you cant have it both ways
Jesus christ with the gate keeping and purity testing… They are hurting the left, they are hurting us who try, and they hurt the Palestinian people.
Wait until they discover a single thing they don’t like about Abdul.
Be prepared. The propaganda machine is gonna be ramping up to full soon.
just like they did with zohran, but they had to back down, because its giving him more ammo.
I am afraid what AI will do to worsen the situation.
If we weren’t stuck in this two party system, the Democratic party would have been made obsolete a long time ago.
There really need to be viable 3rd, 4th, 5th+ parties, plus an expansion of the number of representatives at all legislative bodies.
The concentration of representation at the Federal and state levels has made it easy to be captured by concentration of wealth.
When the Constitution was written in 1776, the US had about 2.5 million people.
Our current population in 2026 of about 350 million makes the House statistically identical to the Senate in terms of power share per member.
The same goes for most state legislative bodies.
For comparison
- EU: 751
- India: 543
- Brazil: 514
And the Republican party too tbh. Tea Party, Maga, centrist neolibs, whatever the Mormons are doing, those are all their own brand of conservative
they all became one party, there isnt a split in the gop. they realize they need to combine forces or they will lose elections. something the dnc isnt willing to figure out.
There is no evidence of a mass (or even mid) exodus of left voters in any recent elections. This narrative that has been crafted where Democrats blame the left for losing is societal cancer.
There was an exodus of voters, just not ones who identify as leftwing. That’s the thing, though: Even Americans who don’t consider themselves leftist want leftwing stuff (universal healthcare, no genocide in Gaza, etc). Self-identified leftists/progressives are more likely to hold their noses and vote for the establishment, but “centrists” who want many of the same things are willing to stay home, so that’s where the electoral losses happen. In this specific case, post-election polling does show that Harris would’ve won if she had promised a ceasefire.
The left vote is both an inconsequential amount of voters that the Democrats shouldn’t cater to at all while also being so large in size it’s entirely responsible for them not winning.
Really the problem is the Democrats haven’t gone far enough right. The Republican party in their rush into actual god emporer fascism has left an entire quadrant of racist right wing voters completely free for the picking! Suckers.
I apologise for the dark satire. I do think a better world is possible. Sometimes it’s just harder to see than others.
The lesser of two evils argument is platonic. So it’s older than Jesus and at the same time no one has come up with anything better.
So to me people who abstain from voting are objectively wrong.
That is objectively wrong. It assumes that every election is independent - which they are not. The ‘lesser evil’ is to lock democrats out of power until they run non-genocidal candidates. The short term sucks, but in the long term it is much much better.
Do you have historical examples of your strategy being viable? Because to me what’s going to change things is public perception.
And once it does the same people for genocide will suddenly be against genocide. I can think of countless examples in American history. Like gay marriage.
Sure, yeah. It’s a lesser evil to vote in a madman that kills countless people around the world, built literal concentration camps, threatens all of your allies, dismantles your intelligence networks, steals/defrauds billions out of the American people, and absolutely destroys your country’s foundations for generations to come. How silly of the rest of the world. We should have understood that it’s a lesser evil to vote in a man that randomly blows up boats of civilians, while funnelling the stolen wealth of his comrades in efforts to dismantle the democracies and destroy the economies of your greatest allies in order to subjugate them.
SMH, some Americans are so bizarre and self-centered. There’s many of y’all that have brains, but people like you are no different than MAGA.
The short term sucks, but in the long term it is much much better.
Do you mean by the short term sucks that
- immigrants and US citizens are being murdered and tortured
- children are being trafficked without consequences
- we’re going to war
- people are losing jobs fast and a great recession or depression is nigh
- trump and his posse are stealing so much money and breaking so many laws that no one can keep track
- he demolished a portion of our icon of america and wrecked the reflecting pool while trying to set up an emperor’s arch and ballroom that cost close to a billion dollars
- he’s removing tons of people from medicare and medicaid that will kill people if it already hasn’t
- he removed a lot of our environmental protections and is selling off our public lands to the highest bidder
- he removed our health protections and now we’re seeing a massive push for pro plague diseases
- he’s destroying some of our national cultural and historic monuments because he’s racist af
- etc., etc.,
To me, you’re saying an insane comment. This isn’t just a matter of sucking a little, people are dying, being tortured and are broke.
Well most of the voters in Michigan who abstained were from middle eastern and Muslim backgrounds so as far as they’re concerned what Trump did to America is what America has either been financing or outright doing themselves to both groups for decades. It makes more sense to try and sway the man who claims to have a conscience than Trump
I hold zero ill will towards them obstaining. As far as im concerned most Americans would have gladly sacrificed Palestinians and Muslims for their own comfort. Historically white America has done it to every other race. Let be honest, its only problematic now because its happening in the US and not one of those icky brown countries
You have it backwards. If the republicans had no chance of winning, then there can be a split within the Democrats.
Absolute bullshit if you think the Republicans winning is “lesser of two evils” in any sane universe.
Yeah there’s no
effectiveagreeable way to protest a party you’re mostly aligned with in a two party state. They use your and their mutual “enemy” to hold your vote hostage.Yes - the democrats rely on the argument that since they are fractionally to the left of the republicans you have no where to go.
It’s easy to play games with other people’s lives.
America has been doing that since its birth lol
It was Biden/Harris, that helped Trump get elected.
And before that the DNC encouraged Trump because they thought he’d be easy for Hillary to win against.
https://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/
Yes, because voters have absolutely no responsibility to weigh their options and make educated decisions.
They LEFT the Democrats? What happened to Vote BLUE no Matter WHO!
-People who said to vote INDEPENDENT when THEIR Blue lost the Primary!
