As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.
Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.
I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.
Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.
Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.
Edit 2: This blew up, it’s a little overwhelming right now but I do intent on replying to everybody that took the time to comment. Just need to get in the right headspace.
They believe that taking a moral stand against the Democrats, who are supporting Israeli genocide, is worth it even if that means that Trump, who even more fervently supports Israeli genocide, becomes president.
Even calling it “Israeli genocide” is transferring responsibility. “Supporting” is an understatement. The democrats ARE THE ONES DOING THE GENOCIDE. Biden can stop it with a single phone call. Israel is not an independent state; it is a subordinate of the US.
Telling people to vote for your party, a nazi party, at the absolute peak of your depraved inhuman bloodthirst, because the other side might be worse, is the most cynical fucking thing I’ve ever heard.
So when Trump wins and my rights to exist are stripped even further, I’ll be sure to thank you for it
Everything is always about YOU 🤡
Pathetic…
stop voting for genocide.
I honestly appreciate the downvotes as a counter of angry people shamed into silence
Good. You should be fucking ashamed.
Imas I said, I want to personally thank you and your ilk for Trump winning this election.
Congratulations. You let the fascists win to “stick it to the libs”
Oh please. As if my actions were for petty spite and not the actual reasons I stated. As if the focus of my anger is dipshits like you and not the people with the actual blood on their hands? You annoy the fuck out of me but my hatred isn’t directed at you.
That said, I think it’s fucking good you’re pissed off and upset. You deserve to be. You did a terrible thing. And you didn’t even get what you sold out your basic human decency for. Not to mention selling out people having their entire families killed day after day. Now you’re a nazi and a loser. How does it feel?
My fault? I fucking wish. The democrats did such a deliberately dogshit job with such a dogshit candidate leftists (and the muslims that will never forget your vicious racism towards them) were a fraction of the votes they threw away. I don’t even live in one of the two states that even had a realistic claim to a vote in this election. Why are you getting upset at people for not voting when you don’t even live in a real democracy in the first place?
Your anger needs to be directed at the political system itself. God I wish people like you would stop and have a sober assessment of what the democratic party does and why. You’re angry because the people committing a genocide lost because that means the fascists won?? Are you fucking hearing yourself?? By any semi-rigorous definition of the word, the democratic party are fascists. When BLM happened they brutalized the protestors and responded on the backend by ballooning the police state. (The budget at least even if they can’t find recruits). Fascism is capitalism in decay discarding the soft power that keeps people in line and resorting to the tactics that work on the imperial periphery against the domestic population.
You cannot vote fascism out of a fascist country. The frustration you feel right now is built into the system. This is the only outcome you’re ever going to get. I’m glad you’re feeling it right now. I wish you still felt it when Biden was doing literally fucking everything Trump was doing and will now continue to. Please take this time to reassess your political understanding. You will never save yourself with voting.
Blah blah. You helped Trump. Blocked.
Yeah the “democrats are the REAL nazis” is tiring when you get comments from the republican hero agent Orange: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/
Shut the fuck up. I never said the republicans weren’t nazis. I’m just fucking sick of you being an out and open nazi and acting like you fucking aren’t.
Their tiny liberal brains can’t handle anything that isn’t a binary choice.
They have fully accepted, absorbed and now spout George W Bush’s slogan of “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” without any irony that they are the terrorists!
“Everyone I don’t like is a nazi”
Everyone on the side of genocide can be called a Nazi, yes.
Genocide is a necessary but not sufficient condition for nazism.
Remember that in online spaces (and IRL in reality), there are astro-turf/sock puppet accounts that will make claims to sway public opinions.
Good point. Although, I would question whether Lemmy is such a place as we really don’t have the numbers to warrant the effort, imo.
I disagree - it feels like Lemmy is seeing the same kind of shills that 4chan saw in the last several elections. These bad actors are trying to sway dems to vote third party or not vote at all “in protest” across many small and large online spaces.
Are the shills in the room with us right now?
Yeah like all of these people out here telling me to vote for genociders. There’s no way that real humans would think so little of Palestinian lives, right?
Right?
And who, of those who aren’t mathematically precluded by the flawed system we are currently stuck with from having a chance at winning, can you vote for that isn’t about to help Isreal with their genocide? Trump is even more favorable towards that policy than Biden is, and while Harris isn’t Biden, it seems hard to imagine she’d be much worse than current administration on that issue. One of the reasons to vote for Harris is because, despite all her administration would likely do there, having her in office would almost certainly result in fewer Palestinian deaths than Trump would.
