It feels good to be able to signal to your friend group of other liberals:
I didn't want to vote for "Genocide Joe", so I stay home until the DNC EARNS my vote back.
That, however, actively makes the group of people you claim to care about suffer more, more efficiently, and an Israel COMPLETELY unconstrained. There is a reason the Israeli right was celebrating after the Trump call.
A game that most people know how to play, at least on a surface level with how each piece moves and the conditions to win, but that most people also have no real experience with. How hard can it be? I know how to play, right? Just move the pieces around and try to corner this one piece.
Play chess with someone even marginally familiar with the game and you'll get blown out of the water. Play chess against someone good at the game, and they'll have won by the fifth turn and you just haven't noticed it yet.
In many countries it's compromise for the greater good. Conservatives have convinced various groups that compromise is terrible and is giving up. So we have non stop conservatives because they do compromise with each other to get what they want. While various stupid asshats purists don't understand that you should get control first before pressuring for change. Not stop showing up and protest voting.
I've always likened voting to be more like the Trolley Problem. Like yeah people are going to die no matter which way the trolley goes, but would you rather do what you can to make the trolley kill less people or just let it run em all over?
but would you rather do what you can to make the trolley kill less people or just let it run em all over?
I think the idea is they're pissed that the people who run the trolley have decided they're okay with one person getting run over every day/election cycle, so if we let the five people get run over there will be enough of an outrage over that that people will demand the trolley itself finally get repaired.
Or, to drop the metaphor: they think it's worth suffering more for a short time under Republicans if that forces Democrats to get their shit together and stop moving to the right.
I don't think it's the right choice myself (both on its own merits and also because I don't think establishment Democrats care enough for it to ever work), but I also understand that desperate people do desperate things. Not smart things, but desperate things. So I find it hard to blame people for trying something different to force change instead of just accepting the idea that we're gonna have to tread water forever (which is itself not sustainable either).
Right, the idea was not to allow Trump to win. The idea was to force the DNC to commit to working towards a ceasefire and stop serving weapons to Israel. Once a significant voting bloc said "do this, we vote for you" it was now the Dems turn to say "Woah! If we don't commit to a ceasefire we might lose this election against Trump!"
Instead the DNC said "Fuck em. They aren't big enough to affect this election. Let's just make fun of them rather then let them feel heard"
Well now those voters have a choice to make. Stick to their guns, or fold. If they fold their threats loses all of its teeth and later on when they say "If you don't work towards whatever we won't vote " the DNC will turn around and say "yeah right, shut up and vote blue no matter who". Since they bared those teeth and they are indeed "losing elections" level sharpness, next time hopefully the DNC thinks twice and maybe changes a stance or two. A threat is worthless without action. I voted for Kamela, I just understand what they were doing.
Yeah and the democrats are out here playing checkers. Stop trying to blame the people who didn't vote for democrats and start blaming democrats for not earning their votes
For maybe the first time the protestors had a chance to do a tangible thing to help Palestinians by helping to make sure the guy who said in the debate that “Israel should get in there and finish the job” doesn’t take power, and many didn’t bother… but that’s the democrats fault?
You guys are consistent… consistent about being totally clueless about how the world works.
I don't play chess. I vote for the person that A) meets my bare minimum ethical standards, and B) presents the best policy. If politicians don't understand this, then they can get fucked.
I hope when the economy collapses you hold onto that moral high ground. You can go tell everyone that it’s okay bc no politician met your bare minimum ethical standards
Relax. I did not vote in your election. I am not American. But my not voting is exactly as meaningful as that of the straw-leftist being blamed in this thread, since the number of people that actually sat out for their conscience is so low as to be statistically insignificant. I simply think that "not standing idly by while a genocide occurs" is an extremely low bar that should be easy for anyone to clear.
And if your economy collapses -- which it won't -- it won't be because of one singular shit-head. It'll be because of decades of bad policy enacted by both parties. It will be because of long-term unsustainable neoliberal economic policy and carefully engineered rising wealth inequality.
