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Here’s Why Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein Still Matters

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Is Hillary Clinton a Jaded Jill Stein?

According to a July New York Times poll, “Six in 10 Republicans, Democrats and Independents say they are not looking forward to the next few months of the campaign” and “more than half of all voters hold unfavorable views of the two major party candidates and large majorities say neither is honest and trustworthy.” It’s a development the NYT claims has not been seen in any modern presidential contest, yet in November, United States citizens and the rest of the world will be watching to see whether Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate Donald Trump will win the election. With Senator Bernie Sanders‘ loss to Clinton, his dedicated fan base, largely composed of Millennials and the liberal-leaning, boosted the strongest leading third-party candidates’ numbers –Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. A large amount of others, with no faith in the success of any third party, begrudgingly sided with Clinton. With Johnson leading Stein in the polls, she is as close to “guaranteed loss” as you can get. Yet, she still matters. Voters may not realize Stein represents a growing base of voters who want out of the two-party system and will cast their vote for not only a woman, but a third-party candidate despite the overbearing notion of it being a “wasted” vote.

 

Jill Stein is a Harvard-educated physician and activist who was also the Green Party’s nominee in 2012. As a woman, she faces the same obstacles of sexist scrutiny Clinton does. The key difference is that Clinton has access to the world’s stage as part of the Democratic party and international corporate backing. As a third-party candidate that does not accept corporate money, she lives in a special disadvantageous state. Some might even compare her as a woman version of Bernie Sanders with even less opportunity. Jill Stein’s policies are bold and unapologetically progressive, many of which echo Bernie Sanders. Like him, she supports initiatives like raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, breaking up “too big to fail banks,” addressing police brutality and mass incarceration, free healthcare, and other zealous reforms. Even her criticism follows in Sanders’ coat tails with questioning of her understanding of economics and how governmental policy functions.

With the growing amount of the younger population coming out to vote and the majority numbers of Millennials as a whole, upfront and radically progressive women may one day be the face of a Madame President. It pegs the question of if Jill Stein, who shuns the two-party system and has openly criticized Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton, would have had similar success to Sanders had she only run Democratic?

Jill Stein doesn’t matter just because of her policies and plans for presidency, but because of her loud dedication to an unprecedented future of unexpected third-party nominees showing up on the polls at all. Hillary Clinton has certainly made history and will continue to do so, but she is not the radical woman nominee many young voters are seeking. Clinton strikes a balance between being a familiar, moderate face while also pulling in historically disenfranchised voters. In doing so, she makes a new path inside an old system. It’s a route Jill Stein opposes at the moment, but perhaps Bernie Sanders once did too.

(Image Source: Alex Wong/ Gettyimages/ Saul Loeb/AFP)

Destini "D.K." Billins is a graduate from the University of Georgia who describes herself as a transmedia professional and writer. She has a passion for all things involving media and social progress, but most importantly, she has a really cute Shih Tzu named Titan.

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