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Time is running out for Kamala Harris to break with Biden on the Gaza catastrophe
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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I know that the hold that Israel (and the military industrial complex) has on both major political parties is money, Money, MONEY. But there has got to be a breaking point. I thought the breaking point would be the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent children, but alas.
I mean, I will still vote for Harris, because I’m not stupid. I know the alternative is far worse. But I’d rather not have innocent blood on my hands after I fill out that ballot.
If you (or anyone else) will never change your vote about it, why would they adjust their position?
You've given them no downside to continuing to support genocide other than the weight of thousands of innocent dead on their consciences. It should be fairly obvious how much that affects them.
Unfortunately, there is a downside to allowing Trump to win. It's the trolly problem and yes I will help pull the lever that kills people to keep even more people from dying.
They will never negotiate with you, even on genocide, if you vote for them 24/7. Where is the red line?
It took Ronald Reagan one phone call to get them to stop bombing Lebanon.
Margaret Thatcher put a 10-year long arms embargo on them in the 80s.
Modern democrats are worse than Republicans from the 70s.
This can be shown with Biden's draconian crime bill.
his full involvement in the "war on terror".
Kamala ignoring the Supreme Court's decision on releasing nonviolent prisoners after overcrowding, as they were being used for slave labor.
The Marginal tax rate being lower TODAY than it was after Reagan passed his tax cuts.
They will never move to be more progressive if progressives still vote for them.
Today's lesser evil was the greater evil yesterday.
Democrats already started the second genocide in Lebanon.
And soon a war with Iran.
All the "greater evils" of Trump will have been fulfilled by democrats before Trump even become president
That is a total lie. That's a very small segment of what Trump would do, and Trump wants to accelerate that too. He also holds a lot of anti-trans positions and anti-woman positions.
Don't forget that Trump has pretty much promised to import the genocide home. It might not start off with people being gunned down in the street, but it's definitely going to make life hard-to-impossible for immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, and everyone who's not a straight white man.
That's just the evil abroad. Trump welcomes evil right here at home.
Then it's not a single lever pull - it's a sum of lever pulls over a long time period.
Following polls, they would have an upside of about a 6 point boost if they changed on policy. Which is certainly significant with the race as close as it is.
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Thank you for compiling this so neatly. It's nice to have this all together.
Bear in mind that I agree with you entirely.
I fear Trump.
Wish I knew what this said.
Voters are a spectrum. Some number of people in OhStepYellingAtMe's rough demographic either started out less engaged or have a more visceral reaction and won't vote. A reliable Democratic vote being demotivated means an unreliable vote may already be lost. Not threatening to withhold your individual vote doesn't mean comments like this aren't a warning sign.
A warning sign the Harris campaign has continued to ignore and done nothing to try to win back.
If they think they can win without people who won't vote for genocide, best of luck to them, but they clearly don't want my vote, so I see no reason why I should give it to them.
Would you prefer to vote for the candidate who has been calling for a cease fire, or the one that has bent over for Netanyahu in the past and fully plans to do it again?
Because those are the only 2 options available.
I won't be voting for either of the two parties' candidates as long as they remain pro-genocide.
If they want my vote they're more than welcome to come out with a strong stance against genocide.
Pretty low bar. If neither candidate is willing to meet it I can only assume they do not want my vote.
If they don't want my vote they either don't think they need it or they're more committed to genocide than winning the election.
It's their call.
The not voting strategy has never worked before, why would it work this time? You want the let the future of this country determined by someone else?
Has voting for the "lesser" evil ever worked either?
I imagine we can agree no American president has been ideal? Some of the presidents who have given us the most progress in important areas like welfare, civil rights, and environmental protections have also been war criminals. Roosevelt, Kennedy/LBJ, Obama, etc. Imagine where we'd be if no one voted for the lesser evil in those elections, held firm and didn't vote for the president who would set up concentration camps, or keep us in wars in Asia and the middle east.
Throwing away your vote got us presidents like GWB and Trump. Stalled progress for decades. Evil supreme court justices. In fact, the most underrated job of the president is picking supreme court justices, since the court has made itself the single most powerful institution in the country.
How about you vote for the most potential for progress?
I won't vote for anyone who's pro-genocide. You're clearly okay with voting for genocide, but I'm not.
The other option is that they simultaneously believe they need your vote, but also know that they would lose more voters than they would gain if they did what you're asking. It's not entirely clear that this is what's happening, as there's not been much indication that Kamala believes what Israel is doing is horrific, but it's a very real possibility that you aren't including. And in that case, voting for her remains the best you can do, since you not voting for her won't convince the other people who's vote she would lose. It will just lead to trump being elected.
Some people, myself included, have principles which prevent them from voting for a genocidal candidate, even in a first past the post system where the other candidate is more genocidal.
There’s very little point in trying to convince people who have a moral objection against supporting genocide to support genocide.
Like, y’all could have a whole people-led movement to elect a third party if you really wanted to, and if nothing else it would maybe put pressure on the Democrats to stop supporting genocide, but you’re so fucking brainwashed into believing that a third party will never matter that you’re incapable of even conceiving the thought.
I understand that you have principles. I have principles too. But it sounds like your principles are at least partly based on a personal purity, which is what I'm arguing against.
The idea that by voting for kamala, you'll be personally tainted by her actions. And that by not voting at all, you avoid this taint.
There's a good argument in my opinion for not voting if you actually believe it will lead to the best outcome. Like for example that if enough people don't vote it will cause our leader/parties/etc to do something better. I just don't think this is true. And if it's not true, what remains is a purity argument, which I find selfish, since it prioritizes your internal view of yourself over what happens to other people in the world.
I'm also absolutely in favor of third party candidates that push issues and the electorate to the left. I just think that generally they should drop out at the point when it becomes clear that they aren't going to win and endorse the person closest to them on the issues.
By voting for Kamala, you are expressly supporting her, and by extension, you are expressly supporting genocide. You can play all the rhetorical tricks you want, but that doesn’t change the reality of the decision you’re making.
If you can tolerate that, then we have different principles. I will never support genocide. If that means that my vote is worthless, then so be it.
If the will of the people can no longer be expressed through the democratic process, then the process is not democratic. It’s a farce, a performance designed to make you think that you can influence policy.
What we really need is revolution.
Uh... Both of them are option 2, though.
What are we going to change our vote to? Only two parties can win this year (let's change that) and the other option is worse on this issue.
I'll vote for someone who is vocally and demonstrably anti-genocide. If that's neither of the main parties' candidates that's their problem.
I will not vote for genocide.
Not voting is a choice. Not voting is saying you're okay with either option. You're OK with fascism because you can't bear to have neoliberalism instead. Maybe you'd rather have genocide of both Arabs and Latin Americans? Maybe you'd rather have a president who has promised to make the genocide worse than one who might put some amount of pressure to make it less bad.
I'd rather have a president who's anti-genocide, so I'll be voting for one of the anti-genocide candidates.
You're okay with voting for genocide. I'm not.
Welcome to two party systems. The only way out is to abolish FPTP voting, the electoral college and (In the case of local/state elections) gerrymandering.