As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.
Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.
I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.
Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.
Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.
It’s the Trolley Problem. Many people finding themselves in that problem would say, “Of course I flip the switch, one person is less than five people”.
But if you take a step back it’s reasonable to ask, “WHY did I suddenly find myself in this Trolley Problem? Trolleys don’t spring into existence fully formed like Athena springing from Zeus’ forehead. They are designed and built, piece by piece. The switch was setup by the agency of someone. People were kidnapped and tied down by force. I was placed here on purpose.”
So given that realization it’s also reasonable when told you must choose to say, “Why? You designed this system. You tied the people down. You could have done it differently and instead deliberately did THIS. I had nothing to do with it and I refuse the premise that I must participate in your fucked up game. No matter what happens the blood is on your hands and I refuse to share in your guilt.”
That’s the essential argument. There’s the realpolitik decision to do “less harm”, but you can also reject the fucked up premise.
You can reject the fucked up premise, and find you still live in a reality that doesn’t give a shit. In reality there are two outcomes to this election, and just a smidge of knowledge of game theory would show it doesn’t make sense to help the worse side, both in the short and long term.
I hate that we have 2 options, I hate that there is no ‘no genocide’ option. Me hating that shouldn’t cause me to make worse decisions with clearly worse outcomes for everyone
The no genocide option is to protest against the current regime instead of vote shaming people who probably don’t even live in a single swing state (where your candidate brought Liz Fucking Cheney btw).
Wow, it’s almost as if someone being bad can be for multiple reasons!
Because it’s a far right party. Trump happens to be more far right, but that doesn’t change that fact. I’m not voting for far right, neoliberal, genocidal freaks.
At how many genocides do you draw the line? If the democrats committed a second one along with the Palestinian genocide they are committing right now? You’d again say trump would be worse, vote for Harris. If they committed three? Four? No matter what they do, Trump would do worse, so again you’d tell us to vote for Harris.
I draw the line at a genocide and at everything this neoliberal party stands for. I am not giving that party my approval because it is going in the exact opposite direction of what I stand for. At some point, the lesser evil is too evil.
They already lived through 4 years of Trump and have decided it is worth doing it again instead of letting the party most currently responsible for said genocide to win.
Point being that Harris has outright refused to meet any sort of demands on Israel. There was no reduction in arms nor any restrictions placed on Israel, and Harris fully intends to continue that policy.
If she loses, it means that she failed to meet her constituents demands, which means they’d have to actually meet them in the next election to win.
Also because I have a hard time seeing how anyone who lost entire family trees would listen to “uM AkShuLly TrUmP woUld bE 9999x WorSe, wE jUst NeEd tO ProTest aFTER tHe ELeCTion” as if we didn’t just full send billions of dollars in munitions and weapons to Israel.
If she loses there won’t be a next election
I know this is the argument people think is the most compelling. But in reality, this is not hitting with the electorate. Calling him weird was much more effective. Even post Jan 6th!
Trump bad, Trump fascist, for some reason that’s preaching to the choir; the urgency is already felt with the people who are gonna feel it. The campaign could realize this, and could pivot and focus entirely on abortion and economy, because they won’t touch the war. But Kamala is currently stumping with Republicans on a “Trump Bad” ticket. Fuck the Cheneys.
Basically Trump = fascist, even if true, is ineffective, and is losing the election as Trump picks up immigration votes from minorities and protest votes from Muslims.
it’s like people forget that trump was already president before. the Israel/Palestine conflict is not new. i’m pretty sure every US president since Israel was founded has supported Israel in every form the conflict has taken. there’s more gas on the fire now, but it’s not like trump wasn’t stoking the flames when he was president last time, and it’s weird to think he wouldn’t actually contine the bipartisan US policy of providing material aid to Israel, regardless of what fucked up shit they do.
both candidates will support genocide, so at that point you can either not vote, and just let the chips fall where they may, vote for a third party candidate who won’t support genocide (because they won’t get elected), or choose between the two genocidal options based on other factors, and try and minimize the damage in other arenas.
“We should vote for Strasser instead of Hitler because they’ll both kill the Jews anyway, but Stresser would be better for us”
Man, Americans really are way too comfortable supporting a genocide as long as they don’t have to be reminded too often.
Three points:
- Biden and Harris are right now with their actions physically supporting the Genocide. Trump talks about supporting the Genocide even more. Well, guess what: Trump lies shamelessly (as the Democrat propaganda here doesn’t stop reminding us of in everything but, “strangely”, not this subject) and isn’t even competent when it comes to actual execution. So on one side we have an absolute certainty that the candidate supports the Genocide and on the other one we have a probability that its so based on the statements of a known liar. I would say the claims that Trump is worse on this are doing a lot of relying on Trump’s word (on this subject alone) in order to elevate his evilness of this above that of people who are actually, right now, shamelessly and unwaveringly supporting the Genocide with actual actions.
