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Funny how the usual suspects aren't in here complaining about this. Meanwhile, Joe Biden doesn't kowtow their every policy wish and he's the devil.
Nope, they'd rather scream about "not voting for the lesser of two evils" full well knowing that if they don't that the likelihood of Trump becoming president and having MUCH worse policies for the Palestinians becomes much greater.
But hey, why care about the realities of a situation when you can scream about principles or something?
Trump becoming president and having MUCH worse policies for the Palestinians becomes much greater.
Oh you mean Donald "Let's try to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because appearing neutral in the Israel/Palestine mess is hurting my chances of re-election" Trump? That guy? People actually think he's going to be better for Palestinians? Really?
I'm sorry that you think actually-murdered Gazans versus hypothetical future murders aren't "realities" to be considered, just principles, or that you think choosing between 2 people who both profess backing policies that will result in said murders, is a normal choice to be making as an electorate.
Trump should already be in prison, for any number of crimes. So should Biden. That neither are, is an indicator of how "well" our system is working.
There is a fine line between "working from within a system to change it" and "validating and reifying the system, by being a willing participant". If you are finding that your participation is not having the impact you intend, perhaps you should consider what side of that line you're actually on?
Also I guess losing the majority on SCOTUS and losing abortion rights was just a "hypothetical scenario" when people like you refused to vote for Hillary in 2016?
When will you people learn that, yes, elections have consequences.
Trying to pretend like they might not and Trump might somehow not be worse is being deliberately obtuse and sticking your head in the sand. Wake up and smell the reality.
Please tell me about your hypothetical future where you don't vote for Biden. Please explain to me what your best case scenario and outcome look like in that situation? Please tell me, what are you working towards?
Best case, a third party wins and starts to dismantle an empire. Realistic case is Biden or Trump win and my vote had nothing to do with it. Biden and Trump are both bad leaders. Deporting or silencing dissenters is bad leadership. I'm still not voting for Biden. Nice try though.
TL;DR: I'm not voting for Biden. I will be a spoiler if that's what you call it. The police response to protests is an example of policies Biden wants to keep funding. Biden and Trump can both be bad leaders.
Aside: Voting is entertaining, but work on your cardio. Build some communities. Life is going to get harder for working folk.
I understand the spoiler effect in first-past-the-post voting. Avoiding a voting system subject to the spoiler effect requires a rated voting system. Major reform is required to remove the spoiler effect from the voting system in the USA.
There are other logical problems with the spoiler effect in the USA however.
First, the popular vote is divorced from the Electoral College vote. Thereby, even if Tiger gets 15% of the vote the Electoral College representatives for that portion of the population may vote for Leopard.
Second, there is an assumption Tiger voters would vote for Leopard or Gorilla if Tiger was not an option. Voter turnout in 2020 was 66.8%. That means roughly a third of people chose not to vote. There is an argument to be made that this is also a spoiler, but combined that block could shift the outcome in Tiger's favor.
Third, "I'm not the other guy" is not a political platform. Biden pays lip service to protecting American Democracy which seems to be a conservative stance to maintain a voting system favoring the wealthy. Codifying Roe v. Wade is great, but could have been done at any time in the past. Separation of powers requires a Legislative branch that would work on such issues. Funding the police does not solve policing which leads to responses to protest like the George Floyd marches or recent campus violence.
I am sure there are other reasons to vote for Biden. The FTC fighting corruption under Lina Khan is one. Corporate bailouts opposing the neoliberal order, like CHIPS and Infrastructure, could be another.
I am unable to vote for mass murder. I am unable to vote for corporate bailouts. I am voting for Tiger.
I'm sorry, but this reply reeks of privilege. My reproductive freedom is on the ballot this year after already losing so much after SCOTUS was able to be stacked with conservative judges. If Trump wins, SCOTUS will forever be this way in my lifetime and my rights will erode even more as a woman. After the overturning of Roe, a 10 year old rape victim from Ohio and those who assisted her were harassed all due to providing her an abortion. States are disbanding maternal mortality boards or putting extremists over them. For the love of God, we are headed into a Handmaid's Tale if Trump is elected!