The left likes to pretend that only the right are easily manipulated but it’s pretty obvious that it impacts everyone regardless of beliefs, the packaging is just different. Not sure if there are easy solutions.
I like how this comments section perfectly sums up the democratic party.
Two denialists who think he’s fake and a copist about Harris’s loss
only because of the shutdown last year, most of the DNC made it clear they sided with israel, and by extension gop policies. if they resisted the shutdown longer the gop would suffer far more politically. the gop got everything they ever wanted from that deal.
Two years ago, Zainab Bibi Ahmed thought she had turned her back on the Democrats for good.
People like that helped get Trump elected. Harris was far from the ideal candidate, but she would have been far and away better than Trump.
Turns out Harris is a bad candidate
Turns out Harris is a bad candidate
And Americans are stupid.
Both these things can be true at the same time.
Harris also received 48% of the popular vote. She didn’t win, but that kind of turnout doesn’t make a candidate a bad candidate. There just happens to be a lot of Americans that think a felon rapist pedophile with one failed presidency under his belt was a better option.
Yeah, this unfortunately
Here’s something I’ve wondered about for a while now: Why do some voters have to be assiduously courted, and it’s a failure of the candidate if she doesn’t win them over, while for other voters the blame falls on the voters if they don’t fall in line and vote for the candidate?
Why do some voters have to be assiduously courted
Because they’re children trapped in adult bodies and want what they want, when they want it, or they’re going to throw a fit and it’s someone else’s fault.
It was a prosecutor that ran on inclusion for a party that supports social programs and is better for our economy vs a felon rapist pedophile traitor who only talks about himself running for a party that kills social programs and regularly violates our Constitutional rights and a TON of grown ass adults said “I’m not going to vote or I’m going to vote for a 3rd party candidate with no path to victory unless Kamala speaks to me personally”.
Like, how fucking dumb can people be? You’d be lucky if ONE presidential candidate truly spoke to you during your entire fucking life. Grow up. Make smart decisions whether they’re exactly to your liking or not.
I’ve spent over 4 decades in this country and I can tell you that there is a BIG problem with adults not acting like adults. And that’s a big reason why we are where we are.
Spicy! I usually don’t see people drag centrists like this. I like it!
Why do some voters have to be assiduously courted, and it’s a failure of the candidate if she doesn’t win them over
Because that’s literally the job of a politician running for office.
for other voters the blame falls on the voters if they don’t fall in line and vote for the candidate?
Because of tribalist authoritarianism and gaslighting.
It’s much easier to get away with ignoring the wants and needs of your constituency when you convince them that it’s about teams, not policies.
It’s much easier to get away with ignoring the wants and needs of your constituency when you convince them that it’s about teams, not policies.
This right here.
Mine was a loaded question. After decades of this stuff, it’s entirely clear to me that the difference is that Democrats do not have policy to offer many voters, so all that they have to fall back on is team boosterism. If Harris did have something substantive to offer these Michigan voters, she and her supporters would’ve offered it.
But they didn’t, so all that they had left is what we see: Blame and derision.
Because that’s literally the job of a politician running for office.
And it’s the job of American voters to make educated decisions even if those decisions aren’t exactly to their liking. Adults shouldn’t need to have their hands held. Adults should be able to look objectively at two choices and determine which one is best, regardless of what the person selling themselves to you is saying in their ads.
The truth is… it’s a popularity contest at the heart of it. Always has been. If you aren’t popular enough in the zeitgeist of enough people, then you ain’t winning shit.
The nice thing about blame is it’s an infinite resource. We can always make more of it. That’s why I blame the politicians and the voters.
Harris would have been far better than Trump is a bit line saying “Joe, the car thief, is better than Mike, the serial mass murderer”
If Harris had won, the Democratic party would have kept in it’s corrupt, corporate minion state.
A silver lining in the Trump disaster is that the Demicrat establishment is being shaken.
EDIT: I was going to correct “Demicrat”, but considering that “demi” means half, I’m going to keep it that way.
Joe the car thief is leagues better than Mike the serial mass murderer though
“Joe, the car thief, is better than Mike, the serial mass murderer”
Except not at all.
One was a successful prosecutor that brought justice to a lot of shitty people/organizations and was a candidate for a political party that creates/supports social programs.
The other was a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and probable pedophile that instigated a violent insurrection to overthrow our government, spends every day of his life attempting to weaken our nation by sowing hatred between its citizens, and works for a political party that destroys social programs and sends masked agents into American’s neighorhoods to shoot them in the fucking face.
You need to work on your comparisons.
Both were pro-genocide.
You win with the electorate you have, not the one you want.
People are idiots. Expect this.
If it’s this easy to win them back and the Democrats couldn’t even bother, who’s the real idiot? They thought they could discard these votes and found out they couldn’t. Figure out how to continue treating them like people with understandable sorrow about the genocide in Gaza, or keep losing 🤷♂️
Figure out how to continue treating them like people with understandable sorrow about the genocide in Gaza, or keep losing
True.
But there’s more than one perspective. Do you, as a political party or government as a whole, abandon an ally you have all sorts of ties with because a sub-section of your voters don’t like that country anymore? I mean the answer is yes if you know you’ll lose enough voters to lose elections, but there’s no way they could have known that.
The proper method is to start drawing lines with the ally and see if they cross them. Biden essentially did that. Maybe not as aggressive as necessary. He did verbally state he was against what Israel was doing. He did float arms shipment cancellations to Israel. He did try to broker a peace deal. These were reasonable steps. What was unreasonable was a ton of voters expecting a full disconnection from Israel or they would not vote or vote 3rd party, which would only help a much, much worse president from taking control and giving Israel/Netanyahu two big thumbs up to do whatever they wanted.
Do you, as a political party or government as a whole, abandon an ally you have all sorts of ties with because a sub-section of your voters don’t like that country anymore?
