this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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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.


Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

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[–] skeezix@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Jill Stein is a russian asset

[–] Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win 36 points 1 month ago (104 children)

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.

2015 Stein breaking bread with Putin, his senior staff, and Mike Flynn (later Trump's national security advisor

More context:

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.

[–] zephorah@lemm.ee 10 points 1 month ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago (62 children)

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.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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

[–] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago

If only they would run for Congress rather than screwing around every four years and knocking over the table.

[–] meep_launcher@lemm.ee 9 points 1 month ago

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.

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[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They dont have to win, just steal enough votes from one of the other parties to affect the election

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 month ago

Correct. I'm pointing out the complete futility of anything other than that.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

At her peak, Jill Stein broke just above 1%.

[–] BilboBargains@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

First past the post duopolies are not serious democracies.

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[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 month ago

It never was.

[–] drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Why would anyone vote 3rd party? They can just stay home and continue their nap.

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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."

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[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (16 children)

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.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] Soup@lemmy.cafe 11 points 1 month ago

Exactly this. That woman is always vapor until an election year.

[–] forrcaho@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

John Oliver convinced me that Jill Stein is a dumbfuck back in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3O01EfM5fU

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