And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
If you think there was a genuine argument to not vote for Harris over Gaza war crimes, you were amongst those successfully manipulated by Russia. That argument was entirely of America’s enemies’ making as a means to get Trump elected.
You are absolutely correct. The unfortunate fact is that propaganda works. Even if you know it is propaganda, it still works.
A bit like a placebo in that regard.
My own argument to these people has been that I’d prefer they go out and cast their (wasted) votes for a third party, rather than simply stay home. A lot of Lemmy disagrees with me on that, focusing on the (true) realization that their third parties won’t get elected.
In this election’s current aftermath, much of the blame has been stating that voters were just lazy or unmotivated. The only thing this message encourages is to repeat more rallies, make more promises by demographics and region so people know to get out and vote.
If you vote third party, it sends a message that you are motivated to vote, but you are not pleased with the current messages of the party. That results in a very different change of action.
Unfortunately, this whole practice is extremely long-term-focused. Many people in this election have been desperate for short-term solutions, like the Ukraine/Gaza wars. Ideally, this kind of reaction would have started in 2016/2020 - but third-party votes have been miniscule in those elections too.
Vote swapping is a thing you know. No reason to punch everyone in the nuts and double-down fuck your cause of you can vote the least worst option and I’ll vote your 3rd party in my solid red dumpster state.
The arguments are as stupid as you guessed.
These are naive emotional people who are dumb as fuck. I know so many in my life and it’s like arguying with a brick wall.
Children still believe we live in a black and white world, democrats are in power now, genocide is happening, they will not vote for them. The concept that both will finance the genocide but another will be much worse is not something they can understand.
You have others that want to intentionally punish democrats for not doing anything. Great in the meantime, Trump will provide a full carte blanche to Nettanyahu in the middle east, he will continue what he’s doing, annex everything without any limits. They were partying in Israel after Trump won.
A third group wants the system to break down because they think if you’re a post collapse society, they will be able to build their utopia.
Yes as dumb idiots living in la la land.
They would rather accelerate genocide than admit they’re wrong. It’s disgusting
Then work to change it. Your voting system is broken and makes millions feel disenfranchised. People should be able to vote their conscience without worrying about stupid political games.
I’ve criticized then for their voting behavior as well - that if they want outcomes aligned to their values that dictates a particular voting strategy.
But you don’t get to blame them for the outcome. That’s on the broken system, and the failure of the losing party to appeal to them.
They share the blame. This election was lost because of low voter turnout and so many will suffer for it. This wasn’t the electoral college, this wasn’t voter fraud, people had the opportunity to fill in a bubble to stop the proud fascists and they chose not to.
It’s not surprising that people don’t show up to vote if they don’t believe they have a voice. Provide proper representation for them rather than the slightly different shades of purple on offer now. Allow them to voice the nuance of their positions and you’d probably have Kamala as the president elect right now.
This is just the trolley problem - you’re trying to force them to pull a lever when many people feel that the only moral choice is not to.
Give them a way to participate and they’ll be able to weigh the options.
Naïve/entitled people fail to grasp the concept of compromise.
Exactly whatbwas the compromise? The entire genocide/atrocity has occured om herself and Biden’s watch. She then failed to disance herself from the policy and did not take a position that aligned with people concerned about supporting a genocide.
Is Trump worse on this topic? Almost certainly.
Entitled people are the ones that felt they could speak over the valid concerns of the public because “I am the lesser of two evils so you have to vote for me.” Turned out well, the US continues its fownward trajectory and to be an embarrassment all because of…supporting a genocide. It wasnt even a difficult one, a remedial foreign policy issue fucked Kamala and she can have her shame for it.
The entitled people are those who insist the conscientious objectors should have put their concerns aside.
Is genocide not too far to compromise on? Or is it less of an issue because it’s a genocide of Arabs?
Which do you choose: genocide or WORSE genocide? You have to pick one. Not picking either gets you the latter by default. Make a choice.
Turns out there are stupid questions.
It’s a stupid question. But that’s the reality. So genocide or worse genocide? If you say neither, it’s probably going to be worse genocide.
Some people really don’t grasp the concept of the trolley problem.
A train is headed towards 5 people, you can pull a lever and switch tracks to kill 1 person. What do you do?