"Well the democrats should have encoded it." I literally don't care. That was then, this is now. Women are suffering now and the alternative will make it worse. When the Republican party wants to codify Christian sharia level law, that's an immediate danger to me and other women. We can't continue to protest the atrocities of Israel if we are forced into reproductive servitude. There are way to many Republicans advocating against anti child marriage laws in an age where they can be raped without a means to terminate.
I am equally frustrated about Biden's handling of Palestine, but setting my own rights on fire removes all energy and possibility to advocate for them! This attempt to accelerate us into punishing the democrats for giving us bad choices is only going to hurt those who lack the funds and privilege to easily escape a Fascist takeover.
These people care more about their "principles" and lack of fundamental understanding of the realities of a first past the post system, than the very real reality of people like us losing our rights.
Everyone who thinks voting 3rd party or staying home is an option is rooted in privilege.
I currently live in a very red state with an anti abortion law that took affect the moment Roe was overturned. There are no exceptions and we even had our own case of a young girl being forced to give birth from a rape because her mother could not afford the hours long trip to the next closest abortion clinic. That young girl's life is forever hindered by giving birth too young; now multiply that by 1000s should a nation wide ban be placed. Or the radicals who want to remove no-fault divorce and keep abused women in dangerous relationships. I have the means to escape, but that's a very much a "fuck you, I got mine" mindset when I recognize the abject poverty that exists for the majority here.
We've already been through this 8 years ago after Hillary lost the election. Democrats didn't "wakeup" and over a million people died in the US from a botched pandemic response. Accelerationism is a privileged view when you have nothing to lose, but those less fortunate are hurt by its repercussions.
Our current system is broken and no means perfect, but burning it all down isn't how we change it. It is far more likely that an authoritarian takeover will occur instead of the rose-tinted glasses utopia that these non-voters think will happen. All the death, pain, and destruction won't magically shock people into changing it because they'll be too focused on just trying to survive the hellscape wrought on them.
when people like you refused to vote for Hillary in 2016?
Nice assumption.
Trying to pretend like they might not and Trump might somehow not be worse
Where did I do that, exactly? Please be precise.
Please tell me about your hypothetical future where you don’t vote for Biden.
Please show me where I expressed who I was or wasn't going to vote for?
When you actually have a good-faith question about what I believe is the path forward, or what needs to happen, and are done shouting at an imagined person that you created post-2016 to explain the absolute failure of the Democratic Party to stop a fascist from taking power, I'll be here.
People like you are why the Democratic party keeps forcing shit candidates down our throats. They count on obnoxious people like you to guilt others into voting for "the lesser of two evils"
No, it's because people like you don't vote in primaries. I vote in every primary for better candidates meanwhile people like you scream how the candidates are awful while staying home during the primaries.
The candidates won't get better until we grass roots organize and start actually making good candidates popular.
You know there's elections before the primaries right? The Democratic party has shown that it will resort to all means of corruption to give you the "establishment" candidate. And people like you keep voting for the lesser of two evils. Let the Democrats lose more elections they shouldn't lose, eventually they learn they need to uphold the values of democracy to win an election.
If the Democratic party wasn't corrupt to the core, it would have been Bernie. After that it would have been Andrew Yang. You keep voting these Republicans in Democrat clothing, nothing ever gets solved. Every democrat in history since I was born has promised to do something about immigration, nothing ever gets done. Why? Because it serves their interests to have a variable workforce that they can underpay and demean.
Hillary won the democratic nomination because older voters turned out more to vote in her favor. While young voters primaries for Bernie, the overwhelming majority of those voting in the primaries were older.
Like Barack Obama eight years ago, Bernie Sanders captured the vote of younger voters under 30, and they made up a greater percentage of the electorate in 2016 (17 percent) than in 2008 (14 percent). And Sanders fared better among these younger voters, winning 71 percent of voters under 30 (compared to 59 percent for Obama in 2008). Voters between 30 and 44 made up 23 percent of Democratic primary voters, and they were almost evenly divided between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. In most of the states where exit polls were conducted, the candidate who won the vote of 30 to 44 year olds won the primary. Six in 10 Democratic voters were over the age of 45, and as she did eight years ago, Hillary Clinton won the support of older voters. Clinton won 64 percent of voters between 45 and 64 and 71 percent of voters 65 and older.
