Bold of you to support the warmongering fascist instead.
At this point in the game, you either support Kamala, or you're a fascist. Sorry, but the stakes are very high and very obvious, and anyone voting against Kamala is asking for tyranny.
They're an .ml, of course they want the full fascist dictatorship in America. They want their preferred economic system, state capitalism under authoritarian management, to gain influence globally.
This. Cornel west and Jill Stein are not options in this. If you live in a safely blue state, go ahead vote your heart out.
But just know that there is no scenario where West or Stein win. If that doesn't happen and Trump wins, we will not have another election. Trump is literally going to put the most evil anti democracy zealots into very powerful roles. And with a Republican scotus, we will be fucked. That is the outcome here. So you can be pragmatic or vote your conscience but the risk is that we will be fucked.
If there's one thing that 2016/2020 should have taught us is; presidential elections matter not just because of who is leading the country but who is selecting judges and filling very important roles in the government. Ultimately, our lesson should be that things can always get worse.
One of Jill Stein’s major international positions is that the US should immediately withdraw from NATO.
Now, let’s ask ourselves: which parties on the world geopolitical stage would massively benefit from that happening?
TL;DR: don’t vote for Stein, under any circumstances.
I know hardly anything about West, though. But I agree that everyone pushing 3rd parties as a valid choice in the general has their head firmly up their ass.
our lesson should be that things can always get worse.
If you haven't noticed things have been getting worse. And electing Democrats again and again hoping things will change isn't working out so well. Their role is to protect that status quo, to ensure things DONT change for the better.
Trump is literally going to put the most evil anti democracy zealots into very powerful roles.
And if Harris continues to support what Israel is doing in Gaza, then we already have evil anti-democracy zealots in our most powerful roles, so what's the difference?
Equating the Israel-Gaza conflict with anti-democracy is absurd. One side literally wants to end voting, destroy the Constitution, and install a fascist regime that would be far worse for everyone, including Palestinians. If you can't see the difference, then you're part of the problem. Go ahead and pretend a hockey puck is an ice cream sandwich if you want, but don't drag the rest of us into your delusions. Either you're being intentionally deceitful, or you've got the cognitive capacity of an empty bucket.
I care about the lives of Palestinians, which is why I'm voting for Kamala Harris (and why I was going to vote for Joe Biden). Period.
If you refuse to accept this reality, that's on you. And when you sit this election out, and Donald Trump wins and gives Netanyahu the go ahead to turn Gaza into glass, their blood will be on your hands.
Nice one. You're wrong, but good try I guess? A vote for a third party candidate is equivalent to not voting in our broken, first past the post voting system. In fact, it's often worse.
Cornel West
I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same Cornel West. Maybe you can take a look and let me know if we're on the same page here...
This guy that the Republican party is pushing to get on the Arizona ballot?
To be clear, this Cornel West? The guy who received campaign contributions from billionaire Harlan Crowe (also known as Clarence Thomas' vacation buddy)?
Huh. So do Republicans actually really care about Palestinians? I guess Harlan Crowe felt bad about breaking our Supreme Court, and wanted to make things right (lo fucking l)?
In your universe where this election is happening in a vacuum, what would be the reason that the GOP would be doing everything they can to get a progressive candidate on the ballot in specific swing states? Why would well known far right billionaires be funding the campaign of a progressive candidate. They just believe in free and fair elections, right? Lol.
But no, genuinely, why do you think this is happening?
Or maybe, and bear with me here, maybe they understand better than you that having someone like that even present on a ballot, will take votes away from their competition.
So you're either a bad faith actor pretending not to understand basic electoral concepts in your own country, or you're dangerously fucking ignorant.
Assuming it's not the former, let me help you fix that: your vote for Cornel West will not exculpate you of the deaths of the millions of Palestinians that will die directly due to Trump getting elected (which, as we've established, is what you're doing by voting for someone like Cornel West).
(Probably just a coincidence that this third party candidate being funded by known far-right billionaires appears to want to dismantle NATO. I'm sure Russia has nothing to do with it as we know they're too polite to ever attempt to interfere in our elections. 🤡.)