Given the, you know, genocide, the answer is "yes.*
but there’s no way they could have known that.
Yeah, it’s not like there was a whole mass movement saying exactly that.
The proper method is to start drawing lines with the ally and see if they cross them.
Which they did, every single time. Where are the consequences?
He did verbally state he was against what Israel was doing. He did float arms shipment cancellations to Israel. He did try to broker a peace deal. These were reasonable steps.
Ronald Reagan got the IDF to stop firing on Beirut after a 20 minute phone call. That’s a reasonable step; what Biden did was theater.
There can be more than one idiot in a given situation
there are idiots, and then there are idiots with power. i never understand the people who protect the idiots with power and blame the idiots without.
Words to live by
“Vote for me cause if you don’t then you’re an idiot”
Good luck with that bro. No wonder genocide supporting Democrats keep losing
Keep thinking that when ICE hauls you to a prison camp.
That is what you voted for by supporting a candidate that said they’d unconditionally support Israel. ICE was also trained by the IDF, which Kamala said she unconditionally supported.
Again: there can be more than one idiot in a given situation. In this present situation, the two idiots are Kamala and… Well, the other one.
So its vote for genociders or ICE hauling me off for death, those are the only choices you will admitj are possible. Sounds like manipulation and pure BS to me.
Yeah, it’s because of First Past The Post, a terrible voting system that mathematically encourages strategic voting and makes everyone unhappy.
If I can’t change your mind about whether to strategically vote, then please at least consider campaigning for voting reform.
Statistically you were more likely to get taken away by ICE under Obama.
I’m afraid people really prefer binary thinking so you’ll need to pick just one side being idiots. Sorry. Thats just humans for you.
Yeah, it’s because of the Democrats’s corpo faction
They are ones who write sternly worded letters and do nothing to stop trump
If it’s this easy to win them back and the Democrats couldn’t even bother, who’s the real idiot?
You’ve hit the nail on the head for why so many people have been upset and frustrated with how terrible the dems are. They’d rather lose votes to stay center than do anything that keeps voters voting for them
Centre
It’s the USA, there is Right and Far Right, you’ve never ever had anything close to a left wing.
From were I stand (in Europe), it looks more like Hard Right (hardcore Neoliberals) and Fascists.
Mind you, here in Europe it’s also shifted in that direction, just not as much (except in the UK and Germany)
What makes you think they were genuinely trying to win? They have no interest in changing the status quo. It’s been very good to them.
What makes you think they were genuinely trying to win? They have no interest in changing the status quo. It’s been very good to them.
And that’s why they were genuinely trying to win. Centrist Dems are all about the status quo. This isn’t the status quo.
didn’t seem to be bothering them that much. the democrats have shown no onus to fight for the status quo. now progressives? watch them sweat to stop that from happening. the progressives already won in a land slide? watch as they keep spending money and time and effort into undermining him at every turn.
trump removes person hood from immigrants? thats a stern letter. fuck the democraric party
That’s the Democrats’ corpo faction
The progressives and the democratic socialists are the one who are fighting tooth and nail to make things better for us
the DNC is the corporate faction. they are spending all their money to harass their own base. and until they are all replaced, it will continue to be their DNC.
you don’t remove the corporate faction by voting blue no matter who.
you remove them by voteing blue only when it’s a progressive
Right, the party that controls none of the pieces of the Federal government is definitely the one responsible for what’s happening in the Federal government. 🙄
that is correct yes. you seem to have a short memory. do you not remember the shut down? the stern letters, the state reps being told to return to give republicans quorum? just because they are not the driving party does not mean they are not complicit, and biden showed no interest in curbing the republicans during his time. currently the democrats are spending themselves to nothing in their fight against their own progressives, so that even if the progressives win they can ensure their doners that the progressives would have no budget. they would rather republicans win then progressives
I get the impression that the people who pay them thought they themselves would be alright either way, which is why the establishment Democrats for all their talk about how crucial it was to defeat Trump, repeatedly made politically choices of the far-right kind (supporting the Genocide in Gaza, cozying up with the Cheney family) that antagonized many of their natural voters.
Mind you, Trump is so spectacularly incompetent that even with all the very explicit things he’s doing to help the wealthiest (most notably in terms of taxes) he might very well still hurt their interests more than he helps, them by turning America’s greatest trade partners against anything American (most notably Canada and the EU).
Yeah, the Democrats want to lose. Everyone who voted for Trump or abstained is helping them.
I say we should foil their plan by getting them elected against their will. Last time America elected a Democrat, the stress of the job gave him cancer. Be proud of yourselves, Americans; you killed Joe Biden. And you can do it again to the next bastard!
Everyone is an idiot. The Dems, the voters, the pollsters, the Republicans, everyone. Me included.
I’m not
Nobody is immune to propaganda.
That’s exactly what an idiot would say!! grips tinfoil hat more tightly
It’s also what a genius would say taps head
If it’s this easy to win them back and the Democrats couldn’t even bother, who’s the real idiot?
Abdul and the other progressive candidates winning the nominations this year are not because “the Democrats” are trying when they weren’t before, it’s because the electorate came out to vote in the primaries when they did not before. The nominees are selected by the voters who come out during the primaries. So when the electorate isn’t showing up to pick the nominee, then they shouldn’t complain about the party “running” bad nominees.
Im kind of with you, but are you suggesting the DNC would support progressive candidates if more voters showed up to vote in the primary?
the old guards do not want more AOCs or even bernees in congress. they only allow 1 of each in the houses because they give them something to hide behind as a pretend to be on the “left”.
