Jill Stein, three-time Green Party candidate for U.S. president, spoke to CN Live! about Zohran Mamdani’s election as NYC mayor and the future of U.S. politics.
Interviewer: Joe Lauria. Producer: Cathy Vogan. Time: 52m 50s
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Great conversation! Two of my favorite people! When blue no matter who folks ask, “Where’s your Jill Stein in between Presidential elections?”, this push for the UNGA action is a perfect example! Where are the dems and repubs when we need em at the UN?
The implication in the “spoiler” argument is always that the dem COULD win if not for us. That’s not even true anymore. Last year the Democratic Party’s own extensive 50 state polling showed that they couldn’t win. They knew they would lose and they knew by how much and in which states. They didn’t let on until November 8th in The Independent.
The whole strategic lesser-evil argument is based on odds.
Odds move exponentially. A one point drop in the average polling is a larger drop in odds.
It’s not that far a drop from – can’t win and the party itself knows – to – can’t win and EVERYONE knows.
At that point 75 million strategic votes are no longer strategic.
That’s when the Democratic Party goes the way of the Whigs as Butch Ware likes to say.
Thank you Jill and Butch for a great campaign! When the tide turns it will grow exponentially as the Democratic Party shrinks exponentially.
*“Some people dream of great accomplishments while others stay awake to do them,” i.e., Joe Lauria, CN LIVE, “Jill Stein, three-time Green Party candidate for U.S. president.” Will there be a fourth-time?
*“Reason comes of age.” Our nation, moving forward,“voters” will be rock’n NYC,’s philosophy, “Take the Smart Risk!!!”
….*“Oh, yeah!!” Give me an, “Oh, Yeah!” Yeah! Yeah! ‘We will follow our own moral compass. We won’t let their sleight of hand trump us. We will find ten thousand new voices, in every crowd.” Rogers Waters. “There is a word in Arabic, Sumud. It means steadfast. Perseverance. Particularly In Resistance to the occupation of your homeland.” Everyone, agrees, the Siege Must Fall! NOT only, in Gaza; but, in the U$A.
In the words of Woody Guthrie, “All these fascists, they’re bound to lose. Bound, to lose.” In the words of Ralph Nader, *“The antidote, the source of real self-regard, is to Stand-Up! Stand Tall! AND, Call-Out the rapacious & ravaging forces coming down on communities.” @ “Civic-Sel-respect” by Ralph Nader, 2025. TY, Jill Stein for “Standing Up! Standing Tall! Calling out the rabid, right-wing, rat-ba$tard fascists “Deal” Makers posing as “Peace” Makers.
All Hail, CN “LIVE!” rock’n “One Heart. One Love,” One Colossal Win, for New York City, Mayor, Elect Zohran Mamdani!
AND, YES! Dr. Jill Stein is SFO, “Itsa fight for survival,” From sea to shining sea. From the river to the sea. In the deserts here & the deserts, far away! AND, “Never Say Die.” Ralph Nader, Dr. Stein, Francesca Albanese, UNRWA, the ICJ, Consortium News dot com, the UNSC, & People, everywhere, agree, the 21st Century marks “Our” time. “It’s our time to make a move! It’s our time to make amends! It’s our time to [make] the rules! Let’s begin!!!
“We” got the tools, 1) “Know Your Rights!” John Kiriakou, 2) “Civic Self-respect” by Ralph Nader, 2025, 3) “10,000+ New Voices.” TY, CN “LIVE!” L o n g live Consortium News!!! “Keep It Lit,” Fall into the Fund Drive!!! TY.
Reliable Sources: *Liberian proverb;
JOHN KIRIAKOU, “Know Your Rights. Don’t Talk to Cops at the Airport;”
MAX BLUMENTHAL @ hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/26/max-blumenthal-why-did-the-feds-question-me/
RALPH NADER, “Civic Self-respect” @ hxxps://scheerpost.com/2025/09/29/its-time-to-fight-back-against-trumps-fascist-regime-w-ralph-nader-the-chris-hedges-report/
FRANCESCA ALBANESE, “Closing Statement,Third Committee of the UN General Assembly” @ closing statement at the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly @ hxxps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t7CIPB15rag
ROGER WATERS “SUMUD” @ hxxps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VzFMUBEjFYo&list=RDK6dcS6SOYZc&index=2&pp=8AUB
Hello Joe, sometimes I wonder if ‘We the People’, wiill recognize a change for the good of everyone of us.
Donation coming soon, My brother!
Hypothetical three-president system
There is no common government structure with three presidents.
A hypothetical system with three presidents could be structured to create a unique executive branch with checks and balances between them, but it is not a standard model.
Just thinking out loud?
How about using sortition (selection by lot, as is done for jurors) to select our executive, legislative and judicial officers. This system was employed by the ancient Athenians.
A sortitive system — combined with direct democracy, wherein citizens vote en masse for major initiatives — would put politicians and lobbyists out of business.
Athenians used a kleroterion to select their government officials. hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleroterion
Thanks for putting Dr. Stein on. A small, if grim, glimpse of reality. Just basic exposure is our greatest hurdle.
