the US system is broken, this is what happens when there is only two choices 🥲
It really is a fundamentally broken system.
So you have an average normal politician running against literally Hitler. And people vote for literally Hitler.
And you don’t think the problem is the people voting for literally Hitler?
Don’t get me wrong, the US voting system is also bad. But that is really, really not the main problem here…
IMO the bigger problem is that the “average normal politician” managed to be so bad that voters didn’t feel motivated to vote against Hitler.
This should have been a slam dunk - and there were literally a number of easy ways to motivate voters, like promising to stop the ongoing genocide the country is funding. But when given the choice between “letting Hitler win” and “stopping the genocide”, Harris and the entire DNC leadership chose to let Hitler win.
Isn’t that deeply fucked up?
It was a slam dunk. I still know trump supporters who think everything negative said about him is a lie. Why did this never happen in human history before (an unrelenting smear campaign running for over a decade against an innocent man)? Meh I dunno something about woke.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. Harris’s win obviously wasn’t a slam dunk, she lost.
yeah but she COULD have won retroactively if we browbeat people who already vote blue for the next ten years about it
Yeah… Were totally mad at people who voted blue. You’re so right. 😬
I meant she was the obvious choice to anyone with >3 working neurons.
She was! But since a rather large portion of the US public seems to have 0-3 neurons, it’s not enough to be the obvious choice for everyone else.
Harris and her campaign knew this. They had polls clearly showing that she’s so bad at motivating voters that she’ll likely lose.
No, it was the voters fault that Harris decided to fish for the republican vote by shifting more to the right in her rhetoric. Those stupid people should have voted blue no matter who!
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your whole comment is provably false. claming the attack on the 7. was a genocide is laughably false.
do not forget that Israel has made gaza a concentration camp long before that time.
claming the attack on the 7. was a genocide is laughably false.
I linked a source (Well, a wiki article which itself link sources). You spew bullshit.
you linked the wikipedia article. it’s allegations. if you had read it you would first notice that the allegations are about “intent” and genocide. As the power imbalance is laughably.
The empire long called the rebellion murderes with genocidal intent. When the rebellion hit what they could, the empire killed their own to avoid hostages. The empire then told all that the rebels had murdered babies and made up other lies to make the rebels look bad.
it’s allegations.
So are the current allegations against Israel, right?
To be more than allegations, there would have to be a ICC judgement in either case, I think?
As the power imbalance is laughably.
Just because you are laughably weak, it does not mean you can’t do evil.
A wiki page listing people who have called it a genocide doesn’t exactly prove that it was one, and regardless the israelis have long been oppressing the people in gaza, including illegally capturing land by force for many years, so them striking back would be less a genocide and more an act of war, a warcrime in this instance as they largely attacked civillians, but so does israel which is why both the leader of hamas and israel are wanted war criminals
It’s like saying the slave revolts in ancient rome were genocides because the slaves were attacking romans, who else were they supposed to attack? And could you really blame them for striking back at their oppressors?
Ideally it would have been resolved peacefully but the international community turned a blind eye to what was happening, and israel sure as hell wasn’t about to stop out of the kindness of their heart
“Gaza did a genocide in Israel” is actually fucking insane.
It’s not insane, it’s a rhetorical tactic. “OK, fine, Israel is doing a genocide - but they did it to us first!”.
That is not how it started shut the fuuuck up.
Funding a genocide is not normal.
If you had this system in Europe you would not like the results. Best outcome: 200 years of middle of the road conservative shit Christian party
Average normal politicians don’t give Hitler weapons to commit genocide.
What do you mean? Hitler committed genocide, so Hitler was given the weapons. And Hitler was given the authority for those weapons through a democratic process, by way of average normal politicians (Paul von Hindenburg, specifically).
I mean Netanyahu is Hitler and they were giving him weapons. That’s not what normal does.
Considering how land has more political power than people in the US, the voting system is still a major issue.
If we had the National Popular Vote for US elections, then more people living in deep blue states would have more reason to show up to vote when their candidate already is going to win by well over double digit points in their state.
When low population states are overrepresented in Senate and Presidential elections, then we can end up in a ruled by the minority situation.
Yeah, I agree. If this can ever happen all you can really say is that us culture is cancer.
Sadly, similar stuff does happen even when you have more parties.
In my opinion, what’s happening here is that the policies of the parties do not align with the opinions of the public. If you care about not doing a genocide, there wasn’t a candidate to vote for last cycle. If you care about universal health care, there wasn’t a candidate to vote for. And so on.
And you can measure this. Research has been carried out into the congruence between policy and public opinion in the US. For example, in the paper Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, it was found that the impact the average American (as a group) has on policy is miniscule compared to the influence of economic elites. You and I don’t benefit from invading Iran, but the owning class sure does, so that’s what we do. All this is independent of who’s in charge.
