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Cake day: July 18th, 2023

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  • Yeah, of course I know it’s not just one person. But 174, and maybe more, is not much in a country of 346 million+ people. Hell, that’s not even half of the number of reps in the US house. They hold no federal offices. They hold no state offices.

    They may be the 4th largest US political party by registration, but the DSA has a fraction of that registration and I see them doing so work on the ground than I have ever seen from the Green party.

    I would love to be able to vote for a viable leftist 3rd party presidential candidate. Viable. We’re not there.



  • Disclaimer: I am a registered Democrat, but do not consider myself one. Where I live the Democratic primaries are the election. I’ve never had the opportunity to cast a nonprimary vote for a candidate that represents me.

    For me to vote for a 3rd party candidate for the presidency would require that there be a leftist third party willing to build power from the ground up. Local->County->State->Federal until that happens there really isn’t a point.

    Sanders understood this, that’s why he ran through the Dem’s primary system.

    That’s why Jill Stein isn’t a serious 3rd party candidate: there is no party.

    The Green party is less relevant power wise than the first time she ran. It’s a vanity candidacy. Organizing is not glamorous work. It’s hard. It’s slow. It’s frustrating. Stein hasn’t shown any interest in doing that work.

    In recent history, Ross Peort and the Reform party probably did the most in this direction, but he had billions of dollars to pay other to do the hard work for him.

    We tend to over-mythologize voting in this country. It’s a tool. It’s not sacred. You use it to try to build the best future you can with the parts you have to work with.