Joe Lauria mentioned the neolib (technically neoclassical) Chicago School of Economics as founded by Milton Friedman. When I read their stuff, I discovered to my surprise it’s based on little, if any, empirical evidence. It’s argument by assertion like Thatcher’s “there are no alternatives” and comes from a deep hatred of the New Deal and Keynesianism by 1%ers, financiers, and the corporate elite.
It’s bad enough the dominant econ belief system defines away devastation of human communities and destruction of entire ecosystems as externalities. Then consider Milton Friedman was an advisor to Chile’s dictator Pinochet because “democracy interferes with Market efficiency.” As neolibs, this is what the Dem party elite is supporting as well.
Bill Appledorf said:
“Air traffic controllers working without pay can shut down the entire U.S. economy by walking off the j0b.
This would amount to the general strike U.S. workers have been been dreaming about to force the ruling class to capitulate.”
This is the power of the people. Those who have little power or money can still affect the economy by choosing to not support the big money/corporations that profit from our spending.
The bigger picture is that the resources that enable our luxury (compared to the world population as a whole) have been stolen by force & coersion from the peoples and nations of the world. For a quick read, get War is a Racket by Smedley Butler, a marine who realized he was “a hit man for big corporations).
Most people I talk to would like to have a different trajectory for our nation, but NOT at the cost of the many goodies (technology, for example).
Resources are getting harder & more expensive to attain, and require destruction of the natural world. It’s like a gigantic game of musical chairs – and the richest people are scrabbling to control those that remain for their own enrichment. As we squabble amongst ourselves, we are easier to be picked off one at a time.
We need to pool our numbers & the resources remaining in our hands to take care for each other.
Name calling, by any who do it, distracts – and turns off critical thinking. It makes sense that we, together, have knowledge & resources (including thought) that can enable us to help each other, reducing the ever more expensive “professional” services we trust & rely on, even when they don’t actually come through with results. Take education, for example: as the government takes ever more control of institutions of education, we can seek opportunities to help each other learn outside of them, hopefully focusing on approaches to thinking, sources of information, and tools to evaluate sources.
We need to explore “how might WE, with the resources WE have, meet our needs.” I am constantly amazed at the breadth & depth of knowledge of those around me. If we listen with attention & interest, we can learn & share so much. My parents, alone, taught me more than all of my institutional education, and I have learned from others my whole life – not least by exploring vision & ideas together.
So many people feel trust is dangerous, and hope is foolish. I think that’s because of a belief that a solution must exist within our current system. It doesn’t; it can’t, because it’s the system driving the trajectory, and in control of the narrative. We need to put our hearts into the story we tell, and our resources where our heart is, and our trust in each other.
There is no one “out there” who will change our trajectory. If it is to be changed, it will be by a new vision of what is important, and what is real wealth.
Well said.
For one thing, what does it say about us, the voters, and for the other, more importantly, about the integrity as well as the legitimacy of the electoral process itself that Jill Stein did not receive much more than 0.4% of the overall vote in the 2024 election?
It casts a very dark shadow on the election of 2028, if there will even be one!
Both Biden and Trump were older than she at the time.
To be frank, Mamdani, in his very early thirties; by his win for only the Mayor of the largest U.S. city, over the plutocracy, has roiled the dark undercurrents of our ‘democracy’, which has happened too many times before to dismiss, that one has to wonder, with trepidation; his inauguration being still 54 days off.
I’m sorry to say but Instant Runoff Voting (Jill Stein employs the obfuscatory phrase “ranked choice voting” but IRV is what she means) actually does have a so-called spoiler effect. It’s only “safe” to vote sincerely for an underdog under IRV when that candidate stands no chance of winning at all. When a competitive three-way (or more) race emerges, IRV manifests a whole bunch of algorithmic pathologies that encourage insincere tactical voting. For example, situations arise regularly where sincerely ranking one’s favorite candidate above another can actually make that candidate lose in the simulated runoff round. Even worse, in competitive races IRV also frequently displays a pathology where if someone had stayed home and not voted at all their favored candidate could have won (the so-called “Stay Home Paradox”).
It is immensely frustrating that, after more than a decade now, Jill Stein is still overselling Instant Runoff Voting with these exaggerated and harmful inaccuracies. They are harmful because IRV is a woefully inadequate alternative voting method that is unlikely to actually empower third parties that advocate for it. The sum of IRV’s algorithmic pathologies is an explanation for why everywhere IRV has actually been adopted for extended periods it has FAILED to dismantle two-party domination. A number of Green Party members seem to be attached at the hip to the well-funded non-profit organization FairVote and adamantly refuse to educate themselves on this subject while they push FairVote’s typical inaccurate talking points puffing up IRV. I understand why some do it. They feel so invested in IRV, in the work they have done promoting this specific reform, now that it seems to be breaking some ice and getting progressive adoption in certain places, and that they can’t possibly back out of it now out of fear of confusing people and convincing potential reformers to go back to the incredibly bad Plurality voting method.
