The Founders of The Environmental Movement Have a Message: Don't Vote For The Green Party

[brooklynite]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Daily Beast

A group of some of the most revered and longest-active environmentalists issued a dire warning to the next generation of activists on Monday: Don’t vote for the Green Party this year. And don’t sit out the election either.

The warning, coming in the form of a letter signed by more than 170 top environmental leaders, is an explicit recognition that third-party voting—including from within their own community—has tipped presidential elections in the past. It’s also a plea to those who remain on the fence about Joe Biden, or who believe that they should cast a protest vote for someone else, that the stakes are simply too high.

“Angry right-wing voters and liberal absentees put Trump in the White House in 2016,” the letter reads. “In 2020 the same unholy team could keep him there. Progressives who vote for the Green Party candidate, or write in Henry David Thoreau, or refuse to vote at all for lack of an ideal choice will give Donald Trump precisely what he wants, and enough such pious gestures will produce catastrophic results.”

Warnings like these have become fixtures of election cycles ever since 2000, when Ralph Nader’s presence on the ballot likely cost Al Gore critical votes in Florida. In 2016, NextGen Climate, an environmental group that backed Hillary Clinton’s election, ran ads pleading with voters who cared about climate change to not take teh Libertarian candidate, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, seriously. President Barack Obama bluntly declared in one radio interview: "If you vote for a third-party candidate who's got no chance to win, that's a vote for Trump.”


Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-founders-of-the-environmental-movement-have-a-message-dont-vote-for-the-green-party?ref=home

[Maxheader]

1. Unfortunately I think it's that close...

But I'm optimistic...

[gab13by13]

2. My mail in ballot is being delayed,

here in Pa. because Dems are trying to get the Green party off the ballot. If I have to hand deliver my mail ballot to the county election office I will do that. I sincerely believe that Republicans fear mail ballots because they can't be tampered with the way an electronic voting machine can.

[Squinch]

4. You should hand deliver your ballot anyway.

[AllyCat]

13. Same here in WI except "alternate group" (likely GOP)

are trying to get the Green candidate ON the ballot. They had the same 4 years everyone else had to get in the ballot and didn’t. F*ck ‘em.

[Proximate Centurion]

3. Bravo!

Now is not the time to be Morally Right. Not this election! Voting for Heaven will cast us all into Hell.

[Squinch]

5. WTF? "Now is not the time to be morally right"??? What does that mean?

[Grokenstein]

16. Mocking the recurring theme of the Never(DemCandidate)s who show up every four years

i.e., "I'm pissing my vote away because 'my conscience'. Because I'm progressiver-than-thou."

[Squinch]

18. We're sure this is mocking?

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

17. Biden isn't the candidate I would have loved, he's not even in fourth place

However, I am supporting him because, in this election, the choice is between him and Trump. Am I voting my heart? No. But I'm voting for the man who isn't Trump.

[JI7]

8. There is nothing Moral about the Green Party in the US

[dalton99a]

11. +1. The Green Party in the U.S. is a scam and a fraud

[BlueIdaho]

23. Amen! nt.

[mwooldri]

6. This year, voting Green (or anything other than D) only makes sense ...

... in states where it's 99.9% certain that a specific party will win in that state.

But everywhere else? Barack Obama is right - a vote for 3rd party is a vote for Trump.

Personally I'd like to see a viable multi party political system in place in America - but the electoral system the USA has does not lend itself well to anything other than two party politics (R/D).

This year I truly believe that a lot of centrist Republicans will "hold their nose" and vote for Biden (or not vote for Trump at all).

[Pobeka]

20. I violently disagree. We need the largest %vote ever, to emphasize a mandate!

Tossing your vote away on a green party, even in a "safe" state, takes away from the percentage win.

[mwooldri]

7. Green has a meaning...

Getting
Republicans
Elected
Every
November.

(Seriously, if one really has to vote anything other than for a Democratic Party candidate do it in races/places it doesn't matter - e.g. OK to vote for 3rd Party Prez candidate in Wyoming or DC. Otherwise might as well be voting for Trump.)

[JI7]

9. The Green Party in the US does not care about the Environment. They mainly care about Keeping

Republicans in Office.

[dalton99a]

10. The Green Party rears its head every four years to help Republicans get elected.

[FakeNoose]

12. They recognized that they've been played - especially in 2016

... but other elections as well. They don't want to be used by the nasty rightwingers any more. They want to see Trump defeated and they're willing to help Joe Biden do that.

Anybody who doesn't see what is happening with these "Green Party voters" is being PLAYED by ultra-conservatives.

[thucythucy]

14. Played by ultra-conservatives AND Russian intelligence.

I suspect it's no coincidence that Jill Stein went to Moscow before the 2016 election and had dinner with Putin and Flynn.

[IronLionZion]

15. Until we get ranked choice voting, it's best for all on the left to vote Dem

especially this year. Biden is infinitely better for the environment than Trump any day.

[Pobeka]

21. + infinity, and beyond! n/t

[BumRushDaShow]

19. "not take teh Libertarian candidate, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, seriously"

and here is something to think about too because here in PA in 2016, although Jill Stein managed nearly 50K votes (over twice the number from her 2012 run), Gary Johnson got almost 3 times as many as Stein with 147K, which itself was 3 times as many as he got in 2012.

[patphil]

22. President Obama is right.

A vote for a 3rd party candidate rather than Joe Biden is a vote for Trump.

This is not the time to adhere to ideological purity. Too much is at stake. If Trump wins the concept of progressive ideas being implemented is completely stone cold dead.

Without a Democrat in the White House, and a Democratic Senate, the future of the Republic will be in serious doubt.
It took Trump less than 4 years to wreck the fundamental processes of our government and the rule of law. Four more years and Trump may get his wish that he would be able to "negotiate" a third term...and then a fourth, etc.

How many of you would like to see Trump Jr. or Ivanka running the government after daddy dies?

[McCamy Taylor]

24. Greens are paid third party splitters in the US

[Omaha Steve]

25. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

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