I am not saying we shouldn’t vote for Biden, but acting like we shouldn’t be protesting the genocide of Palestinians is bullshit. I know Trump would be worse, but it doesn’t mean we should speak out against Biden sending weapons that directly aid in the death of children.
We can’t just pretend he isn’t complicit in war crimes just because the other option is worse. We should be able to speak out against the atrocities.
Get involved with your local Ranked Choice Voting group.
The one for California is https://www.calrcv.org/
I know this won’t fix everything but I also think it’s a good idea. First past the post contributes to problems we have now. Check it out people!
The one for Washington State is https://fairvotewa.org/
Minnesota’s group is approaching this a smart way, from the local up. They’re not spending much time in the high-profile positions; they’re tackling local elections. Gets people used to the idea, and they stack higher and higher positions as they’re going. It’ll take time, but starting at the top and working down is a lot harder.
Is this how CA is approaching it?
Same, local approach. There’s a specific local city we’re targeting the city council etc as well as spreading awareness to the locals that this is even an option. Your average person doesn’t know it exists!
Except where it’s been implemented. We have had several successes at the local level in Minnesota; we’re a long way from the governor, but it’s always moving forward, with a win every year and - so far - no screw-ups causing a regression.
Commenting in support!
Is there one for every state? Better question: is there a page that I can link to literally everyone that lists every such group by state?
Thank you for this!
I’ll preface this by saying that near any voting system, ranked choice voting included, is better than FPTP. That being said, ranked choice voting does have some issues. Some that, arguably, can make it almost as bad as FPTP. To be more specific for this argument, I’ll focus on the IRV type. The main negative aspects of this voting system, imo, are that it doesn’t satisfy the monotonicity and Condorcet criterions. Regarding this topic, I highly recommend reading this article. It is very well written, and very informative.
Understood, but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
We just need to improve not perfect.
We just need to improve not perfect.
The one issue with this way of thinking is that since changing such a fundamental system is typically (and, imo, understandably) quite difficult, one doesn’t want to squander the opportunity with an arbitrary decision (I’m not accusing you of making an arbitrary decision, I’m just stating generally), as having another chance is unlikely. Furthermore, experimentation on a mass scale, i.e. country-wide, is generally not a wise idea. One should be firm in their convictions for the decision that they choose to support. It’s possible to cause considerable damage within the edge cases.
You’re right, best deliberate about which one is best instead.
Experimentation? New Zealand, Ireland and Australia already stage elections using forms of RCV.
You’re right, best deliberate about which one is best instead.
Aha, well, up to a point. Certainly worse to be stuck deliberating while society rots away under FPTP. There is certainly truth to your original point of not letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Experimentation? New Zealand, Ireland and Australia already stage elections using forms of RCV.
Interesting. I wonder how prevalent the issues were that I mentioned earlier. I also wonder what type of ranked ballot they use. I’ll have to look into this more. Would you have any good sources for studies looking at the outcomes of them using that voting system?
I like rank choice voting, but why would someone put Biden as there 3rd or 4th choice when they’re with holding their vote over moral objections?
Voting for Biden in any order would be the same as voting for Biden in a first past the post election.
Totally irrelevant for this presidential election. Also I’d argue for presidential elections the electoral college needs to go first. The increasing number of presidents being elected with a minority vote is seriously concerning.
How patronizing is this
patronizing is exactly the right word holy shit :(
i am not a single issue voter and i’m highly critical of those telling me to utterly ditch the blue vote. but i am very uncomfortable with this portrayal of the pro-Palestine movement and i hope you, the reader, are too
the artist of this should feel some level of shame i think
You’re reading too much into it. The cartoon isn’t about those who support Palestine. It’s about those who make it their only issue. Ending up only hurting themselves and everyone else.
Under a cartoon representation of a quite standard-looking Palestine supporting protester.
“The cartoon isn’t about those who support Palestine.”
What textual or external evidence do you have for this? Genuinely what could I be missing here lmao? Open to correction but this sounds like you are gaslighting urself?
Edit to be very specific: The comic depicts what might be called a “generic” protester. And then puts words in their mouth that are not often heard: “I’m busy.” Not a popular slogan or anything.
There’s one protester, one speech bubble. That’s 100% of the protesters on the page, where the uncommon speech is inserted into the generic. Hence my interperetation that the artist is representing all pro-Palestine protesters here as single issue obstructionist bad actors, which is an obvious non-truth
It’s kind of a visual strawman, in other words.
It’s a political cartoon. They’re visual generally not textual. So there’s at least your first problem of many. Though I think your problems are all of your own design. That you think that represents all Palestinian supporters says more about you than it does about Palestinian supporters.
But let’s analyze your own claims using your own required proofs. Where does the textually say anything you’ve implied?
Hi there, just wanted to mention that visual texts are quite prevalent in rhetorical media (e: of which political cartoons are very much a part despite your strange assertion.) Thank you for considering this perspective. I would appreciate it if you could provide evidence from the visual text or another source to support any alternative interpretations.
An example of my perception: in a political cartoon, a white guy wearing a red MAGA hat might be perceived as representing Trump supporters. There would need to be considerable evidence for me to believe that such a symbol represented a specific subset of that group, of such a kind at least that I do not see here.