We really need you to pull your head out of your ass. The extremely simple reality follows, and I am speaking for every reasonable person:
The situation in Gaza is not supported by us. It's evil. It should not be happening. We condemn it. However, we also recognize that around our elections some war or conflict occurs. Moreover, possibly more than any other time in modern history, we are educated.
It is precisely the idea of malicious and evil persons intent on causing as much harm as possible why we must turn inward and focus on stopping more damage from occurring. Harris, Walz, Biden, they are not the same. We need you to back up and look at the larger picture. In fact, traditionally Republicans have used wars and conflict to distract the Left leaning voting bases. They know their supporters will, quite literally if you let them, go in guns blazing in support of war, all of them yelling some false patriotic zing of a bad battle cry. Meanwhile, the rest of us condemn it in various ways and that breaks us apart.
Look, I understand your frustration. To you it must appear as if we are okay with people dying. We're not. We just accept that if Trump, and more importantly the people who coerce their way into certain positions, are allowed to take the Presidency that it will get worse. Much worse. We aren't willing to let that happen due to ethical or moral quandaries. As gross as it is to have to turn inward and focus here when people are being killed. We have a job to do.
Fail that and we may as well apologize to the entire world.
Vote for Superman if you must, but he won't do anything for Gazans because he is not real. You can't punish the people asking Israel nicely to stop killing people by withholding your support and allowing people into power that want more death and destruction.
The message that sends is they need to move further right, send more weapons, start killing more people directly, withhold aid, give cart blache to the IDF because the only people that vote are the people that want the Palestinians dead.
the people asking Israel nicely to stop killing people
The Democrats are not asking Israel to stop. The Democrats are proving Israel with war funding and weapons, and protecting Israel from consequences at the United Nations.
They’re politicians. You can’t judge them by their words. Only by their actions.
It works both ways and they know that. They're aware that those of us that do care also know we need to beat Trump. Our consequences are greater than theirs. The push for Harris-Walz is in acknowledgement of this and an opportunity for us to have a voice.
Trump enters THE seat of power and your words won't only fall on deaf ears, there may be provisions created to silence you as well. You obviously don't like it, this is how it is. We have to do it one step at a time. That is the current limit of our voice, and the step is pointing towards stopping Trump and dissolving the modern Republican Party.
Right now it's either help support the people who may listen, or let in those that have literally said they will make it worse. Stubborn as you are I'm sure you can weigh the odds on this one.
I guess you just dropped out the womb or something little fella. Welcome to Earth. Boy was that one term, twice impeached idiot a doozy be glad you missed it.
Yeah, that’s basically what they want. They are fine with the new rabid brand of GOP fascism ruining the country and the western world.
Many of these people are the ones who chant “death to America.” They just want to burn it down on the chance that something better might replace it someday in the future. Never mind the fascism and death that would result in the meantime. They’re not shy of violence anyway, but it’d be easier for them if it’s someone else doing it. It’s why they support leaders like Putin and Kim - they may be objectively shit, but they’re against the west, so…
The naive idealism is just a means to manipulate otherwise well-meaning people into supporting their cause. I don’t like choosing the lesser evil either, but when full-blown fascism is on the ballot, along with even worse outcomes for Palestinians, it’s obvious what needs to be done.
Then who ya voting for there buddy? An intentional vote splitter? Captain Brainworm? Or the Russian plant Jill? 40k votes in 3 states was all that was between the death of democracy with trump term 2. Attempting to siphon off votes to 3rd party runs is at best hurting the country, at worst condemning it to collapse.
Then I suppose Democrats should have listened to leftists and not supported a candidate that had no chance of winning. But instead insisted that 'it was her turn' and that you did t need our vote to win
Splitting the vote implies that we would have supported your right-wing warmongering candidates If there were no other third party candidates on the ballot, we would not.
There's a better chance of you finding something in Donald Trump to support than a leftist supporting either one of your hand-picked corporate installed political candidates
Compared to international politics the DNC is very right wing. The Overton Window wouldn't exist without the DNC pushing their party and the country to the right.
