Revised Version
Here is the revised version of “A Green Party that will Win” that was published on the “NATIONAL THREAD” of the Green Party US the first week of November, 2025. The original version of the article was published in the same thread in the summer of 2023, and published on my substack “Fear No Evil”
A Green Party That Will Win
Part One
Emanuel Pastreich
Former candidate for president in the Green Party US
Can the Green Party seize this unprecedented opportunity?
The collapse of civil society, the decay of constitutional governance, and the stranglehold on the economy of multinational corporations that work, hand in hand, with the military in a push for world war has created in America an unquenchable thirst for a political alternative. Moreover, the comical and tragic failure of the Democratic Party, including its supposed progressives like Bernie Sanders, to oppose the consolidation of power by the Trump administration, or even to make demands for the removal from office of those guilty of high crimes, including Trump himself, has left most Americans disappointed, disgusted and in a desperate search for some alternative.
As a political party possessing a national infrastructure that is capable of offering something other than the punch-and-judy show put on by the Democratic and Republican Parties because it is free from lobbyists and PACS, the Green Party has an unprecedented opportunity to play the central role in American politics. A revitalized Green Party could sweep the congress and the presidency in the next few elections.
However, before the Green Party can seize this historic opportunity, it must first decide what sort of a political party it wants to be.
The Green Party can transform itself into the platform for most powerful political movement in the United States since the anti-slavery movement of the 1850s, and do so in a short period of time, but only if it vows unambiguously to return the United States to the citizens and to wrest away control of government from the multinational corporations and banks–and the billionaires who lurk behind them.
If the Green Party stands unconditionally for constitutional rule and an economy that is focused on the long-term needs of citizens and the realities of the environment and biodiversity, it can build a broad coalition of the disaffected, bringing in those who are disgusted with the duopoly zombie apocalypse that produced Trumpist fascism in the first place. By unambiguously exposing the deep rot within the media, financial institutions, and political parties, the Green Party could set off a social and political revolution that will change everything.
Such a shift cannot be achieved by magic; if there were no costs involved, people would have carried out that political revolution a long time ago. The rise to prominence for the Green Party requires the moral bravery to face crippling problems that other politicians are afraid to mention, the ethical vision to launch an ambitious plan restore deliberative democracy to the United States by ending the privatization of governance that stretches back to the unconstitutional establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Such a broad vision for a transformation of the United States in historical context will win over many so-called conservatives, and will not alienate progressives. The Green Party can form a true common front with concerned citizens across the nation.
The Green Party must be a political party with a real vision, not a catchy marketing slogan. It must be a party that is willing to take on the IT and finance giants and that means not just criticizing them, but insisting they be dismantled and their assets be seized as compensation for their crimes, that Facebook and Google must be run as regulated monopolies, and other innovative policies that will have broad appeal.
If there is moral commitment, the financial disadvantage of the Green Party will quickly become the decisive advantage because the Democratic and Republican Parties have lost all legitimacy because they promoted devastating foreign wars and allowed multinationals to wage unlimited financial warfare against our citizens.
The Republican Party in its original incarnation rose to prominence quickly when the rich and powerful tried to extend slavery throughout the United States in the 1850s and it was able to win the presidency in 1860 as a result of the vacuum created by the collapse of the Whig Party (a political crisis similar to the current corruption of the Democratic Party by IT multinationals).
That is to say that if the Green Party asserts itself as a political vanguard, the only party that is not financed by corporations, the only one able to speak out on issues that others will not touch, the Green Party will not only have overwhelming moral authority, it can effectively assert that the other political parties are NOT qualified to field candidates for any election because of their active participation in illegal activities, from collaboration with Israeli private intelligence to bribes (donations) from private equity.
The Japanese philosopher Ogyu Sorai put it this way, “There are two ways to play chess. One is to master the rules of chess so completely that one can win in any situation. The other is to make up the very rules by which chess is played.”
