So....there's a bit of some leftist infighting between those who support Stein, and those who support West.
I've discussed some of this before, and I'm generally on Cornel West's side where if I was going third party, i'd vote for him, but I am going for Biden as democracy and other concerns pulled me more in that direction. Still, I feel like enough of a leftie to have an opinion on this subject.
But, I got into a bit of an argument for a Stein supporter, who was very dismissive of West. He basically implied West isn't a serious candidate and that Stein is better because we can grow the green party, which is the only left wing party with ballot access. And I feel like this argument is kind of slimey. Because, as you know, the democrats are the only party that can beat donald trump, and we need to vote for them or get trump.
If you don't get what I did there, I just equated this logic of supporting the greens because they're in a larger and more privileged institutional position as similar to the democrats' idea that you should vote democrat because they are themselves in a larger, more privileged institutional position.
Now, I'm not gonna bash Stein too hard. i think she's okay. I voted for her once before. I ain't too keen on her this time though for various reasons I've discussed before and I'll get into here, but I do wanna call out the logic of supporting an institution just because they're an institution.
Even if I decided I'm voting for Biden, in part because the dems are an even bigger institution that is needed to defeat an anti democratic psychopath, if I WERE going third party, supporting the institutions, or the party for its own sake, is not attractive to me at all.
If anything, my desire to vote third party is born out of a failure of those institutions and the need to correct them from the outside.
If we wanna be serious about supporting a third party, why not support the largest one currently? Which party is that, you ask? The forward party! As a Yang ganger, I have some choice words to say about the forward party. I have some choice words to say about Yang. And let's start with the fact, that Yang through UBI and human centered capitalism under the bus in order to grow his party by merging it with two other parties.
They're the biggest, because Yang sold out his original ideals in a sense, in order to grow his party. And yes yes, Yang basically still supports UBI and human centered capitalism in his heart, but for the sake of growth, he basically tabled his ideals and limited his ability to speak on the subject for fear of angering his new constituents.
From the moment yang stepped into the political arena, he's always faced these kinds of discussions. Like, he mentioned once he supported a certain candidate but due to the currency of politics being social relations, and not wanting to alienate people, he endorsed someone else. These are questions you have to ask in politics, do you support the candidate your heart wants? or the one that best preserves your social relations? And this is the trap yang set for himself with forward. Institutions like growth. They like to protect their own interests. They become entrenched in social relationships and past compromises that make them inflexible and unable to shift to appease new trends.Their leaders grow old and don't want to relinquish power to the next generation, and as rifts form, institutions are unable to right themselves and often times we need to resort in external pressures from other factions in order to right that ship.
What happened with forward is a tragedy of what happens when people put institutions over ideals. And growth over ideals. The ideals have no chance. And suddenly you're left with an institution that people have to ask, who is this for and what goals does this serve to reach? And that's the problem with forward.
This is also the problem with the democrats. The democrats are an institution that's existed for 150 years, and it has, throughout the ages, been more concerned with its own power and ideals rather than doing the right thing. During the new deal era, it took a strong willed reformer like FDR and several serious crises to force the democrats to do the right thing with the new deal. They resisted calls for say, a 40 hour work week or minimum wages or workplace safety laws for decades, it took the great recession and the need for immediate swift action in order to make them do the right thing.
And since then, they've been at odds with their voter base. Even as early as 1948 we saw the rifts of the new deal coalition as the dixiecrats wanted to go one way and the left wanted to go the other. In the 1960s, the coalition imploded, with the dixiecrats leaving the party outright over race issues and the left getting uppity over vietnam and other issues (sound familiar?). In 1972, the democrats ran george mcgovern, but not because the party establishment wanted him, but the people did. And the institutions and insiders hated him and sabotaged him at every turn. The unions hated him. The insider politicians hated him. He was a product of what the people wanted and they didnt wanna listen to the people. They wanted what they wanted. So, they started using the loss to call for things like superdelegates, and by the 1990s they were able to push the party in a more centristy direction.
