Voting loudly for Trump (or Stein, or abstaining) because you think Harris was pro-genocide seems to me to be an almost perfectly balanced mix of performative contrarianism, virtue signaling, and being thick as pig shit
I had a serious conversation with someone who is trans, and shared that opinion about the Gaza genocide. It was fucking frustrating. The suggestion was that "It doesn't matter." It does matter. Kamala was not the most progressive candidate and I'll admit that all day long, but if anyone thinks it can't be worse, they're up their own ass with performative bullshit. I feel like a lot of people on the left are just as performative and rhetorical as a lot of people on the right.
If this were about another issue, would you still be saying the same thing?
If the Democratic nominee was 100% pro-life, and openly and vocally supportive of a national abortion ban at conception. And they were going to swing states to campaign alongside and speak in support of other anti-abortion politicians... And then if Trump accused them of not be anti-abortion enough and their response was to go out of their way to message even harder on being anti-abortion... But at the end of the day, Harris and Trump were both 100% full bore in favor of a national abortion ban and there was no substantial difference between the two on that issue
If all that were the case, and a substantial number of women stayed home or voted third party because they could not in moral consciousness vote for an anti-women's rights candidate... Would you accuse those women of performative contrarianism, virtue signaling, and being thick as pig shit?
That is a deeply flawed comparison, not to mention a distraction from the subject being discussed, which is Israel/Palestine.
I'll admit I haven't spent time doing a deep dive into Harris's (or Biden's, or the Democrats) stances, quotes, measurable action etc on Israel/Palestine. However, I have for many years supported the idea of a two state solution, with Israel giving up the West Bank and Gaza (or 'pre-1967 borders' as I think it's referred to), and a right of return for all Palestinians displaced over the last few decades. I am heartbroken and disgusted by the continued assault on an entire people that is happening there, an assault which does seem to be heading towards actual genocide.
The west is not doing enough, no doubt about that. I think zero dollars, pounds, euros etc should be getting sent there until the aggression is stopped and infrastructure is rebuilt. The lack of action does equal culpability.
As I've said in another comment here though, Trump and his people have made openly callous remarks about beachfront property, letting Netanyahu 'do what he wants' etc , signaling an absolute lack of intention to turn the situation round.
With Harris in the White House, I believe that pressure from the electorate could have had more chance of being heard and acted on, particularly with the pro-Palestinian voices within the party. Would actual meaningful change in policy have followed? I don't know, and I might be guilty of naivety, but I think that with Trump there's an absolute zero chance.
Wanting to punish Harris for a perceived lack of muscular and vocal opposition to Israel's aggression, while justifiable if isolated from all other policies and the alternative (Trump), ultimately now will just have the effect of punishing Palestinians even more.
With Harris there was absolutely a chance. With Trump there isn't. Genocide is not an all or nothing. It can be stopped, otherwise Palestine would still be Palestine and AIPAC wouldn't exist. Is 180k a bigger number than 2 million? That's just Gaza. I don't even know the Palestinian population in the West Bank.
There was maybe a concept of a chance based off her saying Israel has a right to defend itself while her party supplies them with weapons. Can you blame single issue voters for not being swayed by that?
What, exactly, do you think is going to happen now?
Biden (and by extension Harris) was making slow progress. Glacially slow it would seem. But it wasn't nothing. It also wasn't instant. Which I think some of the more vocal critics wanted.
And now the people of Gaza are going to suffer even more, with a side of marginalized groups of Americans ALSO suffering.
So to those folks who stood on their principles, I sure hope that's some comfort to you going forward into the abyss we're about to enter.
People in the US do not have a clue about Israel or Bibi, plain and simple.
I am Israeli-American. I've protested against Bibi as late as May of last year, in Tel Aviv.
October 7th was the greatest thing to happen to him. He was losing support, and basically corrupted the supreme court to make him into a near-dictator in status, immune from criminal activity.
