More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.
“We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads.
“Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones,” the letter continued. “As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities.”
It’s not false that Trump would be even worse though, having encouraged Netanyahu to be even more brutal than he is. So if you have the choice between a vote to keep Trump out, or not voting and making it easier for him to take over, the less worse (but still bad) option for Palestine is to vote for whoever will most effectively keep Trump out.
I know this kind of electoral pragmatism feels a bit disgusting, but the cure for that is to get politically active outside of the electoral system, in addition to keeping the worst candidate out at election time.
Netanyahu already has unconditional material support for the genocide from the Biden-Harris administration and they help run interference quite competently both internationally and domestically. They would still have you believe they are working for a “ceasefire” while celebrating the assassination of negotiators and sending unlimited JDAMs to bomb children in refugee camps.
There is no worse. They are far more competent at this.
Though again, you should be against genocide and not support genociders. It is not strategic to nirnalize genocide. It is not smart tactics to be a guaranteed lever pull even up to genocide.
It is not pragmatic at all. It is just the lesser evil argument that Dems always use to sheepdog people with a conscience into helping them out. It is a one-way street, as they never actually have to do anything at all that you demand, they are, correctly, treating you as a guaranteed cote. They will just send their PR teams at you.
We are in this position right now because of this “pragmatism” that prevents any notion of accountability or principal or the idea that you should be able to make a demand and have it reflected in policy. The genocide in Gaza is very unpopular at least in polls. The reason the political class does not follow this popular will is that you are not perceived as any kind of threat. You gladly give away all leverage and announce you will always do so, even up to voting for genocide!
And this is just disempowerment at the level of an individual. We are of course much more powerful when we organize together and build towards leverage. But that must be done through organizations and cannot happen through me, an individual, telling you that you have a moral responsibility to work against and never for genociders.
See in the start you’re right, yes, Trump and Harris have the same policy in regards to the Palestinian Genocide. But you act like that means they’re identical human beings who have identical intentions and who will make identical political actions.
Such people do not care. They didn’t care that Roe got struck down because they acted like Clinton would have picked the exact same SCOTUS justices since “both parties are the same.”
And when brown people and queer people get marched into camps under Trump, they’ll tell us that Harris would have done the same thing and if we wanted change, we should have voted for a third party candidate without saying which candidate that should have been.
Very easy to have such opinions from your ivory throne.
Actually I argued that the Biden-Harris administration is particularly competent at it, as they provide full, unconditional support but also rope Europe into it and convince their domestic base to not oppose them.
If Trump had been in office the people here currently doing genocide apologetics would be in the streets and building power against this. And Europe would be less subservient to US interests.
It is important to understand that impact is not just the overt garbage a politician says, it is what their policies are and how effective their propaganda is.
No I don’t.