Let me take a stab at this. As a non American non voter who is interested in the outcome of the election.
There are 3 parties to this discussion: the Harris campaign (Democrats in general), the Gaza issue voter, and the lesser evil voters.
The Gaza issue voters clearly believe a genocide is occuring, sometimes affecting them personally, and funded by their tax dollars. They would like some concessions from the Dems (the only likely party to take any action) and their only bargaining chip is their vote. It is clear to me that, if a large number of Americans felt strongly and this way, action would happen.
The Harris campaign has been non responsive on this issue, trying to tread the thin line, where they not only look powerless politically, but also unwilling to take a moral stand for what is right.
The lesser evil voters are absolutely correct that she is still better than Trump, and in more ways than just Middle east.
What I think all 3 parties need to do:
The lesser evil camp, instead of mocking the hold outs, needs to pressure the Harris campaign to make a change. Maybe even join them! (See the last point)
The Harris campaign, needs to think long and hard about what they stand for, and the implications of the Republican-lite gamble paying off. There needs to be some fear of losing voters who they cannot take for granted as they shift to the right.
Finally the Gaza voters. Its fine to play the game of chicken, keep screaming as loud as you can demanding change, but ultimately (secretly) get to the ballot and vote D.
The problem is that any stance on Isreal/Gaza by a Democrat will lose them votes. Hence, the wishy-washy, trying to thread the middle, not really saying anything tactic.
Yes the problem is that the GOP is the hard right nationalists, and people who have put everything on earth below one specific issue the GOP supports. The DNC is made of everyone else. It is much harder to work with a constituency that is not in any type of alignment.
There’s a reason the Democrats always end up tilting right and trying to court some moderate Republicans. There’s a reason Harris is spending her efforts trying to pick off some moderate Republicans in the suburbs rather than trying to appease the hard left.
The problem with the hard left voters is that they are fickle and contrarian by nature. Yes, they’re talking about Palestine this year, but that’s just the cause of the day. The truth is, many on the left will simply look for any excuse not to sully their precious clean hands by voting for a mainstream liberal party. They look for an excuse, any excuse will do. And every four year, they find one. For Kamala it’s Gaza. For Biden it was the Crime Bill. For Hillary it was Bernie. There’s always some grievance the far left reactionaries will find, their precious excuse not to be one of the normies and vote for the mainstream candidate. They’re professional contrarians to the core. They start with the end goal - be a cool outsider above the sludge of normal average politics. And then they work backwards from there. Gaza is simply the cause of the day.
Note, this doesn’t happen with the far right. The far right instead recognizes that it’s better to support the mainstream right party, but to work continuously to pull them further and further to the extreme. This strategy is why they’ve been far more successful than the far left. The far right holds their nose, votes for the mainstream candidate, and works to pull the party further to the right in the future. The far left stamps their feet, demands perfection, and takes their ball and goes home. They always find an excuse to not participate. Ultimately, they just want to be the cool kids that are too cool to participate in the normie fight. They will always find an excuse not to support the Democratic candidate. They’re petulant children, not voters candidates can actually appeal to.
This is why Dems always pander to the right. It’s simply a better strategy. Far left voters are fickle, unreliable, and will always invent a new purity test. They’re ultimately politically irrelevant, and they have no one but themselves to blame.
They’re professional contrarians to the core. They start with the end goal - be a cool outsider above the sludge of normal average politics. And then they work backwards from there. Gaza is simply the cause of the day.
Thank you for so eloquently expressing this (and not just the part I’ve quoted… the whole thing). I wish more people would read and consider what you’ve written here.
I disagee a bit here. The reason democrats shift to the right is not because of some intrinsic values and republicans and democrats carry. It is due to the sustained (false or cherry picked) propaganda by the right to create issues from nothing (migrant crime, trans issues), and the lack of response by the democrats to this messaging. Mind you Im not talking about the Election cycle, Im talking about the 3 years in between. The reason they didnt tilt right towards issues like abortion is because we have been hammering the counter message for 2 or 3 years, ever since Roe is overturned.
When youve already ceded ground with the public perception that we have immigrant crime, you have no option but to tackle the “perceived” problem by being tough on immigration.
This is complete trash. There are not 3 issue voters here. There are two. A non-vote for Harris is a full vote for greater support for genocide. A vote for Harris has a chance to change that. Any other thoughts on it are completely ridiculous.
How is voting for pro-genocide Harris going to reduce genocide?
If you have to choose between losing a hand and losing a whole arm, the correct choice isn’t choosing the hand, it’s fighting back against the system that forces you to make that choice.
Because genocide support from the US under Trump is likely to be substantially worse than it is under a democrat government.
Your metaphor makes no sense because you can both vote for a lesser evil and take action against genocide in lots of other ways (voting isn’t the only thing you can do)
I feel like I’m seeing that attitude a lot. I guess some other people also feel it, but worry that expressing it will reduce the dem vote. Which is unfortunate, but also understandable.
This isn’t a philosophical thought experiment. If there was a real life trolley problem, the solution is to find a way to stop the fucking train, isn’t it?
the solution is to find a way to stop the fucking train
And the solution to the electoral college is to just fucking abolish it? I didn’t know it was this easy! Surely any second the system decides to abolish itself! Any second now…
Unless you abolish the system before the November election, either Trump or Harris will become US president. It is mathematical certainty in the same way that neither Harris nor Trump will be teleported to Mars through spontaneous quantum tunneling.
