If Bernie Sanders does not make a good case at this week’s Democratic National Convention for his primary supporters to back Hillary Clinton in the general election, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein will be happy to peel them away.

Stein, who visited with The Day during a trip to the area last week, dismissed as irrelevant the argument that the votes she gains could throw the victory to Donald Trump and the Republicans. On the issues that matter most to Greens — a dramatic restructuring of the economy toward green energy, slashing military spending by half and blunting corporate power — there’s not much difference between the major parties, she contended during our conversation.

“We have two political parties that are funded by banks, big banks, predatory banks, and by fossil fuel giants and war profiteers. These are the drivers of our policies across the board,” she said.

I had to agree with her that it is a sorry state of affairs when the best thing many Clinton supporters can say about the Democratic candidate is that she is not Trump, and the best many Trump supporters can say about the Republican candidate is that he is not Clinton.

It is, Stein said, “a disastrous choice.”

“This politics of fear tells you you’ve got to vote against what you’re afraid of rather instead of for what you believe,” Stein said. “So we say reject the lesser evil and fight for the greater good like our lives depend on it, because they do.”

A physician, Stein, a fit looking 66, has long assisted nonprofits and community groups in combating “environmental injustice,” meaning the exposures to pollutants like lead and mercury that are far more common in poorer communities.

In 2002, Stein ran for governor of Massachusetts on the Green-Rainbow Party ticket. Republican Mitt Romney won. In 2006 she ran for Secretary of State, receiving over 350,000 votes, but again losing.

Greens are all about the environment. Wouldn’t taking Democratic votes away and helping elect a Republican president, given that party’s call to reduce environmental rules, its dismissive attitude toward climate change, and aggressive support for coal extraction and drilling, be far worse for the environment?

Not a whole lot, Stein told me.

“The Democrats pride themselves on being slightly less destructive than the Republicans and in fact, to look at the numbers, we’ve actually done far worse under a Democratic administration in terms of escalation of fossil fuel extraction and emissions. We have tapped into every source of fossil fuel in this country and around the world, thanks in part to Hillary Clinton and her office to promote fracking. (i.e., the State Department).”

Stein and the Greens are targeting all those younger voters energized by Sanders’ call for a free public university education. The Greens would do Sanders one better by also abolishing all outstanding student debt, freeing a generation to invest in the economy by buying homes and starting small businesses.

“The number of people holding student debt is enough to win a three-way race — 42 million — and I’m the only candidate who will cancel student debt in the same way that we cancelled the debt of the crooks on Wall Street that crashed the economy,” she said.

Much of what Stein talked about makes some sense. Student debt is inhibiting the ability of millions of young people to gain economic independence and get on with their lives. But just snapping one’s fingers and making it go away is unrealistic.

The nation arguably does spend too much on the military and would be better off directing some of that investment into infrastructure and renewable energy development. But it is a matter of degree. The Greens would slash military spending “by at least 50 percent” and close 700-plus bases, moving the money and personnel to the “Green New Deal” effort.

Wouldn’t Russia and China fill that military vacuum by extending their global reach?

“What I hope to do is initiate global disarmament and global dematerialization,” Stein said. Good luck with that.

As deplorable as this particular presidential campaign turned out, the more realistic chance for change still rests with working within the existing major parties.

Debt forgiveness, mutual disarmament and the rapid abandonment of fossil fuels to save the planet sound wonderful. But choosing presidential Green in this election is only going to help Trump become president. That’s the reality. Just ask Al Gore about Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in the 2000 election. 

Paul Choiniere is the editorial page editor.