We don’t know what Biden is saying behind closed doors, but I’d be willing to bet my left nut that he’s really angry at Netanyahu.
Bibi knows he would get full support to wipe out Gaza from Trump.
Biden is still trying to help within a certain frame by sending aid and asking Netanyahu to stop killing civilians. But that’s only as much as he can do without completely pulling all funding, weapons and ammo. But there’s risks associated to that. Especially with the threat of Iran in the middle East. He doesn’t want to lose the support of one of the only allies, if not the only one, in the region.
The whole thing is very complex. There’s lots of things at play here and it’s all a bunch of shades of gray. Nothing is black and white.
However, there’s only one thing that’s really important here. Trump must lose. A Trump win would be devastating for world peace. I don’t think Americans understand enough how much their country is a central pillar for world peace. The Gaza genocide could be nothing compared to the world wide cluster fuck we could be in if Trump wins.
So get your heads out of your asses, swallow your fucking pride and do the world a fucking favor by voting for the only candidate who still has a chance at not bringing a third, and possibly ultimate, world war.
For real - Trump would have sent whole squadrons of B-52s to carpet bomb Gaza without warning or allowance for any civilian evacuation.
I voted uncommitted in my primary on Tuesday. But I am sure as shit voting for the Democratic nominee, whoever it turns out to be, but realistically, it’s going to be Biden.
I understand precisely how central the US is to world stability at large. I’m not trying to claim the US is perfect, or unambiguously good - we have absolutely done a lot of shitty things over the years. I will assert that the world would likely be a lot more dangerous in a holistic sense if it weren’t for the US’s post-WW2 leadership in the western hemisphere.
The US has deliberately destabilized the Middle East, South and Central America and Southern Asia. What you describe as holistic sense, is in fact the opposite. It is limited to a western perspective, that was culturally formed by almost a century of American supremacism, denial of non western perspectives in media and manufacturing consent propaganda in all levels of society…
The Vietnam war was largely an effort to destabilize the region and prevent economic development by defending a brutal post colonial regime against its own people. It wasn even about communism, as the US was happy to help the genocidal Red Khmer in Cambodia.
The US has toppled something like a dozen democratically elected governments in South and Central America and installed brutal, often fascist regimes, to maximise US company profits.
The US destroyed Iraq, leading to the Insurgency and subsequently ISIS, to keep the Middle East at perpetual destablization after it started to become more stable in the early 2000s. The momentum was then used to destabilize Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. While claiming it was about “democracy” the US was happy to support the coup in Egypt after they kicked out Mubarak and held elections. The now installed Sisi is even worse than Mubarak.
The final example should be Afghanistan, where 20 years of US occupation created nothing tangible and had the country fall back under Taliban control before the last US troops were out.
First thing trump would do is stop all Ukraine aid and give Putin the green light, second thing he’d do is withdraw from NATO.
Exactly.
He literally said today that he will never stop supporting and arming Israel.
I wish more people understood you some deescalate by screaming we’re going to kick your ass and force you to stop. That is unless you all want the US fighting on a third front and are willing to eat that cost.
I think a Trump win could mean at least soldiers being sent to Gaza and Ukraine being handed over to Putin in the name of “peace”, which would fuel the territorial ambitions of other dictators. A lot of Hungarians are still mad about Treaty of Trianon, see Slovaks as a “fake nation created by the Habsburgs/Jews/communists”, and this is only my country. China has it’s own territorial ambitions, so are most other regimes.
The fact we have to keep explaining this is dire. You think Trump supporters have to have concerted campaigns everytime Trump eats a baby? No, they lose nothing and we have to keep hearding fucking cats.
Oh I’m not trying to convince Trump supporters. I’m trying to convince liberals who won’t vote for Biden over one issue: the Israel-Gaza conflict. Effectively handing over the presidential election to Trump.
for the only candidate who still has a chance at not bringing a third, and possibly ultimate, world war.
Trump hast pulled out US troops from the Middle East. The US strategy for the Middle East and in particular the strategy of supporting Israel no matter what, revolves around perpetual destabilization of the Middle East to prevent the formation of a unified Arab bloc, that would become another global power.
