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ya, but did she really flip burgers...?
(lemmy.ca)
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this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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and also still have the same genocide happening, plus even more acts of war to boot
I'd argue a worse genocide.
Dems were stuck on "but but Israel is an ally" and tried to gently suggest that they stop. But Biden did take some action. The US even built a port to send in aid. Now obviously we had the power to stop sending Israel money and supporting them. That's where they failed.
Trump however just said good work and keep it up. He's encouraged Israel to go faster and joked about how great the strip will be once it's freely developed real estate.
So yeah, one of these is clearly a worse option
Here's another hypothetical for you. Two people are given $100 to split, one person makes the offer on how to split it, and the other chooses to accept or decline. If they decline, nobody gets anything.
Rationally, the way this plays out is that the first person offers a $99-$1 split, and the other person accepts, because $1>$0. But when researchers have actually run this experiment, they've found that people tend to reject offers below $30-$40, and people tend to make offers accounting for that. Somehow, the "irrational" behavior results in a more optimal outcome.
Once upon a time, in the New Deal era, Democrats offered something closer to $30-$40. But somewhere along the line, people started employing this "lesser evil" nonsense, and the offers got worse and worse. Now, we're past the point where they even offer us $1. Now they offer us "We'll still commit genocide, but slightly less."
I'm completely baffled by how anyone can still be committed to this clearly failed and irrational strategy of "lesser evilism." Even if you personally think it's the right move, surely you must at least understand that this isn't how other people are going to behave.
If what you're seeing doesn't make sense, maybe the problem is in your interpretation?
It sounds like you see R promising "bad thing" and D promising "less-bad thing, but we will move right next time" and so you want to just give up because both options are bad.
But I think this involves viewing the parties as monolithic entities that you have no control over (as seen in "the Democratic Part Elite kept out Bernie") when they're actually just composed of people. An important factor is that the American people on average are much more conservative/authoritarian/pro-corporation than typical Europeans. Somewhat by history, somewhat by US-sourced indoctrination, somewhat by foreign-sourced indoctrination.
When I see real-life progressives, they're always taking the most-progressive available action of the moment. In the moment of a US presidential election in a swing state, that most-progressive action may be voting for the slightly-less-bad candidate. But voting for a candidate doesn't tie them to that candidate's policies and they can spend the majority of their time and effort focused on progress.
When I see online progressives(?), they're primarily concerned with giving up: tearing down other progressives' efforts because they're not progressive enough but not offering an alternative. The result of this, intended or not, is a populous who doesn't offer resistance to authoritarianism and probably welcomes it in the end.
There's nothing "progressive" about supporting genocide.
From the moment I reached the age of reason, I was outraged at the pointless wars of aggression being waged in the Middle East, wars that were supported by the vast majority of the Democratic party. Even when we got a supposedly "progressive" president, Obama, he doubled down on the killing and bloodshed. For twenty years I have been told this lesser evilist nonsense, as the bodies piled higher and higher. Then, almost as soon as the bipartisan forever wars came to a close, they merely shifted focus to killing other Middle Easterners in Palestine through the proxy of Israel, at an even greater intensity than before. Twenty years of patiently waiting, twenty years of no progress being made whatsoever, twenty years of killing for no benefit to anyone but arms manufactures and oil companies, twenty years of Americans never getting a real chance to vote on whether it should continue because both parties supported it, and you have the audacity to call yourself a progressive, and to attack me as not a real progressive, when you're the one that's perfectly fine with that?
Maybe you should have been doing something other than waiting patiently for twenty years. I don't know why people expect something to happen when they do nothing.
The bus was headed off a cliff regardless of who got elected.
There is no easy fix and no strategy that's actually likely to work. What we need is an actual left-wing party. We can either try to push the Democrats in that direction, which fundamentally requires holding them to some basic standard and disciplining them when they fail to live up to it, or we can form a new party from the ground up. Both of those strategies are furthered by voting third party. Of course, there are also strategies that don't rely on electoralism, such as a general strike, but this is also furthered by supporting a third party like PSL which engages in and promotes direct action.
