Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/3/24: Jill Stein Sounds Off On Dem Lawfare, Lesser Of Two Evils Voting

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Krystal and Saagar interview Green Party candidate Jill Stein on Dem lawfare against her and the idea of lesser of two evils voting.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know. Some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around.

And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The voices and the perspectives that matter 24-7 because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys. Ready or not, 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the

absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. We're very fortunate to be joined this morning by the Green Party candidate for president, Dr. Jill Stein. It's great to see you, Dr. Stein. Great to see you. Good to see you both. So I know you've been working to highlight an issue, core to democracy, about the denial of your name to be on the ballot in Nevada. You can go ahead and put up the press release that you put out. But just explain to people what exactly happened here, because, you know, I know one of the things that the Green Party has been very effective at is being able to obtain ballot access

in states across the country. So how were they able to keep you off in this critical swing state? Yeah, so the Democrats had announced way back in the spring that they had hired an army of lawyers for the purpose of throwing their competition off the ballot, basically using lawfare, misusing details of the law in order to undermine basically the spirit of the law, which is what they've been doing. And Nevada is a very good example of that. In Nevada, they challenged the forms that we had been given by the Secretary of State, the forms for collecting signatures. And in fact, we had started out the petition drive using the correct forms,

which happened to have a small footnote about verifying that signers actually lived in the district, making a verbal verification that they lived in the district they claimed. And that footnote was contained on the first form that, in fact, we were using. And then the Secretary of State, in error, or who knows why, but they told us that that was the incorrect form and we should switch the forms, which we did. And we then collected three times the number of required

signatures. So we were certainly fulfilling the spirit of the law, and we had done it correctly. And the Secretary of State basically gave us the wrong form. And then after the signatures were all submitted, they challenged the signatures based on the form, on the incorrect form they had given us. The first court actually threw out the case and ruled in our favor. But then the Democratic Party appealed and the Court of Appeals, which was full of political appointments, ruled in their favor and the Supreme Court validated that. So it basically provides an incentive for any secretary of state to make a mistake and thereby throw the competition off the ballot. Yeah, it's absolutely ridiculous.

I want to ask you a philosophical question. As somebody who's now been experiencing this lawfare to keep you off the ballot, one of the reasons that RFK Jr. gave for specifically endorsing Trump was exactly this lawfare campaign. So I guess, could you talk about what it's like to be experiencing this type of lawfare, but why you don't feel that that's a reason to then endorse one of the major two-party candidates? I mean, it's a symbol, I think, of what is wrong with the two parties, that the two parties, you know, they're bought and paid for. They manipulate the process and they claim to be, you know, legitimate and representing the interests of the people. But they're actually, you know, to Republicans, if you were looking at who might vote for him or who might vote,

you know, for which candidate if he weren't in the race, but that the Republicans were not trying to throw him off. It was the Democrats who were trying to throw him off, you know, until he, you know, threw in with Trump and then they were suing to like keep him on the ballot. So it's just, you know, it's ridiculous. And as far as we're concerned, this is, you know, this is a symptom of what's wrong with this system and these parties that are basically bought and paid for. And they're violating, you know, not only, you know, the interests of third parties, but fundamentally the right of voters. Voters are demanding, you know, other choices. And, you know, before this election had really started in the most recent Gallup poll, the numbers were off the charts at an all-time record high that people

were demanding other choices because the two parties had done such a poor job of serving the public interest. Dr. Stein, I wanted to ask you, so I think a lot of people are very sympathetic and interested in your campaign because they see you as one of the only candidates, the only candidate with a large amount of ballot access who is opposing the genocide in Gaza. But they may not see how a vote for you is more than a protest vote at this point, given the nature of this locked in two party system that we have. So can you explain your theory of power?-in two-party system that we have. So can you explain your theory of power? I mean, should people see that as just a protest vote?

Is that enough to feel like I'm taking a moral stand against this genocide or against other issues that you represent and the two major party candidates don't? Or is there a theory of power behind this that a vote for you translates into some broader political change down the road. Yeah, exactly. You know, this is my third run. We wouldn't be here had we not had the two prior runs to basically build recognition, to build support for our agenda, which has essentially become the agenda that the progressive Democrats give lip service to for the most part. That is, you know, a Green New Deal, free public higher education, ending student debt, reparations, Medicare for all, health care is a human right.

