And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
It’s simple, for a voter that doesn’t have other important things or believes the candidates to be equal in other things, like the economy, it becomes a moral choice to not vote for genocide.
If they believe there will be human rights violations elsewhere, like in the US, but one candidate and not the other, then the moral choice becomes to limit harm.
Much of this argument stems from different base assumptions, as follows-
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Neither Trump nor Harris will commit other human rights violations, and they are materially the same to my family; staying home is the moral action.
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Trump will commit human rights violations, voting for Harris is the moral action.
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They will both commit more human rights violations; staying home is the moral action.
The people who were saying to stay home and not vote fell into camps 1 or 3. If you’re unsure of why someone would believe in number 3 you should know we have illegal debtor’s prisons that are ignored by the federal government, LGBTQ abuse that has gone unchecked by the federal government, illegal denial of asylum directly by the federal government, … the list goes on. But rest assured there are reasons people would see them both as committing human rights violations in the US. This is not some Russian info op like the DNC fanboys would have you believe.
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Think of voting this way:
Signing your name to a candidate/psrty and what they’ve done/signaled they will do.
A lot of people can’t stomach a candidate who has been courting the neocons and softening their previous mildly progressive stances from the last time dems had a primary and the progressives were showing up in numbers. Everyone got in line and the debates were about M4A, erasing federally held student debt, raising the minimum wage, etc. Sanders single handedly dragged the party to the center (technically more “left” than they were) in 2016/2020 and the dems responded by po’mouthing like they cared about those issues, but then circled the wagons and kicked those voters to the curb.
The party has shown over and over again that they don’t give a shit about working class people, those of us that want real change. They want to maintain the status quo. Which is progressively more hostile capitalism.
Signing your name to that constant move rightward is unthinkable for some. And understandably so.
And that’s before we even discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza funded and armed by the US. While this administrations representatives in the UN and in any official capacity constantly run defense for the genocide.
Plenty of people could not fathom putting their name on that tragedy.
None of this means that republicans aren’t fuckin neofascist shits. But…how many times have the voters left of the dems been told to eat shit and vote blue because the other guy is worse? WHILE CONSTANTLY COURTING THE RIGHTWING VOTERS WHO MAY HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN SICK OF IT?! Kamala literally said she would be different from Biden by having a Republican in her cabinet. WHAT.
With everything going on, this party said, “yeah, fuck all that. Let’s see if we can grab anyone to the right of us.”
I got sidetracked, but this is the thing. It’s not binary, because geopolitics isn’t binary. The worlds issues aren’t binary. But a binary choice is all we’re given to make.
Just…what. And neither of those two choices was actually going to solve the problems. One was maintaining the problems while one was the problems plus more problems. That’s not an attractive choice.
We all get that trump is much worse. But everyone else needs to understand how sickening that shitty choice was for anyone with a conscience about what’s going on in Gaza, what’s going on with their neighbors. Signing on for more of the same was completely unthinkable for some. That has to be understandable if we are ever going to change things.
We’ve been on the road we’re being forced down now as long as I’ve been around. And the road just keeps going forward. The dems’ proposal is “maintain the course.” The republicans’ was “mash the gas.”
Some people couldn’t stomach going any further down this road. That’s not making a choice to mash the gas. Because the world is not binary.
But you and everyone else posing similar questions is saying “how could you vote for mashing the gas by not wanting to continue down this road?? :(“
I think people need to stop asking why didn’t people vote for Harris and as why DID people vote for Trump.
I think everyone on the whole, is completely underestimating the completely apathetic to politics voter. There is a TREMENDOUS section of the population that would sway from Trump if they felt energized to do so. Kamala was not it. Her policies were not it. Her stance alone on Gaza was not enough (but should not be dismissed).
People voted for trump because they: are a huge supporter, or they felt they had a fatter wallet during his administration. They feel burned by Biden and Kamala is more of the same. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
Biden shouldn’t have even run, no one wanted it. He even said he’d be a transitional president. Then he backed out and Democrats held no primary. Why would any apathetic voter (especially the ones who were unaware Biden dropped out, check google trends) vote for the guy who made their bank accounts smaller if that’s all they care about?
I voted for Harris but not without reservations. The democrats do nothing to resonate with the left, and continue to distance themselves from leftist policies, which were popular on ballot measures this election.
What’s the counter-argument in favor of genocide?
More importantly the vast majority of votes don’t matter because the system was created by slavers in order to guarantee their oppression never ends.
What’s the counter-argument in favor of genocide?
Thw arguement is the party that has been calling for a cease fire since the start if the conflict versus the one that will actively encourage Netanyahu.
I think there are no right or wrong. It became clear that both Democrats and Republic pushing the same exact support for Israel. When it comes to Palestine there are no lesser Evil.
