Not voting for Biden is not a vote for Trump. For many young voters it’s a choice between Biden or 3rd party, because voting for Trump is out of the question. This is a matter of whether Biden cares about being vote-worthy himself, or if he will continue to prioritize his “Israel First” pro-genocidal strategy above winning the presidency. The fault of Biden’s inevitable upcoming loss is entirely his own, stop trying to blame voters for Biden’s garbage policies.
Like it or not (I for one do not), we live in a country where only two parties matter for the presidential election (third parties DO matter for state and even congress. just not executive).
If you are (American) left leaning and you vote Green party over Democrat? You are one less vote for the Democrats which is one more vote for the republicans when the math breaks down.
Younger folk (and older folk) don’t understand that because we do a horrifically bad job of teaching social studies in high school and tv shows love to emphasize “douche and a turd sandwich” logic to encourage abstaining.
Honestly? Fuck Biden. I have had serious issues with him ever since he was a wannabe cop pushing some really horrible drug legislation. But he is a Democrat and isn’t trump. It is as simple as that. Maybe he won’t help on a lot of issues I care about. He will help on a lot of other issues I do.
Which gets back down to it: if Palestine is the only issue you care about and the only issue anyone you care about cares about? Congrats, you won the privilege lottery and can skip the election. Otherwise? We have two candidates who basically have the same stance on Palestine and Israel (give money to the military industrial complex above all else). But they differ drastically on a LOT of other issues and a LOT of people will be harmed.
So if trans rights or women’s rights or even continuing to be a democracy-ish haven’t “earned your vote”? What does that say about you?
Except this is already happening where I live. And will continue to happen where I live under Biden. And will continue to not happen in blue states where it’s not currently happening. You are deeply unserious if you think Biden is going to do shit for women or trans people. You’ll have better luck pressuring Biden and the DNC to do something other than their current strategy than convincing the millions of people who ALREADY live in the reality you seem so afraid of.
If you genuinely think nothing will change regardless of who is president and who has the power to veto the batshit insane stuff republicans are pushing forward AND don’t understand why losing even more supreme court seats will fucks us over massively*: Watch the fucking news and actually listen to what republicans are campaigning on.
*: Because while I am still fucking angry at the Democrats for never codifying it and RBG for being too selfish to step down when she should, understand that the massive wave of abortion bans are a direct result of trump’s supreme court appointees
Then start pressuring the democratic party instead of people like me, whose vote has literally never counted towards anything because of the electoral college.
Because individuals don’t matter. People do. And there might be people in swing states who are reading this and saying “Yeah. I want to see change. I am gonna vote for Jill fucking Stein”.
But also? A large part of why we won in 2020 was because of Staey Abrams et al in Georgia. That was a red as hell state that almost entirely ran on voter disenfranchisement. And she and other advocates fought hard to make people ACTUALLY vote and it turned Blue. It has been an increasing acknowledgement that Texas is ACTUALLY a purple, if not blue, state but is gerrymandered to hell to prevent that.
Does every individual’s vote matter? No. Of course not. But every VOTE matters. Because it keeps blue states blue and it fights the efforts to disenfranchise voters in “red” states. And you accomplish that by pointing out the stupidity of people who are advocating for change by… not voting or even outright voting against their own interests.
My 2020 harm reduction vote for Joseph Biden resulted in roe getting shredded with 0 pushback and whole hog support for Palestinian eradication. Will not be making that mistake again!
If trump had been re-elected, maybe libs would’ve kept pretending to care instead of checking out entirely cause Da Blue Team won or whatever. maybe we could’ve gotten something done out of sheer spite for Le Cheeto Benito. All having a lame duck dem in power has done is give everyone cover to not give a shit anymore.
The guy who is currently allowing a genocide to occur or even helping to perpetuate it, but could potentially be persuaded to take steps against it
Vote for 3rd party candidates or abstain from voting so that you can pat yourself on the back and say “I didn’t vote for genocide” even though that option doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of winning (no matter how much we wish that were the case)
The guy who is fully in support of the genocide and would very much like to support more genocides given the chance
And that’s not even touching on basically every other issue where candidate 1 is also far better (or at least much less bad) than candidate 3.
Voting for 2 takes votes primarily from candidate 1, candidate 3’s supporters by and large have no intention of jumping ship no matter what. So you’re effectively taking votes away from the one candidate who has any chance of winning that we might be able to talk out of genocide, and allowing candidate 3 to win so he can do even more genocide.
I’ve voted 3rd party nearly every opportunity I’ve had for most of my adult life, and I hope at some point we return to some level of sanity and I can feel safe resuming that. Right now, we are faced with 2 possible outcomes, bad and cartoonishly evil, whatever thoughts you have about this being the year of the 3rd party candidate are delusional, the movement just isn’t there right now, and while normally I’d be all about the idea of a protest vote, you only get the one vote, and would you rather use it to send a message, or to actually avoid the worst outcome?
That’s good, we can get the Muslim ban guy back in. He says Israel should, “finish the job,” with peace talks, I’m sure! Good job, buddy, you did it. You ended the genocide by choosing the authoritarian who ran on a campaign of racism. Authoritarian governments would never accelerate or intensify the invasions of foreign countries.
It’s not a 2 party system, it’s a corporate uni-party and they’re all being paid by AIPAC to let the genocide continue. It’s disgusting, and for this reason alone I won’t support either of those parties. If either party cares about politics at all, more than their donor money, then a sizable vote for green/PSL should register with them and force them to adjust their campaigning in ‘28, or else they’ll lose power rapidly as 3rd parties gain momentum. From this perspective, which you clearly don’t understand, voting for either R or D is throwing a vote away. Voting for a better alternative is not giving a vote to Trump, that is the simpleton turd sandwich framing which you’ve just desparaged. This blames voters, and it’s wrong - Biden is losing these votes all by himself.
