Jill Stein's Disappearing Act

Jill Stein is a doctor who abandoned her medical practice to run for president. The Harvard-educated physician became the Green Party's presidential candidate in 2012, 2016, and most recently in 2024. She positions herself as the answer for progressives exhausted by Democratic incrementalism and Republican extremism, championing Medicare for All, student debt cancellation, and opposition to military interventionism.

Her pitch appeals to voters convinced both major parties have betrayed working people. Stein presents the Green Party as sanctuary for those who refuse to participate in lesser-evil politics. She promises transformative change through electoral participation outside traditional power structures.

Money pours in from supporters who believe change might actually happen this time. Stein banks their donations while swearing she'll build something real.

Then the election ends, and Jill Stein vanishes.

Right now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are executing Operation Metro Surge across Minnesota, deploying thousands of agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. On January 7, ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, sparking nationwide protests. These are exactly the crises Stein claimed to care about during her 2024 campaign.

Where is her outrage? How about a Tweet?

Jill Stein hasn’t disappeared entirely, but her presence feels thin for someone selling permanent solidarity. Her X feed surfaces occasional campaign posts instead of steady, front-line updates. Instagram and Facebook move in the same stop-and-start rhythm, and there’s no real TikTok footprint to speak of. For a candidate who built her brand on standing with vulnerable communities in real time, that uneven visibility says more about her priorities than any slogan on a podium.

In April 2024, Stein showed up for Gaza protests at Washington University in St. Louis. She got arrested alongside 80 others, spent the night in jail, and faced assault charges for allegedly kicking a police officer. She was physically present when cameras were rolling and it served her campaign. She gave interviews from outside the jail and leveraged the moment for ballot access signatures. But now, when ICE terrorizes Minnesota communities she courted by winning 22% in Dearborn on promises to fight for immigrant rights, she offers nothing.

The routine never changes. Every four years, Stein appears, banks progressive donations, loses, delivers her thank-you speech, and vanishes. The communities she organized hear nothing. The issues she championed disappear from her platform. The movement she promised was never built to last beyond November.

But the damage she leaves behind does last.

Her 2016 run pulled 1.07 percent of the national vote. But in Michigan, her 51,463 votes exceeded Trump's 10,704-vote margin over Clinton. In Wisconsin, she received 31,006 votes while Trump won by 22,177. In Pennsylvania, her roughly 49,000 votes nearly matched Trump's margin. These three states would have given Clinton the presidency.

In December 2015, Stein attended a gala celebrating Russia Today's tenth anniversary. Photos show her seated at the head table with Vladimir Putin himself. Michael Flynn, who would become Trump's first national security adviser, sat nearby. The Senate Intelligence Committee later investigated Russian efforts to amplify her candidacy specifically to drain votes from Clinton, though no criminal wrongdoing was found.

These facts matter because they reveal Stein's operation. She doesn't disappear between elections because the campaign is over. It seems more like she vanishes because the work was never real.

Minnesota needs voices against ICE right now. Renee Good's community needs solidarity. Why isn't Stein screaming from the rooftops? This is her moment to shine. During her campaign, she said, "We do have the power, and we can use it in this election to start building an America and a world that works for all of us."

Where is that power?

She also pulled the classic, "We must strive for a government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people."

People are suffering. They are being killed. Shot in the face in front of their homes. You would think Stein would do something about it. She railed against the two-party system during her campaign. So where is the third party when it matters? Where is the doctor who promised "healthcare as a human right" when mothers are being gunned down in the streets? Stein is the worst kind of politician—a deliberate opportunist who only shows up when there's a ballot with her name on it.

She wore a keffiyeh at her campaign rallies, draped the symbolism around her shoulders while promising solidarity. Now the communities who believed those promises are being targeted while Stein remains in hibernation.

"People. Planet. Peace." Pshhh. Please.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

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