I accidentally found myself reading US Green Party history late last night and I didn't realize how deep the tension is between the more liberal Greens & socialist Greens going back to the founding of the party. No wonder some demonize Howie, it's a personal feud at this point.
Howie was basically the leader of the Left Green socialist faction in the party going back to the 1980s, arguing that Greens needed to be a working-class movement. While electoral politics is an element of that strategy, it shouldn't be the only or even major focus, he argued.
So when Howie says he's a party co-founder, he's not wrong. He founded the Left Green Network that was a precursor to a real national party, which became the Greens/Green Party USA, which was basically that leftist/socialist faction in the party.
The liberal Greens basically thought Howie and the Left were agitators and tried to have him barred from national Green Party meetings, which is partly why he and the socialist faction formed the Greens which for a while was the dominant organization (basically was the GP).
The Greens were dues-based and so many liberal Greens argued that the structure wasn't that fair to people who registered to vote Greens in their state but weren't members since they didn't pay dues. They argued for a party-based structure, no dues, to run more candidates.
State parties were being formed rapidly and so the liberal Greens founded a separate Association of State Green Parties from the original Greens/Green Party USA based more on the structure they wanted. All the new state parties quickly joined and so the ASGP became dominant.
Eventually the two factions -- the more liberal ASGP and the more socialist Greens/GPUSA -- started unification talks, sensing that the split was harming growth of the party. Hawkins represented the Greens, others ASGP.
A deal was reached, but the first attempt failed to pass. A revision called the Boston Agreement was formed, which called for structural changes including founding national identity caucuses along with the states, so it wasn't just state party based.
ASGP members voted in favor & adopted the changes. Majority of GPUSA also supported, but not enough for a 2/3 vote to be official. As a result, many GPUSA members including Howie ended up migrating over to the ASGP anyway -- GPUSA limped along as a shell of its former self.
Eventually GPUSA closed up for good, and the ASGP had effectively merged the two movements. After Nader's run in 2000, the ASGP voted to rename itself the Green Party of the US (GPUS) & filed to become a recognized national party. That's the name & organization that exists today.
The more liberal Green element wanted GPUS to be a party-based structure, which I think is where the party inherits some blemishes -- it tried too hard to copy the capitalist party structure of the Democrats.
The socialist Greens pushed for caucuses & more democratic structure.
The socialist Greens pushed for caucuses & more democratic structure.
There were very significant debates about whether Greens were a party first, or a movement first. Liberal Greens focused on party & elections while Socialist Greens wanted to focus on movement organizing. So there's a strong trend of both in the party's DNA.
After 2000, some of these issues came to a head again as Nader thought of running again in 2004. Many wanted him to run as a Green again & keep growing the movement, but many from the liberal faction were scared of the Bush election repeating & gave in to the "spoiler" narrative.
Due to some frankly undemocratic rules that existed at the time (not any more) regarding presidential delegates, the liberal faction basically staged a coup to get Cobb the nomination and shut out Nader.
Cobb promised to run on a "safe states" strategy, which meant refusing to seriously campaign in "swing" states. Hawkins and the leftist faction deeply objected to this strategy, saying Greens needs to run everywhere and challenge the system. But Cobb was nominated anyway.
Cobb lost nearly all of Nader's votes, and down-ballot Greens did the worst in party history. "Safe states" was an utter failure. The party recruited Cynthia McKinney to run in 2008 but the party still only barely registered at the polls.
It started to turn around with Stein in 2012. Stein had a stronger platform, in particular adopting the Green New Deal from the Hawkins campaign for governor in 2010. Stein also rejected "safe states" at this point, though she was in the pro-Cobb camp back in the early 2000s.
Stein got the most votes since Nader in 2016, in part because of her willingness to go out and talk about the Green New Deal and other issues like student debt.
In many ways the Hawkins / Socialist Greens faction has been proven as the "correct" one. "Safe states" was a bad strategy. Greens need to be a movement that appeals to more working-class struggle.
The 2020 election is in many ways re-living some of the same internal debates.
The 2020 election is in many ways re-living some of the same internal debates.
Hawkins is again arguing for a Green movement based in working-class organizing. He argues a Green New Deal needs to be primarily about the working-class & economic rights, only then can we address the climate properly. He also argues it must become a dues-based membership again.
Many of the same people that had opposed the socialist faction and Hawkins are still around and in the party. So as Hawkins' campaign heats up, there's folks in the party that remember the old debates and bad blood and seem pretty determined to keep the socialist element "out".
But the thing is: the socialist Greens have always been there, and at one point the socialist Greens/GPUSA movement was the largest faction & have largely proven true. The GPUS liberal era of 2000s was disastrous, the party almost disappeared & is still recovering.
The momentum is definitely on the side of the eco-socialist faction and Hawkins. Some are upset by that, which is probably why they tried to make noise about Ventura and such -- try to take away momentum from Hawkins. Didn't work though.
The Green Party will fulfill its destiny as an eco-socialist movement however. I feel optimistic about the direction, and I hope the youth will come in and help us grow the Green movement.
Follow up: A bunch of people asked sources so here you go! First, early party history is documented fairly well in this article on the national party website, though the wording feels a little biased against the Left Greens. gp.org/early_history
Second, the debates over Nader and the "safe states" strategy in early 2000s are well documented in Hawkins' book "Independent Politics". Includes essays from both sides of the debate, really interesting read. haymarketbooks.org/books/829-inde…
Third, Hawkins' new book "The Case for an Independent Left Party" is available as an ebook from his campaign website. It also gives more early history of the independent movements going back to Socialist Party. howiehawkins.us/donate-to-get-…
Fourth, the Institute of Social Ecology has an essay about the early history of the Green Party from a more Left Green perspective compared to the essay on the national party website. social-ecology.org/wp/2006/01/the…
