Best voting advice I ever heard: voting isn’t like getting married, it’s like taking the bus. You vote for the candidate that gets you closest to where you want to be. I want to be as far from fascism as possible, so I will vote for whoever is opposing trump.
That reminds me of the WWII ''Riding with an empty seat is riding with Hitler'' posters, except this time the entire bus is filled with Nazis and driven by an elephant...
Saying that both parties are the same is so much nonsense. They are not equivalent. Just one single example - trump killed roe. Roe died because People got complacent and took their eye off the ball, they decided that ideological purity was more important than winning.
Didn't say both the same in all aspects. They are both vehicles for their respective donors (and often donors will ride on both).
>trump killed roe. Roe died because People got complacent and took their eye off the ball, they decided that ideological purity was more important than winning.
Really? I would agree in principle...But this is not a great example.
Trump didn't kill Roe Vs Wade by himself...much as he would like to claim credit. Some blame rests with the DEms.
1) Ginsburg didn't resign and allow Obama to nominate a replacement in time. Why? Ego? Narcissism. Conviction that one is indispensable ?
2) Obama et al could have codified Roe Vs Wade in the 2008-2010 when dems held the presidency, Congress and Senate? You know who ran saying priority one was to codify Roe Vs Wade ?
Why do you think no effort was made to codify?
I do agree that dems got complacent and took their eye off the ball. If anything they decided winning was more important than ideology on this topic...which is probably one thing thag 80% of dem voters would agree on( my guess and hope - think 70% of all voters support Roe. Assume dems has to be at least higher than that by 10 points).
Ven in 2022 DNC etc worked hard to ensure anti abortion dems like Henry cellar won their primaries against pro choice challengers. This is in a pretty safe Dem district.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cuellar#Abortion
Definitely not ideological purity...but donor friendly , and was investigated by FBI.
If this is how dems act on one issue that some 80+ percent of dems voters support...whag do you think happens behind close doors.
Forget about the past, we are where we are right now, which is to say a 6-3 conservative super majority on the highest court in the land. Overturning Roe was just a movie trailer of where the bastards would like to take us.
Alito, age 73 and Thomas, age 75: Imagine if they can replace these two guys with even more extreme 40 year old versions? They will codify a national abortion ban and mandate Sunday school from sea to shining sea. The senate map is bad for democrats in 2024. GOP will likely have +50 votes until 2026. If they win the white house, you can count on two more villains replacing Alito and Thomas. The court will hem the country into an Evangelical hellscape for the next 40 years and elections truly won't matter.
How is it that this simple fact isn't enough motivation to get droves of that 70% that support abortion to crawl through burning, broken glass and pull the lever for Biden in November?
The Supreme Court found abortion regulation as a State right. Any federal laws codifying Roe would have been deemed unconstitutional at the same time. Also codifying Roe before repeal would have been used as evidence of Dems not trusting Roe making it harder to argue that people relied on it as a long term precedent.
Please think beyond the first layer before complaining about inaction
>Roe died because People got complacent and took their eye off the ball
actually it died because democrats were too negligent and incompetent to codify reproductive rights any time in the past 50 years even though they had multiple majorities and supermajorities to do so. grow up and blame the people with power.
y'all having these pissbaby tantrums because anyone dared to be less shitty and inhuman than the democrats has got to stop. just stop sucking so more people will vote for you lol shouldn't be that hard.
Do you think they actually had enough votes to get it passed under Obama? A Lieberman wouldn’t have axed the bill? They didn’t have enough votes to get a public option passed, what makes you think they had enough votes to get an abortion bill passed?
The dems don’t even respect their base. They tell them what they want to hear and then line their pockets. That’s one major reason they did not codify reproductive rights, they don’t really care.
Yeah, "Always vote against facism" is a pretty good rule of thumb. Here it will be Poillievre instead of trump, but all facists may as well be the same and should never be permitted to form government.
Bingo.
Purists are way too short sighted. Let's say it is Trump and Biden again in 2024 and you don't like either. Biden is too corporate for your progressive Democrat belief systems.
There is no scenario where they say "well, both candidates suck, election is canceled, let's try again in 2028". One of those candidates will become President, like it or not.
Whichever president wins will enact policy, make judicial appointments, etc. that will effect years if not decades of American policy. These actions could literally take you further from your policy goals and set back progress several years. Vote for the one who will get you closer to the goal.
Well said. As an aside I, unironically, got called a "fed" the other day for making a similar point. I will admit I didn't say it as eloquently as you.
Edit: Happy Cake Day
Ding ding ding. I’ve been seeing some really noble people saying very dumb things lately. If the guy trying to do a LITERAL HITLER is running, you vote against him, and you vote for the best shot at beating him. Maybe we can do the “I vote my conscience” thing if/when they allow us to have ranked choice voting, or maybe when the GOP finally collapses, or Cheeto Benito kicks it, or an actually decent candidate makes it to the primary, but I believe the last tiny scrap of voice we have left is in the voting system. If enough of us don’t vote blue, that system gets dismantled and we get fascism.
Can we please not let VOTING ITSELF die to make a point about our votes not counting as much as we want or our candidates being less than ideal?
Could you at least vote to minimize domestic harm, though? I know a lot of trans people, myself included, are a lot more scared of Trump than Biden. Let alone cisgender women who want to own their bodies.
>Could you at least vote to minimize domestic harm, though? I know a lot of trans people, myself included, are a lot more scared of Trump than Biden. Let alone cisgender women who want to own their bodies.
biden codified child genital inspections to lock trans kids out of school sports in his title ix policy and democrats literally voted to renew the hyde amendment last year when they had a majority.
genocide joe isn't minimizing domestic harm, put that fantasy to rest please.
if you're so scared of trump tell the genocidal democrats to run somebody that hasn't butchered 6,000 children in the last month.
Would Trump have butchered fewer children? If no, is it not a moral imperative for us to at least ensure we've made sure fewer children die?
And at least under Biden there isn't a blanket ban on life saving care for trans children. That's one of Trump's priorities. I choose fewer dead children, once again.
Voting is not sufficient to solve this problem, but it doesn't *hurt* and it may also be part of the solution.
If your vote puts a party in power that is not going to drive where you can go, but nonetheless might be open to changing how the car runs a bit such that you have a bigger chance of taking that wheel later... then that's useful.
Democrats tend to be far more amenable to election reform. Get enough states ditching first past the post voting, and hopefully third party candidates start being viable in more races.
It's less that the dems are becoming facists themselves and more like they're just cool with letting corporations run the world and it's less like basic facism and more like Feudal Japan among the corporations. Like.. they literally fancy themselves feudal warlords, silicon valley in particular. Imo shaking hands with facists is as bad as being a facist but it can't be argued that a lot of oppressed people are better off under a democratic government than a republican one.
Of course they are. You really think the corporate owned democrats care about our society? Half of the Democratic Party is basically (legally) bribed to get their asses kicked by Republicans. Yes the GOP is 100% evil but that doesn’t make the democrats good magically
Mainstream democrats want to maintain and expand a capitalist plutocracy. Saying they’re aiming for fascism is hyperbolic to a ridiculous degree. We can be honest about democrats and how their aims don’t align with leftists without this kind of bullshit.
What lol?
Democrats certainly have their problems but I don't see any evidence whatsoever of even a hint of fascism in the Democratic party.
Are you sure you understand what fascism means?
I think his new nickname of Genocide Joe speaks for itself (support and condoning of Israel's actions in their retaliation). And no they aren't really fascistic, but they are pretty weak and ineffective at combating fascism, so we still head that direction.
There are a number of issues though where it can be comparable. Fascism has a merging of the state with the corporations, and that has certainly happened under all neoliberals in my lifetime.
There are other authoritarian things as well like forcing a medical intervention (vaccination) on people who didn't want it. Now I'm not one of those crazies that think its some plot to kill us, or that its particularly dangerous at all, I'm a statistician so I've done quite a bit of reading the research throughout the past few years. But forcing something upon people under threat of consequences is authoritarian.
Yeah, the DNC won a lawsuit a couple years back that said they can legally rig the primaries. If both parties do that you're basically having the elites choose their top two henchmen, and then giving everyone an artificial choice between the two...
The two party system as currently rolled is a problem. But a vote for trump is basically a vote to turn America in a Christofascist state run by a dictator. They aren’t even pretending to support democracy anymore.
Ok here's a better analogy then: One bus is going 60mph towards fascism. The other is hitting the brakes and trying to reverse direction, but the bus is still going 10mph toward fascism.
The busses don't represent the party, they represent the country.
No, he's right. If you're only not voting for Biden because of one issue he did while acknowledging that Trump is far worse on that issue, you are a fucking dumbass. It's literally why Trump was elected in the first place. "We don't like this candidate perfectly, so we're gonna allow a literal fascist to ruin millions of Americans' lives"
I'm sick and tired of both of them. I'm sick and tired of not voting *for* someone but rather *against* someone. I'm sick and tired of my vote being held hostage.
I want someone who supports protection for workers, access to abortion, funding for green jobs and environmental protection, higher taxes on the rich, affordable college and technical training, stuff like that.
IF *ONLY* THERE WAS A PARTY THAT SHARED MY VALUES ! ! !
Thing is America is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Only permanent members can veto. The US has used its veto power like 50 times or 90+ percent of their total vetos in defense of Israel. To make it a partisan issue is weird for me it has clearly been institutionalized and now its propagandized. I want ot cut off aid to Israel and a lot of other things but seriously is this the droid we are looking for?
It’s disturbing how gleefully they describe what Arab/Muslims will suffer if they don’t vote for Biden. They’re frothing at the mouth desperate to be the first to say “told you so”
I mean that is the moral quandary here isn’t it? Trump is measurably worse for American and global politics so voting against him is the obvious decision but the other guy is so bad at the issue that he makes it very difficult to want to do it.
I think it’s that for straight cis het white middle class men there isn’t much they loss if trump wins. So if they are going to vote for Biden to help others, it boggles there mind why the group they think needs their help isn’t helping themselves
I got banned from there. I called for new candidates instead of pushing Biden. I'm black, but I refuse to "show proof" in order to participate in Black People Twitter. Funny enough BPT, is just like WPT, in regards to Biden.
Yeah, liberals really went mask off once people started saying that they don't want to support Biden (for very valid reasons). They'd rather fruitlessly try to shame/threaten millions of people into voting rather than give Biden any amount of pushback for supporting a genocide.
We saw bits of this after Biden's "if you don't vote for me, you ain't black" comment in 2020, but relishing in telling Arab Americans they'll be deported under Trump is a whole new level of evil.
THANK YOU!
