And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
I know people who voted neither candidate because Trump was horrible and Harris was pro-choice. Single-issue voters are the death of democracy. Full stop.
I said months ago that we were going to “single issue” our way to Trump 2.0, and I’ve never ever wanted to be wrong more than when I said that.
Edit: Updated with receipts.
nearly all the single-issue voters on the right vote in lock-step unison, and have for decades.
democrats and progressives seem to just toss in the towel if they aren’t getting everything they want, right now.
it takes time to build something great, it takes but a moment to destroy it all. welcome to total destruction.
Yep, to all that, and I’ve often grumbled the same things.
Single-issue voters on the right, single-issue nonvoters on the left.
“Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.”
Everything being ‘dont genocide’ just so we’re clear here. I dont particularly think that was a huge ask. Nor do i think effective economic policies changes for the working class.
And we’ll get to see what the alternative provides. Yay, you won.
No I didnt we lost. We lost our humanity, we’ve lost our shared communities. The fact i had to spend the last year arguing with people that genocide is not fucking okay is evidence of that.
In no fucking way do I consider this outcome a win. There was no winning this election unfortunately and thats precisely the fucking problem. But alas democrats decided committing genocide, arresting their enthusiastic base for protesting, fucking over the working class, and shitting on the people warning them about these issues come voting are winning strategies.
😮💨🤷
And you decided lesser evil wasn’t lesser enough? Now we get greater evil.
Your words not mine. You failed to convince 20 million people with that argument, harris failed to convince 20 million people to show up using it after blowing a billion dollars.
Harris lost 25 electoral points in two states out of the fucking gate using it.
Harris lost more for completely fucking ignoring the problems working Americans are feeling at home. A minor tax break after food has shot up 20-30% in four years? Fuck off.
She fucking managed to lose every swing state using it.
At what point do you fucking realize how absolutely fucking stupid of a play that reasoning is?
I dont need to argue this point anymore. You want answers look internally. Not to me, Ive spent the last year trying to get you deeebs to course correct. You failed to do so and as result you’ve earned trump.
Insanity:
- you
- Harris
- biden
- dnc
- doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
My punk rock lifetime bay area liberal 45 yr old friend voted Trump bc Israel.
I could say something witty or sarcastic, but you’ve probably already thought something along the same lines. I’ll just leave a facepalm emoji instead.
🤦🏻♂️
Radicals ruin everything.
Thing is you can actually be radical. In a healthy democracy you need some small fringes to exert pressure, e.g. civil right activist groups and so on so that the government isn’t able to just completely ignore portions of the population.
But to be effective as an activist you have to know when to put on pressure and when to unite. Malcolm X or Fred Hampton didn’t go vote for David Duke just because MLK was a pacifist.
This was the wrong time to pressure because as always activists dramatically misread the levels of actual support for their cause and dramatically underestimate how much support the general populace gives the opposition.
Most people don’t even agree on the very basic facts of reality or that such a thing can even exist and that for instance pretty certain observations made using the scientific method aren’t just equally weighed to someone’s opinion, how tf are you gonna expect to convince them of anything? What you gonna write some long post on it? Good luck - they literally cannot read.
Humanity is just a dogshit species. To even agree that we shouldn’t stab ourselves in our proverbial balls with a proverbial milwaukee power drill - it takes like generations and most people are always for the status quo and the worst possible version of everything is the default we have to work from and with, it’s just a cruel joke and it would be more existentially comforting if progress was outright impossible.
It was absolutely the correct time to pressure. Harris/dnc/biden miscalculated.
Huh? You really think that if they caved on Palestine they would’ve won? Most Americans support the guy who wants to impose Muslim travel bans
The numbers don’t lie.
The Muslim vote in the end stayed literally the same, so did the Jewish vote. Most Americans prolly haven’t even heard of all this shit lol
Imagine thinking someone needs to cave on not being genocidal. Jesus fucking christ.
- students were arrested under their watch, a key demographic for them in a tight race. Students are often motivated canvassers. Their response to the outcry? There must be order. Get bent biden/harris.
- they lost 25 electoral points in two fucking swing states directly related to this. In literal numbers codified in the outcome.