If more youth turned out to vote in the Primaries in an equal or stronger force than older voters, Bernie would have had the nomination.
Regarding Democrats not doing anything to support immigrants, DREAM Act and DACA were ushered in with greater force and an expansion was attempted due to Obama despite Republicans consistently fighting it or Republican Governors suing against it. The expansion was stalled by our conservative Supreme Court, but would have been successful if we had more left leaning judges. General overview. It's not that democrats are not attempting these things, but more so we lack the majorities in Congress and on SCOTUS. There is the potential of more justices retiring in the next presidential cycle and whoever wins has the ability to make the court more right or left leaning which will have an impact on this.
You're missing a lot of context. You're examining the contents of the effect, without looking at the cause.
The DNC rigged the primaries before any ballots were cast. They conspired against Bernie Sanders to have Hillary as the nominee and worked to sabotage Bernie's run for presidency. Talking about exit poll statistics doesn't really mean much. The corruption was already well underway.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/
It's mind-boggling to hear people cry foul about Bernie Sanders when the man himself has endorsed Biden and is actively helping him campaign.
What's mind boggling about it? Bernie Sanders wasn't a prophet. He ran on a platform and we believed in his candidacy. Just because he bent over for Hillary doesn't mean that suddenly now she's a great candidate. If he had to bite down on the rag, I don't fault him for that. But asking people to get on board "just this once" every election is just a carrot on the stick. It's always "but this one is SUPER important, set yourself aside and pick the lesser evil, eventually we can get what we want." There is no "eventually" and there never will be as long as you and others like you show that you're willing to throw your ideals away because of this season's boogieman
I voted for Bernie twice, in the 2016 primaries and again in the 2020 primaries. I donated a few hundred bucks as well. After he lost, I voted for the candidate he endorsed, because in my view, the candidate he endorsed would get us closer to the ideals he espoused, and certainly not the GOP. That is why it's mind-boggling.
If he had to bite down on the rag
Sexist and uncalled for. Do better.
“Wait,” I said. “That victory fund was supposed to be for whoever was the nominee, and the state party races. You’re telling me that Hillary has been controlling it since before she got the nomination?”
Gary said the campaign had to do it or the party would collapse.
“That was the deal that Robby struck with Debbie,” he explained, referring to campaign manager Robby Mook. “It was to sustain the DNC. We sent the party nearly $20 million from September until the convention, and more to prepare for the election.”
Holy shit.
Bernie took this stoically. He did not yell or express outrage. Instead he asked me what I thought Hillary’s chances were. The polls were unanimous in her winning but what, he wanted to know, was my own assessment?
I had to be frank with him. I did not trust the polls, I said. I told him I had visited states around the country and I found a lack of enthusiasm for her everywhere. I was concerned about the Obama coalition and about millennials.
Even the then-head of the DNC knew she was going to lose. It was too late to do anything at that point, but people are over here blaming Bernie and young voters for 2016, when Donna Brazile knew Hillary was going to lose the election, and Hillary had completely controlled the DNC to shut Bernie out.
Yup. The corruption is blatant, and the worst part is, they don't even hide it... the threat of impending doom keeps the voters subservient. Instead of pointing out the corruption, we equivocate. I'm not a nihilist or a pessimist and most certainly do not want Trump to win. But refusing to acknowledge the blatant corruption puts us right where we started.
Props to you for actually reading the article. If anyone else who replied to the comment had done the same, there wouldn't be as many "what-about-isms"
The democratic/republican parties will shove shit candidates down your throat weather you vote for them or not.
There is no thirst anywhere that there is means to change it, to change it.
By refusing to vote, all you are doing is are refusing to limit damage.
Damage limitation is the best you can reasonably hope for
If you think you're going to change anything by not voting or voting third party then I have a bridge I'd love to sell you and decades of American history I'd like you to read.