- If the Leadership of Democrat Party manages to whilst refusing to walk back on their active support of a Genocide, win the election with a “otherwise it’s Trump” strategy, they will move even further to the Right because that confirms to them that they can do whatever they want and still keep in power. Now, keep in mind that the Democract Party leadership already supports Fascism (ethno-Fascism, even, which is the same kind as the Nazis practiced), so far only abroad (whilst Trump does support Fascism at home) so there isn’t much more to the Right of that before Fascism at home. You see, for a Leftie voting Democrat now will probably be the least bad option in the short term, but it’s very likely to be the worst option in the long term because it consolidates and even accelerates the move of the Democrat Party to the Right.
- Some people simply put their moral principles above “yeah but” excuses and won’t vote for people supporting the mass murder of children.
In summary:
- Trump’s Genocide support is a probability based on his word, willingness and ability to fulfill it (i.e. his competence at doing it), whilst Harris’ is an actual proven fact with actions happening right now.
- A vote for the Democrats whilst their policies are so far to the Right that they’re supporting modern Nazis with the very weapons they use to mass murder civilians of the “wrong” ethnicity, if it leads to a Harris victory will consolidate this de facto Far-Right status of the party and maintain momentum in going Rightwards. Voting like that is, IMHO, a Strategically stupid choice even if the case can be made (and that’s the entirety of what the Democrat propaganda here does) that Tactically it’s the least bad choice.
- Some people can’t just swallow their moral principles, especially for making a choice which isn’t even a “choose a good thing” but actually a “choose a lesser evil”, and “Thou shall not mass murder thousands of babies” is pretty strong as moral principles go.
i agree mostly with you, even thought i’m a foreigner. i’d just like to point out that even though there are doubts about trump continuing america’s support of a genocide (and i believe he won’t have that much of a problem since both major parties in america support it), there’s everything else about him.
and also, everything else about the dems too. let’s just say that major lawfare campaigns against progressive governments here in latin america have been conducted under dem rule in the u.s… brazil and uruguay had their coups d’état orchestrated by the johnson administration. honduras, paraguay and brazil suffered lawfare coups under the obama administration.
Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election
If you don’t live in one of the 7 states that matter in an election then you can vote your morality, safe in the knowledge that the EC will ignore your input, anyway
Inb4 some dipshit mentions down ballots when we’re talking about the fucking presidential election
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The U.S. also has a huge defense industry that has made people ridiculously rich at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Those billionaires are heavily invested in the defense industry, so it’s not in their interests that wars end at all.
This is that “military-industrial complex” that former President Eisenhower warned us about so many years ago. His concern was that the U.S. would become bogged down in an endless series of “forever wars” that do nothing but transfer wealth to the already-wealthy.
Keeping that military industrial complex well-fed is the reason why so many politicians have such a boner for war. Not only to keep their wealthy sponsors happy, but to keep tax money and jobs flowing to their states, which just happen to manufacture war materiel.
Solid analysis
Single issue voters just seem to be the excuse of Democrat party for if they lose.
Just like election fraud is of the Republican party.
Except the genocide is actually happening with their support
Both candidates will support Israel, so for pro palestine voters it’s a “Would you like to vote for the Shitty Party, or Less Shitty Party” situation, where not voting from these parties is shunned upon because it will help Shitty Party win.
It’s not just shunned, it’s literally throwing your vote away. Voting laws in the US, including the electoral college, mean that it is literally impossible for a third party to win the presidential election. We need ranked choice or other alternative voting methods, and the EC needs to go away.
your vote is worthless but you shouldn’t throw it away
It’s only worthless if it’s third party, sadly.
Never again means never again, I will not be party to it.
That’s too simplistic. The two parties will either make it worse or not make it better. Not voting (assuming you are in a state without winner-takes-all or are in a swing/purple state) is letting other people decide for you. Walking away from the trolley problem doesn’t untie people from the tracks.
Reddit logic isn’t going to convince me to support a genocide candidate, sorry. My vote was never yours. There’s no tent big enough that Dick Cheney being invited in won’t result in me wanting to burn the whole tent down.
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It’s a psyop
According to Kamala Harris, even black lives matter and the movement against police murder is a russian psyop.
The genocide is fake. It is all Russian AI.
Lol, living in a world where “anti-genocide” is actually a thing people say is messed up.
I think is actually kind of nice.
I mean of all species living on earth, human is the only species that would consider genocide a bad thing. Some random plant on prehistoric ages would just produce oxygen an cause a mass extinction without sweating it.
And for most human history Humans would actually try to genocide others.
At least now there is people who is anti-genocide. And it’s probably a growing stance.
Humpback whales have been seen interfering with killer whales that are attacking seals or dolphins. Maybe they don’t see it as “genocide” as they don’t have a concept of the idea, but there is at least some evidence of another species upset at, and willing to stop, the killing of another. I think by that logic, if they could understand the concept of genocide, they would consider it a bad thing.
I certainly doubt it. They would probably just be protecting themselves and their own kind.
If a humpback whale have experiences of killing whales attacking them or their offspring probably thought it was a good idea to do as possible to interfere with them. Probably would carry a genocide on orcas giving the chance.
I don’t think it is out of mercy. Mercy is something that is learning growing in a better environment that any animal growing in the brutal natural world.
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