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/

  • @blazera
    link
    English
    103 months ago

    Yeah i bet she wont even try to get elected next year

      • @blazera
        link
        English
        63 months ago

        Its hilarious the upvotes im getting missing the point. There is no presidential election next year.

    • abff08f4813c
      link
      fedilink
      13 months ago

      For those who don’t get the joke: the election is this year and it is held every four years, so Stein isn’t going to run for election next year because she wouldn’t run for an election that a) is already over or b) isn’t being held yet and is several years in the future.