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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Want to hear something interesting though? Trump is actually not worse than Obama in every way.
Trump has deported 1.5 million people across all of his years in office so far. Want to guess how many Obama deported?
3 million.
So actually Trump is the lesser evil when it comes to deportations if you take this approach.
The reality is that they're both horrible but for different reasons.
I think that is a really gross thing to say from someone who didn't pay attention to the ongoing rapes of children in ICE concentration camps. I think that's a gross thing to say to the militarized presence of ICE kidnapping people as they left their court hearings to be here. I think that's a gross thing to say to the people attacked by ICE for protecting their neighbors. I think that's a gross thing to say to the people who got married and had to pick up their partner's green card because they were arresting them and shipping them all over the country.
To say that it's a smaller number is insane because it treats immigrants not as people that are still suffering right now (I have neighbors that still can't fucking go to work because ICE is still here), but as numbers and this one is smaller. That is such a dumb and pathetic argument that it shows you as hopelessly heartless or desperately dumb, and I don't thing it matters which is worse.
That's literally what harm reducer less evil people are saying. "Dropping 50 bombs is better than dropping 51 bombs" and "50 concentration camps is better than 51".
If you agree that reducing it down to just these raw numbers is disgusting, congratulations, you got the point! Lesser evil voting is pretty disgusting. Thank you for playing.
You just said 1.5 million apples are better than 3 million oranges.
So, you're not even right in that vein.
But, like, if they were the same degree wrong, 1.5 million would be better, right? Or do you disagree?
I disagree with the entire framing of harm reduction as a valid reason to vote for the lesser evil in elections. I think it's absurd and horribly wrong for exactly the reasons you stated. 1.5M is actually less than 3M, but that doesn't mean it's harm reduction.
Harm reduction doesn't always mean harm. It does eventually mean that things that do nothing are better than harm, and things that do more good are better than less good. But right now, harm is being caused no matter how you choose. So if you are forced to pick, you should pick less. Every time.
So.... all this is just what? Partisanism? You can't extend this to prison system and police killings? You can't extend this to the bombing and total destruction of sovereign nations? You can't extend this to shipping arms to genocidal regimes and protecting them in the UN? It's only valid harm reduction if you're voting for Democrats regardless of the active harm they do?
I mean, do you not see the contradiction in your own words here?
There is no contradiction. That 3 million number is bad, but it is still better than the 1.5 million number because of the methods used. Because prisoners didn't go down under Republicans. The prison system didn't get better under Republicans. Police killings didn't get better under Republicans. Like, I know it's gauche to try to compare hurt, but I do not see any Republicans calling for a rehabilitation system instead of a punitive system, but I do see some Democrats call for it, even if very few.
Like, it's sort of like telling me to pick between 1000 thefts being committed vs 100 murders, and, like, yeah, obviously I'll take 1000 thefts over the murders. I don't want either, but I have two fucking choices.
Which would you pick? Remember, there's quantitatively less crimes with the murders! Oh, you didn't pick? That just means someone else gets to pick for you.
It's nothing like this. You're literally doing the thing you said shouldn't be done. You think that because Trump made it visible, it's worse, and because Obama's deportations were less visible, they're better. That's essentially saying that the deciding factor is whether or not white people are made uncomfortable by it. Literally, you're saying Obama deporting twice as much people is still LESS BAD than Trump deporting half as many because we all have to see it happening on the streets instead of it happening quietly through the prison-industrial complex.
I think that's disgusting, quite frankly.
Trump has concentration camps where children are being raped and disappeared. Like systematically. As part of the deportation process. I do not think that is better. Do you think it is better? I think that is worse. Obama didn't have fucking goon squads kidnapping and shooting people in the streets, camping out at bus stops and churches. Like, I get that Obama was cruel, but he did not let ICE fuck children and shoot people with impunity. And that is the difference. And you are trying to pretend it is better to have the 1.5 million even if severalfold more of them are raped and murdered as a result. I think that's worse. Do you not?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10408271/
First line
Your study has a lot of issues, but mainly that it relies on data provided by ICE, but also that it does not clarify the difference in sexual assault under Obama vs. Under Trump. It could show a difference under Trump vs. Biden (or rather, Trump's first term), but I don't think you really read the report.
Regardless, there is currently ongoing rapes in concentration camps under Trump II, and a fuckton more than this study shows under both, so I really don't see how this proves me wrong. Thanks for confirmation.
You just can't seem to choose whether it's OK to quantify harm and advocate for harm reduction on that basis or whether harm is qualitative and cannot be reduced to simple numerical comparison.
Which is it: it's disgusting to the tell the victims of sexual violence under Obama and Biden that Trump is presiding over more of it and that's why it's OK to vote for Ds, or it's virtuous to vote lesser evil and harm reduction on a quantitative basis?
Did Biden prosecute the perpetrators of sexual violence against detained immigrants? Did he address the harm? Or did he ignore the harm?
It sounds to me like you are deeply attached to the idea that Democrats are NOT actively participating in the system and that the Republicans are. To me, the evidence is clear that this is a Good Cop / Bad Cop situation and they both work for the same department and you're just being duped by the routine.
No, I am taking a stance. You just don't like it. My stance is that voting Democrat won't save anyone, that the Democrats have demonstrated that they will not only oversee the same atrocities of the Republicans but that they will not punish the criminals and they will give the fascist more tools every time they get to elected. My stance is that the only way to protect our siblings and elders and children is to fight, in the streets, in the workplaces, in public, shut down the economy, and force the issue because historically it is the only thing that has ever worked in this country. Women's suffrage, labor rights, civil rights, and gay rights all came from riots and strikes, not from banging pots and voting.