The problem isn’t the fucking electoral college. That’s a smokescreen for the real issues at play.
Like it or not, if you vote for Harris, you are complicit in genocide. If you don’t like that, I strongly suggest doing something other than sitting around telling people on the Internet that they’re wrong for having morals which do not align with your own.
I will never vote for Harris for I am not allowed to do so.
By paying taxes in the US you are far more complicit in enabling genocide by the way. How many shells have you personally financed - including through your productivity when working - may I ask? Obviously you can choose to stop paying taxes and go to prison to become a financial burden. They can’t arrest everyone, can they? Clearly that’s the answer.
Every single US citizen is enabling genocide. The question is how you will stop it. And it most certainly won’t be through making a cross on a piece of paper every 4 years.
And if you have the ability to vote in the US election and don’t or vote third party, you are complicit in everything the winner does. Like it or not, your choice enabled their presidency.
My brother in Christ, it is an analogy. You cannot piss and moan about how anyone who doesn’t support Kamala, implicitly supports Trump, and then tell me that my analogy for how stupid that false dichotomy is, is itself a false dichotomy. I do not understand.
You think I missed the analogy? No, I used your analogy and it works perfectly fine. If you want to drop the analogy because you don’t think the analogy is good, be my guest. Tell me how that counters my point.
I don’t know if you know but due to the fact that the USA is a joke democracy, it sadly isn’t a false dichotomy. Unless you think, you can change NOW (as you don’t have the time to do it later) more than half of the citizens’ opinion and get a 3rd party candidate in power. Which is obviously realistic…
Where did they say the intention is for a third party to win this election?
Also just because you don’t understand the conversation doesnt mean you should be sarcastic and rude. Overaggressive democrat voters is sort of the joke here in the first place.
You are right… They talking about voting for Harris would be like cutting of a hand and implying that voting for trump is like cutting of a arm; and instead of choosing one of them, one should fight the System; certainly doesn’t carry the implication that one should vote third party.
But I am wondering what am I not understanding about the conversation?
There are multiple ways to “fight”, third party is one version of it. Obviously each group is going to think their plan makes most sense.
The bottom line is we all agree its a broken system run by psychopathic people, so maybe don’t point the blame at those who are trying to change things in good faith.
Germans? So because Germany is supportive, Germans are? So us citizens are supportive?
I am not American, don’t worry. But why would that make me a cunt?
Also why wouldn’t I listen to opinions that I disagree with? Do I need to be afraid of them? I can read “mein Kampf” without becoming a Nazi. I recommend you to listen to opinions different your own. Then you are prepared to call people out on their bs because you know the bs to Beginn with.
You wrote “Germans”, I point out that treating a whole country as if they all have 1 opinion, is ridiculous. And then your counter is that?
Yes, Germany is a democracy. That doesn’t mean shit though. There are many different reasons for voting for a party and in the last election, “should Israel commit a genocide?” Wasn’t part of the discussion. So maybe the people in power don’t align with their voters on that issue. But even if it was part of the discussion, so are many different things. So in 2021, Germans might have their reasons to vote for people that they would disagree with now. Democracies are flawed, like any other system of governance.
As I am not German, I don’t want to speak for them, if you are looking for an opinion
You seem to misunderstand. I am not saying trump or Harris (not Biden) is a false dichotomy. I am saying, voting for Harris and fighting the system is a false dichotomy. Regardless of whether or not Harris is part of the system, you can vote Harris and protest the system.
I did think about what they said. They affectively say, I am willing to risk trump in a seemingly close election between trump and Harris because both are supportive of Israel and therefore they want to vote for a 3rd party candidate. So they are saying on a response to a post which is the meme in question, they are willing to risk a man who said that the IDF has to finish up and finish what they started because then he can feel better about his vote.
People are able to think past four years. Contributing to the current system ensures it will continue on.
You don’t vote against candidates you vote for them. Thats the crux of this problem. We are picking between who’s worst because thats culturally where america is.
Anyone who votes for their favorite candidate is doing it right. Anyone who votes to hurt another candidate is doing it wrong.
Please look into how the us election works and tell me again that it is cultural.
The us system is so broken that splitting the vote is a reality. If you believe that Harris is more your candidate than trump than voting third party makes it more likely than trump wins. That is sad reality. Voting third party is voting against your own best interest.
I feel bad for Americans but the land of the free doesn’t let you vote who you like but forces you to vote against who you hate.
Also what quote did you mean? I am still looking for an answer.
This part:
“You might lose your whole arm, instead of an hand, but that is a sacrifice that I am willing to take.”
The point here is that for most of these third party voters, the democrat and the republican are equally awful. There is no accidentally helping the opposition because both parties are the opposition.
A big problem is democrats acting like there is no comparison between them and the republicans. The democrats do awful stuff too, they have better PR and lawyers though.
And far more simply, if the democrats are currently helping kill your family and friends in your homeland, how could ou possibly argue they should vote democrat? Would you in their position?
If its not possible for her to gain more votes than she loses by taking a stance of peace, then thats not the fault of third party voters.
