![\"JillStein_Skidmore-1-300x200\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/574\/2016\/07\/JillStein_Skidmore-1-300x200.jpg\")
<\/a>I was and still am a big supporter of Bernie Sanders. I believed deeply in his ideals, volunteered on his campaign and even donated some of my tiny grad school income\u00a0to his campaign.\u00a0Some leftists are arguing that Jill Stein is the next option even though\u00a0Bernie has officially endorsed Clinton. I\u2019ve already written about why I was happy to switch my support to Clinton<\/a>, but some people are still telling me I should vote for Stein. Even if Clinton were not an option,\u00a0here\u00a0are five reasons why I do\u00a0not want to vote for Stein.<\/p>\n 1) Jill Stein\u00a0panders to the anti-science crowd<\/strong><\/p>\n Supporting science is an important value of mine and that\u2019s why I couldn\u2019t \u2018vote my conscience\u2019 and vote for the Greens. Jill Stein has been accused of being anti-vaccine and pro-homeopathy. If you\u00a0read\u00a0her statements more carefully, she\u2019s not as quite as explicitly anti-science as some people think<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, her nebulous statements on the issues are bad enough for me. Giving non-answers about vaccines and homeopathy appeases\u00a0her anti-science crowd and also avoids getting too much\u00a0negative\u00a0attention from\u00a0people who care about science. I really wish she would simply\u00a0state \u201cvaccines are good and homeopathy\u00a0is bad\u201d as it would force some of her anti-science followers to re-evaluate their harmful beliefs<\/a>.\u00a0She has an MD from Harvard so I doubt she\u2019s ignorant about medical science. She\u2019s pandering to her woo friendly base instead of explicitly promoting vaccine use, something that could\u00a0save thousands of lives.\u00a0<\/a> 2) Jill Stein\u2019s\u00a0platform does explicitly support pseudoscience<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay, so you might not\u00a0think her non-answers are a big deal.\u00a0I disagree, but there is at least some room for discussion on that point.\u00a0There isn\u2019t much room to discuss her explicit anti-science positions. Jill Stein wants to\u00a0ban\u00a0<\/strong>GMOs<\/a>. The scientific consensus\u00a0has shown that GMOs are safe<\/a>\u00a0and they help feed millions of people<\/a>. Stein is promoting harmful pseudoscience by campaigning against them.<\/p>\n She\u2019s also against nuclear power. But why? The Green Party say\u00a0they care\u00a0about the environment, but \u00a0nuclear power has been proven to be a safe and environmental friendly option for power<\/a>. Her strong positions against it are simply not based on any good science.<\/p>\n Finally, the\u00a0Green Party wants to support funding for homeopathy. Okay, so Jill Stein won\u2019t explicitly say she is pro-homeopathy. But her party\u00a0sure is! Just read the US Green Party\u2019s stance on alternative medicine<\/a>. Ouch.<\/p>\n Chronic conditions are often best cured by alternative medicine. We support the teaching, funding and practice of holistic health approaches and, as appropriate, the use of complementary and alternative therapies such as herbal medicines, homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine and other healing approaches.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 3) Jill Stein\u2019s campaign\u00a0has some issues with\u00a0integrity<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible for a political party (or person) to have perfect integrity. But since one of the most common arguments for supporting Jill Stein is you can \u201cvote for her on principle\u201d<\/a> I think it\u2019s worth briefly addressing.<\/p>\n One of the biggest issues I have with Stein\u2019s campaign is how she pretends that people can \u201cvote their conscience\u201d without any negative repercussions. I think this is very disingenuous because\u00a0our two-party system, while flawed, is our political reality.\u00a0\u00a0If you really want third parties to becomes a reality,\u00a0it would make more sense to\u00a0lobby your local elections bodies for instant-runoff voting. I could be wrong, but I haven\u2019t heard Jill Stein ever talk about this.\u00a0She has a clear political agenda and\u00a0definitely knows how to pander (not just with her anti-science followers, but also with how quickly she jumped on frustrated Bernie Sanders supporters!)<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure people\u00a0will\u00a0disagree on the best way to get additional political parties, but hopefully we can all agree that this next example lacked integrity.\u00a0Jill Stein made a statement supporting\u00a0Brexit, but then changed her mind when people called her out on it<\/a>. Instead of admitting she made a mistake, she just changed her webpage and told people to clear their cache so they couldn\u2019t see the original!