Leading to this election, Israel burned hospitals and people in tent alive in Jabalia, barely any internet access, no water or food enters for almost 50 days now.
They carpet bomb gaza, attack UN bases, and finally declare UNRAWA can no longer work, another UN agency.
This is under Democrats. They already finishing the job.
Now what exactly Trump or republic will do is going to be the same. nothing will change because we are at the worst and there is nothing more they can do to make the situation even worse.
So if they are the same, and the government is not listening then what is the point of participation in election?
You are citing one subject here, Palestine. Yes, maybe under Harris nothing would have been different in regards to this. But it is pretty obvious, that under the orange shitstain’s regime, many people all over the world will suffer a lot. The point in participating in this election was to prevent that. You didn’t vote the special representativefor Palestine or some shit, but the president of the most influencial country in the world. Your actions have consequences. All Americans who voted for Trump or did not participate fucked not only themselves, but also so many millions of other people over, so I really thing, they should go fuck themselves.
And your playing whataboutisms. Those other issues are directly related to gaza.
The military industrial complex loves israel/Palestine conflicts makes them oodles of money. Hence both parties support israel and killing Palestinians.
The capital class loves suppressing wages and benefits. Hence no pro labor policies from the dems/reps.
The MIC loves the Ukraine war, see israel above.
Capital loves monopolies, less competition for workers, easier to raise prices, etc. again reason behind no labor policies.
LGBT? Same deal. Corporate doesnt care, hence policies generally go through.
The only difference between dems and repubs is one are religious fanatics. People in currently blue states are safe from them, those who are not, are not.
All the issues you think just got fucked are going to be mostly unchanged regardless whom won this election. Shitty states going to get shittier. All the lesser evil people will be laser focused on trump now and as a result the representatives will have to do real work.
The genocide and everything else are one and the same. One is just easier to articulate to people who have some morals, though some will continue the lesser evil nonsense.
In the meantime find the real progressives in your area and encourage them to run
You still think there’s going to be another election, huh?
this was a Russian troll campaign, in every tankie on Twitter that fell for it is a moron
Trump is no worse on Gaza than Harris/Biden. Biden/Harris have not really done anything to stop the war and instead keep letting Israel getting away with it, then encouraging it by giving them more money. Trump and Kamala are basically the same on Israel
However at least Democrats voice support for Gaza, as long as they are not in power (executive branch) at least someone will be fighting for Gaza.
In other words, a Democrat house will posture alot and slow down Israeli aid and try to push for more concessions. A Democrat executive and legislative branch will continue steamrolling without resistance
Hmm. Interesting argument.
Gaza was fucked no matter what, but some people thought the price of selling our country out was worth not ruining their perfect image of themselves.
If you never do anything, you never have to compromise your morals. Taps forehead
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
what moderation ? biden literally told everyone that ukraine is not even getting a paperclip unless we give israel 20 billion as well. he continued saying israel has unconditional support while we were getting footage of pregnant women & kids getting shot at idf or burning alive in hospital from use of incendiary shells. then harris repeated the same statement on live tv. all this while the working class has been struggling to survive, layoffs everywhere, and price of everything getting doubled.
its not something that can be washed with but that guy will do worse. you can look otherway but dnc basically threatened their voters base with more genocide if not elected. the fact we are even fighting over this instead mass protesting for biden and his administration to be prosecuted shows just how hollow & pathetic the dnc base has become.
There you go again.
Dems bad, who cares if trump is worse.
Well, you’ll get what you wanted when Israel finishes off Gaza and everything else, or starts WWIII when they can’t keep the bombs inside their extermination camp.
yes the 15 millions or so didn’t care that trump is worse because dnc has become bad enough and its not just the genocide in gaza. threatening people make them do irrational things, specially true for us americans.
there is solid basis that harris would have done nothing to reign netanyahu same as trump. she had accepted even larger donation from aipac than biden who was basically emptying our emergency stockpile faster than we can replenish. if anything there’s chance that trumps narcissism clashes with that stooge and he actually does something good for gaza out of his ego.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
And there was a strong push from the Russians.
People are tired of voting for the lesser evil. So now big evil won, and the idea is that that will teach little evil to stop being at all evil.
On a more serious note, I think for a lot of people Gaza was the drop that spilled the glass rather than THE reason they didn’t support Harris.
Non voters are just as responsible for the loss of democracy. They are not a single bit better than any MAGA even if they like to claim they are. They chose fascism over democracy
America hasnt had a democracy my entire life.
