“Federal Election Commission records show Stein paid $100,000 in July to a consulting outfit that has worked with Republican campaigns, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid. The firm, Accelevate, is operated by Trent Pool. The Intercept reported that he appeared to be part of the mob that breached the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., 2021. The Journal hasn’t independently verified the reporting.”
And not just republicans. You can find all stripes of accelerationist crazies doing that on this very website.
We must bring about glorious revolution, even if our methods aren’t particularly effective and millions suffer.
No you see they have a plan.
- Convince people likely to vote for Harris to throw away their votes by voting 3rd party or staying home
- Suppress democratic turnout while leaving Republican turnout untouched.
- Spoil the election while haughtily going “oh not voting is a vote for trump somehow” and snorting to themselves. Completely blind to context.
- Have the things they claim to really super duper care about like genocide in Palestine continue under trump
- Also have vulnerable groups in America, like legal Haitian migrants, be the target of Republican vitriol.
- (step missing)
- Glorious proletariat revolution against the most powerful military and militarized police force to ever exist
Its brilliance is in its simplicity!
Convince people likely to vote for Harris to throw away their votes
Why do you believe folks voting for Stein would be likely Harris voters?
So if you look at the policy positions of a Green Party, it tends to align more closely with voters who would traditionally vote Democratic.
Here’s their own blurb from their website
We are grassroots activists, environmentalists, advocates for social justice, nonviolent resisters and regular citizens who’ve had enough of corporate-dominated politics. Government must be part of the solution, but when it’s controlled by the 1%, it’s part of the problem. The longer we wait for change, the harder it gets. Don’t stay home on election day. Vote Green!
Considering that the Republican Party uses the phrase “social justice warrior” as an insult and to this day field candidates that reject climate change, the idea that Republican voters might choose to vote for this party over their own seems less likely to me.
The Green Party is politically left of center, so it seems reasonable to me that the people that would vote for them would be more likely to come from the group of voters more likely to cast a ballot for Harris than trump.
So if you look at the policy positions of a Green Party, it tends to align more closely with voters who would traditionally vote Democratic.
If you look at the textbook positions, sure. But if you look at the activities of the Democratic Party while in power, you see some sharp deviations. Biden expanding oil drilling leases on public lands. Harris taking money from Crypto shills and other energy ravenous tech billionaires. Their hard-line opposition to immigration. Their continued endorsement of arms sales to Israel.
Considering that the Republican Party uses the phrase “social justice warrior” as an insult and to this day field candidates that reject climate change, the idea that Republican voters might choose to vote for this party over their own seems less likely to me.
If you go back to the 2000 election with Nader and you look at Green turnout trends in Florida relative to party affiliation, you discover lots of GOP / Green crossover voting. Nearly as many Greens defected from the Bush Oil Family as the Gore camp. In fact, its the SJW and climate denialist rhetoric that turns died-in-the-wool Republicans into Green defectors on the regular.
But the dirty secret about Green voters (much like their Libertarian counterparts) is that they tend to win votes in districts and states where one party thoroughly dominates. You’ll find more Green Dems in bright Blue California and Minnesota and New York and Washington. You’ll find more Green Republicans in Texas and South Carolina and Utah and Ohio.
The Green Party is politically left of center
The platforms of the Green Party have been shared by both parties across the decades. And you can regularly find Greens who fell out of one party or the other precisely because of the drift.
What we’re seeing today is a large number of Arab American spilling out of the Democratic Party, because the Dems are abandoning even a semblance of support for a Rules Based International Order, with respect to Israel. That’s what has people freaked out about Jill Stein. She’s become a magnet for disaffected liberals.
But go back twenty years, to when John McCain was pushing a climate change bill and George Bush Jr was signing legislation full of EV car credits, and you can find liberal Republicans with Green frills. Go back farther than that and you can find Green Republicans in the Sierra Club and even Greenpeace. The Greens aren’t Left-of-Center. They’re simply platforming issues that the other two parties have abandoned.
If the republicans thought that the Green Party was going to be an attractive option for their voters in 2000 they certainly adopted an odd strategy
Hoping to boost Ralph Nader in states where he is threatening to hurt Al Gore, a Republican group is launching TV ads featuring Nader attacking the vice president.
The ads by the Republican Leadership Council will begin airing Monday in Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington, all states that are part of Gore’s base and where Nader is polling well. The group plans to spend more than $100,000 at first and hopes to raise more over the weekend.
