“Hey you know how there is an unbelievably close race between a centrist who wants to maintain the status quo but may occssionally bend to public pressure and an outright madman who want burn democracy to the ground while lining his own pockets and rolling back social progress to the 1850s? You should totally protest vote for a party that doesn’t have its shit together enough to even get on the ballot everywhere and has no chance at all of winning. That will show them how you really feel!”
I cannot imagine why main stream American politics doesn’t take leftists seriously.
Hate to break it to you, but nearly twice as many Americans think we are providing the right amount of assistance, or should be providing more to Israel, than think we should be providing less in regards to their war. That is the direction of public pressure.
The primary mover isn’t public pressure, but the US Empire’s economic interests. Support for Israel is both lucrative for the Military Industrial Complex, and helps the US exert power in the region, securing the Petro-Dollar. This is how the US maintains financial supremacy, and hyper-exploits the Global South through brutal Imperialist IMF loans that it can write in its favor.
Are we really a beneficiary? All the economic gains seem to only be realized at the top because the owner class has perfected the art of paying us the absolute minimum we need to survive.
An excellent question, one of the few in this thread. Not really. But as long as our gas is percieved to be less expensive than most of the rest of the world, and the well paying jobs it creates to build bombs and planes and such continue to exist, it will continue be viewed as beneficial.
That’s a more complicated question, but it’s besides the point: the mechanisms the parties move by are the mechanisms that keep themselves in power, and that’s appealing to their donors.
You should be against genocide and not vote for any genocide candidate.
We can all see that in your condescending and largely unrealistic boilerplate lesser evil lecture, you conveniently ignored the elephant in the room.
Now, we could talk about how your electoralism logic is flawed, but as you all claim morality, I don’t think I should need to. You should be against genocide and act accordingly.
I would love to vote for no genocide, but once again, even more genocide is not only on the ballot, but has taken the lead in the last few days. Meanwhile the no genocide candidate on offer here couldn’t manage to get on the ballot in enough places to to win and couldn’t be arsed to follow the rules in the places they did bother. So forgive me if I choose to live in reality and do the only thing I can that might actually stop the even more genocide guy.
You said you’d love to do something as if it’s difficult when it is actually trivially easy.
You should be against genocide and not vote for genocide candidates. You seem to disagree. So, tell me. Tell me, “I will vote for a genocide candidate and normalize genocide”. Acknowledge your compliciy before making your excuses.
We want to vote for zero genocide, but our broken two party system has become a horrific trolley problem where the only choices given to us are full genocide and half genocide. So I will vote for half genocide because the trolley will default to full genocide if we don’t.
Seriously, this is a trolley problem. You have the entire Palestinian population on the track (Trump), but you can pull a switch to move the trolley to only kill half as many (Harris). It sucks and I will never forgive our broken system for forcing me to make such a choice, but until we replace our corrupt system with something better we have to minimize harm in every way we can.
“Hey you know how there is an unbelievably close race between a centrist who wants to maintain the status quo but may occssionally bend to public pressure and an outright madman who want burn democracy to the ground while lining his own pockets and rolling back social progress to the 1850s? You should totally protest vote for a party that doesn’t have its shit together enough to even get on the ballot everywhere and has no chance at all of winning. That will show them how you really feel!”
I cannot imagine why main stream American politics doesn’t take leftists seriously.
Grow up.
See, Leftists don’t believe Harris is a “centrist” but a genocidal Imperialist, similar to Trump. Harris hasn’t yet bent to public pressure either.
Hate to break it to you, but nearly twice as many Americans think we are providing the right amount of assistance, or should be providing more to Israel, than think we should be providing less in regards to their war. That is the direction of public pressure.
The primary mover isn’t public pressure, but the US Empire’s economic interests. Support for Israel is both lucrative for the Military Industrial Complex, and helps the US exert power in the region, securing the Petro-Dollar. This is how the US maintains financial supremacy, and hyper-exploits the Global South through brutal Imperialist IMF loans that it can write in its favor.
And you think the average American doesn’t enjoy being a beneficiary of that system?
Are we really a beneficiary? All the economic gains seem to only be realized at the top because the owner class has perfected the art of paying us the absolute minimum we need to survive.
An excellent question, one of the few in this thread. Not really. But as long as our gas is percieved to be less expensive than most of the rest of the world, and the well paying jobs it creates to build bombs and planes and such continue to exist, it will continue be viewed as beneficial.
You are hurting the owner class. Stop!
That’s a more complicated question, but it’s besides the point: the mechanisms the parties move by are the mechanisms that keep themselves in power, and that’s appealing to their donors.
You should be against genocide and not vote for any genocide candidate.
We can all see that in your condescending and largely unrealistic boilerplate lesser evil lecture, you conveniently ignored the elephant in the room.
Now, we could talk about how your electoralism logic is flawed, but as you all claim morality, I don’t think I should need to. You should be against genocide and act accordingly.
If you think voting in a way that helps Trump win is a vote against genocide, I have some bad news for you.
If you vote for a genocider, you vote for genocide. You shouldn’t do that. It’s wrong to support and normalize genocide.
I would love to vote for no genocide, but once again, even more genocide is not only on the ballot, but has taken the lead in the last few days. Meanwhile the no genocide candidate on offer here couldn’t manage to get on the ballot in enough places to to win and couldn’t be arsed to follow the rules in the places they did bother. So forgive me if I choose to live in reality and do the only thing I can that might actually stop the even more genocide guy.
Then don’t vote for a genocide candidate. Easy. Done.
Lots of things are easy when you refuse to acknowledge the consequences of your actions. Enjoy the sand in your ears.
You said you’d love to do something as if it’s difficult when it is actually trivially easy.
You should be against genocide and not vote for genocide candidates. You seem to disagree. So, tell me. Tell me, “I will vote for a genocide candidate and normalize genocide”. Acknowledge your compliciy before making your excuses.
We want to vote for zero genocide, but our broken two party system has become a horrific trolley problem where the only choices given to us are full genocide and half genocide. So I will vote for half genocide because the trolley will default to full genocide if we don’t.
Seriously, this is a trolley problem. You have the entire Palestinian population on the track (Trump), but you can pull a switch to move the trolley to only kill half as many (Harris). It sucks and I will never forgive our broken system for forcing me to make such a choice, but until we replace our corrupt system with something better we have to minimize harm in every way we can.
You’re not wrong, but people who are voting against fascism are also not wrong. There are pros and cons to each.
If you support genocide there is little meaningful difference between you and any modern fascist.