Dear Friends,

CHARLES GOLDMAN JOINS ME FOR THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM:

(01:41) AOC says the Green Party is predatory;
(18:47) Does Social Security need to be “fixed”?
(39:08) Discussing Ken Ilgunas’ column on progressives excluding white men;
(53:30) Black vs English Walnuts – What’s the difference?, with Kathy Byrnes Fallon.

Attacks by Democratic partisans against Green Party candidates — and Republican partisans against Libertarian Party candidates — is standard fodder during any presidential election.

But the tradition took an interesting twist recently when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) eviscerated Green Party presidential candidate, Jill Stein. The attack took many off guard, given that AOC is arguably the Democratic member of Congress most closely aligned with the Green’s platform.

In a recent TikTok video, AOC said of Stein, “If all you do is show up once every four years, you are not serious. To me, it does not read as authentic. It reads as predatory.”

Stein responded, “If there’s anything that’s predatory here it’s saying that your candidate is working tirelessly for a ceasefire [in Gaza] when they are actively funding and arming genocide.”

My thoughts? It’s absolutely true that neither the Greens nor the Libs have laid the foundation or done the base-building needed to become a viable alternative to the two-party duopoly. (A party that might be laying that foundation is Andrew Yang’s Forward Party. Stay tuned.)

At the same time, Democrats and Republicans continue to do everything possible to shoot down opportunities for third party candidates to achieve viability. Opposing third parties is one of the few concerns that unite Democrats and Republicans. I witnessed this first-hand as a legislator. I’d introduce simple electoral changes (with Republican cosponsors) that were quickly shot down by the leadership of both parties.

The US needs a host of election reforms. Perhaps the simplest advancement, and the one most likely to improve the standing of third parties in the short term, is ranked choice voting.

Americans across the political spectrum are fed up with the two-party system. Here’s this from a 2023 Gallup poll: “Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do ‘such a poor job’ of representing the American people that ‘a third major party is needed.’”

Electoral overhaul is long overdue. It must happen eventually because the current system is profoundly undemocratic and unsustainable.

But an overhaul isn’t on the ballot this fall. The overhaul could come suddenly and violently, or preferably when a new party takes its message door-to-door, one voter at a time, in down-ballot races where shoe leather and good ideas can still defeat big money and tired, status-quo pablum.

No one is more eager than me to move beyond the status quo. But what’s on the ballot this fall is the choice between the status quo (Kamala Harris) and authoritarianism (Donald Trump). That’s an easy choice. I’ll be voting for Harris.

But on November 6, if we still have a functioning democracy, I’m ready to help build real third-party political power from the ground up. I hope tens of millions of voters will feel similarly inspired.

Thanks for reading, listening, and taking action. — Ed Fallon

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