Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made headlines for calling perennial Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein “predatory” and “not serious.” AOC is right.
Giving voters more choices is a good thing for democracy. But third-party politics isn’t performance art. It’s hard work — which Stein is not doing. As AOC observed: “[When] all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious.”
To be clear: AOC was not critiquing third parties as a whole, or the idea that we need more choices in our democracy. In fact, AOC specifically cited the Working Families Party as an example of an effective third party. The organization I lead, MoveOn, supports their 365-day-a-year efforts to build power for a pro-voter, multi-party system. And I understand third parties’ power to activate voters hungry for alternatives: I myself volunteered for Ralph Nader in 2000, and that experience helped shape my lifelong commitment to people-first politics.
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Exactly this. That woman is always vapor until an election year.
First past the post duopolies are not serious democracies.
Neither are dictatorships though, that’s the problem. Now is not the time to be fighting the “but it would be better if there were more parties” fight.
John Oliver convinced me that Jill Stein is a dumbfuck back in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3O01EfM5fU
Jill Stein is a russian asset
Supporting evidence for the 3 downvotes ATM:
Putin’s Shill Stein wants Nato disbanded, the US to give up their SC veto, and revoke weapons to help Ukraine defend itself while simultaneously forcing ‘peace’ (subjugation) negotiations with russia.
More context:
- Emir Kusturica is a propagandist filmmaker quoted as saying “if I was Russian I would vote for him”. He also supports Russian annexation of Crimea.
- Willy Wimmer was a Right-wing German politician who in his retirement has effectively become a far-right conspiracy theorist that regularly posts to the Epoch Times.
For those that don’t understand how the Electoral College + FPTP voting works, voting for her means helping donald become president due to the spoiler effect.
Just missing Lavrov and you’d have all four horsemen in the same pictureNvm i mistook Ivanov for Medvedev, only two horsemen at this table with Jill Stein
Downvotes are probably the people still livid that Tulsi failed, and who want a third party to break into this hopelessly entrenched duopoly of an election system.
Fair enough, but thinking you can fix it by yourself isn’t going to fix it, just help Trump win.
Yeah you’re right. Their brainless response normally is to just shift focus away from trump as if he is irrelevant to the conversation
Or people smacking their foreheads that anyone took her seriously after she was revealed to be a Russian plant way back in 2017.
I didn’t downvote, but I can’t upvote either, because seriously?
I’m still hearing about Tulsi from two people. Insert eyeroll here.
I downvoted because disbanding nato is a good thing and arming an authoritarian government is bad.
They are rigged and corrupted for sure just like every popular politician but let’s not forget that NATO is a terroristic organization and that producing or sending cluster munition to an authoritarian government is not a good thing.
We should take everyone into account for chilling with russian leaders and mafiosi not just jill stein
Notice the group you call a terrorist organization grows when the nation they say they are organized to protect against invades other countries. If Russia wants NATO to go away all they have to do is stop invading counties and it will slowly dissolve and disappear. They invaded Georgia in 2008 and the world didn’t do enough, they invaded Crimea (Ukraine) in 2014 and the world didn’t do enough. 2022 they set out to invade Ukraine again, and finally the world started to do more. 3 strikes. Now NATO grows because counties in the region don’t feel safe from Russia. If they stop being a threat, counties in the region will slowly leave NATO.
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A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals, even if there were no 3rd party candidates running, we would not vote for your right wing pieces of shit. There’s a better chance you would vote for a Republican than any of us would vote for either right wing party.
A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals
Math. You’re disagreeing with math. Or are completely unaware of how FPTP voting works (I know this isn’t the case).
Math has nothing to do with the fact that we are not Democrats, so we would not vote for a Democrat. That’s like trying to say math is the reason you won’t vote Republican
I’m not making any distinction between non votes and 3rd party votes. From a purely electoral perspective a Stein voter is the same as someone who doesn’t show up. This is why people are rightfully frustrated with them. It’s a pretty simple concept and the only response is usually “not uh!”.
People are upset with 3rd party voters because they won’t fall in line and do what the DNC wants them to do. The DNC feels entitled to every vote not cast for a Republican. If they want our vote they need to earn it, and they never have.
I don’t care about the reasoning you make for your actions. We’re talking about the results of those actions.
