United States | News & Politics

No. It's because if you're not voting for Harris (if you're voting for another candidate or abstaining from voting at all) you are supporting a Trump presidency.

That's how our elections work. No one likes it but these are the facts. I beg you, get your head out of your idealistic ass and vote for the only candidate who has the opportunity to prevent a Trump presidency.

be against funding and arming a genocide.

I implore you, if you at all believe in a free Palestine, you will take action to vote for Harris. Don't empower Trump to eradicate Palestine.

I was idealistic when I was young too. It's incredibly frustrating that government is so slow. But, from my perspective, it's due to so many people not using their voices that our representatives aren't representative of us. You have to work with the tools we have. You have to compromise and move slowly towards the things you want. It's the down-ballot elections that you need to focus on. You need to build up these "fringe" political parties from within the cities. You need to work with civic leaders to move towards ranked choice or star voting. You need to work towards eliminating corporate investment in elections. By taking a stand at the highest level of government, you are counter productive to your own interests.

A socialist party would be nice in u.s politics.

I feel like the real reason Democrats would be attacking her would be due to her happily accepting donations from Republican led sponsors, aiming to actively sway Democratic voters instead of specifically both, and the distance that she has from actual election given that she's not on the ballot in a number of states and is posing herself as the anti-war candidate despite saying that Russia invaded Ukraine because they needed to defend themselves from nukes. Odd how it's okay to be apologetic to Russia but not Israel. You must understand - as a third party they can claim to have a plan for world peace, but what members in Congress will sponsor those bills? Even if Jill Stein did become President, who is approving her policies?

All that aside -- she does very little in between election years. The Green Party as a whole has accomplished less of its supposed goals while having far more funding than the SRA. I would also expect that the leader of the Green Party practice what she preaches, as her and her husband have stock in just as many oil companies as the Democrats do. So quite honestly, it's hard to see her as anyone but a faux candidate who shows up to take money from Green Party voters, preventing actual change from happening with that money because it's going into a candidacy that will go nowhere.

If she cared, she would campaign for her donations to be given to something that would actually have meaningful effects, and she would push for more local candidates to run. The sad fact of the matter is that the Green Party has candidates who start out Green then move to a different party and are completely happy taking donations from Big Oil just like Kyrsten Sinema.

To call the Democrats a joke party when the tactics of the Green Party have been laughable is just one reason why they aren't taken seriously. Another would be this quote:

there are more open socialists in just the New York state legislature right now (8, all caucusing together, will be 9 next year) than have been elected total above the local level for the Green Party (5). even accounting for party switching, this expands to just 9 people in history.

We can also just look at the Public Office Holders for the Socialists and the Green Party.

In short -- The Green Party is the vote of choice because there is a Presidential candidate, but they offer nothing else through the four years. People are asking where the Democrats have been for them, what about the Green Party? Why are they all too happy to take money from you but do nothing in between for local activism? People are saying that the Democrats only provide lip service when they say things like supporting a two state solution, but lip service from the Green Party is totally fine? The Socialists or the DSA seem to at least aim for actionable goals, but is there no support for them because there's no Presidential candidate? We've also seen that they (Socialists) actually have a chance of being elected if they run on a democratic platform and push bills that we can be proud of, something that historically cannot be said for members of the Green Party.

I hope this provides some insight on why people, not just Democrats, don't feel like the Green Party is a worthwhile option.

Fearmongering is the imaginary fence which keeps all Democrats locked where they are.

Once the dam breaks and the Green party has a winning chance voters will flock to Greens in droves.

They are definitely trying to censor Jill to keep the Greens from reaching the critical mass needed to have a chance at winning.

They're attacking Jill Stein because she's running a campaign that will have absolutely no impact on the world except for enticing some number of would-be Harris voters to instead throw their votes away. If the Green Party were serious about change, they'd focus on races where they could actually win instead of actively causing harm to the party that is much more likely to actually do the things they say they want. Instead, they've basically outright stated that all they care about is hurting the Democrats. It's a terrible electoral system that needs to be fixed, but until it is, third parties are always going to present a false option that effectively does the opposite of what their voters actually want.

Bernie Sanders was that candidate. He supports the election of Harris because he recognizes that it is necessary.

This is an interesting perspective that I haven't thought of or considered.

Democrats aren’t attacking Jill Stein because they think she is taking votes from Kamala Harris.

This is an incredibly dumb take.

This election is about triage. If you want elections to not be triage, you need to fix the conditions that make it triage before the elections ever happen.

What triage means:

Lets say you see a massive car accident at an intersection that's known to be dangerous, and you have a medical kit in your car. (You have a medical kit in your car, right?) You have some basic trauma first aid experience. You have two tourniquets, two chest seals, a few packs of QuikClot z-fold gauze, and a combat bandage, along with EMS shears and a rescue hook. There are four people that have serious injuries. The first is conscious, has had both legs severed above the knees, and is blood is spurting from the severed limbs. The second is also conscious, and has a massive laceration on their left arm; a fractured bone is protruding from the laceration, and they are bleeding profusely. The third is not conscious; they have lost an arm and blood is spurting from the severed limb, have a penetrating chest wound, have a massive and profusely bleeding laceration on a leg, and significant head trauma. They are breathing in short, erratic breaths. The fourth person is conscious, and has a clearly broken lower leg with a laceration; they're holding on to the laceration, and blood is seeping out between their fingers.

What do you do? Who do you help, in what order?

The person with the severed legs gets the tourniquets; they will bleed to death in less than two minutes without them. The person with the compound fracture gets the z-fold gauze and the combat bandage; unless the brachial artery is severed, they don't need a tourniquet. You ignore the person with the head injury; you can't treat the head injury, and the erratic breathing is likely agonal breathing from the head trauma. Using a tourniquet on them means that you won't be able to use a tourniquet on the first person, which--in turn--means the first person dies from blood loss. Regardless of anything you do or don't do, the third person will likely die. The fourth person does not need immediate care; their blood loss is not significant enough to kill them before paramedics arrive.

Triage is recognizing that you can't help the third person--even though they will very likely die before paramedics arrive--and that the fourth person can wait until you've helped the first and second people.

The best you can do is help two people while a third dies. If you walk away, three people die. If you treat the person with the head wound, three people die. If you worry about the broken leg first, then three people die while you're trying to help the one person that didn't need emergency trauma care. Maybe you've been advocating for years to fix the intersection, while the city council has ignored you; that does nothing to address the immediate needs of the people in front of you.

This is where we are. There is no vote you can cast that is going to save everyone. No matter who you vote for, the genocide in Gaza isn't going to stop. Stein won't win, so she can't stop it. Trump will accelerate it. Harris appears to mostly take the side of Israel. But by focusing on that, you fail to act in a way that can prevent other harms.

Most people don't like how we've gotten to where we are now. But this is where we are, and railing against the system now doesn't do anything to help the people that need help.