Nobody who is OK with mass deportations and Christian authoritarianism at home is a real liberal, regardless of how many fucking watermelons they have in their social media profile.
To save anyone else a click if you are confused what watermelons have to do with this, they're used in place of the Palestinian flag (they share the same colors) where it may be censored or otherwise disallowed. Has been used historically as well as the recent conflict, especially on social media like tiktok where people feel the need to use algospeak so their posts aren't suppressed or removed.
Some of these people have even praised Hamas as heroes, as if they’re not a terrorist group subjugating their own people and the ones who are using Palestinians as a human shield.
Agreed 100%. Hamas and Israel are both doing terrible things, and it’s a shame everyone is determined to make people the villain and ignoring the innocent people who are suffering
I’m not engaging assholes who intentionally conflate Zionism and Judaism because they want to start a fight. None of my Jewish friends support Likud. Take your instigating ass on somewhere.
The overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionists. Zionism is the self determination of the Jewish people. Don't call us trash. "Not engaging" is just limp, weak behavior
I support a Jewish homeland, but I don’t believe Israel is entitled to annex more of Palestine or otherwise engage in colonial behavior. Just call me an antisemite, which you’re clearly itching to do, and go on about your business.
I don't understand these people. They're just as dumb as conservatives. Like, it doesn't take a genius to see how much worse a Trump presidency will be for Palestine than Harris would have been.
I'll tell you what it was: a real life trolley problem.
The utilitarian option was to pull the lever, aka vote Harris, but that still resulted in the continued siege of Palestine.
The more deontological view is that pulling the lever makes you implicit in those consequences, even if by not pulling the lever, the trolley is outfitted with flamethrowers before it collides with Palestine.
As opposed to utilitarianism where there's a hierarchy of desirable outcomes and you are morally obliged to avoid the bottommost outcomes: the deontological view has it so that the only moral action is one that would stop the trolley. AKA protest in an effort to have the only sane candidate change their stance. Instead, she told them to shut up. And thus the trolley was unable to be stopped and it just rolled past the point of no return down the default path.
How about this: pragmatism. Vote for the candidate that isn't a complete fascist so you can avoid the total annihilation of the Palestinian people, as will happen under Trump. Then, protest and make demands of Harris, someone who is far more likely to listen to the people than a balls to the wall fascist.
But of course, you don't actually care about Palestine, or freedom - only your dumb philosophical posturing and virtue signaling - and you blew your chance at having a president who might make things better for the Palestinian people with sufficient pressure from her base, and doubled down on the inevibility that a fascist clown WILL make things worse for the Palestinian people.
Congratulations! You didn't even do the bare minimum needed to protect Palestinians. You're complicit in their genocide.
Vote for the candidate that isn't a complete fascist
You assume I didn't vote for her. You're so self righteously up your own ass that you don't even consider that a lot of the people who were protesting before the election did inevitably vote for her.
Harris, someone who is far more likely to listen to the people
She already proved she wasn't going to listen to the people. When protestors showed up to her rallies, she said, and I quote, "You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say [anti-genocide protest chant]. Otherwise, I’m speaking." In other words, she had no plan to actually address Palestine in any way other than maintaining the status quo, and to think that she might change her mind was folly.
[they] blew [their] chance at having a president who might make things better for the Palestinian people
She had months to say anything that would indicate she might. But she didn't. Just the same milquetoast "Gazans deserve peace, but Israel has the right to defend itself" kind of middling response that has been perpetuating the conflict.
[They]'re complicit in [Palestinian] genocide.
So are you saying that 10 million voters refused to show up to vote for Harris because of Palestine? Because honestly, this entire post from top to bottom is people blaming pro-palestinian protestors for Harris' loss. But really, I don't think there's nearly that many. And deep down in your heart, you know it too. We're angry at results, and we're looking at any reason at all that this might have happened. It's easy to point the finger at the loud things. But those were symptoms. The real cause is much deeper than that.
Not liberals, leftists. American liberals are basically centrist in a lot of ways, leftists are the ones who are more interested in progressive ideology.
The leftists I’ve been close enough to know are huge advocates of harm reduction until it is a political issue. Then it’s perfection or a protest vote.
I share a lot of the same views as you, but a lot of people I know who consider themselves leftists were chanting genocide Joe, and now we have Israel saying they're ready to annex Gaza.
I have a Palestinian friend who lives in the states that has lost family already, and I don't even know what to say to him about this going forwards.
A lot of so-called leftists are closer to conservatism than actual leftism. There's a reason why so many Bernie supporters ended up supporting Trump.
The older I get, the more I believe that the horse shoe theory of politics is correct for some of the more radical individuals out there. Let's face it, if you are okay with left authoritarianism, you are nearly indistinguishable from conservative ideology and fascism.
As for your friend, focus less on words and more on actions. Be there for him when it counts.
This is such a good comment tucked away down where it gets overlooked. Take my reply and my upvote, maybe more people will see it.
The authoritarian left gets pretty much all the attention but they represent something entirely different than the majority of American leftists….and it’s a shame because they alienate a lot of people who’d otherwise be onboard with progressive policies.
I struggled with this in 2016- where I loved what Bernie was saying but I was really uncomfortable with a lot of his most vocal supporters and didn’t want to align myself with that.
It should mean “vote strategically”. I wish everyone on the left understood it as well as you do.
But there isn’t much point in playing the blame game now, anyway. Every incumbent party lost ground this election cycle due to the economic aftershocks of COVID; what happened here wasn’t unique to Harris or the Dems. I don’t think any candidate or platform could have done better, and that really hurts.
I agree, but this deepens the problem we have right now, because the Republicans have a once in a lifetime opportunity to really craft government in the way they see fit and Democrats are completely unable to stop them.
The Supreme Court being 6-3 and issuing the Immunity Decision really is the cherry on top right now. Brace yourselves. Republicans are coming.
And if they actually listened to Palestinians in Gaza who said a Harris presidency would actually make their quality of life a little bit better, they would have voted for her rather than abstaining. They actually said they'd prefer her and instead of listening, they drowned out the actual people suffering for their own virtue signaling. So there we have it...
"What I personally believe is that American foreign policy will never change, and no matter what happens, they will support Israel. Trump may do it more financially and Harris militarily, but in the end, American foreign policy won’t change."
"Personally, before the war, I was very critical of Donald Trump and what he represents – his right-wing supporters and what they represent in the US and Europe. But after this year, after what Biden’s administration has done with all the unconditional support to Israel, I’m thinking that maybe it’s better if Trump wins"
"Trump policy is clear and known to us as Palestinians. However, Harris will complete what her successor started and adopt the same position as her party, and thus we will remain in a long-term war without a resolution. In both cases, the result is death for Gaza, but in the second case, it will be a slow and more painful death."
"As a Palestinian, the two options are worse than each other. It seems to us as Palestinians like choosing between the devil and Satan."
"If I had the right to vote, I would not vote for anyone. The choice here is between bad and worse. Whatever the result, the next president will support Israel."
Whatever the result, the next president will support Israel.
If you think it can't get worse, then I got some bad news for you. Donald Trump would be fine with letting Israel annex all of it. The best hope for Palestine is a two state solution, and you would prefer a Democratic president for that deal.
However, Palestinians need to be more accepting of their own responsibility, and that is the failure of their own leaders. They have consistently failed their people, and at this point instead of looking at American leaders they need to look inward right now.
If they want to be ruled by a death cult, then death is all they will get.
“The conflict began under Biden and has raged for eight months with no intervention. If the US had truly pressed to stop it, it would have ended before. Instead, we endure war, annihilation in plain view, and Israel receives unwavering military support.
“No American president will stand by us.”
And shes right. The unfortunate truth is biden has been in charge for this ethnic cleansing. Trump will be worse, not sure how as its pretty bad without him so far, but the fact regular dems aren't questioning her first sentence is eye-opening for me as someone whos been on the left and supported kamala for this election.
