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Climate Groups Warn Third-Party Vote 'Could Hand Our Planet's Future Over to Trump'
"Every vote for Dr. Jill Stein or Cornel West instead of Kamala Harris makes it more likely that Donald Trump will win," wrote a coalition of leading environmental groups.
Oct 25, 2024
A coalition of leading U.S. environmental groups warned Thursday that a third-party vote in next month's election could help usher in climate disaster by improving Republican nominee Donald Trump's chances of victory, a risk they said the planet can't afford as time runs out to avert catastrophic warming.
Voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in the November 5 election is imperative because they represent "our best chance at making more progress over the next four years," 350 Action, the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, Climate Emergency Action, Earthjustice Action, Food and Water Action, Friends of the Earth Action, and other climate groups wrote in an open letter addressed to "potential supporters of Jill Stein or Cornel West."
While the letter thanks Stein, the Green Party candidate, and West, who is running as an Independent, "for raising important issues in this election," the groups argued that Harris "is the only candidate with a record of success addressing climate change," pointing to her tie-breaking vote in support of the Inflation Reduction Act and legal action against oil companies during her tenure as California's attorney general.
Trump, by contrast, "waged the worst White House attack ever against the environment and public health while in office," the groups wrote.
One analysis estimates that a second Trump presidency could result in an additional 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 2030, negating recent progress in renewable energy development and inflicting large-scale climate damage. Fossil fuel industry attorneys and lobbyists are already drawing up executive orders for Trump to sign should he prevail on November 5.
"He has made clear that his second term will be even more extreme, drawing from the detailed anti-environment proposals and plans contained in Project 2025," the climate coalition wrote in the open letter. "Every vote for Dr. Jill Stein or Cornel West instead of Kamala Harris makes it more likely that Donald Trump will win."
In a separate social media thread on Thursday, the youth-led Sunrise Movement—a signatory of the new open letter—wrote that "this election will decide the temperature on our planet for thousands of years."
"It will decide if we have a fighting chance to stop the climate crisis or not," the group added. "Voting alone or voting third party won't save us. Let's be honest—financing a genocide, competing on who can be crueler to immigrants, or thumbs-upping fracking is fucked. A Harris presidency won't stop violence. No president ever will."
"But neither will disengaging or throwing away our votes. This election might not save the world but it will set the scene," said Sunrise, which has been working to mobilize young voters in swing states to back Harris. "We have six years to stop the climate crisis and we can't afford to give four of them away to Trump. What your summers look like in 2047, where your family might live in 2063, whether tens of millions of more people become climate refugees or not will be deeply impacted by the election results."
And we have to vote like it because since 1968, no 3rd party candidate has won a single state, let alone the presidency.
So yes—we must vote, and we have to do so much more if we truly plan to win.
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) October 24, 2024
Tens of millions of ballots have already been cast in dozens of states across the U.S. ahead of Election Day, with officials reporting record turnout in battlegrounds such as Michigan and Georgia.
Stein and West are among several third-party candidates on the ballot in critical states that could decide the presidential contest. Recent polling has shown that Stein and West are both polling around 1% in the key state of Michigan, where Harris and Trump are in a dead heat.
Michigan has received significant attention this election cycle given that it was the birthplace of the Uncommitted National Movement, which began as a primary campaign effort to push President Joe Biden to halt U.S. support for Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
The movement has since shifted its focus to pressuring Harris to back an arms embargo against Israel, something she has declined to do. While Uncommitted opted against endorsing Harris last month, it said it opposes the Republican nominee and warned that "third-party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country's broken Electoral College system."
"We are going to be voting for the world's climate future even if we are reluctant to admit it."
Stein has dismissed the notion that she's a potential "spoiler" candidate, arguing her supporters would likely opt to stay home instead of vote for Harris or Trump if there was no third-party choice.
But speaking in Michigan earlier this month, Stein supporter Kshama Sawant—a former member of the Seattle City Council—acknowledged that "we are not in a position to win the White House" and said she views the Green Party candidacy as an opportunity to "deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan."
"And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan," Sawant added.
That approach could be devastating for the planet, progressive lawmakers and climate advocates have argued.
"If Donald Trump is elected, the struggle against climate change is over," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a social media post on Thursday. "The United States will withdraw from the movement toward sustainable energy."
