For Harris supporters who oppose 3rd parties: 2 questions.
(1) How will you get the US to stop funding Israeli genocide?;
and,
(2), what are the chances of your proposal(s) succeeding before, say, 2075?
Here it is put simply for all who struggle with this decision, vote for the guy who has said he is going to do bad things if he gets elected again, or choose the lady who has a proven record of trying to help people who need help. It’s a pretty easy decision.
Trump lies a lot, including about the bad things he says he’s going to do.
Perhaps if the leader of Hamas, with the leader of Qatar, invited Trump to a great military parade in Qatar in his honor, with 1000s of American flags waving, a band playing Hail to the Chief near the red carpet rolled to the jet plane, Palestinian girls singing God Bless America to him, some Palestinian girl presenting him a huge bouquet of flowers, and some Palestinian doing a flawless and great rendition of Ave Maria, he might attend, and with it it might have greater consequences in the Middle East than Harris impotently wagging her finger at Netanyahu.
you’re demonstrating at least one logical fallacy - the false dichotomy that our only choices are “vote for genocide” or “vote against genocide”. this grossly misrepresents the situation. and I’m pretty sure you know what you’re doing.
if you want to change things, do it from the ground up not the top down. vote for the “little” positions, the local elections. they’ve put us in this position with these small roles and gerrymandering. fix the illness, not the symptoms.
If a pro-genocide Republican, a pro-Genocide Democrat, and anti-genocide 3rd party candidate runs, who should a voter vote for?
Ooooo! Can I play?
Let’s say that you have a pro-genocide Republican, a pro-genocide Democrat, and an anti-genocide 3rd party candidate, but the anti-genocide candidate also wants to give all school children machine guns and grenades, and require cars to intentionally run down pedestrians?
Or or or let’s say that the anti-genocide candidate’s campaign is so bad that her own party is telling her drop out? .
Answer your own questions!
(1) How will you get the US to stop funding Israeli genocide if the genocide harder guy wins?;
and,
(2), what are the chances of your proposal(s) succeeding before, say, 2075?
Harris supporters have a better chance over 3rd party supporters by multiple magnitudes.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a person like you’re speaking of, who is going to vote for a Democratic candidate but opposes third parties. They never oppose the existence of third parties and they often support third party candidates.
They just don’t vote for third party candidates in US presidential elections because that vote doesn’t do anything productive.
I’m all ears on what a third-party candidate who gets less than 5% of the popular vote will be able to do to stop the genocide by 2075.
5% gain cumulative gain per election x 10 elections (say 2032 to 2072) = 50%
And how does a 5% gain per election happen? When in USA history has there been comparable rate increase and how did that party accomplish it?
You vote for the conditions of your protests. If Harris is elected, you have somebody much more likely to cave to sustained public pressure to withdraw support from Israel and who is less likely to violently crackdown on protests. If Harris gets elected, that’s when you ramp up pressure on the issue with sustained protests. It’s idiotic that Biden/Harris are still maintaining that support for Israel in the first place, but I suspect there’s some realpolitik bullshit and Biden’s traditional outlook on American foreign policy behind that support and maybe there’s a substantive shift after the election.
If Trump is elected, you’re creating easily a dozen or more other issues for yourself to deal with, on top of Israel and you risk fracturing any potential protests you try to do for the Palestinians. You’ll have an establishment that’s more aligned with Israel, who won’t cave to public pressure, and who will likely use increasingly heavy-handed tactics against protesters.
It’s little consolation for Palestinians, but it can always get much worse.
So Palestinian-Americans, even those in non-swing states—including California, where I’d almost bet my $200 to anyone’s $20 that that state will go to Harris—should just shut up about Harris being pro-genocide for the next 90 or so hours (as they should have shut up about it for the past few months), and suck it up and vote for and the Democrats, including Harris, and in turn, reasonably assured that she, and other Democrats, from centrists to progressives, will nonetheless surprise us after 5 November and do a 180, or near 180, against Israel.
Had Gore been elected in 2000, we might not have gotten Iraq or even a 911, but neither would we probably have had an Obama, for better or worse.
IIUC, much of Carter’s retirement was building houses, giving interviews, writing books, and occasionally hanging out with current and ex- Presidents.
IIUC, much of Clinton’s retirement was working on his foundations, giving thumbs up to his wife’s career, and Lewinsky looking better over the next 25 or so years.
Obama has now volunteered to help save Harris’s campaign because she apparently can’t hack it without his or Cheney’s support, particularly with the current senile President saying stupid things and with the almost-as-old Bill Clinton doing almost as badly.
The truce in Korea was made a year or so after Eisenhower was elected.
IIUC, Nixon went to China, signed the first SALT treaty with the USSR, and ended American participation in Vietnam with the SVA actually holding off the NVA and VCs for about 2 years.
Under his Democrat successor, Israel signed a peace deal with a dictatorship, Afghanistan was invaded, Iran turned Islamic and hostages were held for months.
The Reagan/Bush Presidency ended with the end of the USSR and Warsaw Pact.
Under Clinton, Belgrade was bombed partially because people focused too much on his sexually exploiting his power imbalance with an intern.
Yes, Bush’s idiot son created disaster in Afghanistan and Iraq, but disasters continued under Obama, his presidency concluding with the Russian occupation of Crimea, Russia meddling in Donbas with Neo-Nazis serving as America’s proxies, the rise of Islamic State, temporary change in Egypt, and reportedly slave auctions in Libya.
For all his rhetoric, Trump’s Presidency was perhaps the most pacific Republican Presidency since Hoover—over 90 years ago.
