The United States has a mulit-party democracy. Taking advantage of this is how Trump won the election. FIghting against it is what cost Harris the Presidency.

I am a Green, I have been since the 1980s, although I did have a brief, disastrous affair with Obama in 2008. After joining the Democrats to help elect America's first black president, I watched with horror as he burdened Americans with Obamacare, a nightmarish system which has resulted in the deaths of millions of Americans who can't afford health insurance. What we needed, wanted, and frankly voted for was universal single payer like all the other developed nations whose life expectancies have continued to rise since then, while ours continue to plunge. (1) I'll also never forget the optic of Obama walking hand in hand on the beach with the CEO of BP during the Gulf oil spill. When the Fukushima nuclear disaster happened, what should have finally finshed off the immoral nuclear industry instead caused Obama to toss billions into the nuclear black hole, (2) keeping nukes afloat while giving a pittance to wind power.

All these things drove me back to the Greens and made me swear "never again," to the idea of being a Democrat. As a Green, I served on my State Committee for a decade, ran for US Senate in 2016 receiving almost 90,000 votes, and most recently ran for Mayor of Bowling Green, Ohio in 2023, receiving 26% of the vote. (3) So, when Democrats say, "A vote for a third party is a vote for the Republicans," to me and to millions of others, they may as well be saying "black is white" or "There are four lights!"

Third or "minor" parties have played pivotal roles in American politics since its founding. The fact that we have a multi-party system is not debateable. Minor parties have always been there. The problem is we have the worst possible multi-party system. It allows alternative parties to form, but when they start to get too big, the major parties change the rules to wipe them off the ballot. In New York, Democrats raised the minimum requirements to keep party status, tripling the required votes for Governor or President to 5% and halving the length of time parties can keep their status after winning it; In Ohio, Republicans raised the requirement from 1% to 3%. (4)

Jill Stein recieved the third highest vote count in this past presidential election. In any other western democracy, this would at least have gained her party a few seats in parliament. Here, it gained nothing but scorn from Democrats who continue to try to blame the Greens for their loss. This is the game they've been playing since the 2000 election, fail and blame the Greens. It's a losing strategy as we finally, incrontrovertibly saw in the 2024 election. It wasn't even true in 2000. When the full, final vote count in that election was completed, Al Gore had won Florida by tens of thousands of votes.(5)  He should have had Florida's electors and the presidency. Had Democrats actually fought for the election they won back then, the way Republicans fought for the election Trump lost in 2020, we would be living in a very different world.

Instead, after that Democrats made wiping out Greens a priority. Harris's campaign had an anti-Stein department that had more money and personnel than Jill's entire campaign.(6) Unfortunately, the numbers this time tell us that, even if every single Green had voted for Harris, she still would have lost.

It's also essential to remember that is when the votes for all the other candidates are added up: Harris; Stein; Kennedy; Oliver; the Socialists; Cornell West; etc. they add up to more votes than Trump got. Most people who voted voted against Trump. He is a minority president, despite his lies claiming a "mandate." (7) 

Trump's campaign understood the multi-party nature of our system, and used it to win. His deal with Robert Kennedy arguably gave him the votes he needed to defeat Harris. Had Harris tried to make a similar deal with Stein, perhaps setting a deadline to end the genocide in Gaza, or switching from Obamacare to single payer, the Greens under Jill's leadership might have been convinced to come onboard. If that had happened, perhaps the millions of Democrats who stayed home and didn't vote might have been energized as well. We'll never know.

In Ohio, I voted for Stein, even though I knew my vote wouldn't count because of a decision by the Republican Secretary of State. (8)  I simply could not bring myself to vote for a party that supported the Gaza genocide, nuclear power, and the largest surge of fossil fuel burning in human history.(9) Obviously I was not alone. To the Democrats who respond to this with anger and blame, I have to say it was ignoring and trying to smother this kind of dissent from your policies that turned off your own members.

In a functioning multi-party system, deals are made between minor and major parties. This is how popular reforms are made and governments are brought closer to expressing the will of the people. By wasting a quarter century trying to crush the Greens, Democrats have ultimately weakened themselves, turning a potential ally into an enemy. Trump just schooled you on how to turn a potential enemy into an ally. I hope this time you pay attention.

REFERENCES

1 ( https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy)

2) ( https://www.blackagendareport.com/content/another-corporate-bailout-obama-goes-nuclear?page=6 )

3) (Senate: https://www.ohiosos.gov/elections/election-results-and-data/2016-official-elections-results/Mayor: https://www.co.wood.oh.us/boe/ElectionArchives.html )

4)  (https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2023/10/02/supreme-court-won-t-hear-challenge-to-new-york-ballot-access-laws)

(https://www.acluohio.org/en/cases/libertarian-party-ohio-et-al-v-secretary-state-jon-husted-et-al )

5) (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/29/uselections2000.usa )

6)  ( https://time.com/7171425/jill-stein-third-party-spoiler/ )

7) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-Party_and_independent_candidates_for_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election)

8) (https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-ohio-stein-ballot-votes-larose-9d30bbd01dd8f2f9f1aac288a261cd03)

9) (https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-BIDEN/OIL/lgpdngrgkpo/)