Demecrats should also focus on rural issues more. The city voters are all already democrat and the biggest gains come from appealing to issues of rural voters that increasingly feel as an afterthought of the democrat party.
Agricultural subsidies for owner operated farms is for example is a good policy. Solar panel loans where you use the savings on them to pay them back is another.
That reduces food and power prices then you also need a housing policy.
Finally the Gaza voters. Its fine to play the game of chicken, keep screaming as loud as you can demanding change, but ultimately (secretly) get to the ballot and vote D.
This is how you destroy your credibility and ensure you won’t be listened to on anything. The Democrats count on the two party system (which they are responsible for, in part) to make us fall in line. They’re not going to shift on anything so long as they can write off our objections as empty rhetoric, so long as they can make calculations based on the assumption that we will ultimately fall in line.
but ultimately (secretly) get to the ballot and vote D.
By this point, it’s too late. Probably already too late now.
You dumb fucks never realized that your true power is NOT your votes. It’s your voice. It’s the power to convince people to stay home. And you just… kept doing that. There’s no threat to be made; the act of making the threat IS the damage.
I’m so tired dude. At least in a month most of you will forget all about Gaza and I won’t have to hear about it anymore.
the lesser evil camp refuses to pressure the harris campaign and the harris campaign refuses to self reflect on their republican lite gamble; but the gaza voters should give up their only bargaining chip and vote for them anyways?
I doubt the Democrats will learn their lesson when they lose. They didn’t became more progressive when Hillary lost when the Bernie voters stayed home. The only shift to the left in the party that happened was when incumbent democrats got replaced by outsiders like AOC. So if you want to punish Democrats do it during a primary and vote an incumbent out.
People who are so worried about their left wing voter purity to vote Dem when the alternative is explicitly fascist are going to come across as unwinnable as voters and will have no effect whatsoever on Dem strategizing any more than insane racists who vote for Trump because they like the idea of mass deportation of all the ethnic minorities in the USA; the kind that tell Native Americans to go back to their own country are not worth the Dems pursuing on policy grounds either.
If your vote is clearly unwinnable and you chose the greater evil from some sort of backwards purity argument, what good is being better than the Republicans on policy grounds for winning your vote?
It is not winning elections that forces the Democrats right, it is losing to the right that forces the Democrats right, you know, to get the votes they have a hope of getting.
It might not matter anyway, because Trump told a rally a while back that if he was elected, they wouldn’t have to vote again and since then has accused Harris of planning to end democracy, and pretty much every accusation from Trump is to cover for an admission. Project 25 is grim reading for anyone who likes freedom.
So yeah, people who vote in a way that makes things worse for Gaza are putting electoral pressure on the Democrats to support the genocide, because calling for ceasefire, agreeing with Gaza protestors at rallies and putting diplomatic pressure on Netanyahu aren’t enough to get votes for Harris, but are sadly enough to lose her votes from “centrists”.
So if you listen to the “genocidal vice president” folks, and ignore the “finish them” “best King of Israel” Republicans, your third party vote or abstention actually encourages the genocide and in your twisted logic you think that people who care about Gaza choosing to not affect the presidency somehow affects it, and that the country choosing the more genocidal candidate will somehow be interpreted as the people not wanting genocide.
americans have committed lots of documented genocides and it’s about not perpetuating them as someone who descends from the survivors of those genocides.
i do not want to help create another vulnerable minority for the sake of the almighty dollar and a blue team win.
you can try to convince yourself that democrats are the lesser evil, as we’ve all been doing here for generations; yet here we nonetheless given a choice between an active genocider and someone who wishes they were.
the democrat’s movement right wards guarantees that it will continue to get worse and i don’t want to know what’s worse than genocide that everyone ignores.
Yes. That’s how the two party system works. Dems are still miles better than Republicans on the issue, and thus don’t need to improve. It sucks, but that’s the hand that’s been dealt I don’t see any better strategy to help the people of Gaza. If you see one, feel free to share.
There’s also the fact that Harris has to appeal to the electoral college. She’s not just trying to win our votes.
If she took a firm stance on stopping the killing in Gaza the electoral college could very easily hand their votes to trump. Like they did in 2016.
I’m fairly certain it’s a big contributing factor as to why democrats keep inching to the right on certain issues. The electoral college has too much power. At the end of the day it’s their votes that count, so Harris has to appeal to them too.
If she took a firm stance on stopping the killing in Gaza the electoral college could very easily hand their votes to trump.
Why couldn’t they do a better job pushing Palestine as a civil rights issue and raising awareness among their voter base like they’ve successfully done with LGBTQ and women’s rights? Or at the very least pretend to support Israel to appear more centrist while stopping the genocide instead of pretending to support Palestinians then handing Israel tons of weapons? Plus it seems like many voters are more concerned about our own economy than what’s happening on the other side of the world, so regarding combining pro-Palestine with their current economic policies I don’t see how that would be a big issue in attracting undecided voters. The only real obstacle I can think of here is donors and the media beholding the party to their interests, which is a much bigger problem than just the electoral college.
Edit: Wait I think I misread your post, I assumed you were talking about swing states controlling the outcome not the electors themselves.
I wonder if there’s some misunderstanding on your part about the electoral college or if I’m just not interpreting your phrasing correctly. It’s not an entity to appeal to, it’s a flawed system that has subsets of the popular vote represented by electors who are pledged to a certain candidate.
