Howie,

Thank you for your email. I’m guessing that I received it because I gave a few hundred dollars to Jill Stein during her campaign in 2016. I think it’s somewhat ironic that you imply the Democrats for stealing your ‘Green New Deal’ idea, yet you are asking for $27 in donations which is a Bernie thing. True, Bernie may have similar ideas to you in some respects but he is not a Green. When Stein asked him to take her place as a third party candidate—he said no. The main difference between you and Bernie is that he looks at the whole picture with respect to what’s good for this country, and you only look at the issues. Having ideas that are not ‘watered down’ (your words) are great for galvanizing your base but are not realistic given the fact that we live in a democracy, which by definition, requires compromise.

Personally I love the non-watered down version of the Green New Deal, i.e your version. I am an environmentalist through-and-through, and I have been screaming about the climate crisis for decades. But what became apparent to me last election is if you ask for the moon you get nothing. They say that there is an infinite number of universes and if you can imagine a wild idea, there is a universe somewhere that embodies it. I’m sure somewhere in the cosmos there is a version of earth that elected Trump in 2016 and a green party president in 2020, but that is not our planet. No amount of $27 donations is going to change the ideology of 320 million people from the full spectrum political thinking, to a majority on the extreme left. As much as I would want that to happen, it’s for another universe not our own.

So are we resigned to an America run by corporations and lobbyist? Of course not, but we need to be strategic in our plan to take them down. Your head-strong approach of direct competition with the two party system, which has infinitely more resources, is naive at best and deadly at worst (as it often helps to elect the opposite of your dream candidate). But we do have power in numbers. All third party groups need to band together to make a stand for rank-choice voting. It’s the only way to topple the two-party system. If you change your strategy, I will start donating to you again.

Paul 

Rosa Clemente on "Letters and Politics" this morning. My respect for her grows every time I hear her speak. She is an astute observer of socio-political history and its current trajectory. I proudly cast a write-in vote for McKinney/Clemente in 2008.
However, while she says a lot here that had me nodding along, I disagree with one point: her diagnosis that the Green Party is "hella white." It's one of the reasons she stopped hanging with the GP.
Perhaps national and state Green Parties' leadership is older & whiter than it should be for attracting & retaining youth & POC as members. But since 2008 the membership, leadership, and candidates have made steady progress toward diversity of ethnicities, ages, orientations, gender identities, with even more progress in progress. The delegates to the 2016 convention in Houston were evidence of that.
Your perception may differ, and that's OK.