<\/p>\n Can you imagine\u00a0what would happen if Hillary Clinton did the same thing? The press would have been all over it. Also, Stein changing her answer so flippantly about a major political issue brings me to my next point. 4) Jill Stein\u00a0does not\u00a0have the\u00a0political experience to be president<\/strong><\/p>\n I do think that people\u00a0other than lawyers and those in business should get involved in politics. However, once they get involved, they should have some experience at a high level of politics before running for the highest office. Jill Stein\u2019s experience holding political office consists of being the \u2018Lexington Town Meeting Representative\u2019 in 2005 and 2008. (This small county would have been 100% white if not for an Asian student who moved there). Outside of briefly holding office at the suburban town level,\u00a0Stein has also spent time as a lobbyist. Being a lobbyist does keep you involved with politics, but it doesn\u2019t have much to do with actually representing constituents.<\/p>\n Beyond Stein\u2019s lack of experience, I also find it troubling that\u00a0The Green party is still trying to get on the ballot in each state when the election is a few months away (the Libertarians didn\u2019t seem to have any trouble doing this a long time ago). Perhaps if the Green Party spent more time building itself up\u00a0at local levels instead of trying attention\u00a0at the presidential level, they would have more success?<\/p>\n Jill Stein is an effective activist for many issues I agree with, but she simply is not qualified to be president. I may be less worried about her lack of formal political experience if she could defend her political positions with more nuance. But watch\u00a0her try to explain her positions with any detail<\/a>\u00a0and you\u2019ll see evidence\u00a0that she really doesn\u2019t have the background.\u00a0Stein has spent much of her time bashing both Democrats and Republicans without ever working with them. So even if\u00a0she somehow became president, I doubt she would ever be able to get anything done.\u00a0How can someone with virtually zero political experience or political relationships be an effective president? 5) Voting for Stein will\u00a0help Trump<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t particularly like the two-party system, but it is our political reality. If we had stacked rank voting, this would be different, but we don\u2019t. Thus, people cannot vote their \u201cconscience\u201d without helping the candidate they least prefer. As mentioned above, Stein has to know this and I believe she is being disingenuous by pretending this isn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n If you care about liberal values, then you simply cannot risk a Trump\/Pence presidency. It would be an absolute disaster for people who are not white, male, Christian, heterosexual, or financially stable. Also, if you care about liberal values, you have to consider how the\u00a0next President may appoint up to\u00a0three<\/strong> Supreme Court justices! Additionally,\u00a0it\u2019s not unlikely that\u00a0Trump\u2019s presidency could negatively affect the United States\u2019 relationship with many countries around the world. He could end up destabilizing our economy, which would hurt everyone. Finally, Trump believes global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese. If we elect someone who does nothing to combat\u00a0climate change, we will\u00a0all be in big trouble very soon.<\/p>\n So even if Jill Stein didn\u2019t have as many flaws,\u00a0voting for her would still risk 4-8 terrible years for the liberal issues I care about. I simply cannot \u201cvote my conscience\u201d and increase the\u00a0risk of that\u00a0happening. There is too much at stake. I know this post is rather critical of Stein, but\u00a0I do like her as an activist and\u00a0agree with her on many\u00a0issues. The bottom line is that Stein is not qualified to be president and not a great fit for our political system.\u00a0Luckily for liberals,\u00a0the Democrats have a candidate running\u00a0who knows the political system very well and is extremely qualified for the job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I cannot vote my conscience for a flawed candidate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2367,"featured_media":2143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,7,14],"tags":[25,82,843,944,812],"class_list":["post-2134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-science","category-social-justice","tag-bernie-sanders","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-jill-stein","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n
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