While Stein makes anti-establishment statements like this, her German counterparts have been advancing a green agenda in local, regional and national government for the past 30 years. Most recently, Winfried Kretschmann was reelected this year as head of government in Baden-Württemberg, one of Europe’s technologically and industrially most advanced regions.
I grew up in Germany and have taught about Germany and Europe in the United States for the past 15 years, so I have seen Green Party politicians at work in both countries. In my view, there are two reasons why the U.S. Green Party remains so marginal. Structurally, the American electoral system is heavily weighted against small political parties. But U.S. Greens also harm themselves by taking extreme positions and failing to understand that governing requires compromise – a lesson their German counterparts learned several decades ago.
Both European and North American Green Parties evolved from activist movements in the 1960s that focused on causes including environmentalism, disarmament, nuclear power, nonviolence, reproductive rights and gender equality. West German Greens formed a national political party in 1980 and gained support in local, state and federal competitions. Joschka Fischer, one of the first Greens elected to Germany’s Bundestag (parliament), served as the nation’s foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998-2005.
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