Dear Progressives, Vote Jill Stein

Dear self-described progressives of America, we need to talk.

It has come to our attention that a lot of you are voting for Hillary Clinton, whom you believe is a paragon of progressive virtue.

“I think it’s an offense to the concept of feminism to say that Hillary Clinton and her advocacy for war, for Wall Street, and for the Wal-Mart economy, represents feminism.’

While this astonishing feat of mental gymnastics might be impressive in and of itself, the ideological compromise progressives would inherently make by voting for Clinton is inexplicable.

But fear not, ye tired Bernie Bros, ye poor Occupy Wall Streeters, ye huddled feminists yearning to breathe free from the patriarchy — you don’t have to vote for Clinton. There is still a real progressive candidate in this race: Jill Stein.

If eight years of disastrous neoconservative foreign policy under Bush followed by one of the worst economic downturns in American history taught us anything, it’s that progressives really don’t like Wall Street or war.

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This of course begs the question as to why anyone who considers themselves a progressive would vote for Clinton, whose favorite pastimes on the 2016 campaign trail have been taking massive amounts money from Wall Street and warmongering.

Green Party nominee Jill Stein, however, likes neither war nor Wall Street — and, unlike Clinton, she isn’t lying when she says as much. “Why do our tax dollars go to bomb other countries instead of building ours?” Stein, who has repeatedly criticized Clinton for being “bought and paid for by Wall Street,” asked on Twitter on Wednesday. “Young Americans are tired of both war parties.”

Clinton, who is one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent and powerful warmongers, would never ask such a question. Indeed, Stein’s own running mate, Ajamu Baraka, said it best when he noted that “it should [be] clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war.”

The way some progressives have reacted to criticisms of President Obama and the police shootings which gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement have also shown the country that progressives really dislike perceived instances of racial injustice.

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And unlike Hillary Clinton, who appears to recoil every time she comes near a Black Lives Matter activist, Jill Stein actually cares about the interests of people who aren’t rich, white liberals from Manhattan, Hollywood, or Washington.

“Native Americans are being forced at gunpoint to accept a pipeline that white North Dakotans refused as too risky to their water,” Stein tweeted on Thursday in reference to the dispute at Stand Rock over the Dakota Access Pipeline. Indeed, Stein was even charged by North Dakota authorities for her participation in a protest and act of vandalism in favor of the Lakota and Dakota Sioux who live in Standing Rock.

Not only is Stein willing to risk her own security for her progressive values, she’s also willing to call out Clinton for the former secretary of state’s lack of commitment to those same values. “It’s mind-boggling that many who claim to care about people of color are utterly unconcerned about Clinton’s legacy in Libya and Honduras,” Stein tweeted recently.

Progressives also tend to think of themselves as a feminist lot, being for the equality of the sexes and the promotion of women’s issues and interests. Clinton certainly talks the talk — indeed she built much of her career on claiming to be a feminist — but a woman who has a close working relationship with Islamic theocracies like Saudi Arabia and is knee-deep in bullying her husband’s alleged sexual assault victims is clearly no friend to the fairer sex.

But, as Stein herself pointed out, neither are the majority of Clinton’s policies particularly female-friendly. “Feminism is much more than that. It’s about peace, it’s about justice, it’s about rights for women as caretakers and caregivers. And the broader agenda of the woman needs to be consistent with that and in Hillary’s case, it’s not,” Stein told “The Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur in June.

“I think it’s an offense to the concept of feminism to say that Hillary Clinton and her advocacy for war, for Wall Street, and for the Wal-Mart economy, represents feminism. By no means.”

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The simple fact is that for the better part of the last two decades progressives in America have been whining about the de facto rule by corporate interests, globalization, and free trade, and the waging of imperialistic foreign wars — and all available evidence suggests Clinton would continue these things.

Funnily enough, progressives, all evidence suggests that Donald Trump opposes these things and will continue to do so as president. Fine, fine — it was worth a shot. But even if you can’t bring yourself to vote for Trump, take a good long look at Clinton’s record and ask yourselves how you could ever bring yourself to vote for her either.

“However much we cheer the Sanders insurgency, the stakes are too high to entrust our shared rebellion to a corporate party that’s thrown us all under the bus for decades,” Stein said in February. “Every vote for Clinton is a rubber stamp for elitist corruption,” she tweeted in October.

Don’t vote for Hillary Clinton, progressives of America. Vote for Jill Stein. In your bleeding liberal hearts you know she’s a better choice.