Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lashed out at third-party presidential candidate and Green Party leader Jill Stein over the weekend, calling her approach to politics “predatory” and “inauthentic” for not growing at the grassroots.
Answering a follower’s question in her Instagram stories, the New York representative known as AOC said Stein, as the de facto leader of her party, was “not serious” about actually running the country given that “all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off,” but without growing her movement with down-ballot candidates.
AOC framed her remarks in the context of her own support for third parties, having run on the Working Families ticket herself, and her oft-voiced criticisms of the two-party system.
“If you run for years and years and years in a row and your party is not grown, and you don’t add city council seats and you don’t add down-ballot candidates and you don’t add state electeds, that’s bad leadership,” she said. “And that to me is what’s upsetting. To me, it does not read as authentic. It reads as predatory. I’m sorry. I’m just saying it.”
Stein clapped back on Monday, turning the tables somewhat and accusing AOC of supporting genocide in Gaza.
“Democrats sue to kick us off ballots, hire operatives to infiltrate and sabotage us, lock us out of debates, fight ranked-choice voting, then act concerned that Greens have only won 1,400 elections,” she wrote on X. “So which party is authentic, and which is predatory?”
Stein was a physician and Harvard University professor before entering politics. She was the Green Party’s nominee in 2012 and 2016 and is running again in 2024 after a break in 2020 when the party picked Howie Hawkins.
She also ran for governor in Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010.
The Democratic Party has challenged some third-party candidates in swing states. Last week the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Stein could stay on the ballot in that state after refusing to hear a challenge brought by an employee of the Democratic National Committee.