• PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Sure, more Palestinians will die

    Sure, Ukrainians will die

    Sure, US minorities will die

    Sure, the entire world will suffer from a fascist demagogue at the head of the most powerful country in the world

    But have you considered that, for a few brief moments of time, we created a lot of value for the shareholders we got to feel smug over the SHITLIBS who wanted to prevent fascism?

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      Ahh, but you see, you disagreed with Stalin that one time, and therefore you were the fascist all along

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      It’s honestly such a shockingly privileged position it almost defies belief that anyone could actually be so dense unless they are operating in bad faith. Yes, there are several serious problems in the world, and absolutely none of them are solved by helping the US slip into fascism. Leftists in particular are supposed to hate fascists, so I can’t imagine how anyone with leftist sympathies could possibly want to see what the world looks like with an unrestrained Trunp at the helm. Again, unless they are so privileged they don’t think the consequences would affect them personally, in which case I would call any other profession of external empathy which they might bleet ad nauseum, as questionably sincere.

    • logos@sh.itjust.works
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      But what else am I gonna do with my feelings of impotent rage? Try to actually change something?

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    3 months ago

    I got into this argument the other day. People’s arrogance and lack of common sense was disappointing.

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    Yeah, because that worked out so well when in 2016 when Trump got elected, the GOP got multiple Supreme Court picks, multiple federal judges were given life terms, and Roe vs Wade got struck down. Let’s see how that plays out when Ukraine falls, war breaks out in Europe, America becomes a theocratic dictatorship, and what little progress we may have seen with the environment completely falls apart and the world goes full tilt towards becoming an uninhabitable hellscape. Whatever the protest was about will be utterly meaningless.

    If you want to protest, you protest AFTER you get sympathetic ears into office, not after you get the opposition elected. Trump gets in, then suddenly he’ll give you plenty to protest about, vs protesting when Harris is in office and she actually has a willingness to listen to protests and meet their demands.

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      If you want to protest, you protest AFTER you get sympathetic ears into office,

      This is exactly why the railroad strike failed lmao.

      Even UAW’s future strike plan is May 1, 2028, which is strategically a presidential election year, 5 months before the election.

      • chaonaut@lemmy.world
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        The UAW struck after the railroad strike. And got Biden to personally come down to ask the what he could do to secure their vote. Both happened while Biden was in office. What are you even saying about why the railroad strike failed?

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        If you’re that dialed in to the railroad strike this long after the fact, you are absolutely aware that Biden helped get the unions their biggest demands shortly after ending the strike.

        Get your bad faith soundbite bullshit out of here.

    • basmati@lemmus.org
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      At no point has a protest pushed any president left, regardless of party.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        That is an insane statement. The civil rights era was full of protests and change. The Vietnam War ended because of protests. There are many instances of protests pushing presidents left.

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            Turns out when the rich and powerful set out to hamstring the ability of people to organize in the workplace, and spend a lot of time covertly policing political orgs they don’t agree with, well, people fall out of practice in being part of a community and organizing that community. If you then make every place that someone might want to build communities with other a place to extract money from, it’s real hard to build it all from scratch.

        • basmati@lemmus.org
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          Yeah it wasn’t the protests, but the threat and follow through of violence

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            Sure. Those went with the protests. Protests aren’t all peaceful, hence why “peaceful protest” is a term.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    They are either Russian trolls or children who have a Disney level perspective on politics, I think. They don’t want to recognize that they have very limited options or the harsh realities surrounding them.

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    It’s almost like the current and immediate conflict between Israel and Palestinians isn’t the singular thing that the world should have serious concern about, and that realistic solutions to longstanding international diplomacy issues are - wait for it - hard.

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    People refusing to vote for Harris becuase of a foreign conflict they understand nothing about is peak stupidty.

    • Lauchs@lemmy.worldOP
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      “I completely understand the Palestine/Israel situation, I’ve watched multiple tiktoks about it!!!”

