Jill Stein, the presidential candidate for the Green Party, has offered to step down from the ballot and to let Bernie Sanders run as the Green Party candidate.
Nothing against Sanders but this is a terrible plan.
Stein seems so dedicated to the idea of having a political movement or revolution that she is willing to let Sanders do it. If the previous sentence sounds nonsensical to you that’s because the idea in and of itself is not rational.
I believe Stein asked Sanders to take over the Green party ticket for her for one of two reasons: Stein is either discouraged and does not want to go through with the campaign, or years of internalized misogyny has lead her to fear her ideas and leadership are not good enough to start a political revolution.
The International Business Times reported Stein saying, “If he (Sanders) saw that you can’t have a revolutionary campaign in a counter-revolutionary party, he’d be welcomed to the Green Party. He could lead the ticket and build a political movement.”
If Stein is really discouraged and does not want to continue being in politics then she would have stepped down or bowed out of the race already. It seems to me the likely reason Stein seems to want to hand the ticket to Sanders is because of her lack of faith in herself.
I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to be a female presidential candidate and see how badly Hillary Clinton gets treated in the media. Clinton might be a shady politician but the majority of the crap Clinton gets in the media comes from misogynistic societal views.
I wouldn’t want to be put through that in order the win the presidency. It has to be hard to be a woman in politics and go through your day with that much criticism. But that is exactly why Stein shouldn’t give up her campaign in order for a man to take over the ticket.
Stein’s campaign platform is much more revolutionary than Sanders’ campaign could have ever been. Stein wants to abolish student debt through quantitative easing, make college education free to all U.S. citizens, end poverty by establishing a guaranteed minimum income and cut military spending by at least 50 percent.
Stein can lead a revolution just as well as Sanders can, except she is limited by her party. If Stein can get into mainstream politics, I can pretty much guarantee that a good majority of Sanders supporters would immediately flock to her.
She is ideologically similar to Sanders so gaining a lot of mainstream support wouldn’t be hard, as Sanders has proven during this election cycle. Stein already has 5 percent of likely voters, according to a Rueters poll, despite the Green Party only being on the ballot in 20 states.
Having another female presidential candidate is amazing and is great for female representation in politics. We need more women in politics and the only way to get that is to have the women currently in politics keep up the good fight and be successful. Female success in politics will allow more women to get elected and will become normalized in U.S. politics.
Jill Stein is important for many reasons and she needs to stay on the Green Party ticket.
rcm2@umail.iu.edu
@RachelCMiller1