- they completely fucking ignored the economic issues caused by corporate greed. Fun fact kellogs is charging over 100% more for fucking corn flakes than the store brand. CORN FLAKES.
Most Americans support the guy who wants to impose Muslim travel bans.
Sigh. You didnt do well in math did you? Tell me where did the 20 million votes for biden last time go? Trumps numbers are unchanged. Oh right, they didnt show up. 🤔
Never mind the fucking fact most adults dont vote. So no most Americans dont support trump. They just dont think either party is worth their emotional energy. Good job democrats! 🤔
And token handle the rest of your nonsense with the polling numbers.
students were arrested under their watch, a key demographic for them in a tight race. Students are often motivated canvassers. Their response to the outcry? There must be order. Get bent biden/harris.
Yes and most people support that. They see you as more unhinged than the anti-police protestors and think Trump must be onto something with demolishing the DoE if the nation students are protesting for who they see as Islamist terrorists.
they lost 25 electoral points in two fucking swing states directly related to this. In literal numbers codified in the outcome.
Source?
they completely fucking ignored the economic issues caused by corporate greed
Yeah that’s socialism. They already lost the Latino vote by being too socialist. The electorate wants tax breaks for Kelogg’s CEO.
Sigh. You didnt do well in math did you? Tell me where did the 20 million votes for biden last time go?
Some of them probably to Trump.
Trumps numbers are unchanged.
Are you an idiot? You’re implying that these are the exact same people just because the numbers are roughly the same?
Biden convinced a lot of swing voters due to COVID.
Never mind the fucking fact most adults dont vote.
Source?
And token handle the rest of your nonsense with the polling numbers.
Token handle? Like JRR Tolkien? Did you have a stroke?
FYI: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fp2jwdarksy0e1.png
The vote count was roughly the same. Many dem voter swinged to Trump because they want a far-right ethnostate ruled by thugs and criminals.
source
Please see yourself to any election results site for Wisconsin and Michigan, look at the results differential, look at the 3rd party votes, then go back the the primaries and look at the uncommited numbers from the primary.
Source? (Most dont vote)
See yourself to any american census page, find the adult population numbers, then look at the gross voters for this election. Do some basic math and you’ll end up with 25-30% of the voting population voted.
Are you an idiot?
Possibly but you most definitely are. You dont know basic well known facts about demographics of Michigan and Wisconsin, you ask for sources for literally common knowledge facts that are both widely reported and easily confirmed.
And no i didnt claim they were the exact same people you twit. I was pointing out he had relatively similar levels of total support in fucking aggregate. ~72mill.
Biden convinced a lot of swing voters due to COVID.
No, 20 million voters didnt show up this cycle because harris brought nothing to the tablento motivate them. In fact she mainly brought dismotivation via a genocide and lack of economic policies.
Token handle? Like JRR Tolkien? Did you have a stroke?
No, its the other person who responded to your absolutely trash of a post with a link to some polls.
Okay we’re done here. Nothing productive will be had with furthering a conversation with someone as uninformed, and in lacking basic reasoning skills as yourself.
Only a radical speaks in absolutes
…is an absolute statement in itself.
Only in a two-party system. Locked in a two party system is the death of it. At least introduce multiple rounds, to democratically elect the 2 contestants for the final round…
Only in a two-party system.
So you mean - like the system this election took place within?
Sometimes being a single issue voter happens because people just care that much about that one issue. But there’s a natural tendency for anyone’s decision to come down to one thing. Complex issues are complex, most people don’t know what’s right. But then they do have ONE thing that they consider black-and-white, so that influences their choice. It gives them something they feel they can say to others “I just can’t bring myself to vote for someone who XYZ…”
Because let’s face it: no one wants to hear your entire list of political calculations. People’s choices are absolutely influenced by thoughts of how they’ll justify themselves to the people they know. And having one big pithy thing to say is more convenient than a subtle position based on a score of factors.
Humans are social, emotional, idiosyncratic shortcut machines, not logic engines.
Since no one seems to be taking OP’s question seriously, I’ll take a stab at this. There are a variety of reasons.