So I can say now with certainty that you’re not clear on how the EC works in the US. Unless there is a faithless elector, the chosen electors represent the majority vote in their state (or district, in the case of Maine and Nebraska). Some states, due to higher population, have a greater number of voters represented by each elector.
The EC has no mandate to follow the national popular vote. That is by design. Electors sent to the EC are beholden to the popular vote in their state (or district).
Campaigns do not directly court the EC, but they do game the system by focusing on states with a large number of electors and traditionally narrow margins in the popular vote. That’s where we get the term “battleground states.”
So the “for whatever reason” you allude to in 2016 was absolutely for a known reason: Clinton won in heavily lopsided blue states with high populations while losing in lower population red states and closely contested swing states. Faithless electors did come into play that year, but their impact was negligible. Clinton lost handily in the EC despite taking the popular vote.
It’s not that not don’t understand how things are supposed to work… it’s that fewer and fewer parts of the government are functioning free of corruption.
Forgive me for not assuming the electoral college is functioning outside of that type of influence.
Learning how things actually function vs what we were taught are two different things.
This isn’t a matter of “how things actually function vs what we were taught.” You’re wondering why the EC didn’t respect the popular vote in 2016 and speaking of it as an entity to be swayed. The EC for this election does not exist yet. It has not been selected.
The degree of “influence” you suggest would require potential sworn electors to already be compromised before being selected. That suggests that you believe Democrats at the state level, who have been chosen as potential electors by the party itself, have been influenced to vote for someone other than their party’s candidate.
Both your questioning of why the EC didn’t follow the popular vote and your implication that Harris would somehow lose party support to such a degree that slates of electors chosen by the Democratic party would cast their votes for a non-Democrat indicate that you don’t completely grasp how the EC works either by design or in practice.
Not knowing something is fine, especially something as convoluted as the EC. But there comes a point when it’s probably best to admit, at least to yourself, that you had only a partial understanding of a process. Otherwise, how can you ever learn?
I just did. I think they should cave (and vote Harris), but the rest of the crowd needs to spend time on drawing concessions from Harris instead of alienating the left. It might just be that the dems are way past redemption with their recent Liz Cheney tours.
we’ve been holding our nose and voting for democrats this entire time and now our choices has descended into choosing between an active genocider and someone who wishes that they were.
each time we’ve descended into a madness into this country; there’s been another crazier level that we squabble about, but end up it doing anyways because democrats are the lesser evil; i don’t want to know what’s crazier than a genocide.
if you’re not american or western european; you too should be wondering what’s crazier than genocide for the world’s only super power to consider and enact because it will happen if we can’t change our political trajectory.
there are plenty of ideas and many of them have been enacted by other countries; the problem is that both the democrats and republicans are effective at suppressing them to maintain their duopoly.
ideas that we can do now are also shared and just as suppressed as any of the others.
the one i’m going to do is voting third party. i live in a state that will never vote for a republican so a third party vote has no bearing on cheeto hitler’s re-election. the american voting system is setup so that, even if it voted for trump, it still wouldn’t matter in my state.
I respect your choice and conviction to “let it all burn”, and without people like you there would never be incentive for the Dems to move left. That said, this is not the action I would take, there are far too many things wrong with the Rs right now.
the republicans are predictable and their descent into madness was easy to see for the last 60 years, since goldwater.
the democrats are more troublesome partially because they have the ability to be better and extol the better aspects of humanity; but don’t for the money and for a team win at all costs; especially the cost of caving in on every single one of your principles just to beat the republicans who don’t give af about principles. the republicans pretend they do care about principles, but only as a means to keep misleading their voter base and now it’s the same with the democrats too.
i can’t convince myself they’re the lesser evil anymore when they nakedly do the same things and are actively enabling a genocide.
americans have committed MANY documented genocides and most of them were committed on the the people i descend from; i refuse to participate in perpetuating this generational trauma just so that a couple hundred rich people can keep getting richer.
it’s not a team sport for me like it is for you and also not about making the dems move left; it’s about not repeating the history that turned me into a vulnerable minority and, most importantly, not helping inflict it on others in the name of the almighty dollar and a blue team win. you can try to convince yourself that voting democrat is the best course of action; but most of us here, especially me, have been doing that for the last 60 years and here we are, deciding between an active genocider and someone who wishes they were.
up until now i’ve held my nose to vote for democrats and now genocide is a line that’s too far for me. if we continue to participate in the same form we are now, it continue will get worse as it has been for the last 60 years.
Let me take a stab at this. As a non American non voter who is interested in the outcome of the election.
There are 3 parties to this discussion: the Harris campaign (Democrats in general), the Gaza issue voter, and the lesser evil voters.
The Gaza issue voters clearly believe a genocide is occuring, sometimes affecting them personally, and funded by their tax dollars. They would like some concessions from the Dems (the only likely party to take any action) and their only bargaining chip is their vote. It is clear to me that, if a large number of Americans felt strongly and this way, action would happen.
The Harris campaign has been non responsive on this issue, trying to tread the thin line, where they not only look powerless politically, but also unwilling to take a moral stand for what is right.
The lesser evil voters are absolutely correct that she is still better than Trump, and in more ways than just Middle east.
