Imagine this. Imagine being in a party where everyone is progressive. Imagine creating a party platform with millions of other like-minded souls who want to see the same reforms as you. Who want to look after people like you do, with a decent living wage and good healthcare for all. Who want to see an end to the gruesome military interventions that are spawning terrorist organizations. Who want to stop giving welfare to Walmart, and instead give it to people who need it. Take a moment to imagine that.

And imagine this too – imagine being able to freely sell and enact this platform.

There are no closet Republicans or bribed and corrupted senators or pundits inside your party trying to mess with your agenda.

No one undermining your message and campaign from within.

A party free from inertia and corruption itself. Yes, there will be push-back from the opposition parties, but your party is streamlined, with everyone collaborating in the highest interest.

Well, this could happen, and it could happen in this election cycle.

#GirlIGuessImWithHer Jill Stein arrested in Philadelphia to protest bank housing foreclosures. pic.twitter.com/eQk8XqgW0y — #JillNotHill (@ryder7189) June 8, 2016

If the Green Party can get 15 percent of respondents in opinion polls, then their candidate will be invited into the presidential debates.

This 15 percent must by necessity come from social media awareness. The mainstream media will not be interested in giving airtime to a third party, so it is up to the internet to get the first 15 percent.

The Bernie Sanders campaign, all online and crowd-sourced, proved that this is well within the range of possibility. A third party option in the presidential debate will be enough to make the mainstream viewing audience sit up and listen.

The DNC/Clinton camp are desperate for you not to know that. That’s why they’ve continued this smug game of domination even after the evidence of their corruption and collusion has been extensively revealed.

They will continue to run the fear campaign on a Trump presidency, while subtly goading the progressives with their abusive tactics. They are sure that the fear of a Trump presidency means we’ll be forced to get okay with their lies, manipulations and blatant Wall Street cronyism, and vote for their candidate anyway.

They are mistaken.

I'm not okay with Trump or Clinton as President. I'm not okay with a warmonger or a corporatist. We deserve better.https://t.co/HMkqtppbau — Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 18, 2016

American politics can be summed up quite nicely in a single sentence: Since the fears of urban-dwelling citizens are typically different from the fears of rural-dwelling citizens, politicians and pundits can pit those fears against each other to ensure that the populace is always voting from fear, instead of voting for what they want.

Keep us afraid and you can keep us begging for protection, instead of demanding more from our government.

That’s really all there is to it. People who live in smaller communities tend to be more fearful of outsiders, foreigners, government intrusion and a disruption of their belief systems, whereas people who live in more densely-populated areas tend to be more afraid of guns, violence, religious zealotry and corporate oppression. America has succeeded in perpetuating one of the most stable governmental systems in the history of human civilization not because of any particular founding principles, but because there’s always been a nice, even split between areas with a large urban population and areas with a large rural population.

They’ve kept us in line by keeping us voting from fear, and this presidential cycle is no different. Donald Trump is saying, “I’ll protect you from those scary Muslims and immigrants,” and Hillary Clinton is saying, “I’ll protect you from Donald Trump.”

And until about a week ago, enough liberal voters were buying it. “Fine Hillary, I can forgive your warmongering, your corporate cronyism, your lies and manipulations, just protect me from that scary orange man!”

Then Clinton announced she’d be doing as Wall Street donors instructed and selecting a shill for the one percent as her running mate, then came the Wikileaks debacle proving that those kooky Bernie conspiracy theorists had been right all along about the rigged primaries. Then she hired the woman responsible for this impropriety to help with her campaign, thumbing her nose at the outraged Berners and progressives by releasing a statement saying that Wasserman Schultz would “continue to serve as a surrogate for my campaign nationally,” proudly and openly acknowledging that the scandal-immersed DNC chair had been in her pocket all along.