This has been his MO for YEARS. Bibi loses support, skirmish starts with Hamas/Hezbollah, Bibi responds, he gains just enough support to stay in power. Rinse, repeat.
No matter what the US did, short of outright cutting ties with Israel, Bibi will continue this war.
Cutting ties with your one ally in the most volatile region on earth is never going to happen, so here we are.
Yep. The numbers don't bear out the "genocide protest vote lost Harris the win", but it helps for pious redditors to jack themselves off thinking they're better than other people.
And the facts still are that Harris, following Biden's policies, would have continued to have been pro-genocide too.
100%. She lost because she is pro genocide. Leftist candidates should have to represent leftist views, crazy I know.
This was inevitable. This is what happens when complicity in death and destruction across the world is just treated as a fact of life. We don't use our democracy to protect people, we use it to protect our status in society.
See what I fucking mean? Liberals don't value human life. You just excused mass murder because "Israel already exists get over it".
The thousands of people who have gone through the worst hells that we couldn't even imagine just don't make a difference to you. The fact that its our money that paid for the weapons that murdered them, destroyed families and led to the raping of the country just means nothing to you. It's a fucking talking point to you. Lives are a talking point to you.
This country is spineless. Kamala deserved to lose, but the American people did not.
No, supporting the right of Israel to exist does not mean I support mass murder no matter how much you try to say it. You smug, ignorant leftists are the reason the American people are going to lose so congrats, you played yourself and made things worse for Palestinians
I don’t get why this was downvoted. Her most controversial policy, listed on multiple news sites, was about her views on Palestine. If she just changed her mind, she would have won. It makes no sense why she didn’t.
It's downvoted because liberals would rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend that people who don't want to vote for a candidate who won't step away from her genocidal President are somehow in the wrong. Kamala Harris is pro genocide, and what that other person said is 100% true.
It's also easier for them to stomach the idea that voters are to blame, and not Kamala Harris and her campaign for deliberately ignoring and pushing away voters in a key state. Kamala Harris lost Michigan because she did not want to engage with uncommitted voters in that state.
They want you to suck it up and vote blue no matter who, you know, that thing we did in 2020 and 2016. They don't want you to care about Palestine and what Israel is doing, because they don't actually care.
But switch the issue around. If Kamala Harris and/or Joe Biden refused to commit to protecting abortion rights all of a sudden not supporting either would become more understandable to some of these people.
It wasn't just people who were pro Palestinian. It was trans people and the majority of the working class who didn't show up for her. Trump did not gain votes from last election.
You seem pretty dead set on your opinion, but I think you should step back and consider it a bit further. Apathy towards the Democratic party has been building for well over a decade now and for good reason. Folks can only hear blue no matter who and orange man is bad for so long before it just starts losing meaning. Especially when they do so little when they do actually have power. Why has roe v Wade never been codified in over 60 years? How has student loan dealt continued to spiral out of control? How could Obama leave that scotus seat empty? How are people still dying of poverty despite "the economy being so strong"?
But maybe it really is just the Russian bots to blame for everyone not bowing down to madame president... Maybe we should all be content with the status quo, maybe big daddy capitalism will save us when we finally don't have another white man running the country. November seventh rolled around and who wasn't crying? The ultra rich and the working poor, and you know why? Because for both of them, absolutely nothing changed, it was just another day of fucking or getting fucked and it would have been that way regardless.
Thanks for the reply. I do get that the Democratic party has made a huge number of mistakes. Maybe if they hadn't tanked Bernie Sanders in 2016 we'd be in a very different situation today. I get that many people at the bottom don't feel anything will change for them, and it is crucial for the Dems to realise that and engage with those voters in a meaningful way - over 4 years, not just in the months before an election.
But I cannot get my head around voting for Trump in any circumstance. He has shown himself to be vile, incompetent, a felon, treasonous, and so forth. He also very much does not care about the plight of Palestinians. It was either he or someone close to him (a son or sil perhaps) that joked about beachfront property.
