 So it's no secret that the Democratic Party and its loyalists do not like the Green Party in fact They loathe the Green Party and it's not necessarily because of the policies that the Green Party supports It's because the Green Party is seen as a competitor to the Democratic Party And they primarily dislike them because they view the Greens as spoilers and elections Predominantly presidential elections now on this program I have talked repeatedly about the electoral reform that we can implement that Democrats could implement That's relatively easy that would stop this from being an issue if you are worried about the spoiler effect There are measures you can take to minimize the threat of spoilage But Democrats aren't opting for electoral reform rather They are waging a war on the Green Party and they're going about minimizing the effect of spoilage in a much more aggressive way So this article from the Texas Tribune kind of sheds light on that quote Texas Democrats are successfully suing to kick Green Party candidates off the November ballot Democrats won legal rulings Wednesday blocking Green Party nominees for US Senate Railroad commissioner and the 21st congressional district from appearing on the November ballot Now the article goes on to explain State and national Democrats are waging a legal offensive to kick Green Party candidates off the ballot in some of Texas's highest profile races this fall and they are seeing success The Democrats are largely targeting Green Party candidates because they have not paid filing fees a new requirement for third parties under a law Passed by the legislature last year the filing fees were already required of Democratic and Republican candidates multiple lawsuits that remain pending Are challenging the new law and the Green Party of Texas has been upfront that most of its candidates are not paying the fees While they await a resolution to the litigation the Green Party argues that the filing fees which go up to $5,000 for a US Senate race are an unconstitutional burden It has also pointed out that the fees normally go toward primaries something neither the Green nor Libertarian parties conducts Because both nominate their candidates at conventions only two of the Green Party's eight nominees for November have submitted the fees according to the Secretary of State Responding to Wednesday's rulings the Texas Green Party said the legal challenges were suspiciously timed Coming after the Monday deadline for write-in candidates to file with the state and days before a series of deadlines Finalizing the November ballot now Texas isn't the only state where the Green Party's voters are being disenfranchised It's also happening in other states across the country This is kind of a national strategy that Democrats seem to be pursuing and I'm not necessarily saying that this is the agenda of the National Democratic Party because it's very decentralized and oftentimes it occurs at the state level But Democrats are in fact trying to get the Greens off the ballot and this just happened in Wisconsin So now in the state of Wisconsin in 2020 Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker the Green Party nominees will not be on the ballot So as the Washington Post explains the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Green Party presidential ticket is Ineligible to appear on the state ballot a relief for state and local election officials who feared in addition at this late date Would up and election preparations the decision comes after the Wisconsin Elections Commission declined on August 20th To put presidential contender Howie Hawkins and his Green Party running mate Angela Walker on the November 3rd ballot because their signature petitions featured two different addresses for Walker State election officials had argued that the campaign failed to fix the discrepancy According to state requirements a reversal of that decision would have triggered a scramble across the state among election officials Who would have had to order new ballots and find the money to pay for them While facing imminent state and federal deadlines to send them to voters now CNN adds Democrats will claim the ruling as a win for their nominee Joe Biden because Hawkins could have played spoiler in a state That had one of the closest margins in 2016 in 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein received 31,072 votes in Wisconsin more than the 22,748 vote margin that handed Trump a victory in the state over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton now I included those last two paragraphs from CNN because I've heard this argument a lot not just from pundits Not just from Democratic Party officials but from a lot of individuals who are concerned about the spoiler effect and it's interesting because it makes a really bold assumption it assumes that all of those votes that went to Jill Stein would have automatically went to Hillary Clinton if Jill Stein wasn't an option if she wasn't on the ballot in 2016 However, if you're going to assume that Jill Stein played spoiler to Hillary Clinton you also have to assume that Gary Johnson played spoiler to Donald Trump and As a result all of the votes that would have otherwise went to Gary Johnson would have went to Donald Trump had Gary Johnson Not been an option. So if we actually remove all the spoilers from this equation What would have happened in Wisconsin in 2016? Well, Gary Johnson got three times more votes than Jill Stein So technically he was actually a bigger spoiler than Jill Stein So let's take both of these spoilers out of the equation and distribute both of their vote totals to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Now when you do this as you can see here Donald Trump still wins and he doesn't just win again in this scenario He actually Increases his margin of victory So if we're talking about spoilers in Wisconsin the spoiler effect actually helped Democrats in this instance if we're going to accept this notion that you know Those votes would have