I am one of many Bernie Sanders supporters who have decided to back Jill Stein after he ended his campaign. I believe Bernie acted in good faith and did what he thought was in the best interests of the American people. However, those of us who will be voting Green believe that the changes we desire cannot be achieved by working within the dictates of the political and media establishment. Both the Democratic Party and the GOP are so beholden to corporate lobbies and so deeply encroached upon by special interest groups that they can no longer be trusted to work in the public interest. One needs to look no further than the two terms of President Obama to bear witness to this sad but true reality of modern American politics.

What most critics just don’t get about Jill Stein’s campaign is that the positions she has steadfastly maintained are, to a growing number of American voters, no longer the idealistic fantasies mainstream media makes them out to be. What the Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein campaigns have achieved is not just a perceptible shift to the left in American politics but the end of long standing unspoken assumptions within political discourse. No longer does the Laissez-Faire dream define what economics should be in the American mind. Milton Friedman’s vision of an unfettered market that ultimately benefits all has shaped economic policy for the past three decades-and it has failed too many Americans. A taxation system that facilitates the accumulation of more wealth by the rich and obstructs others from acquiring it is no longer acceptable. There exists no more a public willingness to allow administrations to engage in war after war in the name of national interest and national security. The American voter will no longer allow the perilous lack of action on human-induced climate change to continue.

When Jill Stein talks of the wealthy paying their fair share in income taxes, decreasing taxes on lower incomes, closing tax loopholes that mainly benefit big business and instituting an inheritance tax, this sounds to many of us to be exactly what the country needs. This inverted pyramid where the nation is held hostage by a corporate behemoth that controls cash flow and whose handouts sustain the economy must be turned upside down. It is the consumer that sustains the corporation. The assets of every corporation were not procured by prestidigitation; they come from the people. It is the welfare of people that should be the focus of the economy of a civilized and wealthy nation, not corporate welfare.

Similarly, when Jill Stein and her Vice-President nominee Ajamu Baraka talk about the imperialistic tendencies of previous and current American administrations they are not giving air to any outlandish conspiracy theories. They are voicing the very real and very justifiable concern of millions of American citizens about the motives for warfare to which there seems to be no end. Dr Stein has also raised some very pertinent questions about the growing privatization of what used to be functions of uniformed conscripts. In the Iraq War, for example, private contractors provided food, transportation and security for the military-domains that the military has traditionally handled itself. It is bad enough that war is a profitable enterprise for the weapons industry and certain engineering firms; must it become a windfall for even more players in the private sector? Does this not make war an opportunity for too many lobbies and wealthy individuals, rather than a horror that must be avoided at all costs?

There are many people in America today who are indignant about the growing economic inequality, war economy and corporate and political corruption. Tragically some-as evidenced by the popularity of Donald Trump-have chosen the tutelage of demagogues; they have subscribed to the fantasy of a utopia sabotaged by “others” that can be restored by bullying everyone into submission.

Secondly, there are those who wish to play it safe-to avoid the rambling bigotry of Trump and choosing to stick with the familiarity of the current administration they are backing Hillary Clinton. Many of these voters are ideologically closer to Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein but feel they must vote for Hillary in order to keep a potential constitution-trampling tyrant out of the presidency.

Others, like those in the libertarian camp, are still stuck in the wishful dream that were it not for the meddling of the Government, the pixie dust of free enterprise would bring untold prosperity and society would run itself with flawless ease.

A rising tide though, is swelling the ranks of the progressive camp. The left has well and truly arrived in American politics this year-but there is a lot more to do. Striving for economic justice and equality must not remain a distant ideal; it must become a central tenet of the economic system. To make this possible the deeply entrenched vested interests rotting politics from the inside out must be banished. Voting for Dr Stein this November will further the cause of the political revolution that we all desire.

The heart beats to the left.