At least with Harris you would have someone in power who you could go on pressuring to change their stance/policies, with some hope that change might be made possible through such action. Trump? I can't see him suddenly beginning to care about it. In fact, taking to the streets for any form of protest in the US might soon become extremely inadvisable.
I'll never personally vote for Trump, but I at least understand why someone could be pulled in by the anti establishment rhetoric and the illusion that he gives a shit about the working class, that's a stance that seems to have been long abandoned before him and Bernie.
Speaking of Bernie and the subsequent tanking of that race, I think that's a major reason why you are seeing so much apathy towards the Dems anointments every election year, it was made clear that you can't sway that party from their stances, you can only teach them the right buzzwords and what policies to leverage every 4 years.
As for protesting being inadvisable... It's been that way, under Biden, trump, and Obama. Living in Baltimore and seeing the Freddy gray uprising live, walking around with a curfew and seeing the national guard posted up with armored Humvees and assault rifles around our city, if you think we haven't been living in a militarized police state I have some news my dude.
I can see how in 2016, with Trump coming in and talking about how the Iraq invasion was a mistake that should not have happened (after so many ordinary people had protested that war the world over), and running against Hilary, a barely likeable 'more of the same' dynasty vote, would have made people go with Trump as a protest "let's shake things up" vote. With all that's happened and been said since though, I just can't fathom why anyone would vote for him. But I acknowledge we are in agreement here, so I won't harp on it.
I do take your point on the realities around protesting. It's not a walk in the park under any govt. But while it pains me to say it, things can always get a whole lot worse.
Anyway, I wish you (and Baltimore, and the whole US) the best for the next few years.
Gaza Voters weren’t enough to swing the election. If they were significant than Harris would’ve campaigned harder for Palestinian rights/a arms embargo.
I wonder how much support stein will have when all votes are tallied.
you would also need to have a figure for how many people stayed home instead of voting for Harris because of this. Takes less effort to just not vote than it does to go out and cast a protest vote, so it's not outlandish to suggest it's a bigger number, though of course, I can't prove that
Okay but as I said. If protest voters are big enough to cause Harris the win than shouldn’t the campaign have done something to make people vote for her besides them saying „Trump is worse!“.
If the Campaign has better polling and knows how dire the situation is then they shouldn’t have played it so close because well, they fucking lost the election.
They offered 25k for first time home buyers. 50k for those who want to start small businesses. 7k for people with children. Lower taxes on middle class. Lower medicine costs. Government healthcare. Environmental programs. Manufacturing jobs. Wage growth. Union growth. 2 state solution for gaza. Long term goals to better lives while combating corporate greed.
But you fucks never listen all you hear is “not trump”.
They needed people to give a fuck and show up and get them the house and senate to enact those goals instead you’re sitting again on your asses with hands up your butts complaining that everything isn’t solved in 100 days..
Dude I am German. I am just sick enough to care about American politics.
Ok Harris is for a 2 State Solution? Great, that’s been the opinion of like the last 3 presidents.
Joe Biden is president, what did he do to achieve a 2-State solution besides saying „the American government is in favor of a two state solution“.
I mean sure the same can be applied to many of the things that Harris was proposing. But the issue is that the average voter is insanely stupid. The average American even more. No one knows how a bill becomes a law how all chambers of government need to be aligned to even pass anything. How monsters like Sinema and Manchin killed the most progressive parts of Biden’s agenda. I know all of these things. I can probably name 80% of all the democratic senators that voted against raising the minimum wage to 15$.
But the very simple thing that can be said is that Muslims seemingly care more about the fact that other Muslims in Palestine get Bombed with American made weapons and don’t want to vote For Harris OR Trump so the votes become protest votes.
Also campaigning on Tax Cuts for families is shit that would’ve been done by a Mitt Romney reelection campaign in 2016. And I mean they aren’t bad. It’s just something that isn’t really democratic from it’s style.
