Democratic President Barack Obama surely will win the JP vote this November. But Green Party candidate Jill Stein sounds like a much closer match to JP’s progressive politics with her “Green New Deal.”
In some ways, so does Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, who proposes legalizing marijuana, killing the PATRIOT Act and approving same-sex marriage at the federal level—all positions quite different from those of Obama and Mitt Romney alike.
But in this two-party country—and essentially one-party state—such alternative ideas struggle to be heard even in politically conscious neighborhoods like ours.
America remains the world’s bastion of democracy, yet everywhere we have inspired or installed it, it looks little like the deliberately restrictive American version. Everywhere else, democracy is multiparty and usually parliamentary, ensuring a much broader range of direct representation.
In our system, one party can take JP and the rest of Massachusetts for granted, so that our presidential decision quite literally won’t matter. This, despite the fact that independent voters are the majority in the state.
The Greens and the Libertarians will not be taking over the White House next year. But they are serious parties with serious ideas. They certainly don’t take JP for granted. They are worth your consideration this fall.