The “old guard” lost control of the DNC in 2024.
that is just not true. i don’t know why you would even suggest that. if what you consider the new guard is currently attacking Zohran even after he won, then the distinction is meaningless
but are you suggesting the DNC would support progressive candidates if more voters showed up to vote in the primary?
No. I’m saying stop talking about what the DNC or Democrats want, because it doesn’t matter when the voters show and tell them what we want. Too many people say they’ll vote when the party gives them someone to vote for. That’s backwards and exactly what the establishment wants.
In case you didn’t notice it during the Hilary Clinton vs Bernie Sanders primaries, the DNC has mechanisms like super-voters that allow them to override the will of voters.
If I remember it correctly they even went to Court to make the case (which they won) that the Democratic Party doesn’t need to actually be Democratic in their candidate selection process.
in case you didn’t notice, Hillary won the nomination thru pledged delegates alone, she didn’t need a single superdelegate vote. Because she won the popular vote in the majority of primaries. Also, then DNC changed the rules for 2018 so that superdelegates.dont even get to vote at the convention unless the pledged delegates can’t elect a nominee in the first round.
I’m not saying the DNC did/does no wrong then or now (media collision and superdelegates stumping for Hillary during the campaign both come to mind). But it is not the case that superdelegate swooped in at the convention and stole the nomination from Bernie. Ken Martin is against all the favoritism and machinations showed in favor of Hillary and Biden.
And yes, as private organizations no party is required to have a democratic public vote to select their nominees. But our elections are stacked in favor of the D/R duopoly so our best option is to show up in the primaries to dictate the direction we want, as we have seen happening this year.
The Establishment Democrats have a lot of power. Haley Steven’s only lost the Michigan primary by 1% after outspending Abdul El-Sayed over 10x. That means roughly, Haley Steven’s spent over $10 for every vote compared to Abdul El-Sayed $1 per vote. She absolutely was being propped up by both the Israel lobby as well as Establishment Dems and that money went to waste. That money could have been way more useful in the general, but the DNC has been burning all their cash on fighting progressives instead. It’s gotten to the point where the DNC is millions of dollars in debt and had to put up their physical building as collateral while the RNC has over $100 million in their warchest leading up to the midterms.
It is very important to talk about the Establishment Democrats because they are doing their best to lose all political power by dunking on their left flank instead of combating the Republicans. They would truly rather rule in hell than serve in heaven and they’re gonna drag us all down to party with Lindsey Graham. As much as it sucks, the DNC still has a lot of power they are exerting that needs to be addressed before they cause the situation to become unsalvageable.
Are you saying the DNC was directly spending money on Haley Steven’s campaign? It was understanding the DNC chair Ken Martin is vocally against the DNC supporting any one primary candidate over another. That was even one of the points of friction between Ken Martin and David Hogg.
I didn’t stop at saying “don’t talk about what they want,” I said show up to dictate to them what we want instead of just sitting around talking about what they want.
The fact is, Abdul wom because he received more votes. Not because of spending it establishment support, but because the people just voted for him. Don’t wait for the party to flip and bless a progressive, just go vote the progressives onto the ballot, and the establishment neoliberals will continue to see themselves replaced.
Looks like slightly less people showed up, actually (typical for a non presidential primary):
https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2024/states/MI.html
https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2026/states/MI.html
Michigan has open primaries and there was one uncontested Republican running this year, look at the total votes in 2024 vs 2026 and not just the blue numbers.
Yeah comparing to 2022 would be better. I can’t seem to find that on the NPR site, though it doesn’t appear to list the actual turnout percentage, just the number of votes. I have this site but it doesn’t break it down by party and doesn’t have 2026 data yet. It shows 27% primary turnout for Michigan in 2022 and 24% in 2024.
https://statesunited.org/resources/voter-turnout-since-2000/
With turnout that low in the primaries, it really shouldn’t take a big surge for progressive voters to tip the scales away from neoliberal incumbent/establishment candidates.
People could also show up to primaries. People could have been showing up for the past several decades.
This is not a situation that has just spontaneously happened, this has been happening since voting has been a thing.
The reasons those democrats have the power they do is because we keep letting them.
What primary?
The DNC made sure that the primary in 2024 was a joke. Even here so many people were like “how are you go against Biden! He’s the only one!”
Only, I could list off dozens of reasons why he fucked up and wouldn’t have won. (Failed to get a Trump conviction is a big one, for example.)
The whole reason he bowed out was because his campaign was clogging the shitcan, and Kamala sidelined the best thing that happened to her campaign, and proceeded to toe the corporate line saying she wouldn’t have changed anything.
(Easy dodge: “with the benefit of hindsight, of course there are things I’d change. But as I’m currently VP, I need to support my president, so please ask the next question.”)
And then there’s the whole genocide thing, and yeah. We all have lines we can’t cross.
Every state and local primary? Every congressional primary?
You know there’s an election more than once wvery four years, right? And those other elections tend to have a much greater impact on individuals than any national election.
But sure, the president is literally the only election that ever matters. And while you didnt cross that line, plenty of other people who did show up were more than happy to. Only they chose the much worse options.
You understand that the DNC threatened all of the well known candidates? And look what happened to the one guy who did- dean Phillips is no longer a credible politician.
So yes. Every state. Now stop being obtuse.
You win with the politicians you have, not the ones you want.
Both are to blame.
this is demonstrably incorrect. seems it must be the politician you have AND is the one you want.
Didn’t the DNC send Bill Clinton to Michigan and when confronted about the lackluster response of the DNC against the genocide, he started telling the attendees that it’s Israel’s right to the whole thing and they were there first? To a room full of Arab Americans?
Yes, you’re right, the Democrats and the voters both suck.
One fuckup doesn’t erase the other, that’s just whataboutism. Or in kindergarten terms: two wrongs don’t make a right.