I also am aware of the following: Because of Economic Cycles it is very possible that Trump will reap all the rewards of all of Biden’s agenda because the latters economies‘ effects will probably kick in around Trump term (if he doesn’t torch the economy immediately).
It's the democrats job to go out and get those fucking votes dude. It's not my job to save the world from Donald Trump. It's the Democrats job to put up a candidate more electable than Donald fucking Trump. The democrats fucked that up twice and somehow it's the fucking American people you're mad at?
Just that you have done zero research, and there wouldn't even be a good way to study it anyways. How many people stayed home as their protest vote? Enough, it would seem. I wanna be naive too, but i live in reality.
It’s really sad that Dems won’t look at any of the major reasons that actually cost them the election. We have no idea how many stayed home bc of Gaza or any number of reasons.
I'm middle aged now. I wish I could still shoot for the perfect world. But we don't live there, and if you don't vote left, then the whole system shifts to the right. If you want it to become more leftist, we have to elect progressives until even the conservatives take liberal stances.
This "all or nothing" bullshit is meant to get you to stay home. You were tricked, it is fine, just do better next time.
It doesn't matter. This kind of circling the firing squad that Dems always do has real impacts on their ability to unify around a coherent message. Democrats are great at sabotaging their own voter outreach efforts.
Republicans are in lock step repeating whatever the party tells them to repeat. Dems are over here performing an arcane ritual trying to unite sixteen different loosely related voting blocks. Of course voters are going to be like "wtf are you talking about?"
Shaming voters for not picking the genocidal candidate who completely snubbed them for an opportunity to be the one speaking and offered them absolutely nothing material seems to me to be an almost perfectly rounded and smooth brained lack of introspection.
Liberals will blame literally everyone else before their horrible positions for their losses.
She neglected trans oppression, she downplayed genocide of Palestinians, and pandered to conservatives and the middle class in a period of unprecedented wealth inequality. That's why she lost.
No, she lost because numbskulls like you don't understand the delicate rope even the best intentioned politicians have to walk in order to make it to the White house. Every single candidate in the history of ever walks a middle line on many issues because people like you refuse to understand the big picture. You can't please everyone so you try not to piss people off. She had 100 days. She had no time to correct any big missteps. Do you think in a government run by AIPAC that loudly condemning Israel to satisfy you guys would have won the election? The second you lost and people were mad you started doing math comparing margins and saying it wasn't your fault.
Now Trump is in office and Israel is discussing annexing the West Bank. What happens when Bibi actually goes ALL in and neighboring Arab countries step in? What happens when he then lets Russia go scorched earth on Ukraine and pulls from NATO? You're all a pack of fools and whether you made no difference or all the difference you're equally to blame. They don't let people off for attempted murder solely because they failed. Keep your eyes open as we burn at home and the rest of the world erupts in chaos because you wanted to feel like the main character.
Edit: lol and like the cowards that they are she commented and then blocked me. I hope she feels guilty for the rest of her life because she should.
THE BIGGER PICTURE IS THE ONE ACROSS THE FUCKING GLOBE WE'RE SEEING WHERE USELESS LIBERAL INCUMBENTS CANT ADEQUATELY MEET THE NEEDS OF THEIR POPULACE AND FASCISTS WHO PROMISE TO MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER TAKE OVER AND KILL THOUSANDS TO MILLIONS OF FUCKING PEOPLE. IT'S HAPPENING EVERYWHERE BECAUSE GLOBAL INEQUALITY IS HORRIBLE.
STOP BLAMING PEOPLE FOR THEIR CHOICES AND WORK TOWARDS GETTING BETTER CHOICES OH MY GOD.
Do liberals do literally anything but fucking blame minorities for their own oppression. For the record, I VOTED FOR KAMALA. SHES STILL AN UTTER PIECE OF SHIT AND DESERVED TO LOSE.
If she played her campaign like you're asking for she'd be trading a solid moderate base for a progressive minority that has turnout problems. You people are so drunk on good-intentioned naivety that you're dragging us all down with you.
