Can someone explain to me who Stein is and why so many amerilards here voted for her?

Can someone explain to me who Stein is and why so many amerilards here voted for her?

She was the candidate for a fringe party that got more attention and ballot placement than any other who was at least kind of in line with leftism. Nothing to write home about, just the obvious choice for a protest vote.

Green Party candidate in the latest presidential election. Ran on a vaguely anti-capitalist platform. Had a higher profile and greater ballot access than any explicitly socialist party so she attracted a lot of protest votes.

Cleanse yourself of this propaganist term, this is literally use to attack the legitimacy of third parties.

You're laboring under a delusion if you think any third party had a chance of being anything but a protest vote in this election.

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A lot of people (myself included) were under the misguided delusion that the 2016 elections were the best opportunity most of us have ever seen to smash the two-party system–that is, gather enough votes for a progressive third party to obain matching federal funds in the next election and guarantee ballot access in loads of states. I personally worked very hard petitioning to get her on my own state's ballot lines, the first time a Green candidate has ever even been on this shitty state's ballot.

I wouldn't have done any of it if the Greens hadn't passed their anti-capitalist platform amendment at their summer national convention. Unfortunately it was very hard to get Stein to make explicitly socialist remarks during her campaign, even though I've heard her use the language before at Left Forum gatherings, and in fact she had a couple militant Leftists helping to run her campaign (no, not Dave Cobb). I like Stein but I hope the Greens get a better candidate for 2020.

Unfortunately, in the presence of the 2 most disliked candidates since they started opinion polling, Stein was only able to get 1% of the vote, even less than Ralph Nader's run in 2000. The lesson to be learned is that Duverger's Law is an incredible force and no meaningful multi-party system can exist until we move to an expressive enough voting system (which is not the instant runoff voting the Greens push for at a national level) and/or get proportional representation.

Stein was literally funded by Putin

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This one is hilarious, why have I not seen it til now?

Where do these clintonites keep coming from? Do they get here by mistake?

Stein's low % was because of the unpopularity of Trump and Clinton, not despite it. Clinton and especially Trump were media hogs. There was no hope for any smaller time person.

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really?

Jill Stein is the candidate we all wished the Democrats ran in 2012. She's a socdem at best, but a 'green new deal' is exactly the kind of schtick the USA could use (that is, until the falling rate of profit crashes the economy and erases all reforms). She would have made an amazing first female American president.

I appreciate your efforts. The turnout was still pretty good for a third party who barely got coverage compared to the two-party spectacle. Plus in a lot of states write-ins aren't counted so at least it gave an option to have a conscience vote and be counted.

It helped tbh. It helped get the Greens in more states which will be more appealing in 2020 when it's Trump v Hillary/Harris and Sanders doesn't go independent.

>because of the unpopularity of Trump and Clinton
because of the unpopularity of Trump and our dysfunctional plurality voting system that compels people to vote tactically. If we didn't have the latter, third parties could grow gradually and organically instead of desperately hoping for cataclysmic events to obliterate one of the two parties every now and then. Systems that encourage tactical voting are a scourge on any nominal democracy.

Sanders needs to retire and the insane cult of personality around him needs to get a fucking grip. I think 2016 was the right moment for his run, but 2020 is going to require a more Leftist candidate than him.

I agree with both of you, I was just making a more specific point.

It was, but Bernie didn't take Jill Stein up on the offer to be the Green candidate.

That was never within Stein's power to decide. Sanders would have had to ditch his shit tier foreign policy and go through the Green nomination process like everyone else.

Guess I'm Putin's Puppet

voted for her. Pretty insane smear campaign against her in 2016.

I like to use that picture of Jill to check people's digits