I literally said what to do. Just because your brain blackholes it when you read it doesn't mean I didn't say what should be done.
Your softball is virtue signalling. Of Democrats don't say those things. They are the Good Cop in the system. Instead they say things like American politics should gate kept.
https://prospect.org/2026/06/12/new-documents-detail-nine-figure-silicon-valley-funded-abundance-movement/
The Democrats don't have to believe that women shouldn't vote, because the Republicans are doing it for them. The Democrats just sit there and do nothing to stop them. As we saw with Biden/Harris. They had the full unredacted Epstein Files. They did nothing with them. The Supreme Court said the POTUS could do anything they wanted to protect democracy. Biden said Trump was a threat to democracy. And then they all just let him run again. And then Biden refused to give Harris a chance to build a campaign until the last possible second. The Democrats CREATED this mess.
Trump's deportation czar in both terms was Tom Homan. Homan was an Obama appointee, which is why Obama deported 3m people, 100% more than Trump has deported. The use of ICE and BORTAC in US cities was created by Obama changing the structure of information sharing and coordination, increasing headcount, and inceasing budget. The Republicans are using the tools the Democrats created and the Democrats don't dismantle the tools when they get power. Instead, they enhance the tools and then act like it's the voter's fault when a Republican uses the tools.
If you can't see the PR bullshit of the Democrats, if you don't understand that they're the Good Cop, then you're the loser. You have an opportunity to fight your way out, but instead you're telling all of us that we should trust the Good Cop because he clearly is nice and isn't like the Bad Cop. That's loser behavior
You really are attached to your own world view, to the point where you can't understand anything anyone is saying to you.
This is as ridiculous as it is wrong.
Yes, lesser evil voting is useless and nonsensical. It's worse than useless. It's surrender.
My point is that lesser evil voting requires you to have some kind of way of assessing lesser evil and so many of the things people bring up as examples, like Trump deporting 1.5M people, are actually counter-examples to their own point because instead of actually examining evil and quantifying it they have literally no idea how bad the Democrats are and assume everything they here about Republicans is immediately worse. Showing everyone how bad the Democrats are is an attempt to break down the lesser evil belief and show how it's built entirely on false premises.
You could, but then we'd have to talk about how the Democrats literally said they wouldn't use remove the filibuster to save the courts, and then literally removed it later to raise the debt ceiling, demonstrating that the Democrats literally had the power to address the Supreme Court stacking and chose not to.
They don't actually.
Not in Trump v US they didn't. They established a clear framework for immunity and Biden could easily have operated within it. And even if he did, AND the Rs tried to take him to court AND the SCOTUS decided against Biden, it would have taken years, and Trump wouldn't be in office, and Biden would just as old and close to dying as he is now. Saying that SCOTUS is stacked by Rs and therefore everyone is powerless is loser behavior.
You clearly do not.
That's not at all how the analogy works. Good Cap / Bad Cop is a manipulation routine where two cops working the same case take up different roles. One is the Bad Cop, who threatens the suspect, hits them, insults them, takes or destroys their belongings, etc. The other is the Good Cop, who comforts the suspect, opens up to them about their own feelings, brings them good food and drink, promises to take care of them. The point of the Good Cop / Bad Cop routine is to manipulate someone into trusting the Good Cop.
The reason cops do this routine is because they work together for the same goal. This is the analogy for the Ds and the Rs. As structural parties, not as individuals, the parties play the roles of Good Cop / Bad Cop. One scares half the population while the other comforts that half. They switch places for the other half of the population. They look like enemies. But they work together, dine together, go to school together, car pool together, travel together, golf together, party together, play sports together. Their kids go to the same schools and play together. They are literally colleagues. And as a structure, both parties have shared goals - maintain US dominance abroad, maintain the wealth of the rich, prevent the masses from getting in the way.
Does that make sense to you? That you don't understand the Good Cop / Bad Cop analogy? That you didn't actually know what I was saying.
My logic says voting for the Democrats empowers the Republicans in next administration while maintaining the genocidal mass murdering authoritarian programs. Of the 10 countries the US basically completely demolished, 2 were exclusively presided over by Republican presidents and 2 were exclusively presided over by Democrat presidents. The rest were bi-partisan.
The School of the Americas that trained South American death squads, terrorists, and dictators was a bi-partisan project.
The US sanctions program has killed 40 million people over 50 years. 100% bi-partisan.
Does that not make sense to you? They are on the same team, with the same goals. They are playing you for a fool, just like the cops do when they want you to confess. The politicians are manipulating you into a single important position - don't fight back.
Yeah, you don't get it. I don't care who votes for whom. I care that people are wasting their effort, their organizing, and their relationships on voting. In this comment section alone, but of course all over the country, people are spending hours and hours arguing for the virtues of voting, of campaigning and door knocking, they make moral black and white statements like "if you didn't vote for X then you voted for Y", and people are saying so hard that things would be better if only everyone would just stop having standards and vote for genocidaires like it's literally the only valid moral position.
The problem isn't voting or not voting. The problem is that electorialism itself is a way to absorb the energy we need to fight back. The Democrats aren't saving our neighbors, we are by being in the streets. The Democrats who get minor reforms passed are either cynically attracting your attention or genuinely attracting your attention while being funded by cynical leaders who are just trying to keep all of the energy contained to electoralism.
The way we win is in the street. It always has been. We can go back through history and show how nearly everything worth having was won by people fighting, not by rock the vote campaigns.