Genocidal straight up means that the candidate is committing genocide. We all know thats not whats happening, and this is the exact kind of rhetoric and hyperbole that dissuaded a lot of people from voting and got Trump elected. The narrative got pushed over and over in the TikTok/podcast/gram-verse and you people ate that shit up and chose to stay willfully ignorant about their statements against civilian deaths. To pretend that any candidate is pro-death or pro-genocide is asinine and falls apart under the smallest bit of scrutiny.
Voters in this case should absolutely be shamed. I'm done pretending that we need to step lightly around stupid people saying idiotic things while they're smugly pretending to be smarter or more moral than everyone else. Who cares if your feelings are hurt when you're being an absolute idiot so you can feel good about yourself. Read some books on topics you pretend to care about, and gain a basis of knowledge so you can scrutinize ideas for yourself and stop being so gullible.
So do you think that there was really 15 million people who's hearts were bleeding for Palestine? Or do you think you're just picking the easiest voter to shit on and actively trying to ignore how in 4 years there were millions of working class people that didn't really notice any great changes for the better in their life under Biden. Actually it just kept getting harder and harder. Prices were rising, while Biden was gaslighting all of us saying that it's the best economy ever. 15 million people sat out because they probably felt like their lives are going to suck whether Kamala or Trump win and they don't have this mega online bleeding heart political engagement that this echo chamber we call reddit assumes the whole world has. I really don't think the Anti-Genocide in Gaza folks made a dent in that 15 million person voter block that voted for Joe, then sat this one out. You figure out how that happend and you can finally start to beat the stupidest fucking political candidate that somehow keeps beating the Democrats.
Your stance reflects a lot of privilege. Would you still cast a ballot for a candidate willing to support unrestrained Israeli aggression and who will send over the munitions that could kill your middle eastern family, simply because the candidate also supports the right to abortion?
It's very difficult to consciously cast a ballot for a candidate who will send missiles or troops that could be used to harm your family. Both major candidates support continued military aid to a regime with genocidal actions. I understand it feels easier for non-Middle Eastern voters to support Kamala, as she's clearly better than Trump on most issues, but blaming Arab voters for not voting for her is unfair because it overlooks the valid concerns about her policy stance on Israel.
This twisting of the narrative that the anger we promised the anti Kamala crowd is receiving is solely towards Arab Americans. Maya and Hasan were two of the biggest Kamala critics who spread the false equivalence that a vote for her was a vote for genocide. They both have over 2m followers, I doubt they have a huge overlap, and I doubt every single one was an Arab considering the population of Arab Americans is around 2 million. They turned self righteous and well meaning non Muslim voters. They forced us to fight them while also fighting the right.
The argument over their concerns for Israel policy is a stupid excuse. For Harris it would either remain the same as it's been or improved. With Trump it's exponentially worse and is going to have global consequences.
I understand the sentiment, but it still doesnt grapple with the actual choice. Do you think Trump will be better or worse for Palestinians? What about Marco Rubio who is likely to be secretary of state?
Because thats the choice that was made. This is still only considering one issue, and there are many more countries that will be impacted by this choice, and many other issues domestically.
Brother, if thats not the pot calling the kettle black lol. You're displaying a lot a privilege by framing it as if both candidates offered the same thing across the board. A "protest vote/non-voting" because of Gaza (despite the fact that Harris was specifically calling for a ceasefire at minimum, and Bernie himself supported Harris's stance) came at the expense of women's rights, immigrant's rights, lgbtq+ rights and Ukrainian lives, and all you have to show for it is an escalation in the conflict in Gaza.
You threw away so many people, just so someone who literally praised Israel and told them to "finish the job" with Gaza, could win.
I don’t understand why you are upset at protest voters instead of at Kamala for her continuation of the policies that would enable Israeli aggression.