Please explain to me what action you're going to take and how that's going to lead to positive change?
Man, there are a lot of assumptions from y'all, mostly seemingly based on your inability to accept the fact that you can't shame the electorate at large into voting a certain way. I voted for Hillary in 2016, but I was screaming to the rafters that she was going to lose because she was a bad candidate, and should never have been put up in the first place. This is shaping up to be a repeat.
It doesn't matter what arguments you make about people voting for Biden, because you and I have no real reach; this is why it's critical to select good candidates. If you keep putting up "hold your nose" candidates, they're going to lose sometimes, no matter how much arguing and shaming and cajoling you do. When you do it multiple times in a row, it just compounds that effect.
Y'all are the ones living in the fantasy world where you can change millions of disaffected voters via web forums. Also, you're stooges for the Democratic Party's scapegoating for never listening to their base, and losing elections because of it.
I love how you don't highlight the Israelis murdered in the rocket attacks and other activities that kicked this latest round of conflict off. Almost like the usual suspects don't care if Israelis die. The whole, "we don't believe in mass murder" is complete bullshit. You just want one side to win and you don't give a shit how.
Why do you assume that pro-Palestinian people = pro-Hamas? How many dead Israeli people is enough to justify genocide? Nobody is saying that Hamas are the good guys, but they do often say they understand the material realities that created them (Israeli state actions). Everyone I know that is saying don't commit genocide also say it is not OK for Hamas to kill civilians, often in the same breath.
Edit: Some data for context
Because they don't complain when Hamas kills people. Simple.
But they do? Both the people you are responding to in this thread literally said it is not OK for Hamas to kill civilians. You also didn't answer the second part:
How many dead Israeli people is enough to justify genocide?
Latest round, meaning October 7, or Rafah? Because according to the IDF, the recent rocket attacks out of Rafah didn't injure anyone.
And if you're treating an occupying force as being the same as the occupied population that is resisting them, you're starting from a false premise of innocence.
Is it alright for Hamas to kill civilians? Of course not. Is it okay for them to attack Israel with the means they have available to them, when they are being regularly attacked by Israel? Of course. They're both evil, but one is much more understandably so, assuming you don't for instance think Nat Turner was wrong for fighting his oppressors?
I'm glad other people are noticing the propagandist nature of the people you're talking about.
For specificity's sake, we're talking about the people who drumbeat on "genocide," lay the entirety of the blame for that at Biden's feet, and push not voting for Biden as the "solution." They also so very carefully leave out important details like how congressional Republicans are putting forward legislation that would disallow Biden from pausing arms shipments to Israel (which Biden has said he'd veto).
And the propagandists aren't here in this thread because that doesn't work in this context. That being the context of reality where another Trump presidency would so very obviously be exponentially worse, not just for Palestinians, but for all manner of people in multiple places around the world, including the United States.
I am 100% in favor of criticizing the US' relationship with Israel, especially considering Israel's present actions against civilians. I would also like to maintain a US government that allows such criticism.
I am probably one of the "usual suspects" you are referring to, if that's "people who believe Biden should be as accountable for his actions as anyone else, and not excused for participation in a genocide based on whether ignoring that is more convenient for me".
It's 9am where I am, so this article was posted at 5am my time. Sorry if I didn't telepathically detect this post in my sleep, and arrive fast enough for your liking, to express my opposition to Trump.
This is completely illegal and unconstitutional, and is exactly why we should not even be allowing Trump to be a candidate. Sadly, no one with the power to stop him is doing so, because it serves too many peoples' interests.
Also, I can't post what I believe should be done about/ to Trump on Beehaw, as it would not adhere to Bee-ing Nice.
As a side note, it's also hilarious to me that you don't seem to realize that the "usual suspects" in this case, are those of us who Trump is talking about deporting.
I'd love to know the stats on the demographics of the pro-Palestinian protestors. Exactly how many American citizens is Trump proposing randomly dumping in another country because he doesn't like what they're saying?
Also, where is he sending me? That one is important.
True, if it's somewhere nice, maybe everybody should protest.