Suppose you have two buttons. If you press one, it kills someone. If you press the second, it kills two people. If you don’t press the first button, someone else is eagerly waiting who will press the second. Whoever has placed the buttons here, has enough power that neither the buttons nor the other person are within your personal ability to harm at the moment, and you have neither the time nor the popularity to amass enough people to change this before the other guy pushes the “kill two people” button. Your only options are to press one or press neither and allow the second be pressed. If your answer to this scenario is “I press neither button, because pressing the first kills someone, don’t you care about people’s lives!?”, then you are not choosing morality, you are choosing selfishness, because you care more about the notion that your hands will be clean than about the net life saved if you press the button that kills fewer people. In fact, the blood is as much on your hands by inaction if you decide to reject your choice, as it would be had you killed the additional victim yourself.
And who, of those who aren’t mathematically precluded by the flawed system we are currently stuck with from having a chance at winning, can you vote for that isn’t about to help Isreal with their genocide?
When you are offered two candidates and both support genocide, including one being an active part of the current one, you can say, “no, never again means never again” and work against both rather than pretending you now have to support genocide.
Trump is even more favorable towards that policy than Biden is, and while Harris isn’t Biden, it seems hard to imagine she’d be much worse than current administration on that issue.
You should believe your lying eyes and see that Biden has gotten your consent for genocide, with Harris helping. The genocide has only ramped up as the election draws close.
There is not worse that can be done. It is full, unequivocal support for basically anything Israel wants for genocide including the weapons and supplies on which they depend to carry out this genocide. If anything, Dems are more effective at this kind of thing, as they secure European support and offer better stipulations to the Israelis around when to escalate and when to play it a little cooler.
Though your electoral logic is seld-defeating anyways. Your consent for the lesser evil keeps you politically anemic and unable to have solidarity with those who need it. You make yourself subservient.
One of the reasons to vote for Harris is because, despite all her administration would likely do there, having her in office would almost certainly result in fewer Palestinian deaths than Trump would.
This is a fantasy.
Suppose you have two buttons.
I am not interested in childish metaphors.
Majority of the people who are saying this are Arab-Americans. They know how bad Trump will be, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of Biden back in 2020. Unfortunately, after a year of witnessing their entire ethnicity being written off as an acceptable casualty in the name of international diplomacy and foreign lobbying, they’ve become numb and just stopped caring. There have been repeated instsnces of Democrats actually silencing them from speaking up as well. They’ve adopted a scorched earth mentality and are deciding to send a giant “fuck you” to Harris and the entire Democratic party.
And the Democrats are also allowing Israel to do whatever they want. There’s not much of a difference between the two on this topic.
There is a difference between them on this topic.
If Trump were in office now, every liberal here would be screaming for the genocide to end and trying to understand how anyone could let this happen.
With Biden in office and his VP as candidate, they are trying to sell you on their candidate rather than working against the genocide.
I’ve actually seen some Muslim American leader (not sure who, maybe the mayor of Dearborn?) saying something like this. At least with Republicans in charge democrats would need to oppose them instead of gleefully supporting the genocide. Not sure how much this logic checks out, but it’s a thing I guess.
The logic definitely checks out. It was far easier to mobilize and educate mainstream liberals under Trump. They have gone to sleep under Biden and become fully accepting of what the administration does. They might say they don’t approve in a poll or something, but get them to leave the house? Only the college students can be mobilized at this time.
this is strangely true? but I can see the feds (who control the media) pivot narratives again where trump is still bad, but what he’s doing is okay because (hasbara such as beheaded babies & mass rape claims, false flag, atrocity propaganda). feds aren’t very intelligent. they do the same shit over and over again.
Yeah, the first time the press core deigned to call him “presidential” was when he launched rockets at Syria. The second time was when he assassinated Suleimani.
If the election were between Trump and somehow someone even worse who was calling to nuke the entire area and turn it into glass, then I would absolutely be pushing for Trump. Shockingly, if we are trapped in a horrifying, dystopian version of the trolley problem (which we are), I’m going to make the choice that causes the least damage.
Using another analogy, if you have a badly broken arm, you can either set it and try to keep it immobilized, or you can let it stay how it is and all but guarantee that it gets fucked up even worse as it heals wrong. Voting third party is like saying “I don’t like either of those options since they both involve my broken arm, so I choose to pray to the Moon Goddess”. There is no option that immediately stops your arm from being broken. You can delude yourself and say the Moon Goddess will magically fix it, but in reality, you are choosing the option that does nothing and makes it worse. Choosing to set your broken arm doesn’t make you “pro-broken arm”, it’s just the only practical choice given a terrible situation.
If the election were between Trump and somehow someone even worse who was calling to nuke the entire area and turn it into glass, then I would absolutely be pushing for Trump.