I may not engage in further answers to your questions until I receive a response addressing the evidence provided. Thank you for understanding, and I value your perspective.
Edit: I do see that you blocked me. So, that’s excellent :/
Your link has nothing to do with political cartoons. Could you be any more smarmy disingenuous or obvious. You can’t even defend what you said. Nor can you admit it. Worse you resort to lemmygrad posting and making shit up. Proving that you’re not engaging in good faith. The least you could do is make my name bigger on that image so people would know to laugh and ridicule you quicker.
hilarious interaction:
- i state my interpretation of a text, ask for clarification
- ”prove it to me”
- i provide a parallel example to defend my understanding
- ”you won’t even defend what you said, also i am gonna compare you to violent communists”
i am still open to evidence by the way. :) it’s insane how quickly you devolved into personal attacks tho
Don’t bother, that dude is… A silly goose
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Yes already blocked them. Such low quality trolls are always a let down.
Dunno. How patronizing is it?
Single-issue voters are one of the biggest challenges to a functioning democracy. Planks and balance provide depth; a willingness to compromise and work to the greater good.
But that’s gone now, isn’t it. And when a Palestinian advocate candidate is running for president, who supports pro-choice, affordable housing, and every other liberal plank except they object to green-colored libraries, then fuck them because I have to have my green-painted libraries!
Personally I would guess that the >50% of eligible voters who don’t vote, largely due to systemic disenfranchisement, are a bigger issue.
Another systemic issue is FPTP.
I find any solution to “fix” democracy that attacks/criticizes the individual voter to be barely valid. The solution to a systemic problem is always going to be systemic in my experience.
*Disclaimer: Not well-researched in the field, simply applying my knowledge from other areas to this. I welcome corrections.
100% agree on FPTP.
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Compares green colored libraries to genocide… ok
I’m furious about the genocide but I’m furious with our president not listening to 70% of Democrats and still supporting Israel.
I knew what was going to catch an eye. We’re taking about single issue voters - would it have been better to compare 2A to genocide? Or anti-choice? Because those are real single choice issues that even better epitomize the issue, and neither is nearly as horrible as what’s going on in Gaza; Palestine is just the most recent iteration.
And in this case, the single issue voters are making an insane decision, because he’s actively goading Israel on. If you think Biden’s weak-sauce response is bad, wait until Trump is in office: he will shift all military and financial support from Ukraine to Israel.
Netanyahu is ignoring Biden not just because Biden isn’t taking any substantive action (“strongly-worded letters!”), but because he’s knows Biden has every chance to lose to Trump and then he can start building the gas chambers.
People sitting this one out over Palestine are clueless dumb fucks. I hate Biden’s continued support of Israel in this - although I understand it as political expediency - but Trump is undeniably a worse option for Palestinians.
Single-issue voters are one of the biggest challenges to a functioning democracy.
You don’t have a functional democracy. You never have.
No one I know who does serious work on Palestine is only working on that one issue, wasn’t doing anything before and won’t do anything after. Burnout is incredibly high among activist leaders right now. Cut us some slack please
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These kinds of meme threads are always interesting
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o7 Let’s see if we reach the More Comments Than Upvotes threshold
It’s there now.
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Surprise! It was the same handful of self-aggrandizing, self-righteous, idealistic short-sighted imbeciles that were driving all of that discussion the entire time.
Reminds me of the mass blocker and mass tagger wars
Someone on twitter created a tool that auto blocks anyone who followed at least 2 of five specific users, and found that it basically entirely shut down the gamer gaters and began spreading the tool to other users.
You can imagine that the gamergaters were less than pleased to see their harassment campaign being obstructed, and even less happy to find out how simply they could all be categorized and dismissed.
People totally underestimate how infuriated trolls get when they’re ignored. They want any attention, even negative. Just block them and move on, it works wonders.
Is 58.minutes close enough? I just got here and the number of comments in an hour is a good sign that it is a shitshow.
On to the fun!
They just keep getting better! You really love to see it.
The bot didn’t mention you so here’s my manual reminder.
Just to remind everyone, the issue is that we’re funding a genocide. FFS, I don’t want Trump to beat Biden either, but how warped and hollow is your worldview that you can look at kids getting their skulls cracked open for protesting a genocide and think, “Wow, look at those entitled single-issue voters.” Truly a deranged take.
I personally saw this comic as a criticism of people vowing to vote third party because they don’t like how Gaza is being handled, damning all the issues including Gaza to a dark future.
Saying everyone who agrees with this comic loves genocide and munches popcorn while protestors are being beaten bloody is certainly a take.
Believe it or not, but fueling this “one or the other” rhetoric hurts Democrats most. Even if the 3rd party candidates aren’t viable, the people that would support Jill Stein or Cornel West are far more likely to vote for liberal candidates down-ballot. Extensive studies on voting outcomes show that disincentivizing voting outside the 2 party system is far more likely to keep progressive voters home.
I’ll just alienate everyone who could ever be on my side
wahhh why is my side not winning? Damn single issue voters
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Glad you recognize the issue with Biden’s tactics in regards to opposition of the genocide.