What group of people could Democrats kill that would leave you unable to support either party? Clearly, it’s not Arabs.
More people than the Republicans would. And then I would vote Republican. Because that’s the choice on election day.
Edit: if all you’re doing is not voting, you do nothing to help anyone. If you are actually helping in meaningful ways, then voting to pick the easier opponent does not undermine your work.
There’s absolutely no logical reason to believe that. Democrats have escalated war on three fronts with nuclear armed superpowers, and armed a genocide.
Because the standard for Democrats is perfectionism, but the standard for Republicans is “That’s just Trump being Trump.”
In other words, they didn’t think it through, they got suckered by propaganda.
Imagine thinking “stop committing a genocide” is perfection.
Liberals are amazing creatures.
trump will be 100x worse.
Make that argument to the family members of people experiencing the genocide, I would imagine they will laugh in your face. These people are enduring unimaginable horrors, their children are being brutally murdered and libs keep telling them to suck it up because actually this is the lesser of evils.
It’s a pathetic fucking argument.
Are yiu talking about Gaza? Trump wants Bennie to destroy Palestine. Ets see the looks on their faces then.
Is 100x worse mean genociding 100 times faster? Because if you are not really living in a cave, you will know there can’t be anything worse than what’s already happening.
Dems are always so fast to point out propaganda but how did this brainwashing slip in? There’s no worse or better genocide, you freak.
I’m not an American nor a trump supporter, just an American hater.
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
And there was a strong push from the Russians.
That’s because nobody believes biden/Harris and for good reason. They’re lying, they have just as much of a plan to turn Gaza into prime oceanfront real estate for wealthy NYC metro area zionists with dual citizenship as the republicans. They’ll just paint the bombs with progress pride and blm flags while lying to your face about their intentions and speaking out of both sides of their mouth depending on their audience. It’s sickening. They’re both going to genocide Palestinians, does it really matter if they’re turned to glass in days or in weeks?
Because if it wasn’t Gaza, it would have been another excuse to not lift a lazy goddamned finger and still delude themselves into feeling "morally superior"while sitting on their fat mediocre asses at home.
Before Harris, they also leaned heavily on the “Sleepy Joe” bullshit and “two old white men up for election, who cares”. Once the old “Sleepy Joe” element was removed from the equation, they had to find a way to keep their goddamned stubbornly lazy and ignorant narrative intact.
Now that the election is over, most of these “concerned and outraged” deadweight assholes will never think about Gaza and the plight of its’ people again. And they will keep on feeling smug about themselves.
I know one of those people. they are now angry the left lost… 🙄
I’m not American, and I don’t agree with these people either, but I don’t think that calling them lazy and ignorant makes any sense. In the fucked up democracy of the US it’s clear that the only way to get what you want for the coming 4 years is to vote for the least bad candidate. At the same time I can definitely understand that if you view both candidates was horrible, though one way more horrible than the other, you would feel conflicted about voting for either of them.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Assuming both candidates are still roughly equally “popular”. If both candidates wanted to start a genocide, but one would want to kill only 50% of the amount of innocents that the other would kill, how would you vote? Would you vote for the one who is overall the less bad option, which will in turn make you give your vote for something horrible. Or would you abstain and signal that the democracy as it currently stands has lost your confidence entirely, even if it means that on the short term the consequences might be way worse?
Not voting actually costs the democrats something, and should (if they want to win next time) force them to think how to better represent you next time.
It’s fucked up that your democracy came to this. It has become an annoying game theory dilemma instead of voting for the candidate that you actually believe in. Our system here in the Netherlands is certainly also not perfect, since we have too many parties and too long coalition negotiations, but at least I feel like it represents people way better. Anyone can start a party and capture seat if they represent a large enough niche.
I said the same thing about people like you before the election, and I’ll repeat it again. The laser focus on single issue voters was and will always be mostly an excuse to blame someone else.
To look at it another way, if this one issue actually decided the election, why didn’t Harris change her strategy two months ago? … Maybe it’s because this wasn’t the determining issue. Or it was, and her staff was incompetent. Take your pick.
It is rich to criticize the Democrats for claiming moral superiority while doing nothing, as a justification for not voting for the candidate who would at least try to put a leash on what Israel is doing to Gaza.
