Bernie is such a good guy. The Dems have done him dirty so many times, they are currently continuing to support many harmful policies but he understands what’s at stake and he puts all of that aside to do the best he can.
He doesn’t have to do this. He’s 83 years old and while his cognitive health is outstanding for his age, someone his age doesn’t need to be on this grind for us. He probably won’t stop until he’s forced to due to his health. I love the guy and it’s a shame we weren’t given the chance to see him take the presidency.
He is a leader.
I remember that old footage of him in Burlington in the 70’s, talking to random kids in the mall, asking them what was important to them–drug policy, free speech, good schools–and just talking to them about how they could make a difference. From the bully pulpit, he would have been transformative.
I like one of the comments on that video. Some people do a filibuster in Washington and they read from the phone book or read a recipe book, Bernie talks about the law at issue, straight policy for 8 and 1/2 hours straight, and it’s coherent.
Agree 100%, but he’s not a god. He can be wrong, same as everyone else. I think he played this wrong.
He’s always been a social imperialist and had the same murderous nazi foreign policy as the rest of the state. He was always a compromise for leftists.
Just look at how he acted during the recent coups/attempted coups in south america.
That’s a bad headline. Watch his video, he makes a much more nuanced argument.
Anybody voting against Harris over Gaza is a moron. Trump may be even more pro Israel…
Ah yes he will give them unlimited weapons and money to bomb children. Oh wait
We know that Harris will let the zionists do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, no matter what it costs the US. Your saying theres much difference between that and whatever Trump plans is dumb. Is Trump going to double kill people and double steal their land?
Anybody voting against Harris over Gaza is a moron
I think war crimes surrogates are worse than morons.
You really think there’s a complete carte blanche from either the current administration or will likely be under Harris? Don’t get me wrong. Israel has gone way overboard, but me assure you it could be a lot worse.
Infact, the actions of Trump during his administration included moving the US embassy in an extremely controversial move and even the war criminal Netanyahu meets Trump personally - when he is not even President.
Are you saying that taking action like not voting for Harris, which will help enable a Trump victory, is the correct course of action to reduce Palestinian and Lebanese suffering? Your approach doesn’t make any sense if your goal is to reduce suffering.
“It could be a lot worse” is ZERO comfort to my neighbor who lost relatives in Israel’s bombings. Do you honestly think that’s a winning campaign slogan to get him to vote for her? Or to me who personally sees this suffering?
Yes because there has been and she has said she will continue to do so.
But Donnie said Harris hates Israel.
The fantasy world the zero-tolerance high-ground morality angels live in is as dangerous as the one MAGA lives in, and ironically has the same victims. They proudly polish their halos nice and shiny while they let the world burn.
Don’t support genocide, it’s as simple as that!
By the way: Voting isn’t actually support. The American system is not set up in a way where votes actually add to the power of the Presidential office. On the other hand, making a deliberate choice not to act does mean supporting whatever happens without your action, which could be genocide. This means YOU HAVE TO VOTE HARRIS IN ORDER TO NOT SUPPORT GENOCIDE. The socialism angels are hypocrites.
there are two facts about this election
- there are only two outcomes—0.0% chance for a third party win
- both candidates have a bad stance on the genocide
so neither outcome will help with the genocide. acting like voting third party helps in any way shape or form is disingenuous at best. so what should you do?
my argument is that you should vote for the person you can hope to convince on this issue. phone calls, protests, social media, whatever means you have… which of these candidates is more likely to respond to any kind of public pressure about this?
Harris might be responsive, and let’s be honest, she might not be. but you know for a fact that it’s definitely not the fucking orange turd. Natenyahu wants him to win. how can you ignore that?
which of these candidates is more likely to respond to any kind of public pressure about this?
neither. 0.0% chance for either candidate.
i only voted for kamala because she’s a woman and even though she’s an awful candidate at least we can get it out of our collective system, show little girls they can be president, and the neoliberal status quo is probably still better than Trump
i’m not entirely sure on that because I think Kamala is more likely to lead us into a war with Russia… but Trump is more volatile in general I think
Amazing that you at least did the overwhelming obvious right thing even though your reasons are awful
i think breaking the barrier of sex in terms of male/female president is a powerful thing. there’s been so many women throughout history that could have been judith pulgars, politically speaking, and ended up getting pushed into more subservient positions
that’s the main reason. i dont think that’s an awful reason
as for the russian war thing, i rather like living in a pre-nuclear-war society.
