Why I Voted for Jill Stein

And you should consider it

If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal - Emma Goldman, anarchist

As a revolutionary communist, I have no illusions about our electoral system. Yet I still chose to vote for Jill Stein, who isn’t even the most revolutionary candidate on the ballot. How can this be?

Stop yelling about a democracy we do not have. Democracy is dead in the United States. Yet there is still nothing to replace real democracy. Drop the chains, then, that bind our brains. Drive the money-changers from the seats of the Cabinet and the halls of Congress. Call back some faint spirit of Jefferson and Lincoln,and when again we can hold a fair election on real issues, let’s vote, and not till then. Is this impossible? Then democracy in America is impossible. - WEB Dubois, communist

What Dubois said in 1956 is still true today. Anyone who thinks the US is a real democracy does not understand how democracy works under capitalism. As Lenin said, “Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society.” I fully understand my vote will not change anything. But there were several good ballot measures worth voting for that would make mild reforms to improve the condition of the working class in my state, so there was also no reason to abstain from voting as Dubois did. It took less than ten minutes to fill in my ballot.

Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament! - V.I. Lenin, communist

I certainly could have written in Joseph Kishore of the Socialist Equality Party or voted for Cornel West or Claudia De La Cruz, since they tend to align more with my beliefs, but none of them have the ballot access to bring in large numbers this election cycle.

Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth - Lucy Parsons, anarchist

I was also influenced by the Palestinian solidarity movement. Last month I attended a showing of Naila and the Uprising put on by the Logan Revolutionary Communists of America. At this event, a young man spoke about his uncle, who he had been named after. His uncle and his entire family were killed by an Israeli airstrike last year. He was going to visit his uncle this summer for his senior trip. He never got that chance, because of US bombs supplied by the Biden/Harris administration. This young man was supporting Jill Stein for president and hoped that no one would vote for genocide. This story helped convince me to vote for Jill instead of the other options. Here is the Green Party platform on Palestine:

We call on the U.S. President and Congress to suspend all military and foreign aid, including loans and grants, to Israel until Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories, dismantles the separation wall in the Occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem, ends its siege of Gaza and dismantles settler colonies and systemic apartheid toward its non-Jewish citizens.

I agree with Engels analysis of democracy under capitalism, as he wrote in the Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State:

As long as the oppressed class – in our case, therefore, the proletariat – is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will it, in its majority, recognize the existing order of society as the only possible one and remain politically the tail of the capitalist class, its extreme left wing. But in the measure in which it matures towards its self-emancipation, in the same measure it constitutes itself as its own party and votes for its own representatives, not those of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand.

I do not believe the Green Party is the revolutionary party of the working class, but any vote for a third party at this point is a step forward in consciousness for the working class as a whole. If the Green Party were to get 5% of the vote and qualify for Federal funding, that would be a message to the capitalist class and the proletariat that the corporate duopoly is not all powerful. I believe that could have happened in 2016 if Bernie had been willing to split with the Democrats, but he showed his true colors and turned his back on the movement again and again. Perhaps this time the genocide will be enough to push the people away from the duopoly.

Write in votes are not effective, I have disagreements with how the local PSL operates, and Cornel West made a huge mistake in not running with the Green Party which already had the ground work done for ballot access.

I was also influenced by the Democratic smear campaign and attacks on the Green Party. I have personal issues with the Democrats ever since the Bernie campaigns and their treatment of me as a delegate in 2020, so any chance to spite them is a welcome opportunity for me. When they brought out AOC as an attack dog against Jill Stein, that helped persuade me that she was worth voting for.

If the Democrats are running scared that their genocidal candidate can’t offer good enough policies to win votes, then they deserve to lose. They sue the Green Party off the ballot, they aren’t in any way democratic. Their nominee, Kamala Harris, won zero delegates. She was selected by the donors to replace their geriatric Parkinsons’ patient, genocide Joe. They are actually running ads that claim a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump!

Sorry, DNC, I don’t believe your bullshit. A vote for Jill Stein is a vote against both corporate candidates. If a majority votes for Jill Stein, she wins. Trump doesn’t win. Harris doesn’t win. Your math does not add up. Jill Stein is on enough ballots to win the election, in spite of DNC meddling to keep her off the New York, Nevada, and other ballots.

I’d rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don’t want, and get it.” - Eugene V. Debs

We will not get what we want out of this election, one of two corporate candidates will win. But that does not mean we have to vote for them. We should vote for something else - anyone who does not support genocide is a good vote. Voting for anyone who does support genocide is a bad vote.

Vote against the duopoly (uniparty), but also organize for a class war.

The basic task of communists in the US today is to gather the most advanced elements of this vanguard—the most determined, clear-sighted, and energetic members of the communist generation—into a party that can become a recognizable point of reference on a national scale. This can only be achieved on the basis of maximum ideological clarity and a systematic campaign of propaganda and agitation around a revolutionary program. - Revolutionary Communists of America

The Democrats and Republicans represent the ruling class. They are funded by the capitalists and do their work in oppressing the working class of the world. Workers of the world unite!