Single Issue Voters will save the world!

I am not sure this is effective against those voters. If anything it's shaming, at best, which causes people to dig their heels in. Addressing those voters as petulant children is not the way to bring them on board.

The comic is highly uncritical of any of the levers of power. In fact it entirely omits any imagery pertaining to politicians or legislators or any political party. So the only people it is directed at are those protesting the genocide in Gaza as though it came at the expense of other issues, while giving those in power who have actually ignored or even fought those issues a complete fucking pass.

Like it doesn't even mention Biden or any sort of strategy or demands the protestors might have, even. Just shames people for protesting a genocide.

As opposed to the police currently beating the shit out of protestors. I understand it would be worse under trump, but that's a really low fucking bar. We should be asking for better, not settling for the regime which is only maiming protestors instead of killing them.

Is he, though? I know the president isn't directing this stuff directly, but the harshest crackdowns have been in cities run by democrats, in democratically run states. As the leader of the party he could've told local administrators to respect free speech rights of protestors.

Same, local approach. There's a specific local city we're targeting the city council etc as well as spreading awareness to the locals that this is even an option. Your average person doesn't know it exists!

Understood, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

We just need to improve not perfect.

Totally irrelevant for this presidential election. Also I'd argue for presidential elections the electoral college needs to go first. The increasing number of presidents being elected with a minority vote is seriously concerning.

You're reading too much into it. The cartoon isn't about those who support Palestine. It's about those who make it their only issue. Ending up only hurting themselves and everyone else.

Personally I would guess that the >50% of eligible voters who don’t vote, largely due to systemic disenfranchisement, are a bigger issue.

Another systemic issue is FPTP.

I find any solution to “fix” democracy that attacks/criticizes the individual voter to be barely valid. The solution to a systemic problem is always going to be systemic in my experience.

*Disclaimer: Not well-researched in the field, simply applying my knowledge from other areas to this. I welcome corrections.

Compares green colored libraries to genocide... ok

Single-issue voters are one of the biggest challenges to a functioning democracy.

You don't have a functional democracy. You never have.

There's a genocide? But those numbers were doubled

Believe it or not, but fueling this "one or the other" rhetoric hurts Democrats most. Even if the 3rd party candidates aren't viable, the people that would support Jill Stein or Cornel West are far more likely to vote for liberal candidates down-ballot. Extensive studies on voting outcomes show that disincentivizing voting outside the 2 party system is far more likely to keep progressive voters home.

Well, first of all, that is abso-fucking-lutely not my take, thanks. Secondly, if it's just about third party voters, why is that young person sitting front of tent? Could have gotten the anti-Biden point across with a Genocide Joe shirt. Could have really driven the third-party thing home with a Jill Stien shirt. But no, the artist depicted a white kid in a Palestinian keffiyeh, holding a Palestinian protest sign, and placed them in front of a tent. The artist is clearly pointing at the campus protesters, who've been on the receiving end of an extraordinary amount of state-sponsored violence for their activism, and saying, "look how unreasonable these people are."

Saying everyone who agrees with this comic loves genocide and munches popcorn while protestors are being beaten bloody is certainly a take.

An objectively correct one, yes.

There's one simple thing Biden could do... A moral thing even.

Lol, I mean I get why you feel this moment is unique, but i'm looking through NYT articles from 1972 and if you take out the dated references you could almost mistake them for articles written in 2024:

To the Editor: When a Democrat for Nixon says “I'll vote holding my nose, but McGovern is not a big enough man to be President,” or “I don't like him, but there is no viable alternative,” or an uncommitted Democrat says “McGovern doesn't turn me on,” such remarks are liberalese for “I'm doing alright the way things are, and can't take a risk of any change in the status quo.” - NYT Letter to the Editor 10/19/72

"Lawrence F. O'Brien, the na tional campaign chairman for the McGovern‐Shriver ticket, accused the Nixon Administra tion yesterday of sanctioning tactics of “political espionage” that bordered on those of “a fascist state.” - NYT O'Brien Charges 'Political Espionage'" - 10/14/72

"Deceit, deceit, everywhere deceit—but especially on the political and cultural left, says Arnold Beichman, and most out rageously in the writings of the youth lovers (Marcuse, Slater, Sontag, Roszak, Reich and the rest). They say “America is al ready a fascist country or is on the road to fascism,” that the country “is guilty of genocide,” that “the Bomber Left ... is a moral force” They claim the white “American worker ... is a retrograde, decadent, self ish creature: a honky,” that “our political system is an ut ter fraud, particularly the two‐ party system,” that “American values are wholly materialistic,” that “America is insane,” and that our primary need is for “a violent revolution.” " - NYT, "Nine Lies About America", 10/8/72

I'm having a great time reading through these actually, it's interesting reading the op-eds from back then.

the point the person above was making was that they're always sick of voting for the lesser of two evils and your response is 'but this one is really evil?'