If you want what’s best for a suffering people, you should vote for the candidate not trying to give their oppressors a blank check. All of America is responsible for what the president we chose does next.
OP asked for a steelman but good try
This is all that needs to be said on the subject.
its funny, because literally the next post after yours was this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/07/trump-blank-check-netanyahu-war-iran-panetta
Don’t worry. Trump won. You’ll hear a whole lot less about Gaza and genocide now.
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The arguments against voting in the USA sound similar to the trolley problem
Some people wouldnt choose to be the reason of the death of one person even if doing nothing causes the death of multiple people
That just means you value your own ability to evade blame over the lives of real people.
Yeah but also they all die anyway. Nobody is “saved” in this situation. In fact, it’s way worse now.
What’s going to happen in Gaza is going to be horrifying.
It wasn’t horrifying until now? Maybe they weren’t white or part of your propaganda.
This is very american - these Gaza supporters protest the suffering of people thousands of miles away and yet think it is okay to bring suffering to everyone in his/her own street
Almost like they are paying for the people suffering thousands of miles away?
Do you have a brain by any chance?
Yes, this is how I felt. I would rather not choose to vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’ and pretend that’s good. It’s not just Gaza though, it’s corporatism, war profiteering, and terrible policy.
I would rather see the system collapse and possibly die in the process than support another shitty government even if it’s the less shitty one.
That’s a horrible outlook, and I’m sorry you’ve been driven to that point. I understand, as I have been there before.
Now that I’m older, I realize that pulling the lever is the right thing to do as much as it hurts. I don’t think letting apathy win and watching the government go full Fash was the correct choice, but I don’t blame you, or others who decided the same. The system isn’t going to collapse, though, it’s just going to get a lot shittier for awhile.
Before I start let me note that in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election. Harris is on the way to losing all swing states. Her failure is much deeper than Gaza policy. Blaming anti-genocide voters for this is just copium.
With that out of the way, you can divide people with this position into two groups: Arab Americans and everyone else. Arab Americans are people who are feeling the genocide firsthand. So, obviously, they tried to appeal to the Harris campaign and get them to move from Biden’s position on the topic. The result: They were either ignored or antagonized by Harris. That led to the abandon Harris campaign in Michigan and elsewhere. Harris considered those people acceptable casualties in her failure of a campaign, and so they were burnt out and the momentum behind the Uncommitted movement and others turned from “let’s save our Palestinian brothers” to “fuck us and Palestine (because let’s face it, that’s basically what Harris was saying)? Then fuck you too”. Harris thew them under the bus and was thrown under the bus in turn. Maybe not very logical, but a very predictable reaction. Harris treated Arab Americans with just that much contempt, and then she and her enablers had the gall to tell the people attending a funeral every other day to “shut up and vote for her”.
Now as for everyone else, it’s a more simple instance of taking a stand against a politician for doing something you cannot accept. Now there is a pragmatic idea here that if you allow the DNC to get away with this they’ll think supporting genocide actually wins elections, or that their electorate are such pussies that it doesn’t matter what they think. Add in the goal of pressuring Harris to drop that policy that was important at the start of the Harris campaign and of course the idea of not wanting to vote for genocide and this was the result.
Of course it’s not all 100% logical, but there is logic here beyond “omg bad guy I no vote”.
Now that the election is out of the way, maybe I can continue talking about this. I held my tongue during the past months, but I think now is a good time to think about this result.
While the result is unfortunate and disappointing, there are sides to it that aren’t all that bad. They pushed towards the right, pandering, and now the voters told them that this isn’t a winning strategy. I think it helps setting them straight for the future.
I think you put it very aptly. Of course it would’ve been best if Harris had won, but at least now we can think about it from a neutral perspective: Had she won despite all the right-pandering and genocide-enabling stances, it would either send the message that pandering to the right works, and the progressives are, indeed, either too small a group to listen to in the future too, or too much of pussies to listen to in the future, too — they’ll toe the line no matter what kind of shitty positions you take.
At least now they know that a change is needed. It’s almost unthinkable to lose to such a weird fascist populist that barely behaves cohesively. They did, by ignoring the progressives. That means something. At least it ought to.
Things don’t often change unless things hurt. If doing shitty things keeps working, nothing changes. But when things hurt, it opens some eyes at least. Forces re-evaluation on everyone’s part.