You're fucking up your own metaphor now because the Dems would have been the ditch crash which is better than the total destruction of driving off the cliff. But it doesn't matter what anyone says you'll just both sides it.
That's not the situation. One says that he'll shoot me and my whole family, the other says she'll shoot me and my whole family with a rainbow painted gun.
Frankly, I think every president since at least Bush has been a fascist dictator. Everything that Trump is able to do now is because of the massive expansion of executive power and the massive curtailing of civil rights that happened after 9/11 with full bipartisan support, and the democratic presidents since then have done nothing to rein in or revoke those powers.
Meanwhile, economic conditions have gotten worse and worse, leading to a rise in political extremism, which has no outlet except for the right. Maintaining the status quo is suicide, it guarantees that we will continue sliding into fascism.
The only option is to push for an alternative, no matter how desperate it is. Every political movement starts somewhere.
The thing that a lot of people seem to be having trouble grasping is that when voters tell you what they want, and you tell those voters to fuck off, some of those voters won't vote for you. This is the simple reality of politics, it's how it has always worked, it's how it will always work. This is true everywhere, not just the US.
It is not the job of voters to elect democrats, it's the job of the democrats to win votes. They fucked up and they are to blame more than anyone who sat out the election or voted for a 3rd party.
Right, and my point is that the bus is still headed off the cliff because of the failure of democrats.
Look, let's rewind a little bit. Your analogy is about the 2024 election. You say the democrats are saying they want to crash it into a ditch, and if that the democrats don't get charge of the bus, the bus is headed off the cliff. But, at the time of the 2024 election, who was currently in charge of the bus? Who had been in charge of the bus for the past 4 years?
As an American, let me be very clear here. Americans, as a whole, are very, very, very dumb. And dumb people operate almost entirely based off their feelings, not their intellect.
To a dumb person, yeah, harm reduction is actually a difficult concept to wrap their mind around.
I've been here my whole life, and honestly, there really are just a lot of dumb people here. Which is why I don't really see any of this getting better after Trump is gone. We'll just keep making dumb decisions because dumb people make dumb decisions.
And the wholesale destruction of USAID and PEPFAR means people are simultaneously starving to death in chunks of the world, not getting vaccines, and also not getting HIV prevention meds, which means long term, HIV infection is going to increase worldwide over time. That is going to be a massive, silent genocide that will be orders of magnitude worse, but largely undocumented.
That was a serious, serious fuckup on voters parts. Not to mention massive cuts to everyday things like critical medical R&D, science R&D, disaster preparedness, NASA, department of education, PBS and Corp for public broadcasting, department of health, FDA + food safety programs, and many other programs that people take for granted without thinking (housing grants for home buying, federal student loans, food stamps, weather prediction for natural disasters, Medicare/ACA/Medicaid, etc)
His cuts to the IRS are going to result in less money for shit like bridges, roads, and electrical grids too.
Yes, he took the action of sending them even more weapons than what congress had appropriated.
They built a port and when Israel told them the exact same thing they told everyone else, that they wouldn't allow aid, they closed the port, accomplishing nothing in a way that was extremely predicable. It never had any purpose other than scoring political points. They got month of pretending it was going to do something out of it, and people like you are still citing it.
Thank goodness Trump stopped that, oh wait
Also you ever notice that people barely talk about the genocide anymore?
We know there's no way to change Trump's opinion on Palestine, and now we are fully focused on stopping him from starting new wars or sending ICE around the country to murder dissenters. Those that cared now have to focus on pressing domestic issues. If Kamala was president we'd still be focused on ending the genocide and there was at least a chance there would have been an end or progress, but now the current trajectory is the genocide will not be stopped and we'll probably not have elections again
There was no way of "changing Kamala's mind." If there was, it would have been through exerting pressure before the election. Once she knew that pro-Palestine people would fall in line even when she was 100% pro-Israel, she would have absolutely no reason to change positions, if anything, she'd be more likely to become more pro-Israel, because the pro-Israel voters would be more likely to be swing voters. This is why the ideology of "lesser-evilism" is fundamentally incorrect, and how it led to politics shifting further and further right to the point we're at now.