Kumar Venkat, a carbon footprint analyst, wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams on Friday that "if elected, it is reasonable to expect that Harris will build on the Biden administration's work and keep the U.S. on the net-zero path."
"Donald Trump has made it exceedingly clear that he does not believe climate change is even a problem," Venkat wrote. "Between Project 2025 pushing for a 'whole-of-government unwinding' of U.S. climate policy and the fossil fuel industry drafting detailed plans to dismantle the Biden administration's climate rules, it is a safe bet that we will no longer be on a trajectory to net-zero emissions if Trump is back in the White House."
"We are going to be voting for the world's climate future," he added, "even if we are reluctant to admit it."
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A Note on the 'Lesser of Two Evils' Voting Argument in 2024
Why people, and radicals in particular, fail to grasp the reasoning behind this argument is truly mind-boggling.
Sep 10, 2024
One of the most bewildering reactions on the part of certain segments of the U.S. left (whatever that means these days) is that every time there is a crucial election, and the voice of reason dictates casting a ballot in a direction which will help the most to keep out of public office the most extreme, and often enough the positively nuts, candidate in the race, is to scream that this is a case of “the lesser of two evils” thinking and to imply in turn that the one making such an argument is, somehow, a sellout.
Noam Chomsky, of all people, has been the recipient of such brainless reactions for much of his life as he has repeatedly made the argument that voting for a third-party or independent candidate in a swing state would accomplish nothing but increase the possibility of the most extreme and positively nuts candidate winning the election.
Why people, and radicals in particular, fail to grasp the reasoning behind such an argument is truly mind-boggling. Either they don’t understand the nature of U.S. politics, with its winner-take-all election system, or they are simply wrapped up in the “feel-good” factor in politics to even notice such subtleties. But since even a fairly bright elementary student would most likely be able to understand the difference between a winner-take-all election system and proportional representation, it would be logical to conclude that what we have here is nothing less than a display of the politics of feeling good, which basically translates to acting in whatever manner makes one feel good, politically speaking, regardless of the consequences of those actions.
Now, one might say that when the Comintern adopted Stalin’s thinking in the 1920s that “social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism” and proceeded later to lump together Hitler’s Nazi party and the German Social Democratic Party that it was doing so out of conviction that the capitalist world was teetering on the brink of collapse and that the communists would inevitably emerge as the victorious party.
But what is the excuse of the tiny segment of U.S. self-professed radicals who fail to see that in order to advance the program of socialism we must first defeat Trump at the ballot box? Incidentally, this also happens to be the official stance of the Communist Party USA. Yet, one can already hear the argument that U.S. communists must have also fallen victims of the picking a lesser of two evils mental attitude. However, in numerous conversations I've had with radicals (leftists, anarchists, and communists) across Europe, their own thinking was also in line with the reasoning of the Communist Party USA—namely, that priority number one of U.S. progressive voters should be to defeat wannabe dictator Donald Trump in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Can this be done by voting in a swing state for someone like Cornel West or Jill Stein when these candidates have zero chance of winning? My chances of being attacked and killed by a shark, which are estimated to be one in 3.75 million, are far greater than either of these two candidates making it to the White House in November 2024.
Oh, but I forgot! Such realizations hardly matter in comparison to how good it might make one feel by voting for a candidate outside of the two existing parties. Who cares if the candidate who would love to turn the U.S. into an autocracy wins the election? The other candidate is simply the lesser of two evils, which is like saying that it makes no difference to live under a political regime that is inadequate in realizing the ideals of a decent society and one that is bent on a process of societal fasticization.
Still, there is something even more bewildering with the lesser-of-two evils dictum that is thrown around by small segments of the left. Generally speaking, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, there have been two doctrines about voting: the official doctrine, “which holds that politics consists of showing up every few years, pushing a lever, then going back to one’s private pursuits,” and the “left doctrine.” For the latter, “politics consists in constant direct popular engagement in public affairs, including a wide variety of activism on many fronts. Occasionally an event comes up in the formal political arena called an ‘election….’ It’s at most a brief departure from political engagement.”
The third doctrine about voting, which is the “lesser of two evils” principle, has appeared on the political scene rather recently and, as Chomsky highlighted, is “now consuming much debate on the left.” The debate, he went to say, “also falls within the official doctrine, with its laser-like focus on elections.”
