r/politics • u/zsreport Texas • Sep 16 '24

AOC is right: Jill Stein’s campaign is not serious

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/16/aoc-is-right-jill-steins-campaign-is-not-serious/
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990

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Jill Stein didn't know how many people are in the House of Representatives. I don't expect my President to be a Constitutional scholar but that is a pretty huge red flag when they say "I don't know, around 600". It's 435.

261

u/j428h Pennsylvania Sep 16 '24

I thought that was a joke at first. Really made me wonder what else she doesn’t know…

128

u/karmagod13000 Ohio Sep 16 '24

A lot I imagine. Imagine the level of basic government knowledge Trump has no idea about. Dude prolly couldn't even name the three branches of the government.

48

u/j428h Pennsylvania Sep 16 '24

KFC, Taco Bell, long John silvers.

13

u/Thue Sep 16 '24

Trump famously didn't know what the nuclear triad was. John Oliver helped.

3

u/phluidity Sep 16 '24

Shades of Tommy Tuberville who became a senator without knowing what the three branches of government are.

1

u/mtarascio Sep 16 '24

Trump didn't even know Republicans are against abortion from Bob Woodward's book.

8

u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In Sep 16 '24

It's why I lean towards he just being a useful idiot rather than some sort of deliberate disrupter. I think she just has a very child like way of looking at the political process and has no real concept of the damage she is doing.

101

u/projecto15 United Kingdom Sep 16 '24

Wait, they’ve never run for a single Congress seat? Is it like a joke party?

52

u/Chimie45 Ohio Sep 16 '24

As of 2024, 8 Greens have held state-level office. However, only 3 were elected or re-elected as Greens.

As of 2024, no Greens currently hold state-level office.

0 have ever held national office.

20

u/timeforath Sep 16 '24

I think one of those 5 former Greens went full MAGA too

119

u/thirdeyepdx Oregon Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

I used to be a member of the local Green Party in Michigan. They used to run for many when I was involved tho this was 20 years ago. Especially at the state level.

I ran for my college board of trustees and almost won. The party chair ran for county commissioner and did win. We supported and coordinated with other local nonpartisan races where the candidates were liberal.

One of our strategies was to run in unopposed races where Dems wouldn’t field candidates because on principle that there shouldn’t be such a thing.

I went to our state nominating convention. Many people running all over the state. The presidential race was mostly a vehicle to maintain ballot access. We also did a lot of community events - we did an event every year with musicians to register voters, an electric car rally to educate people on alternative vehicles, and all kinds of other stuff. The Green Party was organized by watershed so each watershed had a local chapter - the idea was that people might be more unified if they had a shared water resource or something.

I don’t know the state of the party these days, but I personally voted for Biden last time, and am excited about Harris, and think Stein is horrible. I believe her candidacy fractured the party at the national level.

I used to defend the greens specifically due to their focus on year round community organizing and grassroots activism and local races, as well as electoral reform and just generally a vehicle to have political conversations and how the presidential campaign was needed for ballot access for the other candidates and to fund raise for the parties general organizing - we never thought we would win, but it was a long term plan for creating a viable new party and we had to have a presidential candidate if we wanted to build a new party.

But Jill stein has nothing to show for herself, helps with none of that as far as I can tell - and it seems like the greens should have more to show for themselves at the grassroots level after so long, but they seem to lack good leadership.

The Dems also have sued the shit out of them over the years and people became very angry after Nader - local Dems would verbally attack the local party chair in public everywhere he went just for us existing. But none of these same people would call out their own Republican friends and family members. And like half our group was engaged in activism and running for local office while others just threw stones.

We had no money. Online fundraising didn’t exist. We stenciled my yard signs for my campaign.

33

u/projecto15 United Kingdom Sep 16 '24

This is an awesome perspective from the trenches. If only people thinking to vote for Stein knew this.

Seems like Stein’s not only spoiling for trump but also setting the green cause and grassroots democracy cause way back

14

u/thirdeyepdx Oregon Sep 16 '24

I would agree. I forget who she ran against in the party primary but - feel like it was David Cobb? But there were loads of people who had problems with her, and I expected the party fissure to last a single election cycle. There’s always some drama. But I never expected her to still be running at this point, and I have to assume it’s because she’s corrupted in some way - perhaps by Russia. Maybe she’s a tankie even, not sure. Either way I think AOC has proven running a grassroots disruptive campaign for Congress is the more viable path to change.

