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/

    • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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      2 months 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
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        2 months 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
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          2 months 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

        • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Or people smacking their foreheads that anyone took her seriously after she was revealed to be a Russian plant way back in 2017.

          I didn’t downvote, but I can’t upvote either, because seriously?

        • index@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          I downvoted because disbanding nato is a good thing and arming an authoritarian government is bad.

      • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk
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        2 months ago

        Just missing Lavrov and you’d have all four horsemen in the same picture

        Nvm i mistook Ivanov for Medvedev, only two horsemen at this table with Jill Stein

      • index@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        They are rigged and corrupted for sure just like every popular politician but let’s not forget that NATO is a terroristic organization and that producing or sending cluster munition to an authoritarian government is not a good thing.

        We should take everyone into account for chilling with russian leaders and mafiosi not just jill stein

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Notice the group you call a terrorist organization grows when the nation they say they are organized to protect against invades other countries. If Russia wants NATO to go away all they have to do is stop invading counties and it will slowly dissolve and disappear. They invaded Georgia in 2008 and the world didn’t do enough, they invaded Crimea (Ukraine) in 2014 and the world didn’t do enough. 2022 they set out to invade Ukraine again, and finally the world started to do more. 3 strikes. Now NATO grows because counties in the region don’t feel safe from Russia. If they stop being a threat, counties in the region will slowly leave NATO.

      • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals, even if there were no 3rd party candidates running, we would not vote for your right wing pieces of shit. There’s a better chance you would vote for a Republican than any of us would vote for either right wing party.

        • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals

          Math. You’re disagreeing with math. Or are completely unaware of how FPTP voting works (I know this isn’t the case).

          • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Math has nothing to do with the fact that we are not Democrats, so we would not vote for a Democrat. That’s like trying to say math is the reason you won’t vote Republican

            • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              I’m not making any distinction between non votes and 3rd party votes. From a purely electoral perspective a Stein voter is the same as someone who doesn’t show up. This is why people are rightfully frustrated with them. It’s a pretty simple concept and the only response is usually “not uh!”.

              • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                People are upset with 3rd party voters because they won’t fall in line and do what the DNC wants them to do. The DNC feels entitled to every vote not cast for a Republican. If they want our vote they need to earn it, and they never have.

                • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I don’t care about the reasoning you make for your actions. We’re talking about the results of those actions.

                  You will affect the race in one of two ways regardless of what you do. You will either benefit Party A or Party B, those parties being the two largest parties, aka Democrats and Republicans. Non votes and 3rd party votes benefit the smaller party, which is the GOP. This is an absolute fact within a FPTP system, even if you can’t accept it because of the obvious implications.

                  If you feel the GOP has done more to earn your support, that’s your call. I just think that’s some next level dumbassery.

                • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Third parties are not bothering to earn your votes either. They put in zero work except for presidential elections.

                  • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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                    2 months ago

                    Thats the only time YOU start paying attention to 3rd parties, by parroting what youve heard from the media, who has a vested interest in keeping the oligarchy in power

            • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              You don’t have to have be a democrat to vote against fascists.

              I’m not a democrat, but I plan to use my vote strategically, since fascists have a propensity toward murdering their ideological opponents. You can call the DNC fascist all you want, many do, but I’m less inclined to believe that they’ll try to murder leftists vs the US right wing.

              Your ideological purity will not save you from a fascist’s bullet.

              • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                You’re talking as if the Democrat Ratchet effect is not able to fascism. In case there’s any question, yes, it does

                • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Be that as it may, I’ll still use my vote strategically to ensure that the slide toward fascism is as slow as possible, personally. I am not an accelerationist. I feel that I can more effectively perform direct actions, agitate, and educate others in service of leftist ideology during that time. Ideals without sound strategy are little more than masturbatory.

                  • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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                    2 months ago

                    We’ve descended into fascism so slowly people can’t see it when it’s standing right there in front of them. That’s why the DNC is always talking about baby steps, incrementalism, small little minute steps to the right. 30 years of small steps to the right has the Democrats embracing war criminals like Dick Cheney.

            • blackbelt352@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Math literally has everything to do with it. There are entire branches of mathematics dedicated to figuring out ideal voting systems.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals

          Dude, I already showed it to you.

          Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates"
          Total people: 1047
          11% of people supported the winner.
          
          Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER
          Sahl - 111 votes
          

          Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates"
          Total people: 1047
          10% of people supported the winner.
          
          Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER
          Kruger - 93 votes
          Maikol - 91 votes
          

          The overlap of two circles means there will be an area shared in between. That’s the math, you can’t get around that.

            • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

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

            • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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              2 months ago

              Really now? Please explain exactly how it’s “bullshit.” Just claiming it’s bullshit is not sufficient.

            • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Yet you didn’t provide explanation for why it’s bullshit. Because you know it isn’t. It’s right in front of you.

              • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                We are not Democrats, so we will not vote for Democrats. They could show all the fucking graphs in the world, And wouldn’t change the fact that we are not Democrats, so we do not vote for Democrats.

                • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  You’re basically saying that there is zero overlap in the venn diagram of third party voters and blue voters, yet you make efforts to convince blue voters to go third party. You know damn well that there is overlap between third party voters and blue voters, otherwise you’d never talk to them.

                  Even if you personally would never vote blue, third party voters are not a monolith, there are third party voters that are closer to the DNC than you are.

            • Skeezix@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              You’re disagreeing with math. Congratulations, you’ve unlocked the dunce award.

          • Skeezix@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            That is not hypothetical. While you can literally vote for anyone, you can effectively only vote for one or the other. This is not due to a lack of idealists, it’s by design of the system