politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Nobody thinks they are entitled to votes. This is about triage during an emergency.
To make it simple, let's assign a number out of 100 - Likelihood that a second trump presidency enthusiastically and loudly helps Israel escalate and "finish" their genocide in Gaza: 98.9
Likelihood that post inauguration, a Harris presidency does something that doesn't go as far as the above, but still does meaningful damage, just more quietly through diplomacy and weapons shipments: 32
Now it isn't great that the Harris number isn't zero, even negative, but the reasoning for her campaigns current position is likely a combination of election politics plus the vestiges of Biden's outdated and misguided position on blind support for an Israel that's in his mind and not in front of him.
So first up in a triage... You get Harris in because less likelihood for absolute annihilation. I'd then wager a likely softening at worst to full end of support at best once Biden and election are out of the active picture. Most importantly, we eject Harris because a Harris presidency will preserve your right to protest Harris. A second trump presidency likely leads to the end of American democracy and the freedoms Americans take for granted.
After a Harris admin victory she needs to be sworn in the following January, but on day one, I fully support that we FILL the streets across the country, a la Vietnam era protests. We block freeways and interrupt commerce until a Harris administration ends all US support of Israel's genocide. We will have that right and that chance with Harris, you'll get shot in the fucking eye and tackled into an unmarked minivan if you try that in a second trump administration.
Realize the weight of this decision, and listen to Stein's own campaign telling you they are doing to get trump elected. Time to get WIDE awake and ADULT on the reality here.
I'm familiar with First-Past-The-Post voting and the spoiler effect. I'm also familiar with choosing to vote for whom you'd prefer to fight when elected. We are dealing with the crimes of crimes here and I can absolutely understand anyone whose family is affected to not want to take an active role in their killing. Especially since the campaign has not signaled to that voter block, that they are seen or heard. The best example is denying a Palestinian-American a shortened and cleared speech at the DNC. It could have been only a ceremonial thing, less weight than lip-service, but they opted for exclusion instead, i.e. the opposite.
My main point though: How can this party not be clearly ahead of that menace to democracy and its institutions? This one voter block should not be the deciding thing. Overlooking the agency of the Democratic Party in this and putting full blame on the people rubs me very anti-democratic. Implying them to be immature and other forms of voter shaming is not making a good case either.
If you're in a poorly made boat that has a hole in it with two other people...
And you are all actively sinking in that faulty boat, about to die in the middle of the ocean...
And one of the people states they will make more holes so you all drown....
And the other wants to work to keep the boat floating enough to get to shore, but not to your ideal...
Who do you help in that moment, or do you fold your hands and sink on principle? And you understand that sinking is not a neutral, moral victory here, because you've effectively supported the person who wanted to make more holes and sink the boat.
If you don't get to shore, you won't live to attempt to sue that horrible boat company to hold them accountable and keep others from using their faulty boats. And if you don't help the person bailing out water, the person making more holes will kill you all with less effort.
The "people" above are to represent general philosophies of the two "sides" in this discussion, not individual candidates. There is no option to truly stay neutral here, direct action or willful inaction, both have impacts that you are responsible for.
What do you do?
Look, I get what you are saying and even agree to a certain degree. Yet, the premise here is that one of both parties is opposed to genocide, which is false. For the affected voter group, who are getting shamed for making the crime of crimes their litmus test, both people are trying to make more holes albeit of different sizes.
So, what would you do? I would probably throw both of them over board ;)
The boat is already full of holes, so who put them there? Why didn't they spend the last 4 years patching them, why haven't they thrown the other guy off the boat already, and why have they adopted his boat-cutting rhetoric? Why do you have to deny the democrat's agency in this situation in order to make your point? Their platform is not immutable, it can and should change to one that captures more voters, and the fact it hasn't at such a supposedly critical point with such loud opposition should be a clear message to you: either this election isn't as important as they say it is, or they think they can leave us behind and we will vote for them anyways.
This does not bode well for your future protests, which by the way have already been happening on college campuses and have been met with police violence, uncontested smearing in the media, and not even the barest minimum of defense or policy change from your candidate and current vice president.
You can sit here and try to convince me and the other guy all you want but ultimately we snd the rest of lemmy are a drop in an ocean. Nothing will change unless there's a change in strategy at the top. Their strategy is actively working against your efforts to convince us and yet they urge you to believe that Trump is the most dangerous man on the planet and that they fear for the country if he wins.
If this is true, then why aren't they running a more dynamic and broad-reaching campaign and making real compromises with voters that would split their vote if they broke away? Do you not see the glaring contradiction in their actions vs their words? Is that really a strategy you want to endorse? To promote fear instead of democracy?
Do you not see the value in demonstrating that their losing strategy is, in fact, a losing strategy? How it does you a disservice to cave so easily - to genocide, I might add - without first making demands? What should motivate them to meet your demands if you're just going to vote for them anyways and you never exercise any of your bargaining power to make them sweat?
You're argument hinges on a "both sides are the same" false premise. It's just not true. January 6th was unprecedented in the 250 years of this country. Things are different, this is not the time historically for political posturing. This isn't a Romney versus Obama election. Shit is fundamentally different and you're likely operating from the muscle memory of a time when it was a more of a "polite disagreement". This is the "grandpa sitting with an assault rifle at the polling place" timeline. Wake up.