That second option is precisely the strategy that will bring the Green Party to prominence: demand that the rules of the entire game be changed so as to correspond with the Constitution itself—a text that defines what is and what is not government. If the Green Party embraces the Constitution, but explains how it empowers a revolutionary posture (because the government has been unconstitutionally privatized) it can demand that the interests of the citizens, not the rich and powerful, are the primary responsibility of government and pull the rug out from under the other parties.
But, if the leadership of the Green Party lacks the moral courage to take such a stand, to make efforts that could cut short vacation plans, there is another alternative.
The Green Party serve as a feel good about yourself, “think left, live right,” weekend meetings over café lattes identity politics club that avoids hot topics that might disturb the digestion of some party members. The reemergence of slavery, the drive for world war by multinational corporations, the weaponization of medicine, and the spread of deadly secret governance at the federal and state level can just be swept under the carpet.
But if they make that choice, it will mean that Green Party has zero chance of winning any major elections in our lifetimes, but perhaps it can help ease the consciences of educated Americans who feel a need to affirm that they are doing something, anything, as long as there is no risk to their TIAA-CREF retirement funds, as long as it does not require them to confront the lies that they are being fed day and night by the media and by academic institutions. That would be a Green Party that gives the impression something is happening when, in fact, not much is happening at all. Maybe that Green Party can get 5% of the vote in some states, but it is never going to win anything.
There is no scenario in which the Green Party slowly expands over the next twenty years. Either the Green Party makes a moral commitment to the battle against global capital and the emergence of secret governance today, or it will be regulated to the margins forever, or perhaps made illegal—as Donald Trump and Stephen Miller have hinted.
Among the political parties that are able to function in the totalitarian environment of the United States, I would rank the Green Party as the strongest. In order to win, however, the Green Party will have to rely on the economic support of ordinary people who can barely afford to pay their rent, standing in opposition to the Democratic and Republican Parties funded by multinational banks who print up their own money. But the Green Party cannot honestly take the money of working people unless it is committed, heart and soul, to the transformation of society.
Please allow me to suggest a few approaches that might make the Green Party central in American politics in a short period of time, probably in time to win the 2028 presidential election.
The Green Party as a democracy
The first step is for the Green Party to be a democracy in the sense that no political party is today. The Green Party should be open concerning its internal administration democratic in its internal administration so that citizens are convinced that it is serious about the democratic process. It is not sufficient to make statements about democracy—that party must offer a process for democratically representing the views of its members and encouraging an open debate.
Sadly, many Greens feel that at the local level there is nothing that they can do other than attending discussions (which are not frequent) and listening to party representatives. There is no set system for making proposals for programs, or policies, that will be implemented at the local, and state, and perhaps national level. Much of the decision-making takes place in committees that most Greens feel are opaque and undemocratic.
The first step towards restoring democracy in the United States is for the Green Party to function as a democratic institution. If it does, it will define political leadership in a manner that the Democratic and Republican Parties can never do because they are by their very nature dependent on multinational corporations that abhor deliberative democracy within the party.
Theda Skocpol describes in her book “Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life” how the participatory institutions once so vital in America have been killed off so that the citizen can no longer play a direct role in the NGOs, or in the coalitions, and the political parties that supposedly represent their interests. The only option is to give money and then listen to what the organization orders you to do.
If political parties do not allow local members to democratically determine policy, to advance ideas based on their merit and relevance, without concern for how much money those members have in the bank, then we cannot expect the state government or federal government to be democratic either.
The Green Party will succeed, not because it has money from progressive-minded lawyers and owners of small businesses and therefore can run TV commercials in swing states. No, the Green Party will succeed when it becomes a model for democracy that will be emulated by cooperatives, local government, and eventually the federal government itself. As Gandhi advocated, we must “become the change we wish to see in the world.”
If the party does not include citizens at all levels of its administration, it can never lay the foundations for participatory civil movement capable of overwhelming the corporate parties through demonstrations in the streets, or among workers at Walmart and Amazon, by organizing the people in a fearless and visionary manner.
