I have never heard of Jill Stein until just a few months ago when I saw some article about her on the Lemmy homepage. Then I saw more and more articles about her. However, I don’t really know why the media is paying so much attention to her. She is just a third party candidate, right? There are other third party candidates that aren’t constantly popping up in the news. So why Jill Stein? I hear its something to do with Russia and a general sense of her goal being to take votes away from Kamala.
There is a meme going around blaming Jill Stein for “spoiling” the 2016 race. I was developing an relatively simple analysis to show how and why its ridiculous to propose that Jill Stein “spoiled” the 2016 election. Specifically, in no race did the green party candidate get more votes than the libertarian candidate. A great example is the headline meme that was up about a day ago here: https://lemmy.world/post/21038666?scrollToComments=true
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/
So in Michigan, ~50k voters went to Stein. In that race, 170k went to Gary Johnson.
Pennsylvania, 48,912 to Stein, and for Gary Johnson, 142,653.
Wisconsin, 30,980 to Stein, and for Gary Johnson, 106,442.
So taking these three as an example, in none of these races, if you were to ‘remove’ the 3rd party candidates, would Hillary have won.
Likewise, the meme assumes that “all” of Green Party voters go to Hillary, and some how the Gary Johnson voters just evaporate.
It doesn’t really make sense at any level. Its part of a broader pattern of voter intimidation that seems to be mostly focused on defending a candidate that has been shown to be lacking, not at all different than what we saw in 2016. I didn’t bother finishing the analysis after a very brief look at the data, because it was so patently absurd to suggest that Jill Stein spoiled anything for anyone in 2016, when she literally did not beat Johnson in a single race.
So they were both spoilers.
Your argument is a false dichotomy.
Just because the Libertarians ran a spoiler candidate too does not magically make Jill Stein not a spoiler.
Those votes would not ever go to Clinton, therefore there is no spoiler effect. Green party voters would sit out the election than support forever war (Clinton’s foreign policy) or genocide (Harris’ foreign policy).
Not correct. I voted green in a very, very blue state in 2016, because Stein–at the time–seemed like the best candidate to vote for to register my opposition to Clinton and the conduct of the DNC. I suspect that there were a fairly large number of people like me in the state that I lived in at the time, although the state still handily went blue.
I mean the real comparison is just: did she get enough votes, in states that Clinton lost, where if those people had all voted for Clinton, then Clinton would have won that state. I don’t know the answer, but even if the numbers did cover the margin, I think saying Stein is therefore a spoiler is problematic for a few reasons:
- It ignores the very real number of voters who chose not to vote democratic or vote at all simply because of Clinton as candidate.
- it ignores massive mistakes made by a hubristic campaign that couldn’t fathom losing to trump.
- it supposes that people that voted green, would have gritted their teeth and instead voted Clinton, which is not a safe assumption.
Regarding OP’s argument: if Stein is a spoiler, than the libertarians are also spoilers. Since her being a spoiler assumes a majority of her votes would have gone democratic, we can take the same liberty and assume the libertarians would have instead opted for trump. If they had larger vote numbers than the Green Party got, as OP is saying above, then they cancel out greens spoiler-ness, and in fact represent a slight spoiler in favor of the democrats. I don’t really buy this read for the reasons I mentioned above, but OP’s point still kinda stands.
I’m not personally interested in voting for stein, I’ve heard enough weird stuff about her over the years that I’m not comfortable with her as a candidate. But I don’t buy the constant messaging that “third party votes are wasted votes”. My assumption with people that post these things is that they’re not suggesting it’s OK to not vote. And assumably, they also don’t want you to vote, but vote for the opposition. So it’s just the same old thing: vote the way I want you to.
Any unbiased “what if candidates had done things differently” evaluation must include the actions of all candidates that resulted in a Democrat loss. This means it should include how much Clinton herself screw her own chances, for example by comparing the votes she got on those states with the votes previous Democrat candidates got in those states.
(I strongly suspect that Clinton has a far larger proportion of the blame for her own defeat than all 3rd party candidates put together)
This focus on blaming everybody else but your own leaders is just the traditional tribalist mindset of “the chief is good, it’s everybody else whose a problem”. The decades long enshittification of the Democrat Party is mainly the product of its supporters acting as mindless tribalists rather the rationally, thus not holding their “chiefs” to same standards as they do everybody else.
Unsurprisingly we see the very same problem of the Democrat Leadership having carte blanche from the party fans to do just about everything and even damage their own electoral chances - with, as we see right here, the members of the tribe eagerly scapegoating it all as being the fault of 3rd party candidates - with their support for the Israeli Genocide.
Well said-I feel the same.
Your argument is a false dichotomy.
