800
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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/

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] skeezix@lemmy.world 220 points 3 weeks ago

Jill Stein is a russian asset

[-] Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win 139 points 3 weeks ago

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 40 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah you're right. Their brainless response normally is to just shift focus away from trump as if he is irrelevant to the conversation

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (106 replies)
[-] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 120 points 3 weeks ago

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 82 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 42 points 3 weeks ago

Especially using the name and clout to help the local races which are run more often. Get third parties well known regionally with serious candidates, you'll see demand for them grow nationally.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
[-] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 113 points 3 weeks ago

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.

load more comments (64 replies)
[-] nkat2112@sh.itjust.works 92 points 3 weeks ago

AOC is correct indeed.

[-] ccunning@lemmy.world 81 points 3 weeks ago

Well if she’s soooo unserious why would the Unicode consortium designate an emoji just for her?

🤡

load more comments (5 replies)
[-] jhymesba@lemmy.world 81 points 3 weeks ago

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.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] ATDA@lemmy.world 49 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 41 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

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.

[-] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 33 points 3 weeks ago

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] BlucifersVeinyAnus@sh.itjust.works 32 points 3 weeks ago

Stein is a clown.

A vote for stein is a vote for trump.

load more comments (12 replies)
[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

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 2 weeks ago

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 26 points 2 weeks ago

It never was.

[-] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 21 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, I feel like a serious candidate for president would know how many Representatives are in the House.

[-] BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago

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.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
800 points (92.6% liked)

politics

19002 readers
4264 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
  2. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  3. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  4. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  6. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS