My disenchantment is based on how differently the current administration reacts to 2 conflicts: Ukraine-Russia and Gaza-Israel, in the latter supporting Israel’s indiscriminate war against Palestinian civilians with the excuse to exterminate Hamas. This post summarizes my disappointment after finally accepting that the US is not the benevolent hegemon I thought it was and how even the supposed American liberals, the democrats, while publicly calling the Israeli government to restrain itself, keep sending them every weapon they ask for and protect them at the UN with our veto. I’m now politically orphan.
I always thought America stood against bullies, America was the great nation, a country where we help others protect their human rights, fight authoritarianism of any kind, be it left, right, religious… the way we did with Ukraine against Russia. Ukraine fits here because authoritarian Putin decided he couldn’t accept an independent Ukraine anymore: I’m all for sending Ukraine the means they need to defend themselves to deny authoritarian Russia a successful occupation. The Ukrainian war is not a morally gray one like the ones in Iraq or Afghanistan, this one is black and white. Putin has to be stopped. America is here on the right side of history supporting Ukraine.
However, in Gaza, America doesn’t act like the benign hegemon I thought we were, but like a external power supporting a client state: Our government supports the indiscriminate bombing of Palestinian civilians in the name of fighting terrorism and calls everybody that questions the narrative that Israel is fighting against terrorists an antisemite, yet ignoring that Gaza has been an open air prison for 20 years and that these conditions make it ideal for fanatics and hate to thrive.
No, I’m not an Islamist (I don’t care about any religion) and no, I don’t want Israel to be wiped off the planet and no, I don’t have anything against Jews or Israelis, and no, I don’t deny the holocaust and the 6 millions of Jews who were murdered. It’s ridiculous to have to say this before even criticizing Israel.
America loves to support Israel’s right to defend itself, yet this same right in practice means carte blanche to kill Palestinian civilians as well, destroying their hospitals and their capability to function as a normal society. The Israeli army and government are not behaving any better than the Hamas fanatics that invaded Israel and killed 1300 Israeli civilians, the Israeli army has killed far more Palestinian civilians than Hamas did when they invaded Israel, yet simply saying what I did, simply comparing both sides like I did or calling for a cease fire gets you labeled an antisemite, hoping that simply uttering those words will make everybody rally against you and justify killing Palestinians.
A life is a life everywhere. All lives matter.
No, not every Palestinian is a terrorist, yet the media and the Israeli and American right insist in no making distinctions, make no effort to create a separate Palestinian state and keep not questioning the conditions of deprivation that will make another violent reaction against Israel in 20 years possible, when the current Palestinian children, now bombed and homeless, grow up and reach maturity, accusing Hamas of hiding behind civilians, ignoring that the policies of the Israeli right created them.
And our government does nothing to stop that. Worse, keeps arming and protecting the other side, the more powerful side.
Where do I go now?
The us political system isnt about voting for who you want doing what you want. Its about who’s gonna kill less people over time sadly. Dems are center right and GOP is far right but we dont have a choice we can go for that wont result in a split vote allowing things to get even worse. The american political system is broken trash and there isnt room for a third party very very on purpose.
But was it really on purpose? It could very easily be an unintended consequence.
Even if it wasn’t on purpose in the very beginning it was obvious very early that politics were coalescing in two coalitions. The US had 200 years to fix the problem, and there are plenty of examples and alternatives on how to fix it around the world but it chose to keep its system. So, right now, it’s very much on purpose.
There are two things you do when voting in a two-party system:
- Vote to keep out the candidates that would do real damage
- Vote to communicate your preferences for candidates with platforms that match your priorities
I know it seems like a third party is the only solution to your current situation, but it’s not. The solution is to keep the idiots out by voting Democrat in general elections, and then to vote in primaries or with your campaign contribution dollars for Democrats who match your views on Israel/Palestine.
You might also support candidates who are in favor of voting reform, including things like ranked choice voting, which also happen to be people who currently run as Democrats.
Yes, exactly. The short term solution requires that people recognize the greater evil in the room and defend what little progress we’ve made. We can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Our first part the post voting system is horrible, but until we can build up enough progressive movement to update it to a better system, priority 1 is exactly what you said.