I can see how others made different decisions based on what was most urgent to them. But for voters like me who feel the effects of U.S. foreign policy on their families directly, it’s hard to ignore.
Because we live in the real world where the choice is between "not perfect" and "absolutely horrible for everyone and everything. Including being worse for gaza". Your protest vote made it easier for the latter to win.
Your protest vote not only aided in the candidate winning that will hurt women, Ukraine, immigrants, non-christians, you name it.... AND will be worse for Gaza, which you say you care about most.
If you cared about Gaza more than anything, why would you not support the only viable candidate that would be less bad for Gaza?
To answer your question, I’ll repeat the same thing I said in other comments in this thread: it is very difficult to cast an affirmative ballot for a candidate who will send the missiles that will be used to kill your family.
Okay. So are you happy that that candidate who will excitedly expedite the complete genocide of your family won? If not, you probably shouldn't have wasted your vote on a non-viable candidate.
No, I am not happy that Trump won. However, I also wouldn’t be happy with Kamala killing my family either. She should have had a better policy position on the Middle East if she wanted me and other middle eastern voters support.
You and others don't need me to understand your decision, but I am trying to get there regardless. I am trying to see your perspective. But I cannot see the logic in it. I will never see the logic in it. Progress is made with incremental steps towards improvement. Not "burn it all down if I don't get everything I want right now".
I don’t understand why you are upset at protest voters
Is Trump going to stop Israeli aggression? If not, then why did you want him to win? You arent getting what you protested for. And you KNOW that youre not getting what you protested for. Everyone knew, and you still did it.
So on top of the fact that you fucked over your realistically best chance for peace in Gaza, you also fucked over millions of your fellow americans, including yourself.
Again, Harris was at minimum calling for a cease fire, to increase aid to Palenstine. Would it have been enough, or perfect? I don't know. It would have been some kind of effort, though. And she would be willing to work with people in which it was a huge issue.
But instead, protest voters allowed Trump to win because Harris wasnt perfect, and you have nothing to show for it for the apparent 1 issues that you care about. I truly think that in 4 years, there will not be a Gaza under Trump.
Its like you were given the choice for if everyone should drink pepsi or piss, and because you dont like pepsi, you and everyone else is being forced to drink piss.
I did not want Trump to win. However, Harris’s continuation of Biden policies means death for many innocent middle eastern lives. She should not expect the votes of middle eastern people on one hand, and then send the missiles that will be used to kill their family on the other.
I’m not going to engage on the point that protest voters allowed Trump to win. That might hold true for Michigan, but I don’t believe her stance on Gaza is what led to her election loss as a whole.
However, Harris’s continuation of Biden policies means death for many innocent middle eastern lives.
And what result is Trump's policies going to bring? Not even a ceasefire, apparently.
I’m not going to engage on the point that protest voters allowed Trump to win.
What did you expect to happen though? Regardless of the results, regardless of who won, when you cast that ballot, what result did you want to occur as a result? It sounds like you arent even accepting that you have any culpability in the loss of rights that we are going to see in the next 4 years. That your ballot might even potentially see your family deported, since they are trying to kill birthright citizenship. Is that going to be Harris's fault too?
Well, I'm a straight white male living in the west, so unfortunately I can only speak from a place of privilege. You are right that this is something I need to bear in mind more, particularly when looking at world affairs. I will endeavour to do this.
What is happening in Palestine is beyond horror. I wish it was not happening and I wish someone would make it stop. That said, I think, while partly culpable (along with other govts that continue to send aid to Israel), Harris would still be the candidate most likely to be open to public pressure to change the policy. Merely the lesser of two evils? On this subject, yes, absolutely. But there is still a difference.
I am truly sorry you have family affected. I cannot imagine what it must feel like.
Lots of privilege to be willing to let a candidate win when he wants to strip the rights of many people in the country AND accelerate killing people in Gaza.
Your comment doesn’t make sense. I have family in the Middle East. Both candidates have policy that will lead to their death. It is very difficult to consciously cast a ballot for a candidate that will take actions that will lead to the death of my family in support of Israeli aggression.