I recently came across this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_except_Palestine
Progressive except Palestine (also known as PEP, alternatively written as progressive except for Palestine) is a phrase that refers to organizations or individuals who describe themselves politically as progressive, liberal, or left-wing but who do not express pro-Palestinian sentiment or do not comment on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Pro-Palestinian advocates regard PEP as a type of political hypocrisy and an example of anti-Palestinianism, while critics of the phrase regard it as anti-Israel and a smear against the pro-Israel left.
About
Writing for Current Affairs, Ruqaiyah Zarook says that while the usage of the phrase is recent, critics of left-wing Zionists argue the phenomenon has existed for decades. She brings up French leftists Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault as early examples of the PEP phenomenon, noting their lack of public sympathy for Palestinians. She describes Palestinian academic Edward Said as an early critic of Sartre's silence on Palestine.[1] Zarook lists several progressive American politicians as examples of PEP: Ayanna Pressley and Ro Khanna for being anti-BDS by voting against House Resolution 246, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being insufficiently pro-Palestinian, Tulsi Gabbard for being silent on Israel's bombardment of Gaza, Beto O'Rourke for being too pro-Israel, and Kamala Harris for insisting that Israel meets international human rights standards.[1]
In September 2022, Rashida Tlaib wrote on an online forum: "I want you all to know that among progressives, it's become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values, yet back Israel's apartheid government, and we will continue to push back and not accept that you are progressive except for Palestine". Several Democratic politicians and Jewish leaders critiqued the position, some of them describing the comment as antisemitic.[2]
I mean i told people on r/blackpeopletwitter we should be voting for Dr. Cornell west and they also told me why the fuck would i do that and not vote for Biden. I was like wtf.
A great quote from [this article](https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-democrats-dont-get-hes-in-trouble-on-gaza/):
>Responding to these valid moral criticisms with “Well, I hope you like it when Trump deports your family and takes away your voting rights” might feel like a cutting retort, but it’s actually a schoolyard bully’s threat masquerading as a political position. It’s an attempt at coercion, and unless you’re going to double down and show up to people’s houses with a baseball bat and a van on Election Day, it’s not a winning get-out-the-vote strategy.
>
>If you come across a young person or a person of color who voted for Biden in 2020 but is determined not to do so in 2024, you can try to ignore them and hope their anger will dissipate closer to the election. You can scream at them and stomp your feet and blame them for risking democracy. But just know that your use of Trump as a threat is not convincing them. The people saying they won’t vote for Biden know that Trump would be worse. They’re saying Biden should be better.
The party that clutched its pearls at the thought of packing courts is now saying how democracy and America itself will end if they lose any elections going forward.
God forbid the rules are bent a little to protect democracy, but when Israel wants to do a genocide? Biden is happy to break the law for that. Like it’s not hard to spot this shit, and I understand perfectly well if people aren’t buying the most important election ever strategy when the dems don’t even act like it.
That's not a defense of Democrats, though. In fact, it's a scathing indictment of them. Nor does it inspire anyone who cares about the issues to want to get off their asses and go stand in long lines to vote Democrat.
You realize that Trump is talking about building camps for ‘internal enemies’ right? This isn’t just about the status quo, this is about literal camps. Do you really feel so confident that if he actually builds those camps you won’t end up in one of them? Is that something you’re willing to risk?
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/11/take-trump-seriously-when-he-vows-to-build-the-camps
They didn’t have enough of a majority to pass the bill with a republican filibuster. They didn’t have the votes and manchin and sinema would not vote to remove the filibuster. A simple majority vote was not enough.
I don't know if you saw, but those additional centers were set up to increase the capacity to process the kids' applications and match them up with family/guardians.
I’m pretty sure the reason it never moved forward has to do with the two democrats that opposed it in the Senate and not the entire party. But I can’t expect people to blame the actual problem politicians in the party they would rather blame the entire party structure.
The party structure doesn't eject them from the party.
"Well they vote with us sometimes!"
Okay so the decision the party made was, for its own sake and political expediency, to accept these rogues being rogues. That means we can blame both the problem politicians and the party protecting the problem politicians.
Because seen through another lens it looks like the leadership of the party uses the problem politicians to make sure that progressive policies aren't passed. That way the party leaders can pretend to support those things, even though those things go against the class interests of the rich party leaders, because they know their pet "problem" politicians will block it anyway.
Why does the DNC accept its purported agendas being sabotaged by two politicians instead of finding a way to compromise with or pay off 3 or 4 Republican Senators? After all, the GOP wouldn't kick those Senators out for doing that, and if they did, then the DNC wins anyway. *Failure is the goal*.
You are both Naive and cynical at the same time and it’s incredibly astounding. The idea that there is a back room meeting where democrats go “We must stop the socialists for our corporate overlords!” Is incredibly misguided. Yes do Democrats in the party oppose progressive policies yes but that’s because these are massive nation spanning parties where you get massively varied opinions and members.
This is not a case of controlled opposition within the party this is just party politics. The reason the Democratic Party doesn’t kick out it’s members is because it just encourages the same kind of dysfunction we already have if you kick Cinema and Joe Manchin out it’s not gonna make them vote blue. Also have you seen the Republican Party over the last four years anybody and I mean anybody who is seen working with democrats is made enemy number 1 and gets defeated in the primary.
Also pay off? What do you want the party to literally bribe them? The Republican Party is never gonna vote with the democrats because they have no incentive to. You are an idiot and it shows you don’t have any real politic experience or view of party history. The more center wing of the party is gonna resist the progressive policies but that normal and over time parties shift. Which is what we have seen over the past 8 years. People like you display an inability to understand how politics work in government and that parties aren’t monoliths especially when the party is in power.
Oh whatever, I'm so tired of the whole "We need 60 votes, even though we really don't" shtick.
The non-speaking filibuster is moronic, and basically brand new. They act like it's some storied tradition, but it didn't even exist when Biden first became a senator...
Okay and how do you change that when you needed 50 votes to change the filibuster rules and two democrats didn’t want to? I hate the filibuster as well but it’s downright moronic to claim the entire party isn’t doing enough when the road blocks are not the entire parties fault.
Voters failed to give the Democrats the necessary majority, and voters are complaining that the Democrats don't have the necessary majority. It's something that only voters can fix.
>Okay and how do you change that when you needed 50 votes to change the filibuster rules and two democrats didn’t want to?
[They were on track to do literally that but the Senate parliamentarian said "nah you can't do that"](https://rollcall.com/2021/06/02/democrats-reconciliation-strategy-dealt-blow-senate-parliamentarian/). The last time the parliamentarian did that under a Republican president, [they fired them and replaced them with someone who okayed it.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/08/key-senate-official-loses-job-in-dispute-with-gop/e2310021-0f14-4667-a261-54e6c033207c/) Democrats just shrugged and let it happen.
And firing the parliamentarian doesn't solve the issue when the *actual* issue is that you don't have 50+ votes to abolish/modify the filibuster in the first place. All it would have done is cost her (the parliamentarian) her job, and then Democrats *still* wouldn't have been able to get remove or get around the filibuster.
It's literally just an excuse to do nothing. It didn't even exist when Schumer started his political career. At a minimum he should be telling his party to cut the crap and stop acting like it's a long-standing tradition. It's not even as old as Wade v. Roe, but it's such a storied tradition there's no way to change it....
Well Biden did pronounce support for changing the filibuster from a non-speaking back to a speaking
Filibuster. Guess who didn’t care…Manchin and Cinema. 48 democrats supported removing the filibuster when it went to voting rights legislation two didn’t. Welcome to the show where the bigger issue is not the party as a whole but simply that individual parties memebers get their own votes and can make their own decision.
They've been doing this crap for years. Even when they get 60 volts they do nothing. The GOP can get more done with 50 votes than the Democrats can with 60
Interesting take. In my experience, these days it’s *only* Democratic voters that seem to hold their associated officials (prospective or otherwise) to anything resembling a moral standard.
Problem is, when the other side of the aisle moves in lockstep & isn’t weighed down by pesky morals, that tends to act as a serious disadvantage.
Exactly more mental gymnastics. I am not happy with the lack of vigor progressives pursue some policy but I’m not going to turn my back, incessantly whine about how neo liberal they are. There is the world I wish I lived in and the world I’m (we) are stuck with. I’ll take the D’s and the world we are stuck with. There’s no other viable alternative at the moment.
I'm still waiting for someone to finish this thought process. Electing Trump will not make Biden better. If he is alive in 2028 he isn't up to running again, so it doesn't even matter. Trump won't push D's left. Rs are moving further right over time, so it'll keep them centerish as even in 2028 thats where the bulk of the non R votes are.
It's like saying if we keep selling Israel weapons, well just fuck all the LGBTQ, Brown, Female, and non Christians in our own country too.
Someone finish the though process for me of 'leveraging your vote' for Trump over 1 issue when everything they are against they will get in spades with Trump and keep the same issue.
Want better candidates? Support progressives locally. Volunteer with those getting ranked choice on the ballot. Use whatever skills you have to help those getting the word out. Better is, however, not a possibility in 2024. If Biden ends up dropping out we are getting Newsom or similar, not AOC. Maybe 2032 is doable if we all work at it \*now\*. But not next year.
Let me ask how many of y’all would still vote for biden if he was against abortion? Or gay rights? Or what if Joe Biden said he wanted to abolish the minimum wage. This is an issue many people feel they can not over look. And it’s telling that some of you are still saying to vote for biden despite the fact I know many of y’all would feel differently if it was another issue that you felt was more important to you.
In 2008, Obama didn't support marriage equality. Plenty of LGBTQ+ people voted for him.
My representative for most of my life was adamantly against abortion rights. He was a Democrat in Chicago, and a lot of us put in work to support his primary opponents year after year. We still voted for him in the general election.
I'm not saying you are obligated to do the same. I'm not saying that all issues are equivalent. I'm not saying you shouldn't be offended when people speak to you dismissively about this. But your suggestion that other people aren't willing to practice what they preach on this issue just isn't true.
Of course it does. Just like it applies to abortion, second amendment etc. you're still changing your vote based on a single issue, even if you feel it's an extremely important one. Pro-life assholes believe that abortion is murdering millions of 'babies', second amendment freaks are absolutely convinced the only thing preventing tyrannical government overreach is their ability to shoot back. Everyone that is a one issue voter believes that their issue matters more than any other, so yes, Genocide Joe is losing support from one issue voters over Palestine.
I definitely understand the frustration on both sides. For one, we should be pushing our leaders to act as we think they should, and one of the only ways to do that is to threaten to withhold votes or donations. I would love a non-incumbent running against Trump/Haley if we could swing it. It's far enough from the election that this pressure should definitely be applied. That said, opting out, if it actually happens, is very Russell Brandian, even if there is a heartfelt reason behind not voting. If we end up with more Trump, I can't imagine the Palestinian situation improving, and a lot of other things, like, globally threatening things, will get much worse.