I’d like to briefly address your last comment as well. Democrats have had numerous opportunities in the last 20 years to codify Roe into law, and they chose not to do so. Instead, they wanted to fear monger over republicans taking away women’s bodily autonomy and fundraise off of it. All the while, manufacturing consent for the republicans to do just that. It’s very leopards ate my face to act surprised about this, and disingenuous at best to claim democrats are some kind of women’s rights champions. If you’re at all interested in a leader who will actually safeguard women, cis or trans, vote for Jill Stein this November.
Imagine being so privileged as to be able to just deal with 4 years of Trump in the hope that somehow the message heard will be “oop should’ve given us a better candidate, Dems!” and not “well fuck we’d better go even further right to keep up”.
Imagine being so privileged that you don’t already live in a state where all the things being fear-mongered about to support Biden are already happening.
Imagine being able to prosecute Trump 3 years ago, but waiting until ‘24 to try and make it political (and show your hand that you were never serious about holding the elite accountable to begin with). Keep “looking forward, not backward” and never learn a damn thing.
There won’t be a sizable vote for the third party, though. Stein got 1% in 2016. That’s a rounding error. There will never be a sizable vote for a third party as long as we have FPTP.
They don’t give a shit about third party votes at all. The only thing that would actually get their attention is young adults consistently and reliably coming out to vote in every election.
Hopefully you are able to vote again in 2028. I know mommy and daddy’s money must be sheltering you from needing to worry about losing your rights, but the guy has already done one insurrection. It is actually looking pretty grim.
Voting for a better alternative is not giving a vote to Trump
Incorrect.
First Past the Post says fuck you, and First Past the Post is the reality. Until we change the voting system, third parties will never gain momentum. It is statistically impossible. You may as well get hit by a meteor while turning in your winning Powerball ticket.
Oh, and nevermind that if Trump wins, none of this will matter. All future “elections” will be won by a Republican with 110% of the vote
That Harvard link shows 34% percent of respondents issues considered it the most important…
But like, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here, and I’m going to try and clear it up.
So generally speaking:
What will help the most is often not what most people consider to the most important issue.
Like, if everyone had it as their number 1, 2, or 3 but it wasn’t the most popular number 1?
It might still be the one thing that helps the most despite not being the most popular number 1 response.
Does that make sense?
Lots of people miss that when talking statistics. And since that first link has nothing to do with what I’m talking about, I’m assuming that’s what’s going on here.
It’s also not accounting for which repsondants were already voting for Biden when talking about most important single issue.
You think the pro trump respondents give a shit or will vote Biden for any reason?
Why is what they consider most important relevant to what we’re talking about?
You responded to the wrong person. I can reply here though, no worries.
You’re reading that 34% stat incorrectly. It is not saying that 34% of young people view that as the most important issue, they are saying that when asked about it when put head to head with another issue from that list, it only won 34% of the time. I believe that difference also mostly accounts for your 2nd/3rd choice dynamic as well, because it would have also been paired with those other topics and lost accordingly. Look at the other scores on that list. It’s clear that this conflict is not the primary driver of the election season right now.
Now, I’d love to see more stats, but between this and that recent Gallup poll, I’m going to start needing affirmative evidence in the other direction before I just start making leaps. For what it’s worth, I also find this conflict heinous. Israel is committing horrific war crimes. Global policy never outperforms domestic issues though. Caring about your own survival is human nature, so I kind of expect it.
Keep on advocating for Palestine and Gaza. I will be as well. Just don’t expect to be able to hold the election over their heads as leverage, because it’s becoming increasingly clear that leverage doesn’t exist.
You’re reading that 34% stat incorrectly. It is not saying that 34% of young people view that as the most important issue, they are saying that when asked about it when put head to head with another issue from that list, it only won 34% of the time.
No, I get that.
But if everyone’s second choice for dinner is pizza, that might be the choice that gets the most people on board even if it’s no one’s first pick.
The demographics Biden struggles with the most from the Dem voting base care about this.
And Biden barely beat trump last time, he can’t afford to keep funding a damn genocide.
The demographic Biden struggles most with isn’t young people and beside that point, every demographic is unique. Young people are impossible to please. Not individually, but as a demographic, they are inconsistent, fickle, wrathful, and fairly apathetic. I’m still in this demographic and it wouldn’t be my first stop for a reliable election winner. Then look at the Gallup poll I sent and think about this purely from a campaigning perspective. How does playing to the youth on Gaza win you anything? Frankly, it looks like the math is stacked against us on this.
I still think we should fight for this. I still think there should be protests, demonstrations, campaigning for more ethical candidates. I no longer think trying to win this through selling it as a carrot or stick for winning the election is going to work though. The electorate just cares way, way more about economics and Biden (from a campaigning perspective) would be much more well-suited to focusing on that.
The demographic Biden struggles most with isn’t young people
Then what demographic do you think it is?
I’m talking the standard demographics, unless you have some ultra specific one like “people who oppose funding genocide” I don’t know what you mean.
Young people are impossible to please.
Not for Obama.
And they turned out in 2016 when all they knew about Biden was he used to be Obam’s VP.
Just because they don’t like “moderate” neoliberals or republicans don’t mean they don’t like anyone.
Hell, when I was young I liked Bill Clinton just because he gave you g voters the time of day.
Standards are fucking low, it’s just Hillary and Biden didn’t try.
Historically the youth vote is very important, we can’t just give up on the whole demographic because they don’t like moderates. They’re the fucking future of the party, we need to actively go after them. I don’t expect Biden to bust out a sax solo live on MTV like Bill did.
Older white men, the core republican demographic. Inside of the general democratic camp, it would likely be older Latino males right now, but I would need to refresh my stats.
Not for Obama.
You’re joking, right? Ask any young person today what their thoughts on Obama are and you’re gonna hear “drone strikes” first thing. The electoral politics of 2024 are vastly different than the ones in 2012, especially with young people. The way social media delivers news and raw footage to people, especially the youth who know how to operate it best, has completely altered the relationship between foreign policy and PR at home. Obama would be skewered today, and I’m surprised that someone on the left is even holding him up as an example for Biden to follow in foreign policy maneuvers.