And so now you might rightly theorize that since there are only two parties, the democrats can fully cater to billionaires, as long as they’re less bad than the republicans. And as time goes on they move further and further right, since they really don’t have to care about voters, because the only other party consists of actual demons, and people will vote for them anyway.
However, you see this effect (the wealthy having a disproportionate amount of influence on policy) in pluralistic systems as well. Norway has about 9 major political parties, yet the study Affluence and Influence in a Social Democracy finds that here too, the rich have an outsized influence. Similar studies exist for other western European countries, most of which (if not all) have more than two major parties.
So I don’t think the root of the problem is the two party system (although I’m sure it doesn’t help).
Yes but more importantly this is what happens when people are so ignorant and uneducated that someone like Trump makes it past a humiliating response to a social media post about him considering a run for president. Then he is a horrible president, killing thousands of citizens through negligence, commits an insurrection, and voters are like “I dunno he’s not that bad. He’s male at least”
Can we get the fuck over this pointless nonsense, consign her to history, and do something about what’s happening now, please?
No, we’re going to spend every day from now through the next presidential primary bashing nonexistent, Trump-supporting leftists because that’s how you build your electoral base 🙄
Don’t forget the sternly worded letters. REVOLUTION, but peacefully. :|
I dunno, that word “sternly” makes me queasy.
/s
What’s happening now is groundwork for shoving AIPAC down people’s throats come midterms. That’s why we suddenly see a flood of these posts.
fuck the midterms, if you wait for them we already lost, get involved in the primaries, that’s how we oust AIPAC.
otherwise, come midterms, there will only be AIPAC candidates
Yeah it’s some genius Zionist plot of course
No need for a plot. Just standard issue Blue MAGA prepping excuses for why they will have had no choice.
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Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. I refuse to end up sitting around in 2040 earnestly arguing in favor of a candidate who is more right-wing than trump, but slightly less right-wing than their contemporary opponent. I will not run defense for a conservative regardless of the letter next to their name
True, but this shit is just moaning about the past, though.
if anyone can, join the dems and vote in the primaries to make sure no AIPAC candidate survives.
probably the most important and meaningful things any American can do.
also do so for Republicans if you’re racistly inclined
Exactly!
Yeah can we all just forget about the world’s stupidest voters and that the propagandists successfully convinced people to commit the most brain dead self-own in the history of humanity? All we have to do now is the simple task of destroying the world’s most powerful evil cunts who could’ve easily been denied power if people’s brains were operating at even 15% capacity.
Get on it, America! You’ve got the guns!
I hope this is sarcasm
Do you? How odd.
What’s odd is how a bunch of (mentally teenaged) idiots think we’re going to overthrow the most militarized government in history with some rifles
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You’re incapable of rational adult thinking
Sure, as soon as the usual suspects stop posting edgy “both sides” bullshit, we can move on.
Brother she ain’t running no more. What are you fucking talking about?
Isn’t she considering running next elections?
People not voting for her is why we’re where we are today.
Kamala losing is like part 250 of a 250 part shitshow that started with Reagan and that is why we’re here. You’re just conscious enough to be around for this latest bit and aren’t taught the previous ones in school, makes ya think?
Or maybe the fact that killing innocent children in Gaza was more important to her than winning the election is why we’re here today.
Every single candidate who could have won was pro-Israel. That’s the default position of the US government regardless of which party’s in power. It’s NOT the default position to randomly genocide, say, Iran, though. It is BS that you have to vote for more genocide support or less genocide support? Yes. But voting for more genocide support or not voting at all so the ones that support more genocide win worked out really well, huh?
So you’re saying the default position was to lose the election. She made the conscious decision to not want to win. All I’m hearing. There’s a pathway to win she chose to do the opposite.
You realize that presidential candidates also have to take international relations into account, right?
So breaking from Israel to win an election may not play out great with Israel after being elected. That goes for any of our allies.
But hey, we got a felon rapist pedophile that lets Israel tell him to do whatever they want him to do. So I guess that worked out for us, right?
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If Israel wants it, then it is the default position. If you don’t think Harris would have bombed Iran, then I have a bridge to sell you
Nah. We’re here because braindead Americans can’t accept that they aren’t going to get a perfect candidate and are willing to burn their nation to the ground in retaliation for that.
Adults make the right decision, even if it isn’t perfect. Adults don’t need a candidate to be perfect in order to do what’s right for their nation and themselves.
Perfect is really doing some heavy lifting. Sure shes better. I would have voted for her if i was an US-American. But shes still garbage. She kind of is controlled opposition. Making us look away from what would be actually good vs whats better than the worst option. It serves to legitimize their position in fear of the alternative. Thats not democracy. I am not saying that you should not vote, endorse or even accept the shitstain we get in the USA that is represented by Trump but running to the Democrats as the goal or seeing voting as the primary political action is a big blunder in my eyes. (again do vote).
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You simpletons keep confusing “perfect” with “the bare fucking minimum”
What an utterly simplistic and reactionary statement.