Sorry if the following makes little sense, but your comment is interesting and I am quite buzzed on my evening off.
In terms of outcomes, I don’t see the difference between someone not voting and voting third party for president in a first past the post system. If you throw away your vote, it’s the same as staying home.
I think the best way to move a party in a direction is to have the right people join the 2-party system and change it from within.
That’s done by winning primaries. AOC primaried the Chair of the fucking House Democratic Caucus and has been campaigning left very publicly since. Asa Democrat, not a more Left and irrelevant party.
But they also have to be able to win general elections, as we saw many of the craziest Trumpers in 2022 win their primaries, being ideologically what their base wanted, and get their lunch eaten in the general election.
Drunk TLDR: Work the two party system, don’t scare the normies and sink the boat, slow boil the country into a brighter future
Here’s the thing though. You’re not just voting for the president this year. Telling leftists to get in line to support a candidate complicit in genocide is similarly likely to put Trump in the office. If you don’t want to see Trump elected, encourage voting generally. That includes supporting people that want to see Cornel in the office. Because the brass tacks is that most people lean to the left in this country. Telling them that a vote for “their guy” is pointless, keeps them home. It’s a factor as to why he was elected in the first place.
Here’s the thing though.
Supreme court is already captured. Congress is nearly captured.
If Trump wins, there’s a good chance there won’t be another chance at resolving things even remotely democratically.
I’ve voted 3rd party in the past when I lived there. But this election really is gonna be one where they can’t be affordable to do.
This is a “lose the battle to fight the war” situation, because end of the day, ANY choice you make will still result in Palestinians being genocided.
Voting for Trump, Biden, 3rd Party, or None.
Unless you yourself have some military training and think you have a shit at straight up assassinating Netanyahu as a random like rogue assassin, there’s nothing you or I can do about that other than protest and boycott. You can still protest the genocide and criticize Biden. You can do campaign for 3rd party support elsewhere. You can still do so when congressional elections come.
But you won’t have that option at all if Trump wins. The damn dude is literally calling himself a dictator.
Jan 6th happened.
You have to lack complete critical thinking skills to think, at this point, giving the guy who’s in the same ideological bed as Putin and Netanyahu a good chance at the presidency, is a good idea.
giving the guy who’s in the same ideological bed as Putin and Netanyahu a good chance at the presidency, is a good idea.
My brother in christ, he already has a chance at winning because this country clearly has no mechanism to bar insurrectionists from running, despite a constitutional amendment. I’d also appreciate it if you stopped assuming I haven’t been thinking critically about how I’m going to vote. I’m not going to sit on my ass if he wins, I’m going to fight like hell. I hope you do too. Because it’s already a possibility.
Do you know which state has the longest running streak of progressive voting presidential elections, as well as some of the highest voter turn out in the country? It’s Minnesota. This beautiful state has been voting to the left since 1974 for Walter Mondale, and consistently has voter turnout of at least 70%. In 2022 the state legislature won a trifecta state government and passed swathes of progressive liberal bills. Do you know our secret? We don’t vote shame, we just encourage everyone to vote their truth.
You think the dictator in chief Trump will let you vote???
Yes, you do lack critical thinking.
If by “fight like hell” you mean armed resistance, go ahead. That’ll be the only option left for change at that point. He’s not going to give up power the second time. He barely did the first.
Glad I left the USA. Dumbasses like you that have zero tact proved and continue proving there’s no hope over there.
Presidential votes are different because the Electoral College. A third of my state’s 2020 voters could abstain from voting Biden or vote 3rd party and Biden will still most likely win. So the calculus is way different than for say, congressional offices. Unless you’re one of the say 100,000 or so people living in a swing district in a swing state your vote for president is probably already decided due to the Electoral college.
It would take a catastrophically unpopular policy stance to threaten the electoral college vote in my state, and the same is true for most US states.
Well, first of all, that is abso-fucking-lutely not my take, thanks. Secondly, if it’s just about third party voters, why is that young person sitting front of tent? Could have gotten the anti-Biden point across with a Genocide Joe shirt. Could have really driven the third-party thing home with a Jill Stien shirt. But no, the artist depicted a white kid in a Palestinian keffiyeh, holding a Palestinian protest sign, and placed them in front of a tent. The artist is clearly pointing at the campus protesters, who’ve been on the receiving end of an extraordinary amount of state-sponsored violence for their activism, and saying, “look how unreasonable these people are.”
Saying everyone who agrees with this comic loves genocide and munches popcorn while protestors are being beaten bloody is certainly a take.
An objectively correct one, yes.
There’s one simple thing Biden could do… A moral thing even.
People who make these typa posts are the same people who wouldn’t show up to a protest for any of these things
yall are actually insane if you think protesting genocide is somehow mutually exclusive from other issues, or that pressuring Biden automatically means you’re voting for Trump
Both this community and Politics have some of the dumbest party shill takes ever.
People just don’t understand that political discussions are in nature pr work. You need a good pr strategy to succeed in what you want and impulsively selected actions might be bad for your pr work. And the truth is most people don’t think about pr before posting about why XYZ is bad.
