The “Uncommitted” movement seeking a change in the Democratic Party’s approach to the war in Gaza on Thursday announced it is not ready to support Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — while urging voters not to back Republican nominee Donald Trump or third-party candidates who could help Trump win the November election.
The “Uncommitted” group “opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” the statement continues. Additionally, the group is “not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.”
My ideal outcome is that Harris caves and stops the Israeli version of Auschwitz which is already happening. Failing that, my ideal outcome would be that the protesters establish a credible threat going forward that supporting genocide will result in tangible political consequences. Establishing such a threat is far more important is far more important than any one election, especially when both people are pro-genocide.
The moment you commit yourself to the ideology of lesser-evilism, you have sacrificed every ounce of bargaining power you might have wielded. The concerns of reliable voters don’t factor into any politician’s calculus. I can’t figure out whether liberals just have terrible instincts regarding wielding power, or if it’s just that they don’t care to wield it because they’re satisfied with the status quo.
Your words would have more weight if you weren’t in full support of the Uyghur genocide in China.
the correct strategy here would be to push for full support on harris, under the pretense that “she will do something for palestine” and then after she gets into office (assuming she does) when the “inevitable” nothing gets done for palestine you can then rally support while in office in order to drum up what is more than likely going to be more effective support. Bargaining for something that currently exists in front of you is simply going to be much easier.
Though this still doesn’t solve the whole problem of shooting yourself in the foot and ending up giving the republican congress more say, or just doing nothing at all, instead of something minor that would’ve been impactful.
That’s nonsense. Why on earth would she listen to me once she’s already secured my vote and the presidency? She knows that she can do nothing and that I’ll just “pretend” that she will next time too. Of course, I find the idea of acting based on an obviously false “pretense” that’s based on nothing but imagination to be completely ridiculous.
This is just, “You have to give them everything they want while asking nothing in return” with extra, nonsensical steps. You’re telling me I’m supposed to wait until I have less bargaining power to try to bargain. Of course, there’s already been widespread protests during an election year and the democrats not only did not give an inch, but forcibly suppressed them. So how exactly do you envision people gaining enough leverage for them to actually change?
mid terms are a pretty common swing point for an unpopular candidate. Between the late term push for legislation to increase the chances of re-election, and the initial push after getting into office to appease the voter base, the midterms are the biggest impact in a governmental term. Plus further down ballot votes can harm the institution as well.
regardless, even ignoring this, if you don’t think this is going to help. It’s going to be a net positive over somebody like trump winning, so it’s basically what you’re left with here if this problem is so important to you.
no this is “you have to give them your vote, and only vote, in the hopes that you can push them later down the lines, to be more useful to your ideals. And considering that the other option is going to be worse, might as well try for this one”
protests over what? I haven’t heard about any, but i guess i also haven’t been paying much attention. Unless you mean the vote protest, in which case nobody cares. It’s not going to be a significant percent of the voter base anyway.
Oh, ok. So when mid terms come around, and Kamala’s done nothing I want, then you’ll be fine with me withholding my vote, right? Or are you going to be telling me the exact same thing you’re telling me now? If you’re genuinely alright with me withholding my vote during the midterms, what’s the difference between then and now?
How? What method do you expect me to use to push her? And why should I have any confidence in that method working when it’s not working during an election year, when she most needs people’s votes and support?
There was a major wave of campus protests this year over the genocide in Gaza, all over the country.
Again, you just want me to give them everything they want while asking nothing in return and you’re trying to pretend otherwise without offering any sort of coherent strategy. If that’s not what’s happening, walk me through what you expect me to do and when.
yeah no fucking go for it. Do whatever the fuck you want, you can even do it now if you feel like it. Especially if you’re protest voting for that specific issue, i think that would be a warranted mid term activity to partake it. I mean i might make fun of you for grenading the ability of the government to solve problems, but that’s something we’re both going to do anyway lmao. That parts free real estate.
The difference between then and now, is that voting now has the substantial potential to prevent trump from being elected which is obviously going to have very negative consequences in this case. Whereas not voting in the midterms, or even changing your vote in the mid terms is going to have a much less significant effect as it’s only really going to slow/lessen the ability for the federal government to create and push legislation, although probably specifically with the IP thing. Depends on how that goes.
the same way you’re doing it now, just then, signal discontent over certain policy. There’s no reason to have any confidence in anything, but in this case it’s just basic strategic leverage. If kamala losses, and trump wins, it wasn’t your fault, and you didn’t have anything to do with it. If kamala wins, and you don’t get the IP thing you wanted, then you at least didn’t get trump, and you had your part in that. And if kamala wins, and you do get the thing you want, then obviously you’re going to get most of everything that you wanted.
As opposed to the current line of thinking where you’re more likely to put trump into office, or if kamala wins, do nothing midterms because you’ve stopped caring by that point. Or maybe you would, but that would be up to chance more than anything.
We take the wins we can get, and we line ourselves up to get the best shots that we can, that’s the name of the game.
i know there have been a large number throughout the year, i’m curious about the last 3 or so specifically. Or have those pretty much died down. I know they were all over the place for a few months a while back though.
i mean you can view it like that, i guess, but ultimately that’s not really how it works, politics is mostly a take game for the civilian. We don’t really give them much, aside from tax dollars, but they give us legislation and policies that reflect our ideals. If your ideals don’t match at all you’ve either got a failure of ideals, or a failure of government, which one probably depends on which one is at a larger scale.
as for the last bit, see previous.