Most leftists, radicals and communists know fully well what the Democratic Party represents. Moreover, the recently held Democratic National Convention, with its pathetic effort to reclaim the mantle of "freedom” in a simultaneous display of militaristic jingoism, gave us ample warnings of what lies ahead. It takes no political genius to see that Kamala Harris is yet another centrist and wholly opportunistic Democrat who will change her tune as the circumstances dictate. Or, as the British political philosopher John Gray aptly put it, to recognize that she has “been abruptly transformed by compliant media from a vice-president commonly acknowledged to be barely competent into an uplifting national leader.”
Leftists, radicals and communists living in capitalist societies know that elections are hardly the stuff of political participation that will turn things around. Only grassroots activism can bring about meaningful change. But whenever elections come up, and proportional representation is not in the picture, we hold our nose and vote for the lesser-known threat to what is left of the democracy we have. And then we go back to real activism in order to change society and the world for the better.
It's not complicated.
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Cornel West Defends Accepting Campaign Cash From Right-Wing Billionaire Harlan Crow
"Despite my deep political differences with brother Harlan Crow (who is an anti-Trump Republican), I've known him in a nonpolitical setting for some years and I pray for his precious family," said the presidential candidate.
Oct 19, 2023
Independent U.S. presidential candidate and progressive scholar Cornel West on Thursday responded to criticism he is facing for taking money from billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, known for lavishing right-wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with gifts.
After reviewing Federal Election Commission filings, NBC News on Wednesday reported on Crow's August donation of $3,300, the maximum that an individual can directly give to a campaign.
"As an Independent candidate and a free Black man, I accept donations within the limits of no PACs or corporate interest groups that have strings attached," West wrote Thursday on X, formerly Twitter. "I am unbought and unbossed. Despite my deep political differences with brother Harlan Crow (who is an anti-Trump Republican), I've known him in a nonpolitical setting for some years and I pray for his precious family."
Former President Donald Trump is the Republican front-runner, based on polling, despite his multiple criminal indictments and arguments he is constitutionally disqualified from holding office again.
"I find it hypocritical for those who highlight his $3,300 donation to my campaign but can't say a mumbling word about the PAC-driven billion dollars to support the genocidal attack in Gaza sponsored by their candidate!" West added, pointing to Israel's ongoing assault of the strip. "I'm fighting for truth, justice, and love! Onward!"
West, a longtime professor and activist, launched his 2024 campaign as a People's Party candidate in June. Later that month, West revealed he would instead seek the Green Party nomination. He announced the Independent run earlier this month. His campaign platform centers justice on all issues, from education and the environment to health, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, race, voting, and work.
"People are hungry for change," West said on X October 5. "They want good policies over partisan politics. We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people. I'm running as an Independent candidate for president of the United States to end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true democracy!"
ProPublica has released various reports this year detailing how Crow, a real estate developer, has treated Thomas to luxury vacations, bought the home of the Supreme Court justice's mother, and contributed to the private school tuition for a great-nephew he raised.
Amid mounting calls for new Supreme Court
ethics rules, a U.S. Department of Justice probe, and Thomas' recusal from cases or even resignation, Crow in April gave a wide-ranging interview to The Wall Street Journal in which he described West as "a good friend."
Crow has also given to the presidential campaigns of Republicans, including ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Throughout his campaign, West—like fellow candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently switched from a Democrat to an Independent—has faced allegations that his candidacy could impact a close race between Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection, and Trump.
In 2020, West endorsed U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was seeking the Democratic nomination. In August, West suggested Sanders is supporting the president's reelection bid because "he's fearful of the neo-fascism of Trump" and accused Biden backers in general of being dishonest about the administration's economic achievements.
Asked about West's comments on CNN later that month, Sanders said that "where I disagree with my good friend of Cornel West is I think in these really, very difficult times, where there is a real question whether democracy is going to remain in the United States of America... I think we have got to bring the entire progressive community to defeat Trump or whoever the Republican nominee will be."
"Support Biden, but at the same time... demand that the Democratic Party, not just Biden, have the guts to take on corporate greed and the massive levels of income and wealth inequality that we see today," Sanders added, noting his own willingness to challenge the president and party with which he caucuses.
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