I believe this to be highly implausible. The current US strategy is a danger to peace. Also both Saudi Arabia and Iran are now in the BRICS, so without US divisive interference diplomacy is actually possible in the region.
The whole “Trump will cause WW3” seems to me like a great consipiracy theory peddled to get some of the anti war vote, when the Democrats have been War Hawks since decades. Hillary Clinton campaigned in 2016 on the idea of going to war with Iran. There is many problems with Trump, but on the issue of global war i do not see, why he would be a bigger danger than the Democrats or other Republicans.
Are you serious?
Like someone else said, Trump would likely carpet bomb Gaza indiscriminately. This world increase hate against the US from the Middle East. And would probably encourage certain nations to act against the US.
Trump is also pro Putin. He would let Putin run rampant and he would invade and take over all the old Soviet bloc nations and rule with an iron fist over them. This would put Europe at risk of war. And could potentially drag in NATO members. And have you forgotten that Putin is staunchly against LGBTQ and trans people? This would cause complete chaos.
Why would Trump have to carpet bomb Gaza? Israel is literally already doing that with American bombs. What benefit would it be to Trump to spend billions of dollars deploying US military forces to take military action Israel is already taking? Trump would just continue letting Israel do whatever they want with no international repercussions. The genocide of Palestine is not popular with the extreme right, which is virulently anti-Semitic and has seized on the genocide as an excuse to promote anti semitism. Not to mention, Trump has territorial goals in mind. He wouldn’t commit military forces to a place far from the Americas (and away from his territorial ambitions) to ethically cleanse a group of people who mean nothing to him.
Where did Trump expand US military presence during his presidency? I only have the examples in mind where he pulled troops out. Also the brief escalation with Iran was, well brief. Torpedising the JCPOA was a destabilizing act, but the war hawks amongs Dems are also fiercly opposing any diplomatic efforts with Iran.
Meanwhile while Biden is talking about “please Israel don’t kill so many Palestinians, what are you doing this is bad press for me” he also keeps sending arms to Israel and backing them against every UN measure to demand a ceasefire and humanitarian access to Gaza.
Judging by actions instead of words, i don’t see why Trump would be more of a danger to the Middle East than the Democrats are.
I share the criticism of lacking Ukraine support and Putin apologism by the republicans. I am skeptical that this would lead to WW3 in Europe though. Russia did not escalate to nuclear war, like they threatened, for European countries and the US to send more and more and better equipment to Ukraine. Russia having switched to war economy is dangerous as it might necesitate an even stronger focus on war efforts, but i remain sceptical that they would push into an all out war with European NATO countries. Putin is struggling internally to keep power, as we see by both Putin allies and enemys to keep “falling” out of windows. And the russian elites like money, but they don’t like getting nuked. Also Russia is more and more dependant on countries like China and India to cover the sanctioned parts and products. Neither country is excited about the economic fallout of a full blown war in Europe.
Finally Putin being staunchly against LGBT people is unfortunate, but i don’t see how this would make the prospect of WW3 more likely. We see a recession of pro LGBT stances in the growing fascism and right wing populism in Europe too. These countries will not go to war over LGBT rights. And the growth of these political leanings is aided by Russia, no doubt about it. But the land for these “plants” to grow is kept fertile by neoliberal politics, that are in line with the US Dems economic positions.
This is where the circle closes. We cannot solve Trump, growing fascism in Europe, Putins expansionism and create peace in the Middle East without changing the political direction of US Democrats and similiar political groups in Europe. By saying “ohh this election again we must get the Democrats to win as they are the lesser of two evil” all we do is grow both evils stronger.
Trump didn’t have the conflicts we have now during his presidency. Actions instead of words??? You’re kidding? You can’t compare him to Biden in that regard.
Trump pulling troops out of the Middle-East was him pulling troops out of Afghanistan. And look what happened. The Taliban just walked back in with practically zero resistance and now every woman in the country lost their rights. The decades long work of trying to stabilize that country, dead soldiers from so many countries who tried to bring stability and peace in the region. All lost in a few weeks because of his stupidity.
Trump also pulled US soldiers out of Syria, Iraq and Somalia.