But what good is a reform that doesn’t work? A reform that doesn’t work instills false hope in people and can actually make them reject the idea of electoral reform entirely when they see that the voting method they wanted isn’t delivering what it was tauted to do. We actually saw this happen in a very instructive case when Burlington, Vermont adopted IRV for its mayoral elections, saw it manifest some of its characteristic pathologies in the first election they tried it, and then the very next election voted to reverse the reform and return to the old even-worse Plurality voting method.
Jill Stein and the Green Party need to move on from IRV already and start advocating for something actually GOOD that can EMPOWER them like a rating-based voting method such as Approval Voting, Score Voting, STAR Voting, etc. But please don’t take my word for it. Look up the mathematical, simulation-based, and empirical critiques of IRV from voting methods scientists, look up the appealing characteristics of rating-based voting methods. Third party leaders have a responsibility to the movements they are trying to build to educate themselves on this subject. Educate yourselves and at minimum stop overselling IRV as something that nullifies the spoiler effect.
See my reply to MeMyself, above.
Sortition is superior to election. It puts politicians and lobbyists out of business entirely. The problem with elections is that people are easily brainwashed into voting for parasites.
Sortition plus direct democracy: this is a solution to the inherently corruptible system of electoral democracy. Select our legislators and executive officers by lot, in a way similar to how jurors are selected in the Anglo judiciary tradition.
I completely agree, and sortition AKA Actual Democracy™ is my ideal governance system. However, sortition is a fundamental governance chance and the kind of system you’re probably not going to obtain without having an actual revolution or at best confined in a very limited form at the municipal level. The question to ask is what is the purpose of electoral reforms.
I don’t see the purpose as a means to their own ends, I see electoral reform as a tool to enhance the people’s struggle and expose the internal contradictions of the system. An electoral reform like Instant Runoff Voting just wastes people’s time and confuses them with the ultimate result of little to no third party presence in elected government with which to put pressure on the dominant parties. A competent electoral reform like some kind of rating-based voting method makes third parties threatening enough in elections that they can peel credibility away from the duopoly that has such a stranglehold on politics and direct it towards more useful ends.
Air traffic controllers working without pay can shut down the entire U.S. economy by walking off the j0b.
This would amount to the general strike U.S. workers have been been dreaming about to force the ruling class to capitulate.
The empire routinely destroys economies in hopes that “people” will rise up and topple a regime.
The U.S. imperial regime have handed air traffic controllers the Ace of Trumps.
On the oligarchs’ side are their legions of vicious thugs.
How many they torture, murder, and disappear can only be known after the fact.
As can whether anyone will call them off.
I voted once for Jill Stein and will do so again if/when I can. She is still the politician with the clearest understanding of what we should be doing if we ever hope to become a righteous and healthy society.
Despite Ms Stein having offered several interesting quotations of others, the best was her own: “If your foreign policy is empire, you can’t expect a democracy at home.”
With respect to the “old” Democratic Party and voters yearning for its return, that was a fleeting mini-era during the tenure of FDR that was immediately quashed at the presidential nominating convention following his death. His last VP, Henry Wallace, was closed out of the nomination process,*** and with him went any intent or possibility of a continuation of FDR pro-person legislative agenda.
—————————————————————
*** as the DNC repeated in 2016 against Sanders
note, also, the DNC complete and total withdrawal of support in 1972 for George McGovern whose nomination it was not able to prevent.
And repeated in 2024 against Dean Chance, who not only was exactly right about Biden’s age and unelectibility, but would have beaten Trump easily. If you ever got to see him interviewed–zero on MSNBC and CNN–he is the best of his generation, and fell on his sword trying to save liberal/progressive values.
Thank you!
Lee Camp agrees with you. Dr. Stein. Only time will tell whether the establishment will co-opt Mr. Mamdani.
This is correct. Anyone who knows any history knows that the Democratic Party was the party of the slavocracy in the U.S. The New Deal, which FDR is so famous for, was NOT intended to help the working class out of a sense of justice. On the contrary, FDR knew during the Great Depression that if the government did not do something to help the workers, there would be a revolution. Don’t forget that the working class of the 1930s were largely socialist to begin with and the Russian Revolution was less than 20 years prior and thus vivid in the memories of the ruling class. FDR created the New Deal to save capitalism, no more and no less.
You’re right about FDR, Carolyn, giving the working- class jobs, to prevent a revolution as too many people were suffering during the so-called Great Depression. FDR admitted he saved the capitalist system.
John Puma is also correct about VP Henry Wallace, loved by the common people who would have been a great president if he succeeded Roosevelt, and I agree with History Professor Peter Kusnick who collaborated with filmmaker Oliver Stone that had Wallace been SCOTUS, he probably would not have dropped the atomic bombs on Japanese civilians like the easily fooled A-bomb Truman did, as it wasn’t necessary.
I proudly voted for Jill Stein 3 times, and if she runs in 2028, probably again for her.
Probably like yourself, I also believe that missing-out on Henry Wallace (who’d been FDR’s advisor since FDR had been governor) was a horrible and tragic loss.