If you think people suck if they don’t behave like perfectly rational, unemotional robots 100% of the time and vote strategically for the sake of harm reduction after being insulted and told their lives don’t matter directly to their face then you must have a very cynical and bleak view of humanity as a whole.
When the message from Dems is “No, your family in Palestine has to die because AIPAC gave me a fat check. Vote for me or else Trump will be even worse, and if you don’t everything he does is your fault,” I can hardly blame people for responding irrationally, and blaming them is pointless anyway because it won’t change anything. When there is shared responsibility for something it’s your choice where to assign blame, and you should assign it somewhere useful.
From an outsider looking in,
Trump may have been necessary to get America on the right track. Had they voted Kamala in, things wouldn’t change. She even said that on the campaign trail.
If you boil it down to the barest of reasons, Trump was voted in because people wanted change. He’s a liar, a scumbag, and a rapist, and as much as you and I think the other side is dumb as fuck for voting him in, both sides realize that change is needed.
Now that Trump has been allowed to fuck things up so bad it seems that Americans are actually learning how their political system works and doing what they should have been doing all along. (Mainly voting in primaries, from my POV.)
I hope the upcoming elections reel him in (Preferably all the way to jail) and you guys can actually get people working to improve the country. Keep it up, Americans.
I hope the upcoming elections reel him in (Preferably all the way to jail) and you guys can actually get people working to improve the country. Keep it up, Americans.
You have a lot more faith in Americans than I do.
Source: I’m American. There are a lot of very, very dumb people here.
Well, from this outsider’s point of view, it seems to me that Trump is a symptom of Americas’ malaise and I’m not all that sure that even his fuckups will change the trend in America of becoming ever more sick.
It looks to me that the ONLY possibly path of improvement is if these recently elected social democrats manage somehow to navigate the obstacle course set-up by the DNC, and do so propelled only by the support of voters and campaign support from common people whilst avoiding falling to the temptation of selling themselves or “compromising” for political progression.
Looking back at the Hilary vs Bernie Primary, the DNC has a ton of anti-democratic tools (such as super-voters) to make it far harder for social democrats to get elected to important positions as Democrats than it is for “traditional” Democrats.
Certainly to me so far the path for any of the handful of social democrats rising in the Democrat Party, to end up as POTUS, seems to be either non-existent or a near-impossible obstacle course (with the actual DNC being the ones making it that hard followed by the billionaire-owned Press, with the actual competence of Republicans as politicians a far 3rd)
He was also already president from 2017-2021. Apparently everyone just forgot what a fucking disaster he was back then.
Yeah.
Imagine eating bad meat, getting sick and shitting yourself almost to death. Then eating more of that bad meat once you feel better.
I don’t have a lot of faith in Americans anymore.
Swap out lettuce for meat and that’s basically where we are right now. No imagination necessary.
He had more people to say no to him back then, so the bad effects he had on non-politically engaged voters were not as obvious.
First don’t muddy the waters with things like “far from ideal;” we know what she was: a genocidal piece of shit. To some people there’s a maximum number of pictures of dismembered children after which these things don’t matter anymore.
On the other hand, from an electoral strategy standpoint it’s not like weathering the Trump storm is going to mean victory for democracy; MAGA is ultimately a product of current living conditions, and Trump is nothing more than the demagogue they coalesced around. They’re only going to get worse until either democracy collapses or someone (probably a leftist) changes things for the better. Time is on their side, not yours. Vote blue no matter who is only an optimal strategy if you refuse to think about anything beyond the next four years. These people made the price of their vote abundantly clear as part of an organized large movement; they did everything right and the Democrats refused to listen.
Gaza is the most asinine issue to be a single-issue voter over; Trump was guaranteed to be more pro-Israel than Harris, so enabling his victory guaranteed further suffering in Gaza.
Rejecting Harris for not being progressive enough on the issue not only emboldened Netanyahu to expand the conflict, but also enabled the enactment of Project 2025, resulting in further deaths internationally, the denial of equal rights to transgender Americans, and the expansion of ICE to commit further atrocities, among many other expressions of fascism in the U.S…
The bottom line is single issue Gaza voters cared more about their moral comfort than doing what was in their power to help minimize the pain and suffering of Palestinians.
As you said, this wasn’t a confusing election, it was very clear Trump would be more pro-Israel and doesn’t give a flying fuck about Palestinians. He was clearly the worst choice for Gaza. Therefore, anyone helping him win by not voting or voting for a candidate with absolutely zero path to victory, chose their own comfort over the lives of Palestinians.
These are people whose perceived morality prevented them from connecting the dots to realize that whether it made them upset or not, Kamala or Trump was winning, and they could have done something to help Palestinians, but chose not to.
And, as you said, in the process of this failure to acknowledge reality, they also helped to SIGNIFICANTLY damage our own nation.
It’s clear you didn’t read a single damn word I wrote and just wanted to rant. Unless you respond to literally anything I said, this conversation is over.
I read it, I just disagreed with it. A continuation of the status quo under Harris would have been better than a descent into fascism under Trump and Netanyahu feeling emboldened with an ideological ally in the White House. Given that AOC is polling worse than other potential Democratic frontrunners against Vance and Rubio, letting Trump enact Project 2025 is likely to push other issues to the forefront in 2028, rather than hold Israel accountable for its genocide in Gaza—waiting four years is unlikely to have any positive impact on that issue.
Progressivism under a candidate like AOC would be the ideal, including a platform that cuts off arm sales to Israel and supports the conviction of Netanyahu for war crimes under the auspices of the ICC, but progress on every other issue at stake shouldn’t be held back because a candidate that is not progressive on that singular issue is chosen.
Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree.
