On one hand, you have people who are mostly comfortable with letting Palestinians die. On the other, people who openly talk about nuking them.
You have a group of people who may be willing to throw minorities under the bus. And you have another group that is waiting for the opportunity to do so and make it law.
Both choices are terrible, I agree, but there is one that is a clear better over the other. It sucks, but you have to accept that it’s the way it is for now and you are not going to pull some third party out of your ass. That is going to have to wait for now. You have to make a decision between the lesser of two evils.
I’m counting on you, Americans. As a trans woman from a European country which political climate is heavily influenced by yours, I can quite confidently say that my rights are in your hands.
Quite frankly, I can’t think of a more terrifying thought, but it is what it is.
Don’t fuck this up. Please.
I know as Americans we consider ourselves the center of the universe but this is one of those things that warrant it.
With Trump’s last win we saw Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Philippines, Australia, and Italy (just naming a few) in power crazy nut jobs. Attacking your community, immigrants, and the poor bc the US had someone spouting shit daily and being racist/anti immigrant was openly supported. It is like a virus, it spreads.
I hope we crush is attempt to be president again but you never know. We need the young people and millennials to vote. It’s hard though.
Stay safe and I hope we have a bright future to look forward too.
I know as Americans we consider ourselves the center of the universe but this is one of those things that warrant it.
With Trump’s last win we saw Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Philippines, Australia, and Italy (just naming a few) in power crazy nut jobs.
If you argument is that US presidents set global trends than see exhibit a) Palestinians for the future of how the U.S. and other western countries will treat their citizens and how institutional power will utterly deny it the entire time.
If Biden does not stop this genocide now a new era of violence is being normalized and in conjunction with climate change destroying food security and access to clean water it is going to be very very dark.
If Biden does not budge on Palestine even though there is a strong and clear signal from the American people to do so than we have already lost and people upset at me for not not voting for Biden (if he continues to refuse to budge) are yelling into the void.
If Biden does not budge on Palestine even though there is a strong and clear signal from the American people to do so than we have already lost and people upset at me for not not voting for Biden (if he continues to refuse to budge) are yelling into the void.
I agree we have a lot of issues but we can fix them if we decide to. I could agree that the Vietnam war / civil rights period was worse. We pulled ourselves out of that but we failed to learn from it. People got complainant and money started to flow so everyone accepted it.
By not voting we will see something worse. The Republicans have said multiple times they want to wipe the Palestinians off the earth. They want Russia to succeed in Ukraine. Civil rights wiped away. The environment set on fire. That is a lot worse than now.
Putting our hands up and saying nothing can be done is a farce. By doing nothing we are complicit. Vite like people’s lives are on the line bc they are. Next election vote for a local candidate with more “extreme”(national healthcare , universal schooling, climate protection plans…etc) views. That is how you change stuff. You keep doing that until the top is like the bottom.
If Biden does not stop this genocide now a new era of violence is being normalized and in conjunction with climate change destroying food security and access to clean water it is going to be very very dark.
Are you worried about Biden winning? This is not even a question. Understand everything you wrote there is 1000x worse under trump. The things you’re talking about fixing can only happen under Biden.
Seriously, it’s no joke that it’s exactly the same message as russian propaganda to say ‘biden loves genocide, don’t vote’. If anyone thinks that’s actually the path to a better tomorrow they’re useful idiots.
new era of violence is being normalized
I dunno it seems pretty much the same as the old era of violence to me, where Israel was still occupying the region and still doing a genocide and a million Iraqis died in a meaningless war for oil rights to avoid gas prices climbing by 5 bucks
No matter who wins this November, Palestinians are still going to suffer from this genocide, because neither side is going to stop Israel. It’s not going to be better or worse with Trump, because those people are still going to be dead, and the only difference is how long they have to suffer before they die. Arguing over which death is more humane is shockingly immoral of us.
As Americans, we don’t get to absolve ourselves from that guilt by voting for Biden. We’re directly responsible for allowing our nation to come to the point where this is our only choices. Israel may be dropping the bombs, but it’s America that’s killing them. We’re voting for the lesser evil, but evil is still evil, it’s all the same, and you and I, and every other American, are guilty as hell for it. We’re all mass murderers, and we’re all sleeping soundly at night.
