A Potentially “Historic” Election — It’s up to us to make it so!
The U.S. faces a potentially historic election on November 5, 2024, one that contains the possibility of taking a big step toward breaking up what was once known as a “duopoly” — one party with two corporate heads. The “duopoly”, it seems, has now morphed into a “uni-party”, one that agrees on supporting a U.S./Israel genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; one that supports expanding that genocide into Lebanon, and possibly, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran. This expansion will bring the U.S. ever closer to an out-of-control WWIII and the use of nuclear weapons. And this “uni-party” also supports suppressing freedom of speech in order to promote the pro-genocide and pro-war agenda. Taken together, all this moves U.S. politics further and further to the right, with or without a Trump victory. However, should one of the third party candidates, Claudia De la Cruz, Dr. Jill Stein, or Dr. Cornel West, achieve 5% of more of the vote, that third party will be positioned to appear on all states’ ballots in 2028. And that would be no minor achievement! Ballot access is a gruelling process for independent parties and so an automatic appearance on the ballot in all 50 states would be historic.
As most already know, independent political parties face many obstacles that block competition for any office from taking place on a level playing field. Those obstacles include raising money (many independent political parties, especially the Green Party, refuse to take money from Political Action Committees (PACs)) because that money buys political power; and partisan politics, most of which come from the Blue Team, which tries repeatedly to knock independent candidates off the ballot, particularly Green Party candidate Jill Stein, because these candidates are seen as threats to their “monopoly” on power and policy agendas.
This election cycle MoveOn.org recently began organizing a campaign to get the L.A. Times and the Washington Post to print their endorsements of Kamala Harris, blocked by the owners of their respective newspapers. While the owner of the LA Times has refuted this, his daughter has spoken out that the reason for the non-endorsement is the situation in Gaza. And for the Washington Post, it seemed the failure to publish came from the right and a preferred endorsement of the Red Team. This author finds it appalling that MoveOn.org wants to organize to limit “freedom of speech” and “freedom of the press.”
This author believes that had there been no presidential election this November, many people would have continued to claim opposition to genocide and the ever-growing threat of WWIII and the movement for an arms embargo/cease fire might have continued to grow in size and volume. The clear violations of international law currently taking place by Israel (with nearly total diplomatic cover provided by the U.S.), as well as a stubborn and illegal policy (according to U.S. law) to continue providing weapons and money to this out-of-control Netanyahu regime, may also have continued to grow in intensity. But with this upcoming election, many will still vote Blue (or even Red) signaling support for these actions and undermining those who continue taking to the streets in protest.
Yes, this author believes that a vote for either the Blue or the Red team on November 5th will undermine efforts to achieve a ceasefire and an arms embargo and even to protest WWIII. Opposition to these policies has the most powerful leverage now, not after the elections are over. And the U.S. voting public has received the message loudly and clearly NOW that neither the Red or the Blue team has any intention of changing the current course of the genocide, nor the trajectory toward WWIII.
Republicans who have endorsed the Harris/Walz ticket are by no means moderate — prominent figures from past administrations include Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, John Bolton, John Negroponte, and Alberto Gonzales who made sure that U.S. actions following 9/11/2001 could not be defined as torture. Liz Cheney has also endorsed Kamala, though she was never a part of earlier Republican administrations. For a more complete list click here.
However, something new seems to be emerging, including new coalitions that understand how important it is to stand up to this crumbling U.S. empire. These coalitions represent major voting blocs, including those who have, for years, stood primarily with the Democratic Party.
These coalitons include more than 1000 authors, including winners of the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, who have launched a mass boycott of Israeli publishers complicit in the “dispossession” of the Palestinian people (palfest.org/refusing-complicity).
Then there are these groups who have endorsed Jill Stein and other third parties, showing a clean break from the “uniparty”. They can no longer, in good conscience, urge their members to vote for either Trump or Harris.
The American Arab and Muslim Political Action Committee
Council on American–Islamic Relations Action (co-endorsed with Claudia De la Cruz, Joseph Kishore, and Cornel West)
Muslim American Public Affairs Council
and more.
In NJ, less than 2 weeks before the presidential petition was due, there were concerns expressed that a stronger buffer of extra signatures was needed for Jill Stein’s petition. About a dozen NJ voters from Arab American and Muslim American communities came forward to gather signatures in the last week, adding about 1000 buffer signatures and guaranteeing Jill Stein’s position on the NJ presidential ballot.
As a person who ran 6 times as a Green when I lived in New Jersey, I know this is no trivial matter. Throughout my 25 years of campaigning, a disconnect always existed between the people’s needs and demands, and the Red or Blue team’s desire to listen and, even more importantly, to act accordingly. The appeals from the people were never enough to break long-standing party loyalty — until now–until the brutal, ugly, illegal, US-Israel genocide as well as the steady (and seemingly unstoppable) expansion of Israeli aggression, supported by the United States.
At the same time, the Blue Team is determined to pressure those who they believe are supposed to vote Blue no matter what. Some of the team have challenged the right of U.S. citizens living overseas, like this author, to vote in the U.S. election because of no longer living in the U.S. This completely ignores the fact that what happens in the U.S. affects people all over the world. Therefore, if one values and wants to “protect democracy” and the right to vote, it shouldn’t matter whether one votes Blue, Red or Green, nor should it matter where a U.S. citizen lives.
Let’s see how this vote unfolds. Whatever happens, this election season has already set new precedents!
