These are people who would have never, ever voted for Trump, but billions of dollars are being spent by the Democrats to slaughter our loved ones and our families. Israel has been decimating south Lebanon, where many of our relatives live, and now this administration is deploying US troops to the Middle East. Not exactly a winning strategy if they actually want our votes.
Some people think of a Trump vote as a protest vote. I have heard arguments being made along the lines of “Trump is not the person who is committing the genocide right now” or “Well, we didn’t have any wars under Trump”. I personally disagree with this, and consider Trump to be a fascist and fearmonger who deeply traumatised our communities during his presidency. He was a hateful leader who slammed the door on refugees by implementing a Muslim ban. While he didn’t start any wars, he did escalate existing wars in the Middle East and vetoed a series of bipartisan bills that aimed at prohibiting arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
I have Ukrainian heritage, although I am a third-generation immigrant elsewhere. I have to ask myself, would I be able to grasp this point if I lived in a country where both parties funded Russia to invade Ukraine? I probably wouldn’t, because people are dead, and my family is still being killed.
Tell me: what is worse than that?
Voting for someone who will actively help kill your relatives, and then likely try to deport you personally from this country, would be worse.
Is it easy to think logically while the country you live in will not do anything other than fund the death of your family?
Also, while I think logically, you have clearly explained that you cannot vote for an American party without supporting “Voting for someone who will actively help kill your relatives…”, because “Virtually all the pols in DC are responsible for spending to support Israel”.
I think I can understand a bunch of Muslim immigrants, disliked by many for one or both of those features, feeling unable to make a good choice when given a choice that is - as you have said - no choice. Add ongoing grief and I, for one, can find it within me to extend compassion to them. You are named Boddhisatva, so would suspect you know the teachings of Lord Buddha, also.
i’m related to people who literally snuck across the mexican border themselves escaping their own violence and they full heartidly support trump and his efforts to close the border and turn away asylum seekers.
talk to any latino over the age of 50; especially mexican-americans protestants or cubano expats in florida and you’ll find that they’re a huge minority if not the majority.
it doesn’t matter where you come from or how you got here; the only thing that matters is what’s in your head today and it’s very easy to manipulate that.
your family’s death is going to be in your head today and the off chance of getting deported tomorrow is a second thought at best; especially when you don’t believe that it can happen to you.
The logical thing to do then. Well as logical as that situation gets, is just to not vote. Punishing one politician by voting for another that’s worse on every policy. Sends mixed to no message at all. And is just irrational self injuring flailing. But humans are very skilled at being irrational.
the logical thing to do is to understand where people are at right now; not where you want them to be or believe where they should be.
succumbing the pressures levied upon us has pressured us away from trying to understand our fellow countrymen and turned the american political discourse into little more than looking for an opportunity to dunk on your opponent or running into defeatist straw men like the one you’ve shared.
carving out the tiniest of releaf cuts from that pressure lays bare the reasons why kamala and trump are at 50/50 despite literally billions of dollars and generations of liberalization that should be helping kamala more.
Funny that you hypocritically whine about strawman when you start out with one. It is your MO though.
Understanding “where they are”, doesn’t make their actions any more logical or less self-harming. And implying that someone who calls their actions illogical and self-harming doesn’t know where they are coming from. Well if that’s your best argument, and it is. It’s pretty laughable.
what straw man was presented here?
Trump
In this situation, you don’t want Trump to be elected.
I don’t want my family to be dead, but they are already dying.
Forgive me but, in that case, I would very likely think you were being ignorant.
Unfortunately the election isn’t about whether or not the USA stops supporting Israel. There is no vote for that.
It’s about whether or not you want USA to be doing what it’s doing right now under control of people who will dialog with you about it (Democrats) vs. people who are just waiting for a chance to annihilate you entirely so you’ll shut up and they can get more real estate (Republicans).
Ah, so you are Russian. If you were Ukrainian and wanted your family to stop dying, then you wouldn’t be pro Trump.
I don’t think you’re very good at reading, or diagnosing nationality.