Because we voted for the lesser evil.
it’s not going to be better or worse with Trump,
It’s not going to be better or worse with the guy who wants them to ‘finish the job’ and famously broke with even usual conservative orthodoxy to support Israeli genocide?
Whether it’s the guy who wants them to kill every Palestinian, or the guy who is gonna sit there and let them kill every Palestinian while wringing his hands and reaffirming the unconditional support for Israel, the Palestinians are still dead and murdered. The fact that you’re arguing that one side is better is absolutely fucking absurd.
that’s… not how it works. your vote is not an endorsement. plenty of people will openly protest against support of Israel while voting for Biden. you can actually break it down to pragmatic logic instead of the entirely incorrect broad strokes that you have done.
also your take smells like bot farm propaganda.
Congratulations you’ve been re programmed by tiktok to think cheetoman is the same as sleepyjoe
Biden is actively sending more weapons to Israel right this moment. The difference between Trump and Biden is that Trump hasn’t gotten a chance to actively participate and support genocide yet, and Biden has not only done that, but continues to express unwavering support for that genocide. So you’re right, Biden and Trump aren’t the same. They might be, if Trump wins this November, but right now Biden is objectively worse.
Nah. I voted for the lesser evil my whole life and the DNC decided they get to decide the president rather than the people.
Burn it all
That’s how I felt in 2016.
We can all see how well that worked out. Never again.
that’s nice if you actually burn anything. if you just don’t vote then you’re just going to get stomped by fascists. either you actually commit to that level of action or you get rolled by those that do.
that’s just an empty welcome to the fascists of it’s not backed by meaningful planned action. the only way what you said will work is of you’re ready to fucking go the second trump wins. he’s not leaving otherwise. so either you’re in a militia or you’re pathetic and part of the problem.
amen. that’s why the left is so bad, politically, and the right is, well better. they whine but keep voting. the leftists just whine and do nothing and get mad that the guy they didn’t vote for didn’t win.
DNC decided they get to decide the president rather than the people
I’m sorry which side of that debate says we should have counted donations instead of the actual votes?
All but outright saying “only the bougie white kids should count at the polls!” and yet somehow the DNC are the ones who are the threats to democracy and subverting the will of the people because they checks notes counted the ballots cast for all the candidates in the race.
Just about figures that the “voting bad!” screechers think that voting in the primary is somehow putting the fix in.
Hey, if you’d rather have the Republicans open fascists in power, you do you. I question your survival instincts, but still. I just hope you’re just a tiny vocal minority, otherwise we might be all fucked. Or, if you’re not a vocal minority… well, I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.
We’ll see I guess.
Trans people are under attack with our current administration. No reason to fear a future that’s already happening.
Assertion: You live in an entrenched two party system.
Scenario: Only concerning ourselves with voting, which party do you vote for?
I bring this up as a person in America who has beliefs that do not fit into either of the two parties. Some of my preferred policies are backed by one party, some are backed by the other, some are backed by neither.
I take action beyond voting like working to switch the voting system to approval voting, but I’m going to limit the discussion to voting because that’s the bare minimum everyone should do and your vote won’t be contextualized by the candidates, it will look identical to all the other votes.
Both choices are terrible, I agree, but there is one that is a clear better over the other.
One wants you to boil alive slowly and the other wants to dismember you with a chain saw.
We need to vote for the boiler and hope we can convince him not to turn up the heat again.
But also, if we’re in bright red or blue states voting has no impact on the end result. It’s just a way to wash our hands of the guilt of supporting the other guy.
As a trans woman from a European country which political climate is heavily influenced by yours, I can quite confidently say that my rights are in your hands.
That’s crazy, because I assumed you could also vote and that voting was the only real solution.
Are American votes now the only votes that matter?
and that voting was the only real solution.
lmao
Just because you believe that voting cannot be part of any solution doesn’t mean the rest of us just believe the exact opposite. What are you, in grade school?
you believe that voting cannot be part of any solution
It can only be a solution in a state with a functional democracy. Texas does not have that.
One wants you to boil alive slowly and the other wants to dismember you with a chain saw.
No.
One is consisting of unimaginative and incompetent people, and people that want to do things but cannot due to the another group.
