Why we persist
In general, 2020, with the COVID constraints, was not a good year for the Green Party in the United States. Our share of the presidential vote fell from over 1% in 2016 to less than half of that. We got on fewer ballots, we elected fewer local candidates, membership in some of our state parties declined (slightly).
There were some bright spots: In New Jersey our US Senate candidate, Madelyn Hoffman, received the highest vote total of any NJ Green candidate in history (almost 40,000 votes). In Maine our US Senate candidate got over 4%. In Baldwin Park, CA we elected a mayor. But the American Green politics movement, initiated in 1984, remains very marginal. And so some say: “After almost 40 years of trying, let go of the dream (the chimera); instead work within the Democratic Party or become an environmentalist caucus within a coalitional alternative party.”
So here’s the case for continuing, for persevering, despite the so-far failure to make much of a dent in the system:
We’re representing a significant political movement. That movement was a logical phenomenon after the growth of environmentalism during the 1960s (with a major expression in the 1970 inauguration of annual Earth Days). The movement clearly has some resonance, as there are now Green parties all over the world.
In countries where the electoral system is conducive to the emergence of new parties, the Greens have become established enough to regularly poll a significant percentage of the vote (5%, 10%, 15%), enough to sometimes be included in governing coalitions. In countries where the electoral system is not conducive to the emergence of new parties (such as our own) our mission is to represent the global movement, to build a party infrastructure as much as possible, to demonstrate endurance, and to work toward opening up the system to “more voices and more choices.”
With a party infrastructure in place, fostered to be as robust as possible under the circumstances, we anticipate a time when some shift or crisis or breakthrough will enable us to grow in a way that we’ve seen other Green parties grow in other countries.
It would be discouraging if the resonance for Green politics was extremely marginal and stagnant, but that’s not the case. If there were statistics for the global movement overall you’d see something like:
1980s: 2% of all votes cast in democratic elections worldwide
1990s: 4%
2000s: 6%
2010s: 8%
Our flagship party, in Germany, has grown about like this:
1980s: 5%
1990s: 7%
2000s: 9%
2010s: 13%
Those trajectories should be viewed as encouraging. And they make sense ... after all, environmentalism is an ascendant historical movement and global warming, deforestation, etc. are major issues of the day. And the Green alternative is also a home for eco-socialists, anti-militarists, radical democrats, egalitarians, feminists, communitarians, social justice activists, bioregionalists, and other change agents.
That’s why we keep plugging away.