Literally the British government fucked themselves like that. They wanted to avoid responsibility and found someone to blame in their pr work. A few decades later and their country is leaving a huge market to avoid having to comply to the market’s rules, while also kinda wanting to join the market for trading and having to comply again for economically reasons (and the threat of terrorism due to north Irland)… While being unable to make it happen without splitting up the country due to people rejecting that by eu bad. So the best they can do is trade deals with little to no impact on their trading. And while everything goes so well, parts of it are looking into leaving them. Politics are pr work. If you want to have an impact, then play in the big leagues, play like it.
Saw this posted elsewhere and found it poignant
“If Nixon wins again, we’re in real trouble.” He picked up his drink, then saw it was empty and put it down again. “That’s the real issue this time,” he said. “Beating Nixon. It’s hard to even guess how much damage those bastards will do if they get in for another four years.”
I nodded. The argument was familiar. I had even made it myself, here and there, but I was beginning to sense something very depressing about it. How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but “regrettably necessary” holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?
– Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
Yeah. Save the “democracy” which puts the whole force of the law on you when you protest for Palestine or against Cop City.
Uh oh, looks like someone is sharing
communistunpatrioticterroristundemocratic speech. Undemocratic speech is any time you:- Oppose fascism
- Skip an ad
- Don’t buy something
- Take the bill of rights seriously at face value
- Encourage someone else to do any of the above.
Please lie down on your stomach with your arms at your sides and someone will be along to pepper spray you and charge you with domestic terrorism shortly.
And now you’re spouting off like the Trumpers who scream that they are being silenced.
But I’m not claiming to be silenced. I’m lampooning how the US has been to live in basically for all of living memory. We talk a lot of shit about freedom, but we’re pretty embarrassing when it comes to walking the walk. We’ll shrug helplessly as private equity owned hospitals put everyone in two trillion dollars of debt, but God forbid some people protest police overreach, or we’re going to police overreach the shit out of them.
I’m sorry there’s no one here by that name.
I’ve been watching self righteous self proclaimed radicals since I was in middle school. I’ll happily trade a million Abbie Hoffmans for one Thurgood Marshall.
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Whoever needs it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Hoffman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall
You’re welcome
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Go home, Russian propaganda.
Remember kids, any criticism I don’t like is propaganda.
I’m critical because we could be doing better, not just for ourselves, but the whole world. Instead, our leadership is threatening to attack the ICC if they hold Nettanyahu accountable for genocide.
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Because Democrats are the only ones who will get us out of this mess, and they are failing epically.
Republicans are snakes, so why would we expect them not to slither? Im just demanding Dems act like snake wranglers for once.
My ilk? I’m actually a little curious what you think my ilk is.
I expect the republicans to be fascist pieces of shit. I’d see them swept out on their asses tomorrow if given the choice. I have higher expectations for the democrats, which is why I give them shit.
And when Biden goes around congress to fund the genocide, what then? We all know republicans are borderline fascists- there’s honestly no point in calling a spade a spade since republicans will never listen to reason anyway (and many of them are in a death cult). But democrats claim to be better than republicans, so obviously when they do shitty things, they get held to higher standards. When Ronald fucking Reagan is tougher on Israel than Biden, there’s an issue here. Hell, even Obama vetoed UN resolutions more than republicans. Reagan, in contrast, allowed 21 UN resolutions against Israel to pass. It should be clear as day that comparing Biden to Reagan screams “get higher standards”, but it seems like a huge swath of democratic voters are either too comfortable in their life to care about blood being on their hands (mixed with post 9/11 anti-arab racism) or they feel like they have a gun to their head in the form of another trump presidency.
You can’t reason with republicans about this because they literally need the genocide to happen to bring about the end times (and also a mix of white-supremacy/christofascist fueled anti-arab racism). It’s Biden who isn’t distancing himself enough from what we collectively thought was a bar only republicans and literal fascists would fall to.
Must be why Republicans are forwarding legislation that would force Biden to continue sending arms to Israel, and Biden has said he would veto such a thing.
He can say whatever he wants, but just today he’s sent $1 Billion more in funding for tanks and mortars for Israel. Actions speak louder than words.
We should do something about that. Biden has to win to do something about that. Vote for the most progressive candidates that can win.
He should do something about that.
He won’t unless we demand it. Come on, we know that. He’s not the hero in this story. He won’t lead us to a better future. But if he loses, there will be no future.
If he loses, which it seems like he’s desperately trying to do, we will continue fighting.
That’s hilarious. You’re looking at the situation ion Gaza and daring to compare what’s going on in the USA with that?
I have no idea what you’re accusing me of doing, so I’m gonna say: No, I’m not.
Wow, look at all those issues democrats won’t actually do anything about, they’ll just let republicans destroy those things so they can scream about them to get votes and continue to do nothing about them.
Oh, and democrats support genocide. No amount of whataboutism should disguise the fact that democrats are deep throating a genocidal apartheid ethnostate led by far-right war criminals.
Thank you for your well-researched and very-nuanced view, I hope you enjoy Donald “They’ve got to finish what they started, and they’ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.” Trump’s next term, 2024-20??