It just implies that looking at the candidates the biggest and most important difference you see is that one is a woman.
Like, it’s great that you did vote for that woman as she also happens to be in favour of women having rights, lgbtq+ people having rights, doesn’t want mass deportions, still wants there to be elections in the future and a painfully long list of stark differences like that. It’s just impressive that none of that mattered to you, or that you are unaware of it
i’m more cynical about her. it’s not that i don’t think gay rights and women rights aren’t important. they are. but to me, the primary issues i care about, in order of importance
a) probability of war
b) attitude towards immigrants
c) economic position
d) foreign policy in general
so for example I think Kamala is probably more likely to get us into war than Trump is. That gives points to Trump.
on the immigration front, I don’t have any illusions about where the national conversation is going. I was brought here to this country illegally as a small child. I grew up here illegal and it wasn’t until my early 20s that I managed to naturalize
so i’ve been embedded in immigrant communities, with a lot of illegals sprinkled in, and have been paying attention to immigration news for virtually all of life
i can only think of two politicians who have done something meaningful for illegals. Reagan and Obama. Reagan of course gave amnesty to millions of illegals. Obama enacted the DACA policy, which wasn’t nearly as broad as amnesty, but it was definitely a good thing that helped hundreds of thousands of people. but “immigration reform” has been promised my whole life by DNC and never delivered. best was the half-assed DACA
But let’s look at rhetoric from Biden. During campaign in 2020 he advocated for a “compassionate approach” and was “pushing for immigration reform”. he promised to halt the construction of “the Wall tm”
What about the last couple years? He expanded construction of the wall which he timed with a photoshoot with Customs and Border Patrol at the southern border. He also went on TV and started using the word illegal - which is a term Democrats historically haven’t used. I don’t think it’s offensive or anything- but it’s telling to show how the overton window has sharply been shoved to the right
Now look at Biden’s successor - Kamala - the woman I voted for begrudgingly. go to her website and look at the policies and you will see zilch about compassionate approach or immigration reform. today it’s “security and strong border”
right now over 65% of all Americans (not just GOP) support deporting all illegal immigrants. Something absurd to say even a decade ago. Majority of Americans support a policy which would effectively have the military going around house to house in order to put over 10 million people in camps, which they would stay at for years while the government tries to figure out the complex and expensive logistical challenge of moving millions of people out of the country (Germans had this same problem back in first half of the 1900s. they came up with a controversial solution to that question, of course)
so i’m not saying kamala is equal or worse than trump on this. trump is partly at fault for the rise in this change. but i think long term it won’t make a difference who wins in this field. either way immigrants are screwed, so it doesn’t really matter to me in this election
economic position, i think not gonna matter much. the whole “tax breaks for first time homeowners” from Kamala is yet another bailout to the banks at the expense of regular people. Trump put in sanctions on China, raising prices for Americans… Biden kept them in place and put some more. I don’t think this is much different. the reductionist “tax the rich” is a nice slogan but without meaning. as long as the government has a money tap funneling public money to leeches, no amount of taxes will ever filter down to help the working class
foreign policy in general. again, i don’t see much of a difference. china from above is a good example. iran is another. Obama actually came up with a revolutionary deal- bringing the Iranians back into the fold. Trump torpedoed that deal in spectacular fashion and then moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. Biden maintained the “get fucked” attitude towards Iran and went to Tel Aviv in Oct of last year to bend the knee to Netanyahu.
so to summarize
for the issues i mentioned, which are the ones that matter to me, i think long term the choice of candidate isn’t going to influence anything significantly either way. the zietgiest is headed in a certain direction and i don’t think either candidate has the capacity or willingness to meaningfully change the course of things
so then we get to why did i vote for kamala. because I think it’ll be inspiring to girls and women across the country. it’ll implicitly let them know they are equal and are able to accomplish anything, even the highest office in the country
i think that alone is worth voting for her. and of course Trump is a bit of a wild card and I prefer stability.
i think breaking the barrier of sex in terms of male/female president is a powerful thing.