Praise Allah for killing the petro dollar though
Genocide is non negotiable. If you think it is, I hope you’re prepared to defend your property when the fascists comes to take it for themselves like they’re doing in the West Bank.
You’re just stirring the pot. Why do you want Trump to win?
Damn didn’t know people standing up to genocide are the reason we are still letting Israel genocide people. TIL.
The people who “stood up” to genocide allowed the ones who genocide MORE into power. Good job!
The people who “stood up” to genocide allowed the ones who genocide MORE into power.
Is there any point at which you think we should draw the line in supporting our own party, even if the other party is still worse?
Yes, but by that point both would be so ridiculously evil that there’s nothing left to do but burn the whole thing down.
If genocide isn’t that line for you, then what is?
High gas prices obviously
We have already reached that point for a while now.
I mean for a lot of us that certainly seems to be the way we see it already. We’re just waiting for the rest of you to catch up.
Oh so you can never hold anybody to a higher standard since there’s always someone worse out there. Interesting. Must be miserable always settling in life.
You can indeed! But voting in the horribly broken US system is about harm reduction.
Alright well, enjoy voting for Gavin Newsom I guess. Crazy the election is 2 years away and we are already talking about “harm reduction”. Hope the DNC paycheck is worth it.
Gavin Newsom will support genocide and be anti-trans, each lesser evil is a slow step towards evil.
Just like Biden, voting in Harris would have been harm reduction in the short term, and harm multiplication in the long term. She would have continued to do nothing to address the treason that Republicans committed, and she would have done nothing to mitigate the terror that the next Republican president would bring. The only way voting for conservative Democrats is harm reduction is if no Republican ever wins an election again, and Republicans are going to win some elections.
The biggest difference if Harris had won is that Republicans would win in 2028, and they would have a competent fascist in the Oval Office. We need democrats who will fight Republicans, not just delay them.
Oh so you can never hold anybody to a higher standard
Literally no one said that. You’re saying that to try to make your point stand, which it doesn’t.
there’s always someone worse out there
Sure is. Now they’re in power and things really aren’t going well.
Must be miserable always settling in life.
It’s called being an adult. A big part of being an adult is damage control. Welcome to reality, it’s far from perfect and sometimes you have to choose the path of least destruction.
Shame too many people are willfully ignorant to the blood on their hands.
How many times do I have to say it? The party lines are drawn in such a way to distract you from the actual cancer of late stage capitalism. Yeah yeah, “vote blue no matter who”. How about “educate your neighbors no matter who” to get some actual fucking change instead if this ridiculous in-fighting?
This is stupid people who didn’t like Kamala because the was a genocide enabler weren’t saying vote Trump wtf.
And anyway shit’s over. This finger wagging told-ya-so bullshit is less than worthless. It’s abundantly clear you can still lose to the worst person alive if people don’t like you… So maybe force the Dems to run someone decent or make the Dems disappear. You’re not gonna shame the electorate into the lesser of two evils crap, how have you not seen this yet? Regardless of how logical you think it is or how right you think you are. I think it’s clear it’s not working.
I just think the worse thing now is seeing the current lineup of candidates for 2028… shes still there and so are a bunch of others im pretty sure nobody wants.
That’s part of why I’m being so vocal lately. I am going to vote in 2028, and I am not going to vote for someone who supports Israel. If that means writing in ‘The Reanimated Corpse of Abraham Lincoln,’ then so be it.
Assuming the Democrats have a primary this time, widespread anti-zionist sentiment could convince some people to work towards getting a candidate on the ballot who isn’t a zionist. Harris and Newsom are destined to fail if they end up on the ballot in November. If these “vote blue no matter who” people really want a blue candidate in office, then let’s work towards getting a blue candidate that can beat no preference.
Ro Khanna toed the line on pushing for Epstein disclosures. That’s probably going my litmus test for humans vgoing forward, regardless whether he is permitted to progress
In the neo-liberal brain and rhetoric that’s how they have to argue to get you to swallow the poison of the “lesser evil.”
Dude could actually nuke Iran and kill millions and dumb assholes online still wouldn’t concede that he is and was obviously the worse evil.
Edit: think I’m wrong? Think I’m exaggerating? Read the rest of the thread
The difference between terrible and more terrible is a thin line. If you think the world is only binary choices then you’re the type of person leftist rail against. There’s more choices but Democrats would have you believe there isn’t.
Not in this voting system there isn’t. I don’t know why online third party cranks are so fucking abysmal at game theory. It’s blatantly obvious that only two outcomes are possible on general election day but you lot think you can manifest third party viability through shit posting.
It’s not game theory when you see the two parties as the same side of the same coin which is what people like you fail to realize. Let me put it this way, there are Democrats still voting FOR Trump appointees, and it’s not a few of them. If they’re really “The Resistance” like they want us to think they can start but not voting with the fascists. But hey, blue no matter who, right?
