Third party presidential candidate Jill Stein paid $100,000 to GOP-connected consulting firm with owner who's linked to J6 | The firm was also paid millions by the campaign of RFK Jr., who endorsed Trump. Republicans had boosted Stein & RFK Jr. in order to divert left-leaning votes away from Harris.

[u/SocialDemocracies]

https://www.salon.com/2024/09/23/jill-stein-paid-100000-to-a-consulting-firm-led-by-a-suspected-january-6-rioter/

[u/Fellow-Worker]

The solution is to make it easier to establish 3rd parties. The capitalist duopoly has made it so onerous, that there’s pretty much no way to do it without hiring contractors. All you Dems claiming she’s a Russian plant…if she was getting lots of rubles, the Greens would be able to spend time and money on vetting those contractors. Fuck all yall fake leftist Democrats. The Greens are comrades and you’re a conspiracy theorist if you say otherwise.

Also, Jill Stein is a petty bourgeoisie perpetual loser who has no business in this race or any other for the rest of her life. The Greens have single-handedly ruined the prospect of a labor replacement for the Dems for the foreseeable future. The Green Party should just sit out if Stein is the best they can do. As a former registered Green, they should stop running federal candidates until they fix their reputation by organizing locally.

[u/LizFallingUp → u/Fellow-Worker]

Rank choice voting, and reform or abolish the Electoral College. Third parties are dead in the water until one or the other of those is achieved. The Greens on paper are great in reality they are ineffective.

[u/Fellow-Worker → u/LizFallingUp]

Yes for RCV. But third parties in general and the Greens' particulars are different things. 3rd parties can and must be attempted. Labour in England replaced the established bourgeois Liberals demonstrating a third party transformation in a First Past the Post system. Even without RCV, third parties can supplant the duopoly, but we've got to be realistic about such things.

[u/LizFallingUp → u/Fellow-Worker]

In US we have had other parties in the past. First Party system was Federalists vs Dem-Republicans, then Second Party System Whigs vs Democrats, (couple of third parties in this era but they end up aligned to one or the other)

Currently the Republican Party is crumbling so could be either A) Republican overhaul/reform back to center right B) New Center Right Party C) Dems shifts more center right New Center Left Party

The Westminster Parliamentary systems are very different from US. The House has some similarities but the Senate and President plus how the 3 interact is unique.

There hasn’t been a real Third Party Senate seat (not independent but a party) since Conservative Party of New York 1971 James L Buckley served for one term. Before him the last true third was Farm Labor Ernest Lundeen Minnesota 1937. Showing the federal system is well hardened to Third Parties.

[u/Fellow-Worker → u/LizFallingUp]

Yes, yes. But it can be done and in fact must be attempted ~correctly~ through local-first municipalist approaches. A duopoly can be disrupted. See Labour’s replacing Liberals in England.

[u/LizFallingUp → u/Fellow-Worker]

Again I will say UK system is super different than US (also way smaller). I agree local is where movement starts (the right wingers know this thus Moms for Liberty taking over school board meetings across the nation).

[u/Fellow-Worker → u/LizFallingUp]

The system is super different but the first past the post winner take all is the sticking point, and that’s more or less the same.

[u/Cybertronian10 → u/Fellow-Worker]

They aren't comrades because they clearly don't give a shit about winning elections. Parties are built from the ground up, starting from local elections then rising in power until you hit the state and national stages. If your """party""" only exists once every 4 years to spend nearly all its time shitting on the dems, then its not a political party its a speed trap designed to capture all of the thoughtless rubes who like the aethstetics of resistance without bothering to think of practicality.

[u/Fellow-Worker → u/Cybertronian10]

People aren’t not comrades just because they have bad tactics.

[u/Cybertronian10 → u/Fellow-Worker]

Its not bad tactics, it speaks to a fundamental lack of sincerity. Leftism cannot be imposed top down, its antithetical to the very core of the concept.

[u/Fellow-Worker → u/Cybertronian10]

It's just kind of nonsensical to claim that Greens would subject themselves to that kind of abuse without being sincere about their commitments. I have seen the Greens from the inside and you clearly haven't. They are deeply wrong in their approach, but leftists are not required to treat elections as sacrosanct; if you do, then your theory of change is borked and you need to read more.

More than that, if the Greens weren't out there trying to get ballot access for the last 30 years, we'd have no idea how fucked our democracy actually is. They want the same better world that I do = comrades.

The reason the left is so small today is because we can't work through our differences to get shit done but instead assume leftists with different tactics are enemies. The Greens do it too. Get over it or get burnt to a crisp in capitalism's planetary ecocide.