Embrace truth politics
As I watched the United States enter into a series of classified military agreements with allies that virtually guarantee an unstoppable drive for war with Russia, and then with China, over the last few years. When I saw the preparations for the NATO Summit at Vilnius, Lithuania, planned for July 12, 2024, a meeting at which heads of state signed off on a pile of military directives they have never read; When I saw Donald Trump dismissing generals on a whim and ordering the military to prepare to suppress citizens in urban struggle, I recalled the speeches delivered by the educator Rudolf Steiner in his lecture series, “The Karma of Untruthfulness.”
Steiner spoke out in 1917, as the nations of Europe tore each other apart precisely because of such secret military treaties that transferred the chain of command to an unaccountable military cabal–on both sides.
Steiner held that the previous decades during which establishment figures came to accept lies and deceptions as “the way things just are” was precisely what made that horrific war possible. Steiner wrote, “People do not feel a duty to pursue the actual truth, to seek truthfulness backed by facts—indeed, the very opposite mindset now rules the world, increasingly expanding its influence. External needs are always the consequence of what takes place in the minds of men.”
His point is as true today as it was then: There are so many blatantly criminal actions undertaken by the federal government and multinational banks and corporations in the United States which are not even secret and yet all the politicians pretend do not exist.
Only a brave quest for absolute truth can save us from the current drive for world war
The Green Party must follow the imperative of the African American author James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Or, as Frederick Douglass put it, “People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.”
It will be the willingness of the Green Party to take on forbidden topics that puts it in the driver’s seat, not its willingness to conform with the absurd idea that lies must be embraced as a condition for political action. That horrific ideology has infected all of the political operatives in Washington.
Truth politics is not an option, but rather the only way to save the United States from war abroad, and from radical institutional collapse at home. Our culture is so smothered in denial, so fragmented by deep psychological trauma, that we must face the lies that have seized control of our country before we can hope to achieve anything of lasting value.
Few political candidates in the United States demand that blatant crimes by banks, corporations, and government that have been already confirmed by documentation be fully investigated, that those responsible be arrested, and that the assets of those who planned those actions be seized. The discourse ends with a vague criticism of the bad apples, much like Bernie Sanders toothless “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” which identifies real issues, but never demand that the responsible be arrested and their assets seized for their crimes.
Our failure to address these crimes, and the gangrene that they have left behind in our political institutions, has created a more dangerous system of governance, one in which the push toward nuclear war can go forward without any opposition, or even debate.
Do you remember how Senator Robert Byrd was allowed to speak out against the invasion of Iraq in 2002? Do you remember how Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul were able to draft articles of impeachment (House Resolution 1258) against George W. Bush in 2008? Such actions are no longer possible precisely because we have been foolishly silent on the threat to government institutions posed by deep corruption that is just left festering. If anything, it is the conservatives and libertarians, and not the Green Party, that takes on these issues. The Green Party can change this sad political climate in a manner that makes it the leading political opposition to the Trump administration.
A Green Party That Will Win
Part Two
Emanuel Pastreich
Former candidate for president in the Green Party US
Offer concrete benefits to working class people
The Green Party must offer something of real value to working people in return for their support and it must make membership in the Green Party something of profound value for those brave enough and passionate enough to join the struggle to expand the party across the country rapidly in the face of massive opposition from corporate oligarchy. In order for a political party to be successful, there must be a fundamental contract between the party and its supporters.
The Republican Party can count on strong support from multinational corporations, arms manufacturers, and billionaires because it promises, and it delivers, contracts with the Federal government worth billions of dollars, promotes endless war, and carries out a massive deregulation of the economy that allows the wealthy to consolidate their power.
The Democratic Party once relied on the support of unions and citizens of communities who faced oppression or discrimination for support. It returned that support by pushing for legislation with real teeth from the 1930s until the 1970s. But the decay of institutions in the United States created a political wasteland wherein Bill Clinton was able to embrace the concept of “democracy for multinational corporations,” a radical reinvention of the Democratic Party. In this new political reality, he and his strategists abandoned the appeal to citizens at the local level for support and instead cozied up to IT firms, investment banks, and entertainment conglomerates who could deliver big money and who felt they were not getting the political access that oil companies and real estate speculators enjoyed with the Republican Party.
