Why the European Greens endorsing Kamala is unnecessary, unstrategic, and unprincipled
This article was originally released as an edition of my newsletter.
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Until two weeks ago, I was the Co-spokesperson of the Young European Greens, which is the independent youth organisation of the European Greens. This independence is essential because it allows the youth wing to criticise the party when needed. Happily, through my time in the leadership, there was never a need to do so. The leadership of the European Greens is full of progressive, brave and principled politicians who I largely agree with, and who I have immense respect and admiration for.
But the decision of the party to endorse Kamala Harris to be President is a massive misstep by the party and support, which I cannot silently watch.
To be clear on what should be obvious: I write only on behalf of little old me. It has nothing to do with my dear comrades in the Young European Greens.
The European Greens posted an explicitendorsement of Kamala Harris on the day of the Presidential election debate.
Endorsing Kamala is unstrategic.
It is an entirely defendable position to argue that we should support the least bad of the main options because they are the ones with the best chance of winning. But this theory of change says that you should never support a Green Party.
No Green Party has ever been the coalition leader in a government. Ever. The theory of change of Green Parties is to be the radical wing of parliamentary politics. Sometimes they change politics by being junior coalition partners, but usually they do it by shifting the overtone window and dragging larger parties to the left.
By endorsing Kamala, the European Greens are endorsing the American two-party system - a system that their member parties in countries like mine are actively trying to dismantle. It is unstrategic for the EGP to sacrifice their own members’ interests at the alter of American conservatism.
Endorsing Kamala is unprincipled.
Like you, I want Kamala to beat Trump. Obviously.
But the reason that I got involved in the Green Party ten years ago (Christ, that long?) is that I believe in a politics principle, and of radical transformation. Kamala Harris does not represent those values.
On migration, Kamala pushes hardline anti-migration rhetoric, while dressing it up in stories of her hard-working migrant mother, and her image as a progressive candidate. And this long predates this campaign. On a trip to Guatemala in June 2021, she ranted “do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.”
On Palestine and Israel, while Kamala does not go as far as Biden in saying things like “if there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one to protect U.S. interests in the region”, and will clearly not be as unquestioningly supportive of Israel’s war crimes as Trump, she has not given any indication that she will change US foreign policy. Let’s be clear, US foreign policy on Israel is to continue to providing diplomatic and military support regardless of the Israeli Government’s increasingly genocidal war against Palestinians.
Likewise on climate, Harris is a status quo candidate. The day that EGP endorsed Kamala, she proudly boasted about both the investments in the green transition of Biden and the fact that the production of fossil gas in the United States has reached record levels.
Kamala’s campaign strategy is akin to that of Keir Starmer in the recent General Election. She is running a right-wing campaign and relying on her image to win progressive voters. The only progressive stance that she is making a big part of her messaging is to defend the right to abortion. Even on this, she is simply arguing to go back to Roe v. Wade - back to the status quo of four years ago.
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Endorsing Kamala is unnecessary.
Nobody, absolutely nobody was sitting watching the presidential debate and wondering who the European Green Party would endorse. And look, I’m not saying they should have endorsed Jill Stein or the US Green Party. Stein is strong on some issues and weak on support for Ukraine, for example, which is unacceptable to most European Green member parties.
They could have just avoided endorsing anyone. Like they have done in pretty much every other national election that has happened outside of Europe ever.
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I know a lot of the people who will have made this decision. They are principled, strategically intelligent people who I hold immense love and admiration for. And I have no doubt that they made this decision for the right reasons. But there is no getting away from it: by endorsing Kamala Harris, the European Green Party has undermined their principles and their own political interests, while having no perceptible positive impact.
Unless I’m missing something?