The 3 Month Jill Stein Challenge

By Marc Bochner

The long and short of it. Don’t give up on the revolution in the first week of the general election. Since nobody will be asking for your actual vote until November you have 3 months to fight for what you believe in before you have to settle on your final decision… and no matter what you decide can feel good that you did everything you could or needed to do.

We are asking Berners, millennials, Independents, progressives and Blue Collar workers to commit to 3 months of fighting for integrity, to restore democracy and faith in democracy, for a progressive agenda, to fix our government and win it back for the people from the rich and powerful. Committing to fight for the health of our planet and for a better quality of life for the poor. Determined to fight for a power structure that treats everybody equally, whether you are rich or poor, black, white, latin, asian, christian, muslim, jewish, young, old, gay, straight, disabled, etc.

Again nobody is going to ask for your vote til November, so there is no downside, only the potential for a very big upside. If you are so inclined to do so many of your fellow Berners are switching over to Jill Stein to continue the revolution. She has essentially the same agenda as Bernie Sanders and has the consistency of having fought for those same issues for a long time. Heck Nina Turner is even on her short list for running mates.

Remember if you take the challenge your Hillary supporting friends or family (enthusiastic or reluctant) will give you a hard time about throwing away your vote. They will tell you that you’re trying to elect Trump. They will try to shame you and for some of us they will call it white privilege that we would dare risk a Donald Trump Presidency. Let me be clear nobody is defending Trump here, he is a buffoon and a blow hard, he says stupid and hateful things seemingly daily and doesn’t seem to understand how government or even society works. But that’s not a concern for the 3 month challenge where again at the end of 3 months you are free to vote for anybody on the ballot and do so without judgement.

At the end of the 3 month challenge if Jill Stein is still way behind and cant win AND you panic, then go ahead and vote for whoever you think is the lesser evil between Hillary and Trump. But first give us 3 months to see if we can pick up where the revolution left off. Pick up a movement that brought Bernie from 3% in the polls, in the midst of a rigged primary and a compromised media to became the most popular politician in Washington.

He got there with an unusual coalition of young and Independent voters who had been disenfranchised and checked out of the electoral process, progressive voters who have been bullied and ignored in their own party for decades, and blue collar workers many of whom had been so crushed by the Clinton’s career long obsession (along with their neoconservative and neoliberal friends) with the job outsourcing Free Trade agreements, they left the party and many landed in the republican party or even the tea party. Well all those groups are still looking for a home. Neither Hillary nor Trump speaks to any of those groups or any of their/our issues with credibility. Quite the opposite with both Hillary and Trump seemingly being different representations of everything wrong in this country, the lying corrupt corporatist politician and the greedy businessman who has no interest in helping people or the country only lining his and his friends pockets while living out his fantasy of being important. If that coalition is still ready to fight, that coalition is big enough to change the world. Big enough to do what everyone reminds you can’t be done… win from outside the corrupt and failed two party system

The Baby Boomer narrative of wasted votes on 3rd party candidates was only set in stone when the boomers had the numbers to outvote everyone. They don’t any more. Our revolution has the numbers to overwhelm both parties, especially in a year in which they have nominated the two most unpopular and least trusted candidates in perhaps our nation’s history. Independent voters were already bigger than both the democrat and republican parties combined and getting bigger with #DemExit and Trump shame on the right. But the pundits will remind you Independents don’t vote. Bernie woke up that sleeping Giant though. He got people engaged for the first time ever or reengaged for the first time in a long time. He may have tapped out of the fight for the white house, but he taught us before he did that we have the power when we stand together, we should never compromise our integrity and never settle for the lesser of two evils. He taught us everything to move on without him (and then reach back for him and make him the most powerful man in congress).

We have 3 months to decide if we can catch lightning in a bottle again with Jill Stein and perhaps Nina Turner at her side . If not tap out, hold your nose and place your panic vote. But first commit to giving it 3 months. 3 months to get the Green Party on the ballot in every winnable state (They are well on their way to doing just that). 3 months to get Jill Stein over 15% and  in the debates where she can keep our progressive ideas on the table and be a voice of reason while the two monkeys throw poo at each other convincing you to fear their opponent. In a Jill Stein administration Bernie will be one of the most powerful men in government, In a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump administration they will send him back to the kids table and punish him for challenging the power structure. Give it 3 months to grow the notion of 3rd party candidates who can win moving forward.

You have 3 months to fight for real change. And nobody will shame you no matter what choice you make in the voting booth after 3 months of fighting for change and keeping our agenda alive. You will let it be known we will fight for every one of those issues after the election is over no matter who wins.

Give us 3 months to change everything and if we fall short heading into election day and have no chance to win, every single one of you are free to place your panic vote for whichever America scares you least Hillary or Trump. Its worth 3 more months isnt it?




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