automatically went to one of the two main parties had the spoiler options not been on the ballot But there's this assumption that when we're talking about the spoiler effects it automatically harms Democrats, but it goes both ways again if you assume that all of those votes that went to Jill Stein Would have went to Hillary Clinton if Jill Stein wasn't an option you have to assume the same if you're logical on the other side Because the libertarian party is more closer to Republicans ideologically than they are to Democrats and the Green Party So you have to assume that if Jill Stein was a spoiler for Hillary Clinton Gary Johnson was a spoiler for Donald Trump, but removing both spoilers Still doesn't help Hillary Clinton She still loses but loses by a larger margin because the spoiler effect helped the Democrats in Wisconsin, but Hillary Clinton still lost but let's Kind of put aside whether or not Jill Stein was or wasn't a spoiler in spite of the reality of the spoiler effect Which is a real thing in many instances Is it Democratic? To remove a party off of the ballot to prevent spoilage I Would argue not only that it's undemocratic, but it's a form of voter suppression It is a form of voter suppression Because in a country where what is it like a third of Americans? Don't vote maybe larger We need people to vote we need them to participate in democracy Because if people don't partake in the process democracy dies So we need there to be some sort of buy-in and just getting people to vote in and of itself is a challenge But if you're discouraging them from voting not only is that bad for democracy But it could end up being counterproductive because let's say Somebody in Wisconsin didn't actually want to support Hillary Clinton, but they came out to vote for Jill Stein Well, the presidential race isn't the only race taking place Maybe there wasn't a good Green Party option for the US Senate or their House representative So now if those voters who were only coming out to vote for Jill Stein Don't have that option or didn't have that option in 2016 Maybe now we're not helping down ballot Democrats because I voted for Jill Stein in 2016 But then down the ticket I voted for Democrats and I say this as someone who lives in a deep blue state I would actually vote for Joe Biden or would have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 had I lived in a battleground state But I acknowledge that Even in these swing states, there are going to be people that aren't going to do that They're not going to do what I would do people are going to vote Third-party, that's just a fact of reality third parties exist in every single democracy around the world Including in two-party systems. That is a fact of reality. You are never going to get away from that Third parties exist in democracies and even if they're never going to win or they're not electorally successful most of the time The fact that they exist means democracy is working But once you start shutting them out that means democracy isn't working and I think Owen Higgins put it best 100% going to be one of those moments We look back on in five to ten years as a precursor to something worse and all the people you see celebrating it today Will be oh so confused and I say this because it's troubling to see Democrats Celebrate this celebrate the Greens getting kicked off the ballot. You can simultaneously acknowledge that the Greens could potentially Be a spoiler in some instances, but also acknowledge that third parties and independence will always be on the ballots in our system Even in two-party systems. That's something that all democracies have to deal with even in Canada They have basically a multi-party system. I mean, it's still pretty majoritarian You usually just have either the conservatives or the liberals in power and government But even in certain writings you have to determine do I want to vote for? NDP which is the more left-wing party if that means that the liberals will be less likely to defeat the conservative I mean, this is something that you have to grapple with as a democracy. It's one of the things that comes with democracy They're always going to exist Now you can choose to suppress them and suppress votes of these parties Or you can choose to do electoral reform But Democrats haven't pursued that and instead they're celebrating Greens getting kicked off the ballot and someone who I admire and respect Very much so. Adi Barkan literally celebrated this and implied that this was like a triumph for democracy Because voters have less options and I love you Adi You're a great person and I respect everything that you do. I really admire your advocacy for Medicare for all but restricting options Isn't going to make our democracy more democratic. It's going to be antithetical to democracy because again Even if you're worried about the spoiler effect That's democracy too bad win over those votes or do electoral reform and here's the thing like Democrats have been worried about the Green Party now for decades even back in the 90s there are articles from the New York Times of Democrats speaking out about how they're worried about the rise of the Green Party and this came after Bill Clinton's third-way approach drove a lot of people out of the Democratic Party and they started to gravitate more towards the Green Party and Decades have passed but what have Democrats done to minimize the spoiler effect? Not a single goddamn thing unless we're talking about voter suppression and trying to kick the Greens off the ballots or Try to disenfranchise green voters, you know, kick them out of debates Listen, if you truly are worried about the spoiler effect, you can try to kick the Greens off the ballot That is one way to minimize the spoiler effect, but you're going to cultivate resentment But a more powerful way of minimizing the spoiler effect is By instituting ranked choice voting nationwide Democrats have been worried about the Green Party again for a really long time. They had a super majority in 2009 Why didn't