It does not get worse than genocide. The habit of inventing a hypothetical bigger and harder gun to hold to marginalized peoples’ heads doesn’t work on this one.
Shockingly, if we are trapped in a horrifying, dystopian version of the trolley problem (which we are), I’m going to make the choice that causes the least damage.
We are not trapped in a trolley problem. You are a human with agency. You can join organizations, you can educate, you can take action. Reducing your political agency to a lever pull for genocide is a helplessness taught to you by the political class because they just want you to vote for them even when they commit genocide right in front of your eyes. They want you to think of Palestinian lives as strategically expendable and that you are actually smart, not racist, for toeing that line. And your compliance with their demands is exactly what ensures they can shove any monster down your throat as a candidate. Harris is complicit in genocide and didn’t win a single primary but Dems say, “well, time to fall in line”. Dems strategists know that “progressive” Dems do this so they do nothing for them in policy, they just deploy PR goons to vote against every 4 years. Compliant voters enable their own irrelevance.
Though of course, voting is very limited and there is much more to be done.
Using another analogy
I refuse to entertain analogies justifying genocide.
The USA has several legally binding treaties etc promising military cooperation with Israel. Harris isn’t allowed to break them legally. Any change to this would have to be passed by the house and senate. So it genuinely doesn’t matter what Harris or anyone else wants.
This is already missing the point that if Harris is not elected, Palestine will be gone. Hell, everyone everywhere in the world will suffer under Trump
Easy. If Trump wins, that picture will be Israel and all Palestinians will be dead and gone.
4 years ago, Democrats said the border wall was stupid and bad. They said that Republicans were racist for claiming all Mexicans were drug dealers and criminals. Today, Harris is saying she’s gonna build the border wall, be tough on migrants, and has basically adopted Trump’s policies on immigration.
There is no indication that the Democrats will not be just as bad as the Republicans on Israel in 4 years.
To address your second point “not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump”; why isn’t the opposite true? “Not voting for Trump is a vote for Harris”, follows the same logic, so refusing to vote or voting independent should be net neutral, no?
This election should be a slam dunk victory for Harris. The data shows that adopting leftist progressive policies is popular. Biden dropping out resulted in $4 million in small donor fundraising. Picking Walz resulted in another $2 million. People got really excited when it looked like the Democratic party was making leftist progressive movement.
Since then, the Dems have been aggressively moving towards the center. More lethal military, inciting panic about the border, ignoring Palestine. This has resulted in an extremely tight race as people are no longer excited to vote for Harris.
I want Harris to win. Moving leftward politically will attract more voters. Taking a firm stance on stopping the Israeli government’s genocide is a leftist progressive policy. The bag is right there, she just needs to grab it.
Democrats making obviously winning plays? You cannot be serious.
They are intentionally bad at politics. Their greatest skills are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and shitting and falling back in it. Wanna see how for yourself? Dig into the DNC. They’re not a political entity, they’re a corp. And they work for the interests of corps. If what they do occasionally isnt absolute shit its almost entirely incidental.
The opposite of „not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump“ isn’t true because of the electoral college, which heavily skews towards rural states with not many voters, which are often conservative.
You need roughly 4 Californian votes to match 1 Wyoming vote. That’s why Republicans seldom win the popular vote and still manage to win elections.
So if left leaning people don’t vote (or vote third party), the negative effect for Harris is amplified in comparison to conservatives.
Well, in that case, the Democrats should adopt policies that attract more left leaning voters. Saying stuff like, “I will prosecute migrants” doesn’t make any sense because if that is an important topic to a voter, why wouldn’t they just vote Trump who has promised that and more?
If the problem is, “not enough left leaning votes”, the solution seems like, “attract more left leaning votes”. People in this country love progressive leftist policies like universal healthcare or not funding genocides, no matter their party affiliation. People have not responded well to neo-liberal/conservative policies like means testing school lunches or increasingly stringent border laws.
And yet, the Democratic party continually adopts neo-liberal/conservative policies. It feels like voting Democrat is just, “voting Republican but slower”. The Democratic party has accepted the Republican framing about an imaginary migrant crisis, and that was with a much more firm stance against racism only 4 years ago. Yeah, they would possibly be better on Israel’s genocide than Republicans, but all the actions protesting the genocide have been met with vitriol from the current administration. It seems far more likely that the Democrats would just do the same thing as Republicans, just less loudly.
The Democratic party cannot expect to win simply because, “orange man bad”. They have not shown they will not continue to adopt Republican ideas and policies. If they want people to vote for them, they should do things to attract those voters. They should stop doing things that pushes away voters.