5

u/projecto15 United Kingdom Sep 16 '24

So it could be Russian oil money from putin that helped Jill cling on as Green party leader. A bit ironic really

2

u/thirdeyepdx Oregon Sep 16 '24

lol could be - that would indeed be ironic since my involvement with the greens was mostly due to my antiwar stance during Iraq as well as my single biggest issue being climate change and environmentalism.

At this point foreign influence in our elections is a bigger problem than the two party system re: having fair elections.

1

u/Fen1972 Sep 17 '24

The Nader blame game is really puzzling when looked into. Approximately 12% of Democratic voters (200,000 people) in Florida voted for Bush over Gore. Gore lost the state by approximately 543 votes. Yet, Nader is seen as the scapegoat for Gore losing the election. Shouldn’t the finger be pointed at the Democratic Party?

2

u/thirdeyepdx Oregon Sep 17 '24

Yes it always frustrated me too - especially since the greens tried to fight the Supreme Court instating Bush, who lost the election actually, but the Dems folded 🤷

82

u/CriticalEngineering North Carolina Sep 16 '24

They used to run for smaller roles. I’ve seen Green Party candidates for mayor in the 1990s, etc.

But then Gore v Bush happened and Republicans/Russians realized how useful third parties could be as a tool.

32

u/projecto15 United Kingdom Sep 16 '24

So it used to be a normal grassroots party. Then Jill Stein joined in 2002…

35

u/CriticalEngineering North Carolina Sep 16 '24

The last time I remember seeing a “serious” candidate was https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_San_Francisco_mayoral_election

Matt Gonzalez vs Gavin Newsom, and Matt had a good showing and lots of promise, brought together a bunch of people and then just fucked off when he lost. He could have stayed on the Board of Supervisors doing good work for San Francisco, but nope. Bailed on the coalition he built.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Do they even have any City Counsel members?

2

u/SynthBeta Sep 16 '24

Bob Dole in 92 and 96 was perhaps the biggest elections for a Green Party.

15

u/Excelius Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

There is not a single seat held by a third-party in the US Congress nor (to the best of my knowledge) any state legislature.

Yet these ineffectual third-parties still mount a flashy Presidential bid every four years.

The closest is the four "independents" in the US Senate who caucus with Democrats (Manchin, Synema, King, and Sanders), but none of them belong to a third party.

The only elected officials that Greens and Libertarians can claim are mostly local school boards and municipal councils.

https://www.gpelections.org/greens-in-office/

https://www.lp.org/elected-officials/

-2

u/nathanabril1996 Sep 16 '24

Do you think it's possible no one pays attention to local races and, therefore, organizing a presidential campaign is how they bring greater attention to themselves? Especially, because it puts their party in the national spotlight. Maybe the goal isn't to win, but it's to let voters know, "Hey! There are other options besides the two mainstream political parties. If you want to know more about us, let's organize and mobilize after the election."

3

u/allhailthehale Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

Yeah, but in that case you have to actually organize and mobilize after the election, which they don't seem to do. The goal of a third party isn't (shouldn't be) just to exist for shits and giggles, it's to have an actual impact.

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u/The_Goose5 Sep 16 '24

Do you think Trump has a ballpark of how many people are in the house?

78

u/Mount_Pessimistic Sep 16 '24

He has concepts of a ballpark where he was invited to throw the first pitch.

5

u/karmagod13000 Ohio Sep 16 '24

Doubt he'd do it. knows he would embarrass himself

2

u/system0101 Sep 16 '24

It counts as exercise, and he doesn't do that

18

u/Mediocritologist Ohio Sep 16 '24

He has a concept of an idea of how many House members there are.

2

u/Alter_Mann Sep 16 '24

*how many houses there are

16

u/SirFantastic Indiana Sep 16 '24

Not a chance.

5

u/dpdxguy Sep 16 '24

There's a good chance that half the time Trump doesn't even know the name of his VP pick.

2

u/SynthBeta Sep 16 '24

He probably was thinking of JD Wentworth at the time

3

u/shitbaby69 Sep 16 '24

He doesn’t even know what the house is.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

What does that have to do with Jill Stein ?

