Tumblr: If you refuse to support the person carrying out a genocide of millions of people, "you have an incredible amount of privilege" and actually DON'T care about Palestine. Here's a helpful chart!
Tumblr: If you refuse to support the person carrying out a genocide of millions of people, "you have an incredible amount of privilege" and actually DON'T care about Palestine. Here's a helpful chart!
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I am not from around here but I have a lot of views in common with y'all but I don't quite get this one. I am also not American for what it's worth.
I get that they're both bad options and not wanting to vote for a guy supporting a genocide, but wouldn't you rather the more left leaning of the two win and go from there? Is there any benefit to voting for a third party that in all likelihood won't get in?
Because Biden isn't left leaning.
When you stop listening to what democrats say and start looking at what they are actually doing it becomes apparent that the same laws are passing under Biden that were passing under Trump.
There comes a certain point where both parties are so far right that it becomes pointless to distinguish between the two.
At the end of the day the Dems and the GOP are both capitalist bootlickers built on a foundation of racist imperialism and neither of them are going to save us from the problems of the modern day, because they benifit from the systems in place that cause those problems.
Biden isn't to the left of Trump, he's continued all of Trump's policies.
None of Biden, his cabinet, or the Democratic Party leadership care about any of the things on this checklist. The difference is that, in a completely unrelated sphere of media coverage and political pundits, far from the handles of power, there are people who cheer for good causes and the democrats, and there are people who cheer for fascism and the republicans. That can feel like a substantive difference if you get caught up in it, but it pops like a soap bubble if you look at what people passing laws actually do.
Voting third party increases the chances that a third party will be taken seriously enough to get a significant vote next election. It's a shitty consolation prize. We have a shitty system.
Yours and other comments have helped me understand a bit better. It's a shitty situation to be in and I'm glad my country has preferential voting. Hopefully third parties get enough votes to at least get some attention.
They won't be allowed to, things are not like this on accident, and I'm not sure what country you're in but preferential voting will not solve this problem
Capitalism, and it's popular form of faux democracy does not actually represent the people or allow them choice, it's like when a parent asks their child would you like to go to bed early or work on your homework?
It's not a real choice because either way they get what they want, which is continuing to hold power as a class, that being the capitalist or owning class, also called the bourgoise
There are very few places on earth where this is not currently the case
The US is a one party state, the capitalist party.
Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania and a friend of Fidel Castro, made a similar comment in the 1960's
“The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”
I get that they're both bad options and not wanting to vote for a guy supporting a genocide,
Isn't this reason enough? If we don't draw the line at genocide, where do we draw the line?
I absolutely think that's reason enough, but I also have the luxury of preferential voting so I've never had to consider voting for a 'lesser of two evils' even if the degree is quite small.
It would be nice if we had the same, but we'd have to somehow break the duopoly to get it passed in the first place. I'm not sure how that would be feasible without a massive tilt toward a viable third party in the existing system, which seems like a remote possibility.
A preferential voting system just means you get to say what you would like while your vote gets shuffled around to a party that doesn't support any of your views. Its a way to manufacturing consent by making people think their voice is being heard on single issues.
Representative democracy is a system where you get to vote on who represents the interests of the super rich. Politicians exist as a buffer between the working class and the ownership class but in capitalist nations they work exclusivcely for the ownership class (aka capitalists). The ownership class through its politicians offer the working class minor concessions or threats to subdue them so capitalist can continue exploiting them. Different politicians offer different methods that the ownership class will accept. Regardless of what they say, their policy will be to do the least possible to appease their voters and the most they can to further enrich their owners.
Preferential voting just makes it easier for the capitalists to know which crumb to throw voters next.
I don't disagree at all, it just makes my voting choices more straightforward. What I find most sad about it, though, is that even though we could vote for any third party we want, the vast majority still vote for one of the big two basically identical on policy parties.
The system is functioning exactly as intended and must be destroyed. They will continue to vote for red and blue until someone tells/shows them that it is not in their best interest. So you agitate, read political theory (so you know what you are talking about), and radicalize anyone who will listen.
Voting for the lesser evil is still an endorsement of evil.
I used to really struggle with this one. Becuase in my mind I wasn't endorsing evil by voting lesser evil. I was voting for the difference.
What made me realize and change my mind on the subject was when I realized that for the politican I'm voting for I am NOT endorsing just the things that make them different from the other guy. They actually see it as an endorsement of everything they do. And therefor they see it as a reason to keep doing exactly what they've been doing.
It was me realizing that what I think my vote is for doesn't materially matter.
I know stuff like this sounds obvious, but sometimes hearing it does actually help. It's easy to get caught up in doing the "better" thing than doing what's right.
Trump getting in wouldn't be great, but if he does that's on the democrats.
moral behaviour is when you ship billions in weapons to execute a genocide, while the people starve at home.
i am very intelligent.
You seem to be under the impression that most Americans vote matters.