It’s not game theory when you see the two parties as the same side of the same coin which is what people like you fail to realize.
Same side of the same coin? That is…not the expression.
I’m pretty sure Trump could actually nuke Iran and you’d still be on here talking about how Harris would’ve been bad…exactly how I was saying in my first response.
There’s a time to vote for an alternative in the US system. That time is during the primary. If you actually gave a shit you’d be advocating for ranked choice, a change to the funding system of elections, or both. But nope, you’re just another one of Trump’s useful idiots.
Yes, because evil is still evil. What in the living fuck do you not understand supporting Harris was still supporting Israel as well. Jesus fucking christ you people tire the fuck out of me with your inane vote blue no matter who lesser of two evils bullshit. As long as you continue to play with their games they’ll continue to never improve. So you can continue and hope for harm reduction or not vote, campaign for those you would like to actually see and refuse to vote for those you don’t like at all. Because right now, Newsom is looking like the Democrat’s candidate of choice and he’s goddamn awful of a politician and person.
people aren’t saying that Kamala wasn’t the lesser evil. They are saying that running evil candidates suppresses voter turnout and that doing so is a loosing strategy (unless doing evil is your gole, like the GOP)
I agree that it’s a dumb strategy, but given the choice it’s obvious that Harris was better qualified, less evil, and would not actively work to make your life worse. It’s just that the average American voter is a window licker / paste eater so they voted for the other guy.
I know many Muslims in Michigan that voted for Trump because Kamala supported Israel…
anecdotes are not data
Fuck ‘em
Duverger’s law, the way the elections are winner takes all makes it mathematically certain there are only two viable options. It’s basic math which people failed at.
You also have to include the swing states having a highly disproportionate amount of voting power, the wealthy having a disproportionate amount of influence, and the electoral college making small farm states election makers
Which makes it all the more important for candidate not to pull a Harris and try to gaslight voters.
When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents’ control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169446/democracy-for-realists
duvergers law does not say that. it’s not"basic math". it’s a useless tautology
Sometimes what you don’t say is more important than what you do say. Many on the left were manipulated and used to boost the fascist. Something many to this day are still too sensitive about to acknowledge.
There wasn’t Mass coverage and protest that all major party candidates supported the genocide. Only Harris. In all the Zionist and oligarch media, every day it was wall to wall coverage of the people calling Harris out over it. It was legitimately used to launder Donald Trump’s image.
The fact that the vitriol and hatred that anyone who pointed this out got back then. And still gets today, proves that many failed to learn the important lesson. While they were absolutely correct to criticize Harris for her support. They were wrong to only focus on her over it. Even if symptoms like trump and everyone in his administration met the gallows tomorrow. These same people will continue to naively allow themselves to be weaponized against the achievable over the perfect. Ultimately getting more symptoms elected in the future, and allowing the Overton window to ratchet further and further to the right. National Democrats are horrible allies, they’re unfortunately the best we have.
National Democrats are horrible allies, they’re unfortunately the best we have.
So much so it becomes plausible that they might not actually be allies.
They certainly aren’t. They’re not even allies to themselves. But without them we have little hope of getting anything passed. And without us they stand little chance of getting elected. Neither of us would choose to ally with the other.
It’s true.
Democrats are fucking stupid. The voters told you what they wanted, and it was affordability and no more WMD’s for Israel, and Dems concluded it was too much to ask. Of course people didn’t want to fucking vote for you.
dems keep losing because they rather suckle on AIPAC’S limp dick than serve their constituents.
Thankfully this is starting to change, albeit not fast enough. AIPAC tried to mess with a congressional primary in NJ (NJ 11); they threw all their weight behind trashing one of the “moderate” candidates they felt wasn’t pro-Israel enough, thinking their pro-Israel candidate would win. Instead, Analilia Mejia won, and she’s not an Israel supporter at all, very progressive.
same in my local Dems party. AIPAC is struggling against candidates who vowed not to take a penny from them.
I dunno what it is about hardliners, but they always seem to gravely misjudge the negative downstream impacts of their actions. Hopefully this groundswell continues against them.
Not only that, Democrats were being useless at best damaging at worst, babies dying and baby formula shortages, inflation and proven price gouging, continuing government contracts with Amazon while Amazon was quelling unions, forcing rejected contracts on railroad workers, letting private equity buy up all the hospitals, housing becoming unaffordable, being pro-police, supporting big tech low regulation companies, supporting Liz Cheney, talking about loving guns, losing Roe v Wade, Used car prices were skyrocketing, Promised marijuanna users would be released from prison but didn’t, made solar panels more expensive, student loans being out of control and college costs skyrocketing with subsidizing that being the only “solution “, letting reporters be killed by Israel, drone striking and funding massive military spending. What even is the Democrat base? What single issue voter did they NOT alienate? Maaaaybe the LGBT, Atheists, No Trump and Science Grant crowd?