Which it remained until 2016. In 2016, we had Bernie Sanders, an outsider, an independent. The reason people like outsiders and independents is because they know they're not subject to the same old insider political machine that produces the same old cookie cutter candidates. They offer something new, something different, something exciting. Bernie had the perfect resume. he was in office for decades, an independent who constantly fought an uphill battle against the democrats and the republicans. He was his own guy, he had integrity, he had a platform, and people liked him, precisely because he WASNT a democrat. He was someone who thought like a democrat in a way, but was his own guy. And he ended up working more and more with the democrats as the dems cornered him. he couldnt exactly run on the democrats' infrastructure without promising to support the eventual nominee, so he did. But his supporters were under no such obligations. And many of us didnt back hillary. Because we saw what was happening clear as day. Clinton was an insider, the establishment wanted her, they mightve even struck a deal back in 2008 to that effect after THAT contentious primary, and it seemed like the party was this den of insiders doing insider things to support insiders. Clinton even had this obnoxious insider mentality acting like she deserved the nomination, and how she put in years to the party and now the party is supposed to reward her. Her smug entitled perspective came from basically being democratic party royalty. Her husband was president in the 90s, she was basically brought up like a princess to one day become queen after that, and 2016 was when the party was to give her what she was OWED.
Except it didnt work that way because we live in a democracy and the voters have final say.
Which brings us to where we are now. I am largely affiliated with "the left" in this alignment, and the anti establishment left. But...here's the thing. When I look at this stein vs west debate, I see HRC all over again. A lot of lefties wanna give it to stein simply because she's on the green ticket. And they're the only ones with ballot access, and that we need to grow the party so they can fight the democrats.
But...as I see it, the greens represent me no more than the democrats do. Seriously, the greens, they seem to have their internal politics, and I can tell you, having dealt with them in discords and the like before, I don't always get along with them. They're TOO left for me. They go too hard into identity politics, and socialism, and being full on anti war. On my likert scale, the greens are a 2, I'm a 3, the democrats are 4s, and the republicans are 6s with some bordering on 7s, which is why im getting scared by them (I tend to reserve the 1 and 7 designations for the actual extremists who tend to become threats to society). As you can tell I'm more of like a social democrat, or a social libertarian. My politics are a mix of Bernie Sanders' and Andrew Yang's, with my actual ideological roots closer to Yang, ya know, before he sold out and limited his own advocacy to grow his organization.
And honestly? I DONT CARE about the greens as an institution. I care about ideas. If I'm gonna vote third party, I'm gonna vote for the guy who conforms most with my ideals and ideology. I'm gonna set up distinct policy preferences and go with that. And I actually do judge candidates in part by their commitment to certain goals. Ideally, youre gonna be like a Bernie, the dude who pushes things as far as they reasonably can. The dude with consistency and who isnt afraid to do the right thing in the face of pressure. What you dont wanna be...is like Andrew Yang, who will throw the ideals under the bus in order to grow your support. Because if you dont support the ideals, then why the heck am I supporting you in the first place.
And as I see it, the greens are another institution like everything else. And they got commitments to certain stakeholders and individuals who they don't wanna piss off. They're just as fake as the dems push comes to shove, and if anything the Cornel West stuff to me demonstrates that. he said in his interview with tim black that i covered that the greens were telling him he cant say this and cant say that, and blah blah blah, and he was like who TF are they to tell me what I can and can't say? If I wanna eulogize navalny, im gonna do it. For some reason, the greens didnt want him to do that. West said they told him it was because he was a nationalist. I suspect it might be because maybe the Russians are funding and supporting these guys and there's more of a relationship there than we think. Maybe the dems are right on that for once. I don't know. But it does come off as shady to me.
So Stein is someone who is talking about building the party, and who plays the role of fake politician putting on a friendly face for all of these stakeholders and power people she doesn't wanna piss off, and west is....basically saying what he wants to say and doing what he wants to do. Who is better? If it were up to me, and if I werent just voting for Biden, i'd want west, full stop. I ain't leaving the democratic party and voting for a third party unless that third party is gonna meet my ideals better than the democratic party is. The whole point in leaving the dems is because they arent doing it for me. I want someone who IS doing it for me instead. I want someone with ideals and integrity, who will actually deliver on what i want delivered. Who won't just stop advocating for what they believe in to please some INSTITUTION.
Honestly, West gave me a peak at what being in the greens is like and I don't like it. it's too restrictive, and runs into many of the same issues as being a democrat. Sure, the greens have a different set of ideals, but my own views are in between those two institutions. The democrats are too moderate for me at times, but the greens are too extreme, and we differ on top priorities.