Obama acknowledged his policies would be viewed as moderate Republican in the 80s. Enabling right wing policies with their ratchet effect helps push the party further to the right.
We aren't talking about international politcs, we're talking about the DNC and when the right wing is carrying tiki torches and chanting "Jews will not replace us", NO, the DNC is NOT "right wing".
I think Ms Obama did mention the 'goldilocks complex'. I feel she was speaking to the "I can't support an imperfect option so I'll avoid voting and ensure the conservatives win even though that's the worst option" crowd.
If liberals want our vote then they need to provide better options with candidates that will earn our vote, and not demand it. But the better option would be for liberals to abandon their party which keeps shifting further and further to the right and embraise other options
You sound a lot like the German communists in 1932, refusing to support the liberals even though they had more seats in the Reichstag than the conservatives or the fascists. How did that work out for them?
The liberals did not elect Hitler. The conservatives did. The liberals failed to form a government because the next 3 largest parties, the conservatives, fascists, and the communists, refused to form a coalition with them.
Then the opportunity arrose for the next largest party, the conservatives, to form a government, and they did so with the fascists.
How is splitting the left-leaning voting bloc and allowing a more unified group of fascist to roll into power going to hold anyone accountable? Making it so one set of politicians don't get what the jobs they want isn't holding the warmongers among them accountable in any meaningful sense.
The liberal myth of splitting the vote is exactly that a myth. even if there were no 3rd party candidates on the ballot, we would not vote for your piece of shit fascists.
Democrat voters may be left leaning, but the politicians that they're supporting or not.
Both the fascists and the communists want to overturn the liberal system, it's about the only thing they actually genuinely agree on. Fortunately the actual full-on seize-the-means-of-production sorts are a vanishingly tiny percentage of the American population, and the two factions are otherwise completely antithetical to each other, with fascism being pure hierarchy and communism being no hierarchy. Liberalism in all its forms sits between these two extremes.
Lemmy, being international and non-corporate, is a small hub for the community though, with .ml (the more moderate ones) and .grad (the full-on tankies) being their homes.
I'm generally not worried about them. They know full well the fascists would literally try to eradicate them, that's a primary component of fascist philosophy going back to Hitler. They also won't be able to gain much of a foothold in the US until they can demonstrate a large-scale example of success somewhere, which is difficult when even China of all places has moved away from communist economic principles in recent decades. They will never stop hating liberals unfortunately, since we're clearly not communist and stand in their way. We at least permit them to exist though, when there's no McCarthyites running things anyway.
So if I see a bot, I should treat it like a real person, because calling out bots is an “attack”?
The problem is that a lot of people cry "bot" or "troll" anytime they disagree with what a poster has posted. I've been accused of being a bot too. And a troll. Many, many times.
But I'm not a bot. Or a troll. And that's why it's uncool.
That's actually not for you to decide. If your behavior is constantly inflaming the community, people will brand you a troll and it doesn't matter how "uncool" you find the label.
As for "bots" that's a pretty generic term inorganic content. A bot could be an LLM, or some guy in a cubicle posting from a script. If you're constantly wandering from thread to thread pushing the same agenda, regardless of the thread topic, people will call that out as suspicious.
Tl;Dr: Bots and trolls have recognizable patterns, so avoid doing things that make you look like a bot or a troll.
(And no, I'm not calling you specifically out as a bot or troll, I'm just explaining where the suspicion might come from)
That’s actually not for you to decide. If your behavior is constantly inflaming the community
That actually IS for me to decide. If my intentions are pure, and some people in the community get inflamed, that's on them. Doesn't make me a troll.
Tl;Dr: Bots and trolls have recognizable patterns, so avoid doing things that make you look like a bot or a troll.
That's not for you to decide. Your air of superiority in your post could def lead some people so say you sound like a troll or a bot. Does that mean you are one?
So if I see propaganda, and my peers are falling for it, you expect me to say nothing and delegate power to you, so you can sanitize your community. But my peers? They can stay fooled...
No. If I see something, I'm going to say something, because people should share with the community (not just its leaders) when they see something suspicious.
Propaganda only works if we don't call it out. Bots are run by people with agendas, and everyone here is target.