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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  • @AA5B
    6•2 months ago

    Look, I’m just quoting Wikipedia. It seems like you have an argument with them.

    Your quote is followed with

    According to The New York Times, “Big legislation largely eludes Mr. Sanders because his ideas are usually far to the left of the majority of the Senate … Mr. Sanders has largely found ways to press his agenda through appending small provisions to the larger bills of others.”[146] […] Nevertheless, he has sponsored over 500 amendments to bills,[148] many of which became law.