Many Americans vote for one of the two dominant political parties when it comes to politics in the United States. Regardless, third parties have been gaining prominence in recent years.
The Green Party has almost 240 thousand members in the United States. Despite this, many people don’t know much about this political party. Its membership reached its peak in the early 2000s but has stayed mostly steady ever since.
The Green Party is the fourth largest political party in the United States behind the Democrat, Republican and Libertarian parties.
Americans first gained awareness of the Green Party when Ralph Nader ran for president in 2000 and again when Jill Stein ran in the 2016 election on the Green ticket. In the upcoming 2024 presidential election, Cornel West is running on the Green ticket.
In 2016, Jill Stein offered to give up her nomination for Bernie Sanders to run Green but he refused the offer.
Many Americans believe that the Green Party is a single-issue party focused on environmentalism. While environmentalism is the founding principle of the Green Party, it has since grown into much more than that.
Now, the political party is largely composed of former democrats who have become dissatisfied with the lack of commitment to progressive values by the Democratic Party.
The Green Party argues that even though it is unlikely to win elections, it serves an important purpose to push candidates towards adopting their policy proposal to get elected.
For healthcare, the Green Party supports the implementation of a single-payer system and the abolition of private health insurance in the United States. This means they believe in nationalising health insurance.
According to the Hill, the majority of Republican voters support universal healthcare and the percentage is even higher for Democrats. The US is the only advanced and industrialised nation in the world without universal healthcare, and despite this, neither of the two major political parties’ platforms support universal healthcare. The U.S.’s current system costs the government more on healthcare per capita than any other country in the world including those with universal healthcare. Nearly 45 thousand annual deaths in the US are related to a lack of health insurance, all of which could be prevented if we had universal healthcare. Americans are likely to avoid seeking a doctor due to healthcare costs.
The Green Party supports providing tuition-free college at public universities and vocational schools and cancelling all student loan debt. They also support repealing the “No Child Left Behind Act” which established standardised testing in the US.
Student debt is an ongoing problem for Americans. The average federal student loan debt in the United States is 37,338 dollars per person. Student debt forgiveness could help 45 million Americans get out of debt.
The party supports a Green New Deal which is a transitional plan to a 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030. This includes a carbon tax, federal jobs guarantee, tuition-free college and single-payer healthcare. It is based on FDR’s New Deal in the 1930 and 40s that ended the Great Depression and helped the allies win WWII.
Inflation has been skyrocketing due to the instability of America’s oil-based economy. It is not sustainable to base the economy on a limited resource, not to mention the environmental problems of oil moving to renewable sources could help with both inflation and climate change.
On criminal justice issues, the Green Party supports the abolition of the death penalty, repeal of three-strikes laws, banning of private prisons, legalisation of marijuana, and decriminalisation of drugs into a medical instead of criminal issue.
The U.S. has a problem of mass incarceration which disproportionately harms the poor and racial minorities. The U.S. is far ahead compared to China, who’s in second place for most incarcerated people in the world. Despite the fact, China has 4.35 times the population of the US.
On foreign policy, the Green Party is anti-interventionist. They support the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Palestinian Right of Return. The Iran Nuclear Deal was a deal between the US and Iran in which the US would ease sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran agreeing not to develop nuclear weapons. The US withdrew from the agreement by the Trump Administration. The Palestinian Right of Return guarantees that Palestinians have a right to return back to their home and property as their own if they leave. The Green Party supports cutting all military aid and prioritising diplomacy and peace negotiations instead.
War is an ongoing humanitarian problem in countries like Yemen, Syria and Ukraine among others. It is not helpful when the United States sends thousands of weapons and bombs to a side it deems to be a lesser evil. Peace negotiations are much more likely to end wars than betting on the victory of one side.
As the 2024 presidential election is coming to the US, more and more Americans are wanting a different option from the main two parties. The Green Party is one of many third parties in the US. You should consider voting green if you want to represent an alternative party instead of the main two in the U.S.
