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."

  • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
    7·
    10 months ago

    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.

    Simple as that.

    • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
      5·
      10 months ago

      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…

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        3·
        10 months ago

        The communist party of the United States has consistently refused to run candidates for major offices very specifically to avoid spoiling the vote.

          • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
            01·
            10 months ago

            I am a leftist and I celebrate everyone’s right to vote how they please. If people would like to hear my reasons for voting for Kamala, or my concerns about third party spoiling, I can tell them. But a person’s right to vote is more important to me than how they vote. That’s what democracy and being for the people is about. Use your rights, I support that. We all deserve to use our rights.

            • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
              11·
              10 months ago

              I’m not sure you could be more milquetoast if you tried. Sure, it’s important that everyone has the right to vote. It is equally as important that everyone understand that unless they vote one of two ways, their vote is essentially going to waste at best, and going against their best interests at worse. A vote for a third party candidate is a vote cast against your closest aligned Democrat or Republican candidate. A vote not cast for them is cast against them. That’s just the way the system works. It sucks. I hate it. I want to change it, but wishful thinking isn’t fixing the problem, and until its fixed, voting third party is a net loss for the voter. That’s the shitty reality of it. People that tell you to vote third party are either idiots, or malicious, and no one should be listening to either of those groups when it comes to voting for the future of the country. Work on changing the system first, then cast the vote you want to cast.

              • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
                01·
                10 months ago

                It’s not “equally important.” No, the right to vote is more important. Period.

                Sure, your perspective and how you and many others view this election, is that it’s important to vote for either Kamala or Trump. But that’s your perspective. Totally fine to discuss but it doesn’t supercede the literal civil right to vote. Or to run for office.

                Today and yesterday, I’ve seen people advocate for removing the right to vote and run for office here on Lemmy. I’ve seen people use the word “disenfranchised” wrong. Our civil rights are actively in jeopardy - see: abortion access. People being confused on how important voting rights are and what that means is BAD. I have seen a LOT of fascist rhetoric lately. It is NOT leftwing or radical or progressive to be fascist and deny people their vote just because you dislike it. It is NOT leftwing or radical or progressive to deny people the right to run for office because it makes another party’s job harder. That is actually literally fascism. What the fuck.

                And again, I’m voting for Kamala. I generally agree with your reasoning. I do not agree with the messaging or the idea that people should be forced into thinking and voting like me.

      • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        It’s a thread about the Green Party, those trolls don’t bother coming here. The third party enthusiasts only show up for the Harris threads.

        …speaking of good faith.

    • pooperNickel@lemm.ee
      2·
      10 months ago

      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

    • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      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.

  • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    I think Ralph Nader killed it when he helped get us Bush and the war criminals.

    Jill just figured out the Putin would pay to reanimate its corpse.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldOPM
      1·
      10 months ago

      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.

  • Chapelgentry@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    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!

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldOPM
      2·
      10 months ago

      Hey, at their peak, when Nader was running in 2000 and Bush was installed as President by the Supreme Court, the Greens got 2.7% of the vote!

      The best they’ve done since then is Stein in 2016 with 1.07%.

      Generally, they’re 0.1%, 0.3%. In that range.

      • ansiz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        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.

    • ravhall@discuss.online
      2·
      10 months ago

      Because they are not trying to get her elected, they are trying to destroy the west by getting trump elected.

    • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
      1·
      10 months ago

      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.

    • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
      1·
      10 months ago

      (319,000 / 293,000,000) * 100 = ~0.11%

      Not 0.001%. Unless you were just overexaggerating their insignificance on purpose. However that’s then potentially 319k less voters for the Dems.

  • LousyCornMuffins@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      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.

    • BaumGeist@lemmy.ml
      11·
      10 months ago

      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.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    1·
    10 months ago

    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.

  • Thrillhouse@lemmy.world
    1·
    10 months ago

    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.

  • blazera@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    Can you imagine if you campaigned against trump half as much as you campaign against progressive parties?

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
      3·
      10 months ago

      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.

        • Rhaedas@fedia.io
          2·
          10 months ago

          That’s a long list of progressive ideas. Too bad she can’t possibly win in a two party system. I like the assumption that if she did get the office all that would immediately take effect. That’s not how it works. Unfortunate for many of the ideas she lists, but also as a protective measure in case people like Trump get in and sweep what’s left away to put in place a dictatorship. Like he’s promised to do.

          So putting away the policy comparisons and party names, and just looking at the math. Can a third party win in an established two party system in a FPTP election? The answer is a simple no. I’d love to see a ranking system in place to allow diversity of opinions have a chance in elections, and there’s a bill right now to do that nationally, by Democrats because they’re the ones that would do well in such a system. Let’s fix the real problem and stop this decades-long third party dream to do the impossible.

          And until there’s a grassroots movement and support at the local levels, the Green Party is always going to look like and be the spoiler party, no matter how many nice ideas they have bullet points for.

          Here’s a question for you: How many of those Green policies are similar to Harris policies? I saw a few, I just wonder if you realize that you could get some of that stuff done easily with Democrats in all three seats of power. Which we have a chance to do.

  • SeattleRain@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    10 months ago

    She’s going to spoil the election for Harris libs! There’s nothing you can do about it, except stop your genocide is Gaza.

    • Soup@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      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!

      You’ve got a career in comedy ahead of you!

  • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
    11·
    10 months ago

    If there’s such a fear of third parties cleaving off votes from the Democrats, why have they never tried to mobilize similar forces on the right?

    We had the Libertarians right there, before they imploded.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        10 months ago

        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.

  • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
    01·
    10 months ago

    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

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
        01·
        10 months ago

        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.

  • orcrist@lemm.ee
    01·
    10 months ago

    What a bad article. Too small to matter, but big enough to matter. Come on now, get your story straight.

  • BaumGeist@lemmy.ml
    02·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      1·
      10 months ago

      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.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
      01·
      10 months ago

      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.

        • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          10 months ago

          Still then prevalence of that perspective is a bit jarring.

          Sort of like, “we can do freedom to vote next election, promise!”