Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made headlines for calling perennial Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein “predatory” and “not serious.” AOC is right.

Giving voters more choices is a good thing for democracy. But third-party politics isn’t performance art. It’s hard work — which Stein is not doing. As AOC observed: “[When] all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious.”

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 parties’ 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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41 points

A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals

Math. You’re disagreeing with math. Or are completely unaware of how FPTP voting works (I know this isn’t the case).

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-52 points
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Math has nothing to do with the fact that we are not Democrats, so we would not vote for a Democrat. That’s like trying to say math is the reason you won’t vote Republican

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33 points

I’m not making any distinction between non votes and 3rd party votes. From a purely electoral perspective a Stein voter is the same as someone who doesn’t show up. This is why people are rightfully frustrated with them. It’s a pretty simple concept and the only response is usually “not uh!”.

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-36 points

People are upset with 3rd party voters because they won’t fall in line and do what the DNC wants them to do. The DNC feels entitled to every vote not cast for a Republican. If they want our vote they need to earn it, and they never have.

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21 points

You don’t have to have be a democrat to vote against fascists.

I’m not a democrat, but I plan to use my vote strategically, since fascists have a propensity toward murdering their ideological opponents. You can call the DNC fascist all you want, many do, but I’m less inclined to believe that they’ll try to murder leftists vs the US right wing.

Your ideological purity will not save you from a fascist’s bullet.

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-16 points

You’re talking as if the Democrat Ratchet effect is not able to fascism. In case there’s any question, yes, it does

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10 points

Math literally has everything to do with it. There are entire branches of mathematics dedicated to figuring out ideal voting systems.

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