    • NoLifeGaming@lemmy.world
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      Not very hard to understand killing civilians, children and women is a bad thing to do and shouldn’t be supported.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      There’s really not much to know nor is it a complex conflict. Just like The Troubles, it’s a colonial conflict pretending to be sectarian/religious in nature.

      ETA: And it should be clear that supporting people who want to support more and greater heights of violence isn’t going to help.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      Granted, I don’t know much about the conflict. I’ve read about it on Wikipedia and it gets more and more nuanced and complex at every turn.

      HOWEVER.

      There are candidates who advocate for stopping the killing. This is not a high bar. This is a bar I would like to see Kamala reach.

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            It’s almost like the frequent commenters in lemmy advocating against either real candidate, or more specifically, against Dems, have ulterior motive besides helping as many Gazians as they can.

            Almost like their arguments are in bad faith to achieve a particular political result.

            Go figure.

        • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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          Tbh that’s a fair point, although careful what you wish for since that could get him elected

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        A simple google will provide you with articles like this : Harris says bloodshed in Gaza is devastating, emphasizes support for hostage and ceasefire deals

        Meanwhile Trump is calling for the extermination of Palestinians.

        GTFO with this double standard both sides bullshit.

        If Israel running a war causes you to not vote for the non fascist, you are simply a massive moron, nothing else.

        I’m using the general “you” I don’t mean you OP

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        She’s supporting genocide in the same way you are supporting slavery by buying your electronics from China. When are you turning yourself in and going to prison??

        Or is this line of reasoning and logic idiotic and unreasonable as you damn well know it is.

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    It really depends on which state you live in whether or not you have the luxury of a protest vote. If you live in NY state that has a 20% lead for Harris, sure, some people can vote Jill Stein or something. But if you live in a state that actually might be close or not an obvious blowout, you can’t vote that way. You actually have to be tactical with your vote, not idealistic or symbolic.

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      Even if you’re in a solidly blue state, don’t fuck around with your vote.

      You fuck around, and we all find out.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      Back in 2000 I traded my vote for Nader in a swing state with someone in a solidly blue state. We should do that now.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        you don’t get to tell other people how to vote, and if you try to, they’re going to think you’re a raving lunatic

        Umm…that’s the entire way we select leaders. The entire campaign for any office, high or low, is telling people how to vote. That’s literally democracy in action.

        And it is not wrong to tell people that if they want third party candidates, the path to do so is to start with voting reform. I’m in Oregon, and we’re actually making progress on this instead of just bitching about it or running spoiler third party candidates. We have ranked-choice voting on the ballot this year. If it passes, all our state and federal elections will be decided by ranked-choice voting. We’ll actually make it viable for progressive third party candidates to run for our US House and Senate seats without just serving as a spoiler for Republicans. We’re actually doing something about the two party duopoly.

        But you never hear these anti-Kamala trolls suggesting doing something that would actually make a difference. They show up every election, and their platform is ALWAYS “don’t vote for the democrat.” Doesn’t matter what election. Doesn’t matter what year. They always find some reason that you shouldn’t vote for the Democratic candidate. Their criticisms always attack the Democratic candidate and ignore the Republican.

        They’re clowns and trolls. Nothing more. They bitch about the two-party duopoly, but they don’t actually want to do anything. The truth is they’re actually just Republican trolls.

      • Copernican@lemmy.world
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        LOL, what rhetoric? I’m generally of the opinion that voting is an end in itself in democracies, and wish we had mandatory/compulsory voting laws. If you live in a democracy there should be obligation to vote, and the citizens should feel confident that we are accounting for the will of the people. But with the electoral college and first past the post system, there are realities of outcomes. There are really only 2 possible outcomes of a presidential race. And if you live in a swing state your vote does a lot more to tip realize one of those 2 outcomes. So the motivation to vote should be to help achieve one of those 2 outcomes that you find more preferable. If you live in a state that is not even close, that is when you don’t have to worry much about your vote impacting the outcome and therefore have more latitude. I’ve voted 3rd party in multiple elections, but I did so in good conscious knowing I wasn’t impacting the outcome of actual leadership due to the area I vote in. In pure rational choice model, sure, your individual vote likely won’t matter (how often is a race decided by 1 vote?), but if the level of effort to vote is low, might as well do it just in case and for a sense of moral civic duty to a democracy.