That analysis makes no sense on multiple levels. First of all, since I don’t live in a swing state, my downballot/midterm votes are far more important than my vote for president. Second, if my vote for president was so important, that would be all the more reason for me to use it as leverage. Third, the fundamental dynamics are the same for downballot races as the race for president, there is nothing unique about the presidential race that would mean I should treat it differently. If withholding a vote is an effective strategy downballot, then it is an effective strategy in the presidential race. And if the risk of Trump getting elected is too great to employ that strategy in the presidential race, then the risk of another Republican getting elected downballot should be a deterrent too. Lastly, there is virtually no chance that Kamala could be pressured to change her position during the midterms when she herself is not up for reelection.
The only way I can make any sense of your logic is if Trump is uniquely horrible compared to other Republicans, and I don’t really consider that to be the case.
Well, let’s see. For the past 20 years, my entire adult life, my ideals have been saying that we should stop slaughtering people in the middle east. In that time, the democrats ran Kerry, a hawk, Obama, a hawk, Clinton, a hawk, Biden, a hawk, and now Harris, a hawk. The result of that was nearly a million people dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, some more in other countries like Yemen, and now more and at a faster rate than ever in Palestine. And what exactly do they have to show for any of it in terms of making people’s lives better? I think it’s pretty clear which side the failure is on.
ok well in this case it just makes complaining moot, because for some reason, you’re admitting that you’re going to hold a worthless protest vote that means nothing. So that’s cool.
only in the case of third party candidacy voter drain, or a pretty confident election advantage, assuming you have like 5% of all voters or something silly. Otherwise it’s more than likely going to mean nothing, or almost nothing. And again this doesn’t assuage the previously mentioned problems with the alternate candidate.
in terms of how elections work, i suppose so, in terms of how power works, not really. Down ballots are much more ambiguous and nebulous than primary candidacy, by the virtue of there being like 500 congress members. as opposed to one president.
also, i didn’t realize that both trump and kamala were running for downballot positions.
generally… Yes, however only generally, i’ve already laid out the primary uses and technicalities for this, so i’m not going to repeat myself because you can’t read. It’s not that complicated of an idea.
do you unironically think that in a vacuum, if you were to elect kamala harris, and one republican congressman for example. That it would functionally equivalent to you not voting at all? And then trump having the potential to win, and you still having no options down ballot. This is an objectively worse position to put yourself in. You simply have less leverage there.
i don’t believe the 22nd prevents VPs from running for presidency for a term. That would be weird. Unless you’re implying as a russian bot would do, that kamala is literally only a one term pony. Which would be odd.
You do know that politicians generally push for legislation throughout their entire term right? It’s not just, the beginning, and only the beginning. Generally you see early legislative policy, some through the mid terms, and then some late in the cycle nearing the end.
??? I mean if you specifically only care about israel palestine maybe but trump literally tried to overthrow democracy. How is that not markedly worse than literally any other republican, who has not yet tried to do that.
curious how you only list 20 years of foreign military policy, and not republican policies. Or domestic policy at all.
Seems to me like you only care about foreign military policy. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a problem, but the war on terror is over, we’ve pulled out of afghan. This shit’s literally done right now. The war on drugs might be another thing, paired with more democracy war, however unpopular that may be, it’s the only realistic way to solve the immigration crisis, the one that republicans constantly make shit up about.
regardless, i’ll leave you a link to a wikipedia article, only the most reputable of sources for my internet squabbles.
some “bed side reading” as i like to refer to it.
This is even more incoherent than ever, but whatever, I guess I’ll try.
Isn’t it your job to show that voting for Harris would be meaningful? If my vote is meaningless, then you should have no problem with me voting however I personally prefer.
How does there being more congress members change anything about the dynamics we’re discussing?
I genuinely cannot even begin to follow your logic. Walk me through how you got from point A to point B here.
The fact that Harris isn’t running downballot is even more reason why your argument is completely nonsensical. Why should I withhold my vote from a different candidate, who might even be pro-Palestine, instead of withholding it from the person I’m actually criticizing? This is, again, a point in my favor.
No, I think that would be worse than not voting at all, because my vote in down ballot races is more important than the presidential race.
I don’t know what this is even saying.
Again, I am extremely confused by your logic here and cannot even begin to fathom how you got from point A to point B.
The only thing I can think of is if you’re using “midterms” to refer to the next presidential election in 2028, as opposed to the, you know midterm elections that happen every two years, the next being in 2026. Kamala will not be up for reelection in the 2026 midterms, because, and this is true, presidents serve four year terms. Do you think presidents having four year terms is Russian misinformation?
I’m not invested in protecting the capitalist, imperialist state. It doesn’t represent me at all and frequently makes my life worse, I have zero loyalty towards it.
George W. Bush started two major wars that got nearly a million people killed, he instituted unprecedented and illegal mass surveillance programs that removed any semblance of civil liberties that once existed in this country, he used indefinite detention without trial - and he did everything with the full support of the Democrats, who have happily continued his policies without any challenge at all (despite the fact that they were allegedly meant as “emergency powers”). Trump is bad but his presidency was nowhere near as bad as that of Bush.
Yes, I was discussing Democratic foreign military policy because that is the topic that we’re discussing. I don’t mind discussing domestic policy, but those issues are not unrelated. The only way we’d have the funds to do the kinds of things that need to happen domestically is by cutting the unbelievably massive military budget, which is higher than the next 9 countries combined.
But even if we could, I am opposed to imperialism even if the spoils of that imperialism were distributed to the people. So bad foreign policy but good domestic policy would not be satisfactory. But even that isn’t on the table, the profits of all this killing go straight to the top.
And no, it’s not over. The war in Afghanistan is (now replaced with sanctions to impose starvation), but we’re still involved in other places like Gaza and Yemen. We may not have boots on the ground, but my priority is not on whether American soldiers are being placed in danger, it’s with stopping the violence towards the people living there.
What on earth are you even talking about? Going to war with Mexico or something?
Not a single one of these applies to me but your lazy condescension is noted.