TLDR: Dems before the election alienated XWorkers XFarmers XCollege students XPro-Choice XGun Control XNo War XUnions XMarijuanna Users XMuslims XEnvironmentalists XMothers X People who wanted a house in the future XPeople who wanted action X People who hate Omnibus legislation and big government spending (a smaller portion of democrats for sure.)
(I still voted for Harris not that it matters in a red or blue state)
Harris didn’t even put out a platform until weeks before the election. It was a pathetic campaign.
Arguing with people who don’t realize this or remember it is tiring. My dudes, they’ve also been voting FOR Trump appointees. So much for being “The Resistance.” Their message has been “we’re not as bad as them!” for decades now. They’re losing because they’ve lost touch with their voters. Who aren’t wealthy, who are struggling to feed themselves and family while not being GQP/MAGAts. Biden even said you NEEDED Republicans in a speech for crying out loud.
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That’s why we need ranked choice voting
True.
Unfortunately my state just voted to ban it.
Bruh, which state is it?
Probably Missouri. They bundled it in with an amendment (or proposition can’t remember) that makes it illegal for non-citizens to vote (something already illegal here).
who keeps upvoting this bullshit?
I think we got a new wave of redditors who showed up recently or something because I’ve seen the stupidest shit on lemmy the last week
It’s the removal of r/all.
I saw hasan piker community on here today and that’s how I know we’re cooked
I feel like that one was here before me. He’s popular with the .ml and hexbear crowd
Only slightly better than asmongold viewers. Who the fuck wastes their time listening to twitch streamers?
Yeah that makes sense because hasan is a Russian tankie. Also he abuses his dog so there is that too.
my same thoughts. I am terminally addicted to videos but you could not get me to watch a “political genius” commentator like that if you held a gun to my head. I don’t even disagree with most of the takes, I just cannot be fucked to watch it. there’s nothing there
Yea I like to be told what’s going on, not what to think about it.
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Go back to reddit
Who is you guys? Normal people who don’t watch twitch streamers?
Bunch of lies, typical nonsense
Again genocide isn’t a small thing, Harris also was very questionable on trans issues and extremely pro imperialism and cop.
Voting is a practical, political act, not a moral one. Anyone that tells you different is tricking you.
lol, america is so fucked
That’s not really an argument.
are we arguing?
No, I’m sorry this is “abuse”.
Why are act utilitarians so insufferably smug?
That’s you reading into it, I think. I’m just tired.
Labels feel like a substitute for argument and thought.
If people critical of this could organize something more useful than lemmy downvotes, that would be a start. I’m just genuinely confused by anyone that feels like not voting accomplishes anything. By definition, it is inaction. And mathematically, voting third party is the same as not voting. Why not at least defend gay and trans people? You can still do whatever non-voting-related actions you were planning to do to improve things. I guess you’re making your trolley problem choice. Honestly, the moral purity that has no impact just reads as vanity to me.
"mathematically, voting third party is the same as not voting. "
that’s not true
I’m sorry, this is not a serious position.
this doesn’t say what you said.
If you’d like to make an assertion and support it with facts, I’ll respond, but you’re wasting our time with simple contradiction.
i’ve presented exactly as much evidence for my position as you for yours.
Again, and this is painful to repeat so often:
- you have to pick one or you accept the worst case
- neither offered a different plan for american international involvement in the belligerent invasion, destruction and genocide in gaza
- one of them was vaaaaastly different in every other fucking respect
- single-issue voters are like crack to the conservative machine because they can use them so hard
- …second only to non-voters
I agree with your point, but you must agree there was absolutely no feasible outcome of this last voting process that had any advertised improvement for gaza from America – but there was at least hope in the candidate those losers didn’t vote for.
Except electorilism isn’t a useful never mind the only method for changing society, as well as other options even for voting and anti-genocide should be basic. Never mind Harris isn’t “vastly different” she promised the most lethal military, cracked down hard on sex workers, promised to be extremely tough on the border, as AG discriminated against imprisoned trans people, promised to increase police budgets and I could keep going.
So you’re saying you don’t grasp that it was either Harris or Trump and that there really is no argument for which one is worse?
Because that’s what the person you’re responding to is saying and you don’t appear to grasp it. Despite being a pretty simple concept.
Seems like you can’t grasp that they have refuted the other comment’s point. They grasped the point just fine and then dismantled it.
Darkfuture, I think you’re a media rep employed by the GOP. Possibly a bot.
Always wild how the top level blue no matter who posts get enough upvotes to dominate the feed while just about every positively voted comment is calling out the post. Id wager theres a loot of bots round here.
Some voters vote for the future. Some for accountability for past actions. You don’t get to tell people the right way to vote.
In many ways, you’re advocating an inferior strategy. Politicians lie all the time, and their campaign promises are mostly wishful thinking. But holding a party accountable for their past actions actually has real data to go off of.
It’s always the same with common sense posts like yours on Lemmy. You get more upvotes than downvotes, which is good. But the number of downvotes is alarming and not a great sign for America’s future.