A real political competition between the parties resulted, but it was a brutal war between divergent corporate interests. Google was the victim of discrimination and oppression and it deserved to be granted the same welfare benefits as Lockheed Martin. The Democratic Party serviced IT firms and made money. The needs of ordinary workers dropped out of the equation.
In order to seduce intellectuals into accepting this scam, the salaries of administrators at universities and NGOs, at newspapers and TV stations, increased until they were many times the salaries of ordinary workers. It was a bribe given to those in authority who were collaborators in the corporate takeover of the entire country in the 1990s.
The mechanisms by which citizens could have actual input in the formulation of policy within the party, or in government, have been dismantled. Policy is formulated by consulting firms working for corporations who then feed it to the Democratic Party. The politicians spend all their time raising the big money needed to sell pro-Democrat citizens this poisonous agenda through the commercial media, and other hidden persuaders in academia, and elsewhere.
The fatal assumption of the Green Party, even today, is that somehow the Green Party will raise enough money from its supporters to compete with the Democrats, that somehow it will convince the corporate media to start covering the Green Party in the way that it covers cardboard messiahs like Donald Trump, and that somehow, progressively, we can modify the institutions of government and business that are so hostile to workers.
However, if the Green Party cannot offer the working people who support it concrete benefits right now, and not just vague promises of a more just and equal society at some future date, it has zero chance of coming to power in a political system controlled by two political parties that actively block all efforts of third parties to participate in the political debate.
The silly debate between harmless politicians in Congress is merely the velvet glove to cover the steel fist of corporate power. The only solace offered to citizens is a narcissistic culture that focuses on personal needs rather than solidarity.
If the corporate parties depend on money, the Green Party, by contrast, must depend on people, brave, unrelenting, motivated people, who are ready to work together in communities, and across the nation, twenty-four hours a day.
In a real sense, the Green Party does not need more money. It needs inspiring ideas, powerful speeches, effective community organizing, practical knowledge, accurate journalism, and, above all, tangible services for the community.
A single mother who has no job, but who is willing to work hard organizing the people on her block, building a committed local movement against corporate control that establishes cooperatives for economic independence, is far more valuable for the Green Party than an upper-middle class lawyer who gives five thousand dollars a year to alleviate the guilt that he feels about his privileges.
The Green Party as the government that does not exist
The Green Party does not have to win elections before it can start transforming American society. The Green Party can start immediately to play the critical role of organizing the people, starting with the working class, to form their own autonomous organizations at the local level for self-help and mutual support. Voting for a Green Candidate should be only one small part of the work with the Green Party of citizens.
The federal and state governments have been completely privatized, transformed into the sock puppets of IT firms and multinational banks. The current Trump government shutdown is not a temporary political conflict but a move to shut down the entire government forever and create a privatized nightmare landscape for everyone.
Citizens face two forms of totalitarian rule: the enfeebled and castrated government at the state and federal level and the cruel and despotic government of finance referred to as “the private sector.”
The Green Party can serve the role in society that the government once did, and do so in accord with the Constitution. That is to say that if the Green Party follows the Constitution, and the government no longer does, that will give the Green Party tremendous authority because the Constitution defines what is, and what is not, the United States of America.
One immediate role for the Green Party is providing healthcare and health-related advice to citizens—roles that the government is no longer capable of. Citizens are being forced to accept the overpriced, and downright deadly, healthcare services provided by the hospitals that have been taken over by global capital, hospitals that think only about how to squeeze as much profit as possible out of their victims. Doctors and nurses are treated by the financiers behind the curtains like coal miners under the whip. Now the government under Trump has been weaponize to bankrupt anyone who is ill.