What I think all 3 parties need to do:
The lesser evil camp, instead of mocking the hold outs, needs to pressure the Harris campaign to make a change. Maybe even join them! (See the last point)
The Harris campaign, needs to think long and hard about what they stand for, and the implications of the Republican-lite gamble paying off. There needs to be some fear of losing voters who they cannot take for granted as they shift to the right.
Finally the Gaza voters. Its fine to play the game of chicken, keep screaming as loud as you can demanding change, but ultimately (secretly) get to the ballot and vote D.
The problem is that any stance on Isreal/Gaza by a Democrat will lose them votes. Hence, the wishy-washy, trying to thread the middle, not really saying anything tactic.
Yes the problem is that the GOP is the hard right nationalists, and people who have put everything on earth below one specific issue the GOP supports. The DNC is made of everyone else. It is much harder to work with a constituency that is not in any type of alignment.
Harris has said plenty on gaza. she supports israel.
There’s a reason the Democrats always end up tilting right and trying to court some moderate Republicans. There’s a reason Harris is spending her efforts trying to pick off some moderate Republicans in the suburbs rather than trying to appease the hard left.
The problem with the hard left voters is that they are fickle and contrarian by nature. Yes, they’re talking about Palestine this year, but that’s just the cause of the day. The truth is, many on the left will simply look for any excuse not to sully their precious clean hands by voting for a mainstream liberal party. They look for an excuse, any excuse will do. And every four year, they find one. For Kamala it’s Gaza. For Biden it was the Crime Bill. For Hillary it was Bernie. There’s always some grievance the far left reactionaries will find, their precious excuse not to be one of the normies and vote for the mainstream candidate. They’re professional contrarians to the core. They start with the end goal - be a cool outsider above the sludge of normal average politics. And then they work backwards from there. Gaza is simply the cause of the day.
Note, this doesn’t happen with the far right. The far right instead recognizes that it’s better to support the mainstream right party, but to work continuously to pull them further and further to the extreme. This strategy is why they’ve been far more successful than the far left. The far right holds their nose, votes for the mainstream candidate, and works to pull the party further to the right in the future. The far left stamps their feet, demands perfection, and takes their ball and goes home. They always find an excuse to not participate. Ultimately, they just want to be the cool kids that are too cool to participate in the normie fight. They will always find an excuse not to support the Democratic candidate. They’re petulant children, not voters candidates can actually appeal to.
This is why Dems always pander to the right. It’s simply a better strategy. Far left voters are fickle, unreliable, and will always invent a new purity test. They’re ultimately politically irrelevant, and they have no one but themselves to blame.
Thank you for so eloquently expressing this (and not just the part I’ve quoted… the whole thing). I wish more people would read and consider what you’ve written here.
I disagee a bit here. The reason democrats shift to the right is not because of some intrinsic values and republicans and democrats carry. It is due to the sustained (false or cherry picked) propaganda by the right to create issues from nothing (migrant crime, trans issues), and the lack of response by the democrats to this messaging. Mind you Im not talking about the Election cycle, Im talking about the 3 years in between. The reason they didnt tilt right towards issues like abortion is because we have been hammering the counter message for 2 or 3 years, ever since Roe is overturned.
When youve already ceded ground with the public perception that we have immigrant crime, you have no option but to tackle the “perceived” problem by being tough on immigration.
This is complete trash. There are not 3 issue voters here. There are two. A non-vote for Harris is a full vote for greater support for genocide. A vote for Harris has a chance to change that. Any other thoughts on it are completely ridiculous.
…did…you read what I said?
How is voting for pro-genocide Harris going to reduce genocide?
If you have to choose between losing a hand and losing a whole arm, the correct choice isn’t choosing the hand, it’s fighting back against the system that forces you to make that choice.
Because genocide support from the US under Trump is likely to be substantially worse than it is under a democrat government.
Your metaphor makes no sense because you can both vote for a lesser evil and take action against genocide in lots of other ways (voting isn’t the only thing you can do)
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I feel like I’m seeing that attitude a lot. I guess some other people also feel it, but worry that expressing it will reduce the dem vote. Which is unfortunate, but also understandable.
I’m not american, fwiw
So for political benefit we should suppress discussion of american complicity in genocide? I’m not sure that qualifies as understandable.
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Lmao .world’s censorship is completely ridiculous.
Can anyone explain what part of this, or her other comment that got removed, constitutes “misinformation?”
And the solution to the trolley problem is obviously to stop the trolley from running over anyone. Thank you for solving this philosophical problem.
This isn’t a philosophical thought experiment. If there was a real life trolley problem, the solution is to find a way to stop the fucking train, isn’t it?
And the solution to the electoral college is to just fucking abolish it? I didn’t know it was this easy! Surely any second the system decides to abolish itself! Any second now…
Unless you abolish the system before the November election, either Trump or Harris will become US president. It is mathematical certainty in the same way that neither Harris nor Trump will be teleported to Mars through spontaneous quantum tunneling.
The problem isn’t the fucking electoral college. That’s a smokescreen for the real issues at play.
Like it or not, if you vote for Harris, you are complicit in genocide. If you don’t like that, I strongly suggest doing something other than sitting around telling people on the Internet that they’re wrong for having morals which do not align with your own.
I will never vote for Harris for I am not allowed to do so.
