I’m a Bernie Sanders primary voter, and I don’t feel that Jill Stein is a realistic candidate for president. It has nothing to do with her being a third-party candidate or being a potential “spoiler” because I don’t believe in the premise that votes only belong to two parties. This has everything to do with the optics and mechanics of Stein’s proposals, as well as with her lack of political experience as an electoral liability.

Jill Stein’s Green Party has never won a single Congressional seat since their foundation in 1992. On the Green ticket, only 7 senate candidates and 1 House candidate are running in 2016, when 34 Senate and all 435 House seats are open for election this year. The Republicans are favored to retain the majority in the House this year while the Senate majority is up for grabs. With a party list being this paltry and dry, if the Green Party leadership intended for this year to be a watershed for a left-wing exodus from the Democrats to the Greens, all seven co-chairs of the Green National Committee are sorely mistaken.

So many of Stein’s policies could pass muster with none but a number of the Democratic minority in either House. That will effectively render about 60% of her platform moot in the face of not only Republican far-right hostility but also moderate Democratic reticence. A president Jill Stein faces far worse hostility to her policies than the current officeholder has faced in 8 years, 6 of which have been lame ducks filled with deft executive self-control against reactionary legislative havoc. Stein could not, under any known or possible circumstances, institute an effective presidency in this oh-so American, oh-so counterintuitive political reality.

With the sole exception of her time as a member of the Town Meeting of Lexington, Massachusetts (2005-2011), Jill Stein does not have any degree of downballot political experience. 40 out of all 44 presidents in the history of the United States have held any combination of at least one of these seats of office prior to their election as president: Vice President, Senator, Member of the House, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Member of the President’s Cabinet. Three other presidents – Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower – had only held military leaderships prior to their presidency, and the remaining one – Washington – was a delegate to the Continental Congress and the leader of the U.S. Army during the Revolutionary War.

So where does Jill Stein fit in that expectation of experience? Similarly, where does Donald Trump fit in that expectation of experience?

By comparison, the person who she has sought to woo over to running with her as a Green Party candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has held elected office since 1981 as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, representative of Vermont’s at-large district in Congress and Senator for Vermont. Hillary Clinton, who Jill Stein has browbeat for her arguably non-progressive record, served as Senator for New York from 2001-2009 and as Secretary of State from 2009-2013. By comparison to 40 out of 44 other presidents in U.S. history, both candidates for the Democratic nomination are significantly more qualified than Jill Stein, who has never held state or federal level office, and Donald Trump, who has never held elected or appointed political or military office.

Even Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party right-wing candidate in 2016 who previously gained more popular votes than Jill Stein’s last run in 2012, is more qualified for the presidency than Jill Stein or Donald Trump by way of serving as the Republican Governor of New Mexico. Seeing how Johnson browbeat Stein and her Green Party in a third-party debate on RT America, Stein seems to largely be out of her depth when it comes to confronting a cottage industry of the most inane right-wing arguments and rebuttals directed against her policies. If I were to protest-vote without concern to political ideology, I would vote for Johnson over Stein.

Even Gayle McLaughlin, the former two-term Green Party mayor and current councilwoman of Richmond, California who has been lauded for her progressive, far-left-to-the-Democrats policies, is somewhat more qualified to run for higher state or federal office of some type, if not president, than Jill Stein. I would vote for Gayle McLaughlin over Jill Stein in any state or federal office if I were a California resident. Unfortunately, it seems that the Green Party only runs a decent ground game in California, and only in local races. Outside of California, the Green Party seems to mostly attract politically-aware but ill-tempered, non-serious malcontents as candidates. I wish the Green Party were a more serious, more self-aware rival for left-wing votes at all levels, seeing that they are the largest left-wing political party in terms of membership which is not named the “Democratic Party”.

Finally, to pivot back to the separation of powers, so much of Jill Stein’s agenda (and Bernie’s and Hillary’s) is not accomplishable by one person or by the executive branch as a whole. About 60-80% of Stein’s platform is the remit of Congress. About 60-80% of Stein’s agenda cannot be accomplished by executive order and would be slapped down by the courts if tried through EO. Separation of powers guarantees that the Congress will always act to hold the executive to account. Even under the G.W. Bush presidency, a Republican Congress held his presidency in check on the Real I.D. Act, which scared many libertarians of the left and White-right varieties over the usurpation of state-level privilege over identification.

Why do we demand so much of the presidency that cannot be realistically accomplished by the presidency? Why have we lost so much of our cognizance regarding what power Congress has in the implementation of federal government? Is this a popularity contest over who can be the bigger strongman or strongwoman? I don’t think so many of us, especially Democrats, care about Congress and its powers anymore (to our peril), and we set ourselves up for massive disappointment when we treat one person as the leader of a political cult of personality as so many of us have done with Bernie Sanders. I believe in competent presidencies, not strong presidencies, and no matter how progressive or liberal a platform can be, it has little to no legitimacy if it is not backed by a legislative mandate. Jill Stein does not have a legislative mandate by way of her party having no members in Congress, or even a progressive majority to consider and pass her proposals.
That is how woefully inadequate Jill Stein seems to me as a candidate. This is why I backed away from Bernie Sanders after I voted for him. This is also why I’m conceding to voting for Clinton in the general, in that she has the votes, the basic experience as an officeholder that at least 40 other presidents have had prior to their elections, and the legislative mandate to carry so many of the policies that Sanders supported in his candidacy’s platform.

But whether Democrats, or progressives and liberals in any party, even care about getting a majority in both houses of Congress anymore remains to be seen.