More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.
“We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads.
“Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones,” the letter continued. “As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities.”
In not voting you normalize genocide, effectively turning away, to not look upon the mess.
Edit in a trump presidency activism will be harder, and progressive folks, and minority communities will be at increased risk. The ideal of getting involved and making your.voice heard will be a vanishing opportunity.
Personally, I will be voting for a candidate that is explicitly against the genocide. In this way, the message of my vote will be fairly clear.
Out of decorum, please note an edit may have passed while you were typing.
In reply: if the candidate does not win, the message is lost in the wind.
Ah yes I missed that.
The best situation for not losing the message would actually be a Harris loss and where various pundits and orgs push the message that it was due to support for genocide. The Democratic party and its loyalists will of course do its best to avoid that messaging and either deflect from the topic to blame something else (justifying whatever new stances the party wants to take) or by adopting a “Trump is worse so you deserve it” form of sour grapes.
Re: challenges in activism, it was much easier to organize under Trump than under Biden. But as I do not subscribe to lesser evilism arguments on electoralism, and am against genociders, I would also not vote nor recommend voting for Trump just because he made that part of political work easier.
That would maybe work if there were test elections and then the real deal a little after. Having a dicktator for the next 4 years (minimum) is a bit too much to send the message. It is just cutting off your nose to spite your face.
It also works for real elections. It has precipitated realignments and the downfall and replacement of parties in the US’ own history, even. Those had deeper material roots, but then so would the acceptability of supporting genocide.
You are repeating a line that really just disempowers you and those that align with you. It tells you that your role, your “power”, is just to support whoever the party picks for you, or else. This is false and self-defeating logic.
There was already a Trump presidency. It was from 2017 to 2021. It was not a dictatorship. The country ran basically the same as before, in fact, though he was simply hamfisted in hiw he approached reactionary policies, and naturally this made for great media time and Democrats calling themselves “the resistance”. The Biden-Harris administration largely continued his policies, but that “resistance” immediately dissolved, it was just a partisan PR ploy and was not about undoing concrete policy impacts. Biden still threw kids in cages and massively ramped up refugee deportations, attempting to (illegally) prevent refugees from even applying if they crossed the border when undocumented. Biden kept the trade wars. Biden fully coopted and reversed sentiment on racial justice in policing, pivoting Democrats at all levels to be pro-vip and providing large funding increases to racist police squads.
The political class operates far more similarly to one another than they do to you. They just warp perception through partisanship and propaganda. This does not mean they are identical, just it is nowhere near as dramatic as you describe: the class that actually controls this country has no interest in allowing the dictator you are imagining, it isn’t going to happen, and the horrific policies you are thinking of will have corresponding ones from Democrats, provided with a smile and an appropriation. Include in that list: genociding Palestine.
And there is the GOP talking point. The point that has no relevance to his next term. Imagine claiming nothing has changed from last time…wow.
So, you admit that not voting for Dems you vote Trump, but you just think that it’s no big deal, because last time he failed to break everything he touched?
Edit: it’s a pity there’s no travelling to alternative timelines, I’d really love to see what Trump’s victory would lead to, but wouldn’t want to live in that reality.
Since I wouldn’t vote for Trump, this is obviously not true. But by your logic, since I’m also not voting for GOPers that means I voted for Harris so don’t worry.
I see no reason to think Trump was more harmful than Biden-Harris. But at the moment, I’m focused on the normalization of genocide by Democratic voters.
Trump is ahead in many polls. He could win. If he does, how will you feel about selling out Palestinians?
I will feel same as now, so don’t worry