Perpetual Loss for Perpetual Losers
The Green Party forces the Dumdum Left's resentments on the rest of us.
A week into his presidential campaign as a candidate of the People’s Party, Cornel West—a philosopher, academic, resistance leader against the machines1, intellectual, and socialist—announced that he would instead seek the nomination of the Green Party “in the spirit of a broad United Front and coalition strategy”. His party-jump came after a week of backlash to his decision to associate with the People’s Party.
The People’s Party is a group that at best is a dysfunctional collection of grifters, Dumdum Leftists2, and post-Left followers of Putin-apologist podcaster Jimmy Dore. It’s also had accusations of racism, assault, and harassment. Even among the Dumdum Left, the People’s Party is generally frowned upon—which says a lot! So instead of jumping into the Democratic Party presidential primary as anti-vaxxer crank Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done, West has wisely chosen to pursue the presidency via a more classic and time-tested vessel of Leftist grievance.
The Green Party (once a splinter faction of the now-defunct Green Party USA, and preceded by the Association of State Green Parties) has zero seats in the United States Congress and zero seats in the legislatures of a single state or territory. According to its website, it does have some seats on several school boards in Maine as well as the mayoralty of Marina, California. The site declares “since 1985, Greens have won at least 1375 races, including at least 164 partisan races,” which is an interesting way to frame things.
The Greens, obviously, have never won a presidential election, but they also don’t win state or local elections (aside from those school board seats up in Maine—and school board elections do matter, actually! They really do!). Instead of building a genuine political organization with a down-ballot presence, the Green Party throws everything at presidential elections. Why haven’t they tried to compete in other races? Is the insidious two party system stopping them?
Across rural America that is no longer an issue. The Democratic Party has effectively withdrawn from political participation in much of flyover country, leaving countless local and state races uncontested every election cycle. In hundreds of red districts, Republican officeholders simply do not face political opposition.
For all the talk we hear from so many on the Left about appealing to the working class and smashing “the duopoly”, it’s interesting that they haven’t made an effort to build a new left-wing party in rural districts where one-party Republican rule has been the status quo for years.
Why not though? What are they waiting for? These people have a massive opportunity to prove their political acumen and show cynical liberal strategists in D.C. that the masses will naturally vote for candidates who actually care about the plight of working people. Where are the genius Leftists who can’t stop shouting about how useless and corrupt the Democratic Party is? Why aren’t they organizing across the south and the Midwest? The Democratic Party isn’t there to stop them—why aren’t they setting up county offices and registering voters? Where is the Communist Party USA? The Peace and Freedom Party? Socialist Action? People’s Party? Party for Socialism and Liberation? Where are they? Where is the Green Party! The fourth largest political party in the U.S. by voter registration! Why aren’t Green Party activists rising up and running for local office to fight for the proletariat of middle America, long abandoned by the damnable DNC?
Because these people do not want to win. They do not want to risk being publicly repudiated by the hard, irrefutable numbers of a local election where it’s just them and the GOP, and no corrupt neoliberals and Dem Party shills around to blame for what would undoubtedly be a massive loss3.
The inability of America’s second largest minor party to achieve electoral success after twenty years presents an uncomfortable reality to those on the Dumdum Left who constantly shout about the need for a third party whenever a notable Democrat publicly compromises on something or votes the wrong way on a bill.
The Green Party’s two most consequential achievements are handing the presidency to George W. Bush4, and launching Krysten Sinema’s political career. Aside from that, they accomplish little else but act as a tool for the Republican Party and Russia to prevent Democrats from winning elections.
The Green Party’s legacy of failure explains why Green Party activists and other members of the Dumdum Left have such seething contempt for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
The DSA holds fifty seats in state legislatures, more than twice that in local government, and after wins in 2018, 2020, and 2022, five members of the DSA now hold seats in the U.S. congress. DSA candidates usually elect to run for office by winning Democratic primaries. Surprise!—this actually works. In less than ten years and with less than half the membership, the DSA has achieved what the Green Party could not do in twenty.
Building a genuine grassroots organization that is capable of electoral success, shaping policy, and even attaining mainstream appeal is not something the Dumdum Left or the Green Party has ever come close to experiencing. As the Overton window of American politics has moved way left since 2016 thanks to Bernie Sanders and the DSA, the faction of Leftists who hate Democrats more than they hate fascists have become more and more unhinged. Like longtime fans of an underground band that finally got a top 40 hit, they scream into the void about selling out. To cope with the horror of being popular with the normies, they concoct wild narratives of corrupt bargains and behind-the-scenes chicanery. The unlikely congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is a Democratic Socialist who quickly became a household name after defeating an incumbent Democrat in a shocking upset. So of course the Dumdum Left thinks she is working for the CIA.
Sane Leftists and progressives in America interested in achieving actual results long ago grew past the need for the Green Party and its legacy of failure. Putting in the slow, arduous work of building power in America won’t get you media attention or inspire Twitter discourse the way a doomed presidential campaign will. But unlike fighting over which member of your Marxist knitting circle has read the most theory, it does make a difference.
Dramatized in the 2003 films The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
Important to note that the Dumdum Left is not the Normal Left. They are two separate groups. The Normal Left will look at people like Ilhan Omar, Jamaal Bowman, or AOC—some of the most progressive members of Congress and some of the few prominent mainstream voices for Left policy goals—and think “no problem here!” While the Dumdum Left will look at Omar, Bowman, and AOC and quickly inform you that AOC and the rest are all right-wing DNC shills and disgusting neoliberal sellouts who are TOTAL puppets of the ruling elite put into power by WALL STREET in order to trick leftists iNtO sUppOrtiNgThE dEmoCRaTicPaRtyandtheNATOpRoXyWARinUKRAINE!!!!!!11!!1!
This is where longtime Sam Grady haters can completely own me by posting a screenshot of the election results from my own run for office in deep red Trump country.
Herron, Michael & Lewis, Jeffrey. (2007). Did Ralph Nader Spoil Al Gore's Presidential Bid? A Ballot-Level Study of Green and Reform Party Voters in the 2000 Presidential Election. Quarterly Journal of Political Science. 2. 10.1561/100.00005039.
wow this is complete dogshit, what kind of fucking moron are you?