I mean, these are all issues which were specifically launched into the national dialogue through green candidates, beginning with Ralph Nader back in the 2000 election, launching Medicare for All. So, you know, there's a very concrete process by which you build power. And in the system that we currently have, which is so steeply tilted, the playing field, so steeply tilted towards, you know, big money and the power of big corporations and special interests to buy influence. You know, it's not something that one overcomes in a single run. You have to really run repeatedly.

You have to build name recognition to where we are now that most people really understand that, you know, that we are the party of peace. We are the party of the public interest. We are the party that would definitive We are the party of the public interest. We are the party that would definitively deal with climate change. And in this race, especially where genocide is a huge issue, I would say that it's not simply a symbolic act, that if you vote for genocide, you're basically affirming it, you're endorsing it. You're affirming genocide at a time, you know, that most Americans are absolutely horrified by this genocide and, in fact, not only want an immediate diplomatic solution,

but also want an immediate weapons embargo to Israel. So the American people feel very strongly. And, you know, every vote for our campaign is a shot across the bow of the empire, telling them that we are here and we're growing. And, you know, if we wind up with 5, 10, even 15 percent of the vote, you know, and that really depends on whether the word gets out. I don't know if you have read the commentary on the Breakfast Club interview, but, you know, we were basically being ambushed by, you know, by Democratic Party attack dogs, as we often are. And it completely backfired on them, as it usually does. And to read the comments, you'll see,

and there are, you know, maybe 20,000 comments now on the main posting. People are saying, I wasn't going to vote for before. I wasn't going to vote at all because there was nothing to vote for. But now, you know, I've been persuaded that I'm going to register green and vote green. So, you know, our particular demographic is people who are not voting. In 2020, that was one out of every three voters, eligible voters, that is, who didn't vote. So don't they deserve a vote as well? And if the word were to get out and those people get out and register, you know, we could really see this election turned on its head in a four-way race, which this is because in most states, RFK is still on the ballot. You basically have three pro-genocide, pro-war candidates, and you have our one anti-genocide,

anti-war, pro-worker climate emergency campaign that could unify a lot of votes. In a four-way race, an election can be won with as little as 26% of the vote. So the hurdles are not out of sight. And let me just say, it's a second major propaganda campaign that we the people are powerless and that resistance is futile. Well, we believe, as Frederick Douglass said, that power concedes nothing without a demand. And if you simply vote for the lesser evil, there is no record the electorate that really wants an end to the genocide, that wants healthcare as a human right, that wants to end student debt and have a free public higher education and so on. To have that actually represented by a number gives those issues real traction, which they don't have if they are disappeared by this mythology of lesser evil. Let me, let me just push you on that a little bit.

Because in 2016, in fact, you would know the numbers. Quite a lot of people did vote for you because they felt that way. They felt, I just, I can't with either of these candidates. And here's someone who more closely represents my political ideology. And I'm going to support her. And I didn't see the Democratic Party see that as like, oh, we got to take these issues more seriously. In fact, in a lot of ways, what I saw was them moving further to the right, demonizing the left, painting you and anyone who would support you as a Putin puppet and, you know,

completely trying to marginalize any of that legitimate criticism of the party. So why would it be different this time? Well, first, let me just, you know, remind you that there was a huge smear campaign going on against me at the time. And I remember then I was investigated for three years by the Senate Intelligence Committee who were trying to find some substance to this charge, you know. And had they been able to find any evidence, you can be sure that, you know, I would not be walking free. You know, I would certainly have been charged with being a foreign agent, which is a 15-year jail sentence. They could not find a darn thing. And they wound up giving me basically a full exoneration and saying there was absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever. But, you know, that

required my full-time, you, energy and and focus and commitment. And you really rely on having your candidate basically translate the momentum from the campaign into the growth of the party. And we wound up being basically standing still. And, you know, we now have evidence that they are also, you know, launching infiltration campaigns and spies and all that. So we were tied up by a number of things that, you know, were circumstantial and I don't think will be the case this time. Also, if you've only had about, you know, one or one and a half percent of the vote, That's entirely different from if you begin to get four or five percent. And as you well know, at five percent, you then not only do you ensure your ballot access in many of the states so you don't have to spend your first nine months just, you know, getting into the barred gates, you actually can begin the election full bore. But also we would then basically receive federal funding for the general election in the next presidential race.

