The problem is actually the electoral system

Every four years we hear: “You’ll do nothing but act as a spoiler.”

This year, specifically: “You’ll do nothing but risk the re-election of Trump.”

The problem is actually the electoral system. After all, the Libertarians also run, also trying to build up an alternative party. In fact, the Libertarians tend to get more votes than we do. I assume they pull away more potential Republican votes than the Greens pull away potential Democratic votes. Should they, also, be dissuaded from running a candidate because they can’t yet win?

Of course not, that’s ridiculous.

The problem is the electoral system. In-between elections the Greens work hard to implement a better system. We’ve been active in the movement to implement Ranked Choice Voting. Have you?

* * * *

Trump is terrible. His values are anathema. Luckily, he’s been pretty ineffectual. Has Roe v. Wade been overturned? No. Has Obamacare been jettisoned? No. Has the union movement been decimated, as it was under Reagan? No. Have new wars been started, as under Bush? No.

Trump is terrible. But they all are. Because they all front the most dominant imperial power in the history of the world. LBJ expanded a horrible war. Clinton pushed through “welfare deform” and the miserable 1994 crime bill.

Etc.

Trump is terrible, but ineffectual in his terribleness. He’s an embarrassment, a buffoon; he’s terribly unpresidential. I hate him.

And: of course I recognize that there’s a difference. But a breakthrough for the Green Party, an upending of the moribund duopolistic system, would make a more significant difference than the outcome of the horse race between the two parties that have brought us to a point of obscene inequality, rampant social injustice, and incipient ecological breakdown.