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How the hell did Jill Stein get seated at a table with Putin? She's a nobody.

Tina Kandelaki

Dan8267 says

How the hell did Jill Stein get seated at a table with Putin?

Well, she was helpful in getting Trump elected, so there's always that.

YesYNot says

Well, she was helpful in getting Trump elected, so there's always that.

Actually, no. I was hoping she would get 5% of the vote, but she only got 1%. Even if every person who voted for Stein had voted for Hillary, it would not affect the electoral map one bit. Hillary got beaten like a SJW at Berkeley.

Tina Kandelaki

Dan8267 says

Even if every person who voted for Stein had voted for Hillary, it would not affect the electoral map one bit.

That would have flipped Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, total 46 electoral votes, and thus the Electoral College, electing Hillary Clinton President. A friend blamed Dr. Stein for "single handedly" handing Donald Trump the Presidency.

I disagreed with him though, for two reasons. First, I know enough Jill Stein voters to know they would not have voted for Hillary's escalation of wars in the mideast and mass surveillance on behalf of her corporate and Saudi sponsors. Second, if you're going to re-assign Stein's 1% to the Democrats, you'd have to re-assign the 4% who voted for (former) Republicans Johnson and McMullin, all of whom were probably pulling more votes away from Trump than from Clinton; in that scenario, Trump would have gained five states (Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico) and an electoral college landslide, 331 vs 200. Even then, neither major candidate would have got a majority of the popular vote, even if they could have taken all of the votes from their three nearest independent rivals. The electoral college total included three votes for Colin Powell, and one each for Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, Ron Paul, and Faith Spotted Eagle. Realistically, if the choice came down to Clinton vs Trump with no one else on the ballot, we would probably have seen lower turnout with the same final result.

Dan8267 says

Actually, no.

I'm not saying that her votes alone if handed to Clinton (not something that would happen in her absence anyway) would have tipped the election. But if you were Putin and wanted to shift votes away from Hillary, would you be trying to fund Stein in some way? That would have been part of my plan. Here's an interesting article touching on that among other Russia alt-left and alt-right connections: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/13/how-putin-played-the-far-left.html.
I also don't care to relitigate the election. Just pointing out what could have been motivating Putin. The other obvious option is that he just likes to encourage the far left (commie wing) of American politics. Maybe Bernie declined the invite.

YesYNot says

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/13/how-putin-played-the-far-left.html.

That's Newsweek's online brand.

The article says, for example, "Stein joined the Russian president and Kazakhstani dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev in describing Ukraine’s 2014 EuroMaidan revolution as a “coup,” and claimed, bizarrely, that NATO is currently “fighting… enemies we invent to give the weapons industry a reason to sell more stuff.” The author claims to have gone to journalism school, and labeled the piece "OPINION," so that makes it technically OK to inject opinion ("bizarrely") even if the author's "opinion" is counter-factual. Dr. Stein is correct about both points: for example, we armed Saddam Hussein then fought him, and have done the same throughout the Muslim world. Probably the best informed answer to accusations of Muslim violence is the fact that a lot of it is driven by the American MIC arming both sides. Hillary Clinton acknowledged lethal terrorism "is clearly rooted in Islamic thinking," but proposed escalating mass surveillance and her Saudi clients' wars in Syria and Yemen as her answer, and while she was the SoS America armed al qaeda while at the same time bombing Syria. The merchants of war support Israel because Israel uses the weapons we buy for them. Rick Perry and Ted Cruz didn't suddenly develop a love of Yiddish and gefilte fish: they love Israel because their corporate sponsors' business is often booming over there.

YesYNot says

But if you were Putin and wanted to shift votes away from Hillary, would you be trying to fund Stein in some way?

Perhaps, but I would first have funded attack ads on Hillary first. That would probably be more effective.

curious2 says

That would have flipped Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, total 46 electoral votes, and thus the Electoral College, electing Hillary Clinton President.

Are you sure? She only got 1% of the vote. But hey, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I didn't look at individual states, but the electoral map was a landslide.

Dan8267 says

Are you sure?

I based the math on the data published in the Wikipedia article that I linked in my comment. Others reached the same conclusion with slightly different totals based on earlier numbers that had not yet been finally certified. To be absolutely certain, you'd have to check all fifty states' final certified vote counts.

As with any counter-factual though, I think answering the question "what would Jill Stein's voters have done if they had not been allowed to vote for her" comes down to speculation. I suspect most of her voters would have either written in someone else (Bernie Sanders got 110k votes that way) or abstained from voting for President. You can't force them to vote for Hillary Clinton. 70% of the citizens eligible to vote Clinton chose not to do so. Different people had different reasons: Clinton's endless record of wars on behalf of her corporate and Saudi clients, and the resulting carnage in the mideast; the plan to import Muslims here like Angela Merkel did to Germany; the disastrous Obamneycare (FKA HIllary's Plan); the long record of alleged corruption, etc.