Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made headlines for calling perennial Green Party presidential candidateĀ Jill Stein āpredatoryā and ānot serious.ā AOC is right.
Giving voters more choices is a good thing for democracy. But third-party politics isnāt performance art. Itās hard work ā which Stein is not doing. As AOC observed: ā[When] all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but youāre just showing up once every four years to do that, youāre not serious.ā
To be clear: AOC was not critiquing third parties as a whole, or the idea that we need more choices in our democracy. In fact, AOC specifically cited the Working Families Party as an example of an effective third party. The organization I lead, MoveOn, supports their 365-day-a-year efforts to build power for a pro-voter, multi-party system. And I understand third partiesā power to activate voters hungry for alternatives: I myself volunteered for Ralph Nader in 2000, and that experience helped shape my lifelong commitment to people-first politics.
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āDonāt bother asking for better policies!ā is a great slogan for the party lol.
Thatās not what I am saying though.
If we want to actually change the DNC for the better, that means voting in their primaries and especially at the local level with a heavy preference (not seeking perfection) for truly leftist candidates.
The DNC needs to be taken over. Nagging will never do anything.
Weāve been trying that for decades, buddy. Dissatisfaction with the dems is not āseeking perfectionā, ānaggingā, or any other patronizing mischaracterization you wish to paint it as.
If youāve been trying to take over the DNC for decades, how youāre doing that could use some work.
And your strategy of voting for them no matter what their policy is works very well, I suppose?
Whataboutism
Lmao