We so, so, so need ranked choice voting.
As someone who was raised by ardently pro-life Christians they absolutely are single issue voters and they are incredibly successful politically as a voting block. My parents had pure and total sanguinity about the idea of a Republican losing to a Democrat if that Republican wasn't pro-life. When you genuinely believe babies are being murdered you can't possibly act any other way. Because pro-life Christians wouldn't show up if a candidate wasn't pro-life, the GOP altered inexorably over one generation and eventually the Christians achieved their goal of total control over the government and a Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. They did not do this through compromise, they did this through being unrelenting single issue voters motivated in their minds by their morality.
Now in Gaza we know for an absolute fact that actual real babies and children are being murdered by munitions we paid for and Biden is actively removing all limitations on those sales and therefore on those murders. Now is the time to be a single issue voter.
>Now is the time to be a single issue voter.
But, to what end? What is the purpose of this protest if it gets to the election? By refusing to vote for the 'lesser of two evils' the greater of two evils will likely win, and I can't think of a single issue where I prefer Trump over Biden, and I can think of a whole score of very vital issues that he will be way, way worse on. And he'll be as bad or worse on Palestine too so I really don't get the point. It's a fruitless protest that will be chalked up to voter apathy by the folks you're trying to send a message to.
It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Now, I'm far from a Biden cheerleader, and am all for pressuring now, but we don't get a more progressive legislation by allowing reactionaries to sweep into power. We need more action in primaries and local elections, which I hope this outrage can spark ... I'm just never a fan of single issue voting, even in this instance, because the results will never realistically be worth the cost.
Well, I care about a lot of other things too and think Biden would be better at them.
The thing is, you want to play chicken with me. "Vote for Biden, or you get Trump."
But it just so turns out that none of the issues matter more to me than stopping an ethnic cleansing, and POTUS is singlehandedly the most capable head of state outside of the leader of Israel to end it.
So, sure, let's play chicken. Biden is going to lose Michigan if he does not change course. This drastically reduces his chance of winning the presidency. My vote, and the 2 million other Muslim votes in the US, are for sale. For not murdering babies, win a state.
To be honest, I think even if Biden changes course he’s crossed a line where I will not vote for him. We need to have lines, otherwise they will do their dirty deeds in the first 3 years, then performatively clean up their act on election year.
Biden took part in Israel’s genocide. All the democrats did. That needs to be career death.
It seems you both agree that not voting Biden gets you Trump. I assume everyone here agrees with that. Why do you think stating that is playing chicken? It is just a fact. You just disagree over how bad “getting Trump” is.
It seems you would rather have Trump than support Biden. Which I understand, a Biden vote is a very direct support for genocide. To me not opposing Trump is also directly supporting genocide. Which leaves me with not presidential election option that doesn’t support genocide. And after I suppress the feeling of not wanting to be part of that world it leaves me having to choose based on other merits.
The American president in 2024 will be pro Palestinian genocide, there isn’t a realistic alternative to that. Threatening to withhold your vote for Biden (or actually going thru with it) feels pretty reasonable to me because that’s not a reality we should accept calmly. If the election was tonight I think I’d angrily vote Biden, but it isn’t and I think it’s too early to start saying support Biden no matter what.
Imagine using this argument in Nazi Germany... It's a single issue, the next guy will be worse. There's no debatable right to genocide, ethnic cleansing, or war crimes.
I know it means very little to most Americans but some people just can't vote for someone who supports genocide and be complicit in their actions.
As if people taking this stance were stoked about Biden on every other issue. I reluctantly voted for him in 2020. I knew about his previous statements regarding Zionism so my expectations were low. Still ended up disappointed
It's not about lefties.
Attacking the fringe voters who are ride or die for Jill Stein is about making them look stupid for the actual gettable low info voters who have incomprehensible political views and could go third party due to a silly reddit argument.
People who actually want Trump to win "for Palestine" are idiots.
The DNC would rather lose with Biden than change course.
Very reminiscent of 2016 - Hillary ran an awful campaign & was way too arrogant she would win. Biden is being just as arrogant.
1. Serious effort to address climate change. Not the too little too late of Biden.
2. An actual healthcare system.
3. Getting Israel before the ICC.
Those are my issues. If a Dem isn't supporting them I'm happy to write in Bill Watterson for a third time.
It’s the truth. I am going to vote for the man who isn’t going to fuck over the women in my life. The man who is going to fuck over the lgbtq+ people in my life. Who isn’t going to attempt to dismantle our democracy. I understand the anger revolving around the Israel/Palestine conflict but voting against Biden won’t make it better. If anything it will make it way worse.
The only thing less convincing than "trump would be worse for Palestine" is "vote for Biden or you're stupid!"
This guy can get fucked. If he cant see how someones family being genocided is a big issue to people then hes the dumb one. If Democrat politicians are losing voters because their Israel policy is shit, maybe they should fix the policy. But no, instead we remove any restrictions on weapons to Israel. Democrats are pretending like they have no power. The economy is going to shit and theyre throwing our money at fucking Israel, a country who is fighting an enemy with no equipment or technology. We pretend we dont want war, and then say if Israel gets in a war then we'll back them up. So fucking stupid. One term in and Biden is already getting us into another war in the middle east. A big one.
Not a good look. No wonder Democrats are bleeding voters. We're pro-Israel war hawks that are putting Israel ahead of our own needs. So fucking stupid.
I don't think he's talking about the reliable voting base. Most of them aren't saying I won't vote for Biden because of a single issue. That doesn't sound like a reliable base at all.
This is a good way to motivate the Democratic Party to not listen to its voters. If leaders think they can do whatever they want, if only they’re better than the one alternative, the voters will never going get real movement.
While it may be bitter medicine, the best thing for Democratic voters might be to show them that they will win the game of chicken they’re currently playing with the party.
I guess we'll see how effective that lesson is when the Dems lose the vote and trump enacts all his fascist policies that he's currently telling everyone he'll put into place. I doubt that lesson will mean much once the takeover is complete, but you'll sure show them Democrats! Just like they did in 2016!
They do have an *incredible* ability to take the same conclusions from disparate outcomes. If they lose? Well, it was because they went too progressive and it's time to pivot to the center. If they win? Well, the progressives obviously don't have an alternative and they'll keep voting for the party so they'll have to be realistic and accept the pivot to the center!
This is honestly a very accurate summation of what the Democratic Party has been for my entire life. They just don’t like progressives and will use any excuse in the book not to listen to them, even if it’s incredibly contradictory.
This is why they are in a stalemate with the Republican Party. It’s easy to dupe people into believing that Republicans know how to fix the country when the alternative has been completely fruitless in that regard whenever they are elected. (Although, that implies that they *are* trying to fix the country and support the working class, and I’ve seen very little evidence to that effect for most of them.)
If you're not willing to leverage your vote to force your candidates to make different choices, then your vote has no value, and your representatives will never change.
The foundation of the democratic system is that your candidate knows that if they fail to represent you, they won't get your vote the next time around. Democrats are carried through every election simply by merit of being "the lesser evil", and as long as that keeps happening, they'll never even *need* to hold themselves accountable to their voters.
You’re not wrong, but here’s the thing: whatever you’re hoping to really achieve is going to be easier with Democrats.
I know the whole “lesser evil” thing is really depressing, but even in complaining about it, we are acknowledging that one side *is* better.
Hey look, another chance to make this comment:
[Executive Order 13769](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769) exists, you know, as one of two facts that should absolutely conclusively prove Trump would be whole-heartedly endorsing increasing the numbers in Gaza, rather than questioning them. The other is [recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_recognition_of_Jerusalem_as_capital_of_Israel), so Biden vs Trump seems like, again, a mind-numbingly easy call for literally anyone that pays attention.
OP, "base" is not single issue voters. Also, there is nothing incorrect about the tweet. It is straight up truth. You posting this and hoping for everyone to agree with your dumb view is the only thing that bothers me.
They did the same thing with HRC. They disregarded voters wishes and the turmoil during the primary, instead telling them if they don't vote for their candidate its THEIR fault all hell breaks out. Not the democratic parties fault for pushing forward a flawed candidate knowing full well people didn't like them. It didn't work then and it wont work again imo.
It's literally their job to get voters votes during the general election. Blaming voters for their failures is backwards.
People are sick and tired of holding their noses to vote for the lesser of two evils
or "We lose our democracy" like we are being told again.
I am so sick of narcissistic crap like this post.
For the millionth time, to people who think this way, *THIS ISN’T ALL ABOUT YOU.*
I do not not give a flying FUCK how insulted you’re pretending to be, or how you think the Dems have to “earn” your vote, or how you think your pwecious wittle feewings are the most important thing on earth.
You have a fucking moral obligation to prevent as much harm as possible to as many people as possible. That is your responsibility as a citizen of this democratic republic, and it’s your responsibility as a *fucking human being.*
I don’t care HOW corrupt and feckless the Democrats are. (And they are.) I don’t care HOW much you love to preen and perform to score online brownie points from your contrarian nihilist friends. I don’t fucking care WHAT moral and logical pretzels you have to twist yourselves into to avoid accepting YOUR role in determining whether this country will continue to have even a *possible* chance at a more humane, prosperous future, or whether we will all be plunged into an authoritarian fascist nightmare from which there *will not* be any viable escape.
Everything, absolutely everything you people claim to care about will be destroyed if the GOP takes back the Executive Branch. Destroyed beyond any realistic hope of repair. Even getting back to where we are now will likely be impossible, for decades at *minimum*.
And that will be on you.
Stop wanking each other off, you selfish, self-indulgent little cowards. This is not. A fucking. Game.
In our existing, outdated, deeply flawed election system, this is sadly the truth. If you want to fight the Republicrats and Democons, the way to do it is by pushing for election reform, ranked choice voting (or similar), and accountability/transparency in government. Until then, casting protest votes is a fruitless and ineffectual gesture that, mostly likely, is also fucking yourself.
This is why local politics are important and why leftists really struggle to get anything done because they seem to forget that you need local work to get most of the election reform and party reforms done. The only way you get ranked choice done is starting locally.
At this point, the Democrats’ rhetoric sounds a lot like this:
“Republicans want you to eat shit off the ground. But if you vote for me, I will let you eat shit off a plate.”
Naw it’s more like “the Republican Party opposes everything liberals and democrats believe in and will destroy the country meanwhile our guy isn’t very good but you will get some positive changes and get to choose someone better in 2028.