So we would begin to have a whole lot more resources to build. And, you know, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. You have to build from where you are if you're ever going to proceed. And this mythology that it's a wasted vote is part of the propaganda of really silencing opposition. And if people are happy, you know, with the genocide, if they are happy with the expanding war, which, you know, is just on the verge of major regional and potentially even global and nuclear confrontation, yeah, sure.

You know, why bother resisting? But there are many people who feel that we have crossed now many red lines. Our democracy, it's not, we don't have to wait for Donald Trump, you know, for real threats, real fascist threats to our democracy. When I speak, so one of the things, I'll put on the face of like a Democrat,

let's say I live in North Carolina or Georgia or a state like that. I'm saying I hear you. You know, I'm upset about Israel, but I've got this abortion referendum or whatever on the ballot. If I don't vote to make sure that Donald Trump doesn't get into the office, then I could literally have an issue I care a lot about suffer. What would you say to somebody like that? You've talked a lot about abortion, but they have to think that way. For one thing, Democrats could solve that problem right now. And the Biden-Harris administration could set up the abortion clinics on federal land, on military bases and so on, all around the country. So this problem could be solved and shame on them for not solving it. And sure, yeah, the White House administration might change, but once those

abortion clinics are set up on federal land, it will be very hard to take them away. Also, you know, you have the fact that these referendums are passing all over in just about every state that I'm aware of. The referendums to establish abortion rights state by state are succeeding. And furthermore, this is really on the Democrats that Roe was not already codified. They had plenty of time to do it. They had time when the Democrats could have overridden the veto and they could have furthermore, they could have modified the veto to have ensured that Roe v. Wade was codified. And both Biden and Obama promised during their elections that this would be the first thing that they did, but they managed never to get to it. So, you know, there's a lot of blame to go around here, such as Republicans.

So, Dr. Stein, I know you object to the idea of lesser evil voting. But do you, in fact, think that Democrats are the lesser evil of the two parties? You know, how do you get more evil than conducting genocide? You know, how do you get more evil than attacking peaceful protesters who are simply giving voice to the values of the American people

and the values of the world and having your heads cracked in? How do you get more evil than establishing the cop cities? There are some 80 of them that are being built now around the country and many of them under democratic municipal administrations like in Atlanta. You know, this is an assault on our basic democratic rights, on our freedom of speech, you know, on, you know, on basic human rights and international law that's going on. So, you know, do you see Republicans then as a lesser evil? I don't see a lesser evil. You know, I think we have two greater evils and our job is to

basically stand up and fight for the greater good, which, you know, our very lives are depending on as we stand on the verge of, you know, enlarging and extremely dangerous wars, which, you know, our very lives are depending on as we stand on the verge of, you know, enlarging and extremely dangerous wars, both, you know, at the border of Ukraine and Russia and as well in the Middle East. And, you know, the U.S. is ginning up, you know, conflict with China as well. We have an extremely aggressive foreign policy, which is bought and paid for not just by AIPAC, but also by the war contractors. Both parties, you know, take contributions from PACs, corporate PACs. They work with super PACs. They can take million-dollar checks. A single, you know, donor with deep pockets can write a check for a million dollars and exert enormous influence. The Greens do not participate in these legalized polls for corruption. So, you know, we we are, you know, the one national scope party that can actually stand for what the American people desperately need. And it's not only, you know, the foreign

policy, which is squandering half of our congressional budget on the endless war machine, but it's also what we desperately need here at home by way of health care and housing with half of all renters now paying 30 to 50 percent of their monthly income just to keep a roof over their heads and rates of evictions and homelessness are skyrocketing. So we have an emergency at home here as well. And, you know, how do we ever fix this when the two parties keep marching lockstep to the right? It's not Greens that are forcing Democrats to march to the right, and it's not third parties that are basically creating Republican wins. Just look at the election, the midterms of 2010, where the Democrats lost 1,000 seats in state legislatures and 64 seats in Congress and 12

in the Senate and the same number of governorships. And that was after the Wall Street bailouts. The two Democratic houses of Congress and the Obama White House threw out millions of homeowners while they bailed out the crooks on Wall Street who crashed the economy. So they have been consistently punished by the loss of their base. So this is not something to blame on third parties.