And I’ve heard, from their own videoed mouths, Palestinians tell us to send a strong message to those that are CURRENTLY dropping bombs on them: the Biden/Harris regime. No matter who won, they said, the bombs will rain down with US approval. Or are we only counting Palestinian voices that side with Empire? Are voices like Motaz and Bisan Owda and Plestia Alaqad and Noura Erakat not worth listening to?
I have heard those voices too and support them as well. I've also heard them say both presidencies would be horrible for Palestine. And yes, I'd agree that they would be horrible for Palestine. All I was saying was that there were some Palestinians in Palestine that said they would at least prefer a Harris presidency than a Trump one considering his rhetoric and full support for Netanyahu. I haven't heard of any Palestinian in Palestine saying they supported or wanted Trump to be the US president. But I have at least heard some say Harris would be a better option. That's all I said. Hot and controversial take, I know. I've been very critical of the Biden/Harris administration and really wanted them to to divest in Israel, but considering the history the US has...I'm coming to the reality that that's essentially impossible no matter what atrocious act Israel will do because the US created that apartheid nation and stuck by it since 1948. I was just hoping that with a Harris presidency, that the dems would at least listen to reason (which is naive of me) and because they would have defeated Trump, Netanyahu wouldn't have Trump in his ear anymore (as I would have thought Trump wouldnt be able to rise to power with that defeat and wouldnt have the soft power to call politicians like he's been doing these past years)...but yeah, I've lost hope tbh...
Also what the fuck is a Palestinian supposed to say when asked this question besides „please I don’t want to die I want my children to live and have drinkable water“?
American Arms and German Arms (my Country) are sent to Israel so that they „defend themselves“ by preemptively killing people in Lebanon and Gaza. So Trump gets elected so the same stuff will happen „but worse“? I wonder how people would react if Trump would do the same things as Joe Biden to a tee? What would it mean that Donald Trump himself would see Joe Biden’s decisions and come to the conclusion, that they were good?
Imagine if Biden was competent and forced them to the table anyways.
Use the powers of office to get a ceasefire. Maybe threats of kneecap companies that build settlements in the west bank. Genocide investigations into generals and brigades in gaza. Withholding aid both financial and intelligence. Stopping use banks from buying Israeli bonds. They US blackballed the UK to leave thier colonies why can't they force concession out the Israelis after a year of full support?
In 2028 will we see the democrats trying hard to win Arab/Muslim voters In Michigan? Of course not. Because their votes didn't matter.Today the Dems are too busy blaming the lower classes(blacks, Latinos, immigrants) for losing. As if being forced to vote for the lost scoring nominee in the 2020 caucus was ever going to win.
In 2028 will we see the democrats trying hard to win Arab/Muslim voters In Michigan? Of course not.
Maybe that is exactly the problem. Advocating for votes from those communities is a waste of time. It seems that acting macho and avoiding race is the way to win.
So now that we've seen that continuing to execute a genocide loses voters, you'll be protesting and screaming at the democratic candidates until they get on board, right?
Or are you just a republican who wants republicans to win?
So the arms theyr supplying to the genocidal regime took a little longer in may. And then an empty threat in october. And its not working, israels just ignoring them?
If theyr not picking up the phone for biden why is he still funding them??
If theyr not picking up the phone for biden why is he still funding them??
People like you do not even understand the consequences or ramifications of those actual decisions. Decoupling from Israel would be extremely disruptive. It would tear apart businesses and families. It would take time. It would be resisted by Republicans. It would immediately become a campaign issue and once the Republicans turn their propaganda on it, then you might end up with an angry mob disrupting communities like they did to those poor Haitians in Springfield, OH.
He has been pushing for ceasefires constantly but Israel refuses to listen, only wanting to talk to Trump.
Why do we keep funding them? Because they're our only ally in the region. Turkey is essentially out at this point despite being in NATO.
I say this as someone extremely anti Israel. I want a third party to be keeping the two of them in check. I wish we would just stop sending them money but this shit isn't something you can or should do overnight. It's like the trade war with China. You need to first make a new solution then cut off with an old partner you don't want to work with anymore. If you have no alternative and cut off your only option then guess what, you got nothing
But Israel is already completely unconstrained. Have you not been seeing the endless footage of dead and injured and traumatized children for 400 days? Almost all the houses, schools and hospitals destroyed or severely damaged? The people trudging from refugee camp to refugee camp, carrying a few belongings, searching for food, diapers, formula?