The Green Party can organize citizens to take care of their own medical concerns, or those of neighbors, by offering basic, and advanced, training in nutrition, treatment of chronic illnesses, diagnosing and responding to minor conditions, and can even provide sufficient first aid training to handle many serious injuries. Extensive education and training about homeopathic treatments can vastly increase the ability of citizens to care for themselves—and thereby avoid hospitals altogether.
Organizing citizens to care for each other, and to be responsible to each other, will also help to keep the money in the community. Those who grow medicinal herbs or learn critical healing skills will have stable local jobs that are not determined by multinational corporations.
Care for the elderly, the ill, and the very young, can be organized so that neighbors, as members of local cooperatives, provide these services to each other through a barter service and thus assure local employment, and cheaper healthcare. The Green Party’s role will be to have the vision, the bravery, and the tenacity to get these cooperatives going, and to support existing organizations to organize nationally.
Food is also something the Green Party can help with especially as the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and WIK (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) programs have been eviscerated by the Trump administration. The rise in the cost of food engineered by multinationals, and the radical drop in the nutritional value of the food available from supermarkets via corporate vendors, means that people are starving for cheap healthy food. The party can organize citizens to grow their own organic foods and establish systems to provide foodstuff to citizens without paying a penny to the logistics, distribution, and retail middlemen who wrap everything up in plastic and marking up costs.
As there are limits to what can be produced locally, the Green Party can organize cooperatives that are capable of negotiating with food suppliers on an economy of scale so as to assure that food is nutritious and prices reasonable. The leadership role of the Green Party will make it a central power in real politics and real economics.
Education could be a major part of the contribution of the Green Party to the local community. Education must be seen in the broadest sense of the word. The Green Party can teach citizens how to clean their homes cheaply and effectively without buying commercial products, how to sew and stitch their own clothes, how to make furniture and tools, and how to grow their own food, using organic fertilizers, even in the smallest spaces.
Larger tools and machines (saws, washing machines, lawnmowers, even automobiles) can be shared among members of the community thus eliminating duplicate purchases. All of these efforts will reduce the power of the multinational corporations that fund the corporate political parties and they will give citizens new confidence.
The Green Party should support local journalism that is run by citizens and that addresses real issues in the community. Such journalism will provide solid local jobs, offer an alternative to the mindless commercial media that is forced on citizens, and provide useful information, and also access to local independent cooperatives that will make Amazon and Walmart obsolete. The Green Party’s role in establishing reliable local media will greatly expand its political power.
The Green Party can even set up initiatives to provide energy supplies and transportation at the local level that are independent of the banks and corporations, and of the local governments that they control. Electricity can be generated by citizens in the neighborhood using small windmills and watermills (as was the case before the 1950s), or by solar panels, or even by exercise machines. That energy can be sold, or bartered, to neighbors through local cooperatives without a single penny going to a corporation.
Finally, the Green Party can create an alternative economy that allows for sophisticated barter transactions between citizens using local currencies that are backed by real goods or services—and thus not subject to inflation or corporate manipulation. That effort can even extend to cooperative banks that lend at little, or no, interest to members to provide real economic independence.
Not all these ideas can be immediately realized, but if the Green Party is at the vanguard in advancing them, it will generate a powerful momentum that will shake people out of the stupor of narcissistic consumption and compel, and cajole, them to play their true role as citizens and family members.
These activities may seem alien to operatives in modern political parties who shower in the donations poured down by corporations, but political organizations like the Grange in the 19th century created powerful opposition to corporations in precisely this manner.
A Green Party That Will Win
Part Three
Emanuel Pastreich
Former candidate for president in the Green Party US
Taking a stand, not winning elections, must be the priority
Winning an election, or qualifying to be put on the ballot using a corrupt and fixed system that is designed to suppress the will of the people in blatant violation of the Constitution, should not be a priority for the Green Party. When Jill Stein received 0.4% of the popular vote in the 2024 election, the message was clear for anyone with eyes or ears. The votes for Stein were shaved down in the corrupt calculation process. That “election” was determined by horse-trading between corporations in the final days, not by the policies put forth by the Green Party.