Historical the youth vote is very important, we can’t just give up on the whole demographic because they don’t like moderates. They’re the fucking future of the party, we need to actively go after them. I don’t expect Biden to bust out a sac solo live on MTV like Bill did.
Totally agree, but I do wish we could get the sax solo. (Sac solo is also a hilarious typo given the Bill Clinton proximity)
But he’s not trying to reach out at all.
Don’t agree, and here’s exhibit A of my comment above. He has forgiven as many student loans as seemingly possible with the current court structure and he has made climate change a high priority. Those are both targeted directly at the youth. He’s trying. Now, he might be failing, but why? Because a crisis has occurred that the youth feels incredibly strongly about, and they are one of the most uncompromising demographics. Most other demographics will remember those earlier wins and put the ones they lose in larger context. The youth is uncompromising, which is both their largest strength and weakness.
For what it’s worth, I’m not trying to argue with you on the broader topic of whether the younger demo is worth pursuing. Technology and political degradation is just going to consistently put the youth demo at odds with the raw math of campaigning, and that’s something I worry about. I don’t want any of what I’m saying to be true, but I worry that it is.
Older white men, the core republican demographic. Inside of the general democratic camp, it would likely be older Latino males right now, but I would need to refresh my stats.
Both those demographics have more “strong support” but almost no borderline support.
They’re minds are made up, including if they vote or not.
Meanwhile the youth are almost all borderline, they’re the ones you just called “fickle” and have some how taken that into “we shouldn’t reach out to them”…
Which just makes so little sense I stopped reading your comment. It’s not efficient for me to try and explain multiple things at once bud
I’m putting this time in to try and help you after all.
Not sure you’ve been “having to explain things” to me as much as just having a discussion with someone. I’m not really sure why you felt the need to get so dismissive and rude to someone who has clearly just tried to talk to you about something we both care about and approached in good faith. I really don’t need any “help” and I’m not sure what you even mean by that last statement. I hope you have a good rest of your day?
What I continue to assert is: if you ACTUALLY care about the Palestinian people, will trump be better for them? Because if you don’t vote for Biden you are effectively voting for trump because of how we handle elections.
And if Palestine is the only issue you care about… you are an incredibly privileged person who only cares about incredibly privileged people. But, again, do you honestly think trump would be better for Palestine?
Biden just will never listen to the voters who put him in office?
Sounds like a candidate voters won’t turn out for, and when turnout is low, republicans win.
If we can’t get a better candidate, and get push our only option left…
How is it voters fault for disengaging?
Like, you’re arguing from the point that Biden listening to voters is impossible, while telling voter they need to put in effort to elect him again after he disappointed us from last time.
I just don’t see how someone could make the same arguments months away from the primary ending…
And deciding the best course of action is to not only keep Biden, but completely give up on dragging him to the left so he stands a chance
There are things Biden will listen on. There are things he won’t. The past 30 years or so have made it clear that Israel is not something he will listen on.
But I am not a single issue voter. There are a lot of issues I care about. And I agree with Biden on many of those.
By all means. Protest. But when it comes time to vote? Fucking vote.
I could MAYBE understand this if trump were out there talking about Palestinian human rights (I am sure we could find a hot Palestinian for him to assault…). But he isn’t. He is going to be just as bad, if not worse.
Primaries and every day but election day is about fighting for what you want. Election day is about minimizing harm. Welcome to being an adult. And if “voters” don’t understand that then yes, I do blame them (and us as a people).
“Single issue voter” is bullshit to fracture a unified base that’s rallied around one cause. Absolutely none of them literally only care about this and nothing else.
It’s just when lots of average people rally around one common issue, change can happen.
So the people in power try to fracture that unified base and find something they disagree with.
It’s all basic psychology. If you stop and think why that always comes up when there’s a large movement for one issue, it’s really obvious
If nobody cares about only one issue then why are people talking about pissing a vote away because:
Both candidates have basically the same stance on their number one issue
They are too lazy to look at any of their other issues
But yeah. I agree that nobody is actually a single issue voter. Which is why it is important to understand there is more than one issue at play here.
Change CAN happen if the two parties have a different stance. republicans got CLOBBERED because a shocking amount of their base actually care about abortion rights. Democrats have not done anywhere near what they fucking should on that front, but they are the pro human rights party… when it comes to that.
In this case? Both parties have the same stance. It isn’t like letting trump win will at all help the Palestinian people.
Gaza is a big issue, and Biden’s treatment of those that disagree with him isn’t that much different than trumps.
Biden has said the same bullshit about recent protests that Trump said about BLM.
People see that, and it makes them think there’s no chance that they or anyone else can change Biden’s mind about anything else.
And that’s a bad look when your goal is turning out dem voters.
You sound like you get that, but instead of being mad at Biden, you’re mad at everyone else.
That’s where we disagree.
I constantly heard “Biden isn’t a dictator” as an excuse for his inaction, but funding a genocide is an overt action he refuses to stop. And even went around Congress at one point.
He’s throwing away all his integrity, and people aren’t trusting him anymore.
While I completely agree that the US should pull all aid from Israel and hold them accountable to International Law, you forget that almost half of Congress and US citizens still support Israel’s actions. Granted, it’s likely due to media bias, but that doesn’t change the fact that the President represents them as well.
If people threated to kill all your family if you didn’t kill one of them yourself, killing any of your family members doesn’t prove you ACTUALLY care about your family. Not everyone subscribes to outcome-based utilitarianism. If you do, cool for you. But there’s plenty of competing ethical frameworks people have and plenty of people don’t subscribe to any specific frameworks consistently, but still have rules that they believe shouldn’t be viable.
But, again, do you honestly think trump would be better for Palestine?
It could go either way, but probably would be worse in the short-term. Trump is such a baby that he could get mad over some slight offense (or unwillingness to participate in some form of corruption he demands of them) and decide he doesn’t want to play with Israel anymore and he’s already shown he has no problem withholding approved weapon spending (even if illegal to do so). Not saying its likely, but Biden, is pretty much certain continuation of funding genocide, and possibly an escalation of that involvement when he no longer has to worry about re-election.