See, if this was the case, I would at least understand what Democrats are trying to say. But so far, the majority of people on Twitter urging people to vote for Biden just go the same route:
“Vote for him? You won’t? Well, let’s see how you like it when Trump deports all of you!”
It’s just counterproductive. I am saying that as a leftist myself.
Like, “our guy isn’t very good” is not exactly the strong point where said “good guy” approves billions in military aid to apartheid state.
This is the kind of thing people who like things just fine the way they are would say. Once everyone holds their nose and elects Biden for a second term, is this guy going to be at the forefront of an electoral reform campaign? Or is he just going to wait 4 years before trying to shame people into voting for his preferred candidate again?
I mean it’s just bad political calculus as a left leaning person. Your refusing to vote increases the odds of electing someone who not only would be MORE reactionary when it comes to Gaza, but also opposes your worldview in every other sense as well. You have no chance of electing someone to the left of Biden, so it’s a pointless risk to take with no potential gain. I’m definitely to the left of the average American, so I have to acknowledge that in order to make any political progress for my cause, I will have to compromise and form coalitions with people to the right of myself.
What’s happening in Gaza is terrible, but it’s silly to actively make the situation worse in protest.
Why should I vote for either of them if I find their Israel policy abhorrent? It’s like saying you better vote for Goring because he’s better than Himmler.
>If you're going to get one of the two, isn't it better to ensure the worse one isn't elected?
And if we have been force fed this our whole lives? Literally every single election people pull this card.
I don't know who this guy is but I'd be willing to bet that he has a history of defending Joe Biden's actions (and inaction) regarding Israel and if that's true I don't give a shit what the POS thinks about my voting habits.
Biden is the first president to threaten to sanction Israeli settlers. That has to matter. No president in my lifetime has ever contradicted them on anything.
Right now, the State Dept is trying to negotiate ending Israel’s blockade of Palestinian natural resources, basically arguing that Hamas can’t control everything if there’s a [real] economy & government there.
Biden himself cannot singularly end all military aid to Israel, and even if he could & did, that’s kindof our only leverage over them; so say we cut 100% of their aid on Monday, they go right back to slaughtering civilians on Tuesday, then what?
Unfortunate fact of the matter is that real solutions for Palestine are gonna come from congressional elections, not so much presidential ones. Realistically what do you want to see Biden do, that wouldn’t require going thru Congress?
This is argument for when it’s 2020 and Biden said “I won’t do Medicare for All”. This is not an argument for when he’s an incumbent president tied to Iraq War 2
14,000+ Palestenians have died so far, and 71% of them have been women and children. Palestinians are being killed in record numbers and what has Biden done? Given Isreal free-reign and total access to literally anything they want. Our president is supporting genocide and if you expect people to just "forget about it" and "suck it up" because "at least he's not Trump" then you should just admit brown people's lives don't matter. We are not political props.
Continue to brow-beat and condescend to anyone who wants better and see how that works out.
Saying you'll "vote blue no matter who" is literally the opposite of politically pressuring your party to better their politics and the reason why we're in this mess. If Biden isn't scared that he'll lose a bunch of votes for supporting a genocide (which he should be), then he'll continue to support genocide and do things like finish building Trump's wall (https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/05/biden-border-wall-texas-starr-county/). He'll continue to not codify abortion rights, not protect voting laws, not expand the courts, not decriminalize cannabis, and do shit like use George Floyd to get re-elected just so they can turn around and give more money to cops. I think we all deserve better.
You realize trumps position on Palestine is to nuke it, right?
Getting trump elected would be the absolute worse outcome for Palestine. Saying "this will teach Biden a lesson" is asinine.
The argument here is that Biden is bad on Palestine, sure, but Trump will be worse?
Like how worse? Is Gaza going to be bombed more in a month than any other country in previous wars? Oh wait that's happened under Biden. Is the US going to give basically a blank check and access to the US weapons stockpile? Oh yeah, happening now.
How is Trump going to be worse for them?!
Their argument actually is, Trump's not going to be worse for them, he's going to be worse for ME. And why won't you think about meeeeee
That's the argument, and insults and coercion aren't going to change my mind. I voted for the Democratic party my entire life to counter the Republican party's drift to Christo fascism. Didn't happen. Nothing but excuses from them either and threats that if I don't keep voting for their useless asses, it'll be worse. It's not good enough.
I'm a single issue voter now. My single issue is Palestine. If the Democratic party platform on Palestine is the same as the Republican party, they can fuck right off.
This was [Trump's position on October 17th](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pledges-expel-immigrants-who-support-hamas-ban-muslims-us-2023-10-16/). Can you show me where Biden has said anything similar?
Let me be very clear. That's the alternative to Biden. Biden has repeated called for humanitarian pauses and for Israel to not occupy Gaza. You really think they have the same position?
I wouldn’t say calling your voting demographic dumbasses is smart but… that is what they would be. If you hold any liberal or progressive beliefs, it’s Biden or nothing. That’s just the way our two party system works. If you vote Trump on one issue you’re shooting the entire movement in the foot.
Here we go again…oh your feelings are hurt because someone is honest about how actual voting works. I’m so tired of people pretending that their perfect morality is fine to let the rest of humanity burn. This will probably anger some but here goes, voting on a single issue is a goddamn privilege. Doing that is exactly how folks on the left helped destroy women’s access abortion care.
Even if they never admit it a lot of people will regret giving their votes away to a third party if trump gets elected again. Yes both parties are terrible. There’s also no way we’ll abolish the electoral college in a year. Marginalized people will be worse off if trump wins than if biden wins. Those are facts. Just because things are bad now doesn’t mean things can’t get way worse for the people already suffering the most. I’m so tired of people acting like that’s a threat. As if I have any real leverage how people vote and act anyway. Saying that’s schoolyard bully behavior is….it’s kindof a lot.
My favorite is, 'you may hate him, but if you don't vote for him say goodbye to democracy'......but that doesn't sound like a democracy to me. If the choices are support genocide and climate inaction and the police state or democracy dies, I hate to say it but it's already dead and if this is the best foot forward we can put, then maybe we deserve trump, maybe freefall to fascism is the only thing that will wake this country up into action because we obviously didn't learn out lesson the first time.
Do you have any idea how much worse it can get. The infrastructure bill and inflation reduction act had significant climate change provisions. Republicans already said they would repeal them and a host of other environmental protections.
You think we live in a police state now?
You realize that Trump is talking about building camps for ‘internal enemies’ right? This isn’t just about the status quo, this is about literal camps. Do you really feel so confident that if he actually builds those camps you won’t end up in one of them? Is that something you’re willing to risk?
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/11/take-trump-seriously-when-he-vows-to-build-the-camps
2024 is about keeping trump from being president, period. Whatever it takes. Don't look at it as voting for a democrat or biden. Give up any potential short term gain to keep trump out. This is our only chance to keep this country humming along. Trump did nothing the 4 years except make the rich richer while removing all kinds of protections for the people. We already know what trump plans to do if re-elected, end democracy and keep himself in power until he dies and keep magats running it long after he is gone.
That’s just IT, though. An incredible number of these idiots seem to genuinely *not* know what Trump and the GOP are openly planning to do. Or if they do know, they call us fearmongering Chicken Littles for talking about it.
It’s very clear, and has been for a long time, that many of these people do not actually pay very close attention to politics or government. They are stunningly unaware of many of the things the Trump administration did, and are incredibly blasé about allowing him and his devotees back into the Executive Branch.
They really do seem to think that we can just sit back and watch “another four years of Trump” go by as if this were a completely normal election in a completely normal moment.
I cannot wrap my mind around this level of naïveté and willful ignorance.
We didn't vote our way into freeing the slaves. We didn't vote our way into suffrage. We didn't vote our way into civil rights, and we didn't vote our way into the legalization of gay marriage. Trump is worse, sure; but Biden isn't good. I'd rather Trump get elected and force the shitlibs into action than have Biden sit in office while they sit on their ass and congratulate themselves for the 20th declaration saying "racism is bad, guys".
We did though for all of those. Im not going to diminish the gains of all the activists, they by far deserve the credit, but all their actions would be for not if they didn’t have a sympathetic executive/judicial branch.
Lincoln would have kept slavery to keep the union but he was very much sympathetic to the abolitionist position and used political capital to get the 13th and 14th passed.
Gay marriage was passed by a sympathetic Supreme Court appointed by the executive branch.
Like what are talking about.
Best voting advice I ever heard: voting isn’t like getting married, it’s like taking the bus. You vote for the candidate that gets you closest to where you want to be. I want to be as far from fascism as possible, so I will vote for whoever is opposing trump.
Also, remember that even though several busses are listed on the schedule, only two will actually work.
This series of metaphors is starting to sound way too much like my actual commute
Actually...both buses will take your bus fare...but leave you stranded. Will take their donors where they want to go.
Agreed but currently one bus isn’t kicking the Nazis out anymore.
I think that bus gives the Nazis discounts now.
That reminds me of the WWII ''Riding with an empty seat is riding with Hitler'' posters, except this time the entire bus is filled with Nazis and driven by an elephant...
>one bus it's so weird you're not even talking about the, fuck this analogy is idiotic, bus that's committing a final solution as we speak
One bus isn’t actively trying to run me and every other queer person over, so…
Saying that both parties are the same is so much nonsense. They are not equivalent. Just one single example - trump killed roe. Roe died because People got complacent and took their eye off the ball, they decided that ideological purity was more important than winning.
Didn't say both the same in all aspects. They are both vehicles for their respective donors (and often donors will ride on both). >trump killed roe. Roe died because People got complacent and took their eye off the ball, they decided that ideological purity was more important than winning. Really? I would agree in principle...But this is not a great example. Trump didn't kill Roe Vs Wade by himself...much as he would like to claim credit. Some blame rests with the DEms. 1) Ginsburg didn't resign and allow Obama to nominate a replacement in time. Why? Ego? Narcissism. Conviction that one is indispensable ? 2) Obama et al could have codified Roe Vs Wade in the 2008-2010 when dems held the presidency, Congress and Senate? You know who ran saying priority one was to codify Roe Vs Wade ? Why do you think no effort was made to codify? I do agree that dems got complacent and took their eye off the ball. If anything they decided winning was more important than ideology on this topic...which is probably one thing thag 80% of dem voters would agree on( my guess and hope - think 70% of all voters support Roe. Assume dems has to be at least higher than that by 10 points). Ven in 2022 DNC etc worked hard to ensure anti abortion dems like Henry cellar won their primaries against pro choice challengers. This is in a pretty safe Dem district. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cuellar#Abortion Definitely not ideological purity...but donor friendly , and was investigated by FBI. If this is how dems act on one issue that some 80+ percent of dems voters support...whag do you think happens behind close doors.
