Jill Stein voters have become the black sheep of the Democratic Party this election season, deemed troublemakers by mainstreamers concerned about a Donald Trump presidency and what effect a viable left-leaning third party candidate may have on Clinton’s chances.

There is too much at stake. Jill Stein needs to bow out. Her voters should take off the tin foil hats and get out of their parents’ basements. Stop me if you’ve heard some variation.

But one conservative pundit took issue with this distinction, and it’s not because he wants Donald Trump to win.

Glenn Beck, the conservative talk show host and founder of TheBlaze, said on a recent podcast — the “cool kids” episode — that rather than jeering at Jill Stein voters the way Clinton supporters do, conservatives should “care about what they have to say.”

Beck said being Jill Stein voters under the specter of Trump was not a meaningless vote, nor was it damaging to the country. “It’s brave,” Beck said, “and because of it, they will change their party.”

Like I’ve said, the majority of Americans don’t want Clinton or Trump, so #InvestYourVote in the Green Party. https://t.co/SkE5KNkqJ7 pic.twitter.com/d4WCLGxjWb — Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) October 27, 2016

Of course, Beck’s kind words for Jill Stein voters were not entirely altruistic. There is much that he disagrees with the candidate and her supporters on.

However, he has managed to find common ground when it comes to his discomfort voting for a candidate he finds morally reprehensible.

On that point, it’s hard to find someone who is more critical of Trump than Glenn Beck, who in a recent interview with Charlie Rose said the Republican nominee is a sociopath and asked, “when is the last time you saw Donald Trump show kindness to someone who couldn’t help him?”

Beck also had kind words for the mostly liberal journalists from the New York Times editorial board with whom he recently met, stating that he got a sense from the meeting that, like him, the NYT was trying to learn “where it all went wrong” to enable such a deep political divide throughout the country.

Beck also said he sensed many of the NYT editors had some very real concerns about Clinton and that the media may not be so kind to the guarded candidate once/if she is elected given her history against transparency amid evidence of decades-long corruption and scandals.

However, unlike Jill Stein voters, Clinton and Trump supporters simply gloss over the transgressions of their candidates and even defend or condemn in the candidates what they themselves once opposed rather than voting with conviction.

Jill Stein voters as well as supporters of Evan McMullin and Gary Johnson are different. As Beck relates in the episode, they believe in more than just winning an election.

They believe in being true to who they are, even if it means things have to get worse before they get better — even if it takes four election cycles as opposed to one to get the results they seek.

With America on the brink of becoming two countries (in spirit) and two of the least liked candidates of all time vying for the lowest amount of support in years for a presidential election, the disillusionment is becoming more apparent than ever before.

Bottom line: the courage to go against the grain, as Jill Stein voters are in their continued support, is yielding the kind of results that lead to long-term change, the kind of change a single election won’t be able to stop, no matter how corrupt a Clinton or Trump administration turns out to be.

Jill Stein: Trump Is Less Dangerous; Clinton Will Start Nuclear War With Russia https://t.co/bJmmnuxwxk pic.twitter.com/o6OVbeerAr — Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) October 26, 2016

But what do you think, readers? Are Jill Stein voters, as Beck has said above, “brave.” Will their convictions change the Democratic Party for the better? Sound off in the comment section below.

[Featured Image by niXerKG/Flickr Creative Commons/Resized and Cropped/CC BY-NC 2.0]