By Dayvon Love
When people sarcastically ask the question “where is Jill Stein” it denotes a desire to deflect their complicity in the exploitative relationship between working class Black people and the Democratic Party.
The “lesser of two evils” analysis is often the pushback that liberals give to those of us who are committed to more radical approaches to electoral politics. The argument they make is that we need to be serious about who can actually win and develop an astute political approach that can deliver concrete results for our community. Additionally, not voting for Democrats– even if they are imperfect–just empowers the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
One of the critiques I have of people who share my perspective on the need for more radical approaches to electoral politics is that they often don’t have a serious answer to the concern of ceding political power to Republicans who have no incentive to do anything meaningful for Black people. Both parties are instruments of the White settler colonialism, even when there are non-White people at the helm. But they are not the same, and the differences matter.
The electorate that is necessary for Democrats to be politically viable are largely people of color. We are a captured electorate of the Democratic Party that are mostly pandered to, instead of being treated like a power base that can drive the trajectory of the party. While it may be objectively better to have a generic Democrat in office than a generic Republican, if we don’t simultaneously do the work to build the capacity to build credible electoral threats to the left of the Democratic Party establishment, then we are in effect co-signing a perpetual exploitative relationship to them.
Democrats have generally supported symbolic measures on police reform (ie body cameras, training) and rejected more radical policies like community control of law enforcement. Democrats will market their policies of making public investments in social programs, but oppose progressive taxes on corporations. The Democratic Party is interested in minimal changes to White corporate domination of the world, while wanting to appear to have engaged in the maximum amount of social change. The only way that Democrats have delivered any meaningful progressive/radical policies is with radical political forces outside (to the left) of the party. If the Democratic Party is not challenged by electoral forces to its left, it has no incentive to deliver anything to Black people besides watered down policies.
In a state like Maryland, that will go into the 2026 election cycle with a gubernatorial election that is essentially a one party race, there is an opportunity to test the effectiveness of developing credible electoral threats to the left of the Democratic Party. There is zero chance of Wes Moore losing to any of the other candidates who are running for governor. This means that if Marylanders vote in large numbers for a Green Party candidate it will send a message to Democratic Party that they need to run candidates with more progressive/radical policy platforms.
The leverage from folks voting for the Green Party candidate for governor of Maryland (which is the party on the ballot that is left of the Democratic Party) will be helpful in moving stronger policies that protect immigrants from ICE; the policy recommendations from the Maryland Reparations Commission; taking a stance against the genocide in Gaza; progressive taxation to make corporations in Maryland pay their fair share and other important policies that serve the interest of our community. Again, it is extremely unlikely that the Green Party candidate will win, but a 4 percent or 5 percent showing would be enough to send a signal to the Democratic Party that we are not satisfied with liberal reform, but instead we want revolutionary policies that can transform our community. Individual candidates that run for office as a Democrat will have an incentive to run on a more progressive policy platform if they see stronger than normal numbers of people who vote for the Green Party.
Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle and many other organizations are working during the Maryland General Assembly to pass HB 101. The legislation would require any entity that receives public funding and hosts statewide general election debates (like Maryland Public Television) to invite every candidate that appears on the ballot to participate. This will provide the general public with an opportunity to hear political ideas that typically fall outside of the frame of the corporate duopoly, and provide an opportunity to directly hold Democrats accountable publicly. This would help to put public pressure on the Democratic Party to move further left, while also helping to build radical electoral forces outside of the Democratic Party that can go beyond the watered down policies of the Democratic Party establishment.
For those who are asking “Where is Jill Stein?,” I say if you are serious about a political environment where Black people are more than just figures of incorporated resistance into the American mainstream, then you should be looking to support the Butch Wares and Andy Ellises of the world who are running to build electoral political power beyond the Democratic Party.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.