Some people feel that voting is offering material support to a specific candidate or system, and they simply cannot bring themselves to do so given the horrors that that person or system is either supporting or failing to condemn.
Others may feel that strategically withholding their vote as a punishment may motivate democrats to take these types of issues more seriously in the future.
Or they may feel that their vote is more impactful in magnifying the voice and power of third parties who offer more meaningful solutions to end the killing, even if they won’t win.
Others still may believe that Trump’s incompetence will accelerate the end of America imperialism and lead to a better global political situation sometime in the future.
Finally, some people feel that voting won’t matter at all and is a distraction from efforts to directly slow or stop the war machine.
I don’t personally endorse any of these viewpoints, but some are relatively serious positions and others are not, in my opinion.
Others may feel that strategically withholding their vote as a punishment may motivate democrats to take these types of issues more seriously in the future.
They never learn though.
They never learn though.
And we’re out of chances for them to do so.
A lot of people did in fact set aside Gaza until Trump was stopped. As for those that didn’t, they should have listened to Bernie Sanders. I did months ago and went all-in on Dem support. There were multiple times when I wrote up an angry post about US support of Israel and then didn’t post it because I didn’t want to turn a voter into a non-voter or worse a Trump supporter.
I understand their position of never rewarding ethnic cleansing and war crimes though. They chose to make sure the Dems know they would never “settle” for the illegal killing of civilians. The support for Israel made it especially hard for Arab Americans to vote Dem. It’s difficult to support a party that has been in power during the whole conflict yet gives unconditional support for the internationally condemned murder of Arabs.
I’m sure a lot also felt disenfranchised by the bipartisan protest suppression and condemnation. Even in Dem states peaceful protesters were punished, and sometimes pro-Israeli protesters who attacked got away with it. Then there was the whole “vote with us or else” pressure that went on for months. Dissenters like the “uncommitted” voters were insulted by the party that wanted their unconditional support.
So it’s not like it’s completely insane. But as Sanders points out that position only makes things worse and has done so.
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
And there was a strong push from the Russians.
what moderation ? biden literally told everyone that ukraine is not even getting a paperclip unless we give israel 20 billion as well. he continued saying israel has unconditional support while we were getting footage of pregnant women & kids getting shot at by idf or burning alive in hospital from use of incendiary shells. then harris repeated the same statement on live tv. all this while the working class has been struggling to survive, layoffs everywhere, and price of everything getting doubled.
its not something that can be washed with but that guy will do worse. you can look otherway but dnc basically threatened their voters base with more genocide if not elected. the fact we are even fighting over this instead mass protesting for biden and his administration to be prosecuted shows just how hollow & pathetic the dnc base has become.
There you go again.
Dems bad, who cares if trump is worse.
Well, you’ll get what you wanted when Israel finishes off Gaza and everything else, or starts WWIII when they can’t keep the bombs inside their extermination camp.
You know there’s an entire rest of the world that exists right? A rest of the world that has already started preparing sanctions against Israel if the conflict continues to escalate?
Realistically, we’ve seen this all beat for beat before. Israel treats Palestine as an apartheid state, eventually a group forms to try and resist Israel, Israel crushes that group’s bones into dust for a few years, and then once they can offer no more resistance, Israel returns Palestine to an apartheid state. The pattern has repeated itself several times now.
You’re out of your mind if you think the israel / Palestine conflict stays local to that area under either administration. This is going to literally and figuratively blow up in our faces. Research the concept of “blowback”.
At no point did I suggest otherwise. In fact , I clearly stated WWIII was on the table. Go make up something else I said.
Arguably WW3 started when Russia invaded Ukraine.
yes the 15 millions or so didn’t care that trump is worse because dnc has become bad enough and its not just the genocide in gaza. threatening people make them do irrational things, specially true for us americans.
there is solid basis that harris would have done nothing to reign netanyahu same as trump. she had accepted even larger donation from aipac than biden who was basically emptying our emergency stockpile faster than we can replenish. if anything there’s chance that trumps narcissism clashes with that stooge and he actually does something good for gaza out of his ego.
