaime Harrison, head of the Democratic National Committee, it’s the first time the party has released an ad focused on a third party. The crux of the ad is that a vote for Jill Stein is the same thing as a vote for Donald Trump.
On an October 14 segment of the podcast Rising, progressive Democrat Nina Turner weighed-in on her party’s attack ad against Stein. From my perspective, Turner’s response is the sanest way for Democrats to respond to the reality of the presidential campaign of Jill Stein and of the presence of independent parties on the political landscape in general.
Turner’s wise words and the mere existence of the Democrats’ attack ad against Stein raises questions for me. First, is such an ad warranted? By this I mean is Stein really the reason for Harris’ loss of momentum and underperformance with key demographics? Is there a better, more productive focus for the Harris campaign than targeting an alternative party candidate? Maybe Harris should work on distinguishing herself more forcefully from the unpopular Biden and his policies (from Gaza to the economy), or maybe she could start campaigning with progressive Democrats and independents like Nina Turner and Bernie Sanders rather than neo-con Republicans like Liz Cheney.
Following is the 6-minute Rising segment featuring Nina Turner sharing her thoughts of the Democrats’ Stein-focused attack ad.
An “epic lib meltdown”
A recent insident that has caused some controversy and raised the ire of some Democrats is a speech that Green Party surrogate Kshama Sawant delivered at a camapign event earlier this month. In her speech, Sawant said that the Green Party can’t win the presidency but could secure another victory: denying Kamala Harris Michigan and thus the White House.
In the following 20-minute segment of the Due Dissidence podcast, hosts Keaton Weiss and Russell Dobula offer insightful commentary and analysis of Sawant’s remarks and the “epic lib meltdown” that followed.
Butch Ware in Minneapolis: “I got into this fight to win it”
Ware also gave an interview on Monday to the JENerational Change podcast in which he responded to Green Party surrogate Kshama Sawant’s recent controversial comments. It’s a very worthwhile 10-minute interview, and I find Ware to be a very informed and inspiring speaker. Interestingly, he doesn’t view himself as a “politician” but rather a public servant.
Says Ware:
I got into this fight to win it, and I take great exception to Sawant speaking as a surrogate for the Green Party and saying we are not in position to win. I told her that at a [subsequent] campaign event and [I also told her that her statement was] a mistake that I do not wish to see repeated. . . . I understand that the odds are long, but there’s a certain group of leftists who have been battered by their experience with the Democrats and now have internalized some colonial mentalities, and they’re essentially lowering their aspirations. That would be my biggest critique of the so-call left, that they’re just happy to be on the field. And I ain’t built like that at all. . . . I’m not in this to be a spoiler. . . . I’m in it to win. . . . So that attitude that Sawant is displaying in not a realistic attitude; it’s a defeatist attitude and I reject it utterly.
Related Off-site Links:
Jill Stein Calls Out DNC’s Attack Ads – Breaking Points (October 17, 2024).
Nina Turner Defends Jill Stein – Sabrina Salvati (Sabby Sabs, October 16, 2024).
Kamala Harris’s Campaign Is Not in a Good Place – Miles Kampf-Lassin (Jacobin, October 15, 2024).
Kamala Declares War on Jill Stein – Breaking Points (October 14, 2024).
DNC Attacks Jill Stein in Bizarre and Desperate New Ad – Due Dissidence (October 14, 2024).
Kamala’s Attack Ad Against Jill Stein – Sabrina Salvati (Sabby Sabs, October 13, 2024).
Trump Passes Kamala in Michigan – Sabrina Salvati (Sabby Sabs, October 11, 2024).
Ta-Nehisi Coates Delivers a Dire Warning to Kamala Harris – Kyle Kulinski (Secular Talk, October 8, 2024).
Q & A with Jill Stein – Barney Henderson (Newsweek, October 4, 2024).
An Interview with Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein – Breaking Points (October 3, 2024).
“Voting for Democrats is Wasting Your Vote”: An Interview with Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware – Briahna Joy Gray (Bad Faith, October 3, 2024).
Kamala vs. the Black Left: An Interview with Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly – Briahna Joy Gray (Bad Faith, September 30, 2024).
Green Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates Jill Stein and Butch Ware on Gaza and Fighting “Two Zombie Political Parties” – Democracy Now! (September 25, 2024)
War Parties, the Peace Candidate, and the November Election – Jeffrey D. Sachs (Other News, April 23, 2024).
UPDATES: MSNBC Panics Over Third Party Candidates – Sabrina Salvati (Sabby Sabs, October 20, 2024).
Blame Democrats If Trump Wins, Longtime Democratic Activists Say – Jordan Chariton (Status Coup News, October 21, 2024).
Jill Stein: “America Is Backsliding” – Justin Hunte (The Company Man, October 22, 2024).
Why Muslims Should Vote for the Green Party with Dr Jill Stein – Muhammad Jalal (The Thinking Muslim, October 27, 2024).
Yes, They’re Really Voting for Jill Stein – Aymann Ismail (Slate, October 30, 2024).
Is Voting Third Party a Vote for Trump? – An Interview with Jill Stein – Let’s Just Talk with Hammi (October 31, 2024).
“Democrats Pretend to Be the Lesser Evil”: Jill Stein on the U.S. Election – Malika Bilal (The Take, November 1, 2024).
“Stop Attacking Jill Stein”: A Conversation with Briahna Joy Gray and Fouad Dakwar – The Katie Halper Show (November 4, 2024).
How Much of the 2024 Presidential Vote Did Jill Stein Receive? – Jeff Arnold (NewsNation, November 6, 2024).
Jill Stein and Butch Ware’s First Post-Election Interview – The Katie Halper Show (November 19. 2024).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Miles Kampf-Lassin on the “Flashing Red Warning Signs” for the Harris Campaign
• Peter Bloom on the Unmasking of the “Democratic Charade”
• Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “You Can Actually Vote Your Conscience”
• Progressive Perspectives on the Harris–Trump Presidential Debate
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• “Americans Deserve Choices”: Jill Stein on Breaking Points – 4/30/24
• Progressive Perspectives on the Presidential Nomination of Kamala Harris
• Progressive Perspectives On an American Coronation
• Marianne Williamson on How Centrist Democrats Abuse Voters with False Promises
• Demolishing the False Narrative About Jill Stein and the 2016 Election
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