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/

  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 months ago

    “It’s bullshit because it proves I’m full of shit and I don’t actually have an argument against it.”

    • Skeezix@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      This is the modus operandi of conservatives, libertarians, and anyone trying to put forward a disingenuous argument

      • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        22
        ·
        3 months ago

        That’s cute, That your binary thinking assumes a ballot critique of one thing is automatically support of the other.

          • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            3 months ago

            They won’t. They already ignored multiple requests for an explanation or evidence. anticolonialist doesn’t discuss in good faith and this isn’t anything new.

          • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            3 months ago

            Because the people that are not serious are people like AOC, the ones that ran on populist platforms to get elected. And then once they got into office, they completely abandoned everything they ran on.

              • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                3 months ago

                When the duopoly has convinced you that you have two options, they’re going to vote for the red fascist or the blue fascist. That 82.2% of the vote that voted for her belonged to the blue fascists.

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        3 months ago

        And yet none of you have been able to explain how or why it doesn’t prove anything. Only making assertions that it doesn’t.

          • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 months ago

            You’re the one making the claim that it doesn’t prove anything. You have done nothing to explain how it doesn’t. Just saying it proves nothing isn’t enough.

            • PeggyLouBaldwin@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              9
              ·
              3 months ago

              if I told you that leaving that comment proves fort Knox is empty, what kind of refutation is appropriate? it doesn’t, it makes no sense to claim it does, and no further refutation is necessary.