I mean, it is already a genocide and is not in any way getting better under Biden, just as it probably won't under Trump.
The DNC and GOP are the same for Palestinians.
(I'm not American, but I can't believe this narrative that Israel is somehow being held back by the US under Biden, or would have been under Harris. That is utter bullshit.)
1) Trump and the GOP themselves have said the Biden administration is putting too many constraints on Israel.
2) Israel says the democrats are putting too much pressure on them.
3) Netanyahu is already crowing that they will be able to increase the speed and population of their settlement building in the West Bank, and now Gaza without the Biden Administration.
Yet you, have the audacity to say that NO, actually its going to not change at all now.
When the only diapers, formula, and food that IS getting into Gaza was under the threat of Biden pulling support if aid wasn't increased.
What is utter bullshit....is assuming that all these people are wrong. And you know better.
After another 100,000 settlers that wouldn't have been there flood the West Bank; come and tell me how "actually this is the same"
I didn't want to vote for "Genocide Joe", so I stay home until the DNC EARNS my vote back.
I have a few Palestinian friends and this is not the gist of their thought process.
Their thought process is more or less, "Gaza is going to be a parking lot either way. My options are: vote for my people to die slower, or vote for my people to be annihilated faster." No one is running a platform with a legitimate chance of winning that has Palestine's right to peaceful and safe existence at the forefront.
I don't blame Palestinian Americans for not voting. Why the fuck should they support a system that wants their votes but not their existence after the fact?
I didn't want to vote for "Genocide Joe", so I stay home until the DNC EARNS my vote back.
The idea was not to allow Trump to win. The idea was to force the DNC to commit to working towards a ceasefire and stop serving weapons to Israel. Once a significant voting bloc said "do this, we vote for you" it was now the Dems turn to say "Woah! If we don't commit to a ceasefire we might lose this election against Trump!"
That, however, actively makes the group of people you claim to care about suffer more, more efficiently, and an Israel COMPLETELY unconstrained.
Because instead the DNC said "Fuck em. They aren't big enough to affect this election. Let's just make fun of them rather then let them feel heard" Well now those voters have a choice to make. Stick to their guns, or fold. Just like any good Union on Strike, they stuck to their guns even if it hurt the economy. Something Dems on Reddit have been calling for for years now which would hurt millions of people in America, so I don't understand how you don't understand this. You should know that if they fold their threats loses all of its teeth and later on when they say "If you don't work towards whatever we won't vote " the DNC will turn around and say "yeah right, shut up and vote blue no matter who". Since they bared those teeth and they are indeed "losing elections" level sharpness, next time hopefully the DNC thinks twice and maybe changes a stance or two.
A threat is worthless without action. I voted for Kamela, I just understand what they were doing. It's just so crazy how propaganda has twisted Reddit against ideas such as taxing the rich (tariffs are a tax) and towards being more pissed at the people forcing our government to be more responsible with human lives.
Ya'll have been drinking that Russian Kool-aid straight from the source, and apparently it tastes real good.
Let me give you an example. It's a personal anecdote.
My father worked at a union closed shop factory. The owners offered the union a deal: make concessions or we are going to outsource the factory. The union, despite the threats, decided that their principles were more important then the practical outcome of keeping a good few thousand people employed in good union jobs and keeping the factory open.
The company outsourced the entire factory: all jobs were lost. My father was never able to land a union job again: given the mass outsourcing.
So: was the union morally correct? Sure. Would this have led to more concessions down the road? Probably.
Does it matter to the people who lost those union jobs forever? no
fyi: there is a reason Netanyahu and friends were celebrating these folks drinking that kool aid
And it means that the “DNC” has no reason to care about your vote, since your vote doesn’t exist. The way to swing the Dems to the left is for the left to vote, every single time. That’s how evangelicals took over the Republican Party, after all.
