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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Why would anyone vote 3rd party? They can just stay home and continue their nap.
Because y’all claim to live in a democracy, so let people voice their opinions as votes.
EDIT: Lmao, look at the downvoted. HOW DARE PEOPLE VOTE FOR ANYTHING OTHER THAN WHAT I WANT
Stein is a clown.
A vote for stein is a vote for trump.
A vote for stein is a vote for trump.
no, it’s not. this is election misinformation
It absolutely is when you look at the reality of the situation. Stop spreading the 3rd party vote as a viable option misinformation. Where are these so-called 3rd party candidates in the local elections? With no local support, state assembly level, or Congress, these candidates would be useless as President.
It absolutely is
it is absolutely illegal to count a vote for stein as a vote for trump.
Jill Stein is there so that people who want to vote, but are mad as fuck at the dems, have someone to vote for. Basically, she’s there to scare the dems (working, obviously). Will they be scared enough to adopt some better policies, and get those votes?
The spoiler effect is based on geometric proximity, not the quality of policy. They’re a waste of a vote, because they have no chance of winning.
If the greens want to do something they should work at the local level where they actually have a chance.
Absolutely nobody considering a vote for Jill Stein thinks she is going to win. This is a slice of the electorate that the dems haven’t won over yet, but could.
This is a slice of the electorate that the dems haven’t won over yet, but could.
If we’re just repeating things, then I guess that’s what we’re doing.
The spoiler effect is based on geometric proximity, not the quality of policy.
Does policy not largely define the “geometric distance” between candidates?
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.
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.
Third parties are not bothering to earn your votes either. They put in zero work except for presidential elections.
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.
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.
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
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.
“It’s bullshit because it proves I’m full of shit and I don’t actually have an argument against it.”
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.
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.
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.
Because it’s literally not a solution. The absolute best case scenario is causing the closest ideological party to fail for many elections in a row before it disintegrates and reforms in the third party, which is now the second party in a two party system and filled with many of the same politicians and beholden to most of the same voters.
Voting reform is the solution for everyone complaining about the two party system. Get ranked choice and leftier challengers who actually care about the results of elections will run against establishment politicians more often.
You pulled out your Facebook memes to say you wanted to break the two party system by voting third party. Nothing about my response is trying to address whether you should be voting, but your chosen action is stupid and has no potential to accomplish what you say you want to do.
Your username may be ironic, but outsourcing expressing feelings to a vague and not quite appropriate meme response rather than actually trying to say what you think and defend your personal opinions is one of the big reasons people shit on Boomers. Granted it’s a step up from my old conservative acquaintances on account of not also being in service of the most vile opinions humans espouse, but it’s just as tired and unwelcome.
Jill Stein supports ranked choice voting, Kamala Harris doesn’t even mention it in her platform.
A Jill Stein administration will:
- Replace the exclusionary two-corporate-party system with an inclusive multi-party democracy through ranked-choice voting and proportional representation
- Implement Ranked-Choice Voting for all elections nationwide
Jill Stein says things and then does nothing to actually make them happen, like a lot of grifters. Weird how anti-establishment people can be so rightfully skeptical of Democratic politicians and hangers on, but then believe hook line and sinker that non-establishment voices are all in it for the ideology.
And because Kamala Harris doesn’t mention ranked choice voting, somehow that’s magically supposed to happen?
It doesn’t take a meme to find the flaw in that reasoning.
Jill Stein says things and then does nothing to actually make them happen,
You are describing the Democrats not Jill Stein.
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.
the prohibition party got an amendment. you don’t need to win elections.
Unfortunately the Democrat, and Republican parties, are both Traitors to the Republic. As much as I’ve liked her positions on issues I care about. AOC needs to sit down and shut up. She’s in a party of Traitors.
AOC called out Jill Stein for tanking in 2020. But Stein did not even run in 2020. Who is the embarrassment here?
2016, not 2020
AOC stated Stein ran in 2020 and dropped in the polls which is why people should not take Jill Stein seriously. But Howie Hawkins ran in 2020.
The post-Nader Green Party is a joke, but the DNC is the party of Reagan and Cheney, so… Those in glass political parties that serve only to undermine the left electorate’s political power shouldn’t throw stones