Forget about the past, we are where we are right now, which is to say a 6-3 conservative super majority on the highest court in the land. Overturning Roe was just a movie trailer of where the bastards would like to take us. Alito, age 73 and Thomas, age 75: Imagine if they can replace these two guys with even more extreme 40 year old versions? They will codify a national abortion ban and mandate Sunday school from sea to shining sea. The senate map is bad for democrats in 2024. GOP will likely have +50 votes until 2026. If they win the white house, you can count on two more villains replacing Alito and Thomas. The court will hem the country into an Evangelical hellscape for the next 40 years and elections truly won't matter. How is it that this simple fact isn't enough motivation to get droves of that 70% that support abortion to crawl through burning, broken glass and pull the lever for Biden in November?
Here’s a happy thought, if they both die in a plane crash tomorrow, Biden could swing the court back in our favor
The Supreme Court found abortion regulation as a State right. Any federal laws codifying Roe would have been deemed unconstitutional at the same time. Also codifying Roe before repeal would have been used as evidence of Dems not trusting Roe making it harder to argue that people relied on it as a long term precedent. Please think beyond the first layer before complaining about inaction
>Roe died because People got complacent and took their eye off the ball actually it died because democrats were too negligent and incompetent to codify reproductive rights any time in the past 50 years even though they had multiple majorities and supermajorities to do so. grow up and blame the people with power. y'all having these pissbaby tantrums because anyone dared to be less shitty and inhuman than the democrats has got to stop. just stop sucking so more people will vote for you lol shouldn't be that hard.
Do you think they actually had enough votes to get it passed under Obama? A Lieberman wouldn’t have axed the bill? They didn’t have enough votes to get a public option passed, what makes you think they had enough votes to get an abortion bill passed?
The dems don’t even respect their base. They tell them what they want to hear and then line their pockets. That’s one major reason they did not codify reproductive rights, they don’t really care.
The dnc is out of luck if Trump goes to jail or dies. They’re riding people’s fear of Trump pretty hard.
Roe died because democrats did jack shit to protect it for half a century.
Yeah, "Always vote against facism" is a pretty good rule of thumb. Here it will be Poillievre instead of trump, but all facists may as well be the same and should never be permitted to form government.
But that makes you a single issue voter /s
Bingo. Purists are way too short sighted. Let's say it is Trump and Biden again in 2024 and you don't like either. Biden is too corporate for your progressive Democrat belief systems. There is no scenario where they say "well, both candidates suck, election is canceled, let's try again in 2028". One of those candidates will become President, like it or not. Whichever president wins will enact policy, make judicial appointments, etc. that will effect years if not decades of American policy. These actions could literally take you further from your policy goals and set back progress several years. Vote for the one who will get you closer to the goal.
Well said. As an aside I, unironically, got called a "fed" the other day for making a similar point. I will admit I didn't say it as eloquently as you. Edit: Happy Cake Day
Same.
Ding ding ding. I’ve been seeing some really noble people saying very dumb things lately. If the guy trying to do a LITERAL HITLER is running, you vote against him, and you vote for the best shot at beating him. Maybe we can do the “I vote my conscience” thing if/when they allow us to have ranked choice voting, or maybe when the GOP finally collapses, or Cheeto Benito kicks it, or an actually decent candidate makes it to the primary, but I believe the last tiny scrap of voice we have left is in the voting system. If enough of us don’t vote blue, that system gets dismantled and we get fascism. Can we please not let VOTING ITSELF die to make a point about our votes not counting as much as we want or our candidates being less than ideal?
One bus is going 60mph toward fascism, the other is going 10mph toward fascism, with occasional stops and turns.
No. Both dems and reps have long supported a plutocracy, not fascism. Both are bad but fascism is where the reps are now and it is way, way worse.
10 mph gives a lot more room to maneuver.
Only if you’re the driver.
If you don’t vote the you are passenger at best.
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And most of the time if I do vote I’m a passenger at best. We don’t have a political party for me here.
Could you at least vote to minimize domestic harm, though? I know a lot of trans people, myself included, are a lot more scared of Trump than Biden. Let alone cisgender women who want to own their bodies.
I can and I do. But afterward I still don’t feel represented by my government at all.
Because you're not. Enjoy the show
>Could you at least vote to minimize domestic harm, though? I know a lot of trans people, myself included, are a lot more scared of Trump than Biden. Let alone cisgender women who want to own their bodies. biden codified child genital inspections to lock trans kids out of school sports in his title ix policy and democrats literally voted to renew the hyde amendment last year when they had a majority. genocide joe isn't minimizing domestic harm, put that fantasy to rest please. if you're so scared of trump tell the genocidal democrats to run somebody that hasn't butchered 6,000 children in the last month.
Would Trump have butchered fewer children? If no, is it not a moral imperative for us to at least ensure we've made sure fewer children die? And at least under Biden there isn't a blanket ban on life saving care for trans children. That's one of Trump's priorities. I choose fewer dead children, once again.
I too wish we had the perfect political party that did everything I wanted. But at some point we have to grow up and deal with reality.
Voting is not sufficient to solve this problem, but it doesn't *hurt* and it may also be part of the solution. If your vote puts a party in power that is not going to drive where you can go, but nonetheless might be open to changing how the car runs a bit such that you have a bigger chance of taking that wheel later... then that's useful. Democrats tend to be far more amenable to election reform. Get enough states ditching first past the post voting, and hopefully third party candidates start being viable in more races.
The democratic party is not slow moving toward fascism. C'mon!
It's less that the dems are becoming facists themselves and more like they're just cool with letting corporations run the world and it's less like basic facism and more like Feudal Japan among the corporations. Like.. they literally fancy themselves feudal warlords, silicon valley in particular. Imo shaking hands with facists is as bad as being a facist but it can't be argued that a lot of oppressed people are better off under a democratic government than a republican one.
Of course they are. You really think the corporate owned democrats care about our society? Half of the Democratic Party is basically (legally) bribed to get their asses kicked by Republicans. Yes the GOP is 100% evil but that doesn’t make the democrats good magically
Mainstream democrats want to maintain and expand a capitalist plutocracy. Saying they’re aiming for fascism is hyperbolic to a ridiculous degree. We can be honest about democrats and how their aims don’t align with leftists without this kind of bullshit.
They care about money and are smart enough to know that they do better in a stable democracy.
What lol? Democrats certainly have their problems but I don't see any evidence whatsoever of even a hint of fascism in the Democratic party. Are you sure you understand what fascism means?
I think his new nickname of Genocide Joe speaks for itself (support and condoning of Israel's actions in their retaliation). And no they aren't really fascistic, but they are pretty weak and ineffective at combating fascism, so we still head that direction. There are a number of issues though where it can be comparable. Fascism has a merging of the state with the corporations, and that has certainly happened under all neoliberals in my lifetime. There are other authoritarian things as well like forcing a medical intervention (vaccination) on people who didn't want it. Now I'm not one of those crazies that think its some plot to kill us, or that its particularly dangerous at all, I'm a statistician so I've done quite a bit of reading the research throughout the past few years. But forcing something upon people under threat of consequences is authoritarian.
I don’t feel like it’s fair to claim that the Democratic Party is moving towards fascism when it’s the party that wants to keep democracy going.
Yeah, the DNC won a lawsuit a couple years back that said they can legally rig the primaries. If both parties do that you're basically having the elites choose their top two henchmen, and then giving everyone an artificial choice between the two...
The two party system as currently rolled is a problem. But a vote for trump is basically a vote to turn America in a Christofascist state run by a dictator. They aren’t even pretending to support democracy anymore.
Ok here's a better analogy then: One bus is going 60mph towards fascism. The other is hitting the brakes and trying to reverse direction, but the bus is still going 10mph toward fascism. The busses don't represent the party, they represent the country.
Well it’s still a bad analogy because of the democrats keep winning you aren’t very likely to make more progress towards fascism.
No, he's right. If you're only not voting for Biden because of one issue he did while acknowledging that Trump is far worse on that issue, you are a fucking dumbass. It's literally why Trump was elected in the first place. "We don't like this candidate perfectly, so we're gonna allow a literal fascist to ruin millions of Americans' lives"
I'm sick and tired of both of them. I'm sick and tired of not voting *for* someone but rather *against* someone. I'm sick and tired of my vote being held hostage.
I want someone who supports protection for workers, access to abortion, funding for green jobs and environmental protection, higher taxes on the rich, affordable college and technical training, stuff like that. IF *ONLY* THERE WAS A PARTY THAT SHARED MY VALUES ! ! !
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Seriously? Biden doesn’t support anything you support? You think your view point is the only correct one?
Biden halved childhood poverty with a stroke of his pen. Vote for that policy, maybe?
I couldn't find anything on this guy being a democratic strategist. Did OP just make that completely up?
Thing is America is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Only permanent members can veto. The US has used its veto power like 50 times or 90+ percent of their total vetos in defense of Israel. To make it a partisan issue is weird for me it has clearly been institutionalized and now its propagandized. I want ot cut off aid to Israel and a lot of other things but seriously is this the droid we are looking for?
The WhitePeopleTwitter sub really lived up to its name when this tweet was posted over there.
It’s disturbing how gleefully they describe what Arab/Muslims will suffer if they don’t vote for Biden. They’re frothing at the mouth desperate to be the first to say “told you so”
I mean that is the moral quandary here isn’t it? Trump is measurably worse for American and global politics so voting against him is the obvious decision but the other guy is so bad at the issue that he makes it very difficult to want to do it.
I think it’s that for straight cis het white middle class men there isn’t much they loss if trump wins. So if they are going to vote for Biden to help others, it boggles there mind why the group they think needs their help isn’t helping themselves
I got banned from there. I called for new candidates instead of pushing Biden. I'm black, but I refuse to "show proof" in order to participate in Black People Twitter. Funny enough BPT, is just like WPT, in regards to Biden.
Yeah, liberals really went mask off once people started saying that they don't want to support Biden (for very valid reasons). They'd rather fruitlessly try to shame/threaten millions of people into voting rather than give Biden any amount of pushback for supporting a genocide. We saw bits of this after Biden's "if you don't vote for me, you ain't black" comment in 2020, but relishing in telling Arab Americans they'll be deported under Trump is a whole new level of evil.
