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The white-Left Part 1: The two meanings of white

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Greens could give White House to Trump as poll numbers even

Jill Stein came to Los Angeles on Thursday to say "We are the people we have been waiting for" to a small audience in a closed diner. She isn't the person I've been waiting for. The kindest thing that could be said about her understanding of what is happening in the world internationally is that she is naive, because if she isn't just clueless about what has really been going on in Syria and the Ukraine, and Putin's nefarious role in much of it, then she is operating as the willing agent of a foreign ruler that would like to see Donald Trump win the election.
By claiming that this presidential election is no different from the others she has run in, and refusing to recognize that Donald Trump threatens to bring into the White House a brutal and virulent form of white racism that is qualitatively different from that of the Obama administration or any of presidency since Lincoln, and most importantly, by steadfastly refusing to recognize that the rise of white nationalism has become the key issue in election year 2016 and refusing to campaign against it, Jill Stein forfeits any claim to mass leadership, now or in the future.
Outside of white supremacist support for Trump and neo-liberal support for Clinton, almost no one is wild about the candidate they are backing. Many are backing Trump because they hate the Clintons and most that "support" Hillary Clinton don't trust her and are backing her only because they fear the alternative, which isn't Johnson or Stein, with 12% and 4%3% in the polls respectively, it is Donald Trump. Unsurprisingly, the two capitalist parties have presented us with two evil candidates and like it or not, we will make a binary decision on 8 November. When the votes are counted, if they are counted fairly [which is not a given], the number of votes for Donald Trump will be compared to the number of votes for Hillary Clinton and one of those two will be named our next president. Votes for 3rd place Johnson and 4th place Stein won't enter into the calculations. Neither will the opinions of those that failed to vote at all. That is why the presidential race has settled into two camps: The multinational #NeverTrump camp and the overwhelmingly white #NeverClinton camp. By downplaying the white nationalism of the Trump campaign, while focusing their main fire on Clinton, by working harder to win voters away from Clinton than Trump, the Green Party has effectively joined the pro-Trump #NeverClinton camp.

Plan B


The Green Party is well aware that most people haven't bought their argument that a Trump regime will be no worst than what we have now or more of the same under Hillary Clinton. To be sure, undocumented workers, Muslims and most Afro-Americans remain unconvinced. So, the Green Party has another argument for why you should vote for Stein as "the greater good." They say Trump has no chance of winning so there's no need to vote for the lesser evil. You can feel good about your vote because the Trump campaign is already "toast." Mission Accomplished!

That is very dangerous deception. History has shown that polls can be very wrong about these things. The polls were consistently wrong in predicting Trump's victories in so many primaries, just as they were woefully wrong about the Brexit vote in Britain. And now the latest polls show Clinton's lead shrinking with the margin between the two possible winners dropping below the number going toward Jill Stein. While she has absolutely no chance of being our next president, if she can get 5% of the vote, the Green Party can get up to $20 million in federal funding. Than means if that target is reached, each Stein vote will net ~$3.34. However, if those represent progressive votes that otherwise would go to Clinton, and they do, and the polls continue to narrow as they are doing, the price for the world could well be a Donald Trump presidency. Investor's Business Daily reported on Friday:
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Are Tied In Latest IBD/TIPP Poll

By John Merline
2 September 2016
In a sharp turnaround in an already volatile election season, support for Hillary Clinton tumbled as Donald Trump made gains over the past month, leaving the race a virtual tie.

The latest IBD/TIPP Poll shows that Clinton is now ahead of Trump by just one percentage point, 44% to 43% among likely voters. Last month, Clinton had a seven-point lead over Trump — 46% to 39% -- among registered voters.

Clinton and Trump are tied at 39% each in a four-way matchup that includes Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who gets 12% support, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who gets 3%. More...
Liberaterian candidate Gary Johnson is a former Republican governor that has "cast himself as an alternative to Mr. Trump" If the New York Times is right and "he is drawing support about equally from voters who would otherwise lean toward Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton," his campaign will have no net effect on the outcome. His poll numbers do make him three times as likely as Jill Stein to win the election, but his chances are zero nevertheless.

Both Stein and Johnson will effect the outcome of the election only by drawing voters away from the main event. While the Johnson effect can be expected to be neutral, almost no one who will vote for Jill Stein would otherwise vote for Trump. Her candidacy only hurts Clinton and as a result, helps Trump. It is going to matter to quite a lot of people which one is our next president. No one should fall for Green Party talk that Hillary Clinton's got it in the bag. Poll numbers are tightening and October is anything can happen month. Happy Halloween. Trump masks and klan costumes are trending.

My other recent posts relating to this unique election cycle:
Why Green Party's Jill Stein should drop her presidential bid
Amy Goodman should address this extremely important statement by her guest
How Jill Stein Tweets for Trump
HuffPost item shows how @JillStein campaign whitewashes @realDonaldTrump
Trump tells his '2nd Amendment people election will be stolen to prepare for insurrection
Trump didn't threaten Hillary, he threatened violent insurrection
Meet Green Party's Jill Stein, Putin sock-puppet & Assad apologist


Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria





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1 comment:

  1. What I think you may be missing, is that almost all of Stein's support comes from safely Democratic states like Massachusetts and Vermont, which means she poses no threat to the almost inevitable Clinton coronation.

    I share your contempt for her flower-child's approach to the twin revolutions against King Bashar (YPG & FSA), but there's little danger that she will pull serious numbers in swing states, and our anachronistic electoral system is still the name of the game.

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