How do you think we got trump in the first place? The awfulness of the republican party did not begin with him and will not end with him, but the whole time democrats have insisted that we need a republican party. It’s a tag team play that ends in fascism regardless. If trump is beaten, the next bogeyman will be there for democrats to point at and claim “we just need to beat this one guy and then we’ll work on issues you care about, we swear” yet again.
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are… you talking about the elected officials, or the people who elect them?
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But they … DO something about this issue in-between elections. They are protesting and demanding the Biden administration to change their course. That is political action. What else are they supposed to do? Anything other than playing with the political power that’s left to them?
Everybody against those demanding a harder approach against Netanjahu’s genocidal campaign and threatening their votes is talking about how these people have to save democracy by voting Biden regardless of what he’s doing. Well, isn’t that part of a democracy?
Of course it’s part of a democracy. But the point everyone’s making is that it’s a very dumb thing to do because it’s likely to reduce your democratic power in the future.
Is the president not at fault at all when he doesn’t change his course? Also a majority of people seem to favor a ceasefire. Why not at least for campaign purposes actually enforce a ceasefire from Netanyahu?
The division on the left over Palestine has got to be the dumbest fucking shit I’ve ever seen. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.
I have probably one of the more controversial comments on this thread. I plan on voting for Biden, because harm reduction is the best I can realistically do in this federal election, and the other guy is very clearly worse. I encourage you to do the same just based on my own beliefs and opinions. I’m still openly critical of Biden because fuck sitting back and watching a genocide happen and saying “golly, at least he’s not Trump”. We can and should do better, and if team Biden doesn’t like it, maybe they should stop supporting genocide.
I think the issue is the people stating they won’t vote or the ones wanting to let Trump win to “just tear things down.” We don’t have near the numbers or popular will to tear things down and we didn’t have it last time Trump tore things apart. The damage he did is still being felt across the government and people just don’t understand how slowly change happens. It took the right 50 years and billions of dollars to get us here. It’s not going to change with one president or one political event.
“just tear things down”
I read that before, prolly from one of the gradbears or something, on how they didn’t mind Trump winning and going full authoritarian, because that was a chance to “hit the reset button”. Now, even with my best will I can read that as ‘revolution + new constitution’ but I cannot imagine how these people think that shit is going to go down in the USA today.
Maybe I’m just not up to date on the memo, but where did the idea that criticism isn’t allowed come from?
I can’t think of any president that I haven’t criticized. Obama pissed me off immediately forgetting about his promise to close Gitmo or stop warrantless surveillance.
I’m not seeing people saying not to criticize the administration.
What people are saying is holy fuck white supremacist Christian fascists are about to instill a monarch who will hurt many, many people if they can get away with it.
It’s a pretty clear and understandable message, and its unprecedented nature over the last few centuries kind of does warrant the volume with which it is attempted to be conveyed to people who say things like “because I don’t like what the administration is doing with issue x I might not vote or will vote 3rd party.”
Not liking what the administration is saying and saying you don’t like it is the very essence of the American experience. But throwing away your vote in this century’s equivalent to the election in 1930s Germany is not just tone deaf but an active middle finger to every minority that’s going to be persecuted under gold-plated Hitler, Palestinians included.
Personal experience on Lemmy and Mastodon. Even things as trivial as criticizing the Biden campaign’s strategy for stuff like hiring high level HRC16 folks and taking their advice as anything more than a joke or their strategy of just telling people who are feeling economic strain that they’re actually just confused because everything is great has earned me all kinds of ire and claims that I’m everything from a Russian troll to a Trump supporter. Really, it pains me to see the democrats sucking this hard; I see a lot of familiar themes from '16 developing and it’s making me nervous, including how other left voters are giving me shit for having the gall to question the wisdom of the campaign.
If we’re going to win, I think it’s not going to be by repeating the HRC16 strat of hand waving all criticism with “But Trump! The election is too important!” It didn’t work last time, and I don’t think it will this time. Besides that, it’s kind of disappointing to hear what effectively amounts to “I’d love to be critical of genocide, but the election is too important.” I kinda get where they’re coming from, but at this rate, there might not be anyone in Gaza left to save by the time November gets here. We’ll just have to kick rocks and go “golly, hopefully the next genocide doesn’t happen in an election year”.
I’m genuinely curious, would you vote for Hitler as a form of harm reduction? Obviously the genocide he did was bad, but say he was running against someone else who was also planning on committing a genocide.
The Nazis put money into infrastructure development, education (granted in this context it was also indoctrination, but there was genuine education being done too), expansion of welfare; better access to healthcare, public works programs, public health policies (though again, muddied with ideas about “racial purity”).
Imagine he was running against another pro-genocide antisemite, but who was against all the welfare/public spending mentioned above, and instead wanted to deregulate the economy, causing even more material harm than the Nazis.
Would you be telling people to go out and vote for Hitler as a form of harm reduction? Is there literally no line a person/party can cross that makes them not worthy of a vote; no line that makes the system illegitimate and participation in it/implicit endorsement problematic?