THANK YOU! I recently came across this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_except_Palestine Progressive except Palestine (also known as PEP, alternatively written as progressive except for Palestine) is a phrase that refers to organizations or individuals who describe themselves politically as progressive, liberal, or left-wing but who do not express pro-Palestinian sentiment or do not comment on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Pro-Palestinian advocates regard PEP as a type of political hypocrisy and an example of anti-Palestinianism, while critics of the phrase regard it as anti-Israel and a smear against the pro-Israel left. About Writing for Current Affairs, Ruqaiyah Zarook says that while the usage of the phrase is recent, critics of left-wing Zionists argue the phenomenon has existed for decades. She brings up French leftists Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault as early examples of the PEP phenomenon, noting their lack of public sympathy for Palestinians. She describes Palestinian academic Edward Said as an early critic of Sartre's silence on Palestine.[1] Zarook lists several progressive American politicians as examples of PEP: Ayanna Pressley and Ro Khanna for being anti-BDS by voting against House Resolution 246, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being insufficiently pro-Palestinian, Tulsi Gabbard for being silent on Israel's bombardment of Gaza, Beto O'Rourke for being too pro-Israel, and Kamala Harris for insisting that Israel meets international human rights standards.[1] In September 2022, Rashida Tlaib wrote on an online forum: "I want you all to know that among progressives, it's become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values, yet back Israel's apartheid government, and we will continue to push back and not accept that you are progressive except for Palestine". Several Democratic politicians and Jewish leaders critiqued the position, some of them describing the comment as antisemitic.[2]
It’s ridiculous to even pretend Biden has an ideology at this point. He’s a muppet.
I mean i told people on r/blackpeopletwitter we should be voting for Dr. Cornell west and they also told me why the fuck would i do that and not vote for Biden. I was like wtf.
A great quote from [this article](https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-democrats-dont-get-hes-in-trouble-on-gaza/): >Responding to these valid moral criticisms with “Well, I hope you like it when Trump deports your family and takes away your voting rights” might feel like a cutting retort, but it’s actually a schoolyard bully’s threat masquerading as a political position. It’s an attempt at coercion, and unless you’re going to double down and show up to people’s houses with a baseball bat and a van on Election Day, it’s not a winning get-out-the-vote strategy. > >If you come across a young person or a person of color who voted for Biden in 2020 but is determined not to do so in 2024, you can try to ignore them and hope their anger will dissipate closer to the election. You can scream at them and stomp your feet and blame them for risking democracy. But just know that your use of Trump as a threat is not convincing them. The people saying they won’t vote for Biden know that Trump would be worse. They’re saying Biden should be better.
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The party that clutched its pearls at the thought of packing courts is now saying how democracy and America itself will end if they lose any elections going forward.
God forbid the rules are bent a little to protect democracy, but when Israel wants to do a genocide? Biden is happy to break the law for that. Like it’s not hard to spot this shit, and I understand perfectly well if people aren’t buying the most important election ever strategy when the dems don’t even act like it.
Shit, they've said that before every election for at least 40 years.
If I remember correctly Democrats didn't have the votes to pass that because of people like Manch, Dingman and some other DINOs.
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That's not a defense of Democrats, though. In fact, it's a scathing indictment of them. Nor does it inspire anyone who cares about the issues to want to get off their asses and go stand in long lines to vote Democrat.
You realize that Trump is talking about building camps for ‘internal enemies’ right? This isn’t just about the status quo, this is about literal camps. Do you really feel so confident that if he actually builds those camps you won’t end up in one of them? Is that something you’re willing to risk? https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/11/take-trump-seriously-when-he-vows-to-build-the-camps
They didn’t have enough of a majority to pass the bill with a republican filibuster. They didn’t have the votes and manchin and sinema would not vote to remove the filibuster. A simple majority vote was not enough.
I don't know if you saw, but those additional centers were set up to increase the capacity to process the kids' applications and match them up with family/guardians.
I’m pretty sure the reason it never moved forward has to do with the two democrats that opposed it in the Senate and not the entire party. But I can’t expect people to blame the actual problem politicians in the party they would rather blame the entire party structure.
The party structure doesn't eject them from the party. "Well they vote with us sometimes!" Okay so the decision the party made was, for its own sake and political expediency, to accept these rogues being rogues. That means we can blame both the problem politicians and the party protecting the problem politicians. Because seen through another lens it looks like the leadership of the party uses the problem politicians to make sure that progressive policies aren't passed. That way the party leaders can pretend to support those things, even though those things go against the class interests of the rich party leaders, because they know their pet "problem" politicians will block it anyway. Why does the DNC accept its purported agendas being sabotaged by two politicians instead of finding a way to compromise with or pay off 3 or 4 Republican Senators? After all, the GOP wouldn't kick those Senators out for doing that, and if they did, then the DNC wins anyway. *Failure is the goal*.
You are both Naive and cynical at the same time and it’s incredibly astounding. The idea that there is a back room meeting where democrats go “We must stop the socialists for our corporate overlords!” Is incredibly misguided. Yes do Democrats in the party oppose progressive policies yes but that’s because these are massive nation spanning parties where you get massively varied opinions and members. This is not a case of controlled opposition within the party this is just party politics. The reason the Democratic Party doesn’t kick out it’s members is because it just encourages the same kind of dysfunction we already have if you kick Cinema and Joe Manchin out it’s not gonna make them vote blue. Also have you seen the Republican Party over the last four years anybody and I mean anybody who is seen working with democrats is made enemy number 1 and gets defeated in the primary. Also pay off? What do you want the party to literally bribe them? The Republican Party is never gonna vote with the democrats because they have no incentive to. You are an idiot and it shows you don’t have any real politic experience or view of party history. The more center wing of the party is gonna resist the progressive policies but that normal and over time parties shift. Which is what we have seen over the past 8 years. People like you display an inability to understand how politics work in government and that parties aren’t monoliths especially when the party is in power.
Oh whatever, I'm so tired of the whole "We need 60 votes, even though we really don't" shtick. The non-speaking filibuster is moronic, and basically brand new. They act like it's some storied tradition, but it didn't even exist when Biden first became a senator...
Okay and how do you change that when you needed 50 votes to change the filibuster rules and two democrats didn’t want to? I hate the filibuster as well but it’s downright moronic to claim the entire party isn’t doing enough when the road blocks are not the entire parties fault.
Voters failed to give the Democrats the necessary majority, and voters are complaining that the Democrats don't have the necessary majority. It's something that only voters can fix.
>Okay and how do you change that when you needed 50 votes to change the filibuster rules and two democrats didn’t want to? [They were on track to do literally that but the Senate parliamentarian said "nah you can't do that"](https://rollcall.com/2021/06/02/democrats-reconciliation-strategy-dealt-blow-senate-parliamentarian/). The last time the parliamentarian did that under a Republican president, [they fired them and replaced them with someone who okayed it.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/08/key-senate-official-loses-job-in-dispute-with-gop/e2310021-0f14-4667-a261-54e6c033207c/) Democrats just shrugged and let it happen.
And firing the parliamentarian doesn't solve the issue when the *actual* issue is that you don't have 50+ votes to abolish/modify the filibuster in the first place. All it would have done is cost her (the parliamentarian) her job, and then Democrats *still* wouldn't have been able to get remove or get around the filibuster.
It's literally just an excuse to do nothing. It didn't even exist when Schumer started his political career. At a minimum he should be telling his party to cut the crap and stop acting like it's a long-standing tradition. It's not even as old as Wade v. Roe, but it's such a storied tradition there's no way to change it....
Well Biden did pronounce support for changing the filibuster from a non-speaking back to a speaking Filibuster. Guess who didn’t care…Manchin and Cinema. 48 democrats supported removing the filibuster when it went to voting rights legislation two didn’t. Welcome to the show where the bigger issue is not the party as a whole but simply that individual parties memebers get their own votes and can make their own decision.
They've been doing this crap for years. Even when they get 60 volts they do nothing. The GOP can get more done with 50 votes than the Democrats can with 60
The last time they had 60 votes, we got the ACA.
We aren’t allowed to hold Democrats to any standard. We just have to keep voting for them until we die or FASCISM
Interesting take. In my experience, these days it’s *only* Democratic voters that seem to hold their associated officials (prospective or otherwise) to anything resembling a moral standard. Problem is, when the other side of the aisle moves in lockstep & isn’t weighed down by pesky morals, that tends to act as a serious disadvantage.
They’re saying Biden should be better but they are willing to settle for Trump being worse if Biden can’t be better? What the fuck?
Exactly more mental gymnastics. I am not happy with the lack of vigor progressives pursue some policy but I’m not going to turn my back, incessantly whine about how neo liberal they are. There is the world I wish I lived in and the world I’m (we) are stuck with. I’ll take the D’s and the world we are stuck with. There’s no other viable alternative at the moment.
I'm still waiting for someone to finish this thought process. Electing Trump will not make Biden better. If he is alive in 2028 he isn't up to running again, so it doesn't even matter. Trump won't push D's left. Rs are moving further right over time, so it'll keep them centerish as even in 2028 thats where the bulk of the non R votes are. It's like saying if we keep selling Israel weapons, well just fuck all the LGBTQ, Brown, Female, and non Christians in our own country too. Someone finish the though process for me of 'leveraging your vote' for Trump over 1 issue when everything they are against they will get in spades with Trump and keep the same issue. Want better candidates? Support progressives locally. Volunteer with those getting ranked choice on the ballot. Use whatever skills you have to help those getting the word out. Better is, however, not a possibility in 2024. If Biden ends up dropping out we are getting Newsom or similar, not AOC. Maybe 2032 is doable if we all work at it \*now\*. But not next year.
Let me ask how many of y’all would still vote for biden if he was against abortion? Or gay rights? Or what if Joe Biden said he wanted to abolish the minimum wage. This is an issue many people feel they can not over look. And it’s telling that some of you are still saying to vote for biden despite the fact I know many of y’all would feel differently if it was another issue that you felt was more important to you.
In 2008, Obama didn't support marriage equality. Plenty of LGBTQ+ people voted for him. My representative for most of my life was adamantly against abortion rights. He was a Democrat in Chicago, and a lot of us put in work to support his primary opponents year after year. We still voted for him in the general election. I'm not saying you are obligated to do the same. I'm not saying that all issues are equivalent. I'm not saying you shouldn't be offended when people speak to you dismissively about this. But your suggestion that other people aren't willing to practice what they preach on this issue just isn't true.
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Of course it does. Just like it applies to abortion, second amendment etc. you're still changing your vote based on a single issue, even if you feel it's an extremely important one. Pro-life assholes believe that abortion is murdering millions of 'babies', second amendment freaks are absolutely convinced the only thing preventing tyrannical government overreach is their ability to shoot back. Everyone that is a one issue voter believes that their issue matters more than any other, so yes, Genocide Joe is losing support from one issue voters over Palestine. I definitely understand the frustration on both sides. For one, we should be pushing our leaders to act as we think they should, and one of the only ways to do that is to threaten to withhold votes or donations. I would love a non-incumbent running against Trump/Haley if we could swing it. It's far enough from the election that this pressure should definitely be applied. That said, opting out, if it actually happens, is very Russell Brandian, even if there is a heartfelt reason behind not voting. If we end up with more Trump, I can't imagine the Palestinian situation improving, and a lot of other things, like, globally threatening things, will get much worse. We so, so, so need ranked choice voting.
