“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.”
This just isn’t true. Third party candidates put pressure on the duopoly candidates to adopt a diversity of policies that better represent the interests of the country.
If the democrats wanted to make the Green and PSL parties irrelevant this election, all they have to do is drop their unconditional support for Israel’s genocide.
Democrats desperately want to be able to run with status quo positions without risking a loss, and stein makes that just barely difficult enough as to go after her candidacy, because that’s easier than attacking her policy positions.
First off they are not unconditionally supporting the genocide. Both Biden and Harris are working for a ceasefire. The fact that Israel is not complying or even giving it any serious thought is because we have a plurality of people in this country who do unconditionally support Israel and will not vote for a party that does not actively show support for Israel. So if Biden or Harris actually came out and said they would stop providing weapons and money to Israel they would lose 10 times more votes than the number of people who are voting for Jill Stein because she’s being critical of them for “unconditional support of Israel’s genocide”.
If you are voting for Jill Stein because of the whole Israel issue. Then you deserve to lose all of the rights that get taken away if and when Trump wins. For reference see Roe versus Wade.
I remember arguing with several cons on various comment sections, and more than a a few, when made to answer the question, basically said the U.S. must support Israel no matter what. The no matter what part was true even after asking them hypotheticals about behavior including finding out they were carrying out actual genocide. This was before Gaza.
So when dingus lefties talk about “Genocide Joe”, my first thought is “I remember when I turned 14, too”. The cons - including donnie - would be far, far worse. The cons say we must support Israel. No. Matter. What. And it’s not because they give a damn about Jews, no matter how much crocodile tears they spill over “anti-Semitism”. Many of them think the Jews have to be there for their precious son of Yahweh to come back on a cloud or whatever, and start condemning Jews that won’t convert to infinite torture. While these people supposedly watch from heaven. Seriously, the “morals” of psychopaths…
They have not conditioned their lethal aid on anything, despite the fact that US law prohibits the sale or transfer of weapons to states engaged in war crimes. Even though it’s literally illegal for them to be sending them weapons still, they refuse to even suggest that stopping arms transfers is on the table. That’s a far cry from ‘working for a ceasefire’.
A majority of Americans Say Biden Should Halt Weapons Shipments to Israel
Regardless, if a majority, or even an electorally-important minority of Americans wanted to nuke Iran, it would still be morally abhorrent to defend doing so simply because “if we don’t, the other guy will do it himself”. Americans love to pretend like they would have been anti-fascist rebels if they had lived in Nazi germany, but this is exactly how the Nazis were able to take power in the first place. Liberal moderates, desperate to hold on to power - or, more charitably, limit the power of fascists - will concede all but the most immediately tangible of human atrocities to fascists. They will happily hide behind their privilege and sacrifice the subjects of the fascists’ violence just so that they can remain at the table now completely taken over by fascists and fascist enablers.
Democrats don’t have to simply fall in line with what “”“”“the majority”“”“” of voters want; in fact, they themselves have been actively messaging and defending the very support you’re arguing they are powerless to resist. They were the ones making the case for continued support for Israel. They could be making the case that Israel must be brought to bear for their crimes, or at least sanctioned/embargoed until their hostilities and escalations stop. But they don’t - because they know that the US’s interests lie in ignoring the war crimes that Israel is committing. Without Israel, the US would lose influence in the ME, and by extension risk being cut off from the abundant resources that exist there to the waxing multi-polar influences that are building in the east.
Leftists don’t simply oppose the sale of arms to Israel simply because they’re committing genocide with them; we oppose the strategic imperialist asset Israel itself represents.
Oops, your mask slipped a little there, friend.
I agree, but that doesn’t mean Jill Stein has a chance of winning or that she doesn’t help the orange bad.
Nobody said she has a chance of winning. She only helps “the orange bad” if you blame voters when a candidate loses rather than that candidate fucking around and finding out with their policy positions. We learned this with Hilary. You can’t just coerce people into voting for you by threatening them with the other guy.
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.
The only reason Jill Stein has a chance to spoil this election is because we’ve got a large and rabid minority of voters who actually like what Trump is serving. If Trump were down 10 points in the Swing State polls, Jill Stein’s 1% wouldn’t matter. If Harris had 270 EVs worth of locked in states, Stein could take double digit vote counts in places like Oklahoma and California and still be a non-factor. But in this closely divided of an election, with the political system the USA has, your purity crusade will result in possibly the last election you ever get to vote in, and at minimum, 4 years of policy that will utterly destroy every priority you have.