Uh, I don’t have anything against America as a whole, but saying y’all don’t like irrational things rings pretty fucking false in my ears atm.
It only took 90 years until the majority apparently forgot 1935-1945 completely.
That’s because nobody believes biden/Harris and for good reason. They’re lying, they have just as much of a plan to turn Gaza into prime oceanfront real estate for wealthy NYC metro area zionists with dual citizenship as the republicans. They’ll just paint the bombs with progress pride and blm flags while lying to your face about their intentions and speaking out of both sides of their mouth depending on their audience. It’s sickening. They’re both going to genocide Palestinians, does it really matter if they’re turned to glass in days or in weeks?
Before I start let me note that in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election. Harris is on the way to losing all swing states. Her failure is much deeper than Gaza policy. Blaming anti-genocide voters for this is just copium.
With that out of the way, you can divide people with this position into two groups: Arab Americans and everyone else. Arab Americans are people who are feeling the genocide firsthand. So, obviously, they tried to appeal to the Harris campaign and get them to move from Biden’s position on the topic. The result: They were either ignored or antagonized by Harris. That led to the abandon Harris campaign in Michigan and elsewhere. Harris considered those people acceptable casualties in her failure of a campaign, and so they were burnt out and the momentum behind the Uncommitted movement and others turned from “let’s save our Palestinian brothers” to “fuck us and Palestine (because let’s face it, that’s basically what Harris was saying)? Then fuck you too”. Harris thew them under the bus and was thrown under the bus in turn. Maybe not very logical, but a very predictable reaction. Harris treated Arab Americans with just that much contempt, and then she and her enablers had the gall to tell the people attending a funeral every other day to “shut up and vote for her”.
Now as for everyone else, it’s a more simple instance of taking a stand against a politician for doing something you cannot accept. Now there is a pragmatic idea here that if you allow the DNC to get away with this they’ll think supporting genocide actually wins elections, or that their electorate are such pussies that it doesn’t matter what they think. Add in the goal of pressuring Harris to drop that policy that was important at the start of the Harris campaign and of course the idea of not wanting to vote for genocide and this was the result.
Of course it’s not all 100% logical, but there is logic here beyond “omg bad guy I no vote”.
Now that the election is out of the way, maybe I can continue talking about this. I held my tongue during the past months, but I think now is a good time to think about this result.
While the result is unfortunate and disappointing, there are sides to it that aren’t all that bad. They pushed towards the right, pandering, and now the voters told them that this isn’t a winning strategy. I think it helps setting them straight for the future.
I think you put it very aptly. Of course it would’ve been best if Harris had won, but at least now we can think about it from a neutral perspective: Had she won despite all the right-pandering and genocide-enabling stances, it would either send the message that pandering to the right works, and the progressives are, indeed, either too small a group to listen to in the future too, or too much of pussies to listen to in the future, too — they’ll toe the line no matter what kind of shitty positions you take.
At least now they know that a change is needed. It’s almost unthinkable to lose to such a weird fascist populist that barely behaves cohesively. They did, by ignoring the progressives. That means something. At least it ought to.
Things don’t often change unless things hurt. If doing shitty things keeps working, nothing changes. But when things hurt, it opens some eyes at least. Forces re-evaluation on everyone’s part.
But that being said, this fucking sucks. Despite all the reasoning we can do to make it feel a bit better, this really should not have happened.
They played this exact same game in 2016 and lost and yet they learned nothing. What makes anyone think they’re going to learn something this time? The DNC needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up to be a proper left party instead of this bullshit center-right garbage that they pretend is progressive or left.
EDIT: And I still held my nose and voted, because I will in fact take anything over fascism.
2016 was easily dismissed because trump was a surprise candidate they weren’t prepared to deal with, Hilary was disliked, and she still won the popular vote. None of those excuses apply in 2024
I’m not hopeful. I’ve already seen centrists and pundits saying that Harris lost because she’s “too progressive” and that Dems need to move further right.
