But the short term problem is that Trump is currently on track to win, and the people who don't want that to happen are sticking their heads in the sand.

We need to (1) reengage the Democratic base. Biden's victory in key swing states -- Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia in particular -- was built on the backs of grass-roots door knocking campaigns by Bernie supporters. His campaign was absolutely reliant on the support of people who didn't really like HIM, but really wanted to get Trump out of office. Those people will probably still hold their nose and vote for him, but that turnout operation is shattered, and I don't see a way he can match his close victory in 2020 without it.

If progressives find a champion in Jill Stein, it's possible that they start dreaming of something better, and if Biden turns things around, they'll have the drive to rebuild that critical lefty turnout machine.

(2) Biden needs a metaphorical slap in the face. He won last time because Bernie's team wrote half his platform in a reconciliation committee. This time, there was no primary, so Biden has reverted to all his instincts, and they are TERRIBLE. He's trying to win Haley voters as if that's not like Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy's football. If Stein gets momentum, maybe it'll knock sense into him.

This is all aside from the fact that voting Green builds party infrastructure and ballot access for a meaningful third party. There are lots of complicated reasons why voting Green has long-term strategic benefits, but I'm not even getting into those. I'm just talking about how we save Biden from himself. Sorry if it sounds like 4D chess, but polls already show Biden losing and he's not taking note, so I think seeing popularity for a left alternative is the only thing I can think of that will rescue this thing.

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Until we replace first pass the post with something like ranked choice, voting green does fuck all

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

This is absolutely a myth.

Green party candidates can run and win many tickets other than President, but it's very, very hard to get ballot access, public funding, or voter awareness. In any state that isn't a swing state, voting Green most likely has more actual consequence than voting for one of the two major parties. This builds infrastructure that lets Greens organize the way parties do in other countries: doing actual outreach between elections instead of just threatening people every time they need votes.

The Green party is also often the only way to actually challenge the duopoly when both parties are taking the same pro-corporate position. What they do in a race is break a cartel dynamic, which forces Democrats to actually adopt popular positions which they can then be pressured to act on.

Vote strategically: if you're in PA, MI, or NC, by all means stick with a Democrat, but in about 40 states, you actually have a lot more voice and potential impact voting Green than you do otherwise.