Donald threatened Iran with nuclear weapons. Donald tried to ban Muslims from the country. Donald wants Israel to finish the job. The Repubs, who usually have oppositional defiant disorder about everything the Dems do, want to arm Israel.
You can be smug as you like about choosing not to touch the switch on this trolley problem. But please pull your head out of the sand about what will happen.
Not going to touch that example with a ten foot pole but:
If your ethics require you to take a pointless moral stand that accomplishes nothing for the people you claim to care about? Cool. Have fun.
This is not the trolley problem where you are deciding if one person or ten people die. This is a case where that same one person is going to die either way but the other ten can be saved.
If your ethics require you to take a pointless moral stand that accomplishes nothing for the people you claim to care about?
It’s only pointless if a few people do it…
Like literally every social change, including voting.
If enough people say “I can’t vote for Biden because of his support of Israel” then a rational candidate would appease their voters, at least till after the election.
If the candidate refuses to do that…
Whats the point in voting for someone who openly refuses to care what their voting base wants?
You’re mad at the wrong person here. Be mad at Biden for putting Israel over America, when according to your opinion, Israel wouldn’t have an issue continuing genocide with trump in office.
Think about Biden’s refusal to listen to voters and that for a minute.
Okay. What does not voting for Biden and letting trump win do for Palestine?
is the orange fuckface going to say “Oh wow. I only won because Biden handled Palestine so poorly. Let me go fight for the rights of ‘muslims’”?
OH! I know. The Democrats will decide they need to do better during the next election as we lose even more supreme court judges and the next election never happens (as per gop plan). But hey, maybe a few Palestinians will be alive in four to infinity years.
They were responding to me instead of you and just clicked the wrong comment I think, just to give them some grace. I would wait for a comment addressed to yours specifically because they may have a different framing.
But considering the US is a two party system at the presidential level: You are effectively voting for the candidate you otherwise wouldn’t if you abstain. So maybe grow up a bit and look at the issues that Biden and trump are actually going to differ on?
Obligatory: If you are at all considering suicide, seek help. Call your national/regional hotline, etc.
Also: What do you think you are even accomplishing? You are screaming like a child that the world should reconfigure itself to what you want or else you will kill yourself.
if you ACTUALLY want to make a difference? Get involved with local politics. The president can’t actually do much. Even trump is largely an ineffective figurehead. The reason he was so devastating is because the bushes and reagan were so devastating before him. And, in large part, republicans accomplish that by taking over school boards and focusing on local elections so that they can gerrymander and usurp democracy.
We, as Liberals and Leftists, need to fight back. And that means getting involved with local politics. Do you hate that your Senator is a DINO dipshit? Work with local politics and the Democratic Party to get more left leaning youngsters onto the ballot. Make sure your state government is full of people who will fight back against election fraud. And so forth.
Because Gaza? We, as a planet, abandoned them decades ago. This is the result. I would like to think there is a way we could help them but every day’s horrors make me increasingly convinced that the time to do that was the 90s and 00s. But we CAN help the next Gaza.
To US folk who actually DO want to make a difference? Seriously, contact your local Democratic Party. Even Bernie realized he couldn’t accomplish much on his own (after a couple decades) and joined up. Yes, the Democrats are notoriously ineffective and lean more centrist than left. But that is why we have to work with them. We need to shift the party line left (and it actually IS a lot more left leaning than it was during Clinton’s administration). And we do that by working year round rather than just turning out to phone bank once every four years.
I’m currently on suspension from work because I started self harming myself in public after listening to yet another horror story from Gaza. I’ve wanted to kill myself for months. I want to die I want to die I want to die I deserve it I deserve it I deserve it.
Fuck I don’t want to die fuck. I don’t! I just don’t see how I get out of this with my soul intact. We’re all fucking damned.
The only thing that will make a difference is the destruction of the United States. Death to America.
If I had an ounce of bravery I’d cast the only fucking vote that matters.
I think it’s really lame to set up a false dichotomy for people between asking you to vote in the presidential election and asking you to kill yourself. That’s not productive discussion at all and really injects a gross tone into the whole thing. Can we not trivialize suicide as some sort of debate tactic, please?
People are asking me to vote fora fucking genocide. They’re asking me to vote for children starving to death under rubble, terrified out of their minds after their entire families were murdered before their eyes. They’re asking me to vote for children being rounded up into detention centers and having their fucking limbs cut off. They’re asking me to vote for the desecration of corpses and the illegal harvest of their skin and organs. They’re asking me to vote for the systematic starvation of children and torture of political prisoners
Those are our bombs, aren’t they? Paid for with our tax money? Funded by our government that we voted for? That makes me complicit! I am responsible for a genocide! Fuck you if you think I’m trivializing fucking anything. I don’t want to die but I sure as fuck deserve it. I helped us get to this point, I played my roll just like everyone else, my hands are covered in blood and fuck this is a nightmare.
If I had an ounce of bravery I’d cast the only vote that matters like Aaron Bushnell did. This isn’t a fucking debate strategy, I’m trying to express how fucking terrified and disgusted and outraged I am. I’m trans. Trump will probably fucking kill me, this isn’t a fucking game.
How can you choose to vote for genocide? Haven’t you heard their screams? Fukc this shit makes me so fuckings ick
Call a suicide hotline. Nobody here can help you in this forum and it’s very clear you need to have a discussion with a therapist. You’re in no place to be on Lemmy having discussions about anything, much less heated political topics. I’m going to block you after this, not because I dislike you, but because I want you to not have any incentive to respond. Go get some help friend.
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Not voting for Biden is not a vote for Trump. For many young voters it’s a choice between Biden or 3rd party, because voting for Trump is out of the question. This is a matter of whether Biden cares about being vote-worthy himself, or if he will continue to prioritize his “Israel First” pro-genocidal strategy above winning the presidency. The fault of Biden’s inevitable upcoming loss is entirely his own, stop trying to blame voters for Biden’s garbage policies.
