I'm just going to clarify something, and it's why I get so incredibly heated whenever someone decries third party voters.
...any debate featuring Hawkins where labor issues arose would have seen him do well enough to where the Dems would've gotten worried and adopted some of the reform that's been needed since Reagan fucked us all over.
This is why voting third party matters, and why so many leftists have become so numb and indifferent to the post-Obama Dems. Obama didn't do as much for working class Americans as he could have, as he maybe
should have, but what he did manage to push through and champion was a major step back toward the right direction. Biden, to a surprising extent, has also done a fairly solid job extending union power and pushing for issues that positively affect working class families, but it comes across as "too little too late" more often than not.
Voting for a further left third party candidate in a state that's guaranteed to go Blue is a strategic decision. Since so many further left third parties focus on issues that we're all generally in agreement on (single-payer, union power, workers rights, etc.), having a growing portion of the "base" for Democratic voters telling the established leaders that their outdated policies need revision, done so by showing a greater level of support for candidates that make these issues their focus,
will force the established Dem leaders to pull further left.
Do I think that Stein would be a good POTUS? Or Hawkins? No, I honestly don't, but I do believe their voices being heard, and in turn the voices of the disaffected left-leaning voting base, will make the conversation steer toward issues that have more direct affects on the majority than what has been done so far.
(To say nothing of the Green Party's inability to even present a suitable platform or strategy to enact the changes it claims to stand for, or even the lack of cohesion within it. And to say even less of further left candidates and voters who, despite sharing affiliations with various DIY subcultures, ignore the local elections - town aldermen, city council, county chair, state senate, etc. - to their own detriment.)
If you live in a Red state, or a battleground state, and want change? Vote Blue for POTUS, and find the local candidates whose policies are the closest to your ideals. If you live in a Blue state anyway, then voting for a third party won't matter as directly in the final tally for the Electoral College, but it will tell the state, county, and municipal candidates that there are issues they are either ignoring or not addressing to the extent that they should.
Build from the foundation.