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    A large portion of the people you’re referring to are Arab Americans. In fact, Trump is now leading with them. I also think Trump would be worse for Palestinians than Harris, but I doubt the best way to convince Arab Americans of that is with condescending memes about how they don’t care about the Middle East.

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      So pandering to idiots is bad when democrats veer to the center to get centrist votes, but it’s good when Harris takes a stand on Gaza?

      Hot take: morons are morons. Left and right. Fuck em.

    • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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      The point of the meme isn’t to convince anyone, the point is to yell at people you hate and tell yourself you’re so much better than them. Any claim of “activism” and “raising awareness” is transparently false.

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        Everyone else is a villain huh? I’m petty sure the author thinks their view should be self-evident and doesn’t understand why do many people here seem to take actions the author would never consider.

        I therefore think the point of the meme is to bring some levity into what would otherwise be helpless frustration.

        Have some empathy. Don’t think everyone is bitter and miserable.

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          If we’re going to preach empathy, maybe we should start by trying to understand the people who are watching their homeland get bombed into rubble with the support of both major parties, not the people sharing snide memes.

          • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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            Do you only have the capacity to empathize with a limited amount of people owe day or how an I to understand your comment?

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              Take it as this; when one person says, “you should be less harsh on these people, many of them are seeing their homeland destroyed,” and another replies, “they don’t care, they just want to lash out at them to make themselves feel better,” if you jump in to defend the latter group, it gives the impression that you have more sympathy for the latter group than the former.

  • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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    Usually they live in blue states that will partially insulate them from the consequences. Or they’re young and don’t understand knock on effects yet.

    • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
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      b-but the… the genocide!!1!!1!11!

      (/s obviously, I don’t like it either)

      I genuinely don’t know what passes by their brain, but I got banned from commenting on a community on hexbear because I was saying that their little third party wouldn’t win anyways and by voting it they were helping trump, and every response was just calling me a genocide apologist because of my support for the dems.

      It seems like they can’t just reason properly

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        It’s just very odd to me when they say both sides, but trump has openly stated he wants the military to fire live rounds at people protesting in support of Palestine.

        Or that trump wants to genocide* Latinos. Or that he has said he wants the military to purge people that don’t support him.

        *yes he said deport, but when the cost of such an operation starts rising then he’ll start pushing to instead kill people to lower costs. That’s how it goes every single time this rhetoric takes hold.

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            I love how you brought it up out of the no blue but are acting like I’m the obnoxious one lmao. World is obsessed with domains.

  • UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works
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    From now on, whenever I encounter someone who says they’re not voting/voting 3rd party, I’m gunna ask if they’ve tried to reach out to their representatives trying to get them to raise some support for what they believe in. Or if they’ve tried nothing and are now just giving up. These people are literally supposed to work for us.

    • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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      Believe it or not, even democratic reps are unreachable when it comes to antiwar positions. Yeah they might be “civil” to your face, they will hear you complain, but then send you a form letter in response, telling you that nothing’s going to change and that’s good actually. Feels like they could just say “fuck you” and save some steps, but I guess that’s just Democracy™ in action.

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    Everyone who doesn’t support a corporatist duopoly is lazy, dumb, and/or working for the geopolitical rival to my dominant hegemonic country!

    One can only wonder why you have not convinced more people with your message and Harris is now losing.

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        Democrats constantly coming up against fascism and fumbling the bag is always someone else’s fault.

        Nader, Howard Dean, ACORN, Citizen’s United, the SCOTUS, lazy uniformed voters, radical leftists and tankies, the Internet, the DSA, Russia, 16000 green party voters in a state with 4.5M ballots cast.

