Before whatever upheaval occasioned Cornel West's recent exit from the Green Party presidential race to re-re-launch his campaign as an independent, I was surprised to find myself closer to voting Green in 2024 than I have been since 2000, but even that was contingent on not having to listen to actual Greens in the meantime.
This paragraph from a substack article a Green friend shared with me is a good example of what I'm talking about:
... the voting base of the Green Party are people who identify as more liberal, more progressive, socialist, communist even, and as being to the left of the Democrats. They care about anti-imperialism more, they care about anti-racism more, they care about anti-sexism more, they care about healthcare and taxing the rich more. That is the electoral base of the Greens, so the liberal media apparatus is directly aiming fire at it constantly at all times with the line: “Don’t believe them, they’re liars, they’re frauds, they’re actually Trump supporters, they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing, we are the real liberals, we are the best you have, we are the only real left option to you.”
While there was much else in the article to agree with, the above is what stood out as emblematic of my problem with voting Green. How is aligning with a powerless party that only does presidential campaigns every 4 years “caring more” about anything other than purity? There is no “electoral base” of the Greens because the Greens do not get elected. I don’t get it. I don’t see the value of aligning with a few people with no power and no plan to get power just because they want the best things as much as I do, versus (given our stupid fucking system) aligning with as many people as possible who want the same things I do in the hopes that with the power in that number some of those things will happen.
In his stated aim of bringing down the duopoly, Cornel West had found common cause with the Greens before he saw fit to reject party politics altogether with his latest reboot. Whether the purification of his position on electoralism will sustain any support he had garnered as a Green through November of next year remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that by refusing from the beginning to even entertain a run as a democrat, instead choosing principle over mainstream political relevance, he is representing an anti-duopoly strain that is a continuing source of contention between the faction of the left that includes Greens and followers/subscribers of Jimmy Dore, Briahna Joy Gray, the Revolutionary Blackout Network and the like, and the amorphous nervous majority of pants shitters like myself who identify with the left (and behave like it in Primary season) while succumbing to appeals to vote for the lesser evil of the two major party candidates when it comes to the general election.
I think I get the RBN critique of my kind a bit – in short my general election hangup about keeping the GOP from winning and taking everything outright appears to the RBN types (and to similar irritating types on the left) like Dem complicity, and more to the point duopoly complicity. It is perceived as neoliberal. And counterrevolutionary in that it contributes to perpetuating the status quo (so they think). And even more annoying, should I express my belief in the importance to myself of not just handing everything over to the GOP, especially if it involves anything that could be viewed as exhortation of others to likewise put harm prevention (as though Dems are less harmful than GOP) above their taste for destruction, that is viewed as an infuriating counterproductive request of people who are trying to make everything come crashing down. Only someone with low stakes would put out a fire intended to destroy a monstrosity because it could cause a fire that might cause the prison that the monstrosity is keeping us all in to burn down so long as prison or not, it’s the roof over our heads.
My critique of the RBN critique of me is, if Dems and GOP are almost the same then why are you focusing only on people who hate capitalism war poverty injustice oppression just as much as you do who are in good faith trying to mitigate the harms of our system in some small way in one of the few ways allowed? If electoral politics does nothing then why does it matter if Dems win? If you hate the duopoly, at least you don’t have to do anything to maintain it. If I’m just neurotic, so what? Back the fuck off, maybe!
I make explicit for anyone tuning in late that it’s not dems who I think hate capitalism war oppression etc just as much as RBN types but me, who is not a dem but who votes for dems on a theory of harm reduction. I always come back to, what’s the alternative? That’s where people like me and RBN and their ilk differ. I realize I do a bit of taking for granted that of course dems are not as bad as republicans, and the reason for this is that in my view Republicans are actively and openly trying to destroy everything good and free for everyone who is not an owner. Dems in my view are actively but quietly trying to preserve things for their personal selves which the GOP has pretty much made ok and a lot easier for wealthier people to do in private, while openly but much less actively validating that Republicans are bad for everybody else. I know it’s a small difference, but republicans take away women’s right to an abortion by appointing young reactionary justices and what not, whereas dems who of course fundraise off of this but do almost nothing to mitigate it, nevertheless occasionally get someone who’s not a young reactionary on the supreme court. I’m trying to be generous to the other side of this left-ish debate. Let’s just say, anybody who is openly inclined or engaged in reducing harm in our government is probably there because of dems. An effort to put a stop to Republican momentum at the polls, even if it amounts to merely a gentle tapping of the brake seems to me substantial to the extent that it prevents crashing into a wall of complete fascism. It may not seem that way to accelerationists, but my point is, if I am engaged in what I think is the prevention of fascism and if my activities at worst fail because a GOP president/congress/supreme court succeeds anyway and accelerates the march toward fascism, or even if my efforts contribute to dem success that you think at best does nothing, I still fail to see why this disqualifies me from what those who see through my delusion would consider the left. Especially since I really do not hear a whole lot of alternatives proposed. I hear no alternatives proposed other than 3rd parties and rank choice voting-- perpetually stubbornly unconstructed electoral tweaks. Outside of electoral politics, the alternative to harm reduction seems to be to let it burn. Ok if the dems are just as bad as the GOP (or are so bad that a dem victory is worse than the GOP) then aren’t I actively contributing to the acceleration of the end of it anyway?
Does it really need to be made clear that people like me who vote for harm reduction in the general election without reservation are only doing what they think is the best they can do given two terrible choices? I know there are still plenty of people who parrot the mainstream liberal platitudes about how unbelievably bad the republicans are while avoiding the topic of how great the dems are --- it feels implied and I don’t doubt that many people have not given that side of the equation a lot of thought. I happen to agree they’re not wrong that Republicans must be stopped. But I identify with a sizeable group of people who yearn for the end of capitalism and imperialism, of inequality, oligarchy, planet destruction etc. (i.e., same base clean slate as people who think harm reduction is asinine I assume). This is my biggest beef with the know-it-alls who condemn harm reduction, this implication that harm reducers want to perpetuate the status quo--- no they want to destroy the status quo but without harm. That to me is the essential difference. My question of what is the alternative means that. What is the alternative to harm reduction? I fear the alternative is, Let’s find out. People like me don’t want to find out because history does not indicate that the answer to Let’s find out is going to be good. I’m not opposed to all my possessions and assets etc. being liquidated, meaningless, worthless. That doesn’t scare me. What scares me is slavery, genocide, surveillance.
I think the rift on the left may be insurmountable for as long as each side sees the other as part of the problem. How come people who want the same things are so irreparably on opposite sides anyway? I don’t think it’s strictly because of doctrine. When the RBN side flirts with anti-trans anti-woke MAGA pro-Trump shit, am I wrong to be fucking pissed to have my side called counter-revolutionary?
To be continued (or dropped as we see fit).
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