By paying taxes in the US you are far more complicit in enabling genocide by the way. How many shells have you personally financed - including through your productivity when working - may I ask? Obviously you can choose to stop paying taxes and go to prison to become a financial burden. They can’t arrest everyone, can they? Clearly that’s the answer.
Every single US citizen is enabling genocide. The question is how you will stop it. And it most certainly won’t be through making a cross on a piece of paper every 4 years.
And if you have the ability to vote in the US election and don’t or vote third party, you are complicit in everything the winner does. Like it or not, your choice enabled their presidency.
The trolley problem, where the person who is a murderer is the lever puller rather than whoever tied people to the tracks in the first place.
I think people are abusing that thought experiment a bit.
The people tied on the track-thing is somewhat new, the original was with a runaway trolley and workers on either track.
Wouldnt it still ultimately be someone’s responsibility they were there with no way to get out, or negligence?
This sounds like the meme.
“You might lose your whole arm, instead of an hand, but that is a sacrifice that I am willing to take.”
Also false dichotomy. You can vote Harris and protest. You could literally vote for Harris and join a violent militia group to overthrow Harris.
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My brother in Christ, it is an analogy. You cannot piss and moan about how anyone who doesn’t support Kamala, implicitly supports Trump, and then tell me that my analogy for how stupid that false dichotomy is, is itself a false dichotomy. I do not understand.
You think I missed the analogy? No, I used your analogy and it works perfectly fine. If you want to drop the analogy because you don’t think the analogy is good, be my guest. Tell me how that counters my point.
I don’t know if you know but due to the fact that the USA is a joke democracy, it sadly isn’t a false dichotomy. Unless you think, you can change NOW (as you don’t have the time to do it later) more than half of the citizens’ opinion and get a 3rd party candidate in power. Which is obviously realistic…
Where did they say the intention is for a third party to win this election?
Also just because you don’t understand the conversation doesnt mean you should be sarcastic and rude. Overaggressive democrat voters is sort of the joke here in the first place.
You are right… They talking about voting for Harris would be like cutting of a hand and implying that voting for trump is like cutting of a arm; and instead of choosing one of them, one should fight the System; certainly doesn’t carry the implication that one should vote third party.
But I am wondering what am I not understanding about the conversation?
There are multiple ways to “fight”, third party is one version of it. Obviously each group is going to think their plan makes most sense.
The bottom line is we all agree its a broken system run by psychopathic people, so maybe don’t point the blame at those who are trying to change things in good faith.
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Germans? So because Germany is supportive, Germans are? So us citizens are supportive?
I am not American, don’t worry. But why would that make me a cunt?
Also why wouldn’t I listen to opinions that I disagree with? Do I need to be afraid of them? I can read “mein Kampf” without becoming a Nazi. I recommend you to listen to opinions different your own. Then you are prepared to call people out on their bs because you know the bs to Beginn with.
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You wrote “Germans”, I point out that treating a whole country as if they all have 1 opinion, is ridiculous. And then your counter is that?
Yes, Germany is a democracy. That doesn’t mean shit though. There are many different reasons for voting for a party and in the last election, “should Israel commit a genocide?” Wasn’t part of the discussion. So maybe the people in power don’t align with their voters on that issue. But even if it was part of the discussion, so are many different things. So in 2021, Germans might have their reasons to vote for people that they would disagree with now. Democracies are flawed, like any other system of governance.
As I am not German, I don’t want to speak for them, if you are looking for an opinion
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Its not a false dichotomy, as the choice is trump or biden and you can only vote for one.
You also would be better off thinking about what the person wrote instead of parroting back a meme that uses similar words.
Not even sure where you think that comes from because its either horribly misquoted or its literally not a common saying.
You seem to misunderstand. I am not saying trump or Harris (not Biden) is a false dichotomy. I am saying, voting for Harris and fighting the system is a false dichotomy. Regardless of whether or not Harris is part of the system, you can vote Harris and protest the system.
I did think about what they said. They affectively say, I am willing to risk trump in a seemingly close election between trump and Harris because both are supportive of Israel and therefore they want to vote for a 3rd party candidate. So they are saying on a response to a post which is the meme in question, they are willing to risk a man who said that the IDF has to finish up and finish what they started because then he can feel better about his vote.
I am not sure what quote you mean.
People are able to think past four years. Contributing to the current system ensures it will continue on.
You don’t vote against candidates you vote for them. Thats the crux of this problem. We are picking between who’s worst because thats culturally where america is.
Anyone who votes for their favorite candidate is doing it right. Anyone who votes to hurt another candidate is doing it wrong.
Please look into how the us election works and tell me again that it is cultural.
The us system is so broken that splitting the vote is a reality. If you believe that Harris is more your candidate than trump than voting third party makes it more likely than trump wins. That is sad reality. Voting third party is voting against your own best interest.
I feel bad for Americans but the land of the free doesn’t let you vote who you like but forces you to vote against who you hate.
Also what quote did you mean? I am still looking for an answer.
This part: “You might lose your whole arm, instead of an hand, but that is a sacrifice that I am willing to take.”
The point here is that for most of these third party voters, the democrat and the republican are equally awful. There is no accidentally helping the opposition because both parties are the opposition.
A big problem is democrats acting like there is no comparison between them and the republicans. The democrats do awful stuff too, they have better PR and lawyers though.