You will affect the race in one of two ways regardless of what you do. You will either benefit Party A or Party B, those parties being the two largest parties, aka Democrats and Republicans. Non votes and 3rd party votes benefit the smaller party, which is the GOP. This is an absolute fact within a FPTP system, even if you can’t accept it because of the obvious implications.
If you feel the GOP has done more to earn your support, that’s your call. I just think that’s some next level dumbassery.
Third parties are not bothering to earn your votes either. They put in zero work except for presidential elections.
You don’t have to have be a democrat to vote against fascists.
I’m not a democrat, but I plan to use my vote strategically, since fascists have a propensity toward murdering their ideological opponents. You can call the DNC fascist all you want, many do, but I’m less inclined to believe that they’ll try to murder leftists vs the US right wing.
Your ideological purity will not save you from a fascist’s bullet.
You’re talking as if the Democrat Ratchet effect is not able to fascism. In case there’s any question, yes, it does
Be that as it may, I’ll still use my vote strategically to ensure that the slide toward fascism is as slow as possible, personally. I am not an accelerationist. I feel that I can more effectively perform direct actions, agitate, and educate others in service of leftist ideology during that time. Ideals without sound strategy are little more than masturbatory.
Math literally has everything to do with it. There are entire branches of mathematics dedicated to figuring out ideal voting systems.
A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals
Dude, I already showed it to you.
Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates" Total people: 1047 11% of people supported the winner. Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER Sahl - 111 votes
Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates" Total people: 1047 10% of people supported the winner. Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER Kruger - 93 votes Maikol - 91 votesThe overlap of two circles means there will be an area shared in between. That’s the math, you can’t get around that.
Because it’s bullshit
“It’s bullshit because it proves I’m full of shit and I don’t actually have an argument against it.”
This is the modus operandi of conservatives, libertarians, and anyone trying to put forward a disingenuous argument
That’s cute, That your binary thinking assumes a ballot critique of one thing is automatically support of the other.
it’s bullshit because it doesn’t prove anything.
And yet none of you have been able to explain how or why it doesn’t prove anything. Only making assertions that it doesn’t.
Really now? Please explain exactly how it’s “bullshit.” Just claiming it’s bullshit is not sufficient.
You’re disagreeing with math. Congratulations, you’ve unlocked the dunce award.
Yet you didn’t provide explanation for why it’s bullshit. Because you know it isn’t. It’s right in front of you.
We are not Democrats, so we will not vote for Democrats. They could show all the fucking graphs in the world, And wouldn’t change the fact that we are not Democrats, so we do not vote for Democrats.
You’re basically saying that there is zero overlap in the venn diagram of third party voters and blue voters, yet you make efforts to convince blue voters to go third party. You know damn well that there is overlap between third party voters and blue voters, otherwise you’d never talk to them.
Even if you personally would never vote blue, third party voters are not a monolith, there are third party voters that are closer to the DNC than you are.
Given the hypothetical that Kamala and Donald are the only 2 available to vote for, who would you prefer win?
That is not hypothetical. While you can literally vote for anyone, you can effectively only vote for one or the other. This is not due to a lack of idealists, it’s by design of the system
Ssssshhhh… You’re interrupting my socratic argument to shut this f’ing guy up.
Lmao. I bet you always got your tests back face down.
Who is this “we” you keep referencing?
At her peak, Jill Stein broke just above 1%.
These third party types always claim that they want to reform the system. That’s bullshit. If you want to reform this system then you need to start at the bottom. You need to recruit candidates and invest in winning at local and state level first. Those are the most winnable offices for an outsider/independent. Hell, win a few critical states and you can get enough states in the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact which, while not an ideal solution, would be a good first step in reforming the system.
Once you have some power and recognition at the state level, you need to aim for Congress. Start winning seats in the House and Senate and you can really start making change. That is where the real power of change resides. How many times have we seen a president with a divided House and/or Senate have their policy goals effectively neutered by legislative antagonism? Without support from the House and Senate, a 3rd party president would be powerless.
Stein cannot possibly enact positive change even if there were a literal miracle and she became president. The only thing, literally the only thing she can do by running for President is get Trump elected.
Fully agree.
My take as of late is that any 3rd party candidate who runs in our two party system can’t possibly be serious. They make a huge show, maybe get a message out, but almost always torpedo the party closest to them.
With the Stein’s and RFKs in the news, it’s all sexy flashy publicity without any serious effort to have a 3rd party win.