I admit I did look at the green platform today and maybe im a little harsh, they support an NIT and oppose workfare, but I just cant help but believe that given their emphasis on the job guarantee and given how "wish list-y" their entire platform is, that they likely won't support a UBI. Even if they have nominal support, they can only realistically support so many things at once, and their priorities are going to override any UBI support they have. This isn't a battle to worry about now, it's something to worry about IF they had a serious grab for power, but let's face it, as such, my support for the greens is, and always has been fair weathered. I support whatever organization or individual I believe best furthers my own goals at any time. Sometimes that's the democrats, sometimes that's the greens, sometimes that's an independent. if I'm willing to vote third party, why WOULDNT i consider the independent? After all, the whole appeal is that the current institutions arent doing their job and we need OUTSIDERS willing to change things. Change the culture in the institutions, replace one institutions for another, or maybe just...screw institutions and support the best person for the job regardless of institutional backing like the founders intended.
Ya know? As such, I'm not really inclined to be in favor of supporting the greens just because they're the greens, any more than i support the democrats just because they're the democrats. if anything the democrats have a much stronger argument to be had, as their organization is even bigger. The only reason i really have any desire to operate outside it at all is because of their own internal culture and politics being hostile to the outsiders i support who offer policies mainstream democrats don't.
Why would i care about some third party and their institutions if their platform doesn't even fully align with mine? This aint my institution, theyre just another competitor trying to earn MY vote. And MY vote IS a statement of MY values and MY policy preferences. When I support ANYONE, it's not like i support every single thing they do or support. I am the customer, they are the business trying to earn my piece of currency, ie, my vote. I dont give my currency away for no reason, i give it to those i believe deserve it.
I admit, on policy itself, Stein and West are about the same as each other. And I would agree that maybe under such circumstances it makes little sense to go independent over a green. The differences arent enough. Still, again, Im not personally huge on the greens. I never have been. They were just an option that happened to earn my vote in previous election cycles. They're no more entitled to it than the democrats are, not should they get complacent or start talking crap on West.
If anything in that argument, I respect West. His independence is an ASSET, not a liability. His desire to buck the trends is an advantage, not a disadvantage. His lack of affiliation with a party and all of the baggage that comes along with it, is a PLUS for me. Meanwhile after listening to west's side of the story, I can't help but see the greens as...another institution, and stein as...another hillary. I admit in this case there's nowhere near as much of an ideological difference as there is between bernie or yang and the dem establishment candidates like hillary or biden, I mean, west is virtually identical. But again, if youre not already going democrat, since when do we care about institutional support first and foremost? I dont care about the institutions. Give me the most honest candidate who best reflects my ideas and ideology that you got. And idk...for me, that would be west.
So if I werent going for Biden, I would likely just endorse West.
I'm not saying Stein is all bad. Again, there's not much of a difference between the two. Vote for who you want, i think you CAN argue about raising up a left wing alternative to the dems, just be aware that institutions tend to have issues, and lead to them losing touch with the people and voters as a response. And to be fair, the greens arent a good match for my politics in the first place. I mean, all things considered, given where the dems and greens are right now, outside of economics, i prefer the dems. I do admit i favor greens on economics, but the greens arent exactly what i want anyway. Too much into socialism and the green new deal and their support for UBI seems...nominal at best. Like it's in there, but they barely talk about it, and it's clear that they prioritize other things that might leave little money left over for a real UBI. So yeah. I admit, West aint really a UBI stan either. He mentioned supporting more trials, but we dont need more trials we need to implement this thing already.
So...lets be honest, that's why im kinda lukewarm on the left. I dont feel aligned with them at all outside of economics relative to the democrats, and vs the democrats it's like...they're better on economics but not great. The 30% vs 60% metric is about accurate. And overall, so is the fact that leftists and dems kinda tie each other until I decide to favor the larger institution who has the only actual chance of beating the fascist, which throws it to the dems, and yeah.
Anyway I just wanted to go into this since i saw some leftists bashing west and supporting stein because the greens have more institutional support, and I was just like WTF, it's one thing if you PREFER the greens for that reason, but attacking west seems uncalled for. Especially when there's value in a principled, independent candidate who don't need no party. Acting like he's a joke or his campaign is a vanity project while the greens somehow arent is extremely hypocritical and literally just dem establishment style talking points punching down to smaller, more independent candidates. They should know better since they're not exactly the big fishes themselves.
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