This just in: The USA Green Party and Jill Stein are still scum

[DrDeth]

@SenorBeef

.

But what did Jill Stein actually do? She campaigned in swing states. That amplified the potential spoiler effect (boosting the chance of Republicans winning that election) while also minimizing the votes for her own party relative to a place where people could safely vote Green Party. That’s exactly the wrong strategy to use if you were promoting a leftist agenda. But exactly the right strategy you would use if you were trying hard to play the spoiler so Republicans could win.

And rather than promoting her platform, or attacking both candidates, she spent most of her time attacking Clinton.

[Robot_Arm]

@Ludovic

Whataboutism is trying to discredit an argument by pointing at something shiny. This thread is trying to add to the sense of Russian conspiracy.

That’s not how I interpreted the OP. I read it not as further evidence of Russian meddling to add to that for Trump, but as a distraction away from Trump. Whataboutism at its finest.

If the OP would care to correct that impression, please do.

[CarnalK]

So no one is going to back up those “Stein still prefers/supports Trump” comments?

[DrDeth]

@CarnalK

So no one is going to back up those “Stein still prefers/supports Trump” comments?

I dunno about “prefers/supports Trump” but she clearly spend more time attacking Hillary,which amounted to the same thing in the end.

[elucidator]

@dalej42

…And yes, Stein campaigned in swing states, even though she doesn’t know the difference between Cincinnati and Columbus…

Not sure I do. Which one has the river that caught fire?

[Sherrerd]

@BigT

…The fact that she’s pretending this is about correspondence with people of Russian decent instead of the obvious interpretation of Russian people (as the document actually says) is suspicious as hell. It suggests there is some interaction that she’s trying to hide, and using that as a fig leaf.

… she did go to a dinner about supporting Russian state-sponsored news. Why would anyone who supports free speech ever go anywhere near supporting propaganda networks?…

@SenorBeef

Stein’s and the Green Party’s behavior in the 2016 election is quite suspicious.
…if Jill Stein was a well-meaning leftist who wanted to try to promote her party to get her message out, you would expect her to campaign in places like California, where people might feel like they can safely “throw their vote away” on a third party because Clinton would definitely win. Relatively easy votes for the picking, and it doesn’t hurt your ideology as much because you aren’t as likely to play as big a spoiler, thereby letting the Republicans win (which you should, as a leftist, oppose far more than the democrats).

But what did Jill Stein actually do? She campaigned in swing states. That amplified the potential spoiler effect (boosting the chance of Republicans winning that election) while also minimizing the votes for her own party relative to a place where people could safely vote Green Party. That’s exactly the wrong strategy to use if you were promoting a leftist agenda. But exactly the right strategy you would use if you were trying hard to play the spoiler so Republicans could win.
…

These are some excellent points.

If Stein didn’t accept Russian money and Russian suggestions on what to do in the run-up to 2016 Election Day, fine. She should be cooperating fully with the investigation, so as to clear her name.

[dalej42]

Very lengthy article from Politico with Stein saying that both Hillary and Trump would both have been ‘lethal choices.’
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/20/jill-stein-green-party-no-regrets-2016-215281

I’ll continue reading the dreck of Stein’s twitter feed to see if there are Hillary comments. I’ve certainly found plenty of anti-Democratic party nonsense spewed by Stein.

However, as of now, I will retract my statement earlier about Stein saying Hillary being far worse than Trump.

I will double down on my statement that the Green Party and Stein are scum. I completely forgot that Julian Assange addressed the Green Party convention.

[elucidator]

So, Putin helped Stein move our politics to chaos and madness? Thanks, Vlad, but we got this…

[dalej42]

@elucidator

Not sure I do. Which one has the river that caught fire?

That’s Cleveland, which is pretty solidly Democratic.

Stein was intending to campaign in Columbus, the swingiest area of the swing state of Ohio. She was scheduled at Capital university, no doubt as an attempt to appeal to young Bernie voters.

Cincinnati is solid Republican territory.

[John_Mace]

@DrDeth

I dunno about “prefers/supports Trump” but she clearly spend more time attacking Hillary,which amounted to the same thing in the end.

Hillary was her main opponent, so unless there is some sense that “No 3rd Party Candidates Allowed”, I’m not sure why that would be surprising. But, spinning that as “Stein favored Trump over Hillary” is just that-- spin.

The two main party candidates need to know that there are always going to be 3rd party alternatives that are going to “steal” votes from them, so it’s up to them to develop a strategy to deal with that reality. Just like they have to deal with the reality of the Electoral College (and not waste time trying to win the so-called popular vote). If Her Inevitableness wasn’t able to do that, it was her fault, not Stein’s.

This smearing of Stein (and Bernie) is a tactic I would expect from Trump. It’s sad to see it happen here on this MB.

[CarnalK]

@John_Mace

This smearing of Stein (and Bernie) is a tactic I would expect from Trump. It’s sad to see it happen here on this MB.