With the Electoral College and how partisan state governments have gerrymandered, I can honestly say my vote, here in Texas, literally makes no difference. Biden has literally zero realistic chance of winning this state, my vote does not make any difference. So why make an empty gesture in support of a war criminal, when I can make an empty gesture by writing in a 3rd party like the PSL?
Biden has blown Trump out of the water in terms of deportations, police funding, war, prosecution of leftist activists thru RICO charges, strike-breaking of major unions (like the biggest strike-breaking since the eighties) and environmental destruction thru expansion of the US oil industry
To say nothing of the fact Biden allowed the covid social welfare benefits from the Trump era to expire which along with inflation drove tens of millions straight back into poverty, after many of them temporarily escaped it during the lockdown era
And of course the most important part: HE'S COMMITTED GENOCIDE AND TRUMP HASN'T, sorry but a real genocider is worse than a hypothetical one
This kind of presumes the policy difference here is between, say, the Nazis and the SPD (who btw were shooting communists dead in the street as late as 1930) and not, say, the Nazis and the DNVP. There are purity tests, and genocide is a pretty fair one.
Ultimately though if you're for "harm reduction", only foreign policy matters by an order of magnitude, and you should vote for whoever will fuck up US hegemony the most.
Ever hear that liberalism is the moderate wing of facism? Today's Democrat Party is now the party of
and Cheney. Look up ratchet effect. Every election it just gets more right wing. Mostly because the Democrats have the same bribers as Republicans and the Democrats have no actual left to compete with to balance that pull to the right from Republicans.Here is a 2nd thought video on how the US ended up with two right wing parties.
The benifet is tearing down the facade that we have a democracy and forcing the establishment to acknowledge 3rd parties (including in debates by default, matching public funds, news articles showing the significance) , as well as popularizing 3rd parties and getting 3rd parties elected in local representation.
As former DNC operative and current DNC media wonk Lawrence O'Donnell said "We didn't have to listen to ANYTHING on the left.....if you want to move the party to the way you are thinking you MUST show that you are capable of not voting for them."
Remember how big a deal those "non committed" votes were in the Primary? How much they made a stink of Jill Stein's votes in 2016? That's what hurts the empire. Because it is run on "consent", enough votes not consenting to the system to the point they can't ignore / fudge with is extremely significant.
Committing genocide isn't left leaning
The Democrats are a ratchet for the political spectrum in the US
Biden isn't a leftist but he's as left as the Democrats will get going forward. Like a ratchet, the Overton window slides right and then stops leftward at whatever the current Democratic president is, in this case Biden
The next one won't be Sanders, won't be AOC, won't be some surprise other SocDem candidate. The next one will be either Biden 2.0 or further right, and on and on
At best, Democrats are absolutely toothless. Plenty of red states are passing abortion outlawing and anti-queer laws, and the Democrats haven't done shit. "Oh but the President is limited in what he can do" "oh but the senate, the Democrats will be filibustered" who gives a fuck. They haven't even raised their heads from their desks, let alone done any attempt to fight for these rights. All they're doing is preventing the laws from getting worse at a federal level, if that, and that'll change immediately on the next election regardless of who wins
There is no "going from there". Voting for a candidate is inplicit support of everything the candidate does. You cannot vote for a candidate and then pick and choose your support, they don't give a fuck, all they care about is that they won on their platform. Biden will not move any left from his position, Democrats literally never have been pushed left. Any time there's left pressure, they call it loony leftist behaviour and go run to the Republicans for some bipartisan crackdowns
A lesser evil is still an evil, especially when the lesser evil really isn't that much lesser
wouldn't you rather the more left leaning of the two win and go from there
lmao
Joe Biden initially was a Republican when he got his start, but he switched to the Democratic party early on because Watergate made Nixon too unappetizing. I feel like it's a good summation of who he is.
I get that they're both bad options and not wanting to vote for a guy supporting a genocide, but
No. Just don't. You do not have to do the actual bit here. Joe Biden is damn near as bad as Trump on literally everything. You do not have to defend him because he is marginally less awful on a handful of items, when one of the things he is as bad (or worse on) is 'committing genocide'.
I can acknowledge there is a marginal difference between Biden and Trump. However, by accepting whatever infinitesimally small difference there is and voting for Biden, that is effectively an endorsement of everything Biden has done over the last four years (not just Gaza, but also things like breaking the railroad strike). Do that and not only does the left lose whatever small leverage we have, but it also signals to Biden that yes, go ahead and brutally murder thousands of innocent little kids, the left will eventually fall in line no matter what. This means the next time there’s a genocide (say that Israel decides to completely annex the West Bank and ethnically cleans the Palestinians there) the Democrats will have zero fear of any consequences of being a critical partner to Israel in that genocide.
Every single check they gave to Biden is a lie except for the doing genocide one, it's all bullshit lies, biden claimed that he would do something about some of these and then just didn't, none of this happened and if it did for some localities, it's because of local pressure or politics not Biden
Thanks for asking by the way! We're always happy to answer good faith questions like this from folks who aren't around here :)