I have not spent a lot of time researching the Green Party, but my overwhelming impression

[Atticus]

is that they promote anarchy and any extremist who is a "friend-of-Vlad". The only real impact they have on politics is that they often help elect Republicans.

Their attitude seems to be " If you are as smart as we are, you'll believe what we believe---as soon as we figure out just what that is."

Am I wrong about them?

[beachbumbob]

1. green party are the far left idealists who could give a crap, they gave us 8 years of Bush/Cheney

and so far 4 years of trump. They take money from all sources and often republican at that


Thats all we need to know

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Some of them are. Some of them aren't.

The ones that aren't are idealists. That candidates should represent "We, The People," not corporations that donate to them.

My friend is a Green Candidate for Senate. She is totally anti-war and that is the basis of her campaign. Cut the Pentagon's Budget. Pull out the Military from abroad. No more military interventions here and abroad. Her heart's in the right place, but I also don't see her garnering any votes, save for symbolic. And our democratic Senate candidate needs all the votes he can get.

Don't get me wrong. She has principles and ideals. Not a Green Kanye West exactly, but I don't see her argument that democracy demands as many candidates as possible to keep it vibrant. While I'm not crazy about a two-party system, I'd rather have an election decided by 51% or more of the vote than a plurality of, say, 26%. (Hitler was appointed by Hindenburg, but there were so many candidates during the German election, he "won" with something like 13% of the vote.)

I wish they were the Greens were just a lobbying group, not a party.

[Alpeduez21]

3. Ranked voting would take care of that.

If a multitude of candidates are in the fight it is good for the country. We are in trench warfare with this two party system. It stifles creativity and encourages you're either with us or against us. A ranked ballot means you have to have a broad appeal to win. JMHO

[JHB]

4. In 2016 I tried to look up their real track record...

...which wasn't too easy because there wasn't one organized site, and what was available was often out of date.

As far as I could tell, they'd then had about 150 officials holding office as Greens, all at the local/county level, about half in California and the rest scattered elsewhere.

~150, in a country with about half a million elected offices, from things like library trustee on up.

In previous years they had elected a handful of people to state-level offices, but by 2016 all those people had switched out of the Green ticket (to the Democratic party or Independent) or were defeated.

It had been 20 years from Nader's 1996 bid to the 2016 election. Twenty years where the opportunity to build a liberal-left voting block to influence policy was squandered. And squandered right from the start, when Ralphie-boy disappeared for four years after the first bid, only resurfacing in 2000.

Even on those endangered-species-level-rare occasions when the Greens are firing on all pistons, they act like they want to be the lefty party in parliament in a country that doesn't use a parliamentary system.

So instead it's become a collection of easily-manipulated dilettante narcissists, and easily manipulated purists who can't get anything done except hating Democrats.

No matter how teeth-grindingly earnest some of them are in their beliefs, they refuse to recognize that weight of numbers matters. Sustained organization matters.

[hunter]

7. Their innumeracy permeates everything they believe...

... in politics, economics, technology, and science.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. GREEN Party: Getting Republicans Elected Every November

all you need to know about them.

[2naSalit]

8. +1

[Trumpocalypse]

6. They accept money from Republican

and other right wing sources. All you need to know about them.