You should look up what a false dichotomy is. A false dichotomy is typically when someone presents two choices as the only possible options, ignoring other possibilities. My argument doesn’t do that. I’m arguing you have no-idea where Stein voters (or Johnson voters for that matter) would go if not for Stein. Also, you may not have noticed it, but you quite literally engage in false dichotomy in your response.
You are still making the assumption that voters only have two choices. No matter how much you’ve convinced yourself that’s the case; its not reality. Voters don’t have to vote. Voters can vote Republican or however they want. No candidate is owed a vote, however much Democrats want that to be a thing.
The entire rhetorical approach you are engaging in is why Kamala has been slipping in the polls, and its precisely why Hillary lost in 2016. If you want your proffered candidate to win, you actually have to convince people that they are worth voting for. And unlike Kamala, Trump is out there doing that. Stein is out there doing that. Chase Oliver is actually doing that (you don’t know who that is do you?), and guess what? Oliver is beating Stein in most swing states.
The claim that Stein is spoiling when they are polling at literally less than measurable numbers is so obviously idiotic, no one worth respecting would give it anything more than a cursory swipe.
Russian shill trying to siphon votes from Harris so that trump can get an undeserved win.
Jill Stein is a Green candidate which means she’s going to pull left leaning support away from Kamala Harris.
If she pulls away enough people in a handful of states, she could throw the election to Donald Trump.
2016 is a primary example:
Pennsylvania:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Pennsylvania
Trump - 2,970,733
Clinton - 2,926,441
Difference: 44,292
Stein? - 49,941Michigan:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Michigan
Trump - 2,279,543
Clinton - 2,268,839
Difference: 10,704
Stein? - 51,463Wisconsin:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election_in_Wisconsin
Trump - 1,405,284
Clinton - 1,382,536
Difference: 22,748
Stein? - 31,072If Clinton had won those three states, Trump would not have been President.
Stein is not the only factor, Clinton had other issues. She badmouthed coal miners which guaranteed a loss in PA and utterly failed to campaign in MI and WI which was not helpful.
But the Clinton fans who can’t accept how deeply, deeply flawed Clinton was as a candidate want to blame Stein…
And Putin. There are issues with Stein getting support from both Republicans and Russia, anything to hurt Democratic candidates.
Nader, bush, gore
But the Clinton fans who can’t accept how deeply, deeply flawed Clinton was as a candidate want to blame Stein…
Clinton was the worst possible choice. Before seeing the damage that Trump would do, thinking he would be mostly harmless, she made me stay home. I’m voting against that monster just like I did in 2020. The man is a menace.
Why do your figures show a question mark after stein?
The question being “What did Stein get?”
The Russia thing goes beyond the dinner. She had attempted to (maybe actually has?) meet with him privately. She’s has also vacillated on Ukraine.
She’s had weird stances on vaccines, food, and even energy. It’s my understanding she’s privately invested in fossil fuels.
“Vacillated” is a very interesting way of saying that she’s refused to straight-out say that Putin is guilty of war crimes for invading Ukraine and pursuing a war of aggression. Every time she’s been asked about it in interviews, she’s used weasel-words to avoid coming right out and saying it, while implying that she has said it. OTOH, she will absolutely say that Israel has (and is) committing war crimes in Gaza, and is pursuing genocide.
didn’t trump do something similar during the debate too?
He’s been talking up his good buddy Putin since his first election.
Honestly? No idea. Didn’t watch the debate, because the kind of thing that would make me vote for Trump isn’t going to come out in a debate. Would it surprise me, given that Trump is so eager to slob the knob of any authoritarian, like Orban, Putin, or Erdoğan? Not even slightly. Stein at least–and this shows just how goddamn low this bar is–doesn’t praise authoritarian leaders.
Nah she does this weird thing where she says Putin is a war criminal but in the next sentence she’ll say NATO made him do it.
Here are some of the common complaints about Jill Stein:
As the Green Party candidate she will pull in more third party votes than most (if not all) of the other parties. While those views are usually trivial in number in the grand scheme of things, they can have a big impact in let seeing states.
She has not gone out of her way to criticize Trump, and has instead treated both Trump and Harris as being equally bad, even though Trump is arguably much more anti-environmental than Harris.
This isn’t her first time coming in as what’s seen as a Democrat vote-spoiler candidate.
From the perspective of some, she pops up every four years to try to take votes off the Democrat candidate and then seemingly disappears for another four years.
She has a bit of a cult of personality thing going on - arguably moreso than either Harris or Biden.
She’s in her mid-70s, and so no spring chicken. This has become more of a concern this cycle because a) she’s for years older than she was in 2020 (obviously), b) age has become more of a point of concern given how both Biden and Trump have apparently seen marked cognitive decline at less than 10 years her seniors.