I would say everyone should protest anyways, but then again I'm just one of "the usual suspects" who some other folks in this thread seem to be in agreement with Trump in believing that we are ruining America. :P
Because your protest is failing to consider the ramifications of a Trump Presidency should he win. Project 2025 is no hidden secret and Trump has made it clear he will act like a dictator and purge dissidents. It is hard to take you concern for Palestinians as sincere when Trump has advocated for "finishing the job" and you're willing to set Trans, Minority, and Reproductive rights on fire. A protest vote was already attempted in 2016 with Hillary and instead we have 1 million plus dead due to a botched pandemic response. There are those less privileged who can't just escape should we fall into theocratic fascism.
Guess who benefits from a Trump win: Russia, China, and Isreal. And no doubt they appreciate "useful idiots" to sow discord and create voter apathy because that is the best way to allow Republicans to win. Ukraine will fall, China will be more emboldened to attack Taiwan, and Netanyahu will have his buddy back in office rubber stamping even more terror.
Because your protest...
Let me stop you right there: the protests that are being talked about by us (Frog and I), and by Trump, are the actual, real-life, on-the-ground protests against the Genocide in Gaza. We're not talking about hypothetical protest voting in November.
Or hey, maybe I'm being naive, and you really are saying that people shouldn't be protesting the Genocide in Gaza?
The party of fascism and sociopaths.
“And you know, you go back through history, this is like just before the Holocaust. I swear. If you look, it’s the same thing,” Trump said. “You had a weak president or head of the country. And it just built and built. And then, all of a sudden, you ended up with Hitler. You ended up with a problem like nobody knew.”
So Trump is claiming that Biden is a weak leader, and that after the weak leader comes somebody like Hitler. Trump hopes to be the person that comes after Biden...
I really hope for the sake of North America that they don't vote Trump in again.
Like sure the current situation isn't great. But holy hell was it bad with Trump lol. In Canada it made a ton of bad actor politicians come out of the woodwork and copy his play book. So his behavior is spreading.
In 2016 Hillary Clinton funded the Donald Trump campaign in hopes to bolster elements of the Republican Party so dangerous that voters would be forced to vote for Democrats under duress. This is the culmination of the DNC strategy since now under duress we must materially support genocide to prevent immediate physical danger from a lawless rogue government who would also continue that genocide.
In 2010 the ability for the United States to exist democratically was ended through the Citizen's United Supreme Court decision. Democracy can't withstand the full unimpeded force of capital determining the potential candidates for the people to vote for and writing the bills those candidates vote on. This is aside from the fact that the better funded congressional candidate wins election over 90% of the time, and while this correlation does not prove causation, a different correlation is that congressional voting behavior strongly correlates with the desires of campaign funders and correlates not at all with the polling of their constituents.
Voting for Biden under duress at this time is probably necessary (at this point it seems clear losing the election to Trump is not their greatest fear), but unfortunately if we hope to salvage this system more is required of people than voting. I'm not sure if actual non-fictional human beings are capable of what is required right now, so hopefully whatever this system turns into can eventually be overcome and not replaced by something even worse.
All this to say Trump being a king bastard doesn't negate Biden also being a king bastard who has probably done more damage to peoples' lives and the health of our society just with the Crime Bill than anything Trump did. Trump has promised to do worse than any president of the last few decades has done and since the ever increasing stress levels in our culture are causing more of us to lose our minds, explicit fascism (Christian Nationalism is our openly fascist movement) is now a possibility in addition to our existing issues of racism and capitalism. Preventing the worse case is not saving anything and also won't prevent the possibility of a worse worse case in the future. Everyone voting for Biden is doing so against their will. Trump, having cult charisma, has a number of delusional sociopaths who support him. Winning this election means winning the prize of more of our humanity being commodified and a continuation of old fashioned school of "do it or I'll kill you" in international relations with countries with a non-white majority. With the internet, information is freer than ever and that appears to be having some effect, so if I have any hope it's that we will hit a tipping point which causes the majority of us to peacefully transition into a system less vulnerable to corruption.
this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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