It’s not some crazy conspiracy either, the Republican Leadership Council explained the ad buys in this way
The Republican Leadership Council, a centrist GOP group, has been helpful to Bush before, airing ads during the Republican primaries critical of challenger Steve Forbes. Several members of the RLC board were early Bush supporters.
The RLC ads will run initially in four markets: Eugene and Portland, Ore.; Madison, Wis., and Seattle.
Mark Miller, the group’s executive director, said the ads are partly a response to commercials being run by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, which argue that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.
“Ralph Nader doesn’t believe that,” Miller said. “Ralph Nader and his supporters are not backing down because they believe Al Gore has had numerous broken promises.”
Miller added that some of Nader’s supporters have bragged that Nader has never had help from “soft money,” the unrestricted donations used by parties and interest groups.
“We’ll put an end to that,” Miller said.
You might notice how the answer doesn’t really make any sense, a pro Bush Republican PAC wanted to run ads in Gore strongholds promoting Nader with the argument that Gore broke numerous promises. Why? Because groups said that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. It sounds like they are trying to counter this but then their actions fully support that idea.
Maybe some republicans could be persuaded to join the greens, but I pay attention to how people spend their money because talk is cheap. If republicans spend money to promote Nader in states they want to win, they obviously think they’ll poach more gore voters than Bush voters, it just doesn’t make sense otherwise.
I actually agree that the Green Party is staking out policy positions that both parties have abandoned, but I still think the abandoned policies they’ve picked up to champion are still more attractive to left leaning people than right leaning people.
Unless the WSJ has been taken over by liberals, owned by famous liberal Rupert Murdoch, they seem to be following a similar path now https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/jill-stein-republican-support-harris-voters-5a194ebf
So while I imagine some of these policy positions might be attractive to some disaffected republicans, republicans seem to think it will be useful to promote them. The only way that makes any kind of sense is if they think it will attract more potential Democratic Party voters than republican.
the Republican Leadership Council explained the ad buys
Republicans try things that fail or backfire all the time. That same year, George Bush was stumping in Fresno California a month before the general election.
Does that mean Republicans had a genius plan to win California? No. Bush’s pollsters were just shitily over-optimistic.
Dems employ similar tricks, backing the wackier GOP primary contenders during the primary for instance.
But in the end, how well do they work? Is a dollar spent on some quixotic 11D chess more successful than old school retail politicking?
So while I imagine some of these policy positions might be attractive to some disaffected republicans, republicans seem to think it will be useful to promote them.
Consultants love to pretend they are masterminds by zigging left when everyone else zags right. For all the panic you hear about Jill Stein being a Republican ploy to get people to care about environmentalism, I’ve rarely seen the GOP fumble harder than when they gave AOC’s Green New Deal a vote in the Senate and raised her to national stature.
Don’t confuse people throwing shit at the wall with effective strategy.
I’m much more interested in your plan than whatever strawman you can make up about the voters whom Democrats have left on the table for objecting to the genocide they want to fund.
Focus on getting progressives into local and state offices so they can build experience necessary to successfully run for federal office. Vote lesser evil for president in the meantime to buy time for progressive to get that experience. In 10-15 years of diligent efforts we can get progressives into probably about a 1/3 of our congressional seats. At that point, a progressive presidential candidate with congressional experience stands an actual chance of winning the presidency, and will have the legislative support to actually accomplish their policy goals when they get there.
How does this differ from the plan 10-15 years ago? Should we not be seeing returns if lesser evil voting did anything other than ratchet us over to the right? Should a politician have to do anything to earn the votes that put them into office?
How does this differ from the plan 10-15 years ago?
It doesn’t, we just haven’t been doing it. Progressives show up at mid terms in lower proportions than conservatives, we have to show up for every election, even the boring local ones. Governors and Senators become Presidents. If we want a progressive President, we need progressive Governors and Senators to nominate.
Should we not be seeing returns if lesser evil voting did anything other than ratchet us over to the right?
Perhaps I wasn’t clear: voting lesser evil is necessary for change but it is not sufficient. Again, the return on lesser evil voting is delaying the greater evil so that good can get into position. If we’re not using that delay to vote progressive into lower offices, then yes voting lesser evil accomplishes little else.
Should a politician have to do anything to earn the votes that put them into office?
This isn’t a productive perspective. Lots of things should happen. You shouldn’t have to look both ways before crossing at a crosswalk when you have the light; but if you follow “should”, you’ll have the satisfaction of being in the right when you get hit by a car.