There’s some evidence to suggest she is cozy with Putin, who is clearly does not have America’s best interests in mind. For example, she was photographed at a fancy dinner sitting at the same table as him and several of his ‘crew’ (among others). The common excuse for this is “she didn’t choose her seating!” But equally there’s no reason she couldn’t have got up and moved or left the event.
Photo of the dinner in question, with labels:
I’m sure there are other points I’m missing. But those are the ones that spring to mind.
She has not gone out of her way to criticize Trump, and has instead treated both Trump and Harris as being equally bad…
I’m sold.
Found ð white kid.
That’s pretty nuch it. Every election cycle has 3rd party candidates. This time it’s gotten more attention in the media because there’s a good chunk of people, mainly Arabs, who are refusing to vote Democrat as “fuck you” to Harris and her support of Israel.
If Trump wins, the Palestinians will get even more fucked. That’ll teach Harris.
They’re already getting fucked.
Yes we are, but ðere’s such a þing as degrees, and we’re talking a potential shift in degrees here ðat is comparable to ð detonation of a fucking nuke.
If you þink ð solution to Harris being soft on Israel is to let ð guy who handed Bibi west bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights back into office, you are eiðer a knowing zionist agent, or an unknowing one, eiðer way, you need to SÐFU.
One look at my comment history would show you just how incorrect you are about me. I’m not misinforming anyone. There is a big “Abondan Harris” campaign by the Arab-American population because of what’s happening. And it’s only gotten stronger over the past 12 months because of their continued support of Israel.
There is no “more fucked” than genocide. You literally cannot orange man bad this one. Take responsibility and at least admit full unadulterated support for genocide isn’t a deal breaker for you at the very least.
They could speed up the genocide. There are a lot more people left to kill. There is definitely a more fucked.
The support for Israel from Harris is not unconditional either. I assume that’s the word you meant to use.
Unconditional and unadulterated is the explicit support Harris has pledged. Harris has stated repeatedly Israel has no red lines that would cost it full support from the US. Biden went around Congress twice to arm Israel, Harris has stated explicitly her policy is not different from Biden’s.
As to your first point that does not exist, that does not matter. The US just put US troops in Israel to deter anyone from stepping in to stop the genocide. It’s happening no matter what. Fast or slow doesn’t matter WHEN NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO STOP IT AT ANY POINT.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I voted for Jill Stein in 2016.
In my defense, I didn’t think Trump had a chance, and I definitely didn’t expect him to be as terrible as he eventually proved. I was feeling salty about the DNC not giving Bernie a fair chance in the primaries (how and why, I don’t remember) and Hilary just felt like she was constantly condescending and not even trying to earn the presidency. It felt like someone decided it was her turn and they’d just slide her into her rightful throne.
My vote for the green party was official record that they hadn’t earned my vote, even though I would never vote for Trump.
I’m sure my one single vote wouldn’t have changed anything, but I bet there are plenty of others that felt the and did the same, and still regret it.
I did similar, I’m ashamed to admit, except slightly worse - I actually just didn’t vote at all, thinking I was really making my dissatisfaction clear that way. What a dumbass I was, and for the same reasons you described. And while a lot of that was undeniably true and a problem, I also now feel fairly sure the “don’t vote / vote 3rd party” push was an op, and I fell for it like a dope.
I’ve voted in every election I’ve been eligible for before and since 2016, and I will never allow myself to drop the ball like that again. Fuck the DNC but we gotta fight like hell to keep things from getting even worse and they’re all we’ve fuckin got at the moment.
Don’t feel guilty it depends on where you lived. I voted green party I believe but I live in Delaware and that won’t affect the race outcome at all
I did the math after someone else said the same thing.
Green votes handed Pennsylvania to Trump.
I voted for Stein too. OTOH, I was in a solidly blue state where there was no real chance that Clinton wouldn’t win. And TBH, I’d voted for Clinton in the primaries in 2008, because I wasn’t sure if that Obama guy had the experience necessary to be president, since he was a one-term senator. But by 2016, and given the way the primaries ran and Sanders got sandbagged by the DNC, I was done with Clinton.
I solidly blame Clinton and Wasserman Schultz for the 2016 debacle. If Clinton had campaigned hard in PA, MI, and WI, and if Wasserman Schultz hadn’t made tipped the scale for Clinton in the first place with the entitlement bullshit, then none of this would have happened.
I’m sure my one single vote wouldn’t have changed anything, but I bet there are plenty of others that felt the and did the same, and still regret it.
Depends on what state you were in for that election, and how many other people voted for Stein alongside you.
Oh fuck.
Trump won PA by half a percent.
Stein got .8% of the votes.
Stein, the DNC, and 50 thousand people just like me, literally handed him the presidency.
I’m SO sorry, everybody.
Unfortunately, with FPTP and the electoral college, voting for a third party candidate for president is voting in favor of the major party candidate who you like the least.