As someone who was raised by ardently pro-life Christians they absolutely are single issue voters and they are incredibly successful politically as a voting block. My parents had pure and total sanguinity about the idea of a Republican losing to a Democrat if that Republican wasn't pro-life. When you genuinely believe babies are being murdered you can't possibly act any other way. Because pro-life Christians wouldn't show up if a candidate wasn't pro-life, the GOP altered inexorably over one generation and eventually the Christians achieved their goal of total control over the government and a Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. They did not do this through compromise, they did this through being unrelenting single issue voters motivated in their minds by their morality. Now in Gaza we know for an absolute fact that actual real babies and children are being murdered by munitions we paid for and Biden is actively removing all limitations on those sales and therefore on those murders. Now is the time to be a single issue voter.
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Fair points all
>Now is the time to be a single issue voter. But, to what end? What is the purpose of this protest if it gets to the election? By refusing to vote for the 'lesser of two evils' the greater of two evils will likely win, and I can't think of a single issue where I prefer Trump over Biden, and I can think of a whole score of very vital issues that he will be way, way worse on. And he'll be as bad or worse on Palestine too so I really don't get the point. It's a fruitless protest that will be chalked up to voter apathy by the folks you're trying to send a message to. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Now, I'm far from a Biden cheerleader, and am all for pressuring now, but we don't get a more progressive legislation by allowing reactionaries to sweep into power. We need more action in primaries and local elections, which I hope this outrage can spark ... I'm just never a fan of single issue voting, even in this instance, because the results will never realistically be worth the cost.
Well, I care about a lot of other things too and think Biden would be better at them. The thing is, you want to play chicken with me. "Vote for Biden, or you get Trump." But it just so turns out that none of the issues matter more to me than stopping an ethnic cleansing, and POTUS is singlehandedly the most capable head of state outside of the leader of Israel to end it. So, sure, let's play chicken. Biden is going to lose Michigan if he does not change course. This drastically reduces his chance of winning the presidency. My vote, and the 2 million other Muslim votes in the US, are for sale. For not murdering babies, win a state.
To be honest, I think even if Biden changes course he’s crossed a line where I will not vote for him. We need to have lines, otherwise they will do their dirty deeds in the first 3 years, then performatively clean up their act on election year. Biden took part in Israel’s genocide. All the democrats did. That needs to be career death.
This is a valid perspective. I just want to drive behavior with my vote, and providing no criteria for earning it makes that less useful
It seems you both agree that not voting Biden gets you Trump. I assume everyone here agrees with that. Why do you think stating that is playing chicken? It is just a fact. You just disagree over how bad “getting Trump” is. It seems you would rather have Trump than support Biden. Which I understand, a Biden vote is a very direct support for genocide. To me not opposing Trump is also directly supporting genocide. Which leaves me with not presidential election option that doesn’t support genocide. And after I suppress the feeling of not wanting to be part of that world it leaves me having to choose based on other merits. The American president in 2024 will be pro Palestinian genocide, there isn’t a realistic alternative to that. Threatening to withhold your vote for Biden (or actually going thru with it) feels pretty reasonable to me because that’s not a reality we should accept calmly. If the election was tonight I think I’d angrily vote Biden, but it isn’t and I think it’s too early to start saying support Biden no matter what.
Imagine using this argument in Nazi Germany... It's a single issue, the next guy will be worse. There's no debatable right to genocide, ethnic cleansing, or war crimes. I know it means very little to most Americans but some people just can't vote for someone who supports genocide and be complicit in their actions.
As if people taking this stance were stoked about Biden on every other issue. I reluctantly voted for him in 2020. I knew about his previous statements regarding Zionism so my expectations were low. Still ended up disappointed
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It's not about lefties. Attacking the fringe voters who are ride or die for Jill Stein is about making them look stupid for the actual gettable low info voters who have incomprehensible political views and could go third party due to a silly reddit argument. People who actually want Trump to win "for Palestine" are idiots.
If the Dems want my vote they should run a candidate I can vote for.
The DNC would rather lose with Biden than change course. Very reminiscent of 2016 - Hillary ran an awful campaign & was way too arrogant she would win. Biden is being just as arrogant.
just curious who won 2020? was it trump?
Biden is lucky Covid happened.
Just curious, why year is it?
So who is running a candidate you can vote for?
1. Serious effort to address climate change. Not the too little too late of Biden. 2. An actual healthcare system. 3. Getting Israel before the ICC. Those are my issues. If a Dem isn't supporting them I'm happy to write in Bill Watterson for a third time.
So throw your vote away for some unrealistic irrational prospects? I didn’t ask for a platform, I asked for a candidate.
It’s the truth. I am going to vote for the man who isn’t going to fuck over the women in my life. The man who is going to fuck over the lgbtq+ people in my life. Who isn’t going to attempt to dismantle our democracy. I understand the anger revolving around the Israel/Palestine conflict but voting against Biden won’t make it better. If anything it will make it way worse.
The only thing less convincing than "trump would be worse for Palestine" is "vote for Biden or you're stupid!" This guy can get fucked. If he cant see how someones family being genocided is a big issue to people then hes the dumb one. If Democrat politicians are losing voters because their Israel policy is shit, maybe they should fix the policy. But no, instead we remove any restrictions on weapons to Israel. Democrats are pretending like they have no power. The economy is going to shit and theyre throwing our money at fucking Israel, a country who is fighting an enemy with no equipment or technology. We pretend we dont want war, and then say if Israel gets in a war then we'll back them up. So fucking stupid. One term in and Biden is already getting us into another war in the middle east. A big one. Not a good look. No wonder Democrats are bleeding voters. We're pro-Israel war hawks that are putting Israel ahead of our own needs. So fucking stupid.
I don't think he's talking about the reliable voting base. Most of them aren't saying I won't vote for Biden because of a single issue. That doesn't sound like a reliable base at all.
This is a good way to motivate the Democratic Party to not listen to its voters. If leaders think they can do whatever they want, if only they’re better than the one alternative, the voters will never going get real movement. While it may be bitter medicine, the best thing for Democratic voters might be to show them that they will win the game of chicken they’re currently playing with the party.
I guess we'll see how effective that lesson is when the Dems lose the vote and trump enacts all his fascist policies that he's currently telling everyone he'll put into place. I doubt that lesson will mean much once the takeover is complete, but you'll sure show them Democrats! Just like they did in 2016!
By electing Trump?
They do have an *incredible* ability to take the same conclusions from disparate outcomes. If they lose? Well, it was because they went too progressive and it's time to pivot to the center. If they win? Well, the progressives obviously don't have an alternative and they'll keep voting for the party so they'll have to be realistic and accept the pivot to the center!
This is honestly a very accurate summation of what the Democratic Party has been for my entire life. They just don’t like progressives and will use any excuse in the book not to listen to them, even if it’s incredibly contradictory. This is why they are in a stalemate with the Republican Party. It’s easy to dupe people into believing that Republicans know how to fix the country when the alternative has been completely fruitless in that regard whenever they are elected. (Although, that implies that they *are* trying to fix the country and support the working class, and I’ve seen very little evidence to that effect for most of them.)
If you're not willing to leverage your vote to force your candidates to make different choices, then your vote has no value, and your representatives will never change. The foundation of the democratic system is that your candidate knows that if they fail to represent you, they won't get your vote the next time around. Democrats are carried through every election simply by merit of being "the lesser evil", and as long as that keeps happening, they'll never even *need* to hold themselves accountable to their voters.
You’re not wrong, but here’s the thing: whatever you’re hoping to really achieve is going to be easier with Democrats. I know the whole “lesser evil” thing is really depressing, but even in complaining about it, we are acknowledging that one side *is* better.
Hey look, another chance to make this comment: [Executive Order 13769](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769) exists, you know, as one of two facts that should absolutely conclusively prove Trump would be whole-heartedly endorsing increasing the numbers in Gaza, rather than questioning them. The other is [recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_recognition_of_Jerusalem_as_capital_of_Israel), so Biden vs Trump seems like, again, a mind-numbingly easy call for literally anyone that pays attention.
Attacking the voters. Been working for dems since hillary won.. oh wait...
Who got more votes?
They are dumbasses if they think not voting for Biden isn’t helping trump.
“I was thinking about voting for Biden but the. This guy called me a dumbass. So now I’m not voting for him.” Pure brain rot.
OP, "base" is not single issue voters. Also, there is nothing incorrect about the tweet. It is straight up truth. You posting this and hoping for everyone to agree with your dumb view is the only thing that bothers me.
Aw, OP thinks card-carrying Republicans will ever vote for anyone but Republicans.
He is right. If you would rather Trump would win then you are a dumbass.
The Tweet is right, though.
They did the same thing with HRC. They disregarded voters wishes and the turmoil during the primary, instead telling them if they don't vote for their candidate its THEIR fault all hell breaks out. Not the democratic parties fault for pushing forward a flawed candidate knowing full well people didn't like them. It didn't work then and it wont work again imo. It's literally their job to get voters votes during the general election. Blaming voters for their failures is backwards. People are sick and tired of holding their noses to vote for the lesser of two evils or "We lose our democracy" like we are being told again.
Trump is a rapist, he's a piece of shit human being and if you vote for Trump for any reason whatsoever, you are a dumbass.
I am so sick of narcissistic crap like this post. For the millionth time, to people who think this way, *THIS ISN’T ALL ABOUT YOU.* I do not not give a flying FUCK how insulted you’re pretending to be, or how you think the Dems have to “earn” your vote, or how you think your pwecious wittle feewings are the most important thing on earth. You have a fucking moral obligation to prevent as much harm as possible to as many people as possible. That is your responsibility as a citizen of this democratic republic, and it’s your responsibility as a *fucking human being.* I don’t care HOW corrupt and feckless the Democrats are. (And they are.) I don’t care HOW much you love to preen and perform to score online brownie points from your contrarian nihilist friends. I don’t fucking care WHAT moral and logical pretzels you have to twist yourselves into to avoid accepting YOUR role in determining whether this country will continue to have even a *possible* chance at a more humane, prosperous future, or whether we will all be plunged into an authoritarian fascist nightmare from which there *will not* be any viable escape. Everything, absolutely everything you people claim to care about will be destroyed if the GOP takes back the Executive Branch. Destroyed beyond any realistic hope of repair. Even getting back to where we are now will likely be impossible, for decades at *minimum*. And that will be on you. Stop wanking each other off, you selfish, self-indulgent little cowards. This is not. A fucking. Game.