The point of your vote isn’t to reward candidates for having the right policies, the point of your vote is to protect your interests. You vote lesser evil for the same reason you lock your doors, to mitigate a worse outcome.
That’s my point. I’m not convinced that my vote is protecting my interests at all, and what’s changed to make the story any different with the plan from 10-15 years ago?
The voting system works well for Republicans as it is currently. They have no reason to make the radical changes in the next four years that are being fearmongered right now. At least not any that the Democrats, with or without the president, would do anything to stop.
Every bogeyman propped up as reasons to vote against republicans has not slowed down under recent democratic administrations, who refuse to defend the rights and meet the demands of the people even in the face of clear power grabs by the other side. There is no firm policy being presented, only vague projections that it won’t be as bad as under republicans, who have shown us that don’t need the presidency. The tail is already wagging the dog in that respect and the side that claims to represent the left believe in decorum too much to say enough.
It is up to the democrats alone to convince anyone otherwise. We should not be scolding voters for being disillusioned by poor and ineffectual governance. If that’s where we’re at; blaming the voters for the failures of politicians that are first and foremost chosen by monied interests; then we’ve already lost democracy.
We can do this again in four years, just like we did it four years ago and four years before that, or we can get what we want right now by banding together and telling them that our votes are on the table only if they make a good faith attempt to meet our demands, and if we’re serious we will put our votes where our mouths are when the day comes. It’s not impossible to win that way, we just watched it happen when they switched out Biden for Kamala.
You’re going to have at least as much success doing that as you are scolding american voters every four years for voting their conscience just to then turn around and somehow convince them to be more politically active. Because that’s who you’re alienating, the handful of voters that actually care about the state of politics and may hold just enough power to swing a federal election. Certainly not the voters that are won just by having a larger campaign budget.
You can’t beat them, so join them. Do not let this political moment go to waste, do not let yourself be complicit in genocide. Put pressure on the democrats to acknowledge the genocide in gaza, to stop arming Israel. That will get everyone on the same side, along with being a show of good faith that voters wishes still matter to Democrats. At a minimum, open your mind to that possibility.
Do not let the establishment intimidate you into forgetting what power we hold as a collective, into actively working against collective’s own interests and shielding the establishment from the electoral consequences of their actions.
That’s not how evaluating a plan works.
Here, I’ve got a cure for cancer, shove pinecones up your ass.
You can determine that this plan is bad without having to have a cure for cancer.
Right, well you keep guaranteeing your vote for Democrats every year and attacking anyone that criticizes them for being ineffective and see how much that gets you, since their current platform and every election leading up to this one hasn’t been enough to prove that they don’t really care that much about defending progressive policy and will throw both it and their voters under the bus if they think it will help them tap into the republican base instead. Continue directing your ire at your fellow voters instead of using it to hold your elected representative’s feet to the fire. That definitely seems like a sound plan and totally isn’t more of what got us here in the first place 👍
It’s a nice straw man you’ve erected and if I did any of those things you might have some kind of point.
I didn’t attack anyone, I pointed out that this alternative plan is unlikely to bring about any substantive change either.
So you keep telling people to sit at home and I’ll wait for the glorious revolution, maybe if you shout down people and tell them to read more theory that’ll help. The American people are super into reading political theory.
Lmao I’ve never told anyone to read theory or to sit at home but go off I guess.
Including Russian trolls
This is the hilarious tragedy of the Democratic party:
If the race is close, then the electoral college, courts and other methods can be used to bump things to the GOP (2000).
If the race isn’t that close, then people will feel comfortable voting third party to “make a statement”, which can cost enough votes in key states to cost the election (2016).
I mean, in 2016 Dems still handily won the popular vote, so it was still the electoral college as the ultimate problem, and third parties were only contributing factors.
In addition to just being a good idea, getting rid of the electoral college would be good because we’d never have to hear about meaningless third-party candidates acting as spoilers. They’d either be real contenders or just narcissists like Jill Stein.
Getting rid of the electoral college would not solve spoiler candidates necessarily. For that you would need to replace it with ranked voting or multiple rounds. Would still be a good idea, as the college just means presidents caring a lot more about swing states.
Without the electoral college though, the only time a third party candidate could act as a spoiler would be if they had a significant share of the vote. They deserve to be spoilers in those cases I think. My problem is with folks pulling in 1% - 3% of the vote in a single state ultimately deciding a national election.