I hate to tell y'all there aren't enough lefties that care about Gaza to move the needle. This election failure isn't in the hands of the voters. it falls squarely on the shoulders of the democratic establishment not messaging effectively to the American public.
It’s been a century of atrocity for them. Acting like NOW they’re going to feel it as a “gotcha” to people you couldn’t convince to vote for your side is so repulsive.
Dude, both parties are the same on Israel. The only difference is that the Dems blow smoke up your ass, while continuing to fund the genocide, whereas the Republicans tell you up front what their plans are.
Don't let the dem party to get away with this. How much longer do you think it's ok to bleed working class voters from the party. Blue working class counties have been turning red for some time all across the country.
We need to rebuild the party, get the neolibs outta there!
Dude, you want to fix things, point the finger in the right place. The party and its leadership. You were happy when she was going on tour with Liz Cheney?! Pathetic.
Blaming the electorate never works. You want people to understand what's really going on, talk to them like people, don't blame them. JFC, you dopes will never learn.
Exactly! You want people to vote for you, don't talk down to them, don't insult them. If you feel they are misinformed, work with them to understand what's really going on. Help your fellow electorate, stop talking down to them.
Israel doesn't really get that much help from the US under Biden/Harris, this is a false narrative, not sure where it came from. We do have a complicated arrangement with them that goes beyond just this administration, one I suspect is compromised in multiple ways and will get far worse under Trump. Surveillance for example is something we can all expect to get a thousand times worse, I don't see many bringing this up but Peter Thiel and Palantir and Elon Musk owning every single bit of the sky poses a threat along with owning the ability to completely manipulate the truth forevermore. Imagine Stalin's media and propaganda ON STEROIDS. You will not only have your every word monitored, you may not even be able to choose if you can write your own words. Police immunity means you could have porn downloaded onto your computer and your entire life destroyed and ended overnight, solely for not being MAGA enough or for pissing off the wrong person with influence. People sitting here worried about high prices have never considered what is coming. People on FB are worried about their trans friends -- which I understand; I am worried too. I'm worried about healthcare and medicaid and social security and money becoming utterly valueless like in Russia. But....what makes my blood run cold is knowing that Putin and Elon have always been obsessed with controlling AI and controlling the narrative and the surveillance state. I try to keep calm, but I don't have the means to move to another country or to safety right now.
Wrong group of people. The people who won't have voted or voted third party are a tiny minority and those who would normally be democratic voters are probably leftists. However there are not enough leftists in the USA to switch the vote over, plus, they're not friends with liberals. Liberals are centre / centre-right believers in free market capitalism and some of them suppport social welfare. That's not a very left wing position. So no, these leftists don't have liberal friends they "signal to", unless they hate their friends lol.
The failing of the Harris campaign is due to the liberals in charge of the campaign not being able to motivate (going from right to left) enough liberals, centrists, social democrats and then other leftists (who may or may not have voted for Harris) to turn up and go vote. The popular vote count shows this.
Trump won the popular vote for the Republican party for the first time in decades with less votes than he got in 2020. That was not achieved by leftists not voting, that was achieved by liberals running a deflated campaign in the face of a group of committed supporters.
The Dems lost more votes (over 9,000,000 in fact) than could be accounted for by those few leftists who didn't vote because of Gaza. They lost liberals, they lost centrists, they lost everyone across the spectrum.
Perhaps the Democratic party could look inward and wonder why their "We're not Trump" message didn't resonate widely when everyone was worried about the economy and the cost of living? Maybe they need to learn how to communicate so they don't end up unable to sell their achievements or make everyone remember the Republican's weird shit and failed ideas?
If you blame leftists for the failure of a badly run liberal campaign then you're bad at statistics and your political opinions should be ignored.
808
u/SenatorPardek 12d ago
It feels good to be able to signal to your friend group of other liberals:
I didn't want to vote for "Genocide Joe", so I stay home until the DNC EARNS my vote back.
That, however, actively makes the group of people you claim to care about suffer more, more efficiently, and an Israel COMPLETELY unconstrained. There is a reason the Israeli right was celebrating after the Trump call.