cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/1017989
Video on subject, The Hill:
Cornel West DEFECTS From Green Party, Goes INDEPENDENT; Americans DESPERATE For 3rd Party: Poll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHaebD64izY
Sabby Sabs will be talking with Jill Stein (Staff of Dr. Cornel West 2024) in an hour on the update:
JILL STEIN JOINS w/WEST NEWS, KEVIN MCCARTHY OUSTED, NINA TURNER NEW GIG, KAISER STRIKE WI WINS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5SH4uYk0hY
“I’m running as an Independent candidate for President of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true democracy!” West wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
West may not be the only independent or third-party candidate positioned to influence the 2024 presidential contest. Current Democratic presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is widely expected to launch an independent or third-party bid next week. And the centrist group No Labels is actively securing ballot access for a yet-to-be-named candidate.
I’d pretty strongly disagree with that, if you mean actually causing centrist Dems to not vote for Biden.
I’d remind you that if all Green Party voters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in 2016 would have instead voted for Clinton, those states would have flipped, Hillary Clinton would be President right now, Roe v. Wade would still be intact, and many many many things would be very different.
Now, I won’t pretend that these kinds of hypotheticals are super meaningful (the Libertarian party obviously exists as a factor, for instance), but the fact of the matter is that voting for the Greens in a tight state can and has contributed to very real harm to people. Second-order effects really aren’t that complicated to understand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election#Results_by_state
If all Stein voters had voted for Clinton (which, even if the Green party weren’t running, they wouldn’t all have), then maybe Clinton would have won Michigan, and final EC result is still 290:248. The contests elsewhere either weren’t close enough, or didn’t have enough Green voters to matter. The Libertarians had a much bigger impact.
I don’t mean it’s good for them to ride the whole race out, that is just a spoiler vote. But at this early point it’s good to have left leaning opponents out there to force democrats to answer questions that may be popular with the public but they wouldn’t ask themselves if they were running opposed.