But yeah, RCV would be the best way to ensure better representation (though honestly it can still easily have what could be viewed as “spoilers”)
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Haven’t we all known this about Shill Stein for a very long time, or are we supposed to pretend it’s a big shocking reveal so the leftists can feel better about being duped?
The people duped by Stein are not the people who call themselves leftists.
On the contrary, many that call themselves leftists have been thoroughly duped. Or they’re all bad faith actors, but I try to never attribute to malice that which can be sufficiently explained by incompetence.
Duped, sure, but not by Stein.
I sort of was in 2016, I eventually voted for Hilary but considered Stein for a while after the DNC
Are the democrat candidates not shills themselves?
That being said, fuck Jill Stein for squandering the Green Party. She needs to go awayWho are they shilling for? See, Comrade Stein is shilling for Russia. As we know- there is a connection. But who exactly would the democrats be accused of shilling for?
But who exactly would the democrats be accused of shilling for?
Netanyahu. AIPAC bought two candidates right out in the open. The party welcomes foreign interference against progressives.
Israel paid directly for two candidates and committed FARA violations? That’s a big claim buddy. Got any… Evidence?
AIPAC paid to defeat Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. If you want to believe that AIPAC is actually independent of Israel, I can’t make you stop believing absurdities.
I know what AIPAC is. Your claim is that they have direct funding from the government of Israel. That’s illegal. You are allowed to set up a lobby group in the US that supports another country as long as the funds are obtained from within the US.
I know this might come as a shock to you, but there are many jews living in the US that happen to support Israel. You are welcome to set up any lobby group you want. Go ahead and set one up for Lebanon. But FARA is very clear about the source of the funds.
If youre not familiar with FARA take some time to acquaint your self? Or talk to a lawyer maybe? I don’t know.
Your argument in favor of foreign interests interfering in US elections is essentially “well, it’s perfectly legal, and if you don’t like it, help another foreign interest interfere in US elections.”
I can’t
That’s really all you have to say. We know you can’t back up your claims with evidence already.
ROFL! Hilarious!
Yes, you find 14 pages of dead Palestinian infants to be the funniest shit ever. The perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Gaza bought candidates for you.
No, I find your bullshit false accusations to be funny. Especially when it’s backed up by quite a lengthy mod log of removed misinformation and bullshit trolling attempts.
I have no sock puppet accounts. If I Had sockpuppets, my comments would have more upvotes and a lot more genocide supporters would have more downvotes. Only one comment I’ve ever made has been (unjustly in my opinion) removed as misinformation.
You’re just mad that I didn’t immediately shut up when you used “hilarious” as a rebuttal. Now you’re responding to my comments multiple times, spouting conspiracy nonsense, and going through my comment history to stalk me into other threads.
Look at that! Four upvotes within mere minutes on a completely dead end comment chain! You’re about as authentic as they get bud!
No amount of suck puppets will make the shit you say appear any less stupid.
Lol what? Are you just totally ignorant to corporate involvement in politics? Do you know what a lobbyist is?
Comparing Russian influence on a compromised asset to lobbyists is a bit of a reach bud. But you do you!
Wow, wow. Have you seen Erin Brokovich? Do you think corporations have your best interest at heart? Triangle shirtwaist factory? OSHA? Johnson&Johnson gave generations of babies cancer with their talc. Just look up tort reform and tort cases. Watch the documentary Hot Coffee. Watch the documentary The Bleeding Edge about medical devices. How about the Oakville Blob scandal that happened during Clinton’s administration? What about social media companies and tech companies and the products they produce? Lead in baby food and Dollar Tree foods. The Nestle baby formula scandal. Thalidomide babies. Glyphosate being a neurotoxin that’s permeated our water supply. What about environmental impacts of our companies and how those are genociding more people than actual active war? What about P Diddy and Epstein and all their connections to literal business owners who fund and come up with many policies? Or earth being past 6 of 9 planetary boundaries?
And think about how insurance companies lobbied to prevent Medicare for All policies and the best thing we could get was Obamacare. Or how price gouging has been shown to have happened with current inflation around fucking FOOD prices. Or how fucking taxes and tax breaks work for corporations compared to the rates in the 70s.
Notice how all these things harm the general public? The very people our representatives should represent? Yeah, Dems are shills and have blood on their hands.
