Doctor, author, environmental advocate … Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate for the 2016 election.
She has received little to no media attention this election, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump stealing the limelight for the last year. In July, 82 percent of those surveyed said they did not know enough about the presidential candidate to have a favorable – or unfavorable – opinion of Jill Stein.
As Green Party presidential nominee, Stein’s platforms focus on environmental issues – such as the end of fracking – and social welfare programs like universal healthcare and free higher education. These are values that also defined former Independent Party candidate Sanders’ platform.
But with Bernie out of the race and supporting Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein is beginning to look more and more like a representative of the third political party that 58 percent of this country wants. Both outsiders, Stein and Sanders fight for huge change, but now voters don’t have the option of ‘feeling the bern.’
So could Stein be the next Bernie Sanders?
Stein’s political career began years after her graduation from Harvard Medical School in 1979. She worked as a doctor for over 25 years, but became increasingly concerned about the connection between people’s health and the environment. In the late 1990s, she turned to activism and worked to shut down the “Filthy Five” power plants in Massachusetts. Since then, she has fought for a “healthy environment as a human right … combating environmental injustice and racism in dangerous exposures like lead and mercury in air and water pollution, incinerators and land fills, toxic waste sites,” her website says.
However, despite her long history of activism, Stein does not have much success as an elected official.
In the years since she turned from internal medicine to politics, Stein has lost a series of political campaigns, including governor, state representative, secretary of the commonwealth and president in the 2012 election. (She gained 0.36 percent of the vote.) She won the position of two-time representative to the town meeting of Lexington.
Despite her loss in the 2012 Presidential elections, Jill Stein has not given up the fight. She was voted the Green Party’s nominee in 2015 and has since fluctuated in the polls, averaging two percent of the vote.
Endorsing Hillary Clinton in July 2016, Sanders said in a statement on Medium, “I believe that, at this moment, our country, our values, and our common vision for a transformed America, are best served by the defeat of Donald Trump and the election of Hillary Clinton.”
While trying to unify Democrats to fight against Trump, Sanders’ decision generated a great deal of anger from his supporters, many of whom voted for Bernie in the primaries because he fought against the very ideals Clinton supports.
But now that Sanders is no longer a presidential candidate, it seems Jill Stein has been doing her best to generate the support of Bernie or Bust Americans. But can she ever take his place?
GOING GREEN
Stein and Sanders have very similar positions on the environment, education and climate change. According to PBS, Sanders is considered a “climate change hawk” who argues that “shifting global temperatures are a significant threat and caused by human activity.”
Of course, with Stein head of the Green Party, her platforms focus mostly on environmental issues; her biggest proposals, if elected president, are to find alternate sources of energy, support global climate change treaties and to enact a “Green New Deal” designed to “turn the tide on climate change, revive the economy and make wars for oil obsolete,” according to her website.
HER “MAGIC TRICK”
Their positions on education are almost identical; both support free preschool and university education. However, Stein plans to go even further than Sanders – who proposed refinancing student loans – and cancel all debt. In a Young Turks interview, she said, “My campaign is the only one that will do for young people what our misleaders saw fit to do for Wall Street not that long ago … in free money in the form of so-called quantitative easing which is a magic trick that, basically, people don’t need to understand anymore about than that it is a magic trick.”
Her plan has been criticized by many financial experts. Fortune says, “the Fed is an independent government agency, and therefore the president does not have the authority to direct its asset-buying programs.”
CORPORATE AMERICA
But their platforms truly align over the issue of corporate control and the influence of big banks. Last year, PBS said of Sanders, “Sanders is the only 2016 candidate who has rejected assistance from a super PAC, the financial organizations made legal by Citizens United.”
His platform called for the reformation of taxation in the United Sates, emphasizing that the wealthy and corporations do not pay their fair share in taxes. He said that the revenue gained from higher taxes would be spent rebuilding the middle class and helping the underprivileged gain access to health care and higher education.
DOES SHE PUT HER MONEY WHERE HER MOUTH IS?
Stein tells NPR that the Green Party is “the one national party that does not accept corporate money, lobbyist money, or have a superPAC … We are basically a party that puts people, planet and peace over profit.” On her website, she argues against “big money stranglehold” that keeps the country from a “truly representative democracy.”
However, The Daily Beast recent published an article detailing the alleged duplicity in Stein’s financial investments. After examining the released two pages of her tax return, the article says, “an analysis of her financial disclosures, which she was required to file as a presidential candidate, show she is heavily invested in the very industries that she maligns the most and as a result of her investments, she has built significant wealth.”
The Daily Beast says that while Stein fights to reverse the power of the fossil-fuel industry, “Stein has invested $995,011 to $2.2 million in funds such as the Vanguard 500 fund that maintain significant stakes in Exxon and other energy companies like Chevron, Duke Energy, Conoco Phillips, and Toho Gas.” Although a proponent of nationalizing the banking industry, The Daily Beast found “Stein has invested roughly $1.2 to $2.65 million in funds like the TIAA-CREF Equity Index that have big stakes” in banks like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.
She also has funds invested in big pharma, big tobacco and defense contractors.
While The Daily Beast admits she has no control over the investments of her funds, the article argues that “she did have a choice of whether to invest in these funds to begin with.” While Stein responded in a statement, “I have not yet found the mutual funds that represent my goals of advancing the cause of people, planet, and peace,” The Daily Beast argues that regardless of the difficulty she had in “finding funds that aligned with her values,” she did not explain “why she chose to remain in funds that are completely disjointed from her values.”
Although Stein may admire Sanders for “[showing] how powerful this movement is,” it is not clear whether Bernie supporters are reciprocating the feeling. In fact, 90 percent of former Sanders supporters plan to vote for Clinton. Is this because Americans are still remain unaware of their third-party options? Maybe it is because, in the words of linguist Noam Chomsky, “Abstaining from voting or, say, voting for … a candidate you prefer, a minority candidate, just amounts to a vote for Donald Trump.”
Stein told CNBC’s Squawk Box, “I can actually stand up for what it is that we need.” Has she proven herself the next Bernie? We’ll leave that up the American public come November 8.