And far more simply, if the democrats are currently helping kill your family and friends in your homeland, how could ou possibly argue they should vote democrat? Would you in their position?
If its not possible for her to gain more votes than she loses by taking a stance of peace, then thats not the fault of third party voters.
Demecrats should also focus on rural issues more. The city voters are all already democrat and the biggest gains come from appealing to issues of rural voters that increasingly feel as an afterthought of the democrat party.
Agricultural subsidies for owner operated farms is for example is a good policy. Solar panel loans where you use the savings on them to pay them back is another.
That reduces food and power prices then you also need a housing policy.
This is how you destroy your credibility and ensure you won’t be listened to on anything. The Democrats count on the two party system (which they are responsible for, in part) to make us fall in line. They’re not going to shift on anything so long as they can write off our objections as empty rhetoric, so long as they can make calculations based on the assumption that we will ultimately fall in line.
By this point, it’s too late. Probably already too late now.
You dumb fucks never realized that your true power is NOT your votes. It’s your voice. It’s the power to convince people to stay home. And you just… kept doing that. There’s no threat to be made; the act of making the threat IS the damage.
I’m so tired dude. At least in a month most of you will forget all about Gaza and I won’t have to hear about it anymore.
Im not sure I understand. Are you comfortable with Harris’ right shift being uncontested by anyone on the left?
In the primary? Contest away.
In the general? Fuck that, fall in line. Any blue is better than literal, actual Nazis.
If the nominee was Bernie, I’d be out there bashing any salty Kamala-or-bust people.
the lesser evil camp refuses to pressure the harris campaign and the harris campaign refuses to self reflect on their republican lite gamble; but the gaza voters should give up their only bargaining chip and vote for them anyways?
I doubt the Democrats will learn their lesson when they lose. They didn’t became more progressive when Hillary lost when the Bernie voters stayed home. The only shift to the left in the party that happened was when incumbent democrats got replaced by outsiders like AOC. So if you want to punish Democrats do it during a primary and vote an incumbent out.
So much this. They will go where the votes are.
People who are so worried about their left wing voter purity to vote Dem when the alternative is explicitly fascist are going to come across as unwinnable as voters and will have no effect whatsoever on Dem strategizing any more than insane racists who vote for Trump because they like the idea of mass deportation of all the ethnic minorities in the USA; the kind that tell Native Americans to go back to their own country are not worth the Dems pursuing on policy grounds either.
If your vote is clearly unwinnable and you chose the greater evil from some sort of backwards purity argument, what good is being better than the Republicans on policy grounds for winning your vote?
It is not winning elections that forces the Democrats right, it is losing to the right that forces the Democrats right, you know, to get the votes they have a hope of getting.
It might not matter anyway, because Trump told a rally a while back that if he was elected, they wouldn’t have to vote again and since then has accused Harris of planning to end democracy, and pretty much every accusation from Trump is to cover for an admission. Project 25 is grim reading for anyone who likes freedom.
So yeah, people who vote in a way that makes things worse for Gaza are putting electoral pressure on the Democrats to support the genocide, because calling for ceasefire, agreeing with Gaza protestors at rallies and putting diplomatic pressure on Netanyahu aren’t enough to get votes for Harris, but are sadly enough to lose her votes from “centrists”.
So if you listen to the “genocidal vice president” folks, and ignore the “finish them” “best King of Israel” Republicans, your third party vote or abstention actually encourages the genocide and in your twisted logic you think that people who care about Gaza choosing to not affect the presidency somehow affects it, and that the country choosing the more genocidal candidate will somehow be interpreted as the people not wanting genocide.
americans have committed lots of documented genocides and it’s about not perpetuating them as someone who descends from the survivors of those genocides.
i do not want to help create another vulnerable minority for the sake of the almighty dollar and a blue team win.
you can try to convince yourself that democrats are the lesser evil, as we’ve all been doing here for generations; yet here we nonetheless given a choice between an active genocider and someone who wishes they were.
the democrat’s movement right wards guarantees that it will continue to get worse and i don’t want to know what’s worse than genocide that everyone ignores.
Yes. That’s how the two party system works. Dems are still miles better than Republicans on the issue, and thus don’t need to improve. It sucks, but that’s the hand that’s been dealt I don’t see any better strategy to help the people of Gaza. If you see one, feel free to share.
There’s also the fact that Harris has to appeal to the electoral college. She’s not just trying to win our votes.
If she took a firm stance on stopping the killing in Gaza the electoral college could very easily hand their votes to trump. Like they did in 2016.
I’m fairly certain it’s a big contributing factor as to why democrats keep inching to the right on certain issues. The electoral college has too much power. At the end of the day it’s their votes that count, so Harris has to appeal to them too.
Why couldn’t they do a better job pushing Palestine as a civil rights issue and raising awareness among their voter base like they’ve successfully done with LGBTQ and women’s rights? Or at the very least pretend to support Israel to appear more centrist while stopping the genocide instead of pretending to support Palestinians then handing Israel tons of weapons? Plus it seems like many voters are more concerned about our own economy than what’s happening on the other side of the world, so regarding combining pro-Palestine with their current economic policies I don’t see how that would be a big issue in attracting undecided voters. The only real obstacle I can think of here is donors and the media beholding the party to their interests, which is a much bigger problem than just the electoral college.