They are literally killing us through abusive policies, inaction, medical neglect, starvation, climate change, and mismanagement. The Dems may be less fucked up than others, but they are absolutely fucked up.
Clinton was buddies with Epstein. They are NOT “for the people.” They are for the status quo.
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Yeah, have you seen one of the most famous cases about companies killing people and not having ypur best interests at heart? Erin Brokovich to this day does this work.
Or if you don’t like that point - there’s literally dozens of other examples of corporate shittery.
I’m going to guess you’re a massive sexist based on the comment you made though.
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Totally fine so long as it’s our rich people who control politicians, just so long as it’s not foreign rich people.
Nationalism is a hell of a drug.
AIPAC
Hilarious.
I don’t think supporting genocide is.
Yeah. No one does. So what’s hilarious is your baseless accusation that flies in the face of all things real and proven.
No! Come on, everyone! Third party candidates are what’s best for the country. We aren’t doing this to dilute the vote, we just want to have our voices heard. Sure, everything we are saying is being said by the main two parties, but we also smoke a lot of weed. So, come on, guys, just vote for the Green Party.
I vote Green.
Because I live in a country with an actual proportional representation system, so my vote for a minor party still allows the major party that I most closely align with to gain power
That has no barring on the Green Party this post is about. They are not the same just because they share a name.
I guess my point is less about the party specifically, are more that your country might not be collapsing quite so quickly if 49% of the population didn’t feel massively disenfranchised every 4 years, and if there were actually incentives for collaboration and compromise between different view points
Roughly half of the States in the US have a higher population than the entirety of New Zealand. That is a much larger population to deal with, and the politics don’t apply the same way. It isn’t linear, it’s logarithmic. The more people there are, the more exponentially difficult it is to manage. The Urban area of my city has about half of the Population of New Zealand, and my city has third party representation on the local level. Please, keep your condescension to yourself.
And I couldn’t be more happy for you.
Goddamn thats some hypocrisy
No, it’s sarcasm, and I was laying it on thick.
Oh just kidding, they hate proportional representation for some reason
Whoop di do, who gives a fuck?
Hear, hear!
She rejects the notion that her presence in the race could help Trump.
She can’t acknowledge that it’s possible this year? When it was known for a fact that it happened eight years ago?
I think everyone basically agrees - the key to getting those voices heard is to build the party from the bottom up, develop a grassroots and get folks elected at all levels of government who can help influence policy, starting local. Stein is the opposite of that.
Before Stein, the Green party had a marginal presence and was likely on the way out… I almost wonder, what if it actually did fall apart and die while Stein was in charge, but she kept the clothes?
If it hasn’t been posted there already, you should post this to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world!
Done. I looked for that community and missed it the other day. ¯\(ツ)/¯.
Putin’s party supports Putin’s hand pick spoiler candidate.
Wait so she is just using a consultancy firm that has previously worked with republicans? Is that the story here?
Sort of. She also has some Russian ties.
While I don’t think she is some kind of Soviet black ops plant, she’s secured funding many times by less savory means. That does mean the things she says and does require a little extra thought though.
I do wish it wasn’t part of the “assassinate the left, cozy towards center” mentality that democrats are embracing.
Yes as much as I don’t like Stein nor will I vote for her I feel the splurge of news on her is mediocre at best and very obviously being paid for.
She’s not done anything to warrant the scrutiny she literally hasn’t done ANYTHING at all. Why am I hearing about her so much?
Because the options to the Democrats was either do right by Muslim voters and take this genocide seriously, or attack anyone else they could vote for.
Weird how Republican interest is a 100% match to tankie talking points. So super weird and beyond explanation.
There is no way they’re the same folks, that would be insane 👌
Republicans staunchly oppose the Gaza genocide, demand universal health care, and want tight new regulations on carbon emissions nationally.
I know this because I listen to right-wing radio, where they are constantly saying these things and then platforming Jill Stein to repeat them.
Proof
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Removed, ableist slur.
Dont even remember what i said but hey power on kid
If you’d like to understand the electoral college better, I highly recommend reading Heather Cox Richardson’s blog post this week. She is a historian that reflects on current events through the lens of history:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-20-2024
Lol
Sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Wall Street Journal - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Wall Street Journal:
MBFC: Right-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/jill-stein-republican-support-harris-voters-5a194ebf
I knew the right wing would eventually go after Harris’ support for Israel’s genocide. It’s her most obvious weakness, she’s not Obama 2.0 like libs think, she’s a rerun of Hilary.
