Tune in to the Green Party convention
The annual convention of the Green Party of the United States is occurring this weekend online.
GP-US is a rather marginal political entity. For that reason it generally doesn’t draw the highest-grade talent and it often seems pretty dysfunctional. Nonetheless I think it’s important for those of us who prioritize the “greening of society” project to be somewhat active within GP-US or our local state Green Party.
For one thing, over the years the electorate has gotten a sense that, in addition to the two major parties, there are two significant trying-to-grow national-scale minor parties: the Libertarians and the Greens. National elections show that there is a base of at least a million people who explicitly want to vote for a Green Party candidate when one appears on the ballot and about two million who explicitly want to vote for any Libertarian Party candidate that makes it onto the ballot (not an easy task).
Also: Though the Green parties of some countries (like Germany, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden) get a significant number of members elected in parliamentary and local elections and GP-US does not, nonetheless any progress toward opening up the system and spreading ecological consciousness here in the “belly of the beast,” the geopolitically most important country in the world, must be viewed as having special significance. When we break through to offer the American electorate a serious new choice, a better choice, it will be of interest worldwide.