Also as much as i love to blame stuff on Trump, Afghanistan failing was not his work alone, or even mainly his work. And Biden was happy to fully pull out of Afghanistan, instead of reversing Trump decision. But the USs proclaimed goal of stabilising and democratising Afghanistan was a sham from the very beginning under Bush. Heck even the “war on terror” angle was a lie, as all the US did was make insurgent groups stronger wherever they went.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/23/politics/how-four-presidents-created-afghanistan-mess/index.html
Alright then. Go vote for Trump if you hate Biden so much. Let’s see where a second Trump presidency leads world peace and social progress. Because according to you, he’s so much better at doing this job than Biden who, outside of the whole Gaza conflict, has been praised for his work on so many levels.
And here you fall victim to the problem i was talking about in the first place. The US politics are so entrenched, that each election you rather want to chose the party that will fuck you over less badly this time, but by this enable both parties to fuck you over every time.
I’m not an US citizen so my perspective of course is different, but how the fuck can the majority of the voters in the US be fine with the choice being between two geriatrics with visible mental decline and think “yep this is as good as it gets”? How can the voters of the democrats let the party elites get away with another Biden candidacy?
But like a badly managed company only thinks about the next quarter, the US seems to only think about just the next term and never further.
Honestly the Trolley Problem is a perfect representation of this issue. All leftists in America are being asked to either personally hold a part in a genocide, or to personally abstain and allow greater horrors to be unleashed (including the genocide).
I feel like if it really mapped so cleanly onto the trolley problem, there wouldn’t need to be 4 paragraphs of text included throughout the meme in an attempt to head off any arguments…
The general election vote itself is the trolley problem, the paragraphs are detailing other solutions beyond simple voting to try and get out of the trolley problem.
This just goes to show how convoluted Democrat “logic” becomes. They have to do all of these mental gymnastics instead of simply just voting for the Green Party. I’m so glad I’m not a Democrat.
I don’t. I only think about it because you keep insisting that there is another valid option, yet I can never find an argument from you that holds water.
I was convinced by some of you that the primary protest vote is good, but I have never heard a coherent plan for the general besides playing chicken with liberals. I see alternative actions that don’t assume liberals are smart, yet have more predictable gains. Vote blue AND do other stuff.
It’s a really single argument. In a democracy, you should vote for the best person on the ballot. If you don’t do that, then democracy doesn’t work.
Yeah, no shit it doesn’t work. That isn’t relevant to voting beyond favoring candidates that value serious reforms. The conversation isn’t about whether the system sucks; the conversation is about what we can do to improve things or minimize harm.
Feelings of being ignored and disenfranchised matter, but you need to use your head to figure out what options are the best. Don’t feel like the candidates represent you? Promote those that do. Don’t like how corrupt the system is? Figure out a feasible plan to improve it.
I get why you feel like letting city hall burn down is an option. I think we need a stronger international social contract, one enforced by neighboring countries rather than imperial powers. I feel like the rich and powerful won’t realize this until a devastating World War fucks over everyone. You can’t really insulate yourself when a World War comes to town. It’s better to be relatively less wealthy in a stable world than the king of a dangerous one.
When even the elites suffer, they might consider making the world better. It isn’t guaranteed, but capitalists are nothing if not full of themselves. Even leftists refuse to recognize how miserable collapse would be. It’s something we must avoid, even if that means we must ally with shitty liberals.
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Or vote for a better alternative. I urge everybody to check out Jill Stein or Cornel West. Either one would be a much better president than Trump or Biden.
Unfortunately the lever only goes in two directions.
Primary season is almost over, your chances of getting this done is narrowing.
excellent it’s almost over with 😅 hoping biden responds well
Don’t worry, the ‘genocide joe’ people don’t actually care. They like how now they can claim plausible deniability. Once the primaries are over they will make up some new fantasy.
I just want to point out a thing said in this, that I have seen said hundreds of other times, which is not correct.
Due to the spoiler effect, a leftist vote for a third party candidate is essentially a vote for trump
This is incorrect, most charitably interpreted as an exaggeration, but it is said so often I think people are misunderstanding the spoiler effect.
The spoiler effect is real and it can suppress a victory of not-as-bad candidates if they have a popular opposition, but it is never as bad as “essentially voting for trump”. It is equivalent to not voting at all, at worst.
