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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Jill Stein is a russian asset
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.
Just because you don’t hear her name doesn’t mean she isn’t putting in the work
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 >
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.
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.
pol sci 101: fragile fptp systems (like the electoral college) tend to result in two parties.
First it needs to be viable:
AOC is correct indeed.
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.
Did you just turn Success Kid into an angry/upset reaction? Rude!
I’m saving lives:
Honestly, yes. You can’t vote third party, and you can’t not vote, if you don’t want Trump in office. If you vote Third Party or stay home, you’re good with Trump being in office, which means you’re good with leaving minorities, non-Christians, transgendered people, and gay people up Project 2025 Shit Creek without a paddle. Given my wife is a Black bisexual Goth pagan, that means you want my wife to be hurt, and that pisses me the fuck off. And judging from the 15 other downvotes you have, I’m not the only one who feels that way.
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
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.
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)
Go watch her breakfast club interview. So transparent that they are pandering with hollow buzz word mention. The hosts call her out pretty well. If they are real about an issue like ranked choice voting, then I want to see you become the face of that issue publicly for the next 4 years, until it’s passed into law through consensus and politicking, in a way that the green party clearly earns a place in a tangible victory.
You won’t, that’s not what you’re being funded for, but that’s what you’d do if you actually cared.
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.
A vote for the green party is a vote for the green party. Stop trying to bend logic
Normally I’d agree with you. But the Green party is rather transparently not actually trying to get elected. They have the same level of seriousness as RFK who publicly stated he’ll only keep his name on the ballot in states where it helps Trump.
If a third party did the leg work, spent a decade getting people elected to congress in every state, and then showed up in the presidential elections I’d be all for it. and before you whine about convenience, I’ve been saying the same thing to Libertarians and Greens for 2 decades now. They either aren’t serious, or they’re incompetent.
Being incompetent is still better than being evil
Is that what it is though? Is there evidence that it’s incompetence and not enemy action? Because getting paid by the Russians and being at dinner with Michael Flynn and Putin is a pretty big leap in the direction of enemy action.
So you have nothing more than whataboutism. Can you stick to the topic at hand or are we going to discuss the effect of slavery next?
My shoe lace broke the other day and it’s been a real pain to tie them up since. I was thinking about going to the store today but I have so many other errands to do.
Change FPTP or stfu.
Yeah, I feel like a serious candidate for president would know how many Representatives are in the House.
What I want to know how they can they perform when you don’t let them at debates? As I said before, they didn’t allow people within their own party to debate such as Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich for not having enough money, I don’t see what the purpose of the party is.
If they had representatives in the house they could push their right to speak at debates. Senators even more so. Give them 5 senators and 21 representatives, that’s 5% of the legislature rounding generously, and then when they can’t speak at debates it’s something the two major parties should be ashamed of. As it stands now, people care about the parties that can win elections and I’m sorry but the Green Party doesn’t win elections, neither does the libertarian party, the constitution party, or the communist party. The greens and libertarians have both had moments of glory in which case they won the election for the major party they most disagreed with. And that’s coming from a fan of Nader, I think he did amazing work with the department of transportation.
The debates define rules ensuring only serious candidates join the debate - third parties need enough votes to be in the race. I’m aware that I’m letting them off the hook, but I don’t know a better solution. While it would be better to include third party candidates, we also don’t want many non-serious ones
Kucinich and Gravel? Dude, what year do you think it is?
There’s not much to go on since there’s been 2 Democratic Party debates since 2008. Gravel was a 2020 Presidential candidate.
At her peak, Jill Stein broke just above 1%.
I’m commenting this a few times, but Alaska has implemented ranked choice, has a number of environmentalists and does outsized damage to the environment. If they were serious they’d run in state elections there, and four congress there. They are not.
First past the post duopolies are not serious democracies.