The other group is consisting of outright vile people that get off of other people’s suffering, religious fanatics that need some “noble lies” about things like trans people otherwise “they’ll throw away eternal happiness of the afterlife for the temporary happiness of this life”, and “good willing conservatives” that are fooled by the meaning of the word and think “even if all this turns out to be real hatred, the next government can just unlegislate the law”.
We had 8 years of the former in Hungary. The latter convinced enough “good willing conservatives” to vote for them. We no longer can “unvote” them, for another government to “unlegislate” horrible laws, and no government will unsteal money stolen by Fidesz oligarchs, unexpel kids from high school because Fidesz lowered the education age, and undo the countless other harm caused by them.
I don’t think a “world wide worker’s revolution” is coming. If it’s coming, it’ll be in current China style, and I got enough of mediocre dictators wanting to form society to their liking. If it will be somehow good, it still can’t undo the harms of the current system. And if the rise of Nazism didn’t lead to the second coming of Rosa Luxemburg, I doubt the current rise of fascism will lead to anything like that, and leftist movements can be easily crushed by a police state in their cradles. Hell, all they need is widespread alcoholism and overwork, like in Hungary where they weaponize doomerism.
One is consisting of unimaginative and incompetent people
Sadly, the Pete Buttigiegs and Krysten Sinemas of the world are fiercely competent in their pursuit of climbing up the political ladder and cashing out at the public’s expense.
We had 8 years of the former in Hungary. The latter convinced enough “good willing conservatives” to vote for them. We no longer can “unvote” them
The former paved the way for the latter. Perestroika opened the gates to the neoliberal barbarians, and when they were done looting the country it was ripe for a fascist revival. Every “we have to vote for the lesser of two evils” concession accumulated a bit more evil. And what you’re left with is a mafia in place of a government precisely because compromise after compromise whittled away everything the country had going for it.
I don’t think a “world wide worker’s revolution” is coming.
I don’t think Biden wins this next election. Not for all the screaming and left-shaming and "but Trump is worse"ing on the internet. Biden’s 2020 coalition is hemorrhaging conservatives as fast as its hemorrhaging college leftists. He can’t win Arizona, Nevada, or Georgia a second time now that he’s pissed away domestic good will on hundreds of billions in foreign military aid.
And if the rise of Nazism didn’t lead to the second coming of Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was killed in 1919, by the German State Police, as they sought to quell student protests. She was arrested by the Freikorps and tortured before their execution. This was the year before the formation of the NSDAP. The leaders of the Shanghai Commune of 1927 suffered a similar fate under Chiang Kai-shek eight years later. It was Luxemburg’s death, and the exile of Zhou Enlai, that heralded the ascension of the then-modern fascist movement.
This occurred under moderate governments. One might even call them Bidenesque. They cleared a path for the fascism that swept through China and Germany over the next decades under ostensibly liberal democratic rule.
What we’re seeing in Palestine and Ukraine and Argentina and India - and reflected in Columbia and UCLA and UT@A, via a militant police backed by far-right local militias - is a tide of fascism that won’t be stopped by a bunch of liberal enablers. Hundreds of Rosas are dying to Israel bombs. Hundreds more are being rounded up and brutalized by American police. They’ll keep appearing, because this amount of pain and fear is intolerable, and has to be resisted at all costs.
And if you think that resistance to fascism amounts to
mediocre dictators wanting to form society to their liking
then I gotta question what you’re going to do now that fascism is on your doorstep.
I’m voting for the lesser of the two evils, which is Blue, in yet another fucked up election. Read your damn history, the US politicians, Blue and Red, always give Israel a blank check for weapons to continue the family blood feud over lots of dried up rocks. Do your civil duty and vote.
If everyone who says that gets more active at the local level, we have four years to make the choices different next time around.
People generally don’t like actually participating in democracy. And fuck, who can blame them? The essential feature of changing policy in a democratic polity is the hard, arduous, thankless fucking task of fighting an apathetic or actively hostile majority. You don’t get to be a hero. You don’t get recognition. You may not even see any change at all from your own, personal efforts, sometimes not even locally. Success is measured on the scale of decades. It’s fucking miserable. There’s no sudden wave of support to ride to victory, there’s no cheering crowds showing your opposition how utterly defeated and isolated they are, like you once were; there’s no moment of vindication. It’s nothing but struggle, toil, and tedium.