Killing innocent people is wrong and upsets people. Reacting to that with “you’re being silly” or “you’re a hostile actor trying to destabilise the world” comes across as extremely obtuse.
Trump has made it clear the gaza war will worsen with him in office.
So, I think you’re being disingenuous. Especially considering the direct quote was in the parent comment we’re all replying too.
I’m not convinced that I’m being disingenuous in saying that it is hard to support a party when it condones the killing of one’s family.
So I suppose you would vote neither party?
Party A is not doing enough to stop the killing and ‘condones’ (I disagree with that word and characterization) Party B has messaged that the killing isn’t going fast and hard enough and will give wider support to the killing once elected
Party B also wants to deport people of a certain heritage (multiple groups, not just the one) and perhaps you fall into that bracket? I really hope not.
If I lived in a country where both main parties supported Russia to invade Ukraine, I would not want to vote for either, no.
I would support the party which would reduce that support, or even oppose Russia.
Ok, so if both of these hypothetical parties fully and completely, without reservation, support the invasion (or let’s call it what it is, war) then there is not a lot you can do.
But it turns out one party has no problems with that invasion/war and supports it. Heck, they even tell others who protest the invasion to just accept it all as a fact and just deal and live with it. Also calls to surrender parts of your land because the leader of the invasion is having a certain ‘grip’ on the party leader.
The other party is lacking in action to change this outcome but has shown signs that they do not like the invasion but need to get/stay in power to try and stop the madness. But to get elected they cannot come out and say “we will stop the invasion” because that is a death-knell to their goal to be elected and in power.
As you see or can probably understand, you are not dealing with parties per-se, you are dealing with the populace who get to vote for either party. Navigating that populace to get elected is a tricky and a risky thing, before you know it you blew you chances and the other party wins.
This is truly the case of voting for the party who has some semblance of being able to do the right thing, even if it is late or voting for the party who has clearly signaled to be 100% against what you hope and stand for.
Best bet in this case is to vote for hope and possibility, not the surefire way the other party wants to dig a much, much deeper hole which will be infinitely more difficult to crawl out of.
There is no easy solution, only thing we have is choosing the ones who show a flicker of hope in doing better. Good luck!
Voting for the party which does not want to worsen the status quo might not work, considering the status quo is a minority of people exploiting the majority for power, and through doing that also making the environment worse for their descendants.
Let us imagine I am being told that I can vote for Party A, which will hasten to support the hostile government of another country to kill my family in (let’s say) 12 months. Or I can vote for Party B, which will put the breaks on so that it happens in 24 months, and they will also keep saying how unacceptable that is.
Is that really a choice?
No, it’s a straw man.
I’m sure it would be to someone who doesn’t care that innocent people are being killed, because that someone is not related to them.
I hear you on feeling like the lesser of two wrongs isn’t a choice.
But, if you had a choice between the two. Would you prefer to poke out an eye or burn a finger?
Both options being bad doesn’t mean they’re equally bad. And sometimes we really do have to choose between the better of two bad options.
That’s just life.
I don’t think either choices are comparable to widespread death of innocents.
It’s a trolley problem. Do you vote harris and kill X people? Or vote trump and kill X+X people?
The trolley will kill people either way. Do you let it lean left and kill some people? Or lean right and kill many more?
Better analogy?
I have no interest in the trolley problem.
Then why did you post this thread?
Because like it or not the current political system in the US is a trolley problem. It’s a very binary do we go this way or do we go that way?
If you have no interest in the problem, then don’t pay attention to US politics and don’t make posts about it.
Ah, says the person who takes an extremely simplified hypothetical moral problem that doesn’t tend to occur in real life and then equates that to a complex political system.
I have no interest in the trolley problem because it’s used by idiots to justify making the world worse. There is no lesson to learn from it, other than “people can rationalise any action”. I’m not having children, I hope your descendants manage to make the world better in your place.
I told you I thought you were being disingenuous and now you’re resorting to personal attacks calling me an idiot, and bringing my kid into it.
I think that says a lot about your ego. And any political positions you derive from it.
Nice conversation, take care.