And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
It’s the trolley problem. You see a trolley about to kill 5 people. You can pull a lever (vote) and make the trolley only kill 1. In this case, that 1 person is also in the lineup of 5. This distinction makes it obvious the only option is to pull the lever (vote).
The arguments against voting in the USA sound similar to the trolley problem
Some people wouldnt choose to be the reason of the death of one person even if doing nothing causes the death of multiple people
Think of voting this way:
Signing your name to a candidate/psrty and what they’ve done/signaled they will do.
A lot of people can’t stomach a candidate who has been courting the neocons and softening their previous mildly progressive stances from the last time dems had a primary and the progressives were showing up in numbers. Everyone got in line and the debates were about M4A, erasing federally held student debt, raising the minimum wage, etc. Sanders single handedly dragged the party to the center (technically more “left” than they were) in 2016/2020 and the dems responded by po’mouthing like they cared about those issues, but then circled the wagons and kicked those voters to the curb.
The party has shown over and over again that they don’t give a shit about working class people, those of us that want real change. They want to maintain the status quo. Which is progressively more hostile capitalism.
Signing your name to that constant move rightward is unthinkable for some. And understandably so.
And that’s before we even discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza funded and armed by the US. While this administrations representatives in the UN and in any official capacity constantly run defense for the genocide.
Plenty of people could not fathom putting their name on that tragedy.
None of this means that republicans aren’t fuckin neofascist shits. But…how many times have the voters left of the dems been told to eat shit and vote blue because the other guy is worse? WHILE CONSTANTLY COURTING THE RIGHTWING VOTERS WHO MAY HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN SICK OF IT?! Kamala literally said she would be different from Biden by having a Republican in her cabinet. WHAT.
With everything going on, this party said, “yeah, fuck all that. Let’s see if we can grab anyone to the right of us.”
I got sidetracked, but this is the thing. It’s not binary, because geopolitics isn’t binary. The worlds issues aren’t binary. But a binary choice is all we’re given to make.
Just…what. And neither of those two choices was actually going to solve the problems. One was maintaining the problems while one was the problems plus more problems. That’s not an attractive choice.
We all get that trump is much worse. But everyone else needs to understand how sickening that shitty choice was for anyone with a conscience about what’s going on in Gaza, what’s going on with their neighbors. Signing on for more of the same was completely unthinkable for some. That has to be understandable if we are ever going to change things.
We’ve been on the road we’re being forced down now as long as I’ve been around. And the road just keeps going forward. The dems’ proposal is “maintain the course.” The republicans’ was “mash the gas.”
Some people couldn’t stomach going any further down this road. That’s not making a choice to mash the gas. Because the world is not binary.
But you and everyone else posing similar questions is saying “how could you vote for mashing the gas by not wanting to continue down this road?? :(“
It’s simple, for a voter that doesn’t have other important things or believes the candidates to be equal in other things, like the economy, it becomes a moral choice to not vote for genocide.
If they believe there will be human rights violations elsewhere, like in the US, but one candidate and not the other, then the moral choice becomes to limit harm.
Much of this argument stems from different base assumptions, as follows-
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Neither Trump nor Harris will commit other human rights violations, and they are materially the same to my family; staying home is the moral action.
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Trump will commit human rights violations, voting for Harris is the moral action.
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They will both commit more human rights violations; staying home is the moral action.
The people who were saying to stay home and not vote fell into camps 1 or 3. If you’re unsure of why someone would believe in number 3 you should know we have illegal debtor’s prisons that are ignored by the federal government, LGBTQ abuse that has gone unchecked by the federal government, illegal denial of asylum directly by the federal government, … the list goes on. But rest assured there are reasons people would see them both as committing human rights violations in the US. This is not some Russian info op like the DNC fanboys would have you believe.
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You actively participate in the murder of people.
If enough people did not participate the murder would simply not happen.
Gaza was fucked no matter what, but some people thought the price of selling our country out was worth not ruining their perfect image of themselves.
If you never do anything, you never have to compromise your morals. Taps forehead
btw gaza’s still fucked. You did nothing.
I think people need to stop asking why didn’t people vote for Harris and as why DID people vote for Trump.