Given Dems’ track record, I’m dreading 2028 is going to be JD Vance versus fucking RFK Jr. or Joe Manchin. At least the only silver lining out of THAT shitshow will be seeing the Democratic Party completely implode after completely alienating their voter base to become a carbon copy of the Republican Party (while Repub voters just keep voting R) and hopefully pave ground for an actual progressive party replace them, but that will hardly offset the horrors of 8 years of unrestrained fascism (assuming the left wins in 2032 🥲)
There will be no more elections, do you guys not listen to what Trump says? The only way to have elections again would be a civil war and guess what, the fascists are the majority so fat chance of that happening
Over our dead bodies friend. See you at the polls like always.
do you guys not listen to what Trump says?
Yes that was one of the many outrageous claims he made.
Who knows which things he will actually try to do, let alone what he’ll succeed at doing.
Even with the house, senate and supreme court tilted right, I don’t see them succeeding on abolishing elections.
Well that’s naive. That has happened in many other countries before, and guess what the USA is not any different from them, so
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement. Slotkin won the senate race, but Trump won by a narrow margin. Independent votes and low turn out siphoned off enough to make that happen. Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement.
I mean maybe (I haven’t seen the turnout numbers as opposed to protest/non-voters) but the point is that Harris lost before Michigan even finished counting. She could’ve won Michigan and she still wasn’t winning this, is the point.
Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
I mean yeah, because the DNC pushed an unelectable candidate whose position was a mix of “nothing will fundamentally change”, wishy washy non-promises and right wing positions. I doubt even 10% of the 15 million in reduced turnout came from Uncommitted and similar movements. The DNC blew it; it’s that simple.
Michigan and Wisconsin, 25 electoral points. You can’t just lose swing states like she did.
Pennsylvania absolutely over biden economic policies. Screaming the economy is doing great! I wouldnt change a thing! While people struggle to afford groceries isnt going to win you an election.
in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election.
Source for that statement?
Look at the votes that came in?
Kamala got 20 million fewer votes than Biden. You don’t think a significant amount of those weren’t related?
So, I’d say that looking at the votes means that it did have an effect.
Trump got a bajillion more votes than Kamala.
We have both cited the exact same number of sources.
What are you talking about? I’m the one that asked for a source, lol.
Some told me tO LoOK At tHe ReSUltS… so I did.
What margin did Trump win Michigan by?
I don’t understand your point. I’m not talking about Michigan. I’m talking about the country.
What margin did Trump win the country by?
How many voters didn’t vote due to the genocide?
How many voters didn’t vote due to the genocide?
About 20 million?
[X]
She lost before Michigan finished counting. She could’ve won Michigan and she would still lost. Source: Subtract 15 from Trump’s EC votes.
The arguments against voting in the USA sound similar to the trolley problem
Some people wouldnt choose to be the reason of the death of one person even if doing nothing causes the death of multiple people
That just means you value your own ability to evade blame over the lives of real people.
Yeah but also they all die anyway. Nobody is “saved” in this situation. In fact, it’s way worse now.
What’s going to happen in Gaza is going to be horrifying.
It wasn’t horrifying until now? Maybe they weren’t white or part of your propaganda.
This is very american - these Gaza supporters protest the suffering of people thousands of miles away and yet think it is okay to bring suffering to everyone in his/her own street
Almost like they are paying for the people suffering thousands of miles away?
Do you have a brain by any chance?
Yes, this is how I felt. I would rather not choose to vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’ and pretend that’s good. It’s not just Gaza though, it’s corporatism, war profiteering, and terrible policy.
I would rather see the system collapse and possibly die in the process than support another shitty government even if it’s the less shitty one.
That’s a horrible outlook, and I’m sorry you’ve been driven to that point. I understand, as I have been there before.
Now that I’m older, I realize that pulling the lever is the right thing to do as much as it hurts. I don’t think letting apathy win and watching the government go full Fash was the correct choice, but I don’t blame you, or others who decided the same. The system isn’t going to collapse, though, it’s just going to get a lot shittier for awhile.
Russian bots mostly, but also privileged people who think that a Trump presidency won’t affect them
Don’t underestimate the pissed off poor. The Dems kept telling them that things weren’t so bad while the Reps said they’d change things.
