Why Attacking the Green Party to Assist the War Party Helps Donald Trump, Not Bernie Sanders
A public attack that characterizes the Green Party as a of spoiler for the Democrats amounts to a defense of the Democrats policies on never-ending war and austerity.
“A party controlled by capitalists is a party that cannot fulfill the interests of the working class.”
We’ve heard it before. Independent political parties such as the Greens should refrain from organizing in “swing states” during the general election to ensure that the Democratic Party vote isn’t split in favor of the Republican Party. Ever since liberals blamed Ralph Nader for Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush, the Green Party has become a favorite scapegoat for the Democrats to explain away their electoral failures. This time around, the argument is being made by the likes of Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, and Barbara Ehrenreich. In an open letter published in the LA Progressive, Chomsky and the rest warn Green Party activists and organizers not to play spoiler for the Democratic Party in the 2020 election.
The letter is an attempt to lend a “progressive” veil to standard arguments made by the ruling circles of what Black Agenda Report has more appropriately identified as the War Party. Its premise is simple. The Green Party may not be solely to blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 but that doesn’t mean Green votes didn’t matter in that election. A simple calculation of votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania shows that Donald Trump would have lost if Green Party supporters had thrown their support to Clinton instead. The authors end the letter claiming they want a Sanders nomination but state earlier that “real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will become far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. Real solutions will become somewhat more probable even with the likes of Biden in office (emphasis my own).”
“The Green Party has become a favorite scapegoat for the Democrats.”
It is hard work making War Party arguments sound progressive, which is why the letter jumps from one point to another without much organization or clarity. What is clear from the letter, however, is that the authors believe that any serious contender in the War Party’s 2020 primary represents a lesser evil to the possibility of another four years of Trump. In other words, Greens should “vote blue no matter who” in swing states rather than build a movement outside of the War Party. Anyone who concludes that the policy outcomes of say, a Biden presidency versus a Trump presidency, would be very similar is making an “irresponsible and patently false” claim. So-called progressive intellectuals such as Chomsky have identified Trump as the most dangerous evil wrought upon humanity without realizing that this argument mobilizes no one and worse, hurts the very War Party candidate that the authors claim to support.
Sanders is surging in both the polls and in small contributions because of his perceived independence from the Democratic Party’s corporate leadership. Bernie Sanders’ attractiveness stems from a firm advocacy of a social democratic policy agenda and his ability to inspire working class people, especially young people, to engage in the electoral process. However, Sanders operates from within the same War Party machine that cut his 2016 primary effort short of victory. That machine has nominated corporate hacks such as John Podesta and Barney Frank as leaders in this July’s Democratic National Convention to prevent a Sanders nomination for the second time. Yet forty-seven percent of Sanders supporters have already shown little interest in voting for another candidate. The “lesser of two evils” theory is no longer compatible with a large section of the electorate and that should be viewed a good thing for anyone who calls themselves progressive or left in the United States.
“The ‘lesser of two evils’ theory is no longer compatible with a large section of the electorate.”
If we have learned anything about the last four years, it is that adherents of the War Party are more interested in avoiding accountability for their failures than mounting any sort of legitimate struggle against Donald Trump’s Republican Party. No amount of denial can change the facts of the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton assembled a war chest of one billion dollars only to lose to Donald Trump. She didn’t campaign in the “swing states” of Michigan and Wisconsin that the authors advise the Green Party to avoid all together in 2020. Clinton was too busy treating Donald Trump as the “pied piper” of the election and campaigning against the racist billionaire from the right on issues of war and peace.
The War Party’s electoral strategy to defeat Trump centered on the organization of a “big nasty tent” of intelligence spooks, neocons, and other legions of the ruling class. It was assumed that this assortment of profiteers would be able to use its influence in the corporate media to ensure victory for Clinton. The campaign strategy failed to generate the excitement necessary for an electoral college victory. Even worse, the entire War Party establishment refused to challenge the power of the electoral college or the influence of voter suppression on the outcome of the key swing states where Clinton lost by a small margin to Trump. Attacking the Green Party at this juncture of the 2020 election is especially shallow since it was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein who offered her ticket to Bernie Sanders during the 2016 election. Stein then sought legal action to force recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania after Trump won the November 2016 general election. Instead of providing support for Stein’s effort, the War Party blamed Russia for its defeat and erroneously smeared her and the rest of the Greens as assets of the Kremlin.
“Hillary Clinton assembled a war chest of one billion dollars only to lose to Donald Trump.”
The authors of the letter appear to be just as disinterested in the facts of the 2016 election as the top brass of the War Party. That’s because politics are about power, not facts. If politics were about facts, the authors of the letter would focus more of their attention on the actual policies associated with the War Party than with the electoral strategy of the Green Party. Workers, especially Black Americans, have seen their standard of living decimated by the War Party’s policy agenda. Thus, time would be better spent condemning the War Party for passing bloated military budgets that kill millions of people abroad, submitting workers to brutal, job-killing austerity measures, and fortifying the domestic police-state through the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. In the final analysis, a public attack that characterizes the Green Party as a of spoiler for the Democrats amounts to a defense of these policies and the larger system of U.S. imperialism which produces them.
Chomsky et al. have clearly missed the political target. Bernie Sanders’ rise to the top of the War Party’s field of candidates is a signal that millions of people, most of them workers, are sick and tired of politics as usual in Washington. If David Frum’s recent article in The Atlantic is any indication, then it is clear that the neocons and capitalists in control of the War Party are prepared to do anything they can to prevent a Sanders presidency, even if that means providing tacit support to a second term for Donald Trump. A party controlled by capitalists is a party that cannot fulfill the interests of the working class. The Green Party exists to offer an alternative to those who not only want to see Medicare for All and peace become realities in our lifetime, but also understand that a political system designed to keep workers and poor people completely destitute of political power must be completely transformed into its opposite before a socialist policy agenda takes shape in the United States. It is here where the authors of the letter are in fundamental disagreement with the Green Party, its supporters, and anyone who stands for peace and social justice. They claim to want to help Sanders win but repeat the talking points of the very same people who stampeded his 2016 campaign and handed Trump the White House. Such behavior won’t gain the left any friends with the workers and the oppressed and should be ignored entirely.
Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto Sirvent are co-authors of the book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News--From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (Skyhorse Publishing). He can be reached at wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com, on Twitter @spiritofho, and on Youtube at The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong.
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