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.


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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

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

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

First past the post duopolies are not serious democracies.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 111 points 3 days ago (64 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days 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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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 119 points 3 days ago (14 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.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days 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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[–] [email protected] 81 points 3 days ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 3 days ago

AOC is correct indeed.

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