And it is also a simplification of the situation to imply that the spoiler effect only affects democrats. There is a similar thing going on with conservative third parties.
eh, you’re still effectively supporting trump by not voting for the party that can actually win instead.
It’s not as bad as voting for trump, but it’s still giving him a better shot at winning than he would have if you voted for biden
But if I’m a leftist, wouldn’t I rather any candidate win over the furthest right one?
Obviously I’d want a leftist to be the president, but US politics doesn’t work outside of the binary. I voted third party in 2016 and regretted it a lot.
That’s the basis of what the spoiler effect is and why it’s a problem to consider, yeah.
I just think it is better to be clear about how it works and what it means. Non-voting and third party votes being described as explicit support for trump has some troubling implications.
It’s more accurate to say that they are votes for whoever wins. By not choosing between the 2 choices you know will win, you basically say that others should decide for you.
Not to be rude but this is an oversimplified and incorrect view of voting and is the exact kind of mindset I am against.
If you try to insist non-voting is somehow support for a specific candidate, what does that say about people who can’t vote for personal/health reasons? If someone working poverty wages, unable to get the day off to vote, can’t get their vote counted, are they somehow a bad person?
Additionally, although less significant, I can’t consider it morally wrong, ever, to vote third party. Strategically wrong, sure, it often is, but the point of a vote is to choose, and I can’t blame someone for using their right to choose to be an idealist rather than a strategist. And honestly, in an election like this with so much frustration towards the major parties, 3rd party has a better chance of winning than usual… although I’m sure that is a stressful and unpleasant thing to hear if you dislike third parties.
To continue on this, the spoiler effect is a shorterm strategic problem, not necessarily a long term one.
There absolutely is a strategic difference between
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52% Republican
-
48% Democrat
and
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47% Republican
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43% Democrat
-
10% Green
The former tells Democrats their only option is to move right to resecure some Republican voters. The latter tells Democrats that they have the ability to also resecure votes from the left by making concessions that to Green Party politics.
People who say these two situations are literally identical are being disingenuous or ignorant. Even if the same number of Democrats/Republicans voted in both, and the only difference is people who didn’t vote instead voted green, this results in actual differences in signals and potential future policies.
tldr: voting third party is not identical to not voting, even strategically.
In a FPTP, it’s a mostly 2 option situation. This is especially true for the green party, who are a joke in local politics. They shoot for the moon instead of building to it. They’re nowhere close to 10% in the presidential election and barely existent in terms of offices held. They’re not serious about being a political force.
Unless we have ranked choice for presidential elections, you have 2 choices. It’s a terrible system, but we have to exist in it. The green party strategy is a dead end. Focus on the DSA if you want to have an impact in elections.
The strategic difference between the two situations in a general election is that the 3rd party could have settled for liberals instead of fascists. In an open or closed primary, it is a valid strategy for sending a message, but not in the general. Don’t like it? I don’t either.
I know you don’t want to hear this, but fascists are actually much worse than liberals. If you think they’re comparably evil and that the second situation is better strategically, you’re disingenuous or ignorant.
If the Democrats have any self-interest in holding power, they’ll actually try strategies to regain power. If they lose in 2024 by a percentage that is covered by the green party, they could conclude it’s easier to go left and get Green members rather than pull people from the Trump cult. I’d agree with these future Democrats, I think you’d have very, very little success pulling people from the Trump cult.
Especially if the people who voted green in 2024 have previously voted Democrat, it showcases that these people are willing to go Democrat if certain material concessions are made.
-
If someone working poverty wages, unable to get the day off to vote, can’t get their vote counted, are they somehow a bad person?
That’s called disenfranchisement. When you’re disenfranchised, you don’t have choice. Not liking people who make bad choices says nothing about people that cannot make the choice in the first place. What a weak ass strawman. Not cool 😑
It is morally wrong to “vote your conscience” when you should know the consequences of doing so. Government is a mechanism that has inputs and outputs that can be predicted to some extent. When you go against a clear prediction with dire consequences, you’ve done a bad thing that causes harm. I don’t care about blaming you because you’re deluded, but the effect of that action is unambiguously bad. It isn’t about making the choice with the best outcome, but about making the choice that seems likely to have the best outcome.