Like it or not (I for one do not), we live in a country where only two parties matter for the presidential election (third parties DO matter for state and even congress. just not executive).
If you are (American) left leaning and you vote Green party over Democrat? You are one less vote for the Democrats which is one more vote for the republicans when the math breaks down.
Younger folk (and older folk) don’t understand that because we do a horrifically bad job of teaching social studies in high school and tv shows love to emphasize “douche and a turd sandwich” logic to encourage abstaining.
Honestly? Fuck Biden. I have had serious issues with him ever since he was a wannabe cop pushing some really horrible drug legislation. But he is a Democrat and isn’t trump. It is as simple as that. Maybe he won’t help on a lot of issues I care about. He will help on a lot of other issues I do.
Which gets back down to it: if Palestine is the only issue you care about and the only issue anyone you care about cares about? Congrats, you won the privilege lottery and can skip the election. Otherwise? We have two candidates who basically have the same stance on Palestine and Israel (give money to the military industrial complex above all else). But they differ drastically on a LOT of other issues and a LOT of people will be harmed.
So if trans rights or women’s rights or even continuing to be a democracy-ish haven’t “earned your vote”? What does that say about you?
“If you don’t vote for exactly one candidate, democracy dies”
I think democracy’s already dead
I mean, if we don’t do anything (and signs are we won’t, even if Biden wins)… yeah.
But it is still harm minimization. It is another few years for people to live and not be persecuted because of the sex organs they were born with.
Except this is already happening where I live. And will continue to happen where I live under Biden. And will continue to not happen in blue states where it’s not currently happening. You are deeply unserious if you think Biden is going to do shit for women or trans people. You’ll have better luck pressuring Biden and the DNC to do something other than their current strategy than convincing the millions of people who ALREADY live in the reality you seem so afraid of.
If you genuinely think nothing will change regardless of who is president and who has the power to veto the batshit insane stuff republicans are pushing forward AND don’t understand why losing even more supreme court seats will fucks us over massively*: Watch the fucking news and actually listen to what republicans are campaigning on.
*: Because while I am still fucking angry at the Democrats for never codifying it and RBG for being too selfish to step down when she should, understand that the massive wave of abortion bans are a direct result of trump’s supreme court appointees
Then start pressuring the democratic party instead of people like me, whose vote has literally never counted towards anything because of the electoral college.
Because individuals don’t matter. People do. And there might be people in swing states who are reading this and saying “Yeah. I want to see change. I am gonna vote for Jill fucking Stein”.
But also? A large part of why we won in 2020 was because of Staey Abrams et al in Georgia. That was a red as hell state that almost entirely ran on voter disenfranchisement. And she and other advocates fought hard to make people ACTUALLY vote and it turned Blue. It has been an increasing acknowledgement that Texas is ACTUALLY a purple, if not blue, state but is gerrymandered to hell to prevent that.
Does every individual’s vote matter? No. Of course not. But every VOTE matters. Because it keeps blue states blue and it fights the efforts to disenfranchise voters in “red” states. And you accomplish that by pointing out the stupidity of people who are advocating for change by… not voting or even outright voting against their own interests.
My 2020 harm reduction vote for Joseph Biden resulted in roe getting shredded with 0 pushback and whole hog support for Palestinian eradication. Will not be making that mistake again!
…do you actually not realize how much worse Trump would’ve been?
If trump had been re-elected, maybe libs would’ve kept pretending to care instead of checking out entirely cause Da Blue Team won or whatever. maybe we could’ve gotten something done out of sheer spite for Le Cheeto Benito. All having a lame duck dem in power has done is give everyone cover to not give a shit anymore.
At least Democrats, by showing their ass on this issue, have helped to awaken the American people to the lies of Israel and the United States.
If Trump were president it would all just be blamed on Trump and Netanyahu. Since it’s Biden it’s easier for everyone to see the bigger picture.
I draw the line at genocide. Determine what you will if you choose.
So your current voting options are
The guy who is currently allowing a genocide to occur or even helping to perpetuate it, but could potentially be persuaded to take steps against it
Vote for 3rd party candidates or abstain from voting so that you can pat yourself on the back and say “I didn’t vote for genocide” even though that option doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of winning (no matter how much we wish that were the case)
The guy who is fully in support of the genocide and would very much like to support more genocides given the chance
And that’s not even touching on basically every other issue where candidate 1 is also far better (or at least much less bad) than candidate 3.
Voting for 2 takes votes primarily from candidate 1, candidate 3’s supporters by and large have no intention of jumping ship no matter what. So you’re effectively taking votes away from the one candidate who has any chance of winning that we might be able to talk out of genocide, and allowing candidate 3 to win so he can do even more genocide.
I’ve voted 3rd party nearly every opportunity I’ve had for most of my adult life, and I hope at some point we return to some level of sanity and I can feel safe resuming that. Right now, we are faced with 2 possible outcomes, bad and cartoonishly evil, whatever thoughts you have about this being the year of the 3rd party candidate are delusional, the movement just isn’t there right now, and while normally I’d be all about the idea of a protest vote, you only get the one vote, and would you rather use it to send a message, or to actually avoid the worst outcome?
Perfect, as they say, is the enemy of good.
So trans genocide doesn’t matter to you? Neither does the further eroding of women’s rights?
Got it.
Comments like this make it seem like you only care about trans people as a cudgel to use against people
I don’t care that you chose to determine that.
I draw the line at genocide.
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I’m trans.
Don’t you fucking dare do this in my name.
I will not vote for genocide.
That’s good, we can get the Muslim ban guy back in. He says Israel should, “finish the job,” with peace talks, I’m sure! Good job, buddy, you did it. You ended the genocide by choosing the authoritarian who ran on a campaign of racism. Authoritarian governments would never accelerate or intensify the invasions of foreign countries.
