The presidential election in the USA is near and what astounds me about it the most is that there are apparently still some people who claim to be on the political left who insist on calling a vote for Harris a “vote for genocide” under the pretense that not voting for her will be better for Palestine.
Please stop saying that nonsense already. We had already one election where Trump won the presidency and we had almost a decade of listening to his speeches (if his incoherent ramblings can be called that) Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows at this point that the next president will be either Harris or Trump and that of those two a vote for Trump is not only a “vote for genocide” but a vote for genocides. And it is also clear, given how the US election works, that not voting for Harris is almost the same as giving a vote to Trump too, because he has an extremely hyped-up and irrational base. Anyone pretending otherwise either denies reality or does not have two brain cells to rub together. I think these people do have functional brains, so why do they knowingly lie and deny reality?
In the real world, there will never be a candidate who can both have a realistic shot at winning the election and agree with everything these people want them to say and do, so there is, in fact, a 100% guarantee that they will disagree with any candidate on something. And from the behavior of some of these people online, I surmise that this is, in fact, what they want. They do not want to make the world better; they want to feel morally superior.
I am generally not someone to kink-shame people but I do consider furiously masturbating in public over your own perceived moral purity unseemly. If you cannot vote for Harris because you are an asshat who wants to see the world burn, at least have the decency to say so.
by the phrasing of the title i was worried for a second this would be the exact kind of post it was aimed against. shoulda known better; u r a cool guy. perfectly stated. i hate those emeffs an awful lot.
Whay Charly said! Doubled.
Whay = What
*Sheepish grin*
Couldn’t have said it better myself. If you want to vote for somebody who shares your every opinion…y’know, run for office I guess? However, be warned -- if you do so, be prepared to have to say and do things that are diametrically-opposed to your actual beliefs, if you actually want to have a shot at gaining even a moderate amount of power. Because while most politicians are generally able to keep consistently pushing for their top priorities in terms of policy (within limits -- for example, it is more common for liberal politicians to give up on progressive economic policy proposals, but stay the course on social ones -- gotta keep rich donors happy, amirite?), they frequently let lesser preferences wither on the vine, and even occasionally advocate against these policies, because just like voters, politicians have to balance all kinds of competing interests and personal beliefs, and act pragmatically if they want to be effective. So don’t think that going this route is an easy answer to remain “authentic,” because if that’s the goal, it is in conflict with a superseding goal -- winning an election…
…unless your name is Donald J. Trump, of course. But I’m not sure that kind of authenticity is worth it. Even if it makes you the most powerful person in the world. Can you imagine what it is like to inhabit that man’s mind? Because I’ve tried, and it’s a freakin’ horror show.
Spot on and well writ.
See also what Mehdi Hasan has said here -- plus Bernie Sanders and Steve Shives and others too :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzGBE35vnO0
They’re not wrong.
A vote for Harris is a vote for genocide. And Trump too, for that matter. That’s why I voted for Jill Stein.
beholder, go wank somewhere else.
“there are apparently still some people who claim to be on the political left who insist on calling a vote for Harris a “vote for genocide”
Well, it objectively is, it would be farcical to deny that, your framing of this fact is laughable. beholder’s conclusion that the answer is voting for the Putin puppet however, is wrong too.
“under the pretense that not voting for her will be better for Palestine.”
Strawman is strawmanning. Noone is saying that. Both Trump and Harris will continue the mass extermination Biden has happily financed and supported with bipartisan support for the last 12 months.
Rorschach, yes, people are pretending that voting for someone other than Haris will be better for Palestine. Like beholder just did by holier than thou-ing about Jill Stein. Insisting on the same imbecility that cost the USA and the world so dearly from 2016 to 2020.
Either Harris or Trump will be the president. Voting for a third party is the same as not voting at all. The result of voting for Jill Stein will still be either Harris or Trump presidency, and of those two, Trump presidency will mean an even worse Palestinian genocide and multiple other genocides around the world on top of it.
You know that its true. Therefore you too should go wank somewhere else.
Jill Stein has been getting financial support from Republican (and pro-Israel) donors for YEARS. It’s not even a secret. And Stein’s own core supporters have admitted their #1 goal is to shaft Harris and the Democrats, and thus to put Trump in power. Stein has also been photographed dining with Vladimir Putin and Trumpist insurrectionist Michael Flynn. Even by morally-superior-spoiler standards, Jill Stein is an obvious fake. Anyone who would publicly brag about voting for her is just too stupid and uncaring to be worth anyone’s time.
Speaking as one of those marginalized people that for an absolute certainty would be targeted by a trump regime, I refuse to vote for my own damn genocide, so I’m not going to waste my vote on a third party candidate, just to feel morally pure! That feeling is going to do sh**-all for me under a trump regime. I do care about the Palestinians, but I can’t advocate for their lives from a Concentration Camp, or death!
That’s part of the equation that people making these types of decisions do not take into account. When we talk about multiple genocides by a trump regime we mean here in this country too. Trump himself hasn’t come right out and said it, but his followers and enablers are all on board with such a scheme.
I guarantee you that someone (within his regime) will come to the conclusion that its cheaper to simply eliminate people, than it is to hold hundreds of thousands of people captive indefinitely, than it would be to ship them to another country. Make no mistake, his people are planning their version of a Final Solution.
“Some people just want to watch the world burn.”
I see that coming up a lot these days. Is it true? There actually was a study published recently looking at that very question. I won’t spoil it for you, read it yourselves:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2020.0147
that, combined with opportunism on the part of billionaires adopting neoliberal strategies (jesus, between Musk and Thiel, it’s like a competition to see who can become the next Marvell supervillain) and taking advantage of ignorant right wing authoritarians have lead to this whole new world we will have to face for the next 20 years or so. There WILL be genocides, there WILL be global war. It is too late to stop that now. I think after that, after 20 years or so of suffering… things will be peaches; the bad guys will be mostly dead, the authoritarians extremely reduced in number, and knowledge of how to better incorporate them INTO society rather than isolate and manipulate them will come to pass. However, it will take serious survival skills (or sheer luck) to make it past this insanity. I would say come join me here in a much saner New Zealand, but it too is already showing the signs of being taken over by this madness, and will not be any better of a place to run to soon.
Hunker down. stay safe. do what you can with what you have. make friends with your neighbors and form support groups. This will help maintain both life and sanity. Want some models for that? You have someone on FTB that can help. Check out Oceanoxia. He’s been strategizing on these issues for quite while now. Knows what he’s talking about. Lives right in your own house!
best of luck.
@10. Raging Bee : Truth.
Your lecture about compromising on basic standards for the sake of electability could have waited until after the event where you didn’t lose the presidency and the popular vote. As it stands, it didn’t age well at all 🤣
beholder, there is absolutely zero evidence that being ideologically pure to your personal standards would mean a candidate would be more electable. Such a candidate could gain some votes, but they also would definitively be sure to lose some. The only way to find out if someone can win an election is for them to go through one.
I said to have a “realistic shot” at winning an election, not “definitively win an election”, and Harris has gone pretty far, you, not so much, you wanker.You are banned. I have no patience for people who gloat over a fascist winning an election.
… the radiation will be down to about 1/3 of the initial Day After levels. Oh, and the good guys will also be mostly dead, including you and me. At least I’ll finally be rid of this goddamned cough!
The problem is that yes, Harris would have allowed the genocide in Gaza to continue. But so will Trump: This is the objectively worst possible outcome for anybody not a fascist.