GREEN PARTY, WHITE PRIVILEGE

by Michael I. Niman, The Public

This might be a great year for the Green Party, which some polls are predicting could score a record-shattering five percent or more of the popular vote in the upcoming presidential election. Hillary Clinton is a tool of Wall Street and corporate interests such as Wal Mart, on whose board she once served. And Donald Trump, of course, is a fascist. The Libertarians want to do away with environmental and labor protections and open the door further for corporate pillage. This leaves opportunity for a strong Green Party run with the comparatively benign Jill Stein, who wants to grab the crown off Bernie Sanders’ head and hijack the movement his candidacy created.

The Green theme is generally the same as it was when I was an elector for Ralph Nader 16 years ago—vote “your hopes, not your fears,” only now it’s “vote your conscience.” George W. Bush, however, despite arguments that he was “the worst president in history,” and the reality that his foreign policy birthed endless wars and ISIS, never posed the level of threat that Trump presents. Trump is a bona fide fascist who assembled a following based on a cult of personality. Delegates at his Republican Convention, the whitest GOP soiree in over a century, regularly chanted for his political opponent to be jailed, presumably after his coronation. One campaign insider called for her execution.