Harris literally said she planned to unconditionally support Israel “defending itself” which at that point meant it had already mass murdered tens of thousands of children in so called self defense. Are you really so devoid of empathy and morals that mass murder of innocents is something you don’t care about? Every timie ICE kills innocent people in the US, that is what you voted for.
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I do, in fact, care more about what happens in my country than on the other side of the planet. When a party runs a fascist candidate on a fascist platform in my country, that is what I care about the most. I will take what is happening to other people on the other side of the globe secondary to that. I will not allow their issue to turn me into a single issue voter and jeopardize the safety of my democracy.
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Nothing you can say will change the fact that Trump/Republicans are worse for Gaza than Kamala/Democrats.
The decision was binary. This one or that one will win. The choice was unbelievably obvious, whether you’re taking our nation or Gaza into account.
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AIPAC—and by extension Israel—has strong influence over both the Republicans and Democrats, so only voting for a candidate entirely free of that influence will often result in not voting. While the war criminals in the Israeli military and government deserve to be tried for their crimes, anyone who also cared at all about the many other issues at stake—including the far greater level of suffering being incurred by the Ukrainian people—should have voted for Harris to keep Trump out of office.
Far greater absolute suffering has occurred as a result of their failure to do so. Non-voters are equally as responsible for Trump’s election as Trump voters.
Just looking at numbers alone and a majority of deaths of innocent Palestinians occurred while Kamala was second in command. At least make it make sense.
After the Biden/Kamala administration had already vetoed multiple UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire and sent millions to fund genocide, when asked about it she said she’ll unconditionally support Israel’s right to “defend itself.” Anyone that isn’t an idiot knows the US unconditionally supporting Israel’s right to self-defense is just a green light for more genocide, otherwise it wouldn’t be unconditional.
Nothing you’ve said changes that Trump/Republicans are worse for Palestine (AND AMERICA) than Kamala/Democrats.
Like, you keep repeating the same things, but nothing you keep repeating changes that.
So I guess you just have one question to answer.
Do you believe it is better to sit in a corner and cry about the world and how bad it is, or to vote in a manner that will help as much as you, as an individual, have the power to help, even if that means just minimizing the amount of pain and suffering?
seems to me if israel has the capability to project murder outside of their boarders, they don’t need american defense munitions nor money.
Oddly, getting rid of the penny and leaning on Netanyahu to get a “ceasefire” are the only two things that this regime has done that are any good. It has also given chilly vibes, cutting Israel out of the Iran peace plan(s) on several occasions. It’s not at all clear who’d have been more pro-Israel.
Unless, I guess, we consider that the Harris campaign knew that Gaza was a losing issue for them, and that losing the election was preferable to crossing The Lobby.
You have been banned from lemmy.dbzer0.com
I do think it’s a bit ludicrous that much conflict in the Threadiverse stems from discussions about Israel and Palestine when the vast majority of users are pro-Palestine in one form or another, merely having differing views in the context of being pro-Palestine.
Far less divides the users here than many might think. People letting those differences get to their heads and not being willing to engage with each other civilly is harming the platform.
It can usually be measured by how much injection is done with other topics to Israel-Palestine.
People typically agree that Zionists are doing a genocide. It’s where equivalences are made by pivoting discussion into things like Xinjiang or Ukraine in a lazy or vague way.
It’s that maneuver that typically sparks argument.
Yeah, I have a lot of similar interactions in other topics too here. I agree with the mainstream anti-AI opinion, but I do so in a way many people dislike. From My point of view I hate use of AI for one more reason in addition to the usual ones, but other people think I’m defending AI because I won’t play the Red vs Blue game.
People want to sort the entire world into the good team and the bad team, and I’m sick of it. In any given situation, there are probably at least 4 different sides with their own agendas of varying compatibility.
If anything, it’s comments and users like the one you’re replying to that I hold chiefly responsible.
screenshot taken 08.11.2024
Yeah, I’ve been paying attention for the past 3 years as Hexbear infiltrated dbzer0 and engaged in a systematic campaign to convert its users. But it only really became obvious to the average user last month when one of the dbzer0 admins denied the Uyghur genocide and stepped down. She got propagandised. The same thing is in the process of happening to every dbzer0 admin and power user, and I fear they will not accept the warnings until they’ve already swallowed the whatever-colour pill.
If you want to understand how they do it, watch Ian Danksin’s (Innuendo Studios’) How To Radicalise A Normie. Tankies are literally just red alt-right, the strategies are the same.
systematic campaign to convert its users.
Please, there was a systemic campaign that was outed and it was by Zionists against db0 admins.
Actual doctored images being spread around the Fediverse faking db0 out to be Neo-Nazis.
So whenever I see these instance wide accusations I can’t help but wonder how aware or involved the user was with that.
Well, I think My country should be building missiles to launch at IDF bases, I’ve attended about a dozen pro-palestine protests, held a picture of a Gazan baby who was on the verge of death by starvation at one protest… babies aren’t supposed to look like that. I’ll spare you the discomfort of seeing that picture. I have nothing to do with any zionists, and again, this isn’t Red vs Blue. Being targeted by one group of baddies doesn’t make you the goodies. It doesn’t make anyone with a criticism against you aligned with each other. The world is more complicated than that.
Horseshoe theory was always correct.
exactly fuck people for voting again.
I voted kamala, but I am not ignorant enough to blame non voters for this mess we’re in. I punch up, preferably not sideways and never down.
Those that realize their mistake are one thing, but those who would continue to throw transgender Americans, undocumented immigrants, and aid to Ukraine under the bus purely due to a Democrat not being progressive enough on Gaza when the alternative is actively harmful to Gaza are part of the problem.