It did. It was just a flawed democracy. Now it will be full on fascism. So instead of hope it will get better one day it has gone the worst possible outcome and will not get better until the entire country looks like Berlin '45
What’s worse is they’re now acting like they got one over on the Democratic party like “ha, stupid Democratic party. I bet they won’t learn”. Like what? You played YOURSELVES, you’re the ones who are gonna suffer. You fucked yourselves over just to spite Harris? Wtf??
Fucking over the usa to own the libs
Lib v lib violence
Yeah, I have so many discussion with non voters who sre fucking stupif. “But but Gaza!!” completely ignoring how Trump was escalating the conflict when he was in power and how he praised Netanyahu for his handling of it. If the think the dems are bad for Gaza they have not paid attention to republicans.
It doesn’t have to make sense for people to convince themselves to do it. It will certainly lead to worse outcomes for gaza
If your morals disregard the probable outcomes and is more focused on normative rules you could make some arguments but that kind of purity won’t save a single starving child in gaza
Edit: spelling
Maybe people believe that it will save a starving child in the future. Like, some future where politicians finally listen to them?
Because they are poorly educated americans maybe
The result of 40+ years of republicans destroying the education system, who’d ever have guessed
wtf ? what kind of education you got to think that genocide should be non-issue for voters ?
They’re a trash person with no real empathy and failed to realize that arabs had control of 25 electoral votes.
Before I start let me note that in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election. Harris is on the way to losing all swing states. Her failure is much deeper than Gaza policy. Blaming anti-genocide voters for this is just copium.
With that out of the way, you can divide people with this position into two groups: Arab Americans and everyone else. Arab Americans are people who are feeling the genocide firsthand. So, obviously, they tried to appeal to the Harris campaign and get them to move from Biden’s position on the topic. The result: They were either ignored or antagonized by Harris. That led to the abandon Harris campaign in Michigan and elsewhere. Harris considered those people acceptable casualties in her failure of a campaign, and so they were burnt out and the momentum behind the Uncommitted movement and others turned from “let’s save our Palestinian brothers” to “fuck us and Palestine (because let’s face it, that’s basically what Harris was saying)? Then fuck you too”. Harris thew them under the bus and was thrown under the bus in turn. Maybe not very logical, but a very predictable reaction. Harris treated Arab Americans with just that much contempt, and then she and her enablers had the gall to tell the people attending a funeral every other day to “shut up and vote for her”.
Now as for everyone else, it’s a more simple instance of taking a stand against a politician for doing something you cannot accept. Now there is a pragmatic idea here that if you allow the DNC to get away with this they’ll think supporting genocide actually wins elections, or that their electorate are such pussies that it doesn’t matter what they think. Add in the goal of pressuring Harris to drop that policy that was important at the start of the Harris campaign and of course the idea of not wanting to vote for genocide and this was the result.
Of course it’s not all 100% logical, but there is logic here beyond “omg bad guy I no vote”.
Now that the election is out of the way, maybe I can continue talking about this. I held my tongue during the past months, but I think now is a good time to think about this result.
While the result is unfortunate and disappointing, there are sides to it that aren’t all that bad. They pushed towards the right, pandering, and now the voters told them that this isn’t a winning strategy. I think it helps setting them straight for the future.
I think you put it very aptly. Of course it would’ve been best if Harris had won, but at least now we can think about it from a neutral perspective: Had she won despite all the right-pandering and genocide-enabling stances, it would either send the message that pandering to the right works, and the progressives are, indeed, either too small a group to listen to in the future too, or too much of pussies to listen to in the future, too — they’ll toe the line no matter what kind of shitty positions you take.
At least now they know that a change is needed. It’s almost unthinkable to lose to such a weird fascist populist that barely behaves cohesively. They did, by ignoring the progressives. That means something. At least it ought to.
Things don’t often change unless things hurt. If doing shitty things keeps working, nothing changes. But when things hurt, it opens some eyes at least. Forces re-evaluation on everyone’s part.
But that being said, this fucking sucks. Despite all the reasoning we can do to make it feel a bit better, this really should not have happened.
There will be no more elections, do you guys not listen to what Trump says? The only way to have elections again would be a civil war and guess what, the fascists are the majority so fat chance of that happening
Over our dead bodies friend. See you at the polls like always.
do you guys not listen to what Trump says?
Yes that was one of the many outrageous claims he made.
Who knows which things he will actually try to do, let alone what he’ll succeed at doing.
Even with the house, senate and supreme court tilted right, I don’t see them succeeding on abolishing elections.
Well that’s naive. That has happened in many other countries before, and guess what the USA is not any different from them, so
They played this exact same game in 2016 and lost and yet they learned nothing. What makes anyone think they’re going to learn something this time? The DNC needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up to be a proper left party instead of this bullshit center-right garbage that they pretend is progressive or left.
