I have never heard of Jill Stein until just a few months ago when I saw some article about her on the Lemmy homepage. Then I saw more and more articles about her. However, I don’t really know why the media is paying so much attention to her. She is just a third party candidate, right? There are other third party candidates that aren’t constantly popping up in the news. So why Jill Stein? I hear its something to do with Russia and a general sense of her goal being to take votes away from Kamala.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I voted for Jill Stein in 2016.

    In my defense, I didn’t think Trump had a chance, and I definitely didn’t expect him to be as terrible as he eventually proved. I was feeling salty about the DNC not giving Bernie a fair chance in the primaries (how and why, I don’t remember) and Hilary just felt like she was constantly condescending and not even trying to earn the presidency. It felt like someone decided it was her turn and they’d just slide her into her rightful throne.

    My vote for the green party was official record that they hadn’t earned my vote, even though I would never vote for Trump.

    I’m sure my one single vote wouldn’t have changed anything, but I bet there are plenty of others that felt the and did the same, and still regret it.

    • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      I’m still salty about Bernie being sandbagged. Not a big fan of how Kamala was shoved in either, but she’s impressing me more than I expected, I just hope it’s enough.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Since she’s the VP, it doesn’t feel dirty. Joe stepped down, she steps up, that’s what we hired her to do.

        I just hope it’s enough.

      • Benjaben@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Yeah that was really some trash and made me furious. The one guy just directly stating all the ways we need to help the working class and also saying basically fuck the rich, with the career-long credentials to back it up, and instead we got force-fed Hillary. She was so unlikeable and entitled, it set the Dems (and shit, maybe even women in leadership as a whole) back by like 10 years. Cuz she acted like a shitty stereotype about women that fed right into the misogynists. Such a colossal fuck up, and that really is putting it mildly. I deleted a whole screed of even more forceful complaining, lol.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      8 days ago

      I’m sure my one single vote wouldn’t have changed anything, but I bet there are plenty of others that felt the and did the same, and still regret it.

      Depends on what state you were in for that election, and how many other people voted for Stein alongside you.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Oh fuck.

        Trump won PA by half a percent.

        Stein got .8% of the votes.

        Stein, the DNC, and 50 thousand people just like me, literally handed him the presidency.

        I’m SO sorry, everybody.

        • Nougat@fedia.io
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          8 days ago

          Unfortunately, with FPTP and the electoral college, voting for a third party candidate for president is voting in favor of the major party candidate who you like the least.

          This isn’t fair, it’s fact. It should be different, but it isn’t. NPVIC and/or RCV are the way out, and voting third party in this election makes those farther away, or wholly unreachable.

        • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 days ago

          You can make up for it by convincing all your friends to vote in this election. Help them make a plan, check voter registration, and look up where/how to vote

        • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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          8 days ago

          You didn’t hand Trump the presidency. The Dems did by not trying to gain your vote.

          Never blame yourself for the flaws of representative “democracy”.

    • Benjaben@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      I did similar, I’m ashamed to admit, except slightly worse - I actually just didn’t vote at all, thinking I was really making my dissatisfaction clear that way. What a dumbass I was, and for the same reasons you described. And while a lot of that was undeniably true and a problem, I also now feel fairly sure the “don’t vote / vote 3rd party” push was an op, and I fell for it like a dope.

      I’ve voted in every election I’ve been eligible for before and since 2016, and I will never allow myself to drop the ball like that again. Fuck the DNC but we gotta fight like hell to keep things from getting even worse and they’re all we’ve fuckin got at the moment.

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      I voted for Stein too. OTOH, I was in a solidly blue state where there was no real chance that Clinton wouldn’t win. And TBH, I’d voted for Clinton in the primaries in 2008, because I wasn’t sure if that Obama guy had the experience necessary to be president, since he was a one-term senator. But by 2016, and given the way the primaries ran and Sanders got sandbagged by the DNC, I was done with Clinton.

      I solidly blame Clinton and Wasserman Schultz for the 2016 debacle. If Clinton had campaigned hard in PA, MI, and WI, and if Wasserman Schultz hadn’t made tipped the scale for Clinton in the first place with the entitlement bullshit, then none of this would have happened.

    • BaldManGoomba@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Don’t feel guilty it depends on where you lived. I voted green party I believe but I live in Delaware and that won’t affect the race outcome at all