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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  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    204·
    3 months ago

    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.

    • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
      513·
      3 months ago

      Jill Stein says things and then does nothing to actually make them happen,

      You are describing the Democrats not Jill Stein.

    • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
      215·
      3 months ago

      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.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        91·
        3 months ago

        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.

          • Eccitaze@yiffit.net
            6·
            3 months ago

            And now we’re in full mask-off accelerationist theory “it’s okay to let Trump win as long as Democrats are punished” bullshit. You’re unhappy with Democrats, so you’re okay with letting throwing literally everyone on the left in the US under the bus, along with the entire country of Ukraine, and throwing even more bombs at Gaza.

            What an entitled, smug, self-righteous, holier-than-thou position, utterly divorced from real life consequences. Thanks for admitting that you’re a thoroughly unserious poster, though!