Look, what you’re trying to to get at here is that by voting for one party, you’re affirming support for their policies. Perhaps the best way to frame this is that this is a little like the trolley problem, in that I can choose to do nothing and let the trolley (the US political system, in this case) run over five people people (Trump stops any finger-wagging at Nettanyahu and probably encourages a similar attack on the West Bank, as well as starts rounding up and deporting anyone with any detectable melanin levels, as well as going all in on climate change on the side of CO2, as well as whatever the fuck else who knows), or I can become a participant and pull the lever to try to make the Trolley run over one person instead (Biden’s half ass finger wagging at Nettanyahu). Is pulling the lever problematic? Yes. But I think not pulling the lever is objectively worse.
Agreed on the trolley scenario, but that’s not exactly analogous. I’ll try to make an analogy that extrapolates the principle of our current scenario to illustrate what I’m getting at.
Imagine there are 3 candidates, two major parties and a third party. Both candidates in the major parties want to nuke the planet to establish an American world government. Our guy wants to nuke 6 billion people, their guy wants to nuke 7 billion people. Polls show that the third party candidate has the same chance of winning as polls in the 2024 U.S election show. The third party candidate is against dropping nukes on the planet to establish a global America.
Do you vote for the one who wants to nuke 6 billion people as a form of harm reduction? Or is there some line that a candidate/party can cross that makes voting third party the best option, despite how unlikely they’ll win?
I’ve voted third party before; it’s a fairly meaningless gesture at best, letting the trolley run over five people while still holding the lever at worst. Imo, you’re looking at the wrong thing here. In a FPTP election system, you’re always going to end up with a two-party duopoly with voters constantly trying to play harm reduction. If you want to have a meaningful impact at the ballot box- to have our third party votes actually count for something, it requires addressing the voting system that creates these conditions. Ranked Choice Voting/ STV movements are growing in the US; I plan on joining the one in California, I suggest you do the same thing.
I understand your sentiment, but I’m curious if you’ll actually commit to the principle you are espousing. Would you actually vote for a candidate that wants to bomb “only” 6 billion people over 7 billion, instead of “throwing away” your vote for someone who doesn’t want to nuke the planet?
That’s a hard thing to answer for me, because it turns into looping arguments about ethics vs game theory. In practical terms, I know that other voters will avoid choosing the third party candidate, so the obvious choice is then re-apply my selection filter to the one of the two likely candidates that kills fewer people. In pure ethical terms, the obvious choice is to vote for the candidate that wants to kill nobody and then spend the rest of my life standing on the side of a road in the nuclear wastes ranting about how other people are bastards. I’ve been on both sides. In the moment, I choose pragmatism.
But really, the best thing to do is to try and reform our election system. I actually just signed up with CARCV.org before I hopped on here. When I have more time, I’ll look at what I need to do to volunteer instead of just signing a petition and joining a mailing list.
I came back to say that your assertion about a two party system never arriving at a “too extreme” position is 100% correct. That’s why it needs to be done away with.
The balkanization of the left has been a thing since before the Balkans themselves.
Just because someone protests an active genocide doesn’t mean they cannot also be upset about what else is wrong in the world.
Divisive cartoons like this, horse race politics, and the straw man argument of the single issue voter are all more dangerous than the youth finding their voice in political discussion.
The division on the left over Palestine
There is no “division on the left” over Palestine.
There’s just people who’d set America as well as global stability on fire to prove a “point” and there’s people who wouldn’t
There’s just people
who’d set America as well as global stability on fire to prove a “point”that oppose genocide and there’s people who wouldn’t.Ftfy.
Your “fixing” just changed the meaning entirely to ignore the hard truth you don’t care about. And you pretend you’re being altruistic, just to be extra disgusting I guess
It’s largely orchestrated. Fascists push it because it weakens the left. Leninists/Salinists/Maoists push it because they see it as accelerationist. Which to them is a good thing, because their ideology isn’t an improvement over capitalism. They know they can only convince others to adopt it by making things worse, not better. Much the same as capitalism and mercantilism does/did.
Super well put.
The way I see it. Biden is really choosing to die on this hill. It is irresponsible for him to support Israel when the stakes are this high.
Why is he not taking this seriously?
Why is he not taking this seriously?
He is. Support for Israel is policy, not politics. It’s not Biden supporting Israel… it’s the entire US political establishment that does.
You might just as well ask Biden to stop the US from being imperialist - no member of the US political establishment would ever do that. Period.
This is why you see liberals everywhere heeding the clarion call to pre-emptively start looking for people to blame when Biden hands over to the GOP (the “bad cop”) come November.
No I agree. The establishment is fucked. And If Biden were actually serious about beating Trump (because the stakes are rightfully so high), then he’d Buck the establishment.
Neoliberals would rather have a Dictator Trump than a Progressive Policy. Which is hilarious when the "progressive policy " is just a sign that says “no genocide”.
I’m sure if it wasn’t Palestine they would have picked some other hill to die on
Seriously, Palestinian American here and I feel actually violated for them to be using my kin’s corpses as fetish porn for their narrative.
