If you ever voted for a Green Party candidate, or worse, donated to one....

[DanTex]

165. Yeah, I don't think the "we hear you" thing is going to make much difference.

Here's the thing, and there's no getting around it. For anyone who cares at all about progressive policies, supporting the Green party is one of the dumbest things they could possibly do. The only thing dumber would be actually supporting the GOP. But it's still pretty damned stupid.

And it looks like you agree with me on that. But you want to leave this essential fact out of the discussion. This is like trying to talk to people about eating poison without reference to the fact that poison will kill them. Sure, you could try saying things like "maybe a hamburger would taste good" or "are you sure you're hungry right now?", but the fact that poison kills you, like the fact that Greens do nothing but help Republicans, is at the very heart of the matter.

The Green Party would not exist, at the national level, unless it were possible to convince some gullible people that the difference between 15 and 12 is equal to the difference between 15 and zero. You and others might be right that attacking people who are this mathematically challenged isn't the best way to change their minds. But do you really think that changing the numbers around is going to make a difference in the land where (15-12)=(15-0)?

A lot of people who end up voting Green, or not voting, are young people who like the idea of "sticking it to the system, dude." Yes, it's tricky to reach people like that, but then again it's tricky to reach all kinds of irrational voters, Trump voters included. But I have serious doubts that shifting the platform left will make much if any difference. After all, the Dems have been moving left since 2000, and they moved the platform left in 2016, and that didn't stop Jill Stein and Susan Sarandon and the rest of them from saying that Clinton was worse than Trump.

The Greens, having no hope of winning, can propose any kind of fantasy and than attack the Dems for not matching them. Remember Stein's "forgive college debt with quantitative easing, which is a magic trick" thing? It's impossible for a serious Democratic candidate to propose something like that, not because they aren't "progressive" enough, but because that's just idiotic. So it will always be possible for the Greens to be to the "left" of the Dems, and accuse the Dems of being corporate sellouts for not supporting whatever impossibly dumb thing they come up with. That's their game.

I say confront the Greens with the truth, instead.