EDIT: And I still held my nose and voted, because I will in fact take anything over fascism.
I’m not hopeful. I’ve already seen centrists and pundits saying that Harris lost because she’s “too progressive” and that Dems need to move further right.
Given Dems’ track record, I’m dreading 2028 is going to be JD Vance versus fucking RFK Jr. or Joe Manchin. At least the only silver lining out of THAT shitshow will be seeing the Democratic Party completely implode after completely alienating their voter base to become a carbon copy of the Republican Party (while Repub voters just keep voting R) and hopefully pave ground for an actual progressive party replace them, but that will hardly offset the horrors of 8 years of unrestrained fascism (assuming the left wins in 2032 🥲)
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement. Slotkin won the senate race, but Trump won by a narrow margin. Independent votes and low turn out siphoned off enough to make that happen. Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement.
I mean maybe (I haven’t seen the turnout numbers as opposed to protest/non-voters) but the point is that Harris lost before Michigan even finished counting. She could’ve won Michigan and she still wasn’t winning this, is the point.
Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
I mean yeah, because the DNC pushed an unelectable candidate whose position was a mix of “nothing will fundamentally change”, wishy washy non-promises and right wing positions. I doubt even 10% of the 15 million in reduced turnout came from Uncommitted and similar movements. The DNC blew it; it’s that simple.
Michigan and Wisconsin, 25 electoral points. You can’t just lose swing states like she did.
Pennsylvania absolutely over biden economic policies. Screaming the economy is doing great! I wouldnt change a thing! While people struggle to afford groceries isnt going to win you an election.
in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election.
Source for that statement?
What margin did Trump win Michigan by?
I don’t understand your point. I’m not talking about Michigan. I’m talking about the country.
What margin did Trump win the country by?
How many voters didn’t vote due to the genocide?
How many voters didn’t vote due to the genocide?
About 20 million?
[X]
Look at the votes that came in?
Kamala got 20 million fewer votes than Biden. You don’t think a significant amount of those weren’t related?
So, I’d say that looking at the votes means that it did have an effect.
Trump got a bajillion more votes than Kamala.
We have both cited the exact same number of sources.
What are you talking about? I’m the one that asked for a source, lol.
Some told me tO LoOK At tHe ReSUltS… so I did.
Morals and ethics are subjective and based on emotions. That’s why science doesn’t say what’s good or bad. I don’t think you can prove or disprove this argument. People who are strongly focused on Gaza simply reject views that challenge their own.
Personally, I don’t see morals as entirely subjective.
I’d say that ‘worst possible misery for everyone’ is objectively bad and any attempt to move away from that is better.
its arguable but not without merit. its very much the same as you don’t negotiate with terrorists. honestly its disgusting that we are questioning morals of not endorsing genocide instead of demanding aipac and dnc to be investigated for war crimes and defrauding its members for the 3rd election in a row.
questioning morals of not endorsing genocide
That’s a somewhat skewed lens to view it through, as not everyone agrees that what we’re seeing is a genocide. I definitely don’t think it is. I’m open to hearing arguments to the contrary, but so far, everyone I’ve tried discussing it with either gets emotionally captured or doesn’t argue honestly and in good faith, so the discussion goes nowhere.
i don’t know if i can help someone who is ignoring the obvious here which is being echoed by un and every major humanitarian org. if your just objecting from legal pov rather than moral then maybe go through the case prepared by south africa.
copy pasting some links from earlier discussions below on the moral and intent side of things which is based on the what they are themselves acknowledging or rather bragging.
here is one from their own newspaper: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/reservist-eulogized-for-desire-to-take-revenge-against-gazans-setting-home-on-fire-to-boost-morale/
this pos had already killed someone in westbank in front of his kids and wife before oct 7. anyone really believes idf full of slime like this aren’t murdering civilians even kids the moment they see them ?
here they are openly bragging about murdering pregnant women and kids : https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/israel-condemns-soldiers-t-shirts-depict-shooting-arabs/
another one sourced from their own posts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucfxj-faTWI
this has been ongoing since 1948: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjTxDYtNhno
If you can’t make an argument for your view using your own words, then I’m not interested in going any further with this.
👍🏻
Morality is not subjective. It is not (or at least should not) be based on emotions.
Is it moral drugs to children? Think long and hard before you answer.
Morality is most definitely subjective. Talk to different groups around the globe and you’ll find different moral boundaries. The morals posed by Islam differ from christianity, which differ from buddhism, which all differ from nihilistic views, and still further diverge from tribal morals of small secluded tribes of people. While they shouldn’t be based on emotion, they do tend to be reactionary and emotional at their outset. And breaking them within any particular group tends to get you strong emotional responses.