It’s been going on since the election, most especially with the OP of this thread. Some people seem to be under the impression that it was everyone else’s job to get Hillary elected so Stein’s failure to do so makes her a traitor.

[asahi]

@apLundell

The way the Democrats think they’re somehow entitled to all voters left of Trump is a big part of why I usually vote Green.

If Democrats want those votes, don’t shame other candidates, earn those votes.

But we all know they won’t. Instead they’ll run entirely on “That Republican is scary.” and after they lose they’ll sputter about a lack of unity and poor enthusiasm.

What should Democrats do to “earn” these votes? What should they do to earn your vote?

[elucidator]

…Just like they have to deal with the reality of the Electoral College (and not waste time trying to win the so-called popular vote)…

John, are you really offering us the proposition that Il Douche won due to his penetrating and expert understanding of the Electoral College? Such that he could marshall his forces precisely to maximum effect, that not having as many actual votes would not matter? Remember, the last guy to pull off that trick lost by only half a million votes, here, we’re talking 3 million!

Is Trump a Jedi?

And why did he say he lost the popular vote due to fraudulent votes somewhere north of three million? Did his precision plan include those millions? If that were true, he would have bragged on it.

And what do you mean “so-called” popular vote? Like the electoral college represents the will of the people more than their actual votes? Huh?

[asahi]

@CarnalK

It’s been going on since the election, most especially with the OP of this thread. Some people seem to be under the impression that it was everyone else’s job to get Hillary elected so Stein’s failure to do so makes her a traitor.

It’s not everyone else’s job to get Hillary elected, but when someone is as demonstrably ‘wrong’ for the country as Clinton, there’s probably some degree of ethical responsibility to make sure that the wrong guy doesn’t get elected.

That being said, the mood of the electorate right now favors anti-establishment candidates. Finger wagging and lecturing is something that a lot of voters aren’t in the mood for. I get that.

But they’re still wrong, and that will be painfully obvious to all of us in time. And we will all feel the pain.

[CarnalK]

I predict that we will not all feel the pain.

[eschereal]

@dalej42

Cincinnati is solid Republican territory.

Funny, the county-by-county map I have shows Hamilton county as a small island of light blue in a mostly dark red sea. The urban areas are all shades of blue, including Athens and Dayton.

[eschereal]

This is interesting: in the NY 27th, the Green Party candidate for the seat in Congress was actually a Republican. Presumably meaning to divide the non-RW vote in favor of the R incumbent.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@BigT

That’s what we believe about Trump. When he tries to do things that impede the investigation, it implies there is something to hide. Same goes here. When you try to wrangle out of an investigation, then it is inherently suspicious.

When some of Trump’s lackeys said they wouldn’t turn over info, you guys freaked out at how horrible that was, for good reason. Why should Stein be different?

I’m less concerned about Stein because at the moment she’s a private citizen with, at best, an extremely limited ability to affect US domestic and foreign policy.

[CarnalK]

@dalej42

.
And yes, Stein campaigned in swing states, even though she doesn’t know the difference between Cincinnati and Columbus.

@dalej42

Cincinnati is solid Republican territory.

Cincinnati was solidly Clinton and Johnson got 4X the votes Stein did in Ohio.

2016 election results: Ohio

[John_Mace]

@elucidator

John, are you really offering us the proposition that Il Douche won due to his penetrating and expert understanding of the Electoral College?

Yes and no, but mostly no. Personally, I think it’s more a matter of Hillary paying less attention to it than she should have. But it doesn’t really matter. He got the EC vote and won. Hillary did not and lost. Whether that’s because Trump did something right or Hillary did something wrong is hard to say, but it’s likely some combo of both.

Such that he could marshall his forces precisely to maximum effect, that not having as many actual votes would not matter? Remember, the last guy to pull off that trick lost by only half a million votes, here, we’re talking 3 million!

Is Trump a Jedi?

And why did he say he lost the popular vote due to fraudulent votes somewhere north of three million? Did his precision plan include those millions? If that were true, he would have bragged on it.

And what do you mean “so-called” popular vote? Like the electoral college represents the will of the people more than their actual votes? Huh?

The popular vote doesn’t exist (or, we don’t know what it is since we don’t have a popular vote election). The popular vote would exist if we held an election where the goal was to win the popular vote and the candidates campaigned for that goal and only that goal and the people voted with that in mind. But we don’t have such an election for president in the US, so when you add up all the votes across the country in a presidential election, it’s almost certain that you get a different number than you would get if the we actually had a popular vote election. That is to say, you can’t change a major factor in an election and assume the results would be the same.

For the record, I do favor an EC type system for the election of president rather than a popular vote system. Not because I think it’s sacred and holy or anything, but because I favor federalism. I would go for some tweaking of the way we allocate electors since things have changed so much since the 18th century, but I don’t want to abolish the EC completely.