Did you know that 159 Greens currently hold elected office in the United States. Greens have been elected at least 1,662 times in U.S. history, and have run for public office over 7,100 times, with 62% running for county, municipal, educational and special district offices and 38% for state and federal office.
Across the country, Green candidates are running (or preparing to run) in next year’s mid-terms. These candidates include Butch Ware and Sean Dougherty in California, Arshia Papari in Texas, Andy Ellis and Owen Silverman Andrews in Maryland.
A week ago tonight, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein hosted an online forum in which she introduced a number of 2026 Green Party candidates, including two gubernatorial candidates (Butch Ware in California and Andy Ellis in Maryland) and two congressional candidates (Michael Dublin in North Carolina and Justin Filip in Oregon). The forum also featureed Craig Cayetano, Chair of the Green Party of the United States.
In introducing this forum, Stein noted the following.
We’re in a historic moment of political rebellion. People have had enough of being thrown under the bus by the parties of war and Wall Street, bought-and-paid-for by oligarchs and corporations. We’ve had enough of Congress, which spends a trillion dollars on the Pentagon budget, more than any U.S. budget on the military in our history. . . . And it wasn’t just Republicans passing this budget; it was also a strong majority of Democrats who joined them as well, making the point that this is not just a crisis of the Republican Party. This is a crisis of our bought-and-paid-for duopoly, the whole political system.
And while Congress is squandering our hard earned tax dollars, our needs at home are being woefully neglected. . . . as healthcare costs skyrocket and homes, education, and food become increasingly unaffordable. . . . Two-thirds of Americans are struggling paycheck to paycheck as Congress funds with our tax dollars endless wars and genocide – from Gaza to Sudan. . . . We [also] have a bipartisan system of deportation, militarization of our cities, the war of free speec and protest, rising fascism, and more.
This crisis is unprecedented, but so too is the potential for change. It really is a perfect storm for transforation. People are standing up and breaking away from the duopoly like I have never seen before in the several decades of my political life. People are taking actions – from the Gaza protess to the labor boycotts in ports around the Mediterrean and the ICE protests across th U.S. which are incredibly courageous.
People are standing up in terms of breaking away in their minds and in their hearts. The latest Gallop Poll shows record high rejection of the duoply, especially the Democrats, and record demand for a political alternative. . . . And this builds on the outcomes of the 2024 election when we,as Greens, emerged as the number one alternative; the people-powered, grassroots alternative to the parties of empire and oligarchy.
The Green Party’s “People-Powered Candidates Forum” was live-streamed on the evening of December 19, and served in part as a fundraiser for the 2026 candidates. It runs for an hour-and-a-half, and is well worth checking-out.
It’s hard to overstate how well positioned we are in the state of Califirnia right now. We are better positioned to win a gubernatorial race than any independent candidate has been since Jesse Ventura was able to take the governor’s mansion in Minnesota in 1998.
We are now polling double and quaduple what Zohran Mamdani was polling in February, setting up his successful run for the mayoral election in New York City. And the good news is we don’t have to go from 1% to 50% the way Zohran did. We’ve got to go from between 2-4% to about 20% in order to create a one-on-one showdown between me and whichever establishment Democrat is left standing. And if we are able to successfully prosecute this election then we are going to break the duopoly in the state of California.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Butch Ware on “Red & Blue vs Green Politics”
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• Building Solidarity on the Left
• “It Is Our Responsibility to Make a Third Party Viable”
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
• Breaking the Mold: Why Progressives Should Push for Marianne Williamson to Lead the DNC
• Inauguration Day Thoughts
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election
• “A New Chapter of the Democratic Party Needs to Begin”
• What the Republican Party Now Stands For
• The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
• Jill Stein: “We Give Reasons for People to Come Out and Vote”
• We’re Witnessing a Liberal Meltdown Over Jill Stein
• Butch Ware: “You Can Actually Vote Your Conscience”
• Peter Bloom on the Unmasking of the “Democratic Charade”
• The “Green Smoothie” Option
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• When Democrats Undermine Democracy
• Elise Labott on How Third Parties Can Revitalize Democracy
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Centrist/Corporatist Democrats Have Just Launched “Left Punching” Season
• “Americans Deserve Choices”: Jill Stein on Breaking Points – 4/30/24
• AOC Falls in Line
• The Cassandra of U.S. Politics on the “True State of the Union”
• Will Democrats Never Learn?
• “The Next Step Is a Green Step”: Cornel West Endorses Jill Stein (2016)
• Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein: Is a “Historic Collaboration” in the Making?
• Hope Over Fear: Voting Green
No comments:
Post a Comment