With membership at new lows and no electoral wins to their name, it’s time for the Greens to ditch the malignant narcissist who’s presided over its decline.
"How has Stein fared as a leader? By AOC’s perfectly reasonable standard, she’s done abysmally. As of July 2024, a mere 143 officeholders in the United States are affiliated with the Green Party. None of them are in statewide or federal offices. In fact, no Green Party candidate has ever won federal office. And Stein’s reign has been a period of indisputable decline, during which time the party’s membership—which peaked in 2004 at 319,000 registered members—has fallen to 234,000 today.
This meager coalition can’t possibly kick-start a legitimate political movement, capable of organizing voters and advancing ideas outside of perennial electoral events. It’s just large enough, however, to spoil the work of those who put in this kind of work."
It's a two party system. Everybody knows if you run as a third party you're merely increasing the chances that the ones furthest from you politically will be elected.
It's impossible for a third party candidate to be running for president in the US in good faith unless they're complete fucking idiots with no idea how the political system works.
Jill Stein knows how the system works. So obviously she's not acting in good faith.
Seems like you beat the coin flip today, and people agree with you. Watch out, next time the Libertarians and Communists will tell you that just getting on the ballot is enough to make a dent in the two party system...
Guys as soon as we've got 5% popular vote we get on the ballots automatically. That prevents unavoidable blockers like how our own campaign fucked up the paperwork! It will be all over for these fuckers, we will win it for certain after that.
There's room for 3rd party candidates who have principals that voters can compare candidates to and not let the 2 party system shift in whatever direction it wants as soon as the 2 parties start racing to the bottom. But if you accept Putin's money and influence it is your party who is racing to the bottom and you have no principles so that's when you become a useless drain.
Everybody capable of rational thought knows that. However there are plenty of tankie douchebags who would love to tell you what a wrong ShItLiB you are for saying this basic truth
When I was a teenager and foolish and a republican, we campaigned for the green party because we thought we could trick democrats into voting green but we'd never get them to vote republican. make of that what you will.
It's literally one of the things they do every election. This isn't new. Or even news. Unless people were living under a rock, or blind.
Just like Russia, China, etc help any misinformation and disinformation campaign they can all over the world in other countries. All chaos is good for them in the end. Even if their ideal candidate doesn't win, the bickering they help stole makes it harder for other countries to rally very well against their interests.
It's the same reason the US has done the same shit all over as well. Promoting and supporting coups is a national passtime because it helps the US indirectly either way.
And Dems funneled money to MAGA fascists to split republicans. It's art of war 101: divide and conquer; it doesn't really reflect on the merits of anyone involved.
Green could be a false flag puppet of the Republicans or they could have a legitimate platform and genuine candidates working to better the world for all the rightwing cares, what matters is that they are popular enough to detract from dems.
Ironically, reacting to this as if Green is the enemy also plays into this tactic: dems become more isolated from other interests and therefore more resistant to change and adaptation to a changing political climate, which makes them less appealing and more likely to die out.
It makes total sense for Russia to make Jill Stein a Russian asset because it neutralizes an anti-oil organization. Oil is very important to Russia’s economy so of course they don’t want any phase-out of fossil fuels.
Wait, the Green Party only had 300k members at it's peak? That's 0.001% of the American population. Why are all the tankies in here talking about how voting for Stein will make a difference? That's not even enough to consider her a contender in most states, much less for the whole country.
Edit: should be 0.1%. My bad and thanks for the correction!
People forget, but in the 70's Nader was so feared by the DC elite that Nixon repeatedly complained about him on the Nixon tapes. Nader would have been a good president based on his record of advocating for citizens over corporations.
Ah yeah I remember that! I remember everyone talking about the 3% threshold where (if I remember correctly) the green party would be included in debates and receive federal campaign funds. Hell, if they couldn't do it at the height of Nader always I don't see that happening now, particularly under Stein.
Because they can smugly claim to have accomplished something with their vote while the country burns around them. Must be nice not being at risk under a Trump administration.
The real question is why the Democrats have suddenly decided they are an unacceptable threat, despite their declining registrations numbers.
Because the polling is currently a toss up between Trump and Harris. And the closer the race, the easier it is for spoiler candidates to spoil the vote. Hence the panic.
Reactionary people are unable to accept that some of us are socialists who have an absolute fear of more orange bad. I love where I live and planned to stay the rest of my life, but will be forced (by my own standards and fear) to leave the country if he returns to office.
The Green Party really didn't exist before Nader. There was a loose coalition of state Green parties that united under Nader in 1996. But the idea of a national Green party wouldn't happen until 2001.
Good point, but I still think that even if he created it, he also damaged its reputation the most in the 2000 election.