I think everyone on the whole, is completely underestimating the completely apathetic to politics voter. There is a TREMENDOUS section of the population that would sway from Trump if they felt energized to do so. Kamala was not it. Her policies were not it. Her stance alone on Gaza was not enough (but should not be dismissed).
People voted for trump because they: are a huge supporter, or they felt they had a fatter wallet during his administration. They feel burned by Biden and Kamala is more of the same. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
Biden shouldn’t have even run, no one wanted it. He even said he’d be a transitional president. Then he backed out and Democrats held no primary. Why would any apathetic voter (especially the ones who were unaware Biden dropped out, check google trends) vote for the guy who made their bank accounts smaller if that’s all they care about?
I voted for Harris but not without reservations. The democrats do nothing to resonate with the left, and continue to distance themselves from leftist policies, which were popular on ballot measures this election.
Nobody with a brain believes that. The major advocates of that ideology wanted Trump to win. It was even being propped up by foreign agents.
I think there are no right or wrong. It became clear that both Democrats and Republic pushing the same exact support for Israel. When it comes to Palestine there are no lesser Evil.
Leading to this election, Israel burned hospitals and people in tent alive in Jabalia, barely any internet access, no water or food enters for almost 50 days now.
They carpet bomb gaza, attack UN bases, and finally declare UNRAWA can no longer work, another UN agency.
This is under Democrats. They already finishing the job.
Now what exactly Trump or republic will do is going to be the same. nothing will change because we are at the worst and there is nothing more they can do to make the situation even worse.
So if they are the same, and the government is not listening then what is the point of participation in election?
You are citing one subject here, Palestine. Yes, maybe under Harris nothing would have been different in regards to this. But it is pretty obvious, that under the orange shitstain’s regime, many people all over the world will suffer a lot. The point in participating in this election was to prevent that. You didn’t vote the special representativefor Palestine or some shit, but the president of the most influencial country in the world. Your actions have consequences. All Americans who voted for Trump or did not participate fucked not only themselves, but also so many millions of other people over, so I really thing, they should go fuck themselves.
The democrats’ hands are not clean. They didn’t fight for human rights even while red states and ICE were busy annihilating them. They had four years to do so, a trifecta in the start, and we watched as red state after red state made being trans illegal. They have been transparent about going after gay and inter racial marriage next. The democrats at the national level haven’t offered anything in response. We also still have illegal debtor’s prisons, child lunch debt, increasing rates of homelessness and abuse of homeless people.
The democrats can’t just sit there doing nothing and expect people to vote for them.
And your playing whataboutisms. Those other issues are directly related to gaza.
The military industrial complex loves israel/Palestine conflicts makes them oodles of money. Hence both parties support israel and killing Palestinians.
The capital class loves suppressing wages and benefits. Hence no pro labor policies from the dems/reps.
The MIC loves the Ukraine war, see israel above.
Capital loves monopolies, less competition for workers, easier to raise prices, etc. again reason behind no labor policies.
LGBT? Same deal. Corporate doesnt care, hence policies generally go through.
The only difference between dems and repubs is one are religious fanatics. People in currently blue states are safe from them, those who are not, are not.
All the issues you think just got fucked are going to be mostly unchanged regardless whom won this election. Shitty states going to get shittier. All the lesser evil people will be laser focused on trump now and as a result the representatives will have to do real work.
The genocide and everything else are one and the same. One is just easier to articulate to people who have some morals, though some will continue the lesser evil nonsense.
In the meantime find the real progressives in your area and encourage them to run
You still think there’s going to be another election, huh?
What’s the counter-argument in favor of genocide?
More importantly the vast majority of votes don’t matter because the system was created by slavers in order to guarantee their oppression never ends.