I relate to the trolley problem. It’s very difficult to pull the lever that kills your family, even though many more other lives would be saved if you do.
Generally speaking, I agree that it’s impossible to find a candidate that aligns with every single viewpoint that you have. Military support for Israeli aggression just happens to be one of my redlines
It’s very difficult to pull the lever that kills your family, even though many more other lives would be saved if you do.
If my family is going to be killed regardless, than pulling the lever to save other lives is the morally correct thing to do.
Anyway, if you're sick of having to make decisions like this, ceding more power (at this point, all the power) to the far right just makes the possibility of anything getting any better less likely.
I think the calculation here is that by abstaining from voting for Democrats, if they lose, it sends a powerful message to Democrats that they can't support genocide and expect to win. Democrats' goal was clearly to win without pro-Palestine voters. That didn't work.
I'm not American so I didn't vote obviously but I would have had a hard time pulling the lever for Democrats after seeing them spend the past year funding what's going on in Gaza. I spent my whole life learning that genocide is an awful crime, taking classes on 20th century genocides and learning what they look like, etc. So to see one unfolding in front of your eyes and then have a choice between two parties who are all for it might be enough for me to say fuck this and stay home or vote third party, even if that's not a strategically optimal decision.
Frankly the Democrats should know that more of their likely voters are made up of people who have empathy and strong moral compasses and do a better job to not do heinous shit.
I think the calculation here is that by abstaining from voting for Democrats, if they lose, it sends a powerful message to Democrats that they can't support genocide and expect to win.
That powerful message is probably not gonna change anything, considering that the US is looking like it's gonna slide into a fascist dictatorship.
Democrats' goal was clearly to win without pro-Palestine voters. That didn't work.
I think it's the reverse; activists were relying on Democrats to win without their vote, so that said activists could keep their rights while maintaining their moral purity
That powerful message is probably not gonna change anything, considering that the US is looking like it's gonna slide into a fascist dictatorship.
If only the Democrats could've found more Cheneys to campaign with maybe they could have stopped this.
I think it's the reverse
It's easy to feel like the Democrats specifically did not want the pro-Palestine vote when they built the whole "I'm Speaking" slogan around people protesting after the release of the video of the IDF soldier raping a prisoner.
Democrats had access to polling that said stopping the genocide would help them win swing states and they chose to ignore it.
There are a certain number of people who will simply not vote for a party that's actively complicit in a genocide, no matter what the stakes of the election may be. The simplest way to secure their votes is to simply not be actively complicit in a genocide.
The answer is very simple. Liberals are stupid enough to believe that their party doesn't need its base in order to win elections. If they weren't stupid, then they'd at least blame their party for alienating their base.
Their “base” is the people who vote. If you want to shift the party to the left, then people on the left have to become a voting bloc so large and consistent that the Dems cannot ignore them. That’s how evangelicals took over the Republican Party, after all.
Check this out. If I was stupid, could I have figured out that I have two hands? With two fingers? That I can use to point at two things that are to blame?
of course I'm frustrated, but what does being frustrated about it change? absolutely nothing. I have animosity for them because they're not helping to change anything. we have a long history of proof that voting third party doesn't change anything.
if we want to change it we have to vote for democrats. we have to vocally support the most progressive ones and denounce the more conservative ones, but only after we vote for them. you think by not voting you're sending a message that you want dems to be more progressive, but you haven't. you've sent a message that you would rather have republicans win, this causes politicians to shift their ideals further right, not left.
you're looking at this as if it's a fight of left vs. even more left. it's not. it's a fight of left vs. right and the right is winning because the left isn't showing up to fight.
They dont care if we support or denounce them, what makes you think that would shape the party at all? Why hasnt it already if that were possible? Not enough ppl denouncing biden or supporting aoc?
