Here's what I'd suggest as an alternative approach to those who say they can't back HRC

[Ken Burch]

(...as opposed to endlessly screaming "a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump"-which is true, of course, but which doesn't win people over)

"OK...can you work on voter registration and campaign for Dems in close down-ticket races, then? And can you keep an eye on the polls and at least consider loaning us a vote if there's a shot at Trump taking your state?"

Since proclaiming the evils of the Green Party's very existence isn't achieving anything(and isn't worth anyone's time, with that ticket now doomed to get less than 2% of the vote), why not try this instead of wasting time on an attack strategy that, while emotionally satisfying to some, isn't producing any worthwhile results and is clearly no longer necessary(what with our ticket now holding a fifteen point lead in some polls)?

I agree that the Greens shouldn't run a presidential ticket...but we've made the point and it's now time to move on.

[DanTex]

1. We should treat Jill Stein the way we treat Sarah Palin.

Sure, we should try to get Stein fans to vote Dem just like we should get Plain fans to vote Dem. But we shouldn't pretend that either of them are anything but Trump allies.

[Ken Burch]

3. I don't like Stein any more than you do. But we're doing better by NOT obsessing about her.

Focusing on Stein lets her play the persecuted martyr. Why give her the chance to do that?

Let's get progressives to work with us on whatever levels they feel they can.

at 2%, Stein no longer matters. She isn't going to grow in support and she isn't going to cost us Florida.

If the race does somehow tighten(it's not likely to)most Stein supporters in marginal states will vote for us. The only way to stop that happening is to make it sound like we are browbeating them, rather than just pointing out that Stein's candidacy is bad strategy.

And there's no good reason to bring up 2000 anymore. Gore lost as much because the Democratic Party didn't care about reaching to to alienated progressives, voters the party HAD to have, as it did about appeasing big donors who didn't want egalitarian economic policies.

While we need to learn from the past, we need to win in November and in the future. We're most likely to do that by maximizing the Democratic vote through an effective GOTV operation and a positive, inspiring fall campaign...not by running a campaign that says we care more about getting belated revenge on Nader than on building a longlasting progressive electoral majority.

[DanTex]

6. You may be right about the strategy. But...

DU is a place where Dems get together to discuss things. The best way to get Republicans to vote for Dems might not be to constantly criticize them, but we do that here anyway. Why? Because they deserve being criticized. When I write an anti-GOP post on DU, I'm not trying to convince GOP voters, I'm communicating to fellow Dems about something disturbing I find in the GOP.

And this isn't unusual, and it's also not just me. Michael Moore, for instance, doesn't mince words when he talks about Republicans. Bill McKibben doesn't play nice with global warming deniers.

Do you similarly feel that we shouldn't "browbeat" Republicans? When it comes to supply-side economics, or creationism, or anti-abortionists, or homophobes, should we, here on DU, try to "play nice" in order to try to persuade, for example, a homophobe to vote for us?

Maybe we should. But I don't think this is the forum for that.

[Ken Burch]

8. Republicans are in a different category.

It's not possible to win over committed Republican voters. It IS possible to win over current Green voters.

[DanTex]

9. Of course it's possible to win over Republican voters.

A lot of high-profile Republicans are endorsing Hillary, and more will. Not to mention centrist voters.

[Ken Burch]

11. Most Republican voters who've defected from Trump are backing Johnson.

We've taken GOP endorsements without GOP votes.

And we won't win over GOP voters by going on and on about the Greens. That's not going to impress them.

[DanTex]

12. Don't know if that's true. But it doesn't matter.

There are as many or more GOP and centrist voters to win over than there are greens. But that doesn't stop me from criticizing the GOP. So why should I refrain from criticizing the Greens, who are GOP allies?

The whole "don't attack the Greens" thing seems strange to me. There are a lot of pro-life voters, should we not criticize the anti-choice movement? There are plenty of voters that want more tax cuts, but I just wrote an OP criticizing Trump's tax plan. Was that bad? What makes the Green Party special, of all pro-GOP factions, that we should hold back from criticism?

[MichiganVote]

2. Here's my alternative: Surrender your civil rights, surrender the gains in women's issues,

surrender education, surrender social security and medicare, surrender ACA, surrender the Voting Rights Act, in short--surrender everything that the Democratic party has fought decades to achieve

And then tell me one fucking little thing that the Green party has "risked" to get for you. Not wish for but actually get. Tell me when they were arrested for demonstrating on a bridge, thrown in jail, tazed or shot. Tell me when they fed the homeless, worked for programs for kids, waded through legislation to fight for changes that would dump you in the toilet.

Tell me. I really want to know of one solitary thing the Green Party, the Libertarians and any other "party" has done, not wished for, for you. Where is their sacrifice for you?

[KMOD]

4. +1

Thank you.

[Ken Burch]

5. I'm not saying it's ok to vote Stein.

Last edited Mon Aug 8, 2016, 10:27 PM - Edit history (2)

And we are thirteen-to-fifteen points ahead now(with little reason to think that margin is going to shrink)so a Trump victory is pretty damn unlikely.

BTW...it's true that there were some people in the Democratic Party organizing for civil rights and progressive change...but in the freedom movement era in the Sixties, half the politicians being protested against were ALSO Democrats. So our party was not universally virtuous on those issues. Neither "Bull" Connor nor Mayor Daley was a Republican.

It was progressive activists who took those stands, not the Democratic Party as an institution(many of whose leaders in the Sixties did all they could to delay the end of Jim Crow for as long as possible). The activists and protesters were the heroes and the martyrs, not the party as such.

And I say that as a Democrat who admires the freedom movement.

[MichiganVote]

7. Disagree but no time to debate. Good luck with that view.

[BzaDem]

17. I don't think the civil rights battle in the 60s is a good example.

You are correct that many Congressional Democrats didn't support civil rights at that time. But in that case, many of them were far to the right of many elected Republicans, and were unabashed racists at the time (only later moderating their public views as racism became less socially acceptable). Most eventually became Republicans. Good riddance.

I don't think that offers much of a parallel for today. For the most part, the protesters in the 60s didn't convince the right wing Democrats to move to the left, nor could they have, because such Democrats were not even remotely inclined towards progressive policy in the first place (and only were still calling themselves Democrats due to historical inertia). There is no analogous group in the Democratic party today.

Which is not to say it is necessarily bad to protest Democrats when they are in office. But the civil rights era is a poor analogy I think.

[Ken Burch]

18. The person I responded to there was the one I who came up with it.

If that poster had used, for example, the Congressional Dem sit-in on gun control, they'd have been on stronger ground with the analogy.

[geek tragedy]

10. or, one can choose to just not engage those people nt

[BainsBane]

15. Which is what any professional voter turn out effort does

Any campaign will tell you not to bother with people who support other candidates. Whether one encounters a Stein or a Trump voter, wish them a good day and move on. End of story.

[Ron Green]

13. Nice try and and honest post, Ken, but this place is now

nothing more than an echo chamber; almost completely content-free.

[BainsBane]

14. The last thing that crowd does is work for Democratic turnout

Like they give a shit. its pretty obvious they've decided that they don't care what happens to the country or the rest of us, and they may well want to see women and people of color punished because their entire word view is based on their own sense of entitlement.


The point of get out the vote is to turn supporters out. They aren't Democrats. There is no point focusing on them, any more than their is who admit to supporting the GOP.

[oberliner]

16. The Green Party is opposed to Dems

So there is no reason why Stein supporters would campaign for Dems in other races.

They will campaign for other Green Party candidates, against Dems.

In fact, the Green Party attacks Democrats way more than they do Republicans.