That said, there is another 3rd party personality that you might not have heard of in a while: Andrew Yang.
I actually believe he is serious about electoral reform, in fact that’s the one issue his Forward Party is about. He and his team have worked quietly to help get ranked choice vote in local elections. He is not running for president as a spoiler candidate. He is not running for senate as an independent. He is putting in the work along with fairvote.org to make the structural changes needed to have viable 3rd party campaigns. We saw what happened in Alaska when ranked choice vote was present- they kept Sarah Palin from holding a Senate seat and elected a Democrat instead.
If we had the NPVIC and ranked choice vote, our democracy would be much more representative, collaborative, and stable.
Without support from the House and Senate, a 3rd party president would be powerless.
Or consider it from the other direction. In a party line vote on new policy, imagine if the difference was a couple green or progressive congressmen instead of the Manchins of the world
If only they would run for Congress rather than screwing around every four years and knocking over the table.
Yeah, if the greens succeeded at things I might consider voting for them. As it stands I don’t like the democrats but when they do well I get some of what I want. The more votes the greens get the less I get of what I want. I’d love to see a state with a green-dem coalition doing big things to demonstrate that they can actually govern as opposed to just run for office, and not even do that well.
AOC has not managed to enact the change she promised from within.
She’s actually been fairly effective for a new congressman. But in order to get meaningful change she needs both position and allies in congress. She has a number of allies (AKA The Squad) but because Congress is so full of old fucks, getting a position in a committee with any power at all is difficult at best.
Meanwhile Jill Stein goes on TV, snipes at the democratic party and collects paychecks, all while eroding the party’s position all for literally no benefit whatsoever. The Green Party has been the single most ineffective third party in the history of the country. The only thing they’ve accomplished is siphoning off votes from Democrat presidential candidates and getting Republicans elected.
The Green Party has been the single most ineffective third party in the history of the country.
oh, so the democrats have no interest in the green new deal? or expanding renewables? i know they don’t give a fuck about stopping war, but i think you are mistaken about the effectiveness of the green party.
i think you are mistaken about the effectiveness of the green party.
Which green party senators or house members have pushed for that? How many of them are there? What national office holders are making the changes you’re looking for?
which Prohibition Party senators passed prohibition? what do you think an effective so-called third party looks like in the us?
what do you think an effective so-called third party looks like in the us?
Well for one, they’re elected to a national office where they can try to implement change.
And that’s never going to happen when they only come around once every 4 years to make a lame stab at president. They need to be building support at the state and local level year-round if they want to be taken seriously on the national stage.
the prohibition party got an amendment. you don’t need to win elections.
I agree. The only time I hear her name is around election time. It’s too late then, the work needs to be done in between.
The way she, her party, and her campaign conduct themselves make it hard to avoid the conclusion that she’s running purely as a Democratic spoiler candidate (that is, with the intent of siphoning support away from the Democratic candidate).
Edit: to be clear, I am a staunch supporter of environmentalist causes in general. I just don’t believe the Green Party actually is an environmentalist cause at the end of the day. I judge these things by actions, not by policy documents.
Yeah environmental causes have a lot that can and must be done at the local level. I’m a staunch environmentalist, it’s my primary issue, and it’s why I’m angry at my local government. I wish we had a good third party because the election is decided in the democratic primaries. Get someone running on improving public transit, forcing all apartments to offer recycling (mostly concerned about glass and metal), improving bicycle infrastructure… But funnily enough the greens don’t seem to give two shits about that easy picking.
Especially using the name and clout to help the local races which are run more often. Get third parties well known regionally with serious candidates, you’ll see demand for them grow nationally.
And some of these local places could use some good faith environmentalism. Co-opting the environmental cause to act purely as a spoiler is going to have consequences for hundreds of years in the US. Could you imagine if Ohio had had good faith green party elected officials raising a ruckus after the train de-railed? or the difference in Flint if there had been anyone there to say, hey wait a minute, that’s not how water works!
Instead we’re building more highway lanes, farming the deserts, and looking the other way as corporations make people homeless. (Humans are horrible at living with the land, it’s not just homeless people. Check out any tourist camping area by the end of September.) That’s what really pisses me off.
As an Ohioan want to know what party doesn’t bother running in Columbus? The greens. It’s proof to me that they don’t actually care about trying to govern.