I agree with that, and its long overdue, but if she fumbles badly she may set everything backward.
neither. 0.0% chance for either candidate.
This level of cynicism is unwarranted. Sure it might be low, but for Harris it’s at least 0.1%.
with the current stranglehold the pro-Israeli lobby has on American politics (includes both GOP and DNC) even 0.1% is a stretch
AIPAC even brags about it: https://aipacorg.app.box.com/s/t8vvqt7evxvgkzn5jktpwejate6oxo0y
98% of AIPAC endorsed candidates won their election in 2022. if you are a politician and you say something mildly critical of Israel they will go to war with you and do everything so that your opponent wins
Israel has figured out how to hack American democracy. There is no going back at this point. We are a pro-Israel country for the foreseeable future, regardless of which candidate wins this election or the next one or the next one
"Vote for the candidate who will continue to fund a genocide to show you dont support genocide "
Man yall will do anything to avoid a socialist movement.
I see what you’re trying to do drag but it just doesn’t track.
Voting isn’t actually support
On the other hand, making a deliberate choice not to act does mean supporting whatever happens without your action
Interesting. So, by drag’s logic, a Trump voter isn’t responsible for supporting Trump, but a nonvoter is.
It’s amusing to see the kinds of ridiculous knots y’all tie yourselves into trying to twist around language in an attempt to resolve your cognitive dissonance and punch left.
What they think their vote contributes to:
I was a Bernie-or-Bust-er in 2016 because I was confident Hilary was going to win with or without my vote. I deeply regret taking that stance and feel like I let down every woman who’s lost rights to their bodily autonomy, every family who was separated at the border, everybody whose life was lost or ruined due to the Trump administration’s incompetent response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and everybody else who has been harmed by the Trump administration.
Don’t be like me. It sucks having to vote for the lesser of two evils but that’s how our system works and not voting or voting third-party isn’t going to change that but it does run the risk of things getting a lot worse.
Can I ask what state you were voting from in 2016?
TX at the time. Generally regarded as solidly red. However, looking at the numbers in '16 and '20, I wouldn’t be surprised if everybody in the state who had either voted third-party or not at all because of the belief that their vote wouldn’t make a difference would have indeed been enough to potentially flip the state.
I’m hoping this will be the year we see Texas flip blue. That would be beautiful.
I can’t wait for blue conservatives to blame Bernie Sanders for whatever fuckup they do next.
Gaza is hardly even an issue on the ballot, you’re picking between slow genocide and fast genocide.
Slow genocide is better though. We all get that right?
Certainly gives us more time to try to do something about it, yeah.
Certainly gives us more time to try to do something about it, yeah.
The time to do something about it is during an election. Politicians couldnt care less what you think after they have your vote. They dont need your money.
If there was a part of the election to do something about it that time was the Primaries. The primaries that only like 30M people vote in every election. Right now your choices are between death and more death but also closer to home.
Harris could still change her mind at the last minute.
So you’re going to get Harris to change her stance by making sure she doesn’t become president? And because it was also stated that elections are the time to change them, you also imply she cannot change her mind after election?
Thats some ass logic right there.
99 more years at the current rate.
Slow genocide is better
Frankly no. Oppression like this is worse than slaughter. There’s a reason Gazans are telling reporters and social media they are relieved when their loved ones die, because they’re literally starving and in pain and squalor.
Which one should you prefer slowly genocide by starvation, diseases.
Or
Fast genocide by increased bombing and worse weapons.
I don’t think this is a choice anyone would want to choose from.
Then we agree that Gaza isnt a partisan choice, but to answer your rhetorical I would choose slow simply because there will always be an avenue for justice as long as some of Palestine remains.
Gaza is not on ballot I agree. But trying to convince people who don’t wish to participate in a genocide by telling them that their concerns don’t matter is wrong.
Israel has declared if not by words surely by actions that they won’t stop as long as Palestine remains.
