Green Party Town Hall: American Democracy Needs Jill Stein
Wednesday night the Green Party candidate and nominee Jill Stein and her running mate Ajamu Baraka sat down with CNN’s Chris Cuomo for a scheduled town hall, where supporters and the general public could become familiar with the far left’s view of the issues plaguing America today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtX89d_EIpA
Jill Stein provided a refreshing take, which many saw as the continuation of the platform presented by Bernie Sanders before he conceded the nomination to Hillary Clinton earlier this year.
The part of the electoral process where both parties try to reach out to the general electorate between the conventions and November offers the opportunity for them to pivot to the general public of Americans who have little time to follow politics, offering the Green Party’s view which CNN approached with some scrutiny, almost looking as if they were ready to attack Stein and Baraka for their views.
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At times it appeared as if people in the audience were defensive about issues such as Israel, and other times, Baraka appeared defensive as well. In social media however, the argument was clearly defined between the hard-right and progressives, many saying that they were watching fantasy.
Just like everyone else, Jill Stein has her share of attacks, even from within her own party, which is revealed in a recent interview with comedian Roseanne Barr, while promoting her documentary on her presidential run on comedian Marc Maron’s podcast; she recalled her view of the Green Party nominee, particularly because at the time she was running against Stein for the Green Party nomination in 2012.
In contrast with Jill Stein, Rosanne Barr could have been the Donald Trump equivalent as she has a reputation to be even more incendiary than even the Republican nominee himself, where she would likely receive the same kind of attention by the press.
In preparation of the town hall, the media began to take aim with articles about her “anti-vaxxer” views which they said was one of the issues haunting Jill Stein, which she defends in a sit-down interview with the Washington Post, talking about her experience as a medical doctor and with the vaccine industry.
The article seems to make her reasoning very clear, that she isn’t against vaccinations. She is rather more irritated that something the public have to blindly rely on can be easily manipulated in the hands of corporations, whose only interest is the bottom line with some reasonable interest in making a vaccine that helps people.
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It seems very obvious at this point that Donald Trump is not going to win the election, which appears to further open the opportunity for Stein to gain the popularity to at least try to get on the debate stage.
Now, there has been talk of a third podium at the presidential debates with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton; should she beat the Libertarian challenger Gary Johnson, Jill Stein could very well share the stage with two of the nation’s most unpopular candidates.
Anti-science claims dog Green Party's Jill Stein https://t.co/uFxEQPY6uz pic.twitter.com/ITkuPIqZpr
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 16, 2016
It’s rather unfortunate, however, after the town hall, that the anchors didn’t follow up with some commentary, going entirely into unrelated news reports of wild fires or the flooding in Louisiana. Which presents the view that CNN might not have taken the town hall very seriously, giving Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka the focus they wanted to spare.
What a better position for our democracy if we were to take these issues seriously enough to focus on them a little more, so we could see Jill Stein hold her own on the debate stage with two of the year’s most unpopular candidates?
[Photo by Elise Amendola/AP Images]