you institute ranked choice voting then? Hell now there's a phenomenal bill by Don Byers Jr. It's HR 4000 This is called the Fair Representation Act. Do you know how many Democrats have co-sponsored this legislation? Six six Democrats all of them claim to be worried about the spoiler effect Very few of them have co-sponsored this legislation Has any member of Congress who's spoken out against the threat that Greens pose to our democracy? Co-sponsored this bill which would move us to ranked choice voting Make us more proportional Well, no because they don't want to do that Because they would rather browbeat people into supporting them rather than changing themselves Like you can if you want to minimize the spoiler effect What you can try to do is undercut the appeal of the Green Party embrace one big policy on the Green Party's platform Medicare for all and Then you tell voters listen you want Medicare for all you have to vote for us We're the ones who support Medicare for all I get that they have a better foreign policy plan than us I get that they support, you know a more robust education reform plan But we support Medicare for all you got to vote for us We're the only ones who can win vote for us We live in a two-party system they can do that They can try to undercut the appeal of the Green Party by copying some of those policies They're not doing that they can do electoral reform They don't seem interested in that in fact at a town hall a couple of years ago I asked my own representative if she would be willing to co-sponsor HR 4,000 it was HR 3057 I think at the time and she said oh well I haven't heard of this. I will look into it It's been a couple years. She hasn't co-sponsored it yet So they don't seem interested in actually minimizing the spoiler effects Because they don't want to share power if they actually did ranked choice voting That would lead to them losing power because people would gravitate more towards the Greens in many instances If they weren't worried about the spoiler effect, but because normal voters themselves are worried about the spoiler effect That's why duverger's law is a thing That's why we have the two-party duopoly It's because nobody wants to spoil the vote so they end up making a strategic choice to vote for one of the two main parties So that way one of the worst options don't win I mean I would be doing this in a swing state so at the end of the day I'm not gonna say that it's illegitimate to be you know concerned about the spoiler effect because I'm always concerned like I was concerned about the spoiler effect During the Democratic Party primaries. I was worried that you know the progressive or anti establishment candidates would split the votes I wanted everyone to kind of consolidate around Bernie Sanders, so we'd have the best shot at winning. I mean this is What you do you have to be strategic, right? So it's not like you're unreasonable if you're worried about the spoiler effect And I understand the need to defeat Donald Trump and to avoid the threat of fascism like I get this I'm not minimizing the worry that spoilage poses But what I am saying is that if you do want to minimize the threat of spoilers Maine has led the way Maine has led the way a corporate Democrat won the Democratic Party primary and you have a green party member still running with Zero threat of spoiling that Senate race against Susan Collins. You have Lisa Savage running You can rank your choices if you want to vote for Lisa Savage if you don't really like Sarah Gideon You can rank your choices Lisa Savage one Sarah Gideon to this is a ballot initiative Now Democrats can speed up this process make it easier By just introducing this Legislatively will they do that? probably not Because then you're kind of agreeing to share power with greens like I'm not saying that if we had ranked choice voting Overnight the greens would be electorally viable and libertarians would be electorally viable but if we did nationwide ranked choice voting and Simple electoral reform like that would the threat of spoilage go away Absolutely, but yet we hear nothing about that from the people who screamed the loudest about this issue and it's not like You know the greens just manifested in 2016 with Jill Stein. It's not like they just you know came into existence with Ralph Nader Back in 2000 There's always going to be third parties in Democratic systems that is a fact of reality third parties that are not viable and even in multi-party systems There are fringe parties that never get elected but still exist because people vote for them You can never vote for them yourselves. You can disagree with their existence But their existence is legitimate if you believe in democracy You can't have it both ways if you support democracy you have to support the existence of these parties But what you can do is actually make our electoral system more equitable But again, the people who I hear screamed the loudest about the spoiler effect. They're not talking about ranked choice voting And that is really really frustrating So this is what Democrats are doing They're gonna try to get the greens kicked off the ballot in order to avoid the spoiler effect when they could just do Ranked choice voting or try to appeal to the Green Party's voters Because the Green Party we don't know for a fact that if Jill Stein wasn't on the ballot in Wisconsin Every Jill Stein voter would have supported Hillary Clinton like I'd be willing to guess at least half of them would have stayed home and not voted and At a time when voter participation is really low That's a sign that our democracy is in poor health and we don't need less people to vote We need to give people fewer reasons to vote. We need to give people more reasons to vote But that's just my take and I agree with Owen Higgins. This is a precursor of something much worse to come That's too bad Because if you're worried about the spoiler effect you can go about it in a much more equitable way where you're not turning off Millions of people potentially