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It’s not a 2 party system, it’s a corporate uni-party and they’re all being paid by AIPAC to let the genocide continue. It’s disgusting, and for this reason alone I won’t support either of those parties. If either party cares about politics at all, more than their donor money, then a sizable vote for green/PSL should register with them and force them to adjust their campaigning in ‘28, or else they’ll lose power rapidly as 3rd parties gain momentum. From this perspective, which you clearly don’t understand, voting for either R or D is throwing a vote away. Voting for a better alternative is not giving a vote to Trump, that is the simpleton turd sandwich framing which you’ve just desparaged. This blames voters, and it’s wrong - Biden is losing these votes all by himself.
I’d like to briefly address your last comment as well. Democrats have had numerous opportunities in the last 20 years to codify Roe into law, and they chose not to do so. Instead, they wanted to fear monger over republicans taking away women’s bodily autonomy and fundraise off of it. All the while, manufacturing consent for the republicans to do just that. It’s very leopards ate my face to act surprised about this, and disingenuous at best to claim democrats are some kind of women’s rights champions. If you’re at all interested in a leader who will actually safeguard women, cis or trans, vote for Jill Stein this November.
Imagine being so privileged as to be able to just deal with 4 years of Trump in the hope that somehow the message heard will be “oop should’ve given us a better candidate, Dems!” and not “well fuck we’d better go even further right to keep up”.
Imagine being so privileged that you don’t already live in a state where all the things being fear-mongered about to support Biden are already happening.
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Imagine being able to prosecute Trump 3 years ago, but waiting until ‘24 to try and make it political (and show your hand that you were never serious about holding the elite accountable to begin with). Keep “looking forward, not backward” and never learn a damn thing.
There won’t be a sizable vote for the third party, though. Stein got 1% in 2016. That’s a rounding error. There will never be a sizable vote for a third party as long as we have FPTP.
They don’t give a shit about third party votes at all. The only thing that would actually get their attention is young adults consistently and reliably coming out to vote in every election.
Hopefully you are able to vote again in 2028. I know mommy and daddy’s money must be sheltering you from needing to worry about losing your rights, but the guy has already done one insurrection. It is actually looking pretty grim.
Incorrect.
First Past the Post says fuck you, and First Past the Post is the reality. Until we change the voting system, third parties will never gain momentum. It is statistically impossible. You may as well get hit by a meteor while turning in your winning Powerball ticket.
Oh, and nevermind that if Trump wins, none of this will matter. All future “elections” will be won by a Republican with 110% of the vote
We are wel past the point of no return.
Not seeing a difference right now tbh.
That Harvard link shows 34% percent of respondents issues considered it the most important…
But like, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here, and I’m going to try and clear it up.
So generally speaking:
What will help the most is often not what most people consider to the most important issue.
Like, if everyone had it as their number 1, 2, or 3 but it wasn’t the most popular number 1?
It might still be the one thing that helps the most despite not being the most popular number 1 response.
Does that make sense?
Lots of people miss that when talking statistics. And since that first link has nothing to do with what I’m talking about, I’m assuming that’s what’s going on here.
It’s also not accounting for which repsondants were already voting for Biden when talking about most important single issue.
You think the pro trump respondents give a shit or will vote Biden for any reason?
Why is what they consider most important relevant to what we’re talking about?
You responded to the wrong person. I can reply here though, no worries.
You’re reading that 34% stat incorrectly. It is not saying that 34% of young people view that as the most important issue, they are saying that when asked about it when put head to head with another issue from that list, it only won 34% of the time. I believe that difference also mostly accounts for your 2nd/3rd choice dynamic as well, because it would have also been paired with those other topics and lost accordingly. Look at the other scores on that list. It’s clear that this conflict is not the primary driver of the election season right now.
Now, I’d love to see more stats, but between this and that recent Gallup poll, I’m going to start needing affirmative evidence in the other direction before I just start making leaps. For what it’s worth, I also find this conflict heinous. Israel is committing horrific war crimes. Global policy never outperforms domestic issues though. Caring about your own survival is human nature, so I kind of expect it.
Keep on advocating for Palestine and Gaza. I will be as well. Just don’t expect to be able to hold the election over their heads as leverage, because it’s becoming increasingly clear that leverage doesn’t exist.
No, I get that.
But if everyone’s second choice for dinner is pizza, that might be the choice that gets the most people on board even if it’s no one’s first pick.
The demographics Biden struggles with the most from the Dem voting base care about this.
And Biden barely beat trump last time, he can’t afford to keep funding a damn genocide.
The demographic Biden struggles most with isn’t young people and beside that point, every demographic is unique. Young people are impossible to please. Not individually, but as a demographic, they are inconsistent, fickle, wrathful, and fairly apathetic. I’m still in this demographic and it wouldn’t be my first stop for a reliable election winner. Then look at the Gallup poll I sent and think about this purely from a campaigning perspective. How does playing to the youth on Gaza win you anything? Frankly, it looks like the math is stacked against us on this.
I still think we should fight for this. I still think there should be protests, demonstrations, campaigning for more ethical candidates. I no longer think trying to win this through selling it as a carrot or stick for winning the election is going to work though. The electorate just cares way, way more about economics and Biden (from a campaigning perspective) would be much more well-suited to focusing on that.
Then what demographic do you think it is?
I’m talking the standard demographics, unless you have some ultra specific one like “people who oppose funding genocide” I don’t know what you mean.
Not for Obama.
And they turned out in 2016 when all they knew about Biden was he used to be Obam’s VP.
Just because they don’t like “moderate” neoliberals or republicans don’t mean they don’t like anyone.
Hell, when I was young I liked Bill Clinton just because he gave you g voters the time of day.
Standards are fucking low, it’s just Hillary and Biden didn’t try.
Historically the youth vote is very important, we can’t just give up on the whole demographic because they don’t like moderates. They’re the fucking future of the party, we need to actively go after them. I don’t expect Biden to bust out a sax solo live on MTV like Bill did.
But he’s not trying to reach out at all.
Older white men, the core republican demographic. Inside of the general democratic camp, it would likely be older Latino males right now, but I would need to refresh my stats.
