If you are a progressive and have lately somehow stuttered into reading a conservative news report or an opinion piece, you would be made to feel like Green Party’s presidential nominee Jill Stein wants you to vote for Trump over Hillary Clinton, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Yes, I admit that Stein has been fighting a long battle against the agenda of the Democratic Party to corporatize the American political structures en masse, and that she considers Hillary a warmongering establishment politician who snuggles up to Wall Street every time the opportunity arises, but that understanding does not entail the presumption that Trump is the automatic answer to the dilemma facing American progressives.
In fact, if anything, Jill Stein stands for everything that Trump does not, and while the lure of the Republican nominee is certainly not lost on American voters, he is surely not the candidate who should get your vote if you do not want Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
Just consider this: The very name of Jill Stein’s party stands for a cleaner and greener America, and having been an active campaigner for renewable sources of energy for the last two decades, it would be blasphemous for her to even mistakenly talk up a guy who basically considers climate change a hoax. Add to that Trump’s megalomania, xenophobia and attitudes towards women, and it is a heady and dastardly cocktail that any progressive would want to avoid.
But despite Trump not possessing even an iota of progressive values, pro-Trump media outlets like Breitbart would like you to believe that Jill Stein would be fine with you voting for Trump. Anyone whose name is not Hillary Clinton.
But that is a complete and vicious lie. While Stein does not want progressives to waste their votes on Hillary, a fact that she amply and regularly illustrates through her series of tweets , she never voices solidarity with Trump, or asks progressives to undermine the consequences of a potential Trump presidency.
If Trump’s campaign is flailing, does a “spoiler” vote even exist anymore? Don’t waste your vote on corporate Democrats. #InvestYourVote
— Dr. Jill Stein? (@DrJillStein) October 12, 2016
In anything, Stein makes it a point to mention Republicans in the same breath as Democrats, and considers them as culpable — if not more — for the absurd levels of corporatization of American politics we see today. Trump even readily admitted to using a flaw in the tax code to avoid paying taxes for several years in a presidential debate, and yet it seems to be a fact lost on news outlets so eager to announce solidarity with Trump that they would have anyone, and everyone, chanting the name of Trump. So much for the demagogue!
While it is true that Stein constantly attacks Democrats for their policy positions, it is equally true that she does not even bother attacking Republicans on most occasions because she considers progressives, well, progressives. No sane forward-thinking person would ever pay heed to the rhetoric of Trump and would easily be able to see beyond his winding grandiloquence to find out that all that matters to Trump is only Donald J. Trump.
Trump cares only about himself and also hates you but Pence hates you first.
— maura quint (possibly parody sometimes depending) (@behindyourback) October 5, 2016
Unlike the Democrats and Republicans, we don’t cuddle up to Wall Street and special interests with our “public” and “private” positions. pic.twitter.com/guiOo5S1on
— Dr. Jill Stein? (@DrJillStein) October 12, 2016
So if you are a progressive and are even remotely drawn towards Donald Trump because of your hate for Hillary, just pause for a second. While Clinton might not deserve your vote because of obvious reasons, the fact that Trump deserves it is simply outlandish. Here is a man who stands for nothing, except perhaps unadulterated narcissism. Do not waste your vote. Your voice is much more precious than that.
If you are a progressive and are driven by your values, please actually listen to what Jill Stein is saying, and that is not voting for either Hillary or Trump.
Vote for Jill.
[Featured Image by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