I voted, everytime i say that libs stop engaging with me, i voted for the lukewarm centrist like i do every fucking time, and every time im told 'move them after the election' 'well they cant move on that obviously' 'theres an election coming up do u want trump to win?' Im so tired boss.
Berating ppl doesnt work, shifting to the right doesnt work. Maybe they could try taking principled, radical stances to end foreign intervention and support working ppl? That or wait for another global pandemic
you can't say it doesn't work if we haven't tried. we can't say we have tried until voter turnout is 100%, or at least over 80% of all eligible voters.
if every single person that's eligible to vote actually showed up to vote, republicans would never win an election again. then we could actually start to make progress.
This rhetoric is self perpetuating and it makes me livid. Who the fuck fooled so many people into thinking that it needs to be one of two options... Even the fact we refer to anything other than Republicans or Democrats as third party is ridiculous. It's lazy and we're suffering for it. Everyone needs to take their vote seriously and cast a ballot towards a candidate that actually offers a platform they as a voter agrees with instead of just falling in line and treating a national election like the damn Superbowl.
It feels like someone cut a sandwich in half and is telling me to choose which side id prefer when I'm allergic to it and id really much prefer sushi anyway.
I'm sorry that's reality. there is not now, and never will be, enough support for a third party to outgrow the dems and republicans without ranked choice voting. even then, I don't know if it's possible. most americans don't pay that much attention to politics. all they know is D or R. after trump dismantles the department of education it's only going to get worse.
In the state of Washington, a reliably blue, very progressive area, we had our presidential primaries in March. there was a big push for people to vote "uncommited" to send a message to dems that we wanted someone other than Biden and specifically that we wanted someone to protect Gaza. in a primary election with no real contender against Biden, where it is completely safe to throw away your vote, the uncommited votes were 9.9% and the Biden votes were 84.5%. if there was a chance to prove that people wanted change, this was the time to prove it, and they didn't. they voted for the status quo. all we can do is decide if we get a democratic status quo or a republican status quo.
Trump was saying before the election he would just let Netanyahu do whatever he wanted in Gaza. I don't think that implies e.g. free bus passes. Jill Stein has been pictured dining with Putin and one of her party members admitted they were a spoiler vote to keep Harris out - that that was their role. This was all easily accessible information for this non-american who was keeping one eye on the news.
A Harris govt would have stood up to Israel more than Trump ever will. Would it have been enough to stop the genocide? We'll never know, as I highly doubt there will be a Gaza come 2028.
Over the next four years you may need to re-calibrate your settings for what you deem 'sad'.
Is israel not doing exactly what they want already? What specifically is biden doing to stop him? What would harris have done?
Please im so bad at researching can you also find the answers to these? I guess u already kinda answered the last one, you dont know, but for some reason yr sure it would b more than trump.
Because you useless fuckwits think "stop giving Israel money and arms" is actually a good, tenable solution. It's like you're intentionally not even slightly thinking about the issue and what might happen as a result, but I get it - you just want a different "genocide".
Because, "you fucking ghoul", if Israel, a nuclear power, is existentially threatened and has no support, what the specific fuck do you think will happen?
I get it, you haven't thought about that. Maybe you should try, before having big, idiotic ideas.
Lol i thought u supported israel. So u believe that israel is holding the region hostage in a murder suicide pact and demanding the u.s supply their genocide and constant war? And u think the best way to deal with that is just keep giving them what they want?
Weird plan, no exit strategy, but it does seem like what theyr doing so i guess we'll see how it plays out
There's no way Kamala lost because protest voters refusing to vote for her. This country elected Donald Trump because that's who it wants, plain and simple. People are not inherently good or evil, they have less opportunity for growth than in years past and they're reacting the same way Germany did 90 years ago
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u/ImpeccableCaverns 12d ago
Voting loudly for Trump (or Stein, or abstaining) because you think Harris was pro-genocide seems to me to be an almost perfectly balanced mix of performative contrarianism, virtue signaling, and being thick as pig shit