I don't get those Marxists who argue for supporting the Green Party as a principled alternative to the Democrats. It's a grab-bag of liberals and leftists with difference grievances against the Democrats. It is not a socialist party (though there are socialists in it). It is not a working class party. Bernie may not be as militant as leftists would like, but he's put forth a more explcitly working-class perspective on politics than you'll get from most greens. Promoting the Green Party as an altenative strikes me as formulaic and one dimensional thinking. It sees the problem as one of pushing poltiics "to the left" on issues. I see the problem as one of awakening people to the core question of agency -- the need for the working class to organize itself in its own interest and recognize that the state is not above and apart from social power relations. As small as it is, Bernie seems to me to have offered a more substantial step in that direction than the Green Party has. I personally doubt that a third party trying to advance such a perspective could gain traction on a national level outside of the context of a greatly hightened level of social struggle and civil society organization that could buoy it, but Bernie has shown that you can advance a working class perspective within the Democratic Party (within limits) and find an audience.
I have nothing against third parties where they can win, though. I would unreservedly vote for Kshama if I lived in her district (I live in Seattle, but not in her district).
On Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 4:07 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Next to Bernie Sanders, Kshama Sawant is the US’s best known socialist,
> situated far to his left.
>
> Sawant’s orientation is to build the vanguard party, and from that
> perspective, her call for Sanders to run as an independent or on a Green
> ticket with Jill Stein makes good sense since these small third party
> formations present an excellent opportunity to “accumulate cadre”. Sanders
> won’t answer the call, of course, but Socialist Alternative hopes to peel
> away a substantial number of his disappointed supporters when he doesn’t.
>
> In the highly improbable event that Sanders were to team up with Stein,
> there’s little doubt such a campaign would far surpass the effort by Nader
> and Camejo in 2004 because of the much changed economic situation and
> Sanders’ higher national visibility. However we’re still talking about a
> very small slice of the electorate: the Nader-Camejo campaign only garnered
> 0.38% of the popular vote. The same fear that made Democrats and
> independents who admired Nader’s program finally stick with Gore would
> apply with redoubled force if Trump or Cruz were the Republican nominee.
>
> Going back to the 1948 campaign of Henry Wallace and the Progressive
> Party, I suspect it can’t be otherwise until a third party demonstrates it
> is capable of winning elections and implementing working class reforms. The
> historical experience suggests this process necessarily begins at the local
> level, where the odds are better, as the successful campaigns by Sawant and
> the SA in Seattle demonstrated.
>
> It’s entirely possible, of course, that the dissatisfaction with the two
> established parties runs so deep at this juncture that a third party bid,
> with or without Sanders, could attract enough support to become a permanent
> fixture on the national landscape and begin to effectively compete for
> office at all levels of the political system. Call this hedging my bet if
> you like.
>
> See:
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/21/the-undemocratic-primary-why-we-need-a-new-party-of-the-99/
>
>
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