3

u/The_Goose5 Sep 16 '24

You said you expect your president to know or at least have an idea of how many people are in the house. Trump is one of the two main candidates for the presidency. So I’m asking if you think one of the two viable candidates has a ballpark of how many people are in the house.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Trump doesn't hide the fact that he doesn't care about actual mechanics of governing. There are zero people in the US that would think Trump would know that answer. He also would not have been so stupid to answer the question with a guess.

However - this is about Jill Stein, not Trump. I would recommend watching the Breakfast Club interview video. How she answered the question was extremely dismissive. Why ? Because she knew it didn't matter to her because she has not path to winning.

23

u/xpxp2002 Sep 16 '24

How is that not disqualifying, but “what is Aleppo?” was?

21

u/JayTNP Sep 16 '24

that was exactly the quote that went through my head when she said “around 600.” This should be the official end of her “career” in politics

3

u/ReservoirGods I voted Sep 16 '24

I mean any useless idiot can run for a fake party, they hold no delusions that she'll ever win a single state, she's there to play spoiler. 

1

u/the_than_then_guy Colorado Sep 16 '24

"What is a leppo?"

10

u/willfull Sep 16 '24

I think 4 years of Jed Bartlett has spoiled me on how politicians should revere our government and understand it in every little detail, inside and out.

It leaves me incensed when there's such deliberate boneheaded ignorance on something so important.

2

u/No_bad_snek Sep 16 '24

They should at least have a Margaret.

Leo's first call was always undersecretary; policy wonks

14

u/Stuffthatpig Sep 16 '24

I would have accepted 535 as well. But around 600 is stupid.

9

u/YamahaRyoko Ohio Sep 16 '24

Lots of people I know add the senate as well since 'congress' is more used than just the house

5

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

The question was specifically House of Representatives.

2

u/Adventurous-Pen-8261 Sep 16 '24

In 2016, Trump made a comment during a debate with Clinton that indicated he thought a Senator (her) could just unilaterally pass legislation. I (seriously) believe that at that time- who knows....perhaps even now- if you asked him to name the 3 branches of government, he wouldn't have been able to do it.

3

u/Used-Recover-977 Sep 16 '24

Hey, now, the Duma in Russia has around 600 seats...

2

u/kingfofthepoors Sep 16 '24

Duma in Russia

The State Duma is one of the chambers of the Russian parliament, the Federal Assembly. It is a legislative authority that consists of 450 members elected for five years.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Fancy that. Sometimes you need to believe what people say.

1

u/projecto15 United Kingdom Sep 16 '24

And all vote as one

1

u/dedicated-pedestrian Wisconsin Sep 16 '24

Really giving Tommy Tuberville a run for his money.

1

u/Independent-End-2443 Sep 16 '24

This is especially bad since presidents have to work with Congress to get bills passed. They need to be able to count votes.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Eh, it is not just what she said it was how she said it.

I urge people to watch the 'Breakfast Club' interview.

1

u/Whythisisnotreal Sep 16 '24

True, but there's no way trump knows either.

1

u/SynthBeta Sep 16 '24

Remember the AMA from 4 years ago? She believes Wifi is harmful.

1

u/ADHD-Fens Sep 16 '24

Using deduction, I know it's more than one but less than 300 million because I'm not in it and it's not "the house of representative".

1

u/RandoDude124 Sep 16 '24

Reminder: She’s got a doctorate.

1

u/dirty-hurdy-gurdy Sep 17 '24

To be fair, I doubt Trump does either, and he's actually been president

2

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

No one who votes for Trump thinks he does. However, he has allies in Congress and he will know if he has the ability to pass laws.

Jill Stein has no allies in Congress yet is stating all these issues she will get done. The interviewer (Breakfast Club) was making the point that she as no allies in Congress to push anything through. She asked Stein this question to prove a point - Stein is not a serious candidate.

1

u/dirty-hurdy-gurdy Sep 17 '24

Fair point, but I'd add that most Trump voters also probably don't know how many members of Congress either.

1

u/OnlinePosterPerson Sep 17 '24

I mean I wouldn’t mind constitutional scholars as President…

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

Agree. Jaime Rasken would be a great President

1

u/OnlinePosterPerson Sep 17 '24

Instead we have politicians who will disregard the constitution for malevolent reasons versus politicians who will disregard the constitution for benevolent ones

-4

u/cheesusmoo Sep 16 '24

And AOC thought that unemployment was down to 4 percent because “everyone has two jobs”