Outrage has understandably ensued and continues to get louder. The Democratic elites are betting it dies down. This is the same power-corrupted cockiness that’s seen so many brutes and dictators ousted over the years, and they’re dumb enough to be doing it in a country where people can vote. People are finally angry. They’re finally looking for a way to topple the party that is so brazenly ignoring their votes and their wishes.

Watch @DrJillStein on Fox - Jill Stein Appeared on Fox News, Made Their Heads Explode https://t.co/8mTGJ1IeVN — Lisa Gerrish (@GerrishLisa) July 18, 2016

Enter presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, Dr. Jill Stein. Smart, charming, witty, identical to (or in some cases even more progressive than) Sanders on all issues. For instance, Sanders doesn’t have a superPAC nor accepts corporate or lobbyist money. She’s been able to hold her own talking about the issues gracefully and confidently with the reptiles on CNN and Fox News, and most importantly, she can win.

“But something something Ralph Nader!” you may be exclaiming at this point, to which I can only respond, “Where have you been this last year?”

In 2016 there is no longer any valid reason to say that an outsider candidate cannot win a major American election. In 2000 there was, absolutely. In an age with very minimal internet use, zero social media and zero easily-accessible alternative media, the billions and billions of dollars in free coverage granted to the two main parties granted them an entirely unassailable lead. But we’re not in the year 2000 anymore, bucko; it’s an entirely different world you’re living in.

Bernie Sanders’ campaign was almost entirely crowd-funded and social media driven, and he nearly ran away with the whole thing despite media blackouts and constant sabotage from his own party at every turn, the latter of which wouldn’t even be an issue for Stein.

MT If Bernie continues to promote Hilary, I will be supporting Jill Stein For… https://t.co/fBOusDwu9z #GoGreen pic.twitter.com/jUfaZCvafG — The Progressive Mind (@Libertea2012) July 21, 2016

One might argue against her on the basis of her relative lack of political experience, but a glance at the total inexperience of the presumptive Republican candidate and the disgust at the corrupting political entrenchment of the Democratic presumptive candidate suggests that Americans aren’t terribly interested in experience this election term. The only real knock against Stein is that she could stand to take a few speaking lessons from Sanders. Sanders always speaks as if he is already president. People are going to need that kind of winner’s speech pattern if she is going to be the solid ground on which the country stands.

Convincing models have been made showing that Sanders could win a three-way race between himself, Clinton and Trump by taking a large chunk of the Democrat and independent votes, and since the Democratic elites were stupid enough to nominate Clinton at the convention following that sham of a parody of a primary election, people are going to start looking for another name to plug into those models. Their eyes will land on Jill Stein, and the outrage and hunger for change is getting strong enough to ensure that they’ll stay there.

We don’t have to be frightened into voting for something we hate just to avoid something we fear. We don’t have to subject ourselves to the gruesome indignity of hoping for what we hope might be the lesser of two evils. We can vote our conscience and still elect a candidate who will care for our environment, our sick, our elderly and our poor without driving us into more senseless acts of military interventionism. We can create the world we want to see for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren. We just have to call their bluff and push for what we want. They’ll either hand us Bernie or we’ll take Jill.

Fifteen percent. That’s all. If we can get Stein polling at 15 percent by the time the general election debates start, we can thrust a Green Party representative into the mainstream spotlight, where her solid grasp of the issues and rapier wit would make mincemeat out of Clinton and Trump (and Gary Johnson if he’s up there, since his new support for the TPP revealed he’s nothing more than a pot-friendly Republican). In 2016, all you’ve got to do is get people googling, and once people know who Jill Stein is and what she’s about, she’ll steal their hearts just like Bernie Sanders did.

And then we’re in control. If we can keep the momentum rolling on this thing, we might soon hear the unthinkable words, “Vote for Jill! A vote for Hillary is a vote for Trump!”

"For my brothers and sisters that supported Bernie Sanders - (Jill) is the next progressive step." -@CornelWesthttps://t.co/nlZwziWI6i — Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 17, 2016

[Image by AP Photo/Brynn Anderson]