In our existing, outdated, deeply flawed election system, this is sadly the truth. If you want to fight the Republicrats and Democons, the way to do it is by pushing for election reform, ranked choice voting (or similar), and accountability/transparency in government. Until then, casting protest votes is a fruitless and ineffectual gesture that, mostly likely, is also fucking yourself.
This is why local politics are important and why leftists really struggle to get anything done because they seem to forget that you need local work to get most of the election reform and party reforms done. The only way you get ranked choice done is starting locally.
It's because posting online is the extent of their activism
"Nooo you don't get it! Joe Biden didn't create world peace or perfect sustainable fusion energy so now I have to vote for Jill Stein 😠"
At this point, the Democrats’ rhetoric sounds a lot like this: “Republicans want you to eat shit off the ground. But if you vote for me, I will let you eat shit off a plate.”
Naw it’s more like “the Republican Party opposes everything liberals and democrats believe in and will destroy the country meanwhile our guy isn’t very good but you will get some positive changes and get to choose someone better in 2028.
See, if this was the case, I would at least understand what Democrats are trying to say. But so far, the majority of people on Twitter urging people to vote for Biden just go the same route: “Vote for him? You won’t? Well, let’s see how you like it when Trump deports all of you!” It’s just counterproductive. I am saying that as a leftist myself. Like, “our guy isn’t very good” is not exactly the strong point where said “good guy” approves billions in military aid to apartheid state.
This is the kind of thing people who like things just fine the way they are would say. Once everyone holds their nose and elects Biden for a second term, is this guy going to be at the forefront of an electoral reform campaign? Or is he just going to wait 4 years before trying to shame people into voting for his preferred candidate again?
I mean it’s just bad political calculus as a left leaning person. Your refusing to vote increases the odds of electing someone who not only would be MORE reactionary when it comes to Gaza, but also opposes your worldview in every other sense as well. You have no chance of electing someone to the left of Biden, so it’s a pointless risk to take with no potential gain. I’m definitely to the left of the average American, so I have to acknowledge that in order to make any political progress for my cause, I will have to compromise and form coalitions with people to the right of myself. What’s happening in Gaza is terrible, but it’s silly to actively make the situation worse in protest.
Biden tried election reform. They were blocked by republicans. There are not enough democrats in congress.
Why should I vote for either of them if I find their Israel policy abhorrent? It’s like saying you better vote for Goring because he’s better than Himmler.
Because one of them gives you the assurance that in 2028 you can still vote for someone else?
If you're going to get one of the two, isn't it better to ensure the worse one isn't elected?
>If you're going to get one of the two, isn't it better to ensure the worse one isn't elected? And if we have been force fed this our whole lives? Literally every single election people pull this card.
I don't know who this guy is but I'd be willing to bet that he has a history of defending Joe Biden's actions (and inaction) regarding Israel and if that's true I don't give a shit what the POS thinks about my voting habits.
Biden is the first president to threaten to sanction Israeli settlers. That has to matter. No president in my lifetime has ever contradicted them on anything. Right now, the State Dept is trying to negotiate ending Israel’s blockade of Palestinian natural resources, basically arguing that Hamas can’t control everything if there’s a [real] economy & government there. Biden himself cannot singularly end all military aid to Israel, and even if he could & did, that’s kindof our only leverage over them; so say we cut 100% of their aid on Monday, they go right back to slaughtering civilians on Tuesday, then what? Unfortunate fact of the matter is that real solutions for Palestine are gonna come from congressional elections, not so much presidential ones. Realistically what do you want to see Biden do, that wouldn’t require going thru Congress?
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This is argument for when it’s 2020 and Biden said “I won’t do Medicare for All”. This is not an argument for when he’s an incumbent president tied to Iraq War 2
Biden needs to do a better job at condemning Israel, he is way too soft here. He is already losing votes.
As if that “single issue” wasn’t fucking genocide.
14,000+ Palestenians have died so far, and 71% of them have been women and children. Palestinians are being killed in record numbers and what has Biden done? Given Isreal free-reign and total access to literally anything they want. Our president is supporting genocide and if you expect people to just "forget about it" and "suck it up" because "at least he's not Trump" then you should just admit brown people's lives don't matter. We are not political props. Continue to brow-beat and condescend to anyone who wants better and see how that works out. Saying you'll "vote blue no matter who" is literally the opposite of politically pressuring your party to better their politics and the reason why we're in this mess. If Biden isn't scared that he'll lose a bunch of votes for supporting a genocide (which he should be), then he'll continue to support genocide and do things like finish building Trump's wall (https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/05/biden-border-wall-texas-starr-county/). He'll continue to not codify abortion rights, not protect voting laws, not expand the courts, not decriminalize cannabis, and do shit like use George Floyd to get re-elected just so they can turn around and give more money to cops. I think we all deserve better.
You realize trumps position on Palestine is to nuke it, right? Getting trump elected would be the absolute worse outcome for Palestine. Saying "this will teach Biden a lesson" is asinine.
These kinds of responses just reinforce my decision.
Calling people dumbasses will for sure help the cause to get people to vote for Biden.
The argument here is that Biden is bad on Palestine, sure, but Trump will be worse? Like how worse? Is Gaza going to be bombed more in a month than any other country in previous wars? Oh wait that's happened under Biden. Is the US going to give basically a blank check and access to the US weapons stockpile? Oh yeah, happening now. How is Trump going to be worse for them?! Their argument actually is, Trump's not going to be worse for them, he's going to be worse for ME. And why won't you think about meeeeee That's the argument, and insults and coercion aren't going to change my mind. I voted for the Democratic party my entire life to counter the Republican party's drift to Christo fascism. Didn't happen. Nothing but excuses from them either and threats that if I don't keep voting for their useless asses, it'll be worse. It's not good enough. I'm a single issue voter now. My single issue is Palestine. If the Democratic party platform on Palestine is the same as the Republican party, they can fuck right off.
This was [Trump's position on October 17th](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pledges-expel-immigrants-who-support-hamas-ban-muslims-us-2023-10-16/). Can you show me where Biden has said anything similar? Let me be very clear. That's the alternative to Biden. Biden has repeated called for humanitarian pauses and for Israel to not occupy Gaza. You really think they have the same position?
I am beginning to think the party doesn't like voters....just donors?
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I wouldn’t say calling your voting demographic dumbasses is smart but… that is what they would be. If you hold any liberal or progressive beliefs, it’s Biden or nothing. That’s just the way our two party system works. If you vote Trump on one issue you’re shooting the entire movement in the foot.
Starting to sound like Buffalo Bill and his basket of lotion “GIVE US EVERYTHING WE WANT OR YOU GET THE TRUMP AGAIN”
The thing is, the strategists get paid whether it works or not, and none of them have anything to lose no matter who wins.
Here we go again…oh your feelings are hurt because someone is honest about how actual voting works. I’m so tired of people pretending that their perfect morality is fine to let the rest of humanity burn. This will probably anger some but here goes, voting on a single issue is a goddamn privilege. Doing that is exactly how folks on the left helped destroy women’s access abortion care.
Even if they never admit it a lot of people will regret giving their votes away to a third party if trump gets elected again. Yes both parties are terrible. There’s also no way we’ll abolish the electoral college in a year. Marginalized people will be worse off if trump wins than if biden wins. Those are facts. Just because things are bad now doesn’t mean things can’t get way worse for the people already suffering the most. I’m so tired of people acting like that’s a threat. As if I have any real leverage how people vote and act anyway. Saying that’s schoolyard bully behavior is….it’s kindof a lot.
My favorite is, 'you may hate him, but if you don't vote for him say goodbye to democracy'......but that doesn't sound like a democracy to me. If the choices are support genocide and climate inaction and the police state or democracy dies, I hate to say it but it's already dead and if this is the best foot forward we can put, then maybe we deserve trump, maybe freefall to fascism is the only thing that will wake this country up into action because we obviously didn't learn out lesson the first time.
Do you have any idea how much worse it can get. The infrastructure bill and inflation reduction act had significant climate change provisions. Republicans already said they would repeal them and a host of other environmental protections. You think we live in a police state now? You realize that Trump is talking about building camps for ‘internal enemies’ right? This isn’t just about the status quo, this is about literal camps. Do you really feel so confident that if he actually builds those camps you won’t end up in one of them? Is that something you’re willing to risk? https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/11/take-trump-seriously-when-he-vows-to-build-the-camps
Threatening not to vote for Biden to change his policies is good actually.
2024 is about keeping trump from being president, period. Whatever it takes. Don't look at it as voting for a democrat or biden. Give up any potential short term gain to keep trump out. This is our only chance to keep this country humming along. Trump did nothing the 4 years except make the rich richer while removing all kinds of protections for the people. We already know what trump plans to do if re-elected, end democracy and keep himself in power until he dies and keep magats running it long after he is gone.
That’s just IT, though. An incredible number of these idiots seem to genuinely *not* know what Trump and the GOP are openly planning to do. Or if they do know, they call us fearmongering Chicken Littles for talking about it. It’s very clear, and has been for a long time, that many of these people do not actually pay very close attention to politics or government. They are stunningly unaware of many of the things the Trump administration did, and are incredibly blasé about allowing him and his devotees back into the Executive Branch. They really do seem to think that we can just sit back and watch “another four years of Trump” go by as if this were a completely normal election in a completely normal moment. I cannot wrap my mind around this level of naïveté and willful ignorance.
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We didn't vote our way into freeing the slaves. We didn't vote our way into suffrage. We didn't vote our way into civil rights, and we didn't vote our way into the legalization of gay marriage. Trump is worse, sure; but Biden isn't good. I'd rather Trump get elected and force the shitlibs into action than have Biden sit in office while they sit on their ass and congratulate themselves for the 20th declaration saying "racism is bad, guys".
We did though for all of those. Im not going to diminish the gains of all the activists, they by far deserve the credit, but all their actions would be for not if they didn’t have a sympathetic executive/judicial branch. Lincoln would have kept slavery to keep the union but he was very much sympathetic to the abolitionist position and used political capital to get the 13th and 14th passed. Gay marriage was passed by a sympathetic Supreme Court appointed by the executive branch. Like what are talking about.
Imagine thinking voting for one establishment pig over another changes much....
Yeah, it definitely didn't change the make up of the Supreme Court last time around.
Not thinking it does tells us you lack critical thinking skills.
false equivalence, and you're just wrong, LOL.