And now you're spouting off like the Trumpers who scream that they are being silenced.

Go home, Russian propaganda.

He should do something about that.

I have no idea what you're accusing me of doing, so I'm gonna say: No, I'm not.

How do you think we got trump in the first place? The awfulness of the republican party did not begin with him and will not end with him, but the whole time democrats have insisted that we need a republican party. It's a tag team play that ends in fascism regardless. If trump is beaten, the next bogeyman will be there for democrats to point at and claim "we just need to beat this one guy and then we'll work on issues you care about, we swear" yet again.

We won’t be able to see whether or not they’ll enjoy it because like in 2016, and again in 2020- they’re going to vanish once the election is over. Regardless of who wins.

They’ll move on to other issues that make them appear as if they care about shit. And it’ll just repeat every four years while none of them will do anything in between elections that will ever amount to any change.

They’re as status quo as it gets.

Maybe I'm just not up to date on the memo, but where did the idea that criticism isn't allowed come from?

I can't think of any president that I haven't criticized. Obama pissed me off immediately forgetting about his promise to close Gitmo or stop warrantless surveillance.

I'm not seeing people saying not to criticize the administration.

What people are saying is holy fuck white supremacist Christian fascists are about to instill a monarch who will hurt many, many people if they can get away with it.

It's a pretty clear and understandable message, and its unprecedented nature over the last few centuries kind of does warrant the volume with which it is attempted to be conveyed to people who say things like "because I don't like what the administration is doing with issue x I might not vote or will vote 3rd party."

Not liking what the administration is saying and saying you don't like it is the very essence of the American experience. But throwing away your vote in this century's equivalent to the election in 1930s Germany is not just tone deaf but an active middle finger to every minority that's going to be persecuted under gold-plated Hitler, Palestinians included.

I think the issue is the people stating they won’t vote or the ones wanting to let Trump win to “just tear things down.” We don’t have near the numbers or popular will to tear things down and we didn’t have it last time Trump tore things apart. The damage he did is still being felt across the government and people just don’t understand how slowly change happens. It took the right 50 years and billions of dollars to get us here. It’s not going to change with one president or one political event.

I'm genuinely curious, would you vote for Hitler as a form of harm reduction? Obviously the genocide he did was bad, but say he was running against someone else who was also planning on committing a genocide.

The Nazis put money into infrastructure development, education (granted in this context it was also indoctrination, but there was genuine education being done too), expansion of welfare; better access to healthcare, public works programs, public health policies (though again, muddied with ideas about "racial purity").

Imagine he was running against another pro-genocide antisemite, but who was against all the welfare/public spending mentioned above, and instead wanted to deregulate the economy, causing even more material harm than the Nazis.

Would you be telling people to go out and vote for Hitler as a form of harm reduction? Is there literally no line a person/party can cross that makes them not worthy of a vote; no line that makes the system illegitimate and participation in it/implicit endorsement problematic?

There's just people who'd set America as well as global stability on fire to prove a "point" and there's people who wouldn't

Super well put.

Why is he not taking this seriously?

He is. Support for Israel is policy, not politics. It's not Biden supporting Israel... it's the entire US political establishment that does.

You might just as well ask Biden to stop the US from being imperialist - no member of the US political establishment would ever do that. Period.

This is why you see liberals everywhere heeding the clarion call to pre-emptively start looking for people to blame when Biden hands over to the GOP (the "bad cop") come November.

Seriously, Palestinian American here and I feel actually violated for them to be using my kin's corpses as fetish porn for their narrative.

I have family who are Nakba victims that I haven't been able to meet because they put everything into giving my grandfather the chance to escape, people who actually experienced the genocide first hand, and all I can see in these people wielding it as a cudgel to declare they won't vote and nobody else should either is the same white cynical "leftism" that made Nader and Stein become the perfect catastrophes for American democracy.