We've got two bought and paid for parties which are marching to the right. And the way to stop this march to the right is by standing up and fighting for a real left agenda that can actually, or populist agenda, whatever you want to call it, but an agenda that will deliver for the very serious material needs of the American people. We are not taking small steps in the right direction. We are actually backsliding, you know, by huge, giant leaps right now. And our very survival is at stake. So one of the arguments that leftists will make in favor of voting for Kamala Harris and the Democratic ticket is basically like, listen, the electoral landscape is not ultimately at the core of what's going to drive change. We need to focus on organizing. We need to focus on labor movement, maybe focus more on down ballot races. And the operative

question for the top of the ticket in a landscape where it's either going to be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris is which candidate would you rather be in opposition to? Because we're going to be in opposition, whether it's either one of these, because we don't agree with them on a bunch of stuff. So who would you rather be in opposition to? And although the track record has been horrifying when it comes to Biden-Harris with regard to the genocide in Gaza, on the other side, you have Donald Trump, where the interests of the Republican Party are all aligned in favor of letting Israel do whatever they want forever, where he's taking $100 million from Miriam Adelson, who says she wants them to take over the West Bank, where his language has all been critical of Biden and Harris

for not being hawkish enough with regard to that. And they say, well, at least if it was the Harris administration, there's some opportunity, some possibility of more pressure. And then we focus more of our efforts on building up the labor movement and those sorts of things, changing, making ranked-choice voting a reality so that there's more of an opportunity to vote for candidates who actually reflect our interests. So what is your response to that view, that leftists would rather be in opposition to Kamala Harris than be in opposition to Donald Trump, who says he's going to deport, you know, people who are protesting in favor of Palestine. Yeah, so let me just say that in spite of what the candidates say, you know, we've seen,

for example, both Joe Biden and Barack Obama exceed all, you know, all offenses of the Republicans in many areas, including deportations, you know, and we've seen the Democratic heads in the White House be the deporters in chief. And, you know, all bets are off between what they say and what they actually do. You know, we have a corrupt system, which at the end of the day is taking its marching orders from its big donors. And in my view, you can make the exact opposite argument that, in fact, under Democratic administrations, you see the peace movement go to sleep and you see actually most of the protest movements get very quiet. And it's generally under Republicans that we generally have a very invigorated set of social movements that can push. Witness under Richard Nixon, we got Roe v. Wade,

we got the EPA and the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. We brought the troops home from Vietnam. That so much has to do with what we are doing. And if we are in a mode of, you know, of taking marching orders from either political party, that doesn't bode well for really empowered and, you know, hard-driving movements. We need hard-driving movements. And if at the end of the day, as you argue, if at the end of the day, it really is the nature of our movements, why don't we, you know, stand up and fight for, you know, for the electoral representation that we deserve, as well as having strong movements? So again, that's, I mean, that sounds like, are you making the argument that it's actually better to be in opposition to Donald Trump,

that more gets done for peace movement and other important movements under Republicans? Because that actually seems like an argument in favor of voting for Republicans. Well, what I'm saying is that there are many mythologies out there that disempower us. And at the end of the day, I think Frederick Douglass had it right, that power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will. Remember, the first spoiler parties were labeled as such before the Civil War, and the spoiler parties were those who were fighting for the abolition of slavery. So I think it's really important to reject the propaganda of powerlessness

and to remember the words of Alice Walker, that the biggest way people give up power is by not knowing we have it to start with. If we simply got the word out to one out of every three eligible voters who tend to be lower income of color. And what's the third? Lower income of color. And it'll come to me in a moment. But, you know, basic working people who are struggling, we have the power actually to even win a four way race or even a three way race.

So I would not accept the mythology of powerlessness. We need to build our power. And we don't do that by basically canceling, you know, the evidence of our power. It needs to show, and we need to stand up strong and reject the many propaganda arguments that tell us we are powerless and resistance is futile, and we should just roll over, you know, for whoever you think the lesser evil is and accept the direction that they've been taking us. We have not been making progress. We've been backsliding desperately under both Democrats, even with three, you know, with three branches of government. We've been, you know, just the evidence is very clear that we are not moving forward.

We need to stand up and no one's going to do it for us. We are the ones we've been waiting for. It's always fascinating to talk to you. We appreciate your time. Thank you for coming on, Dr. Stein. Great to see you. Thank you so much. And it's Jill Stein 2024 for those who'd like to know more.

Thanks very much. Our pleasure. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.

Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stay informed, empowered, and ahead of the curve with the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the Black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones,

the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7 because our stories deserve to be heard. Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. iHeartRadio.