“There has never been an election in which a third-party candidate has a greater chance of winning”
In this interview with Jill Stein by political scientist Professor Radhika Desai and economist Michael Hudson, Stein dispels the myth that she cost Hillary Clinton the election in 2016 by “stealing votes from the Democrats” (as if the Democrats own our votes!). As she points out, “exit polls showed that over 60%” of her voters “wouldn’t have cast a vote for President at all had she not been an option.”
In the introduction to this interesting and eye-opening interview, Professor Desai says:
“The reason why Michael and I are advising Jill on policy, why we support her candidacy so fully, and why we are doing everything we can to advance her cause, is that there has never been an election in which a third-party candidate has a greater chance of winning.
“Over three decades ago, when the duopoly was much more secure, Ross Perot got nearly 20% of the vote. Today, that duopoly has become a political zombie with only the appearance of life. The opening for others is yawning wide, and Jill is not only the only peace candidate in the fray of warmongers taking our world towards another war, she’s the only supporter for the national and human rights of Palestinians.
“She’s also the only third-party candidate with ballot access in most states. This is what matters if you’re going to be actually elected, rather than just popular.”
And here’s Stein explaining how (and why!) the Democrats lost big in 2010 without the help of any third party:
“And in 2010, I think they really saw the writing on the wall. The results of 2010 were a real shot across the bow. And what happened? Democrats lost 1,000 seats in state legislatures across the country. We saw many legislatures flip from the Democratic to the Republican camp. We saw 64 congressional seats lost by the Democrats. I think it was 13 Senate seats and about the same number of governorships. So it was a huge kind of political swing where the Democrats had the most so-called “spoiled election” ever in their history. It was truly a spoiled election.
“Now, what was spoiling that election? It was not the prominence of third party candidates all across the nation. There were hardly any in 2010 that I’m aware of. What was actually going on, obviously, was that this was the first election following the Wall Street bailouts, following the displacement of millions upon millions of families who were thrown out of their homes so that Congress could, and the White House—
“It was the Democratic trifecta, which basically threw out working people and working families in order to embrace Wall Street. This was after the campaign of hope and change by Barack Obama. So this just made it so real that working people have been thrown under the bus in many ways, but in many ways really peaking and culminating in the crash of 2008, the Wall Street crash, after which the crooks on Wall Street who sabotaged the economy were richly rewarded. Young students, for example, who were dutifully following the prescription for leading a good life had taken out loans and gone to college, and they were thrown out, homeowners were thrown out.
“So people are standing up. Democrats, yes, their party is being spoiled, but it’s being spoiled by none other than themselves, and they try to invoke third parties here so they don’t have to talk about what’s really going on.”
Here’s the interview in full:
“Jill Stein on why she’s running for US president as Green Party candidate“