But that being said, this fucking sucks. Despite all the reasoning we can do to make it feel a bit better, this really should not have happened.
They played this exact same game in 2016 and lost and yet they learned nothing. What makes anyone think they’re going to learn something this time? The DNC needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up to be a proper left party instead of this bullshit center-right garbage that they pretend is progressive or left.
EDIT: And I still held my nose and voted, because I will in fact take anything over fascism.
2016 was easily dismissed because trump was a surprise candidate they weren’t prepared to deal with, Hilary was disliked, and she still won the popular vote. None of those excuses apply in 2024
I’m not hopeful. I’ve already seen centrists and pundits saying that Harris lost because she’s “too progressive” and that Dems need to move further right.
Given Dems’ track record, I’m dreading 2028 is going to be JD Vance versus fucking RFK Jr. or Joe Manchin. At least the only silver lining out of THAT shitshow will be seeing the Democratic Party completely implode after completely alienating their voter base to become a carbon copy of the Republican Party (while Repub voters just keep voting R) and hopefully pave ground for an actual progressive party replace them, but that will hardly offset the horrors of 8 years of unrestrained fascism (assuming the left wins in 2032 🥲)
There will be no more elections, do you guys not listen to what Trump says? The only way to have elections again would be a civil war and guess what, the fascists are the majority so fat chance of that happening
Over our dead bodies friend. See you at the polls like always.
do you guys not listen to what Trump says?
Yes that was one of the many outrageous claims he made.
Who knows which things he will actually try to do, let alone what he’ll succeed at doing.
Even with the house, senate and supreme court tilted right, I don’t see them succeeding on abolishing elections.
Well that’s naive. That has happened in many other countries before, and guess what the USA is not any different from them, so
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement. Slotkin won the senate race, but Trump won by a narrow margin. Independent votes and low turn out siphoned off enough to make that happen. Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement.
I mean maybe (I haven’t seen the turnout numbers as opposed to protest/non-voters) but the point is that Harris lost before Michigan even finished counting. She could’ve won Michigan and she still wasn’t winning this, is the point.
Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
I mean yeah, because the DNC pushed an unelectable candidate whose position was a mix of “nothing will fundamentally change”, wishy washy non-promises and right wing positions. I doubt even 10% of the 15 million in reduced turnout came from Uncommitted and similar movements. The DNC blew it; it’s that simple.
Michigan and Wisconsin, 25 electoral points. You can’t just lose swing states like she did.
Pennsylvania absolutely over biden economic policies. Screaming the economy is doing great! I wouldnt change a thing! While people struggle to afford groceries isnt going to win you an election.
in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election.
Source for that statement?
What margin did Trump win Michigan by?
I don’t understand your point. I’m not talking about Michigan. I’m talking about the country.
What margin did Trump win the country by?
How many voters didn’t vote due to the genocide?
How many voters didn’t vote due to the genocide?
About 20 million?
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Look at the votes that came in?
Kamala got 20 million fewer votes than Biden. You don’t think a significant amount of those weren’t related?
So, I’d say that looking at the votes means that it did have an effect.
She lost before Michigan finished counting. She could’ve won Michigan and she would still lost. Source: Subtract 15 from Trump’s EC votes.
Non voters are just as responsible for the loss of democracy. They are not a single bit better than any MAGA even if they like to claim they are. They chose fascism over democracy
What’s worse is they’re now acting like they got one over on the Democratic party like “ha, stupid Democratic party. I bet they won’t learn”. Like what? You played YOURSELVES, you’re the ones who are gonna suffer. You fucked yourselves over just to spite Harris? Wtf??
Yeah, I have so many discussion with non voters who sre fucking stupif. “But but Gaza!!” completely ignoring how Trump was escalating the conflict when he was in power and how he praised Netanyahu for his handling of it. If the think the dems are bad for Gaza they have not paid attention to republicans.
Fucking over the usa to own the libs
Lib v lib violence
America hasnt had a democracy my entire life.
It did. It was just a flawed democracy. Now it will be full on fascism. So instead of hope it will get better one day it has gone the worst possible outcome and will not get better until the entire country looks like Berlin '45
yawn no it isn’t. I recommend you spend some more time learning american history and less time spouting your nonsense from across the pod.
