How “Green” is the Green Party?
Article by Oliver H.
The Green Party was formed in the 1990s out of several state-level political parties, all of which espoused an “eco-social” ideology. Along with the Libertarian party, they’re one of the only political parties, other than the Democrats and Republicans, to have national name recognition. This has hardly translated to tangible electoral success - total Green Party representation in Congress, the House of Representatives, and state legislatures is zero - but the party is far from irrelevant. If anything, their failure to achieve political power is precisely the cause of their fame and notoriety, and what has made them so relevant to the conversation around electoral politics in the United States. Is the Green Party just symbolic, or do they actually offer a promising vision of the future? What exactly do they stand for? To answer these questions, we have to revisit the year 2000.
The incident that most effectively illustrates the strange role the Green Party plays in US politics is also the one that first thrust them into the spotlight. The 2000 presidential election between George Bush and Al Gore is one of the most controversial ever conducted. Several factors - a narrow margin of less than a thousand votes deciding the winner, poorly designed ballots, a potential conflict of interest involving Bush’s younger brother, and accusations of voter disenfranchisement - combined to create a hotly contested race. The Green Party was a large part of the post-election discourse. Their candidate, consumer advocate Ralph Nader, received almost 3 million votes. This wasn’t enough for even a single electoral college vote, but for a third party candidate it was an unprecedented level of popularity. This infuriated many Gore supporters, who claimed that Nader had been a “spoiler” candidate, stealing votes that could have won Gore the election. The Green Party argued that it was Gore’s responsibility to attract those voters, and that they shouldn’t be obligated to choose the “lesser evil”.
The nature of this debate owes to the entrenched two-party duopoly in the United States. Strict ballot access laws make it nearly impossible for politicians who aren’t “blue” or “red” to even be options on the ballot, let alone actually get elected. Beyond this, the mainstream parties have been known to collude in the exclusion of third-party candidates; for instance, Nader was banned from the presidential debates despite public support. Campaign finance is also an important limitation: a party has to get at least 5% of the popular vote in the presidential election to be eligible for public funds (which would have been a first).
Because of how stringent the two-party system is, the Green Party devotes a considerable effort towards advocating for election reform policies. This, and the negative attention that third parties often receive during each election season,[1] has drawn focus away from their original political agenda. One of their most significant proposals - one that’s also been adopted by some Democrats - is the “Green New Deal”. The name is an intentional allusion to Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, a massive social program designed to alleviate the Great Depression. The Green New Deal thus implies a similarly revolutionary political response to the modern problem of climate change. The original plan includes millions of new jobs in the green energy sector and an optimistic promise to “move to 100% clean energy by 2030”. It also includes some socialist-slanted policies that aren’t directly climate-related, like healthcare reform and an escalated income tax.[2]
The Democrats’ version of the Green New Deal has been criticised for neutering the radical parts of the original plan and leaving only a watered-down version. The suggestion of a carbon tax on corporations was dropped. Also, the Green Party’s original proposal firmly rejected the use of free-market incentives, like carbon credits. The reasoning for this was that the climate crisis arose out of capitalist economy, and trying to reform it with the same laissez-faire strategies isn’t possible. Most of this logic has been lost in the abridged version of the Green New Deal that Democrats like Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez have become enamored with. Some Green Party members are bitter about this, arguing that it misses the point of the package, which is nothing less than a fundamental overhaul of a stagnant neoliberalism system. (just like the first New Deal).
If this all seems overly idealistic, it may be by design. Although the Green Party and other third parties have no real chance of electing their candidates, they can still influence party politics. By threatening to draw away sympathetic voters, they can force mainstream policies to compromise and offer some concessions. Therefore, it’s strategic for the Green Party’s policies to be overambitious, since they know the suggestions will inevitably be haggled down and moderated by the time they reach mainstream discourse.
The Green Party is a laughingstock for some, but it shouldn’t be dismissed as irrelevant. The example of the Green New Deal shows how the Green Party can be ahead of its time, proving the mass appeal of ideas that the more moderate Democratic Party is too timid to put forward. Furthermore, having some kind of alternative to the entrenched two parties is valuable, even if the choice is mostly a symbolic one. The amount of Green Party voters who otherwise wouldn’t have voted for either party demonstrates how many citizens, otherwise cynical about politics, would be willing to participate if there were options beyond the narrow liberal/conservative dichotomy.
End Notes:
For example, in the 2024 Harris/Trump election, the Green Party’s candidate - Jill Stein, who also ran in 2016 and 2020 - received flak for “taking” votes from Harris. Unlike the Bush/Gore election, where Ralph Nader received enough votes to make this conclusion at least superficially believable, Harris lost by a significant margin. Even though the spoiler accusation was absurd in this case, it remains a frequent objection to the Green Party.
A Green New Deal is estimated to carry a price tag in the trillions of dollars, so more aggressive taxation would be a obligatory part of any version of the package.
References:
Green New Deal, www.gp.org/green_new_deal.
Early History of the United States Green Party, 1984-2001, www.gp.org/early_history.
Schroeder, Robert. “The ‘Green New Deal’ isn’t really that new.” MarketWatch, February 2019. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-green-new-deal-isnt-really-that-new-2019-02-11
Atkin, Emily. “The Democrats stole the Green Party’s best idea.” The New Republic, February 2019. https://newrepublic.com/article/153127/democrats-stole-green-partys-best-idea
Pomper, Gerald. “The 2000 presidential election: Why Gore lost.” Political Science Quarterly, Summer 2001. https://www.uvm.edu/~dguber/POLS125/articles/pomper.htm