It’s not as easy as you make it out to be.
The Democrats have to try to achieve the impossible: trying to retain left-leaning voters while getting enough centrists/swing votes to overcome the systematic disadvantage the electoral college poses for them.
In a de facto two party system that puts them between a rock and a hard place.
But what does that mean for you as a (I assume) left leaning voter?
It’s actually quite simple: vote for the least bad option.
By not voting for Harris you may successfully show the democrats your discontent for their policies. But you pay for that by helping a possible fascist into power (remember: we already found out that not voting, helps republican candidates in most cases), who will be far worse on most policies you care about.
It really doesn’t feel like the Democrats are the least bad option when they keep adopting Republican policies. Sure, they don’t want to kill trans people or conduct mass deportations now, but it sure feels like 4 years down the line I’m gonna be asked to vote Democrat even though Harris or whoever is trying to increase police budgets to “fight rising crime” or something ridiculous.
I keep having to vote for “the least bad option” while the Democratic party only ever courts neo-liberal/conservative voters. It really seems like my options are Fascist Now Party or Fascist Later Party. If the Democrats don’t listen when I vote and don’t listen when I abstain, why should I vote?
I feel like it is not a winning campaign strategy to say, “vote for Democrats because the Republicans are far worse”. Progressive left policies are popular amongst centrist and swing voters, so it isn’t like the Democrats will lose centrists by adopting progressive policies. Everybody likes expanding healthcare. Nobody likes genocide. So if adopting progressive policies attracts voters from all across the spectrum, why are the Democrats only focusing on stuff like, “build the wall” or “stay silent about genocide”?
It really seems like my options are Fascist Now Party or Fascist Later Party. If the Democrats don’t listen when I vote and don’t listen when I abstain, why should I vote?
The answer is in your question. Fascism later is the better option because it buys you time to do something else. Fascism now means the game is over today. Nothing about that is difficult to understand.
You’ll have ample time (and freedom) to oppose Harris after November, but now’s not the time.
Based on how liberals have accepted genocide as necessary at this point, the “fascism later” option seems more likely to make people comfortable with fascism, rather than buying us time to resist.
Even if that was true, how is that better than having fascism today, given than genocide will happen no matter what? You seem to imply people will have more willingness to resist if it happens tomorrow (and I doubt it). But are you really willing to take the chance on actual fascism? It really seems like you want it to happen…
You guys have a twisted sense of priorities. You’re willing to trade a maybe for a surely.
Thanks for the elaborated comment! Don’t mind the negativity around the replies, some ppl are so simple they will hate until you literally say ‘Harris good, Trump bad’.
I’ve recently seen a nice description of that - “peasant mindset”.
People who are not ready and willing to peacefully discuss reality with literally anyone, and most of all marginal and weird viewpoints, like sovcits and antivaxxers, because those are more interesting, - have that “peasant mindset”.
(I’ve found something like that in my head too this morning, so sharing the thought.)
Aggression is a sign of fear, and fear is something we feel when we are not ready to change our mind if we get some good arguments, or when we get bad, insufficient arguments, but are pressed to change our mind anyway.
Why can we not be ready for that, feel powerless before that possibility of deciding to think differently 5 minutes from now?
Because there’s something that we follow like a peasant follows their master. It’s the assumed identity, the family, the group, the party, the state, the nation. Such a decision, and a decision to discuss reality preceding that, is an act of defiance toward those. It’s a conflict, and we as humans sometimes try to avoid conflicts. It’s like discussing orders. Only there’s not a single soul above us who is entitled to order us how we vote or how we think.
Every decision worth making is destructive, everything new comes in the place of something old and something that could be, there’s nothing to fear.
Changing one’s mind by a conscious decision after careful consideration is a sign of having personal dignity. Not changing one’s mind in the same situation is too a sign of having personal dignity.
Keeping your head down and trying to eat anyone not in line is not.
(too long again)
Democrats are not pro Palestine. They simply don’t care about Genocide when Democrats do it. They are Nazis.
That is not the question. The question is: it’s a binary choice. People should be aware that not voting helps the worst candidate win. Why not vote for the less bad candidate then?
It is not a binary choice. When people vote third party it shows politicians supporting Israel comes with political consequences.
Voting for Green is the best thing a voter can do. Even forgiving Democrats for being complicit in an entire year of Genocide would be questionable. But Democrats are not distancing themselves from the Genocide. They are literally saying they want to continue the Genocide and start a war with Iran too.
Democrats aren’t going to magically do what you want if you reward them for bad behavior. Instead they will double down on bad behavior.
Life lasts longer than 4 years.