The Cheetos bag in the Carlsbad Caverns story says so much about our species in one breath.
Yup. This country could use some good old fashioned environmentalism.
Just because you don’t hear her name doesn’t mean she isn’t putting in the work
It just implies it.
The records of what she does, and the performative activism, which takes place entirely and exclusively during presidential election years - that’s what shows she isn’t putting in the work.
After repeatedly losing in Mass, the only time she runs for anything is for presidential elections. This also demonstrates she isn’t putting in the work, or she would have more involvement in more local elections.
Just because you don’t hear her name doesn’t mean she isn’t putting in the work
This is about a politician supposedly running for a presidential office, that’s exactly what it means. If people aren’t hearing your name this close to an election you aren’t really trying.
I was responding to a comment that said they never hear her name outside of the presidential election cycle
Yes, we know. Now show us all of her political work that she’s done outside of presidential election cycles.
< Abandoned bus station scene >
I mean… maybe. So was she? What did she accomplish between her presidential bids?
crickets
< sound of wind blowing over desert sands >
It’s pretty much completely impossible for a third party candidate to ever win. You have to get 270 (just over half) of all the electoral votes. If any third party made a huge amount of headway it’d still be almost impossible to take enough votes from the repubs or democrats to hit 270, and anything less than 270 means the House gets to decide who becomes president. Obviously, the house filled with democrats and Republicans, would never select the third party candidate.
They dont have to win, just steal enough votes from one of the other parties to affect the election
Correct. I’m pointing out the complete futility of anything other than that.
If Left-Wing Third Parties are serious, they will start by running their candidates as spoilers in the Democratic Primary and appealing to voters to listen and add their platforms to the list of priorities to push the Dems on. They’d simultaneously work hard to get Ranked Choice passed nation-wide as that system is the most compatible with our country’s political system. Once they get that passed, they would join efforts to reform the Electoral College so it doesn’t require 270 votes, an then implement a more effective voting system for President that ensures that left-wing voters don’t get a Right-Wing president elected voting for Third Party options. They would also push hard to win at the City, County, and State levels, as well as in the Congress, so the Jill Steins of the world have friendly legislators to rely on.
Ocasio-Cortez is right to call this out.
AOC is correct indeed.
Well if she’s soooo unserious why would the Unicode consortium designate an emoji just for her?
🤡
I can’t tell if this is satire because people unironically talk about AOC like this.
AOC called Stein unserious, so the clown comment is about Stein.
Ohh ok yeah that makes more sense
I honestly had to think about it for a hot second first because people talk mad shit about AOC as you said
<astronaut gun meme>
It never was.
Why would anyone vote 3rd party? They can just stay home and continue their nap.
Because to some their eternal purity is way more important than anything that could actually happen as a result of their actions. To throw your vote away in a protest that no party has ever cared about keeps your hands clean of any individual aspect of that party you don’t like and you can claim the moral high ground by “trying” to enact change, but at what cost to everything around you?
It’s like the cartoon of the people living in a cave after climate change ruins everything saying “at least for a short time we made a lot of money for shareholders.” except it would be “at least I didn’t vote for Genocide Joe.”
Because y’all claim to live in a democracy, so let people voice their opinions as votes.
I’d rather be able to vote for more then just the two parties. But I am also realistic and letting trump win so you can vote for someone who will never win is foolish.
“I refuse to make any compromises” is the OPPOSITE of democracy.
Look, if people feel very strongly about something, let them voice their opinion on it through a vote, as intended. That’s what democracy is for. If your democracy doesn’t work and always makes you vote strategically, making you disregard your own positions as a voter, then maybe your democracy isn’t really a democracy and you should start working on that. A strategically cast vote won’t magically repair your broken system. Anyway, compromises are for political parties and politicians, not for the average voter that just wants to voice their opinion.
What the fuck are you talking about, compromise and strategic voting are fundamental cornerstones of Democracy. Not some kind of failure.
Exclusively getting everything you want all the time is called autocracy.
I made the mistake of voting for her in the primaries exactly once years ago as a naive teenager, and vowed never again once her “campaigning” expounded on what she actually stood for and how.
Green party… Plastic green, indeed.
Howie Hawkins was nice though (doesn’t mean I would have voted for him)
How long has stein been campaigning and didn’t know basic information about Congress.
She’s either not serious, an imbecile, or porque no los dos?
That means why not both, Jill.