Edit: Wait I think I misread your post, I assumed you were talking about swing states controlling the outcome not the electors themselves.
I wonder if there’s some misunderstanding on your part about the electoral college or if I’m just not interpreting your phrasing correctly. It’s not an entity to appeal to, it’s a flawed system that has subsets of the popular vote represented by electors who are pledged to a certain candidate.
The whole system is basically fucked. The Supreme Court can be bought and so can other politicians via “gratuities”… including the electoral college.
They already did not honor the popular vote in 2016 for whatever reason, and it’s not the first time it’s happened in recent history.
I can imagine Harris doesn’t want to give them anymore reason to just say fuck it and hand us another trump presidency.
So I can say now with certainty that you’re not clear on how the EC works in the US. Unless there is a faithless elector, the chosen electors represent the majority vote in their state (or district, in the case of Maine and Nebraska). Some states, due to higher population, have a greater number of voters represented by each elector.
The EC has no mandate to follow the national popular vote. That is by design. Electors sent to the EC are beholden to the popular vote in their state (or district).
Campaigns do not directly court the EC, but they do game the system by focusing on states with a large number of electors and traditionally narrow margins in the popular vote. That’s where we get the term “battleground states.”
So the “for whatever reason” you allude to in 2016 was absolutely for a known reason: Clinton won in heavily lopsided blue states with high populations while losing in lower population red states and closely contested swing states. Faithless electors did come into play that year, but their impact was negligible. Clinton lost handily in the EC despite taking the popular vote.
It’s not that not don’t understand how things are supposed to work… it’s that fewer and fewer parts of the government are functioning free of corruption.
Forgive me for not assuming the electoral college is functioning outside of that type of influence.
Learning how things actually function vs what we were taught are two different things.
This isn’t a matter of “how things actually function vs what we were taught.” You’re wondering why the EC didn’t respect the popular vote in 2016 and speaking of it as an entity to be swayed. The EC for this election does not exist yet. It has not been selected.
The degree of “influence” you suggest would require potential sworn electors to already be compromised before being selected. That suggests that you believe Democrats at the state level, who have been chosen as potential electors by the party itself, have been influenced to vote for someone other than their party’s candidate.
Both your questioning of why the EC didn’t follow the popular vote and your implication that Harris would somehow lose party support to such a degree that slates of electors chosen by the Democratic party would cast their votes for a non-Democrat indicate that you don’t completely grasp how the EC works either by design or in practice.
Not knowing something is fine, especially something as convoluted as the EC. But there comes a point when it’s probably best to admit, at least to yourself, that you had only a partial understanding of a process. Otherwise, how can you ever learn?
I just did. I think they should cave (and vote Harris), but the rest of the crowd needs to spend time on drawing concessions from Harris instead of alienating the left. It might just be that the dems are way past redemption with their recent Liz Cheney tours.
we’ve been holding our nose and voting for democrats this entire time and now our choices has descended into choosing between an active genocider and someone who wishes that they were.
each time we’ve descended into a madness into this country; there’s been another crazier level that we squabble about, but end up it doing anyways because democrats are the lesser evil; i don’t want to know what’s crazier than a genocide.
if you’re not american or western european; you too should be wondering what’s crazier than genocide for the world’s only super power to consider and enact because it will happen if we can’t change our political trajectory.
Do you have a better idea, though?
there are plenty of ideas and many of them have been enacted by other countries; the problem is that both the democrats and republicans are effective at suppressing them to maintain their duopoly.
A better idea about what should be done now. Everybody knows that things could be better.
ideas that we can do now are also shared and just as suppressed as any of the others.
the one i’m going to do is voting third party. i live in a state that will never vote for a republican so a third party vote has no bearing on cheeto hitler’s re-election. the american voting system is setup so that, even if it voted for trump, it still wouldn’t matter in my state.
I respect your choice and conviction to “let it all burn”, and without people like you there would never be incentive for the Dems to move left. That said, this is not the action I would take, there are far too many things wrong with the Rs right now.
the republicans are predictable and their descent into madness was easy to see for the last 60 years, since goldwater.
the democrats are more troublesome partially because they have the ability to be better and extol the better aspects of humanity; but don’t for the money and for a team win at all costs; especially the cost of caving in on every single one of your principles just to beat the republicans who don’t give af about principles. the republicans pretend they do care about principles, but only as a means to keep misleading their voter base and now it’s the same with the democrats too.
i can’t convince myself they’re the lesser evil anymore when they nakedly do the same things and are actively enabling a genocide.
americans have committed MANY documented genocides and most of them were committed on the the people i descend from; i refuse to participate in perpetuating this generational trauma just so that a couple hundred rich people can keep getting richer.
it’s not a team sport for me like it is for you and also not about making the dems move left; it’s about not repeating the history that turned me into a vulnerable minority and, most importantly, not helping inflict it on others in the name of the almighty dollar and a blue team win. you can try to convince yourself that voting democrat is the best course of action; but most of us here, especially me, have been doing that for the last 60 years and here we are, deciding between an active genocider and someone who wishes they were.
up until now i’ve held my nose to vote for democrats and now genocide is a line that’s too far for me. if we continue to participate in the same form we are now, it continue will get worse as it has been for the last 60 years.
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