Yet, that is how societies change.
The essential feature of changing policy in a democratic polity is the hard, arduous, thankless fucking task of fighting an apathetic or actively hostile majority.
The TikTok ban flew through. The '08 bank bailouts passed practically overnight. War bills for rammed through in a matter of months. Weapons deals are routine and tax cuts happen under every presidency.
The corrupt legislation doesn’t need to walk this arduous road. And corporate lobbyists regularly tout their jetset cocaine and hooker lifestyle.
This is the real face of American democracy. Not an army of petitioners fighting bad weather and apathetic crowds to scrap out civil rights from a clumsy bureaucracy. It’s dudes in $10k suits wooing senators in wine caves and beach resorts. And those same senators denouncing their constituents as greedy, lazy, ignorant slobs when a protest over the latest turd of a legislative package comes through.
Success is measured on the scale of decades. It’s fucking miserable. There’s no sudden wave of support to ride to victory, there’s no cheering crowds showing your opposition how utterly defeated and isolated they are, like you once were; there’s no moment of vindication. It’s nothing but struggle, toil, and tedium.
Yet, that is how societies change.
Interesting.
Is this how the United States was created?
I thought that the Fourth of July was celebrating some other type of event
The US has a representative democracy. We elect people by voting so that those people can represent our beliefs in the action of government without us being there to make sure our voice is heard and considered.
While I agree that everyone should be more involved in civics, especially at a local level, it’s not really efficient for a society to implement a vanilla democracy. There are lots of other jobs like generating food/removing waste, generating energy/removing pollution, constructing/maintaining housing, transporting people including democratic representatives to and fro based on their obligations and desires, entertaining people so they can offset the pain in their lives and continue on with the struggle that is life, defend citizens from others or ourselves, etc.
Having a group of people act out government on our behalf is a good thing because we can specialize in other things to allow them to do so.
This all being said, there has been a disconnect with our representatives and with reality in general, so there is a giant need to reconnect with civic life in the US at all ages and at all levels for that matter.
Yeah, but that requires doing more than just doom posting, and we can’t have that now can we? /s
So many of the things people bitch about could be lessened (not necessarily resolved, but ffs, perfect is the enemy of good) by getting involved locally and trying to make things better for themselves and their neighbors. Fuck, even working on 3rd party support locally while stemming the bleeding nationally until there’s real ground level support would be better, but I guess we gotta tilt at windmills nationally and ignore the local level to get shut done…
always give Israel a blank check for weapons
This is not necessarily true right now. Biden has put conditions on arms use, he has been slow walking arms shipments and now has placed a pause on them, however Israel needs to be supported to avoid major wars breaking out in the Mideast. Unfortunately Biden cannot control Netanyahu any more than he can control the orange mobster - both are dangerously deranged.
however Israel needs to be supported to avoid major wars breaking out in the Mideast.
I don’t think this is true, except insofar as “Waving a stick at Iran every now and again” is concerned. And honestly, we do that bare minimum of discouraging aggression for a lot of countries, not all of whom we would consider allies or countries we support.
I don’t think this is true, except insofar as “Waving a stick at Iran every now and again” is concerned.
You’re almost in danger of deviating from neoliberal orthodoxy here.
I think @rayyy is right, unfortunately. If the West severs ties with Israel overnight (and suddenly stopping arms shipments would essentially be the same thing as severing ties), it’ll just create a power vacuum where Russia or China will cosy up to Israel instead. Israel has a lot of influence in the region - partially because it’s been propped up by US support, of course - and other countries would absolutely try to prop up Israel and capitalise on their influence in the US’ place if they had the opportunity. Which would perhaps slow down the genocide for a little while, but it would inevitably pick back up, but this time without the US/West having any influence at all.
Not to mention the fact that the US losing its influence over Israel would almost certainly destabilise the region. Iran would be emboldened, as you alluded to. Hamas would be emboldened, and while I take the side of the Palestinian people in this whole ordeal, I don’t think Hamas being emboldened would be a good idea - it would likely lead to further conflict and even worse suffering for the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey would all likely try to expand their influences, too.