Biden is elected with a lot of mail-in ballots (a great way for men to control the votes of their wives and girlfriends) and 16 months later, more of Ukraine is invaded. Genocide occurs under his watch, and instead of retiring gracefully as he perhaps should have 9 to 21 months ago, and give Harris a head start, we have a President calling about half of America garbage and this happening in Michigan: Harris Campaign THROWS OUT Muslim Leader From Rally.
Do you think Liz Cheney or her father, Darth Vader, will oppose the genocide?
Would you welcome an endorsement of Harris by Dubya Bush?
but I suspect there’s some realpolitik bullshit and Biden’s traditional outlook on American foreign policy behind that support and maybe there’s a substantive shift after the election.
I’m sure similar was said in late 1976.
The 1992 election coincided with Fleetwood Mac (cued). (“Don’t. Stop. Thinking about Tomorrow. Don’t Stop. It’ll soon be here [… oooooo, don’t you look back.]”)
Ah, those were the days: the fall of the Berlin Wall and that stupid war in Iraq about 2 years past.
2008: “Yes we can.”
“A vote for Stein [or West or Oliver] is a vote for Trump.”
Sorry, you realpolitik-types need to do better.
So downvote me, like many others are, because I think a vote for Harris is a vote for Trump-lite.
Palestinian supporters are free to keep bringing the issue up and I think they should keep building momentum around it. It’s certainly relevant as the genocide is ongoing, nobody said they should “just shut up about it”, BUT given the current situation in American politics right now, it’s fighting for attention with everything else going on. At best, it’s noise that people can easily tune out because Americans are FLOODED with political messaging right now. At worst, some on the Left may even be somewhat dismissive because it’s assumed to be a disingenuous argument being made by bad-faith actors to divide the Left’s vote.
I realize how heartless this all sounds when people are literally dying by American weapons, but that’s where we’re at. After the election, the dynamic changes and you have less infighting within the Left around protesting about Israel and trying to split the vote and a much better chance of organizing around the issue. Don’t shut up about it, keep the pressure up, but the better time to turn up the heat is after the election.
Your voting system is broken. You can present yourself as a hero who is fighting against the system, but all you are doing is letting someone who will commit more atrocities into power.
Elect Harris. Protest peacefully. Put pressure on her that way.
I don’t support Harris, but I will vote for her because Trump winning will only make things worse. And accelerate the climate catastrophe, which will hurt everyone who lives here, animals and plants too.
As far as how I will get the US to stop funding Israel… I won’t. It’s a bigger problem then myself.
But, organizing outside of the election cycle is the way to do it. Protests, strikes, not paying our taxes. Those are the ways to change things.
A third party protest vote won’t change anything. It will just get your candidate and those who voted for them blamed for spoiling a two party election and putting Trump in office.
P.S. The framing of your question sucks btw. For reasons I pointed out above (I don’t support Harris, and I don’t propose that I can do anything personally to stop the genocide outside of organizing with others. And, if Trump is elected, the genocide will accelerate and likely spread to other middle eastern countries, and everyone will be suffering greatly by 2075 due to climate change).
How will anyone get Trump to stop funding Israel and ramp up US support?
What are the chances it would ever happen before Gaza is part of Israel after the Palestinian people are functionally erased after Ben & Dons bloodbath for votes and money?
This is an infinitely harder task than using citizen power to pressure Harris. So if you expect answers to your questions, I feel these need answering too.
Edit: and don’t forget Don would allow the genocide of Ukrainians too. And trying to stop these things could end with troops in the streets because he’s flat out said he would.
For third party voters in the US: What do you think is the effective difference between voting for a third party and throwing your ballot directly into a garbage bin?
In my state, getting at least 2% of the vote for either Governor or President in a general election keeps the Party on the ballot for the next election.
Without hitting that 2% threshold, the party loses its official status and has to go back to petitioning status, which means resources are tied up both canvassing for tens of thousands of signatures and fighting in courts to get reinstated. So it’s a perpetual ground game and prevents the party from taking off.
The Libertarian Party has remained above that threshold for about a decade now, the only third party to do so consistently, and that’s pretty scary.
What if you live in a non-swing state?
If 5 million Californians who voted for Biden instead voted for 3rd party, that state would probably still go blue.
The popular vote has some weight. Not enough to award Presidency, but it can be used in arguments for eliminating the electoral college, implement RCV, and other improvements. Narrowing the popular vote gap makes it harder to make these arguments.
The US is a broken democracy. But unfortunately right now the only way to salvage anything and even get a chance of reforming it ever, you have to vote for Harris. It’s sad and the rest of the world would be laughing at you if it weren’t this serious for all of us. Please get Harris in and then suggest a move to a more pluralistic, modern democracy after. The other candidates will not matter in the current system. All you do is helping whoever wins.
(1) How will you get the US to stop funding Israel
Bullshit.
The bonds between Usa and Israel are so much tighter than this current conflict.
They are also independent from such minor nuisances like a current election.
Ideally the ongoing schism in the Republican party continues and they return to some semblance of civility.
On top of that, ideally the party splits into two and alternate voting schemes start gaining traction in red states. There are a few blue counties experimenting with them, but I’ve seen none on the red side. There is no chance ranked voting gets to the state level until both sides agree to it.
Democrats want to maintain the status quo for as long as possible to get through the election cycle. Once they get the next 4 years secured and know what the house/Senate looks, like they’ll have their pick to proxy war in Israel or Ukraine. Or Korea. Or Taiwan. Maybe a wild card in the Horn of Africa.
return to some semblance of civility.
Surely not within the next few years.