I just can’t imagine looking a Palestinian American in the eyes and telling them it’s their fault we have trump. That they should have voted for someone that was actively endangering /killing their families. It’s wild to me that we’re still blaming the victims rather than the person who supported a genocide. Still supports a genocide. Idk dude, I voted for her but I can totally empathize with certain people who were just not able to do it. I don’t blame them. If you’re gonna have a line ‘genocide literally against my family’ is a pretty fucking reasonable one. No, this is on Democrats, full stop.
I just can’t imagine looking a Palestinian American in the eyes
Palestinian Americans should have known Trump/Republicans were the worst case scenario for their friends and family in Gaza. It wasn’t exactly a secret.
No, this is on Democrats, full stop.
So you expect a political party, or government as a whole, to fully break ties with an allied nation because a subset of their voters don’t like that country anymore?
Geopolitics isn’t exactly simple.
I suspect it’s only those who have weak or no principles who don’t understand how other people might have principles in some domain which are so strong and so morally defining that they simply can’t bring themselves to vote for anybody breaking those principles.
It’s one thing to logically disagree with the lack of pragmatism of somebody not being able to vote for somebody supporting child mass murder abroad even to stop somebody who, whilst also supporting child mass murder abroad also supported a few more bad things.
It’s a whole different thing to blame somebody for not voting for anybody supporting child mass murder.
Unlike what some seem to think, voting for somebody who supports child mass murder abroad because they’re not as bad on things which affect you more closely (i.e. national policy) as the other candidate who also supports child mass murder abroad, isn’t a Moral High Ground from were to talk down to people who on moral grounds refuse to vote for anybody who would support child mass murder.
(Also and this being Politics, it seems to me that the competent candidate who trully means to represent their voters would move towards what voters want - especially on subjects that many voters would see as symptomatic of the candidate’s general character, such as child mass murder support - rather than expect voters to move towards the candidate’s views)
that they simply can’t bring themselves to vote for anybody breaking those principles.
But what if by not voting or voting for someone who literally cannot win you are helping someone who makes it clear they will violate the principles you hold dear even more flagrantly? Because that’s what happened.
One or the other WILL win. So do you help as much as you can or do you sit in a corner and cry?
I honestly don’t feel bad about blaming the people that chose to sit in a corner and cry. Especially because their decision to do so affected a whole lot more than genocide on the other side of the planet.
isn’t a Moral High Ground
For me it isn’t a moral high ground. It’s making the decision that is BEST for my country AND the people in Gaza and wondering why the people who chose to cry in a corner couldn’t do the same.
it seems to me that the competent candidate who trully means to represent their voters would move towards what voters want
Geopolitics isn’t some simple thing. Should a candidate run on abandoning an ally when a subset of their voters don’t like that country anymore? Especially if they aren’t sure that those voters represent enough of the total to cost them the election? And when a lot of their voters still do want to be allies with that country?
Turns out a lot of people can’t see the forest for the trees.
Except that’s selective bullshit.
We don’t really know if the other candidate who also very openly proclaimed her “unwavering support” for Israel would cause Israel to act differently in any way form or shape - you’re just assuming a “rosy outcome” had things been different based on at best wishful thinking, possibly even just tribalist loyalty (you think your tribe’s leader is better and thus assume she would do things better, even in the face of her very openly supporting Israel just as much as the other candidate which indicates that on this subject such thing cannot be assumed).
Further, parties will put forwards on subsequent elections different candidates if the ones they put forward in previous elections got trashed by voters. This means that refusing to vote actually influences which choices will be available in the next cycle of this Ultimatum Game. I have actually seen this happen in Europe (and in fact in America too: the Republicans changed from conservatives to populist Fascists exactly by following the electorate which turns out to have quite a high percentage or Racists)
Turns out a lot of people when it comes to politics can’t (or maybe refuse) to logically analyze things beyond the superficial 1st order effects.
what does that solve other than satisfying your own desire to be morally superior? what has materially improved in the world?
what does that solve other than satisfying your own desire to be morally superior?
Couldn’t we reverse this question though and ask what not voting and feeling morally superior but getting Trump elected has solved?
Not voting doesn’t change the party. Showing up at primaries and ousting establishment candidates does. We have multiple examples of it working now and getting actual progressive politicians in place against the wishes of Democratic leadership that worked hard to see that they didn’t get elected.
I’m sorry but you really don’t understand principles at all if you don’t understand “I will never vote for somebody who supports mass murdering of childen”.
For people with genuine principles some things are red-lines and the Mathematics Of Pragmatism you so neatly display in your tale of how voters should be thinking don’t at all apply once a candidate is beyond such a Moral/Principle red line.
Some people will abstain from making a choice if all the options they have are sufficiently Evil, and I’m afraid such people have the Moral Highground versus any “pragmatist” who will think the Mathematics or Lesser Evil apply all the way down into the deepest Evil.
PS: I totally understand your point of view, I just don’t think you understand the point of view of a sub-section of people and pragmatics like you seem to be don’t really have a moral high ground to stand on and preach down to those whose strong principles which did not let them vote for a lesser evil are around people not being mass murdered.
PPS: By the way, the “logic” of chosing the lesser evil is mathematically a sub-optimal choice that tends to increase evil over time in a repeating choice like a presidential vote since the results of a cycle influence which candidates get put forward in the next cycle - it would be an optimal choice only if there was one and only one vote, deciding things forever, but that’s not the case in democratic elections.
I’m sorry but you really don’t understand principles at all if you don’t understand “I will never vote for somebody who supports mass murdering of childen”.
This is so shortsighted.
You can’t wave a magic wand and change the established order. One of two parties WILL control our federal government. You’re either making a decision to limit the amount of pain and suffering in the world by acting or you’re sitting in a corner crying about how unfair the world is. If you gave a shit at all about Palestinians but you didn’t vote or voted for a candidate that LITERALLY could not win and therefore could not do anything, then you chose to go cry in a corner instead of making a decision that would actually have an impact.
