Minor mistakes, major consequences—and a decades-long pattern of political suppression that protects the corporate duopoly. Voters deserve real choice. It’s time to act.
The leadership of the Democratic Party remains committed to capitalism and empire. At best, they seek to reform capitalism rather than replace it. Senator Elizabeth Warren famously proclaimed “I am a capitalist to my bones.” That is one reason they lose elections they should win.
Even worse, they do everything possible to squash anyone willing to challenge the system. Right now they’re gunning for Green Party Governor candidate Butch Ware. That’s because Butch is connecting with voters.
This isn’t a glitch. It’s a strategy. The Democratic Party intentionally and deliberately attempts to keep insurgent candidates off the ballot to keep the corporate duopoly in charge. From draconian ballot access laws to exclusion from debates to legal technicalities, there is a clear pattern.
Let’s call it what it is: anti-democratic suppression of people’s movements.
The Democratic Party is trying to kick Butch Ware completely off the gubernatorial ballot over a paperwork technicality. That’s it. Not fraud, not corruption—just a mis-redacted phone number in his tax filings, caused by software, and a few formatting quirks. Ware fixed it. But the Secretary of State wants him gone.
California courts have long said: technical mistakes shouldn’t block candidates who “substantially comply” with the law. That means voters shouldn’t lose a choice because of minor errors. Ware’s case fits that principle—but election officials are acting like rules are weapons.
This isn’t a one-off. The Green Party has been under attack for decades. Ralph Nader got litigated off ballots. In fact, a Democratic Party operative admitted that “We wanted to neutralize his campaign… force him to spend money and resources.”
When I managed the Jill Stein/Ajamu Barake campaign in 2016 we faced endless coordinated challenges. Democrats have historically boxed out third-party and insurgent campaigns to protect their duopoly.
Go back further, and the pattern is obvious.
In the early 20th century, Democratic Party leaders actively worked to undermine socialism. Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas were leading voices of the Socialist Party who faced systemic obstacles as Democrats co-opted labor and progressive movements to weaken independent left-wing power.
The 1940s merger of the Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party into the Democratic Party is a clear example: a strong socialist-rooted party was absorbed and neutralized. Over time, this strategy kept socialists out of electoral influence and folded the left into the two-party system.
In Texas, the La Raza Unida Party built real, multiracial working-class power in the 1970s—and the Democratic Party fought them every step of the way. Ballot rules, legal barriers, institutional pressure. Same playbook. Different decade.
And it’s not just independents and alternative parties. Most progressives agree that in 2016 the Democratic Party National Committee rigged its own primary against Bernie Sanders.
Leaked DNC emails showed staff plotting to favor Hillary Clinton. Top officials openly admitted to undermining Sanders. The DNC even fought a lawsuit—Wilding v. DNC Services Corp.—by claiming they didn’t have to follow their own rules! Read that again: the party argued in court they could ignore their own charter and pick nominees behind closed doors. Courts dismissed the case on procedural grounds, not because the charges were false.
So when people say the system is rigged, they’re not exaggerating. They’re talking about a decades-long pattern: insurgent candidates get boxed out, rules are weaponized, insiders decide outcomes before voters even see the ballot.
And now it’s happening again—with Butch Ware.
This isn’t about whether you like him as a candidate. It’s about whether voters get to decide. If a candidate for governor can be tossed off the ballot over a redaction error, democracy isn’t being defended—it’s being managed.
People are mad. I’m mad. And we should be.
If you believe in real choice, now is the time to act.
Join me in supporting the legal fight. Spread the word. Donate. Make sure election officials know: we see what they’re doing, and we won’t stay silent.
Because they’re counting on silence. Let’s not give it to them.
A new world is not only possible. It is necessary—and it is ours to win.
David Cobb is the host of the popular podcast Redneck Gone Green, dubbed a “people’s lawyer”, David has spent his career litigating corporate polluters and civil rights violators. He was the Green Party Presidential nominee In 2004, In 2010 he co-founded Move To Amend, In 2016 he served as the Campaign Manager for Jill Stein’s presidential campaign. Currently he serves as the Co-Coordinator of the US Solidarity Economy Network and the People’s Network for Land Liberation, a consortium which seeks to de-commodify the land to reestablish a right relationship with the earth and all of our relatives and relations.
The Democrat Party pushed Sanders out twice. Three times if we include how they managed to sidestep the primaries last election.
The Presidential debates are also rigged by both parties. In the past a candidate had to hit 5% in polling to be invited to take part in the Debates (Yes. It is 'invitation only'). When Ross Perot managed that in 1992, the requirement was raised to 15%. The League of Women Voters, who used to oversee the Debates, resigned from that job in protest. The Duopoly has a nice little Catch 22 set up; A candidate needs to poll at 15% to get into the televised debates, but that candidate also needs the exposure of the Debates to reach 15% in the polls. This keeps them trapped in a political No Man's Land.
There should be no minimum percentage requirement. It should be set up so that the top 3, 4, or 5 parties (pick a number) in the polls are invited to the Debates.
politics as usual. Raging against the machine today.