Please explain exactly what mechanism do you think could've been employed to change her mind. Protests? There were widespread campus protests during the election season, and she still didn't respond to them at all.
And why would she? The left has a proven track record of falling in line behind the lesser evil, no matter how much bluster there might be. Based on that assumption, the politically smart move (if all you care about is winning elections) is to completely ignore all of the left's demands and keep moving further and further right forever. Now, we have something to show that our words are not meaningless, hollow threats. If there is any possibility of stopping the rightward shift through electoralism, this is it.
Obviously we will. Not that it will matter, because the two party system is completely fucked and y'all refuse to do anything about it.
Damn you people are dense. It's not like the sitting president has been talking about canceling elections....oh wait
All you voting objectors did was lead to more dead minorities. The people Trump's new Reich is targeting. We have a fascist military in our streets killing people and all you can do is still whine about how Kamala was flawed.
Obviously, you can't be reasoned with, so I won't bother. Just know that I'm just as committed to my approach as ever.
When the next election happens (after you wipe the egg off your face) I suggest you take into account that people like me exist, and that we're not bluffing, and we're not going to "come to our senses," and you should factor that into your evaluation of which candidates are actually electable.
I'll take egg on my face over blood on my hands.
Here the a list of those you helped ice murder
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/04/ice-2025-deaths-timeline
I didn't help ICE murder anyone. Is Claudia de la Cruz ordering the raids?
You, on the other hand, do have blood on your hands from the Palestinians you helped murder.
And this is our fundamental disagreement. No action I could take would have stopped the US's support of the genocide.
However there was 1 action that I chose to take that could have prevented those murders. You chose in-action resulting in more deaths
Found the simpleton unable to critically think that doesn't understand how not voting or voting for candidates that literally CANNOT win helps the worst candidate that CAN actually win.
The worst candidate who is now WAY, WAY worse for Palestinians.
Good job, kid.
EDIT: Oh Christ. You're from .ml. Now it's all starting to make sense.
Trust me, we know you exist. You're largely responsible for Trump being in power.
The irony.
Again, go get yourself enrolled in some world history classes.
Who did you vote for in 2024? Don't be shy.
Oof. What a trash take.
The person you're responding to literally points out that when a Democrat was president the focus was entirely on Israel/Palestine because people KNOW that Dems can be pressured by their base, which is exactly why Biden was replaced with Kamala. And they even point out that now there's basically zero focus on Israel/Palestine because everyone knows Republicans don't give a flying fuck about pressure regarding that subject, or really any subject.
Like, how much more do you need your hand held before grasping a basic concept?
Did...did you pass your world history classes? Do you have a firm grasp on world history?
All existing facts point to this administration working to erode our electoral institutions. All existing facts indicate that due to their existing crimes, and those they have yet to commit, the Trump administration will do whatever necessary to remain in power and avoid prison (or worse). You can absolutely expect martial law and an attempt to delay or outright cancel the elections come November 2027. And even worse in the few months between the election and inauguration if Dems somehow win those elections, if they even happen.
If you don't think it can happen here, you are a fool.
Oh well. At least Trump is our president now and everything in Palestine is so much better. Lolz.
Doesn't matter.
The people who voted 3rd party or didn't vote because they were mad about Israel only ever cared about their own personal feelings. If they actually gave a shit about Palestine, they would have made the decision that hurt them the least. That's not what they did.
It was all about their own satisfaction.
Sounds like these disgruntled non-voters hold the real key to American political power as they apparently hold sway over who wins and looses these general elections. Maybe the Dems should be more left-wing so that they can coax them back so we can win again.
What are you smoking! Trump forced ceasefires purely for optics reasons and trying to get a Nobel peace prize, but has demonstrated that the US president could have reigned in Israel at any time if they wanted. And even though the aid is still being restricted and Israel is still killing, despite the "ceasefire", it is still literally less than if the ceasefire didn't happen. Israel is literally the only issue that Trump comes out on top on. So quit using that as an example, since that is the only way Trump is better despite being terrible. It is the perfect example of Trump being a terrible fascist, but the Democrats made sure the bar was on the floor!