I have family who are Nakba victims that I haven’t been able to meet because they put everything into giving my grandfather the chance to escape, people who actually experienced the genocide first hand, and all I can see in these people wielding it as a cudgel to declare they won’t vote and nobody else should either is the same white cynical “leftism” that made Nader and Stein become the perfect catastrophes for American democracy.
Here is the single Palestinian cause, Badna N3aesh! We want to live! We want to live, both in the homeland, and everywhere else we may go, and that means you have no right to use our dead to let the ones who would kill us here too into power.
Badna N3aesh!!!
Kinda hard for Palestinians living in Palestine to actually live when biden hands over billions of dollars in weapons for israel to bomb them. Why are you more mad at people opposed to genocide than the ones who full-throatedly support the bombing of Palestinians?
This is some Matrix level missing the point.
The point literally couldn’t have come at you any more directly, and you still dodged around it and redirected, and doubled down on the pretense that somehow this person doesn’t care about their own dead relatives, and you need to instruct them on what’s important and what they need to understand and how to look at it, and why they should get on board with your politics, otherwise they don’t care about their own dying and suffering people.
I wrote one sentence pointing out how biden’s actions run directly counter to “we want to live” and then asked a question for clarification. You jumped in and twisted yourself into a pretzel to tell me how much I’ve missed the point without actually explaining how.
Sure. So it’s not really my place to have this whole conversation, but I already did get involved, and I’m happy to give my input.
The point is that whatever’s going on with Biden, Trump is objectively worse on every single metric, including but not limited to the safety of Arabs, Palestinians, and potential victims of the American military in general, at home and abroad.
Someone who cares about dead Palestinians could absolutely try to pressure Biden to stop sending weapons to the IDF, remove Netanyahu to the ICC, or whatever they want to do. Or they could point out that Biden is a monster for continuing the US’s war criminal support for Israel, and not immediately denouncing Israel the instant they started blocking food aid or bombing hospitals. Sure. All that makes sense. If any of that is what you’re doing, and it sounds like I’m trying to disagree with it, I am not. I actually originally came in this thread complaining about the OP cartoon, because I think most of the Palestine protestors are absolutely consistent and justified and the cartoon is grossly unfair as applied to them.
The very specific and very politically motivated construction from there to “that’s why I can’t support Biden, against Trump” or “that’s why I’m not voting” or anything like that, is endangering Palestinians in Palestine, Palestinians in America, Hispanics in their home countries and in the US, Americans in the US, and many many other people, to an absolutely horrifying level.
This person is, if I am understanding them correctly, objecting very specifically to the second one. They’re asking that people stop using the suffering of them and their family and friends to try to promote a particular political agenda which actually endangers them, increasing the chance of a genocide much much worse than what’s happening right now in Gaza, while pretending that it’s a Palestinian-friendly course of action and they’re doing it because they care about Palestinians. They’re pointing out that it’s a ghoulish and dangerous thing to point to their own dead relatives and then try to use them to excuse a politics which threatens to make a lot more corpses, while pretending that it’s on their behalf.
Is that a good explanation for how?
That’s fair, but I think there’s room for disagreement on how to pressure biden and if biden is actually even better for Palestinians at all. After all, biden has been the top supporter of israel for his entire career and is the top recipient of money from pro-israel donors by a huge margin:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
So far biden has given israel everything they’ve wanted or needed. There is the case where he withheld weapons (but not “defensive” weapons) because of Rafah, but by that point israel already has more than enough to level the entire area and biden is already back to moving things forward for future weapon shipments. Clearly biden doesn’t feel pressured enough to truly change his ways and I don’t know how guaranteeing your vote will add pressure. I’m not saying to vote for trump, I myself will be voting for biden, but I feel like we shouldn’t telegraph guaranteed votes to biden and the democrats no matter what they do. That’s just a recipe for them taking you for granted and letting them get away with whatever they want.
@PhlubbaDubba
Fake account.
Zionism is Bidens ONLY reason for being.Palestinians know this.
https://theconversation.com/biden-says-the-u-s-would-have-to-invent-an-israel-if-it-didnt-exist-why-210172
@ZoboomafooMoghafil, la tu7aawilha m3aee!
This. It’s almost like how a prominent Lemmy dev seems to believe his “struggle” is the same as a former Haitian slave. You want to talk about offensive appropriation to the point of self parody?
The idea that these privileged cynics use the corpses of heroes as a pedestal to push their agenda is absolutely disgusting.
It’s the same reason the chrisnats attached themselves to fetuses
Palestinian corpses can’t demand accountability or advocate their own interests which might not align with yours
Is that why biden loves sending billions of dollars of weapons to israel to create more Palestinian corpses?
Edited: Fat fingered my reply.
I’m deeply uncomfortable with the amount of people calling those wholly opposed to complicity in genocide as “single issue voters”. Sure, if genocide isn’t enough of a concern for you to oppose candidates that are complicit, then I guess you can call it “single issue”.
We’re talking genocide here, so I’m going to compare this to the most known genocide on the planet. Imagine if we knew about and could see the Holocaust occurring as it happened when it started, and FDR was funding the Reich including circumventing congress. Would you expect people to still vote for FDR, or would you expect people to oppose his candidacy? This caliber of rhetoric as well as this post has turned this leftist away from my plan to vote for Biden. Nice work folks. I’ll be voting for Cornel West and trying to keep the liberal trifecta in my state legislature this year.