To start, we have to understand that the genocide of Palestine started before the October 7th attacks. Israel’s rampant illegal settlements in the Gaza strip may have been the final straw that provoked Hamas to make a move, but Palestinians have been abused, forced into ghettos, and murdered by private citizens for decades. All of this, and nobody in the West ever really batted an eye at the suffering except for a handful of informed leftists.
If Harris had won, the most likely outcome is that the immediate conflict would eventually be paused, just like it paused after the second intifadas. No land would be returned, no settlements removed, but Hamas’ forces would be decimated to the point they could not fight back and Israel would return to their quiet slow genocide until the stars align to renew their attack once more.
Now that Trump has won, the most likely outcome is…that the immediate conflict will eventually pause, just like it paused after the second intifadas. Israel isn’t an island, if they ramp up their aggression ever further, eventually other parts of the world will push for sanctions on Israel. A Trump win doesn’t suddenly give Israel carte blanch to build the gas chambers, they still have to pay lip service to international law. Israel will inflict a grievous wound on Hamas, deep enough that it will take another generation before conflict resumes, and go back to expanding their settlements.
This genocide has been happening since before I was born, and multiple Democrat presidents have had an opportunity to say something or work towards curbing Israeli aggression. They’ve all vaguely promised to work towards a two-state solution, knowing that the current two states are what they want. If Kamala Harris couldn’t even call it a genocide, then she was no different, and it would be foolish to think she would actually take any steps towards meaningfully stopping Israel.
Well, iirc, trump mentioned something about wiping the Palestinians out himself (or something along those lines, I halfway forgot as trump says a lot of shit) so let’s just say that whatever the result it, it won’t be good for the Palestinians.
Also remember that trump is now surrounded by a religious extremists cult who is betting on Jesus coming back in Jerusalem, and they’ve been working for 4 years to prepare for Trump’s return and ehat they can do with a king with nukes
Talking about nukes, so this extremists cult is also betting on the world ending to make Jesus return sooo, yeah, nothing to see here.
Let’s see, what other ways will this destroy the world? Oh yeah, Ukraine will be fucked too, trump will just force it to surrender either now, or negotiate “peace” after which Russia either just goes on or zelenski falls out of a window. with that done, the Baltics will be next for putin, don’t doubt it. Poland and Czech Republic may follow. What else? Taiwan will be fucked now too so wars all over, yeeeiii.
What other fin can we expect? Climate change is a hoax too, right? Multiple point of no return came and went and shits about to get a lot worse a lot faster
Fuck America, and fuck the majority of Americans, you have ended the world. That basically includes anyone who didn’t vote for Harris.
Israel will inflict a grievous wound on Hamas, deep enough that it will take another generation before conflict resumes, and go back to expanding their settlements.
Expanding settlements is continuing the violent conflict, just not as open warfare.
So, you’re counting on Trump, known for racist, anti-Muslim rhetoric, will do no different than Harris? Ridiculous. Trump doesn’t care, and it’s clear Bibi doesn’t care.
Also, that doesn’t tell me how that protest vote does anything. If the result is the same, then at least go for the person that won’t destroy even more lives.
I’m not counting on Trump for anything. I’m expecting other member states of the UN and especially the EU to act as the actual hard line for Israel, as they have for the past five decades. It’s already starting to happen, and once sanctions are in place Bibi will finally start to become unpopular and can finally be replaced.
It’d be very nice if those sanctions started with the U.S., but it was never going to happen under either party. The number of lives lost will be the same. The U.S. has never been what has stopped Israel, it has always been global perception.
I’m betting he helps complete the genocide. And I no longer have any sympathy for it.
Couldn’t hide the mask for long eh
I feel that way because you helped Trump.
I’m an asian living in asia.
For context for others, this freak was calling for genocide of Palestinians because his incompetent party loosed to a guy with 40 or so criminal cases. Catch a clue idiot.
Lies! I’m not calling for genocide. I oppose genocide, I oppose the war. But the fact people like you think Trump is the same as Harris erodes that sympathy.
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To quote a user from another thread:
Theyre not the ones that need to learn. Voters need to learn DNC is a bunch of wealthy moderates grifting voters.