This isn’t fair, it’s fact. It should be different, but it isn’t. NPVIC and/or RCV are the way out, and voting third party in this election makes those farther away, or wholly unreachable.
You can make up for it by convincing all your friends to vote in this election. Help them make a plan, check voter registration, and look up where/how to vote
You didn’t hand Trump the presidency. The Dems did by not trying to gain your vote.
Never blame yourself for the flaws of representative “democracy”.
Please, it can be two people’s fault. It’s Clinton’s fault and it’s ALSO that guy’s fault
But only one of those people gets a book deal.
Who cares?
No.
Yep, I wish more people would get this.
If “ð other choice is fascism” isn’t enough, ðen you’re eiðer a fascist yourself, or damn close enough for ð sake of ð people who actually have to live wið ð consequences of your privileged decision making.
Some people don’t have ð luxury of being able to karen at ð two party system and demand to see democracy’s manager to choose to not let fascists get into office so ðat ð not fascists “learn ðeir lesson”
Go to tell that to the decades of victims from the status quo.
You’re the privileged one if you want to keep this shit.
I love þat you’re trying to bring ðe þ and ð (back) into English.
Yep. Also, Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos
Cool. Well, Shill Stein will be giving Trump the presidency by not trying to gain my vote.
See? I’m entitled too!
She didn’t earn my vote by jumping perfectly through my every hoop! So I refuse to vote for her. She didn’t earn it.
No one is asking for perfect.
I’m still salty about Bernie being sandbagged. Not a big fan of how Kamala was shoved in either, but she’s impressing me more than I expected, I just hope it’s enough.
Yeah that was really some trash and made me furious. The one guy just directly stating all the ways we need to help the working class and also saying basically fuck the rich, with the career-long credentials to back it up, and instead we got force-fed Hillary. She was so unlikeable and entitled, it set the Dems (and shit, maybe even women in leadership as a whole) back by like 10 years. Cuz she acted like a shitty stereotype about women that fed right into the misogynists. Such a colossal fuck up, and that really is putting it mildly. I deleted a whole screed of even more forceful complaining, lol.
Since she’s the VP, it doesn’t feel dirty. Joe stepped down, she steps up, that’s what we hired her to do.
I just hope it’s enough.
She solely exists so Trump supporters can try to steal votes from Kamala by pretending to be progressive. The US uses an undemocratic FPTP voting system, which means that there can only be two viable candidates at any given time.
She certainly captures more liberals and lefties and Trump supporters. That’s why Dems hate her so much
Funnily enough in 2016 I looked into her platform after Bernie was pushed out. And honestly I agreed with just about everything she was running on, except for one thing. She was pushing anti vax stuff and it was enough for me not to vote for her. I feel that strongly about vaccines and public health concerns.
Her intentions is not to be a spoiler, she’s not, she’s filled all the legal requirements to run for office of president and is allowed to be on the ballot. She is just getting a lot of attention in this current race because the margin is razor thin between the two main line candidates and that has people nervous Kamala could lose like Hillary did in 2016.
Personally as an independent voter that feels continually ignored by the by the right and left, third parties can be an attractive choice for some. Honestly, if the left or right want to court my vote they could produce better candidates. Let me say Kamala is a great choice, my issue is how she got there. I feel if Biden had decided to not run for reelection before election campaigning started and allowed other democrats to throw their hat in the ring it would have the appearance of a properly run election cycle for democrats. As for republicans they need to drop trump and his brand of mean spirited politics and have an honest return to the middle right vs where they are now at the far right. Anyways those are my thoughts on Jill Stein, third parties and the left and right. I already did early voting so my choice is done, if you care at all about the direction this country is going or needs to go, GO FUCKING VOTE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO VOTE!
I had that all written and had one last thought. Now I do actually think Stein could spoil NC, she is on the ballot and the person most likely to win the governor in NC also has the last name Stein. A conversation I actually had while standing in line with an aging neighbor, she has a tough time getting around and asked if I’d take her early voting when I was going absolutely not a problem. But in line looking over a sample ballot I had to explain to her that Jill Stein and Josh Stein are not related in any way. So the fact there are two Stein’s on the ballot might make it confusing for some voters. Ok enough out of me, go vote.
as an independent voter that feels continually ignored by the by the right and left
A party in the U.S. of any relevance that could be described as “left-wing” would be news to me.
You’ve got a corrupt conservative party and an extremely corrupt "pro"gressive(regressive?) anti-democratic party.
third parties can be an attractive choice for some
Third parties are never an attractive choice for anyone in a first-past-the-post voting systems with two extremely dominant parties, regardless of what any of those parties stand for. The only sensible choice is the (in your opinion) least bad option that still has a realistic chance of winning.