This country has a SERIOUS problem with common sense and accepting reality.
Well it’s good that we went with the low IQ felon rapist pedophile fraud who threatens to wipe civilizations off the face of the Earth and robs us blind.
Man, we almost ended up with an imperfect highly educated black woman with no criminal indictments instead. Can you imagine?
You understand not voting beat both options right? It wasn’t a race between Kamala and Trump because they have isolated entrenched voter bases.
It was that a corpo cop who would keep the genocide on simmer and was anointed cantidate didn’t inspire many.
She lost to the couch.
When the fight is between the right and the far right, you don’t let the far right win even if it’s not inspiring.
Buddy. You have to INSPIRE PEOPLE OR YOU LOSE.
And you use low IQ as an insult I see what kind of person you are.
Oh my god when will you people shut the fuck up about this
When you take responsibility for contributing to the fear many of us are feeling. Many of us have been forced to relocate or even flee the country because the government wants us dead. You essentially decided that one genocide wasn’t enough, and when shit really hits the fan, you better be on the fucking front lines
I have the same words for DNC leadership
I take responsibility but still think it was the correct choice not to vote for Kamala. This is because from my perspective the Democratic party relied on its voters usung harm reduction strategies in order to run candidates that don’t make anything better for regular people in the long run, other than some tiny little concessions as tribute.
Don’t think there can’t be worse presidents than Trump. Don’t think it can’t get worse here. Back when Bush was elected people thought he was the pinnacle too. And before that people thought that about Reagan. But people like YOU kept voting for the lesser evil, and the Democrats, who are on the side of billionaires just like every other politician, didn’t really make things better, kept cooperating with Republicans, and together they laid the groundwork that allowed Trump to be elected. If that pattern keeps up, one day (soon) we will have something worse than Trump.
I understand the current situation is worse than the situation would be if Kamala had won, but we have to draw the line before it gets even worse. The way it’s been going, the country was on an oscillating trajectory with a downward trend. Its shortsighted to only consider 4 years ahead. You’re thinking about yourself for the next couple years, I’m thinking about all the future generations after us for decades.
Anyways, I took responsibility, so please do your part and downvote Kamalaposts now
You explained the ratchet effect very well
I have a fairly progressive friend group, and they still have problem with accelerationism in many contexts. They’re not the ones being hauled off to camps when they talk about more ICE getting white people to be so inconvenienced they finally vote to abolish it.
This mindset of I want to make a statement in a way that disregards the effect of how that statement is made on marginalized communities is still alive and well. You want the Dems to change, then you need to do actual leg work to support and lift up opposing candidates within the party. There’s no easy way out of this.
So just to be clear, I don’t hate you or anything, we’re trying to achieve basically the same goal, we want the same thing. Our disagreement is just about what actions will most effectively bring it about. That’s much better than the people who fundamentally want something different, so I want to be clear that I don’t wish to characterize you as “essentially identical” to those actual enemy groups.
Anyways, from my understanding of the world, you voting for Kamala also disregards the effect on marginalized communities, its just marginalized communities of 2030-2080 and possibly onwards, rather than the communities of 2025-2030 which you are more directly affected by. That’s the way I see it, at least. Its funny because really both the people who voted for Kamala and the people who don’t are thinking to themselves: “this isn’t how I really want things to go, but its a noble sacrifice to make for the greater good”. I think the disagreement between the two groups truly comes down to complexities of which method will actually end up bringing about change. I leaned towards the choice I took, because when I look at the political history of this country since the 80s, it seems as though the Democrats have gone soft as representatives, which created that famous political ratchet effect.
I’m sorry, and I know this sounds like me just being lazy, but I truly do not believe putting in the leg work to change the party this way will matter. I know people who burnt literal years doing grassroots campaigning for truly progressive candidates and it went nowhere. I’ve been to more than a few of those types of events where everyone is trying to change the system the way it’s supposed to be changed. But you know why those people never went any further? Because the party didn’t need them to, because the party can get the votes they need AND have their donor cake too, because even many of the people in these grassroots campaigns will fall in line to vote for the normie candidate when the time comes and the Democrats know that. They know it because of the millions of dollars they spend to verify and ensure it for themselves.
So to me, since the “lift up opposing candidates” thing has been failing for 50 years, and the “blue no matter who” thing has been making things worse for 50 years, the only thing left to try is not voting. That’s the one thing that might actually hit Democratic politicians where it hurts (their power/money). I know its not your strategy and you have every right to keep trying yours too, even though I think your strategy is part of the problem and you think the same about mine. I think the only way to come to a consensus is to debate why we expect one strategy to work better, and so far I feel like recent political history is clearly on my side. But I am interested in hearing counterarguments.
