Who would win the United States Presidential Election if voting was open to the entire world? Donald Trump would probably receive a good chunk of the vote from nationalists, nativists and xenophobes from around the world; Hillary Clinton would likely dominate much of the imperialist West, e.g. UK, France, Germany; and Libertarian Gary Johnson would get the vote of anyone who believes in capitalism first, democracy second. Green Party candidate Jill Stein, however, would win the election.
Stein would win an international election for three primary reasons: she is opposed to war, she recognizes the severity of the threat of climate change and she understands the exploitation that's inherent in capitalism - which is why Stein has vowed to end poverty. There are a few caveats to this ridiculous thought experiment. If the U.S. election is to be any indicator (or if any real-life election is to be any indicator), then both racial and ethnic minorities, along with the poor, will become disenfranchised. Thus, the first international election would really be for the wealthy and well-to-do; electing someone who will maintain the world that's already treated them so well. However, for the sake of the thought experiment — and the lessons we should learn from it — imagine that everyone gets informed and gets the right to vote.
Knowing the opinions of the rest of the world, along with the facts of U.S. imperialism, it should be obvious that Stein would win an international election against a couple of war mongers and a religious capitalist. What's surprising is how she doesn’t poll better in the U.S. Her platform is similar in many respects to the platform of Sanders, who garnered almost half the democratic vote in this year's primaries. So why doesn't she get 15-20 percent of the vote in U.S. polls with him out of the race? Name recognition is obviously a problem, but that could be overcome if only another insidious idea wasn't as ubiquitous — the "lesser of two evils" argument.
The story goes that a vote for Stein is like a vote for Trump, since Stein doesn't have a chance of winning. Therefore, everyone thinking of voting for Stein should really vote for Clinton in order to stop Trump from taking office. With this logic, a vote for Clinton over Stein is avoiding the worst case scenario of having Trump as president. Yet, a system that asks you to choose between two war mongers is the real worst-case scenario, and this is where Stein would benefit in a hypothetical international election.
People around the world don't care about the subtle difference between Trump and Clinton. People in Syria, Yemen and Somalia don't care that the president blowing up their families with drone strikes is pro-choice or rhetorically (but not actually) kind to immigrants. What they want and care about is for the bombs to stop. Just like people in Malaysia and Bangladesh don't care if Trump insults the troops, either. They just want real action on climate change. The entire world doesn't really care if the minimum wage is raised to $15 a hour; they want meaningful change to an economy that values people over profit. The world regards the U.S. as the greatest threat to world peace, and the people of the world would flock to a candidate who promises an end to war and imperialism (both economic and military), an end to economic exploitation and an end to mass surveillance; someone who will treat refugees like people, someone to fight climate change and enforce human rights for everyone. If the rest of the world was willing to risk Trump for the Green Party vision, we should be too. Of course, it's only a thought.