If it matters to you then you should be making intelligent choices to reduce harm to an absolute minimum instead of getting angry and stupid enough to supporting NeoHitler, either directly or indirectly.
How different would he be from all the dictators and despots US has propped up elsewhere in the world. World will still turn, sun will still rise. All dictators die, all dictatorship ends. This is not end of the world.
Oh yeah I mean by that logic you might as well also put a cactus in your ass. Why? No need to ask questions, after all, the world will still turn. The sun will still rise tomorrow. Anally insert a cactus right away.
Sure when that strikes my fancy, for now I will pass.
America voting for the lesser evil since 1792.
It’s not the time to stop now. But I better see all of you on the streets with signs on November 6th.
For real.
Today, massive supporter for Harris.
Post-election, I shall go back to being a massive critic.
Shitty situation all around. Once heard politics are like public transportation. Won’t give me a door-to-door ride to the destination I’m aiming for, so I’ll take it to get as close as possible.
Boy just wait until I have zero leverage or voice. Then I’ll show em
Lesser-evilism has gotten us to where we find ourselves today: bargaining with genocide. If you don’t stop now, I wonder what it would take.
Not voting for a candidate is not the only, nor the most effective way to push a party to change positions on an issue you care about.
People should vote how they want, but should continue to push to replace First past the post voting in their state so people can vote how they want and still count their vote against the republicans.
Electoral reform is such a no brainer, it’s a shame the democratic party puts it’s desire for easy wins over the security and stability of the nation.
Removed by mod
Unfortunately Gaza is a non issue. The situation would only be handled worse under the other candidate. Along with just about every other conceivable thing.
Most of Lemmy thinks you should vote against Kamala on principle against genocide and if Trump gets elected and makes the genocide far worse than it would’ve been under Kamala that that is a preferred outcome and somehow they won’t have blood on their hands.
They think it’s better to make things worse if you personally can avoid blame for it on a technicality.
Most of Lemmy is doing mental gymnastics just like this to convince themselves that voting for the person doing genocide makes them anti genocide.
I don’t believe they’re speaking in good faith. I think they just don’t give a shit about human lives when they’re brown and across the world.
a vote isn’t an endorsement. Pretending the US system is some kind of idealic democracy where you are presented a platter of issues to vote on and can do those independently is delusional. We live in a perpetual trolley problem. Not pulling the lever is far more evil here.
Yeah. You can protest against the politician you voted for.
You’re protest doesn’t matter to them, only your vote. It’s not like you’re going to vote for the Republican or third party candidate.
Politicians view it as an endorsement. When they get elected they say “the people have spoken” and act like they have a mandate. Bush pressed on with his Iraq war and privatizing social security after getting re elected despite those being unpopular and people voting for him in spite of those policies. Trump claimed the people supported him and hence wouldn’t release his tax records etc.
If Harris wins she won’t feel chastised on Gaza. She said she will continue Biden’s plan even though she was given space to say what she would do differently. Even saying something mild like “Knowing what I know now, I would not have said what Biden said about Palestinians lying about death counts,” and it would have mollified many people.
Again this a delusional view. No democrat has ever been like “oh I lost an election, better adopt more leftwing policies”. Because nonvoting is not clear messaging it will never be effective messaging.
I disagree. The Tea Party tanked the 2010 and 2012 election for republicans but it forced them to go hard right ever since and they got everything they wanted.
Democrats put electability over all else and compromised their principles, which is why they are in a toss up right now against an unpopular Trump with unpopular policies. This should have been an easy win, but Biden avoided meeting any Palestinians whatsoever and Harris sadly kept that up. Even minimal pandering would help and she won’t even do that. It’s not so much that she’s doing nothing for my community but Biden actively would throw insults at it (“I have zero trust for Palestinians”) and Harris won’t even distance herself from those hateful remarks. Just say he was wrong to say that and she’d get a ton of votes, I don’t even think she would lose Zionist votes like she’s afraid of.
First of all, at this point people in the US should vote against Trump for their safety, and that means in the current political system they have to vote for Harris. That’s the reality they have to face. The Trump party has made fascist announcements that are real and people should expect them to be made into real actions.