Biden is trying to slowly reel Israel in while still maintaining US influence there. Partially because the US just wants to keep its power, of course, but also because it’s perhaps the best way to have some control over the genocide and over the region rather than just being an observer. I don’t like all the blood on our collective hands but I think that, at this point, the genocide would continue without us.
I absolutely think the fact that Israel has been put in the position it’s in represents decades of shortsightedness and foreign policy failure, though. Israel should never have been in the position to do this.
Keep protesting from now to the future until we get shit done, but vote Biden regardless. We’re stuck with this choice cause this is the only least worst option we have, voting red is just shooting oneself in the foot. Wish Bernie was still an option.
Also fuck the electoral college.
Cascadia is fundamentally a movement born out of the Northwest Imperative, AKA “white people going so nuts they want to make an actual white ethnostate out of everything from the Pacific coast through Northern Wyoming.”
Absolute know nothings are down voting you but it’s true.
Even Bernie is out there telling people to vote for Biden. If Biden doesn’t win, you might not get another chance to vote.
Might be like how Hamas did. They get elected and then immediately cancel all future elections, make democracy a capital offense.
How fucking stupid can you be? He is shipping weapons on over to Israel to continue the genocide in Gaza. Oh, they’re delaying the current shipment… So maybe he’s going to turn a new leaf? I’ll believe that when he comes out, says that he is no longer enabling genocide, and then sticks to it.
Use your own brain to figure that out. I’m not here to tell you who to vote for.
So you’re saying my choices genocide or genocide-lite?
Trump would be a shitshow again. Doesn’t mean I need to vote for genocide Joe
Not voting because bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe, even after the goddamned 2016-21 dark ages, is the leftist version of anti-vaxx anti-mask. Too many people seem to be equally lazy plus self-centered equals stupid, in all directions.
Whether it’s about putting a piece of cloth on your face or voting, they’re special; above it all; they know what the truth is, and we’re the dumb ones for not seeing it, we’re the dumb ones for doing something, for choosing a path of effort/inconvenience/civic duty instead of inaction. And we are the mindless herd to them.
EDIT: Then you tell them that republican and russian troll farms are flooding their discussions, concern trolling about genocide while russia itself is invading Ukraine with genocidal intentions, with the explicit intent to get them to not vote because they are manipulable in bad faith, and do they seem to care?
Voting for someone who is less bad is harm reduction. You can do harm reduction, while loudly proclaiming that it fucking sucks there’s not a better option, and working to provide better options.
I hate Biden. But I hate (and fear) the prospect of a second trump term more.
Yeah, I’m all for massive reform, and I’m definitely no fan of Biden, but compared to Trump he’s the only option. It a choice between having a broken country, or not having a country at all. (To not even mention the issues regarding the climate, which clearly Trump’s the worst choice for.)
It’s like they’re completely oblivious as to why Hillary Clinton lost in the first place.
It’s because THIS SHIT points around frantically ISN’T WORKING.
“Are we wrong? No, it must be the voters who are wrong, they just don’t realize how great we are!”
Clinton lost because she was yet another unappealing candidate in a long line of more of the same. The Democrats would rather let Republicans destroy the country than engage in the tiniest bit of reflection and admit that their platform is unpopular and needs to change drastically.
*way more
Trump is an existential crisis for enlightenment democracy. I know there are a lot of people on here who take pleasure in this, because they are privileged enough to feel safe. But there are also many more who will be harmed by American fascism far beyond what the simpleminded cynics fear.
While there are plenty of people that can keep the big picture in mind, unfortunately there are a critical mass of people who will get disenfranchised.
2016 was just 2 elections ago, and we seem to have forgotten the lessons from it. And Biden barely won in 2020.
Don’t let Trump win again because your loud dissent disenfranchised too many voters because the most important reason to vote blue was lost in the weeds - to literally fight fascists from completely taking the country over.
This is not hyperbole. This is literally their goal, and they say it all the fucking time.
i really do hate that this is the way things are, and that people seem to cope with this, but frankly, as long as someone is capable of understanding how fucking shit everything is first, before having an opinion on who is good/bad, is honestly IMO, going to lead to a better outcome.
I hate when people are like “yeah but it’s the least worst person” and people who are also like “yeah im never fucking voting for them because they suck mildly bad lmao” Shit sucks, there is only one way to cause change. It’s really not that complicated.