But everyone should understand that continually posting this Kamala shame stuff just makes people like me drastically less willing to hear those counterarguments, because it demonstrates how the people making them haven’t even bothered to properly understand the nuance of our voting reasons, and instead prefer to strawman us as dumbly caring only about Middle Eastern genocides above all else.
So it seems like we both think the other tact is ineffectual, because if progressives don’t vote, then Democrats will simply court Republican voters instead which they are currently doing (multiple candidates have tried out throwing LGBTQ people under bus in the coming primary alread). They don’t care about ideology, or even being in power. They just want to be able to cash checks from donors.
You need to inject new influence into the party, from my perspective your approach is harmful in both the short and long term.
Ideally we have a system that makes third parties viable, but we don’t so we need to treat a faction within the democratic caucus as a third party and have them primary sitting candidates and influence policy until they have enough members to drive out the old guard. Actual progress is not immediately visible.
Oh there are other things to try
Our disagreement is just about what actions will most effectively bring it about.
Yeah.
You admitted you didn’t vote for either of the only two candidates that could win the presidency. So you voted 3rd party? Or didn’t vote at all?
If you didn’t vote at all I have zero respect for you and you shouldn’t even bother to continue reading. I don’t really have any interest in conversing with people who don’t respect the democracy people died to give them by not participating.
If you voted 3rd party, do you not understand that you can’t just vote 3rd party for president and expect it to magically happen? It will be MANY years before that’s even a possibility. And it will only be a possibility if people start taking local/state elections seriously and start getting 3rd party candidates in Congress, because there are currently NONE.
So logic states you vote 3rd party in local/state elections and then perform DAMAGE CONTROL in the presidential election by selecting the one that isn’t a felon rapist pedophile fraud.
I mean this is all just simple common sense.
You have to understand people keep posting the Kamala stuff because people like you fucked up BIG TIME and a lot of people are suffering for it. You’re going to keep seeing the anger and the finger pointing.
You obviously didn’t hear a word they said.
You’re thinking about yourself for the next couple years,
How dare I think about my own desire to not starve to death in a repurposed K-Mart
Its just confusing because I’m told I should have voted for Kamala because:
- I need to think about more people than myself
- Sometimes we need to pick a lesser evil for the practical benefit of more people
- I need to make personal and ideological sacrifices for the greater good
- I need to accept that hard choices have to be made and be willing to take real action even if it inconveniences me
- I can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good
But from my perspective, that’s exactly what I AM doing, in fact to an even greater extent, by not voting for Kamala. And when I bring this up, suddenly your rebuttal is that actually I should be picking… What’s best for me personally in the next couple of years?
I knew Trump winning would mean disaster for me, my family, my friends. But I felt like Kamala winning would just buy us a few more years of relative peace (at the continued expense of exploiting much of the rest of the world), only to then land us with the same ultimatum ,but with higher stakes, four years later. So I:
- Thought about more people than myself, my friends, my family. I also thought about their kids, and people all over the world, and about millions of people who haven’t even been born yet but one day will grow up under the same horrible America that we’ll still have even if progressives manage to undo the last 20 years of crazy.
- Picked a lesser evil (Trump now) over a greater evil (another century of stable American evil at home and abroad) for the practical benefit of more people (future people and young people)
- Made personal sacrifices (I need to plan to leave the country) and ideological sacrifices (I don’t like picking lesser evils! I wish I could only ever pick good things!)
- Accepted hard choices (not voting for Kamala) and was willing to take real action (selling all my stuff, boycotting corporations, giving up a hundred comforts, and preparing to leave the country)
- Didn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Of course not voting for Kamala would ideally not be so catastrophic. Ideally vote boycotting would have started decades ago. But oh well, we can’t have things be perfect, so I guess starting the change now, messy and painful as it is for me today, will be good for future generations after me
That’s the analysis I had about Biden, too. And your analysis was correct then too. We got a few years of not accelerated evil policies (still evil policies but not slam the foot on the gas although that is an open question) then obviously the deteriorating material conditions led to a revolt again against the status quo.
I hate Kamala, I think she’s a terrible candidate and don’t disagree that she would’ve just bought us more time. But it’s easier to fight back with a persistent cold than with supertuberculosis.
Because Trump got elected, my partner and I uprooted our lives, said goodbye to a massive community of people, gave up multiple career prospects, and moved to another country. I’m a trans latina immigrant in a gay relationship, so enemy of the state #1. The battle isn’t over either as we’re now dealing with immigration. I’m not legally allowed to work so I’m just living off savings right now, and effectively starting from 0. I still worry about my friends back home, many of which are also trans immigrants but who lack the opportunity to move, who are now scrambling to stockpile meds and fighting daily to continue living. I’ve had to talk friends down from suicide. I have never cried as much as I have in the last year. And I’m just one person.