And do you really think cutting support for Israel will gain more votes for Harris than it loses from people who happen to think Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself? Here’s a hint. It won’t. First, we are certain you’ll just find some other reason not to vote for Harris, and second, it’ll piss off moderate and conservative Jews and run them straight into the Republican’s arms. According to this article, there are somewhere around 3.6 million Jews nation-wide who vote for Democrats. In 2016, only 1.4 million people nation-wide voted for Jill Stein. If you only turned off half the Jewish vote while capturing every Stein voter there is, you’d still have a net negative, and I’m absolutely sure AIPAC would go apeshit over this (and they support Republicans too), and Stein voters would just find another reason they couldn’t possibly vote for the Democrats.
So, if you are really dumb enough to think a protest vote is a good idea, know that your meaningless protest will cost LGBTQ and minorities and non-Christians and women HERE in this country dearly, while doing absolutely nothing to help the Palestinians. It’ll also fuck the Ukrainians over, and maybe even the Taiwanese, as I can see the Shitgibbon leaving them to China’s tender mercies. Muslim voters who back Stein over Harris will own-goal themselves as they’ll be the first to be attacked by Project 2025 and Trumps Mass Deportation/“Remigration” plans. LGBTQ, Minority, and women Third Party voters will also bring their doom, while White, Male, and passable-as-Christian Third Party voters will benefit from their privilege but best get down to being Good Americans because the Trump Goon Squads will be set loose looking for Leftist rabble to round up.
And that means Harris must campaign to those voters and affirm their most wildly fascist opinions about minorities and immigrants?
What kills me is that I would be happy to discuss the ways in which MAGA actually does pose a danger to the republic, if not for the fact that Liberals will use it as a point of comparison for just how fascist of a candidate they themselves would still be willing to vote for, as if the act of voting is some twisted real-life game of “would you rather”.
A majority of americans support halting arms shipments to Israel. Harris would lose a lot fewer votes than you’re suggesting (especially while Trump is currently torpedoing his own campaign with antisemetic ramblings and accosiating himself with known neo-nazis), and would gain more than the Green votes you’re suggesting (because a lot of people will simply stay home rather than vote green because they feel completely disenfranchised by both parties). But setting the electoral math aside for a second: eligibility odds aren’t a valid defense of being complicit in the most public international genocide in recent memory.
The democrats are already ceding ground to anti-LGBTQ and minority movements. Harris is already running on anti-immigrant and anti-asylum policy, she is already turning away from protecting LGBTQ rights in red states across the country, she is already fanning the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment. In pursuit of defeating a loud and obnoxious fascist, Liberals are actively affirming those fascist fears while abandoning minority and working class protections. They are proudly advertising themselves as the more pleasant fascists, the steady hand that will provide order to those who are afraid that immigrants are bringing drugs and weapons across the boarder to kill their children.
No, I do not believe that any of the groups you mentioned would be ‘safe’ with Harris in the white house, and I don’t think those fascist fears and violence will suddenly go away if we lightly affirm their legitimacy.
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.
If Stein is forced off the ballot by partisan officials and heckled in the media as an antisemite, you’re going to scare away far more Harris-curious progressives than you attract hard-Green Jill fans.
All true, but now who do their base voters turn out for in the General? They same AIPAC swine that ousted them? Just because they have Ds after their names?
Or do they protest vote third party, to prove they still exist and don’t approve of either mainstream candidate?
If they’re “lost voters” as you say, then how is she muddying the water? You said it yourself that they weren’t going to be convinced to vote harris anyways.
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.
Giving voters what they want and winning them over is “stroking their egos” now? That’s such a cynical way to look at your fellow voting Americans. They are not your enemy.
Come on man… they got us pumping anti-democratic sentiment like it’s the divine right of kings… no fucking wonder the democrats don’t ever feel the need to run on actually popular policies and at least keep things centered. We’re more than happy to deep throat the boot either way.
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.
lol…. This is what you actually believe?
Well said.
Sort of shocking how the common opinion here is, “vote how I tell you or you are a Hitler enabler”.
And then they wonder why they aren’t changing peoples minds.
deleted by creator
There’s a lot more in the table than that. But it would be a good start.
Kamala doubling back on Fracking is driving off as many environmental voters as her endorsement of the Israeli genocide is scaring away Arab-Americans.
But that’s the joke. People think if Greens just vanished, all their voters would be forced into the Dem block. Instead, repeatedly calling them Trumpies means they’ll be that less likely to vote for you.
People get upset when you point to multiple things you’re looking to concessions on, otherwise yea, I’m 100% in agreement.
In an effort to meet those people halfway: Harris only needs enough of green/psl protest voters (or at least needs to not loose too-many democratic votes, depending on your philosophical bent) to win. How many voters that is, and which issues are the ones to win them to her ticket, are questions very much up for debate. Even if she can even win them back is questionable at this point.
But the one thing that is certain is that if she were to somehow loose despite everything that’s going right for her, it’ll be because she abandoned those issues in favor or courting anti-immigrant and status-quo republicans. Her loss will be 100% attributable to the fucks not given for the issues driving voters to third parties, and that’s nobodies fault but her own.
deleted by creator