OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Far-left self-described “democratic socialist” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tore into the equally far-left Green Party, accusing it of being “not serious” and wondering if it’s anything more than a “spoiler” for the Democratic Party.
In a video that went viral over the weekend, Ocasio-Cortez addressed a user-submitted question on Instagram: “How do I tell my friends who are Jill Stein voters they are wasting their time and effort?”
“Y’all, this is a little spicy, but I have thoughts,” Ocasio-Cortez said before beginning her critique of the perennial third-party presidential candidate. “Trust me, I’ve been on record about my criticisms of the two-party system, so this is not about that,” referencing her own New York City candidacy representing both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party (WFP) and her endorsements of WFP and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates.
“What I have a problem with is the fact that if you’re running for president, you are the de facto leader of your party,” she said, “and if you run for years and years and years and years in a row, and your party has not grown and you don’t add city council seats and you don’t add down ballot candidates and you don’t add state electeds, that’s bad leadership. That, to me, is what is upsetting.”
“If all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious. To me, it does not read as authentic. It reads as predatory,” she added.
The Green Party, known for its pro-environment and anti-war stance, currently has around 244,000 registered members nationwide, a decrease from its peak of 319,000 in 2004. Despite running presidential candidates in every election since 1996, the party has never won federal office or secured more than 2.7% of the popular vote. Ralph Nader’s 2000 campaign, where he won that amount, was especially criticized as a “spoiler” in the narrow race that ultimately went to Republican George W. Bush, Time reported.
Stein, the Green Party nominee for 2024 who previously ran in 2012 and 2016, responded sharply to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—whom she referred to as “AOC-Pelosi” to highlight Ocasio-Cortez’s shift from an outsider to a mainstream Democratic figure—in a video posted on social media on Tuesday.
WATCH:
Hey y’all, this is a little spicy but I had thoughts about @AOC calling me and the Green Party “not authentic” and “predatory.” pic.twitter.com/F1jniwO77X
— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) September 3, 2024
“Clearly AOC is the attack dog du jour and the Democrats are running scared. And they should be, because who wants to support a genocide? Who wants to vote for a genocide?” Stein said. “If there’s anything that’s predatory here, it’s saying that your candidate is ‘working tirelessly for a ceasefire’ when actually they are actively funding and arming genocide and actually refusing to even consider an arms embargo which would bring the genocide to a screeching halt.”
Stein went on to blame the Green Party’s lack of political power on “the anti-democratic tactics and strategies that the Democratic Party uses to crush and silence political opposition.” She also cited Democratic efforts to limit ballot access in states for independent candidates and that Ocasio-Cortez “appropriated” the “signature issue of the Greens” — the Green New Deal.
AOC took members of her party to task over the summer in response to several complaints about President Joe Biden, who was still seeking reelection at the time. She also indicated that despite what Democrats said publicly, few of them were confident in a Harris presidential bid.
“If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave that they will support Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken,” the representative said. “They’re not going to be fully honest, but I’m going to be honest for them.”
“I’m in these rooms. I see what they say in conversations,” she said. “I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and a huge amount of these elites and a huge amount of these folks in these rooms that I see that are pushing for President Biden to not be the nominee also are not interested in seeing Vice President being the nominee.”