The changes will of course be worse, but if things are clearly shit, and someone keeps telling you that it’s not that bad, you start to despise those people even if they’re the better choice.
Don’t underestimate the pissed off poor. The Dems kept telling them that things weren’t so bad while the Reps said they’d change things.
Okay, but those aren’t the single-issue Gaza voters OP was asking about.
Frankly, they should’ve been what OP was asking about though, because they were a way bigger factor (and always are, in every election, despite the Democrats abject refusal to acknowledge it).
The big group of voters that the Democrats didn’t see coming were the ton of racists and misogynistic assholes (mostly white but latino men also)
Do you have any examples of Dems telling people things werent bad? The closest things I can think of is dems saying we know things are bad but we are working on them and they are getting better. It feels like a republican talking point that dems think things are good.
“Bidenomics” and “Economy is doing great” and anything and everything involving the word “GDP”
Bidenomics is a right wing attack phrase and I’ve never heard Biden say the economy is doing great. So not sure what your point here was.
You’re right. I guess there’s the problem. I don’t doubt that if I also checked some other memories of Biden’s mistakes I’d find that I remember them how the right wants me to remember them.
also privileged people who think that a Trump presidency won’t affect them
I’m a privileged person who probably won’t be directly affected by another Trump presidency. Probably. Hopefully.
But anybody who genuinely holds that opinion, and doesn’t care what happens to everybody else, may as well just be a full-on trumper.
Sure, Russian bots. But Hasbara likely played a significant role too.
Non voters are just as responsible for the loss of democracy. They are not a single bit better than any MAGA even if they like to claim they are. They chose fascism over democracy
What’s worse is they’re now acting like they got one over on the Democratic party like “ha, stupid Democratic party. I bet they won’t learn”. Like what? You played YOURSELVES, you’re the ones who are gonna suffer. You fucked yourselves over just to spite Harris? Wtf??
Yeah, I have so many discussion with non voters who sre fucking stupif. “But but Gaza!!” completely ignoring how Trump was escalating the conflict when he was in power and how he praised Netanyahu for his handling of it. If the think the dems are bad for Gaza they have not paid attention to republicans.
Fucking over the usa to own the libs
Lib v lib violence
America hasnt had a democracy my entire life.
It did. It was just a flawed democracy. Now it will be full on fascism. So instead of hope it will get better one day it has gone the worst possible outcome and will not get better until the entire country looks like Berlin '45
yawn no it isn’t. I recommend you spend some more time learning american history and less time spouting your nonsense from across the pod.
It’s the trolley problem. You see a trolley about to kill 5 people. You can pull a lever (vote) and make the trolley only kill 1. In this case, that 1 person is also in the lineup of 5. This distinction makes it obvious the only option is to pull the lever (vote).
They mistakenly believe that by pulling the lever they are complicit in the trolley. That by interacting with the trolley on the trolley’s terms, they are consenting to the trolley’s actions.
I used to believe that too once… Once.
I was disabused of that notion before 2012, but sadly not enough people were.
Inaction is also an action. You’re always playing the game, might as well learn the rules.
No it’s not. Both the trolley problem and the prisoners dilemma are individual event thought experiments.
Real life is different, it is continuous. The rational choice for an individual event can be very different than a continuous one.
Take the prisoner’s dilemma (or game theory) for instance, it is the rational decision (nash equilibrium) to rat your fellow prisoner out but if you have to do it again and again, then the best strategy is to NOT rat out your fellow prisoner (only rat when they ratted you out in the last round).
Reality is often like this, and elections are also like this. It gets complicated real fast.
Voting is an individual event
This is actually a very good comparison, thank you.
I agree that people should’ve voted, but I disagree with this one-dimensional line of thinking. I can see the argument that by voting for the democrats their current behaviour and this fucked up system as a whole is warranted. It’s not as simple as “why not vote, it costs you nothing”. By voting this horrible “democracy” is legitimised and the democrats and the system will not change their approach. The US deserves a democracy that actually allows for representation instead of this duopoly of garbage and more garbage
Not voting doesn’t do anything but make you feel better about yourself. No one in power cares that you didn’t vote. They actually love low voter turnout because it’s an easier demographic to hit
I disagree. The margins seem thin enough that people fed up with either party can absolutely ruin them in the swing states. If you were to disagree with one of the parties, you could absolutely give them a signal by not voting. Preferably such a person would also make very clear why they refuse to vote for a party, because otherwise it’s indeed just lazy and empty.