The “if Trump wins” folks are angry at the implication that their vote is tacit support of genocide, but are fine with the implication that not voting for Biden is tacit support for Trump
If Trump wins, funding for Israel will increase, and even more Palestinians will die. So basically, you’re valuing your purity over human lives. Which is quite fascist, if you think about it.
“Opposing genocide is fascist” is certainly a take.
No, it’s fucking not. Cornel West opposes funding to Israel, supports a 2 state solution, and supports the same issues strawmanned by lady liberty. I value the end of a genocide as well as a socialist economy. If neither of the mainstream candidates will stop the genocide, I’m going to vote for the only candidate that wants to stop the genocide as well as handle the other issues I care about, in a way I’d align with. My barely tepid patience with Biden and supporters like you has run out.
I would agree with this if not for the fact that you live in an absolute farce of a democracy where voting for a third party is nothing but a protest vote. Which seems fine to do in a state that will vote majority democrat anyway, but plain irresponsible in one that won’t.
I upvoted you for at least naming a potential candidate, rather than vaguely saying “someone else”.
The reality is that either Trump or Biden will win and if you’re not voting for either of them then, practically speaking, you might as well not vote at all. Third party candidates only ever get a tiny fraction of the overall vote and that’s not going to change this time.
I’m not casting a protest vote. I’m voting honestly because there is no way to strategically vote for the less genocidal candidate.
Biden is the less genocide candidate. He’s been getting aid into Gaza, putting pressure on Israel, and directing funds towards humanitarian aid. All of that would cease immediately under trump.
Realistically, the best way to reduce genocide is through protest, donations, and activism. Electorally, the best option is to vote for Biden in the hopes we can keep trump from making thing unimaginably worse.
Your moral purity will kill more people. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And I’m deeply uncomfortable thinking that giving a chance to the candidate that thinks Hitler is a great guy AND the USA should do some of the same things as Nazi Germany while he’ll ALSO keep funding Nazi Germany, but even harder, is sane - let alone even a viable argument for those already opposed to the current choice already funding genocide.
Even the EU is learning how stupid Americans are and are making plans to not rely on it at all + make entry harder (next year you won’t be able to travel to just countries here for extended stay easily anymore by passport alone for example). And dumbasses like you are proving there’s a severe lack of critical thinking.
I think it depends on how people/voters see the particular conflict. When Bush jr put a genocide on the Taliban, he had a lot of support. When Obama put one on ISIS, he had a lot of support. When Biden stopped US support for genocides in Yemen or Rwanda, voters didn’t really seem to care one way or another.
Damn we’re just posting boomer comics now huh
Wtf, who is upvoting this, this is alarming
I strongly suspect that most of the people on the left are also carrying all the signs on the right
And that the person writing the cartoon is planning move on to targeting the next-least-acceptable sign from the pile on the right, as soon as the one on the left is dealt with. This thing of slicing off segments of dissenting opinion to shut them down one at a time, in separation from their natural cohort of supporting allies, by driving wedges in between them, is fairly normal “advanced fascism from people who know how to get it done on the ground” tactics.
I don’t think it’s trying to slice off segments of dissenting opinion so much as highlighting the all or nothing nature of single issue voters.
Yeah. I guess I should have paid more attention to the title – applying it to a “single issue voter” (or, non-voter, I guess) who really is throwing all the stuff on the right in the garbage, in the (incorrect) belief that they’re helping the Palestinians, when in reality they’re just threatening to make things worse for literally everybody, makes sense.
I just don’t think that’s most of the people in the tents or carrying the signs. If they had constructed the cartoon to attack all the people on Lemmy who don’t want to vote because Biden personally killed all those Gazans and loves that the war is happening, or whatever they are claiming is happening, then that makes sense. But attacking the protestors themselves seems wrong.
Yeah I think
OPthe artist is doing kind of a visual strawman here, as also mentioned by this person.I don’t see evidence at all that any significant number of pro-Palestine individuals are single issue voters. Someone made a claim that 3% of democratic voters were single issue, but upon inquiry it turned out to be without source, and that the true number is less than 2% of all voters at the very absolute most.
As of now, I need more evidence to disprove my belief that this post is just an outrageously patronizing false generalization of the pro-Palestine movement.
You will have difficulty finding that evidence, I think
how do you mean? (/gen as in it would be hard to poll? or that the evidence doesn’t exist? sorry im dense sometimes)
Meaning that you likely can’t find that evidence, because the post is indeed an outrageously patronizing false generalization etc etc. 🙂
slay tyvm 💅
I agree, I am not the artist, but I posted this as a criticism of those who say they’ll vote third party.
The “most” is not the subject. It’s the few who are single topic voters.
Looks like there is a crystal clear direction Biden can take and win over a substantial amount of voters. I’m not sure blaming people protesting genocide for Biden’s drop in approval ratings, rather than Biden himself for tanking them, will encourage anyone to vote for Biden.