You’re joking, right? Ask any young person today what their thoughts on Obama are and you’re gonna hear “drone strikes” first thing. The electoral politics of 2024 are vastly different than the ones in 2012, especially with young people. The way social media delivers news and raw footage to people, especially the youth who know how to operate it best, has completely altered the relationship between foreign policy and PR at home. Obama would be skewered today, and I’m surprised that someone on the left is even holding him up as an example for Biden to follow in foreign policy maneuvers.
Totally agree, but I do wish we could get the sax solo. (Sac solo is also a hilarious typo given the Bill Clinton proximity)
Don’t agree, and here’s exhibit A of my comment above. He has forgiven as many student loans as seemingly possible with the current court structure and he has made climate change a high priority. Those are both targeted directly at the youth. He’s trying. Now, he might be failing, but why? Because a crisis has occurred that the youth feels incredibly strongly about, and they are one of the most uncompromising demographics. Most other demographics will remember those earlier wins and put the ones they lose in larger context. The youth is uncompromising, which is both their largest strength and weakness.
For what it’s worth, I’m not trying to argue with you on the broader topic of whether the younger demo is worth pursuing. Technology and political degradation is just going to consistently put the youth demo at odds with the raw math of campaigning, and that’s something I worry about. I don’t want any of what I’m saying to be true, but I worry that it is.
Not really.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/24/joe-bidens-approval-ratings/
Both those demographics have more “strong support” but almost no borderline support.
They’re minds are made up, including if they vote or not.
Meanwhile the youth are almost all borderline, they’re the ones you just called “fickle” and have some how taken that into “we shouldn’t reach out to them”…
Which just makes so little sense I stopped reading your comment. It’s not efficient for me to try and explain multiple things at once bud
I’m putting this time in to try and help you after all.
Not sure you’ve been “having to explain things” to me as much as just having a discussion with someone. I’m not really sure why you felt the need to get so dismissive and rude to someone who has clearly just tried to talk to you about something we both care about and approached in good faith. I really don’t need any “help” and I’m not sure what you even mean by that last statement. I hope you have a good rest of your day?
I did not claim it is not an important issue.
What I continue to assert is: if you ACTUALLY care about the Palestinian people, will trump be better for them? Because if you don’t vote for Biden you are effectively voting for trump because of how we handle elections.
And if Palestine is the only issue you care about… you are an incredibly privileged person who only cares about incredibly privileged people. But, again, do you honestly think trump would be better for Palestine?
So you think regardless of amount of protest…
Biden just will never listen to the voters who put him in office?
Sounds like a candidate voters won’t turn out for, and when turnout is low, republicans win.
If we can’t get a better candidate, and get push our only option left…
How is it voters fault for disengaging?
Like, you’re arguing from the point that Biden listening to voters is impossible, while telling voter they need to put in effort to elect him again after he disappointed us from last time.
I just don’t see how someone could make the same arguments months away from the primary ending…
And deciding the best course of action is to not only keep Biden, but completely give up on dragging him to the left so he stands a chance
I just don’t get it
There are things Biden will listen on. There are things he won’t. The past 30 years or so have made it clear that Israel is not something he will listen on.
But I am not a single issue voter. There are a lot of issues I care about. And I agree with Biden on many of those.
By all means. Protest. But when it comes time to vote? Fucking vote.
I could MAYBE understand this if trump were out there talking about Palestinian human rights (I am sure we could find a hot Palestinian for him to assault…). But he isn’t. He is going to be just as bad, if not worse.
Primaries and every day but election day is about fighting for what you want. Election day is about minimizing harm. Welcome to being an adult. And if “voters” don’t understand that then yes, I do blame them (and us as a people).
Hardly anyone is…
“Single issue voter” is bullshit to fracture a unified base that’s rallied around one cause. Absolutely none of them literally only care about this and nothing else.
It’s just when lots of average people rally around one common issue, change can happen.
So the people in power try to fracture that unified base and find something they disagree with.
It’s all basic psychology. If you stop and think why that always comes up when there’s a large movement for one issue, it’s really obvious
If nobody cares about only one issue then why are people talking about pissing a vote away because:
But yeah. I agree that nobody is actually a single issue voter. Which is why it is important to understand there is more than one issue at play here.
Change CAN happen if the two parties have a different stance. republicans got CLOBBERED because a shocking amount of their base actually care about abortion rights. Democrats have not done anywhere near what they fucking should on that front, but they are the pro human rights party… when it comes to that.
In this case? Both parties have the same stance. It isn’t like letting trump win will at all help the Palestinian people.
Because:
Gaza is a big issue, and Biden’s treatment of those that disagree with him isn’t that much different than trumps.
Biden has said the same bullshit about recent protests that Trump said about BLM.
People see that, and it makes them think there’s no chance that they or anyone else can change Biden’s mind about anything else.
And that’s a bad look when your goal is turning out dem voters.
You sound like you get that, but instead of being mad at Biden, you’re mad at everyone else.
That’s where we disagree.
I constantly heard “Biden isn’t a dictator” as an excuse for his inaction, but funding a genocide is an overt action he refuses to stop. And even went around Congress at one point.
He’s throwing away all his integrity, and people aren’t trusting him anymore.
While I completely agree that the US should pull all aid from Israel and hold them accountable to International Law, you forget that almost half of Congress and US citizens still support Israel’s actions. Granted, it’s likely due to media bias, but that doesn’t change the fact that the President represents them as well.
https://zeteo.com/p/gaza-israel-genocide-poll-ceasefire-us-voters
If people threated to kill all your family if you didn’t kill one of them yourself, killing any of your family members doesn’t prove you ACTUALLY care about your family. Not everyone subscribes to outcome-based utilitarianism. If you do, cool for you. But there’s plenty of competing ethical frameworks people have and plenty of people don’t subscribe to any specific frameworks consistently, but still have rules that they believe shouldn’t be viable.
It could go either way, but probably would be worse in the short-term. Trump is such a baby that he could get mad over some slight offense (or unwillingness to participate in some form of corruption he demands of them) and decide he doesn’t want to play with Israel anymore and he’s already shown he has no problem withholding approved weapon spending (even if illegal to do so). Not saying its likely, but Biden, is pretty much certain continuation of funding genocide, and possibly an escalation of that involvement when he no longer has to worry about re-election.