Again, I think that people who do so are shooting themselves (and everyone else) in the foot. But I can see their motivation.
removed by mod
Those are people who are unable or unwilling to see the forest for the trees.
Like you. :-)
Steelman:
The US is currently a fascist, imperialist state. It has brutalized the global south, indigenous people, and POCs generally since its founding and will continue to do so unless the status quo is disrupted and changed significantly.
The Democratic party supports the same militaristic policies and the same neoliberal economic system that the Republicans do. The primary difference between the parties are various social issues that may make life somewhat better or worse for US citizens, but will never address the core problems of fascism, imperialism, and capitalism. Both parties support and protect the status quo. This status quo only benefits the bourgeois class and rich white people and harms literally hundreds of millions of others around the world.
The Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties that the Left has any degree of leverage over since the Democrats want the Left to vote for them. So, organizing to essentially boycott the Democratic party is a powerful method of protest that could effect real policy change. It is possibly the only effective method of protest left since the US police & surveilance state is cracking down on protests and the Left has no chance protesting violently against the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
The only way to make that threat matter to the Democratic party is to follow through if the demands aren’t met, even - or especially - if it means a second Trump term.
The liberal establishment has ignored and abandoned the working class for decades while dangling the carrot of milktoast social democratic reforms that rarely come to pass, but they blame the same people they abandoned for not energetically voting for them. They say it is a moral imperative to vote for them, but they are incapable of bettering the lives of working class people.
Strawman:
It would hurt my feelings too much to vote for COPmala Harm-us. Plus, Trump would let Putin annex Ukraine. Also, I’d risk touching grass if I went outside to participate in bourgeois electoralism. Gross.
Reality:
You can, and should, do more than one thing. Voting for Kamala is effectively playing defense against outright, full-throated fascism a la Mussolini even if you’d still consider the US fascist - it is clearly worse under Republicans. So vote, play defense, AND organize to raise class consciousness, provide mutual aid, protest when possible, and contribute to socialist causes. Letting Trump win would be a bad move. But, ultimately it is not the Left’s fault that he won. He won the popular vole and the electoral college vote by a large margin - larger than all third party socialist/socialist-adjacent candidates’ votes combined.
This is a great explanation, well done.
Buddy, you haven’t seen American fascism yet. Part of the problem is that people like you scream “fascist” so much that it’s lost it’s power. A fascist like Trump would have never been able to pull this off if that word hadn’t been trivializec.
This was a thread about making the specific argument you’re mad at me for making
Lemme tell the millions of children that have gone through the migrant camps, separated from their family, some of whom have disappeared, that their jailors aren’t fascists. Let me tell the latino women who have been forcibly neutered without their knowledge or consent that they’re trivializing fascism. Let’s go to those who were detained in Abu Ghraib, if any of them are still alive, that their abduction, rape, and torture by laughing US soldiers doesn’t count, it’s what happens to americans that’s worrying.
Honestly, this is the fucking smugness of somebody who knows they’re safe as long as they mask, because they’ve been safe as fascists have massively incarcerated and enslaved black people, as they’ve made ghettos of bipoc neighborhoods, as far right terrorists have shot up black churches and gay bars and lynchings are back on the up and up. Because that was trivial, what’s not trivial is if it can happen to them. Fuck dems fr.
Latinos voted heavily in favor of trump. They seem to want to be victimized.
The ones who voted for Trump voted because they think they’re not talking about them. The horrible violence will be visited upon whomever is to blame, and they don’t know anyone who’s to blame, so they have nothing to fear.
Dems do that shit too, what they’re ok with are death squads in Gaza, Nicaragua, Ukraine, because the Americans orchestrating and perpetrating those crimes against humanity would certainly never come back and apply their knowledge at home, where they live, surely. What’s more american than that?