The problem is that the Democrats frankly have abysmal messaging and are drifting to the right further and further while using Trump as a threat to their voters. They adopt anti-immigrant policies and are distancing themselves from pro-LGBT stances, saying it’s the states decision. Both these issues as well as demands for a ceasefire poll exceptionally well, but the Harris campaign seemingly don’t want the edge. With all this they are signaling that right wing worries about immigrants and trans people are valid, although that’s absolutely not the case, and leave people to decide for example “do I want anti-immigrant light or extra harsh anti-immigrant?” when everybody says immigrants are an issue. This is unacceptably stupid and risking the vote. And that’s ignoring the elephant in the room that progressive policy like health care is exceptionally popular and using that as counter messaging would win her voters.
We’ve seen how popular the Democrats got after Harris took over and Walz got nominated. It signaled change. Now all the Democrats say that it’s gonna be the same old as usual treading on and the same bad argument vote us or you’ll get a dictatorship. I’m not denying Biden dropping out had nothing to do with the surge of popularity, but back then we also had comments like here, basically declaring any dissent from supporting a decrepit old man as the candidate as heresy. Now there are again, only Yes men here saying if you criticize Harris you’re a bot or a Trump ass eater. What is wrong with you?
Finally, I have the creeping suspicion that Democratic establishment people don’t fear a fascist Trump administration themselves personally as much as the population has to. Trump announces he will go after his enemies, Latinos and trans people (probably all queer people actually). He has anti women’s health and rights messaging all over his campaign. But that doesn’t seem to be a risk for people higher up in the party. I suspect that when you’re rich you don’t have to worry about abortion bans or HRT access. And if Trump threatens them with violence they always have money they can throw at him. It’s much more comfortable to run a risky neo liberal and right wing platform against a fascist if you can jump ship later on.
No thanks, genocide is my biggest concern and you dont get to decide it isnt
biggest != only
What a privileged existence you must lead to be able to have a single issue define you.
And you have privilege to say your issues overrule actual human lives. What’s another 50,000 dead Palestinians to you?
Personally I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night voting for someone who had a hand in that mountain of dead children, but you seem fine to ignore atrocities committed in your name.
Don’t blame me, blame Harris for being unwilling to even say something on the issue without walking it back. Nobody is stopping her.
Look at history. The 2003 Iraq war and subsequent occupation resulted in at least 150.000 deaths, at the absolute lowest estimate. The biggest estimate is over a million.
Afghanistan? 176.000
Gulf War? 50.000
Yugoslav war? 130.000
Vietnam War? 970.000 to 3 million.
And those are conflicts that the US was directly involved in with boots on the ground. Few people lost sleep over any of those civilian casualties. Could you even point to Kosovo on a map?
What’s another 50.000 dead Palestinians you ask? A rounding error on a footnote of history. It’s a statistic. And that’s ignoring the fact that this is happening in another country with only indirect US support.
People SHOULD care about the Palestinians. But it’s just not relevant to the day to day lives of average Americans.
This is as short sighted as the president in Don’t Look Up, who was more frustrated about how the giant comet heading to earth was disrupting her election and not about the impending extinction.
What kind of nonsense argument are you making? There were massive protests against these in the US, involving millions of Americans. Millions of Americans protested the Vietnam war, millions protested the Iraq war. There’s protests in every city about Gaza and wall to wall news coverage as it consumed the public attention. I’ve been to all these protests except the Vietnam one.
And it’s not “indirect” support. Biden sent troops into Gaza for that hostage rescue mission and increased troops in the region and has Air Force planes shooting down missiles. That’s also with the US shipping nearly all the bombs dropped in Gaza and using the UN to veto ceasefires. Anyone pretending the US isn’t involved is lying.
It’s sad that the millions of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans don’t count to you. This is a daily issue for us, I’ve gone to the funerals for relatives and watched as CNN aired that Ryan Girdusky character who said Mehdi Hasan should be blown up. That’s mild compared to what we have heard given the last year of Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism and surge in hate crimes. Again, you have such privilege and talk down to others.
Sometimes there are “issues” that we must absolutely not compromise on. “Why gain the world to lose your soul?”
Such as letting fascists into power.
