His only redeeming quality is not being Donald Trump. He’s otherwise too fucking old and out of touch with the vast majority of the country like most of our government is.
It's almost midnight. You just got out of your job, a restaurant in a somewhat seedy location in old downtown. You leave through the backdoor into an alley and suddenly notice you're not alone. The metal door just closed shut behind you.
You look to your right. There's a guy with a knife. He's looking at you and smiling in a weird manner. He starts walking towards you menacingly.
You look to your left. There's a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
What do you do?
If you go right, you'll get stabbed and killed. If you do nothing and stay put, you'll get stabbed and killed. If you go left, you will be hugged by the stinky guy. It's disgusting and not ideal, but you'll not be stabbed and survive.
What do you choose?
I see people all the time with the dumbest arguments to not vote. "He's not progressive enough", or "he's part of the system", or even "he didn't do enough for X" (insert your favorite minority here).
It's all true. But the universe is not a perfect or ideal place. Not voting for the imperfect guy gets us a true horrible alternative. It's a choice between bad and awful.
Tell that to the Democrat PACs funding the most insane fascist Republican primary candidates, so they can point out how insane their opposition is, effectively shifting the Overton Window even further to the right.
I choose neither. Instead, I jump, grab the bars of the fire escape overhead and climb up. Stinky hugs stabby, gets stabbed and dies. Then I jump down from the fire escape onto Stabby, knock him down and stab him with his own knife.
I agree with your first two sentences and then the train just jumps the tracks and plummets down a ravine. There's all kinds of ways who you vote for matters. Complete disengagement like what you're suggesting puts us on the fast track to fascism and nihilism.
Your analogy does not work, as the situation presented requires you to either go to the left or to the right.
In real life, there are many options and gray areas. One of those options is to refuse support to anyone who works against the populace, regardless of their political affiliation.
The world would be much better off watching the US turn far-right and implode than it would be maintaining the status quo.
I would rather watch the US die as a Nazi state than support the lesser of two evils. Remove them as a global superpower. Move out of the way and allow other states to bring better systems of government forward. Maybe something salvageable can be found in the wreckage.
That's the part Fetterman fails to realize as well: Right now is not okay. Continuing the status quo is not okay.
Your analogy also equates the death of the nation with the death of the self, which is not even remotely true either.
Everyone knows not to negotiate with terrorists, until election season.
Yeah, I can think of a parallel. The Soviets and the West allied to defeat Hitler but neither wanted to live under the other's rules.
"Not GOP" is the best choice, but I'd like to see a different "not GOP" than the current one. Or even better, a system that doesn't boil it down to two choices and an all or nothing vote.
The difference there is that they knew eventually the war would be over and they didn't have to be allies any more. Instead, the DNC pulls out this same rhetoric every election, and they'll never stop.
Yeah, another difference was that the Soviets and the West both wanted to defeat the Nazis. I think the moderate Democrats know that if the right is properly defeated (with election reform that opens up the system), they'll also lose their power since the "we're not the GOP" votes will dry up. Though the game is getting more dangerous as the GOP's base is calling for Democrat blood and they don't need the Dems like the Dems in power need them.
You're 100% right. I pretty much hate Joe Biden. But I voted for him and will again, because there's no better way to move towards what I want unfortunately.