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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Are you going to back up ANYTHING you say?
How does the election result in neither the Democrat or Republican nominee winning? If your 3rd party vote isn’t helping one of those two parties, there must be another possible outcome. Just give us one. One single realistic alternative outcome.
Assuming you can’t handle #1 (which I’m pretty sure you can’t without resorting to fantasy), how does a vote for the “right wing authoritarian” Democrat help the GOP MORE than a vote for a 3rd party when there are 2 possible outcomes?
If you can answer for either of these giant gaping holes in your logic I will be astounded. I’ll let you answer but I think I’m done with this thread. Have a good night!
In a FPTP system all it takes is enough voter refusing to vote for either fascist and vote for a 3rd party.