Because if it wasn’t Gaza, it would have been another excuse to not lift a lazy goddamned finger and still delude themselves into feeling "morally superior"while sitting on their fat mediocre asses at home.
Before Harris, they also leaned heavily on the “Sleepy Joe” bullshit and “two old white men up for election, who cares”. Once the old “Sleepy Joe” element was removed from the equation, they had to find a way to keep their goddamned stubbornly lazy and ignorant narrative intact.
Now that the election is over, most of these “concerned and outraged” deadweight assholes will never think about Gaza and the plight of its’ people again. And they will keep on feeling smug about themselves.
I know one of those people. they are now angry the left lost… 🙄
I’m not American, and I don’t agree with these people either, but I don’t think that calling them lazy and ignorant makes any sense. In the fucked up democracy of the US it’s clear that the only way to get what you want for the coming 4 years is to vote for the least bad candidate. At the same time I can definitely understand that if you view both candidates was horrible, though one way more horrible than the other, you would feel conflicted about voting for either of them.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Assuming both candidates are still roughly equally “popular”. If both candidates wanted to start a genocide, but one would want to kill only 50% of the amount of innocents that the other would kill, how would you vote? Would you vote for the one who is overall the less bad option, which will in turn make you give your vote for something horrible. Or would you abstain and signal that the democracy as it currently stands has lost your confidence entirely, even if it means that on the short term the consequences might be way worse?
Not voting actually costs the democrats something, and should (if they want to win next time) force them to think how to better represent you next time.
It’s fucked up that your democracy came to this. It has become an annoying game theory dilemma instead of voting for the candidate that you actually believe in. Our system here in the Netherlands is certainly also not perfect, since we have too many parties and too long coalition negotiations, but at least I feel like it represents people way better. Anyone can start a party and capture seat if they represent a large enough niche.
I said the same thing about people like you before the election, and I’ll repeat it again. The laser focus on single issue voters was and will always be mostly an excuse to blame someone else.
To look at it another way, if this one issue actually decided the election, why didn’t Harris change her strategy two months ago? … Maybe it’s because this wasn’t the determining issue. Or it was, and her staff was incompetent. Take your pick.
It is rich to criticize the Democrats for claiming moral superiority while doing nothing, as a justification for not voting for the candidate who would at least try to put a leash on what Israel is doing to Gaza.
If you want what’s best for a suffering people, you should vote for the candidate not trying to give their oppressors a blank check. All of America is responsible for what the president we chose does next.
OP asked for a steelman but good try
This is fucking rich lmao.
You know who I always see busting their ass protesting, striking, aiding their fellow worker? Not fucking democrats, I’ll tell you that. It’s always third parties who get demonized for not voting for a fascist and then told they get what they deserve when they’re out there serving as a shield against the worst of fascist violence. Americans are so politically illiterate it’d be funny if y’all would go down alone and not threaten to burn the rest of us down with you.
This is all that needs to be said on the subject.
If you think there was a genuine argument to not vote for Harris over Gaza war crimes, you were amongst those successfully manipulated by Russia. That argument was entirely of America’s enemies’ making as a means to get Trump elected.
Honestly for a portion of the ones here online, I don’t think they actually care that much about Gaza except as a convenient tool to attack Americans. It’s academic to them. I don’t expect it’ll stop once Trump is in, they’ll just switch to criticizing Americans overall. They’re mostly leftist agitators, and I honestly think they hate moderate progressives the most, since we’re trying to improve capitalism which makes it harder to undermine and destroy.
For people that actually do care, it’s a personal, emotional argument about not being able to feel good about it, which I understand. It’s a sort of trolley problem. If they don’t vote, they kinda just walk away and the trolley runs over a bunch of people, but they don’t have to watch and bear a sense of personal responsibility at that emotional level for being a part of it. It doesn’t actually benefit Gaza, but there’s only so much they could really do anyway.
People are tired of voting for the lesser evil. So now big evil won, and the idea is that that will teach little evil to stop being at all evil.
On a more serious note, I think for a lot of people Gaza was the drop that spilled the glass rather than THE reason they didn’t support Harris.
good short answer.
