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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I’m not a victim. Just as flawed as everyone else. I do fall into emotional reactionary patterns. But I try to be aware of it, and learn. I don’t hate individuals, just the ideology.
You’ll forgive me if I refuse to look past the shit ton of removals and bans you’ve had for incivility and trolling, while you casually try and pretend to take the high road here.
Don’t look to others (hypocritical moderators) to discern the truth, decide for yourself. I’m not voting for Jill Stein and the Green Party. Her interview with Mehdi Hasan was lacking consistency . But the slander and misrepresentation of third parties greatly disturbs me. I understand the desire to elect Harris to prevent Trump, but this smear campaign is at the expense of the truth, and only serves to limit the possibility of future third parties.
When an actual third party candidate decides to spend every year between elections doing the work to earn a vote- I’ll take them seriously.
But I’ve yet to ever see one do anything but show up at the eleventh hour with a bunch of speak-a-lot-yet-say-nothing rhetoric that only serves to divide votes.