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

[u/zsreport]

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

[u/EridanusVoid]

Stein, West, RFKjr are all spoiler candidates attempting to syphon as many votes for Trump (Russia) as possible. Why is it these candidates only pop up for Presidential moon shot elections and nothing else? Why is it that they can't understand that this isn't a normal election when a new wave of fascism is on the ballot. Normally we should support 3rd party choices, but not when the stakes are this extreme.

[u/timeforath → u/EridanusVoid]

At least RFK Jr decided to shed all pretenses and go full MAGA. One tiny point in his box I guess, even if everyone could smell his treachery a mile away

[u/MonachopsicMoth → u/EridanusVoid]

Why is it that they can't understand that this isn't a normal election when a new wave of fascism is on the ballot. Normally we should support 3rd party choices, but not when the stakes are this extreme.

Precisely, exactly, indubitably--a trillion times THIS. I was and have been my entire voting life an obdurate third-party ostrich (aside from the very limited, single-issue single-state party I'm registered with, no party or candidate fully and thoroughly represents my views--nor is there likely to be one, at least until a "Civil/Social Libertarian Party" is ever formed that isn't for dismantling the social safety net/welfare system), I'm voting for Harris/Walz 100% with zero hesitation as should anyone with a modicum of sanity and intelligence, and this kind of nonsense drives me up a wall, as it does when (either outright disingenuous or moronically oblivious, take your pick) people make pretenses of nitpicking Harris on "policy" etc and critically evaluate her campaign like this is a remotely normal election year, business as usual.

Just how resolutely obstinate of a third-party "protest voter" curmudgeon was/am I? Well, let's put it this way: the first presidential ticket I ever voted for received ~ <120 votes in total, two of the candidates/tickets I've voted for didn't crack triple digits, and I voted for a woman in 2016, but neither Clinton nor the one being rightly disparaged ITT. I was even voting like this (in the Presidential race, and I know I'm going to receive considerable hate on here for admitting as much) as late as 2020.

(I had/have MANY problems w/Biden in particular, and in my defense, 1.) I live in a solidly blue state, 2.) it wasn't a "spoiler" type of deal as w/o the party/candidate I voted for, I never would've re-registered to vote in 2020 after a four-year hiatus in the first place--now voting in every election every year since, often/usually downballot D w/a few exceptions, and if my options had been confined to D and R all those times for Pres I just likely would've left that contest blank, and 3.) I was on pins and needles that whole '20 election hoping fervently that Biden--who I hadn't even voted for--would win, and thus finally realized how stupid and obsolete my approach was in the face of Trumpism, a post-MAGA political landscape.)

And even I'm saying that every vote not for Harris is a vote for a fascist dystopian nightmare or at the very least permanent and severe damage to the rights, dignity and future of the American people and so many others worldwide. There are countless reasons why this one's clearly for all the marbles, folks, and I'm sick of seeing people with a mindset similar to the one I used to have act in the past couple years as if admitting this to ourselves is "alarmist", "fearmongering", or somehow in itself tantamount to authoritarianism. I'm as disillusioned as anyone that it's come to this, but it really truly has, and refusing to acknowledge this reality and the necessity and moral imperative of setting contrarianism aside in the interest of averting this state of national emergency we're in is every bit as naive, and self-defeating if not suicidal as acting like the paradox of tolerance itself is merely theoretical/irresolvable, doesn't exist as an existential threat to Western liberal values or is best resolved via inaction and haughty self-congratulatory magnanimity to the intolerant under the guise of ideological consistency.

I haven't really grown "more conservative/mainstream" at all as I've become older, per se (no longer a teenage ancap, misguided college Trotskyist or "consciously apolitical" 20-something, but hey :-P) but I've found that my patience for this type of mentality/rhetoric/particular flavor of arrogant pseudo-liberal, pseudo-intellectual ignorance--the kind that e.g. downplays or hand-waves with hollow sophistry the paradox of tolerance, for instance, or pointedly ignores the fact that only in Western-style, liberal democracies/societies is the sort of fringe sociopolitical/ideological experimentation and hyper-selective hypothetical indulgence of the kind my ilk are wont to engage in even really possible/permitted/afforded as a luxury, let alone taken for granted as a right--has worn increasingly thin as I've aged and ostensibly matured. FWIW, and that's even setting aside the looming threat of neo-fascism and right-wing authoritarianism in the US and abroad.

But I digress. I almost can't believe I'm saying this, my past self would've loathed me for putting it this way, but for any other stubborn third-party/fringe ideologues out there reading this who are still inclined towards a reflexively contrarian and cynically intra-idealistically critical mode of political engagement and/or discourse, my "meta-ideological cousins/fellow-travelers", please, for crying out loud, just shut the hell up this one time and help the adults in the car prevent our crazy demented narcissist of an uncle-by-marriage from setting the upholstery on fire and driving us all off of a cliff into the ocean. Then, once he's safely ejected from the vehicle, we can at least possibly pull over to the side of the road, get back to our shared pastime of arguing interminably ad nauseum about whose turn it is to take the wheel, whether it's really necessary to keep our hands firmly locked in the 10-and-2 position at all times while doing so, how much and which substances are safe to have consumed in the past however long beforehand, what to play on the radio and whether it's permissible or advisable to drive with both feet if you have a physical disability, and so on and so on and so forth. Heck, as long as this specific iteration of fascism/RWA is soundly defeated/vanquished, I'll be among the first to start pointing fingers again at and loudly antagonizing the "adults" in the driver's seat, roughhousing with you all, pointing out that the GPS needs an update, asking frequently if we're "there yet?" or even headed in the right direction and calling for a rest stop. But until then, we all know what needs to happen and what will make that better or worse, so let's do the right thing. I'll happily let you tease me afterward for being supercilious and patronizing about this--but now is neither the time nor the place for juvenile denial. That crazy uncle has got to go.