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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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.
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.
It’s because there’s never any serious third party candidates.
Because no one is brave enough to vote for them.
Riiiiight…… It’s a lack of bravery that people aren’t voting for the useless 3rd party candidates that only surface every four years to split votes.
Maybe it’s that everyone else is smart enough to see it for what it is- and you’re just…… not.
Be brave, take your pick.
Might I suggest the Working Families Party
Read this and stop embarrassing yourself here.
You should encourage people to embarrass themselves so you can correct the record. The Green Party has been around since the 1990’s, and was founded in 2001. Jill Stein is not the Green Party, it will exist after her, provided people are brave enough to separate their identities from the two-party system in America. If you don’t like Jill Stein, have a look at the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Right… so, vote the party, not the people- right? You’re as plastic as you accuse others of being. West and Stein are provenly useful idiots;
~ Donald Trump
This is all the Green Party does, and everyone knows it. Seriously man…. Grow up.
keyword “system”. It’s the system that formed the two party dynamic. In order to change that we must change the system that led to the problem
Audre Lorde
Can’t the master’s tools renovate the master’s house?
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.
It doesn’t count because a 3rd party candidate will never win.
It can decide an election because it’s removing a vote from the candidate closest to you who is actually electable.
Let’s say you think taxation is theft, but you can’t vote for Trump because “reasons”. You vote Libertarian.
You’ve taken your vote from Trump and given it to a candidate with no chance.
Harris +50
Trump +49
Libertarian +1
Flip it around, you support Roe vs. Wade but you can’t vote for Harris because “reasons”. You vote Green.
You’ve taken your vote away from Harris and given it to a candidate with no chance.
Trump +50
Harris +49
Green +1
In neither case will it ACTUALLY be that close, but you get the idea.
Why do liberals assume they are entitled to leftist votes? The entire DNC prevented anti genocide speakers, yet platformed former Republicans, the Israeli family of a hostage, etc. it’s clear the party is more invested in appealing to conservatives, so good luck 👍
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Don’t worry. Dick Cheney, the architect of the invasion of Iraq, stepped up and took my vote for Kamala instead. Birds of a feather.
In a first past the post system, you either vote Democratic or you get the Republican. 3rd party is not an option.
Your confusing that with the fact that an overlap of two circles is a venn diagram.
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.
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.
You are describing the Democrats not Jill Stein.
What did Jill Stein ever do?
“NO U!”
What are you, a five year old?
Jill Stein got gay marriage and the affordable Care act passed?
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.
I don’t expect the Democratic establishment to implement it, that’s why the Greens should actually get some state reps elected. Or even just compete in the places where they do have ranked choice voting. There’s plenty of state level races that don’t need a lot of money to be competitive. My rep was reelected with 3,000 votes.
But voting for Jill Stein for president isn’t going to do anything. She has literally zero chance of winning, doesn’t seem to even put in the effort to understand the position she’s theoretically trying to obtain, and just pops up every four years to perpetually lose elections while grifting money away from rubes.
Oh ok, well here’s what it does: nothing at best, but when a third party does very well the major party they oppose most wins. That’s fptp, it’s not hard to figure out if you have more than a handful of brain cells.
It affects the election, but not in the way you want. It is literally the equivalent of not voting at all. That does effect the outcome if you would have voted for one of the two main parties otherwise.
pol sci 101: fragile fptp systems (like the electoral college) tend to result in two parties.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Then why the fuck is Jill Stein running?