For people with genuine principles some things are red-lines
Congrats. Your personal red line caused more Palestinian pain and suffering than if you accepted the world doesn’t operate based on your red-lines and made the decision to help as much as you could.
Some people will abstain from making a choice if all the options they have are sufficiently Evil
And those people are selfish for not doing what they could within the boundaries they exist in.
You’re not even making a good logical case when you’re pitching pragmatism over principles.
For starters your claims of “caused more Palestinian pain and suffering” are based on what exact, concrete evidence that had the other child mass murder supporter who openly stated their “unwavering support” for Israel, the Israelis would have behaved differently? You don’t know, you can’t possibly know (because that’s the path not taken), hence you’re bullshitting.
Second point - even in the undemocratic electoral system in the US, elections aren’t a fucking Trolley Problem and can’t treated as one:
- There isn’t any pure choice in the hands of a single person of “go one way or go the other”
- Voters don’t actually know for sure what happens if they “pull the lever” or “don’t pull the level”.
- It isn’t even a single instance where the decision is made and it’s done. Specifically the part were parties pitch presidential candidates is closer to a cyclical Ultimatum game - the parties put forwards their choice of candidate offering certain policies, voters approve in which case get those policies (kinda, it’s imperfect) and that party wins or they reject in which case they don’t get them and the party loses. The cyclical thing is what’s important here: it means that results in one election influence which candidate the party will put forward in the next election. This is the part which “curiously” those making the case for “choosing the lesser-evil” NEVER, EVER mention. Even in voting systems where it’s always the same two who win, parties will put forward better candidates if they’re heavily punished in elections - I know this because I’ve seen in happen here in Europe.
So your entire “logic” is flawed - a voter know for sure upfront if their vote will make a difference, they don’t know for sure what will happen if their chosen candidate wins AND them refusing to vote can actually have an impact, not in the current election but in subsequent elections, because it can influence parties to put forward more appealing candidates with more appealing policies.
I mean, it’s bad enough that you think pragmatism should beat any and all principles, but even your pragmatic argument is deceitful because it’s incomplete and anchored on unproven statements that you treat as certainties (what in mathematics is called an axiom).
If you’re going to pitch for pragmatism over principles at least make a logical case which is solid rather than parroting deceitful logically-sounding but not in fact logically sound political propaganda with it’s cherry picked elements and foundations made of unproven things stated as absolute truths.
There was no primary in 2024 though. I’m not sure who you’re arguing with here.
There’s always a primary. Harris wasn’t selected by primary, but she was clearly - as his vice president - a firm continuation of Biden’s policies. People who voted Biden in the primary weren’t voting to change the party, which is what we’re talking about here; if you want to change the party you need to use the primaries to put actual left candidates on the ticket. That didn’t happen. Whether Harris or Biden was selected by the primary, neither were change candidates.
People who voted Biden in the primary weren’t voting to change the party
The primary where nobody except Biden actually ran. For all intents and purposes, there was no presidential primary in 2024.
The point is ensuring that those same voters don’t repeat their mistake and indirectly aid in the election of Vance or Rubio, something that would cement the legacy of Project 2025.
i dont think vance or rubio is either electable without trump backing them.
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I agree, but now it’s two years later, and that same attitude with get similar results. The democrats need to do way better than just “not as bad as trump”.
We’ll see how this all pans out.
Harris was far from the ideal candidate, but she would have been far and away better than Trump.
I agree and was furious with those who kept that stance. I respected them still.
We would be better today but the progressives and DemSocs could be the change our country has been truly needing. If Harris won it wouldn’t be as bad now but it would all be very much status quo since the 80s.
We have an opportunity because of the bullshit we’re dealing with.
We shall see.
i would argue harris would stand by the status quo left by trump, because that’s what biden did.
There would be no argument from me, that was my point. Unsure if I was clear on the intent of my reply.
If we survive this fascist coup, what we’re going through may be a blessing. If Harris would have won things would not change.
We need to hit bottom, burn it down to rebuild with clearer vision of an equitable society.
INRI; all things are renewed with fire
i am all for forward thinking. starving the DNC until they give up is the only step forward that i see. giving what the dnc wants gives us what we always get from them, republican policies. i dont think hitting rock bottom will change the opinions of the dnc doners, but the voter? i can only hope.
fuck vote blue no matter who, vote blue only if they represent your interests, else tell them to fuck off.
Wraith it’s so fucking complex, simple taglines will not do.
Here’s my stance; if primaries are over support the lesser of two evils. Yes the whole system is corrupt and the DNC is a slave to corporations, beholden to them before the people they represent. This was proven by not supporting Bernie. Fuck them.
Fuck the Greedy. Old. Pedophiles. even more. They’re pure fucking evil, never forgive or forget what they’ve done.
So if it’s Red or Blue, then always Blue.
i voted blue no matter who for harris, i am not doing it again.
you still advocate voting blue not matter who and you also note that doing so gives the dnc the power to push rightward and attack their own progressives. at this point i believe starving the dnc out is the only path forward, as painful as it will be in the short term.
What’s your point?
They need a snickers
Yea these people are fuckin idiots lol
I still contend these abandon people are complete and abject morons that deserve what they got with their absolutely asinine decision.
Still glad they took their heads out of their asses and that the Democratic voters also took a bit of their heads out of their asses.
Palestinians in Gaza don’t realize how insignificant they really are in the grand scheme of things, globally.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Given the global response to the situation, I would bet they probably realize that you don’t think they’re significant.
Then again, there’s a chance they’re just focusing on food and water and shelter and medicine and not-getting-blown-up… rather than worrying about the opinions of people who couldn’t even pretend to be significant.