Here is the single Palestinian cause, Badna N3aesh! We want to live! We want to live, both in the homeland, and everywhere else we may go, and that means you have no right to use our dead to let the ones who would kill us here too into power.

Badna N3aesh!!!

Edited: Fat fingered my reply.

"Opposing genocide is fascist" is certainly a take.

No, it's fucking not. Cornel West opposes funding to Israel, supports a 2 state solution, and supports the same issues strawmanned by lady liberty. I value the end of a genocide as well as a socialist economy. If neither of the mainstream candidates will stop the genocide, I'm going to vote for the only candidate that wants to stop the genocide as well as handle the other issues I care about, in a way I'd align with. My barely tepid patience with Biden and supporters like you has run out.

If these are the best candidates we can put up then maybe we deserve to lose our spot as the world's last super power.

When did Biden interfere with the Rwandan genocide, famously known for global inaction as the Hutus killed nearly 1 million Tutsis? Fuck off with this transparently bad faith talking point.

Lmao I'm sorry. You think the US committed genocide in Afghanistan and Syria? I must have missed the part where we carpet bombed them and withheld food.

Yeah. I guess I should have paid more attention to the title -- applying it to a "single issue voter" (or, non-voter, I guess) who really is throwing all the stuff on the right in the garbage, in the (incorrect) belief that they're helping the Palestinians, when in reality they're just threatening to make things worse for literally everybody, makes sense.

I just don't think that's most of the people in the tents or carrying the signs. If they had constructed the cartoon to attack all the people on Lemmy who don't want to vote because Biden personally killed all those Gazans and loves that the war is happening, or whatever they are claiming is happening, then that makes sense. But attacking the protestors themselves seems wrong.

I agree, I am not the artist, but I posted this as a criticism of those who say they'll vote third party.

You think giving billions in weapons and ammo to continue the genocide is passive?

I'm sorry, what? I run in anarchist circles. Most that I have met would rather see Cornel win. If Trump won, they're going to be the "armed antifa" showing up to protect drag story hours.

That’s essentially what happened with the Whigs. The leadership decided that they weren’t going to decide one way or another on a strong stance for/against slavery, ignoring the pleading of their own constituents. So the anti slavery ex-Whigs made Lincoln’s Republican Party and the Whigs never recovered.

So not only is biden likely handing the election to trump, the moral outcry that is being ignored might kill the Democratic Party for good.

On point except not sure the Constitution has to change.

For example Alaska implemented ranked choice voting, and states have implemented proportional allotment.

missed the ball completely

That sounds like a classic Republican thing to do and I don't doubt it. But it's a small detail. Biden's soft touch has allowed Netenyahu to commit war crimes without a second thought throughout this whole thing.

give Biden and neoliberals hell; make them believe they're gonna lose all the way to voting day

I agree with this, but people really need to stop qualifying every critique with their intent to vote for him anyway. Biden has already been saying he doesn't believe his polling numbers are real (why liberals aren't panicking about that indifference is beyond me), we really can't be sending mixed signals here.

He risks losing if he doesn't change course, full stop. He needs to know that risk is real.

It's alright, we're all learning.

This was a house vote, not a veto-overriding vote from both the house and senate. It did not force biden to do anything

I think there's a non-zero probability that American democracy ends with Trump, and there's very little benefit gained by a 2nd Trump presidency either way.

Biden buys the youth more time to get organized and start restructuring the country. But the youth has to get their shit together, pick better candidates, and vote.

We are at the end of an era, and you can toss out much of the conventional thinking from the past 50 - 70 years. When the millennials and Gen Z finally come together in force they will shape the country how they see fit. The boomer/silent gen majority that we were stuck with for 50 years is gone - all the younger generations have to do is vote for their priorities.

This will happen in one of the next 3 major elections purely due to numbers.

Lastly, the youth needs to understand that voting is about aligning the trajectory of the leadership as closely with your values as possible. You are making decisions now that have long term effects on your quality of life.

Zionists and warmongers sure don't want you doing that.

Write your congressman if they are one of the members that forced the weapon shipments to restart.

In this case Joe Biden did not want to restart shipments but was forced by a Congressional resolution.

Here is a Reuters article covering the resolution, here is the house press release, here is the Congressional voting record.

If the other guy being a fascist running on a platform of doing fascism isn’t enough for you to snap into line, you’re a fascist trying to feel moral about being a fascist.

No no, you don't get it, if we let fascism win this time, everything will be better NEXT time!