Edit: fixed typo: made->mad
It would not go either way, buddy.
Donald threatened Iran with nuclear weapons. Donald tried to ban Muslims from the country. Donald wants Israel to finish the job. The Repubs, who usually have oppositional defiant disorder about everything the Dems do, want to arm Israel.
You can be smug as you like about choosing not to touch the switch on this trolley problem. But please pull your head out of the sand about what will happen.
Not going to touch that example with a ten foot pole but:
If your ethics require you to take a pointless moral stand that accomplishes nothing for the people you claim to care about? Cool. Have fun.
This is not the trolley problem where you are deciding if one person or ten people die. This is a case where that same one person is going to die either way but the other ten can be saved.
It’s only pointless if a few people do it…
Like literally every social change, including voting.
If enough people say “I can’t vote for Biden because of his support of Israel” then a rational candidate would appease their voters, at least till after the election.
If the candidate refuses to do that…
Whats the point in voting for someone who openly refuses to care what their voting base wants?
You’re mad at the wrong person here. Be mad at Biden for putting Israel over America, when according to your opinion, Israel wouldn’t have an issue continuing genocide with trump in office.
Think about Biden’s refusal to listen to voters and that for a minute.
He cares more about Israel than America.
Okay. What does not voting for Biden and letting trump win do for Palestine?
is the orange fuckface going to say “Oh wow. I only won because Biden handled Palestine so poorly. Let me go fight for the rights of ‘muslims’”?
OH! I know. The Democrats will decide they need to do better during the next election as we lose even more supreme court judges and the next election never happens (as per gop plan). But hey, maybe a few Palestinians will be alive in four to infinity years.
They were responding to me instead of you and just clicked the wrong comment I think, just to give them some grace. I would wait for a comment addressed to yours specifically because they may have a different framing.
Yeah, just saw that
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That’s nice.
But considering the US is a two party system at the presidential level: You are effectively voting for the candidate you otherwise wouldn’t if you abstain. So maybe grow up a bit and look at the issues that Biden and trump are actually going to differ on?
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I’m not going to joke about that.
I AM going to say that maybe you should consider the actual impact of your vote or lack thereof.
I am not fucking joking.
If the only choices are to vote for genocide, then I should vote like Aaron Bushnell. I deserve it.
Obligatory: If you are at all considering suicide, seek help. Call your national/regional hotline, etc.
Also: What do you think you are even accomplishing? You are screaming like a child that the world should reconfigure itself to what you want or else you will kill yourself.
if you ACTUALLY want to make a difference? Get involved with local politics. The president can’t actually do much. Even trump is largely an ineffective figurehead. The reason he was so devastating is because the bushes and reagan were so devastating before him. And, in large part, republicans accomplish that by taking over school boards and focusing on local elections so that they can gerrymander and usurp democracy.
We, as Liberals and Leftists, need to fight back. And that means getting involved with local politics. Do you hate that your Senator is a DINO dipshit? Work with local politics and the Democratic Party to get more left leaning youngsters onto the ballot. Make sure your state government is full of people who will fight back against election fraud. And so forth.
Because Gaza? We, as a planet, abandoned them decades ago. This is the result. I would like to think there is a way we could help them but every day’s horrors make me increasingly convinced that the time to do that was the 90s and 00s. But we CAN help the next Gaza.
To US folk who actually DO want to make a difference? Seriously, contact your local Democratic Party. Even Bernie realized he couldn’t accomplish much on his own (after a couple decades) and joined up. Yes, the Democrats are notoriously ineffective and lean more centrist than left. But that is why we have to work with them. We need to shift the party line left (and it actually IS a lot more left leaning than it was during Clinton’s administration). And we do that by working year round rather than just turning out to phone bank once every four years.
I’m currently on suspension from work because I started self harming myself in public after listening to yet another horror story from Gaza. I’ve wanted to kill myself for months. I want to die I want to die I want to die I deserve it I deserve it I deserve it.
Fuck I don’t want to die fuck. I don’t! I just don’t see how I get out of this with my soul intact. We’re all fucking damned.
The only thing that will make a difference is the destruction of the United States. Death to America.
If I had an ounce of bravery I’d cast the only fucking vote that matters.
I think it’s really lame to set up a false dichotomy for people between asking you to vote in the presidential election and asking you to kill yourself. That’s not productive discussion at all and really injects a gross tone into the whole thing. Can we not trivialize suicide as some sort of debate tactic, please?
People are asking me to vote for a fucking genocide. They’re asking me to vote for children starving to death under rubble, terrified out of their minds after their entire families were murdered before their eyes. They’re asking me to vote for children being rounded up into detention centers and having their fucking limbs cut off. They’re asking me to vote for the desecration of corpses and the illegal harvest of their skin and organs. They’re asking me to vote for the systematic starvation of children and torture of political prisoners
Those are our bombs, aren’t they? Paid for with our tax money? Funded by our government that we voted for? That makes me complicit! I am responsible for a genocide! Fuck you if you think I’m trivializing fucking anything. I don’t want to die but I sure as fuck deserve it. I helped us get to this point, I played my roll just like everyone else, my hands are covered in blood and fuck this is a nightmare.
If I had an ounce of bravery I’d cast the only vote that matters like Aaron Bushnell did. This isn’t a fucking debate strategy, I’m trying to express how fucking terrified and disgusted and outraged I am. I’m trans. Trump will probably fucking kill me, this isn’t a fucking game.
How can you choose to vote for genocide? Haven’t you heard their screams? Fukc this shit makes me so fuckings ick
Call a suicide hotline. Nobody here can help you in this forum and it’s very clear you need to have a discussion with a therapist. You’re in no place to be on Lemmy having discussions about anything, much less heated political topics. I’m going to block you after this, not because I dislike you, but because I want you to not have any incentive to respond. Go get some help friend.