So thank you for that, your direct lack of action contributed to it. I hope your horse was worth the blood on your hands. You’re no better than the other centrists eager to throw us under the bus while calling it “progress”
It was, you’re welcome. Now go be selfish somewhere else
Edit:
(If its not obvious, I don’t mean this, but figured I’d show you what its like for someone to disregard 90% of your post and call you selfish when you explicitly made an argument for why you’re not)
You can insult me all you want, but I listed out plenty of reasons for why you’re the one sacrificing others in order to sit on your high horse of having voted for Kamala. But you fall back to insults because you can’t actually address my points. You are selfishly choosing the well-being of your immediate social group over millions of people in the present and future.
Removed by mod
I knew Trump winning would mean disaster for me, my family, my friends. But I felt like Kamala winning would just buy us a few more years of relative peace
It’s like you already know the answer, but you STILL did the wrong thing.
And you justify it by ASSUMING the stakes would be higher 4 years later? How so? How would it be WORSE after 4 years of a LESS bad president? That makes no logical sense.
Ideally vote boycotting would have started decades ago. But oh well, we can’t have things be perfect, so I guess starting the change now
What the actual fuck? There is NO SITUATION in which choosing to not exercise the power to vote that a fuck ton of people died to give you is the right thing to do. You use that power to primary bad actors out of the party you most agree with, so you can reform that party. Something that’s happened multiple times throughout U.S. history.
Anyone that utters the phrase “vote boycotting” needs to stop and re-evaluate their lives. That shit is downright disrespectful.
I take responsibility but still think it was the correct choice not to vote for Kamala.
I’m trying to imagine what happened to you in your life to make your brain believe it was right to make a move that resulted in what we’re currently experiencing.
Like, there really isn’t a debate here. Trump was absolutely a worse decision than Kamala. So not voting for Kamala when it came down to Trump and Kamala means your brain thinks Trump was a better option. Because it was one or the other…period. No 3rd party even came remotely close to winning. As in the 3rd party candidate with the most votes only got 0.5% of the total votes cast.
So…what exactly happened to your brain?
Try addressing the reasoning that I explicitly laid out rather than restating your own reasoning that we started off with. That’s how conversation works. I have no problem having a rational back and forth discussion, but if you won’t even respond to my actual reasoning there’s no point to it. I don’t want to antagonize someone who is ultimately on my side, but you sure make it hard to resist by being so inflammatory. I understand you’re upset and think I did a horrible thing, but I also think the same thing about you, yet I am not holding it so harshly against you because I understand your heart was in the right place. If someone keeps being so aggressive to me, I’m only human, and its hard for me to keep a level head. But I want to keep a level head and have a reasonable discussion. I can tell you that I’m open to having my mind changed, although perhaps you may not believe that. But if you want to actually change someone’s mind, I’m right here and ready to talk about it. But I ask that you at least respond to the reasoning I laid out, not just my claim but my reasoning for it, and to try to be respectful. I get that it’s not always possible, I mess up too (I’ve done it in this same thread), but let’s just try to assume the best of each other and be open to being wrong (me too) and maybe we could actually come away from this with at least one changed mind.
Edit: I’ll happily try to elaborate in response to your other comments if you want, but it seems like you would rather I just shut up, so its up to you. I don’t wanna waste time typing out an argument that you aren’t interested in having
My handler said it was my turn to post “whatabout kamala” post today.
😡😡😡
It is the sole argument from the losing coalition of conservstive democrats and liberal zionists.
These people were fully convinced to defend and support a genocide. It’s easier for them to dive deeper into the AIPAC coalition than to reject it.
You forgot the swastika and the pedobear under Trump.
Please stop. This is disingenuous trash. No one concerned about Israel said vote for him.
Acting like Harris is an ally for queer people and isn’t an imperialist is genuinely out of touch with reality. I get you want to blame people because the “worse” white supremacist was elected, but narratives like this will be used by the Democratic Party to continue the fascism if and when the Republicans lose power. Gavin Newsom isn’t intentionally abandoning pro-queer performative politics for nothing.
Another insultingly stupid take of blaming voters for the problems caused by greedy people. THIS VIOLATES RULE 1 of the forum.
Ah, liberal wokescolding first thing in the morning
Yes, thank you for opening our eyes, none of us knew this, even though we all held our nose and voted for the woman who was suddenly thrust on us as it became apparent that Joe Biden couldn’t win, who herself was winning UNTIL she said we’ll have the most lethal military and who cozied up to Sarah Longwell and fucking Liz Cheney and spent time chasing Republican votes and basically promising nothing to anyone from the moderates to the left
You fucking Overton shit shovelers are insufferable.
Hey you know what we might not have had climate change if Al Gore had gotten elected in 2000. Why aren’t we doing more hanging-chad memes?
Does this help?
You failed the trolly problem.
I swear, I have yet to see any of you morons bringing up the trolley problem understand what the trolley problem even is.
super funny comment considering the idea of the classic trolley problem has no fail state and is just a moral exercise.
you failed moral theory.
no fail state
The whole point is either choice results in death. What are you even on about?
Ah “I am exactly the thing you posted” first thing in the morning
