In a deeply polarising election, the Greens Party campaign for the US presidency, with Jill Stein for president and human rights activist Ajamu Baraka fore vice-president, won more than 1.2 million votes (about 1%), up from about 470,000 in 2012.
In response to the victory of far-right populist Donald Trump — which some Hilary Clinton supporters have tried to blame the Greens for — the Stein campaign has issued a strident call for resistance, which is reprinted below.
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The Stein/Baraka campaign calls for sustained and organised resistance to president-elect Donald Trump and the rise of right-wing extremism in the United States. They expressed their solidarity and empathy with those who are traumatised by the election results, and called for an honest and sober reckoning of the collusion between the political establishment and corporate media that led to Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.
“A New York Times poll reveals that 82% of Americans are literally ‘disgusted’ by this election,” said Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate. “This election is a reaction to what voters see as a toxic and corrupt political establishment and represents a wholesale rejection of it.
“The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sabotaged Bernie Sanders, who by all accounts would have easily trounced Donald Trump. Because of Wikileaks, we also know that the DNC actively colluded with corporate media to elevate Donald Trump as a ‘Pied Piper Candidate’ to encourage the most extreme elements of the Republican Party,” she said.
She continued: “The DNC’s cynical political calculations, as well as the public’s mistrust and rejection of Clinton’s policies of endless wars for oil, disastrous trade deals, and support for Wall Street deregulation that crashed the economy and devastated the lives of millions — all this together has resulted in horrific blowback that puts us all in danger.”
“We stand in solidarity with the communities that have suffered from harassment, voter suppression, and now the trauma of a Donald Trump victory and what it represents,” said Ajamu Baraka, Green Party vice-presidential candidate.
“We must build alternative power. We need principled and strong social movements that express and agitate for the needs of the American people, and a political party to represent that movement at the ballot box. Over one million people voted for the Green Party ticket. We are the electoral arm of that social movement.”
Green Party activists are hitting the ground running the day after the election. The Green Party calls for direct actions against the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the lame duck session, and is co-organising for “Occupy Inauguration” demonstrations on January 20 and 21 (also the anniversary of Citizens United).
The party also commends several state-level victories for institutional reform in this election, including the passage of ranked-choice voting in Maine. Ranked Choice Voting would end the role of fear-voting in elections by allowing voters to rank their choices for president (or other single winner offices) — knowing that if one’s first choice loses, their vote is automatically reassigned to their second choice. In addition, the Stein/Baraka campaign praised resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate constitutional rights and the concept of money as speech in Washington and California.
“Don’t mourn, organise,” said David Cobb, Stein/Baraka campaign manager. “This government is premised upon the concept of ‘consent of the governed’. We do not consent to Donald Trump and right wing rule. We do not consent to the establishment of corporate rule. We do not consent to Empire. We call for a peaceful, non-violent revolution by the ordinary people who were shut out of this terrible election by the leadership of both corporate political parties. The Green Party is prepared to be an instrument for popular power, and a new politics of integrity that must rise up and replace this rotten two-party system,” he said.