Can such an anti-democratic system can be altered merely by voting in an election? The Green Party should not compromise in the slightest in order to get time on commercial TV, in order to maintain good relations with insiders in the Democratic Party who might, or might not, be helpful, or in order to raise money from wealthy individuals who would rather not hear about difficult topics.
The Green Party’s only chance of rising to real power is to take on everyone at once, and then using the truth to expose the unethical nature of any collaboration with a fundamentally criminal political system. That is the moral equivalent of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, exactly two-hundred and forty-seven years ago today.
The Green Party should embrace the spirit of the Declaration of Independence’s rejection of imperialism, and of the Constitution which does not grant political parties the authority to determine policy. Taking a clear stand that rejects the entire system will give the Green Party new authority, not less.
As Confucius wrote, “The virtuous are never truly isolated; there will always be those nearby who sympathize with their cause.” If the Green Party is the first political party to call into question the corrupt system based on lobbying, rigged voting systems, and massive payoffs to politicians and government officials from corporations in 150 years, so be it.
If the Green Party openly challenges the assumption that massive institutional corruption is normal, that state crimes planned by intelligence operatives working for the rich are no too sensitive to address, that act in itself will transform the relationship between citizens and the government.
Nothing will be the same again. The moment the Green Party takes a stand, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it will start to make the rules, not follow them.
If the Green Party calls out the mass criminality of the government and corporations today, that will be a “word act.” A word act is ritual expression imbued with tremendous transformative power. For example, when a minister or judge says to a couple, “I pronounce you husband and wife,” he or she does not literally transform the two by magic. Yet, those simple words have the power to completely change the relationship between man and woman for a lifetime.
The Green Party can pronounce that the United States must become a republic and a democracy, as opposed to pretending that it is a republic and a democracy. The difference between the two acts is infinite. When the Green Party speaks out about institutionalized crime it can do as a method to transform the United States, to create a consensus among thoughtful citizens that can realize the potential of mankind, and uncover the potential hidden in America’s culture. That transformation cannot be achieved by winning an election with the help of corporate sponsors in a system that is corrupt to the bone.
The question of infiltration
If we are serious about making the Green Party the vital political party in the United States, we cannot shy away from unpleasant facts. That means that we must face the inconvenient truth that party members whisper to each other in the shadows, but avoid discussing in formal settings. I am talking about the problem of infiltration: the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by agents planted in the Green Party with the explicit mission of undermining the political impact of the party.
I do not have any evidence on hand that the ineffectiveness of the Green Party, the mixed messages that issue forward from its top leadership, or the divisive internal conflicts and disputes over policies are the result of infiltration by people who are backed by, or influenced by, private intelligence firms such CASI or Booz Allen Hamilton who work on contract for Homeland Security “counter disinformation” programs requested by the super-rich.
Nevertheless, what I can say with confidence is that if the Green Party is truly free of such agents of influence, it is unique among political parties in the United States. American civil society (including NGOs, universities and major think tanks) are riddled with the agents hired by private intelligence firms whose job is to make sure that nothing is done, that no serious issues are addressed effectively, and that no broad social movement is ever built. Their job is to seed fear and loathing and to promote bland, compromised, and ineffective political leaders. Although there are plenty of these operatives who work for foreign governments as well, the fundamental crisis has to do with class, not nationality.
Removing such elements from the Green Party is a necessary step required to organize a successful movement for the people, and to establish a party for the people, of the people, and by the people. How to do this necessary exercise without it degenerating into a witch hunt; wherein attention is drawn away from the true perpetrators following that classic ruse from ancient times of the criminal crying out “Stop thief!” is the difficult part. But there are real strategies for addressing infiltration.
The first step is to discuss this issue in public and to refer to open-source materials and declassified reports available in the public domain that prove without a doubt that such operations have been frequently undertaken in the past (for those who wish to dismiss such explanations as conspiracy theories).
