A Hillary Clinton Alternative: Many Democrats And Sanders Supporters Could Go Green With Jill Stein

Hillary Clinton is leaving a lot of Democrats feeling cold, as Bernie Sanders hopes for the presidency slip away. Many disenfranchised and disillusioned Sanders supporters are considering their options. A good percentage of them could go Green. Salon quoted a recent poll showing 47 percent of all American voters would consider a third party candidate in this election if Clinton and Trump are the Democratic and Republican choices.

Jill Stein and the Green Party are making a major drive to get the Green Party on the ballot in all 50 states. This is something that they have never accomplished in the past. Additionally, Jill is working to get her name on the ballot in states where it is easier to get an individual candidate listed than a party.

Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Nominee will automatically appear on the ballot in all 50 states. That is the advantage of being a leading and long-established party, but there are regulations that make it difficult to start new parties. Laws in some states are very restrictive, making it hard for new parties to make it onto ballots. Jill Stein and the Green Party must circulate petitions and get thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of signatures in order to get on a single state’s ballot. Significant progress is being made but circulating petitions every four years is often necessary, according to Rick Lass, quoted in CounterPunch.

“Well that’s just one of the many obstacles that the major parties put up to voter choice, and so we may have to do it again in four years, even if we get on the ballot in all 50 states, because in most states, there’s a vote test. If a Green candidate… [Jill Stein or another major candidate like someone running for Governor] doesn’t get maybe one percent, maybe three, or maybe five percent, depending on the state, then that state’s election officials will disqualify us and we’ll have to start again from scratch the next time. This clearly never happens to the two major parties.”

Jill Stein is the presumptive nominee for the Green Party. Interestingly, she has repeatedly offered her spot on the ticket to Bernie Sanders if he wants it. So far, Bernie has said no. He made a promise to support Hillary Clinton as the nominee. He also says he does not want to hand the election to the Republicans by dividing the Democrats. Jill is making it clear if he changes his mind before their convention in early August, she would gladly step aside for Bernie, as she explained to Democracy Now.

“If Senator Sanders made the case that now he understood, after the very, you know, disturbing experiences of the last many months and the way that he’s been mistreated and beaten up by the party, perhaps he has a different view of the potential to create revolution inside of a counterrevolutionary party… That would be a game changer if he made the case that he has come to understand the critical need to build the Green Party as the political voice of that revolution.”

Hillary Clinton would be very unlikely to make such an offer. She’d do just about anything to be the nominee for her party, so that is one huge difference between the two. Jill Stein definitely puts her country and her party ahead of her own ambitions.

Jill Stein explained her feelings about running for president far differently than anything Hillary Clinton has said. Stein doesn’t want to be a politician, but she does want to create a country in which human beings can survive. Very few presidential candidates understand the struggle of ordinary and poor Americans just to survive.

“I’m a physician, not a politician. I don’t have a vested interest in a particular political career or a particular political office. My job is to do everything that I can to create an America and a world that we can live in and that we can survive in. And I would be very interested in having this discussion [Bernie running in her place on the Green Ticket.] I am not holding my breath that it’s going to happen. And I think it’s important that our campaign be plan B, if not for Senator Sanders, then for his supporters.”

Does Hillary Clinton care if people survive in the same way Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders do? Most people assume she does, but she’s never specifically said so. She seems to assume everything is fine with all American people now, and the question of survival doesn’t arise with her. Does she think the Obama administration solved all the problems already? The question of survival does arise with millions of Americans from one day to the next, especially the poor, the homeless, the jobless and those who need medical care and cannot afford it. As political analyst Dan Payne points out in the Politicker, her message is not about what she can do for the American People, and it has no real tangible goal that helps Americans.

“[Hillary Clinton] has no overarching and enduring message. ‘Fighting For You’ lacks what strategists call tension. If she wins, who loses? How is she fighting, and most important, who is she fighting for and on which issues?”

Jill Stein, unlike the kindly Bernie Sanders, is quick to explain what is wrong with Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t exactly mince words, and her speech is detailed and to the point. Unlike Trump, she isn’t just handing out insults. Stein tells the Observer why she thinks the FBI should move forward.

“The investigation should go forward. This is sort of typical Hillary Clinton; to do things that are not legal, to say that they are, and then try to cover them up. Hillary Clinton severely chastised other whistleblowers for using Internet channels that were not secure and yet she herself was doing that.”

Jill Stein also mentioned the Clinton Foundation before bringing out the big guns on foreign policy.

“In war there is hardly a more horrifying example of the head-long plunge into reckless militarism than what Hillary Clinton led the way on in Libya.”

Jill Stein is not at all certain the Greens can win in 2016, especially without Bernie Sanders, but she does have a powerful plan for change if she were to be elected, according to the Jill 2016 website. She has a Green New Deal, to create jobs, and those are $15 an hour jobs at a minimum, by transitioning the entire country to green energy by 2030. She believes that having a job is a human right, and employees deserve to keep their fair share of profits. She also wants medicare for all and a healthier environment. She will insist on making trade agreements fair, and increasing taxes on the wealthy. Her plan does resemble the Bernie Sanders plan, with breaking up big banks and encouraging small business.

Hillary Clinton has made very few promises to the voting public, except a general understanding she will supervise a continuation of the Obama administration. The American people have seen what the last eight years have brought. The voters who recognize the economy is still broken, income inequality is a very serious issue, and the Middle East is becoming increasingly destabilized, are not likely to vote for Hillary.

Jill Stein told the Observer she wants to continue Bernie Sanders movement, even if he does not join her. At a time when Sanders supporters are feeling powerless after a close race was thwarted at least in part by a complex web of disadvantages dealt out to outsiders, she speaks hope.

“It is time to reject the propaganda that tells us we are powerless, to recognize we have the numbers here for a transformational political change and to stand up on our own behalf—not to use your vote as a weapon against yourself, but to use your vote to move us forward,”

Jill Stein is a Bernie Sanders type alternative to voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

[Photos by Mark Wilson and Spencer Platt/Getty Images]