I think this point slides right past many people. The Electoral College and the 3/5ths compromise were the original American vote buying scheme. Southerners could literally buy slaves to increase their population and thus number of EC votes for president. They don’t do that anymore but does anyone remember the massive advertisement campaigns of Texas and Florida being cheaper places to live, work, and employ people in the 2010’s? They knew the next census was coming. They got a net gain of 4 more EC votes into their states by giving massive tax incentives to corporations and advertising cheap real estate. (It was 6 overall but 2 came from other red areas)
The EC was made for gaming the system, it’s still used to game the system, and it should be abolished. Without that marketing campaign PA wouldn’t have been the make or break state last night. A popular vote system is commonly derided as ignoring rural voters, but as we saw last night that’s not true. And any party that ignores such a large demographic would be setting itself up to be on the receiving end of another “southern strategy”.
What’s the counter-argument in favor of genocide?
Thw arguement is the party that has been calling for a cease fire since the start if the conflict versus the one that will actively encourage Netanyahu.
They’ve been calling for it in the most disingneous way possible and Harris failed to separate herself from that. Biden has openly repeated every debunked lie Netanyahu or the IDF offers, even to the point of Netanyahu setting Biden up and walking away when we depended on that statement. We made fun of Trump for the exact same thing with Putin. And you can’t be a meaningful mediator if you’re transparently controlled by one side.
Trump is no worse on Gaza than Harris/Biden. Biden/Harris have not really done anything to stop the war and instead keep letting Israel getting away with it, then encouraging it by giving them more money. Trump and Kamala are basically the same on Israel
However at least Democrats voice support for Gaza, as long as they are not in power (executive branch) at least someone will be fighting for Gaza.
In other words, a Democrat house will posture alot and slow down Israeli aid and try to push for more concessions. A Democrat executive and legislative branch will continue steamrolling without resistance
Hmm. Interesting argument.
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
what moderation ? biden literally told everyone that ukraine is not even getting a paperclip unless we give israel 20 billion as well. he continued saying israel has unconditional support while we were getting footage of pregnant women & kids getting shot at idf or burning alive in hospital from use of incendiary shells. then harris repeated the same statement on live tv. all this while the working class has been struggling to survive, layoffs everywhere, and price of everything getting doubled.
its not something that can be washed with but that guy will do worse. you can look otherway but dnc basically threatened their voters base with more genocide if not elected. the fact we are even fighting over this instead mass protesting for biden and his administration to be prosecuted shows just how hollow & pathetic the dnc base has become.
There you go again.
Dems bad, who cares if trump is worse.
Well, you’ll get what you wanted when Israel finishes off Gaza and everything else, or starts WWIII when they can’t keep the bombs inside their extermination camp.
yes the 15 millions or so didn’t care that trump is worse because dnc has become bad enough and its not just the genocide in gaza. threatening people make them do irrational things, specially true for us americans.
there is solid basis that harris would have done nothing to reign netanyahu same as trump. she had accepted even larger donation from aipac than biden who was basically emptying our emergency stockpile faster than we can replenish. if anything there’s chance that trumps narcissism clashes with that stooge and he actually does something good for gaza out of his ego.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
And there was a strong push from the Russians.
People are tired of voting for the lesser evil. So now big evil won, and the idea is that that will teach little evil to stop being at all evil.
On a more serious note, I think for a lot of people Gaza was the drop that spilled the glass rather than THE reason they didn’t support Harris.
Non voters are just as responsible for the loss of democracy. They are not a single bit better than any MAGA even if they like to claim they are. They chose fascism over democracy
America hasnt had a democracy my entire life.
It did. It was just a flawed democracy. Now it will be full on fascism. So instead of hope it will get better one day it has gone the worst possible outcome and will not get better until the entire country looks like Berlin '45
What’s worse is they’re now acting like they got one over on the Democratic party like “ha, stupid Democratic party. I bet they won’t learn”. Like what? You played YOURSELVES, you’re the ones who are gonna suffer. You fucked yourselves over just to spite Harris? Wtf??
Fucking over the usa to own the libs
Lib v lib violence
Yeah, I have so many discussion with non voters who sre fucking stupif. “But but Gaza!!” completely ignoring how Trump was escalating the conflict when he was in power and how he praised Netanyahu for his handling of it. If the think the dems are bad for Gaza they have not paid attention to republicans.
this was a Russian troll campaign, in every tankie on Twitter that fell for it is a moron
The more you delude yourself, the more you erode any chance of a DNC victory in 2028.
