- cross-posted to:
- politicsunfiltered
- cross-posted to:
- politicsunfiltered
“Jill Stein is a useful idiot for Russia. After parroting Kremlin talking points and being propped up by bad actors in 2016 she’s at it again,” DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni said in a statement to The Bulwark. “Jill Stein won’t become president, but her spoiler candidacy—that both the GOP and Putin have previously shown interest in—can help decide who wins. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
The Green party is already irrelevant. Their only power is siphoning away votes every 4 years. If they actually wanted to affect political change, they would establish a broad presence in local politics, establish a voting and policy record, and build a third party that’s actually viable as their local candidates advance to the national stage.
That takes a lot of time and a tonne of effort, though. Apparently it’s just easier taking money from Putin to gum up a presidential election.
What constitutes power to you, exactly?
A voting block big enough to spoil a victory is power: that’s what makes organizing of all types valuable to begin with.
Nobody, not even Jill Stein, believes she has a chance of winning against Harris and Trump. The reason why it’s still important for her to run is because she represents a dissenting group of voters who find something unacceptable about Harris and Trump, and if that group is enough of a threat then Harris will be forced to address it else risk loosing her campaign.
Liberals are mad because that threat is potentially big enough to spoil their victory, and that’s reason enough to be happy she’s around. Harris needs to cut her support of Israel, otherwise Green and PSL voters (and uncommitted voters) will remain a threat to her campaign. That’s reason enough for me to cheer them on.
Nope. Stein voters are lost voters. The Harris campaign will ignore them and move on. There is no message being broadcast or received during this election. Voting for a party that can only help install the worse of two evils is 100% a move of immense privilege, not a moral high ground.
They have the power to put a dictator in place by leveraging people who don’t understand the primaries are for your ideals and the main election is for strategy. Until we get ranked-choice voting (and we won’t) your moral posturing does the opposite of what you think. In reality anyway.
Then how is she stealing votes?
Tell that to Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman. AIPAC money bombed them out of their seats by way of primary.
Who are their voters supposed to endorse in the general, now that they’ve been replaced by genocidal apartheidists?
If Stein was not in the running, some of her voters may have settled for Harris. As it is, she’s muddying the water. It’s not Harris’s fault a bunch of people are going to ignore the money trail and vote Stein. Harris is going to focus on the people who might be swayed.
As for Bush and Bowman, no argument. That was rotten & PACs need to die. Those two were doing something right for AIPAC to go after them.
That’s power, bud, but it’s misplaced. It’s Harris that has the power to respond to those voters, or to ignore them. As you mentioned, the cost of ignoring them could put a dictator in place.
Their vote puts a dictator in place and Harris is the bad guy for not stroking their egos enough? Gotcha.
Candidates get themselves elected by pledging to address voters’ concerns - if anyone has an ego here it’s Harris and liberals like yourself who think they are owed votes they haven’t made any effort to get.