Too much or too little? In times like these, tumultuous and difficult but somehow denying answers, column writers have a dilemma. We can choose a subject that overwhelms—like the 2024 wars—and drown in questions, data, opinions, conclusions that may never be proven but are of the utmost consequence. Or we can choose a subject with too little material, like rural health care or the survival of pollinators, also of the utmost consequence, but with few threads to follow.
So we choose something less consequential and hope to make deadlines. Thus, this columnist today writes about third-party candidacies.
Let’s start with 73-year-old Jill Stein, the Green Party’s perennial. She is a tireless campaigner going back to her first attempts at office in 2002 when she ran for governor of Massachusetts. Working her way up the political ladder, she ran for President in 2012 and every campaign since, although her 2020 campaign was a quiet one. Still, she’s built a little more power every year. Her main talking points are predictable: Both parties have failed to help Americans achieve goals in income, environmental improvement, education and global stability. Hackneyed as they sound, these arguments always find traction.
According to her webpage, her principles include: A Just Economy; A Real New Green Deal; Freedom, Equality and Justice for All; Peace and Global Human Rights; Real Democracy to Power the People. OK, but how about policy to fuel those principles? Can you extricate us from Joe Biden’s Israel love affair, impose peace and human rights, without losing the Jewish vote? Can you take agriculture back to local markets without losing the farmers?
Stein’s top donors in the 2016 run were the usual Wall Street darlings. According to Open Secrets, top donations came from Alphabet, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Apple and IBM. Donating thousands to her, they also donated millions to Donald Trump and Biden. Note the cyberspace lean of the list. Under a button on Stein’s website that says, “Stop the Tik Tok Ban” is a sentence reading, “Trying to ban TikTok is a transparent attempt to shut down this channel for us to communicate instead of solving the real problems we face.” But again, no proposed solutions for those real problems.
Looking on comments on Stein’s webpage, you’d think she was running against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., rather than against Biden and Trump. One commenter says, “I mean I also could just vote rfk and he has at least a chance to win lol.” A personal note: I love anyone that can write “LOL” with a political comment.
Like Stein, Kennedy is poised to take votes from Biden rather than Trump. And as founder of the national Waterkeepers Alliance he has the credibility to attract enviro types. His campaign, however seems Trumpian. Other than the lack of personalized gold sneakers, Bibles or victory perfume, Kennedy has adopted a lot of orange-man strategies: You can buy a “Bark for Bobby” hoodie for your dog or a “Cats for Kennedy” feeding mat for Tabby’s food bowls. A t-shirt declares “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Secret Service: Kennedy 24” and reminds us that Kennedy feels that he should get Secret Service protection.
Under policies, we find “People who work hard should be able to afford a good life.” And RFK comes through with proposals: Raise the minimum wage; prosecute union-busting corporations so that labor can organize; expand free childcare; drop housing costs by $1,000 per family and make home ownership affordable by backing 3% home mortgages with tax-free bonds; support small businesses; secure the border and bring illegal immigration to a halt so that undocumented migrants won’t undercut wages; negotiate trade deals that prevent low-wage countries from competing with American workers; rein in military spending; clean out the corruption in Washington, D.C.; make student debt dischargeable in bankruptcy and cut interest rates on student loans to zero; cut drug costs by half to bring them in line with other nations. And, says RFK the anti-vaxxer, “reverse the chronic disease epidemic that is a $3.7 trillion drag on families and the American economy.”
Favor for a third party has risen among independents and is now at an all-time high, says Gallup news, claiming in 2022: “Sixty-three percent of US adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do ‘such a poor job’ of representing the American people that ‘a third major party is needed.’ This represents a seven-percentage-point increase from a year ago and is the highest since Gallup first asked the question in 2003.”
Understood. But most voters follow up the question with what-if? What if I vote third party and help throw the election to the bad guy? Stein answers that parties abandoned their bases many elections ago and that Independents are simply giving them back a choice.
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2024
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