Senator Bernie Sanders represented the most progressive wing of the Democratic party and he brought the corporate party’s weight to grassroots organizing. Bernie was a relatively easy sell. His Democratic Socialist campaign was dressed in modern design, approachable language, and a “yuge” base of social media-savvy Millennials. It reminded us of President Obama in 2008, if he had been backed by a 30-year track record of consistent integrity and adherence to the principles he campaigned on. While Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein’s platform is even more progressive than Bernie’s, she is not such an easy sell. I wasn’t sure why until I walked into the Green Party Convention in Houston, Texas.

Artwork at the Green Party Convention in Houston, TX

Forty hippies packed in a classroom smells exactly like you think it does. It doesn’t smell like fresh powder-scented aluminum deodorants or perfumes competing with one another. No, it smells like patchouli and human beings. To Greens, the convention was church. For one weekend, activists, delegates, organizers, and voters enjoyed the company of like-minded people. There was a sense of inertia between people who met — that feeling of momentum people get meeting someone they already know is on the same page they are. What some feel running into fellow Pokémon GO players out on the hunt, convention attendees seemed to feel for one another: “You too?”

I expected the hippies. I expected the Greens to be significantly less established and less organized than Republicans and Democrats. After all, the Green Party is in its fourth decade in America and the Republican and Democrat parties are in their third centuries. While the Democratic National Convention was hosted in the Wells Fargo Center for 40,000 delegates, the Green Party Convention was hosted at the University of Houston for a few hundred. The total spent on the Democratic National Convention was $127 million — $67 million of which was raised by corporate and private donors, $50 million of which was provided by the federal government.

The Green Party Convention had tables of vegetarian snacks that were packed up and reopened at other events. One would struggle to say this was an opulent display of wealth and power. It was decidedly unsexy. The convention traded red carpet media events and red tape bureaucracy for accessibility, transparency, and dialogue. Pre-conference workshops focused on training delegates on how to fundraise, run for office, and gain support as activists.

One of the first three concurrent workshops for delegates and attendees was led by David Cobb, Outreach Director for the campaign finance reform organization Move to Amend. Whereas a standard conversation about money in politics might typically end with Citizens United, convention attendees were uniformly quick with the correction that, actually, it was Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 that irrevocably changed our campaign finance system and laid the groundwork for a series of cases that gave corporations disproportionate influence in government. The timeline of cases shows the overturn of Citizens United would not be enough. More than 76 percent of the population believes we need campaign finance reform. While Democrats accept conciliatory promises from a candidate who owes her career to corporate donors, Green Party members are active in the efforts to create a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Green Party delegates and convention attendees gather around the nominees of the Green Party ticket: Dr. Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.

A political campaign can raise awareness about the issues. It can change our vernacular and our perception, but it cannot be a movement. As far as a movement to create (not restore) American democracy, there was plenty of evidence that members of the Green Party are on the right track.

During the event, three candidates running for the Green Party nomination claimed discrimination and contested the convention. Several reporters rushed forward with microphones and cameras and one young reporter said into her cell phone: “I found my story.” When I read the coverage following the event, I was disappointed, but not surprised, that most outlets focused on what was “weird” about it — the slam poetry, the talent show, and wall-to-wall so-called societal rejects.

RT America's Tabetha Wallace interviews Green Party nominee Jill Stein with The Young Turk's Jordan Chariton standing by for the next interview.

Comedian Amy Schumer tells a joke about women who wear “I heart nerds” t-shirts that really mean, “I heart cute guys with glasses.” Our cult of individuality and quirkiness really means buy graphic tees to show off that snowflake-like personality. Going against the grain can mean something as still-consumerist as cutting the cable and replacing it with other subscription TV services. Be brave! Be bold! Be different! But remain within the bounds of cultural norms!

People shape culture and culture shapes people. Popular culture has always misinterpreted counterculture and anyone who deviates from a respectable range of normalcy, as defined by the very elements of power that ostracize those who stray. What is acceptable is to be “pragmatic” about urgent issues that indirectly affect us. Being patient for an end to mass incarceration in the most jailing country on the planet is a luxury afforded to those who still have their freedom and their rights to vote. Being patient for an end to terroristic foreign policy is a luxury afforded to those who don’t hear drones above their heads, watching their actions and threatening their lives. Being patient for an end to the service of special interests above those of the common good is a luxury afforded to those who can take another squeeze to pay for the next Wall Street bailout or the next unending war.

“It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

-Jiddu Krishnamurti

It must have been difficult to have been on the outskirts of society for decades, as many Greens have been. They welcomed the new blood of “Bernie or Bust” not with opportunism or ego, but with relief. At the opening ceremony, Green Party national co-chair Andrea Mérida Cuéllar said the “Bernie or Bust” movement showed them “there are people out there ready to take it to the mat for democracy.” When former Sanders surrogate YahNé Ndgo took the stage, she spoke of the Green Party’s willingness to be transformed by the incoming barrage of new ideas from passionate activists.

Activist YahNé Ndgo being interviewed by RT America's Tabetha Wallace

Regardless of personal politics, it’s good to humanize “opposition” and quiet prejudices so we can understand what’s going on inside of any movement. Culture can ostracize people for being different or it can push us to understand them, but it cannot do both.

Nine percent of elligible voters in America chose the two front-running candidates in the primaries. Trump and Clinton are two of the most historically disliked candidates for President in U.S. history. Millions of people feel unenthusiastic at best and ready-for-revolt at worst toward the dichotomy between two parties that no longer represent the people.

Voting third party is one of those chicken-and-egg paradoxes — no one does it because not enough do. It might be impossible to change a system where money has replaced the vote from within. If it’s possible, rejecting the illusion of choice of voting for the lesser evil could force an undemocratic system to function democratically. The Green Party is a group of informed activists willing to be transformed by new ideas and new information. What they lack in sex appeal, they make up in substance. And while it may not be the vehicle we imagined for revolution, it’s the only one still headed that direction.