It was 4:15pm and humid in Durham, NH on September 13th. I timidly walked up the steps of Huddleston Hall at the University of New Hampshire, suspicious of the lack of activity near the campus’ presentation spot. An older man with a long white ponytail was sitting on the stairs holding a sign that said ‘Jill Stein, Green Party Candidate for President @ 5pm’. I smiled at the man as I walked past him, assuring him that yes, I was headed into the hall to see Dr. Stein. He smiled back and held up his pointer and middle fingers, then said “Peace and love!” I said it back, and the words felt strange to me. It dawned on me that I had never exchanged that phrase with someone so easily, so warmly before. After I passed by, the man continued his job of sparking interest in the soon-to-begin event, casually asking students as they walked by—would they be interested in hearing the Green Party candidate for president speak tonight? In the few seconds I listened to him on my way into the hall, I heard mostly silence or ‘no thank you’ ’s coming from the passing students. How odd, I thought, to be so firmly disinterested or set against such an exciting campus event.
I took a seat in the third row near the center aisle, not wanting to be too close to the podium but still hoping to get a great view. Only a few of the other fifty-ish chairs were filled so far. Then I noticed some bold neon signs up front near the podium that had relevant activist phrases written on them with permanent marker, phrases such as “Black Lives Matter”, “Water is Life”, and “Stop the North Dakota Access Pipeline.” What a breath of fresh air to see these kinds of voter-made signs at a campaign rally, instead of the tired “Make Donald Drumpf Again”, and “Hillary for Prison” signs I’ve come to know so well from the rallies for both the Democratic and Republican nominees.
I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as a crowd, which was why I arrived 45 minutes early. While I waited for the rally to start, I quietly observed Jill Stein fans around me as they found their seats. An old couple sat to my left, a man in his 20’s sporting rainbow dreadlocks a few rows behind me. A single dad with two young girls who couldn’t have been more than five years old in front of me. A woman in a wheelchair, who I later learned had Muscular Dystrophy, to my right. People of all ages, races, shapes and sizes. A couple of them introduced themselves and told me how I could volunteer for the campaign, which they had already been doing for months. They also told me they had recently achieved a great victory in the midst of their hard work—getting Jill Stein on the ballot in New Hampshire.
As the clock on my phone struck 5pm, I nervously looked around. Where would Dr. Stein be entering the room? Who would introduce her? Then someone a few seats down from me said quietly—“Look, there’s Jill!” I swung my head around, feeling more excited than I thought I would. It took me a minute to spot her among the crowd that was still seating themselves because I was expecting her to be wearing green. Instead she was wearing an electric blue blazer and was sitting in the back of the room in a guest seat, shaking hands and chatting with the people around her as if she’d known them for years. She smiled at them. She took selfies with them, making the peace sign with her hand. She was radiant.
After several minutes of meeting and greeting, and a short introduction from a college student who had recently switched from the Democratic Party to the Green Party, Jill went up to the podium and started speaking. Although the crowd was on the smaller side, you could feel the energy and pride in the room, and almost everyone stood up to greet her, cheering loudly.
Like a bud soaking up sunlight, I soaked up the words of her speech, if you could call it a speech. I usually think of a speech as a tediously prepared or pre-written text that was most likely written by someone other than the speaker. But as far as I could tell, not a single word she said was doctored or prepared—it was mostly extemporaneous to the point where I felt I was witnessing something rare. She talked about the North Dakota Access Pipeline and how we must become less dependent on fossil fuels and fracking. She talked about halting our pointless interventionist wars that put our citizens’ and foreign citizens’ lives on the line in order to “protect” us. She spoke of the crippling debt that college students have, and how young people should not have to “gamble their money away for the chance at economic security later in life.” She went into detail about her proposed Medicare-for-all program, which would eliminate discriminatory practices in our healthcare system, and about her “Green New Deal”, an investment into renewable energy systems that would not only create thousands of jobs, but help transform a populous that stays sick for healthcare corporations’ ever-rising profits into a populous that is healthy, while also saving the environment from further destruction and neglect.
She passionately voiced how broken our two-party political system is, how it runs on corporate money, and how it is the prime example of how capitalism has run amok in the US. And she reassured us that we should never be bullied into believing a vote for a third party is a waste of a vote or a “vote for Trump”, as many of us have been told. She said that fear politics only beget more of the same, and voting for the lesser evil only promotes the idea that yes, evil is ok as long as it’s wearing blue, as long as it’s not “that Republican.” Additionally, she reminded us that if she hits at least 5% in the polls this November, the government is legally required to fund the Green Party in the next general election to the tune of at least 20 million dollars.
When she finished speaking, there was a short question and answer session, the hardest hitting question being raised by a member of a local New Hampshire newspaper. The question addressed Jill’s lack of political experience, as she has never held office. She answered quickly and readily with a twinkle in her eye—noting that the kind of experience she doesn’t have is the kind that involves closed-door back room dealings and bowing down to corporate donors. She even got the chance to shut down a question about her being “anti-vacc”, reminding the questioner that she does in fact believe that vaccines are beneficial, however, she does not agree with all of the FDA’s decisions in regulating them. She was cool, confident, and unafraid to answer questions directly in a way we could understand.
After the question and answer session was over, all 40 or so of us surrounded Jill and the podium for a group photo. Then Jill said loudly, “All right! Time for selfies!” I anxiously waited in the short line for a couple of minutes until I was up. Feeling starstruck, all I managed to say was how happy I was to meet her. She smiled, genuinely happy to meet one of her supporters, and we took our photo, both of us holding up the peace sign again.
I left Huddleston Hall feeling fulfilled, and reassured that I was making the right decision with my vote. I felt proud to have spent the last 2 hours in a room full of idealists and people who know they deserve better than what they’re being offered by the mainstream media and our pay-to-play government system. I felt proud to have met my candidate, a person free of scandals, free of dark money donations and hateful racist rhetoric. As I sit here writing this now I am shaking my head, incredulous that more of the eligible voters in this country aren’t considering Jill Stein as their candidate, no doubt because of the widely held notion that “third party candidates can’t win.” It only goes to show how brainwashed we’ve become as nation, forever returning to the parties that have abused, tricked and cheated us, only to be cheated again. We have the illusion of choice, actually thinking a D or an R makes a difference in policy in the end. Until you see the political sphere for what it is, until you break out of that mold, trust your gut, and vote for what is right, until you realize that you have more power as an individual than you know, you can never see the moral and right decision that is Dr. Jill Stein.
I can proudly say I have broken out of the mold, while it may not be a popular choice and it may not be a “cool” choice in this election cycle, as we scramble to prevent a xenophobe and a liar from taking office. I am a fish swimming upstream in a river of other fish who tell me to turn around out of fear of causing ripples. I have found a new political home, and it is the Green Party.
mollywentworth 