        Two organizations are never to blame. You can’t blame the Democrats, because they are the most hyper-competent data-driven poll-optimized party to ever exist. And you can’t blame the Republicans, because they just worked harder to win based on their strong fundamentals and simply convinced more people with their very popular fascist policies.

        When Dems win, they have to compromise with Republicans to achieve a bipartisan consensus. When Dems lose, they have to capitulate to the Republicans because that’s what the voters asked for.

        Paid to fucking lose. I swear to God.

    • chaonaut@lemmy.world
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      Who else is looking forward to–regardless of the outcome of this election–being told throughout 2025 that it is of vital importance that we get in line with the Democratic party above all else so that we can ensure that the Republican candidate does not win the 2030 election?

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    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.

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      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.

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        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.

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        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.

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      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.

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        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.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      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.

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      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.

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        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.

        • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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          And the solution to the trolley problem is obviously to stop the trolley from running over anyone. Thank you for solving this philosophical problem.

          • sandbox@lemmy.world
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            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?

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              3 months ago

              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.

              • sandbox@lemmy.world
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                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.

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                  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.

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                  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.

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            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.

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          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.

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              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…

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                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.

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                  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?

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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.

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              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.

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                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.

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                  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.

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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

        • naught101@lemmy.world
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          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

              • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                So for political benefit we should suppress discussion of american complicity in genocide? I’m not sure that qualifies as understandable.

            • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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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?”

    • Caveman@lemmy.world
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      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.

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      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.

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        Im not sure I understand. Are you comfortable with Harris’ right shift being uncontested by anyone on the left?

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          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.

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      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?

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        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.

        • Log in | Sign up@lemmy.world
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          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.

        • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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          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.

      • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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        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.

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          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.

          • sudoer777@lemmy.ml
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            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.

          • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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            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.

            • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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              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.

              • lemonmelon@lemmy.world
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                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.

                • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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                  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.

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          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.

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          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.

            • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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              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.

                • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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                  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.

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        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.

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          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.

  • beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    OF COURSE Trump supporters are selfish and dumb. That’s what makes them great dupes for evil forces. Trump himself knew this, as he’s famously said.

    Someone else summed it up almost a century ago: “It works the same in every country.”

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      then might as well elect someone who will do good things in other sectors instead of removing medicaid and deregulating industries

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      People are going to die no matter what. It’ll be different amounts though. One of the two has called for Israel to “finish the job” and constantly talks about how he likes what they’re doing. The other condemns it, but is criticized that the administration isn’t doing enough, which is fair, but also I know who I’d want to win if I lived in Gaza. I don’t think the people there care how good you feel about “keeping your hands clean” and acting morally superior. They want to live, while these people want to play games.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        Have you considered listening to what they actually say as opposed to projecting your own beliefs onto them?

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          Have you? I’ve listened to quite a few. Sadly, dead people can’t say anything though. I hope they retain the ability to speak.

            • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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              An endorsement is not the only part of support. Giving an endorsement removes your leverage. Why would they endorse her if she’s not doing what they ask? She’s the better option, but they still want more from her than she’s promising, so they should withhold their endorsement.

              Sometimes I think you people don’t understand politics or power structures, then I realize it doesn’t matter and you aren’t actually arguing from reason.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                No, the reason you just laid out is literally my exact reason for not supporting her. Why would you lay that out and then claim I’m unreasonable or don’t understand things for following the exact same line of logic?

                • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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                  Not giving an endorsement isn’t the same thing as wanting people to not vote for her. Giving an endorsement is the end of negotiations. Once you give it up, you’re done. Obviously they aren’t going to do that, but it doesn’t mean they don’t think she’s the best choice, unless they endorse someone else. Until they do that, it’s telling voters to do what they think is best on their own. What’s best for Gaza is obviously Harris being elected instead of Trump (and there isn’t anyone else it could be).

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      The elections haven’t happened yet. Withhold your support for Harris until she changes her mind on Gaza