Stein being a stooge for Putin is just the result of a weak/desperate organization that needs funding and has no real leadership or ideals outside of at best, wanting to exist, but at worst, planning to spoil for an ideologically opposite party.
The Republican party saw it happening and absorbed it. Groups like the Tea Party were a very real threat to Republican party candidacy in elections. They absorbed the groups and shifted more right to integrate them.
The Democrat leadership however aren't willing to actually shift left. They current Dem leadership aren't actually radically left at all like the Republicans keep trying to convince people. They keep shifting right along with everything else taking the Overton window with them.
Because people on the left are mostly younger and they won't vote no matter what you promise them, even if it's everything that they want to be promised.
Because Democrats are honestly bad at their jobs. I can't come to any other conclusion - whether it's intentional or just basic incompetence, I'm not sure. There's no Mitch McConnell Dem equivalent, including Nancy Pelosi. The current Supreme Court justice mess is due to Dem strategy fuckups on multiple levels.
It’s just large enough, however, to spoil the work of those who put in this kind of work.
The big 2 parties haven't put in more effort, they've just put in more person-hours... Because they have more people. Parties aren't more worthy of votes based solely on how many people are voting for them, that's tyranny of the majority. And if they can adapt their platforms to appeal to the small portion of undecided defectors from their primary rival party (each other), they damn sure can tailor their platform to the 100,000s that vote independent/3rd party.
Checking biases, the only other article by this contributor is explaining why it's actually A Good Thing™ that the Harris campaign doesn't explain their platform in depth... You know, like you would want a leader to do if you were subject to their rules and policies for any length of time.
Once again, the liberals are quick to assign blame for any of their shortcomings, and it's just coincidentally never their fault nor responsibility to do anything. Their primary guiding principal for decades has been to change the status quo as little as possible to ensure they can't be blamed for the changes, while accusing everyone else of destroying democracy.
Politically it is a good thing. I don't know what angle they took but it generally means the campaign believes they're in the lead.
As far as having more man hours to throw at stuff, it sounds like the green party needs to be recruiting. Not lancing at windmills and getting laughed off the stage.
Its funny that some democrats are doing exactly what you say in your last sentence, calling any criticism of the party an attempt to destroy democracy.
Unless dems and reps cheat. Green party is doing better this election simply because Harris is a drug Barron, and Trump is a shiester. This article is their windbags blowing because people aren't gobbling up their plates of human shit and voting for it...
What comes next is gonna blow some peoples minds(figuratively ofcourse).
Such commitment to the bit! Love how you encapsulated the sheer ignorance and downright avoidance of reality of typical leftists here in just a few short sentences!
Liberals are desperate to smear any threat to their existence and power. Watching it reminds me of Southerners that were desperate to cling to their 'heritage' of hate and bigotry. They didn't see it as hate and bigotry, but everyone else paying attention did
The comment above you was quite harsh, so if you wanna respond harshly, I say go for it. But please include at least one example or reason or detail. If the only thing you can do is ad hominem, it's boring.
Jill Stein is a lot of things, but "progressive" ain't one of 'em. I'd love for Harris and the Dems to be more progressive, but they're going to need a better example than Stein.
I imagine that most of it is going there, at least if one were to follow the money trail. It's just that the Green party is so much smaller, so a few bits of afterthought saber rattling hurt them a lot worse than a much larger spend (by the Dems) against the GOP hurts the GOP.
Or if for policies popular with a wide swath of America? Naw. I believe what MSNBC and all the real adults in the room agree with:
Our party should ebrace moderate Republicans! Smear the greens! Keep leftist spoiler parties off the ballot! Dismiss Dem party dissidents as traitors and foreign assets! This is what real leftists do. All leftists to the left of me are actually to the right.
I would know, i'm a Democrat, and I'm as left as they come
Oh, yeah, me too, I am a very far left lefty. That's why when it comes to elections I ignore groups like Uncommitted and instead vote how the furthest right group wants lefties to vote.
The greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do. Provided the rulers do not interfere with its material comforts and its cherished beliefs, it is perfectly happy to let itself be ruled.
Wow! Never read that quote. Perfectly explains how American politics got to be such a mess. I laugh at all the revolutionary talk around here.
material comforts
Yeah, no, we're so well-fed we have to find excuses for our rampant obesity. There won't be a revolution until people are literally fighting for food and our masters will never allow that to come to pass. Look at lemmy, bitching and moaning about video game prices and such. We're pretty fucking far from lacking material comforts. To add, a lot of people think they're suffering, but haven't seen a day of true poverty in their lives. Y'all, you're suffering in comparison to what could and should be.
cherished beliefs
As fast as we in the West are dropping religion, notice the politicians haven't done anything about the rampant sex abuse? Taxing the church? Unheard of! Let the masses have their silly beliefs, stick to the middle of the road if you must, get elected again.