Above all, the Green Party must recognize that institutional decay in America has reached the point at which we do not have the luxury of waiting another decade for a true political alternative.
Conclusion: A Green Party that Embraces Militant Democracy
This article is intended to start the ball rolling in the larger Green community as to what our future actions must be now that we face a militarized corporate government complex set on reducing us to the state of serf or slave. Now that ICE is being employed as a private mercenary force armed with guided missiles, it is not sufficient to simply post complaints on line.
If the Green Party can rise to the occasion, it can not only win elections, it can become the major player in American politics. That will require us to define what politics means, and not have it defined by corporations and banks behind the scenes who demand that politics is raising money to fund campaigns and navigating an unconstitutional, unethical, and often illegal minefield to get on the ballot and get media coverage.
I would be remiss if I left out what my run against Cornel West for the Green Party presidential nomination in 2023 taught me about how things really work. As most of you know, and perhaps some do not (check Wikipedia if you want the details) Cornel West and I were the only two candidates who met the criteria to be candidates for president in the Green Party until we both were forced to drop out in October, 2023. We dropped out because the entire system was rigged. Significantly, the administrators of the Green Party, and the official organs of the Green Party, acted as if Cornel West was the only candidate running—in spite of numerous requests for a discussion, a simple introduction of me and my candidacy, or even a debate between me and Professor West on policy. This decision at the highest level was undertaken for reasons that are not are not transparent, but that make it clear that the party itself is deeply corrupt and opaque by its very nature. Cornel West was promoted in the media, but he was vague on policy and refused to address most of the serious issues facing the United States. The very fact that Wikipedia recognized my run but the Green Party could not, tells us that something is seriously wrong.
Let me close by quoting the German scholar of constitutional law Karl Lowenstein who was a leader in the fight against fascism in Europe in the 1930s. He faced a situation quite similar to that which we face now. Lowenstein advanced the concept of “militant democracy, ” the practical and strategic need for a radical defense of democracy and the rule of law when it is under assault by fascistic forces who employ the assets of democracy such as freedom of speech, free elections, and transparent systems of deliberative government as tools to advance totalitarian government and to destroy democracy itself.
Karl Loewenstein fled Germany in 1933 when he and other defenders of constitutional governance were subject to personal threats by the Nazi Party after it took power.
Loewenstein was keenly aware of the specifics of how a militarized fascist movements took over countries step by step and why they could not be defeated at home through attempts to debate laws, or to contest actions in courts (as the foolish leaders in the Democratic Party are doing now) because fascism depends on emotionalism, not rational thought or logic, and it treats the systems of democratic deliberation as mere soft targets to be taken over by brutal means. Loewenstein saw remarkable uniformity in fascist movements and he recognized, accurately, that fascism was not an ideology or political philosophy at all, but a technique for the hostile takeover of a government.
He expressed the problematic in the following manner:
“Democracy and democratic tolerance have been used for their own destruction. Under cover of fundamental rights and the rule of law, the anti-democratic machine could be built up and set in motion legally. Calculating adroitly that democracy could not, without self-abnegation, deny to anybody of public opinion the full use of the free institutions of speech, press, assembly, and parliamentary participation, fascist exponents systematically discredit the democratic order and make it unworkable by paralyzing its functions until chaos reigns. They exploit the tolerant confidence of democratic ideology that in the long run truth is stronger than falsehood.”
His words are of profound value to the Green Party as we struggle to respond to an unprecedented political culture in the United States that makes demands of us unlike those faced by previous politicians. That means the Green Party must demand that Trump officials who violate the law and constitution resign, or be jailed, and that government institutions that operate outside the law, the Constitution and the transparent purview of the Congress and no longer the government and no longer have the authority of “government.” We cannot repeat any more the tired and dishonest line promoted by Bernie Sanders in his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” that “We are in serious danger of losing our democracy.” We must first recognize that there is no democracy, and no constitutional governance or deliberative debate in the formulation of policy at all. We must start to rebuild from scratch in the Green Party, in the United States as a whole, and across the globe.
