this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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To be fair the Greens have made a massive mistake with Jill Stein. They aren't going to be the big third party that eventually breaks through unless they seriously reform. But no, a chapter in every state is not the infrastructure you need. Not beyond the most reductive meaning at any rate. You need to be a household name. You need to have been present in the state level political scene already. Election infrastructure is hundreds of people showing up every day to make millions of calls. Thousands of volunteers papering neighborhoods. Supporting PACs and local relationships to generate endorsements. A hundred members who meet once a month isn't going to cut it.
She's been the sacrificial lamb election cycle after election cycle because she's willing to do the job. If Cornel West hadn't withdrawn, I could have seen him as a better choice. But given the smearing every Green candidate since Nader has endured, I don't really blame him for wanting to stay out of the mud.
You need billions of dollars to operate at that level. Hell, even the party primaries are these enormous luxurious affairs. So much of this really does just boil down to money, which comes from people looking to buy access to the candidates.
Who are the local Green candidates going to get to form PACs on their behalf? You either have a die-hard ideologue like Perot who bankrolls the entire party out of his tech industry fortune, or you have a scattered amalgamation of independent activists who congeal around a third party banner.
When you're getting enough house seats and state legislature seats you can start working on PACs, nobody is going to give you a PAC before you've done the work.
Where do you get the money to build the organization to win these seats? States don't just give them away. A house district can run north of 600,000 residents and cost more than half-a-million in donations to compete in. Even state legislative races are enormous, expensive affairs. And that's before you get into the incumbency racket of gerrymandered seats and access journalism.
There are a few ways.
Start in highly walkable areas, where meeting voters is better than spending on TV ads.
Go for seats that aren't typically contested so the national money isn't showing up.
Run for city or council seats first so your name brand builds
Open community service organizations that are co-branded with your party so people know they're voting for the organizers of the soup kitchen.
There are ways of doing it. Just throwing your hands in the air isn't going to get it done.
Functionally non-existent in the suburbs and exurbs.
These seats are uncontested because they're the safest, either due to gerrymandering or natural partisan disposition. In cases like this, you are far better off challenging an incumbent in a primary (as AOC did in NY-14) than the general. But to challenge a candidate in a primary, you need to be a member of the party.
Plenty of candidates go this route. But, again, you run into the incumbency racket. Municipal offices in urban districts (you know, the places with highly walkable areas?) have residencies in the hundreds-of-thousands.
That said, if you look at where Green/Libertarian candidates are most successful, this is it. The non-partisan nature of the districts, combined with the large number of no-name candidates who aim for the position, can produce the occasional opportunity for a Green pickup. It's not a bad idea on face, but still difficult under the best of circumstances.
Once again, a thing that requires large quantities of money. This is the crux of any "Why don't you just start more grassroots-like with your organization?" critique. You need money. And if you've got money, you'll just align with one of the two big parties that explicitly cater to the wealthy.
In terra nullis conditions, sure. But when all the turf is stacked out, you're swimming against the tide.
START in urban areas.
And safe just means the other party doesn't have enough support. It says nothing about third party sentiment.
And yeah they have a lot of people, nobody said it was going to be easy. But it's a different path than dropping into a Congress race with a personal 5 million dollar buy in.
And community service orgs also don't start with million dollar budgets.
You keep assuming you must put the cart before the horse. Of course everything looks impossible to you.
A third party could absolutely work but it must come from the bottom up. FPTP sets a high bar but not an insurmountable one. The Green party will never work without reform because they're doing nothing but spoiler work every four years.