It’s like being in a death cult. You believe your own nonsense, but that doesn’t make it right. It just means you were a victim at best. There’s no need for me to consider blame or responsibility when I call drinking the cool-aid bad.
Third parties have a smaller chance than ever in the presidential election. There are no strong candidates from a 3rd party. Jill Stein? She sucks even if you ignore the Russia shit. The only unpleasant thing about your arguments is that they’re so inadequate. I feel guilty about knocking them over.
Well if there is no practical point in our communicating, with our senses of morality being so alien to each other, could you at least avoid doing it anyways for the sake of being so insulting to me?
I don’t need that condescension, thanks, I’m all topped up.
you know what, you are absolutely correct and i would have the same criticism about this post if i saw someone else post it.
i think my mind slipped when i was putting it together and typed words that meant more than i did. my fault.
ill make an effort to fix this.
It is equivalent to not voting at all, at worst.
And this only because some places won’t count your votes if the difference isn’t big enough to swing the election. This ought to be illegal, but it isn’t.
The worst part is that the US supporting Israel is a huge liability at this point for everyone involved. A regional war would harm all parties. There might not be be an Israel if they don’t stop their genocide. All US investment will have gone to waste and the entire region will be devastated. Your enemies can’t win if everyone is destroyed 💀
Godfuckingdamnit. This is syntax class all over again, isn’t it? It’s damn obvious, but there’s some people who did actually need to solve the trolley problem, and still didn’t.
i’m confused what are you saying
My experience with syntax is that we wasted 10s of hours learning concepts that we pick up naturally, that no one would ever need to analyze it with this much detail just to be able to properly speak their native tongue (Spanish in my case). As it turns out, there’s plenty of people who have been speaking Spanish their whole lives and still manage to fail somehow.
The original trolley problem is extremely simple and no person should be dumb enough not to save the maximum amount of people. And yet there’s plenty of people who feel icky at the prospect of having to take a decision. And yet.
tell me you don’t understand the trolley problem without telling me
Your brain has been intoxicated by deontology. Please go heal it immediately by interacting with reality.
More Trump propaganda on Lemmy I see.
This is the opposite?
lol
“Spoiler effect” is so dumb. like oh, i’m the bad guy for voting for the candidate that you agree is better than the one you voted for??
give me a break. i’m literally not the one to blame for that.
i agree the spoiler effect is dumb. and you’re not the bad guy, the system is.
there are solutions to the spoiler effect problem but when seeking to save lives it tends to help to work within the bounds of the (broken) system.
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Voting for a “lesser evil” is still voting for evil.
Burying your head in the sand doesn’t make time stop. One of the two options will happen, whether you try to mitigate evil or not.
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Unless your picking up a gun and taking both options out / overthrowing the entire government, not voting at all is saying your okay with either outcome, not that your not okay with either.
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Doesn’t matter unless voting works
Over 100 comments and nobody mentioned Biden spoke approvingly of a union leader during the SOTU
And even if Trump and Biden were identical in Gaza, there’s also ~20 million LGBT people in the United States and a domestic genocide would actually be bad too (even if Americans are culturally imperialist or something).
What do you guys think about Robert F Kennedy Jr?
antivax transphobic liar
Do you have link to something where he is transphobic? I’m curious
^this, but also being on good terms with Jordan Peterson goes a long way in my mind 😂
Schizo
Sure looks antisemitic. For example:
- Saying Jews are immune to COVID
- The “14/88” tweet, which appears to be two dogwhistles in one
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while it is not quite unanimous, the majority of experts agree that the ongoing violence fits the definition of genocide
more importantly, in what fucking world does calling one thing a genocide devalue other genocides? that is such a disgusting take i see everywhere and it’s nauseating.
“Biden is hardly better”. What an idiotic take. A flaming bag of crap is terrible, and your opinion here is “hardly any better”.
its undoubtedly genocide. and besides that, project 2025 and the threat of conservative fascism is still very real
Conservative fascism and Trump’s foreign policy would kill a hell of a lot more people than 50k in Gaza, but more of them too.
