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Opposing The Gaza Genocide While Supporting Biden Is A Dishonest, Nonsensical Position
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
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this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Because it’s him or Trump and Trump is demonstrably worse.
This article itself is deeply disingenuous calling Biden a tiny bit better on queer rights or the environment.
They’re not even in the same ballpark. Trump is a disaster for the environment, for reproductive rights, for minorities, and for the Middle East.
I would give anything for an alternative to Biden that wasn’t Trump, but pretending that voting against Biden would somehow be better for Palestine is insane.
Yeah, the author is completely phony. Just a russian/MAGA shill.
What if people stopped being afraid and voted for who they really supported instead of who they thought was more likely to win? someone like Cornel West or Jill Stein might actually win!
What is worse than a president who actively supports a genocide? So at worst it will be still the same no better or worse if Trump won. At least liberals would oppose it instead of justifying it.
It's two things. One is tactical voting, voting for a person who has an actual chance of winning. Neither Cornel West nor Jill Stein has a broad appeal outside far-left circles. Which brings me to my second point, people are, broadly speaking, voting for positions they support. It's a big tent party and Biden has spent his career moving around to stay in the middle of the Democratic Party.
A president that makes no attempt at restraining Israel. Biden might not be doing as much as many people would like, but he's doing something. The US is pressuring Israel to let more aid in, even if Israel isn't doing enough to comply. Israel has mostly held back from Rafah so far, which seems to be Biden's doing. And the direct Iran-Israel exchange has been kept to a minimum instead of an all-out war, also with US involvement. What could have escalated ended with Israel bombing a runway and Iran saying "whatever, not interested."
I simply cannot imagine Trump doing this. He has a history of being extremely deferential to Israel and Netanyahu. Think moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, scuttling the JCPOA, and in the Project 2025 document considers cutting US aid (this predated the current war). He stuck his son-in-law Jared Kushner on a mission to solve the conflict and the solution was swapping some of the West Bank's best remaining land for some desert. He loves bringing the fight to a situation. He reversed drone attack rules Obama put in place that were working to avoid civilian casualties. That is who is worse.
This is false. Even Reagan and Bush Sr. did more to reign in Israel than Biden ever did, they threatened to withhold aid rather than just put conditions and hope Israel abide by them, you can look this up. Instead he keeps on supplying them, putting him further right on genocide than even Reagan and Bush Sr.
The alternative isn't going to come from the sky, you vote for it. At some point you have to realize that the lesser evil is not enough, like you have to draw the line at some point.
The alternative isn't going to come from the sky, you vote for it. At some point you have to realize that the lesser evil is not enough, like you have to draw the line at some point.
No third party in america has any chance. Without a full blown revolution that country will only ever have 2 options.
Things are pretty simple, like I already said the lesser evil has to not exceed some limits. If there was a duplicate of Trump running for the democrats you wouldn't vote for him lol. This genocide simply isn't that important to you to finally think that the Democrats have gone to far.
Stein. She actually has the ballot access to win the electoral college. AND she's Pro-Pali.
Biden is literally driving the world towards WW3, but all libs can do is bleat about Trump being worse. 🤡
So you're saying you would prefer Trump, correct? Because if you live in the US, your choice is either Biden or Trump.
No, there are other choices, people have just been conditioned not to vote for them.
May I remind you that the US went through multiple 2-party systems, the current one could be replaced.
My dude, not a single one of the people that has sufficient support right now in the US supports the Palestinian people to the degree I would prefer. All of them would support the Israeli genocide to one degree or another. Trump would be all gas no brakes, and would be pushing Netanyahu to nuke Gaza, and throw all the Palestinians in the West Bank into death camps. Kennedy wouldn't be a lot better. Biden is at least trying to slow Netanyahu's roll a little, even if he's still turning over funding that's been appropriated by congress (which he's both legally obligated to do, and also personally supports).
Palestine has no allies that would support cutting off all aid for Israel that would even be able to win 1% of the vote in the US. That's just the way it is, and it sucks.
On the domestic front, both Trump and Kennedy would be worse for the American people by every single metric, except for the white christian nationalist metric.
So people in the US have a choice. They can vote for the least bad candidate, and hope to minimize the damage as much as possible. Or they can not vote, and claim that they have clean hands when Trump accelerates the genocide, and starts a few new ones. Of course, not voting for the least bad candidate is effectively identical to voting for the worse candidate, but hey, as just don't tell your neighbor that you're the reason that their trans kid couldn't get medical care and ended up committing suicide.
The choice is not to participate in electing a genocidal maniac. It's incredible how difficult this is for some people to grasp.
By failing to help elect one person, you implicitly help the other, far, far worse person get elected.
It's incredible how difficult this is for some people to grasp.
By not making a choice, you make a choice.
By failing to apply any political pressure to a leader participating in a genocide, you implicitly endorse the genocide.
By not applying pressure, you make a choice that you're ok with genocide
Yes, let's apply pressure by getting a leader elected that will ACCELERATE the genocide even more than Biden. I'm sure the Palestinians will appreciate that.
Supporting trump's openly genocidal agenda puts absolutely zero pressure on biden to stop his openly genocidal agenda.
By attempting to apply political pressure in this manner, you sway marginal voters away from voting entirely, which results in greater harms than if you did nothing at all. By attempting to apply political pressure, when you're aware that the outcome will be reduced turnout for Democratic candidates, you're making a choice that you're okay with women in the US losing rights to healthcare and reproductive options, and saying that you don't GaF about LGBTQ+ people or any global environmental concerns.
All political choices come with tradeoffs. All actions come with consequences. The consequence here, of getting people to oppose Biden--or just not support him--will be that the speed and intensity of the genocide will increase. Trump favors more and more effective genocide, and Kennedy is a non-starter of a candidate, as is Cornell West (which is a shame, because I like West).
This is the real-life Kobayashi Maru; there is no action you can take that will have the result you want. It's not a moral failing on your part to recognize that this is not something you can control in this way, but it is a moral failing to see the negative consequences of your actions, and choosing to act regardless.