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/

  • @PeggyLouBaldwin
    link
    -112 months ago

    it’s bullshit because it doesn’t prove anything.

    • ArxCyberwolf
      link
      fedilink
      132 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.

      • @PeggyLouBaldwin
        link
        -102 months ago

        it doesn’t prove anything. am i supposed to enumerate all the things it doesn’t prove?

        • ArxCyberwolf
          link
          fedilink
          62 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
            link
            -72 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.