Choosing not to vote for Democrats because they’re not perfect is choosing to step back and give republicans a free ticket to burn all of our progress to the ground. It’s naïve to think otherwise.
And honestly, that naïveté is holding us back from actually addressing issues like us aid to israel. Enoguh splintering among progressives will by default give control back to republican leaders who would happily sit back and watch palestinians die while lying about it and blaming it on anything anyone else other than themselves.
but until we can build up enough progressive movement to update it to a better system
We also need to try and expose as many people to the alternatives as possible. Anyone who can should be trying to utilize RCV. Trying to figure out what game(s) to play at game night? Use RCV. There are plenty of free apps out there to facilitate.
The more people who use it, see it’s benefits and that it’s not as complicated as people make it out to be, the faster it will happen.
Instant runoff voting is terrible and more complicated than people think, and I will never support it. It’s a false improvement whose adoption will discourage meaningful change.
If it’s a single winner election and you want a simple improvement, use approval voting. If you want to take on a little complexity for some further improvement, use delegable yes/no voting. I have one idea for further improvement, if anyone is really interested in voting methods.
There is no problem so bad it cannot be made worse. Look at more than one issue, and vote carefully.
This rule hasn’t changed.
Protest, write your officials, work on primary campaigns. Make it clear how you feel and then vote for the candidate that will do the least harm actually.
So yes for local races or races that are competitive third party sure. My supervisor is a socialist he’s great.
For federal elections harm reduction and accountability is still the answer
A third party vote for president gives us a fascist dictator which is easily the worst possible option
I’m with you on this feeling sick of this war and the endless apologia but the tide of opinion and our policy is shifting. There is a huge generational divide on this issue that cuts across party lines
You have no choice.
The US political system is utterly rigged in many, many ways to prevent the emergence of a third party.
In order to change this, the American public would have to somehow pressure both parties to agree to pass many laws, at the federal and state and county and city levels to /effectively/ alter the system.
They are of course never going to do this.
The only possible way to throw off this deathgrip is to somehow get an ‘extreme’ member of either party to become that party’s nominee.
This has been attempted twice in my life time:
Ron Paul was ‘the internet candidate’ of many young people who focused on his opposition to the Iraq War, Libertarian Economic and Social policies, either overlooking or being unaware of his ties to the rather unsavory John Birch Society, and the extremely ideologically fervent but ultimately delusional Mises Institute. Started on 4chan, hundreds of young Americans photobombed any random live newscast anywhere they could find with Ron Paul signs, raised millions for Paul’s campaign, functionally acting as his PR department as he barely had one and it was terrible, and they even raised enough money to rent a blimp, plaster it with Ron Paul banners and fly it around the country.
It didn’t work.
Later, Bernie Sanders emerged as a candidate in the Democratic primaries with a chance to shake up the Dem/Rep balance. The Democratic Party basically did everything they possibly could to sideline Bernie, handing the nomination to Hillary Clinton.
She of course lost to Trump.
Anyway, voting for a third party in America will statistically nearly never work on the Federal level. Even most Congresspersons and Senators in the past 20 years that have not been an R or D have been an ‘Independent’, nearly always being somewhere in the middle of R and D. You might have some third party candidate actually win on the State and Local level, but this is very, very rare.
Functionally all the voting for a third party does is remove votes from a more popular candidate with more moderate views.
Anyway, none of this matters: It was about a decade ago when a study revealed that Congress people of all kinds nearly never advance legislation that is highly popular among their constituents. They nearly always do advance legislation that will materially benefit their donors.
We do not like in a functional democracy or democratic republic.
We live in a functional corporate oligarchy, where hot button cultural issues are used to wedge voters, and massive PR and advertising campaigns are everywhere to convince the public that policies and legislation that helps businesses and hurts voters has a function deathgrip on the mind of the average American.
My honest to god suggestion to you is to either hunker down and form a local group of capable individuals to provide mutual aide to your local community as income disparity continues to rise, more and more become homeless, infrastructure continues to collalse, etc., or to get out of this nuclear armed banana republic with more guns than people, where somewhere between 1/4 to 1/3 of voters are so incredibly delusional and successfully propagandized that they believe a large amount of the Q Anon / MAGA insano-version of real life.
