As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.
Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.
I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.
Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.
Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.
Single issue voters just seem to be the excuse of Democrat party for if they lose.
Just like election fraud is of the Republican party.
The U.S. also has a huge defense industry that has made people ridiculously rich at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Those billionaires are heavily invested in the defense industry, so it’s not in their interests that wars end at all.
This is that “military-industrial complex” that former President Eisenhower warned us about so many years ago. His concern was that the U.S. would become bogged down in an endless series of “forever wars” that do nothing but transfer wealth to the already-wealthy.
Keeping that military industrial complex well-fed is the reason why so many politicians have such a boner for war. Not only to keep their wealthy sponsors happy, but to keep tax money and jobs flowing to their states, which just happen to manufacture war materiel.
Because they’re stupid enough to think a Trump presidency will be better for their cause somehow. Or they’re delusional enough to think that a 3rd party candidate will be anything but a spoiler, like they were in 2016. Seriously, protest votes after the DNC forced out Bernie were likely what led to Trump getting in. So while it’s the DNC and Hillary’s fault, the feet on the ground were the idiots.
Never again means never again, I will not be party to it.
Both candidates will support Israel, so for pro palestine voters it’s a “Would you like to vote for the Shitty Party, or Less Shitty Party” situation, where not voting from these parties is shunned upon because it will help Shitty Party win.
Some people are single-issue voters who don’t care if one side is slightly better, even if still terrible, than the other on that issue. They will gleefully sacrifice everything for taking a moral stand against the slightly less worse party on this one single issue and then claim some sort of high moral ground and how they need to destroy the system via a revolution.
Of course, revolutions involve hard choices, in fact even harder than choosing who to vote in this election, and they also take more effort than getting off your ass and vote, so this revolution will probably never happen but that’s a tiny detail.
The real winners of course are Trump, his MAGA republicans (who, alongside ruzzian bot farms, promote the narrative that both sides equally bad on Israel so don’t vote Kamala) and Netanyahu as a proxy. I mean after all a president who moved the embassy to Jerusalem and actively encourages settlers is better for Israel than one who has surprisingly been less supportive even if still sending weapons and not really doing anything concrete to punish Israel, I mean Netanyahu has multiple times clearly stated he wants Trump specifically because it would make it easier to genocide Palestinians. Not to mention obviously all the other issues pike LGBTQI+ rights, women rights, not losing your right to vote, minority rights, Ukraine, climate change, etc etc those are all very important issues but a good size of these people never really gave a shit about them, in fact a sizeable portion probably doesn’t even give a shit about Palestine, they’d have happily sided with Israel if the US sided with Palestine, and just want an excuse to look morally superior or to promote a supposed revolution to gain power.
Democrats are not pro Palestine. They simply don’t care about Genocide when Democrats do it. They are Nazis.
That is not the question. The question is: it’s a binary choice. People should be aware that not voting helps the worst candidate win. Why not vote for the less bad candidate then?
It is not a binary choice. When people vote third party it shows politicians supporting Israel comes with political consequences.
Voting for Green is the best thing a voter can do. Even forgiving Democrats for being complicit in an entire year of Genocide would be questionable. But Democrats are not distancing themselves from the Genocide. They are literally saying they want to continue the Genocide and start a war with Iran too.
Democrats aren’t going to magically do what you want if you reward them for bad behavior. Instead they will double down on bad behavior.
Life lasts longer than 4 years.
are you seriously going to vote for genocide? wtf? i hope you are a CIA/Israeli bot and not a real person
I’m not American so not sure I can vote, but I was I would absolutely be voting for the Dems, as the way it appears to me is Trump would be a lot worse for Palestinians than Harris would. This isn’t to say Harris will be good for Palestine, but if I tie you to a chair and tell you I’m either going to remove one of your eyes or both of your eyes and if you abstain I’ll take them both anyway.
I’m sure you would reluctantly choose to lose one eye and not both.
Trump has stated Israel is going to slow. So anyone bitching about the dems is an idiot, trump will be a lot worse than harris on this issue.
Yeah, but have you considered the electoral college? For most people, their vote for president doesn’t matter.
Yes, we love genocide.
Tap for spoiler
/s
Lol, living in a world where “anti-genocide” is actually a thing people say is messed up.
I think is actually kind of nice.
I mean of all species living on earth, human is the only species that would consider genocide a bad thing. Some random plant on prehistoric ages would just produce oxygen an cause a mass extinction without sweating it.
And for most human history Humans would actually try to genocide others.
At least now there is people who is anti-genocide. And it’s probably a growing stance.
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Never try and figure out single issue voters, they tend to be dumb as fuck
i wonder how much of a single issue a genocide is
Upvoted for proving the point.
What did you think about Hitlers economic policies?
doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.
And what if they seem equally likely to escalate the situation?
Trump says he’ll let Israel finish the job. Kamala says she disapproves of what’s happening in Gaza, but will always support Israel and will always provide them with weapons.
Same fuckin’ thing.
Then maybe there is other stuff you care about?
You’re getting one of them. There is no third option.
If you don’ care about the other topics at all, then don’t vote.
I never understood the intense laser focus some people put on one policy. There’s so many to care about if you’re American. People are dying from homelessness, starvation, guns, and mental health every single day but the only thing you care about is overseas? That’s not even mentioning things like a woman’s right to dictate what happens to their own body.
Yeah, I care about stopping Trump from building the wall-
Hold on a second, I’m getting some new information
I think it’s because of stuff like this:
I’m not a U.S.A-ian. From my view(might be too critical), I don’t think the foreign policy would be greatly affected by the President or party, unless there’s some massive movement and notion of losing resources like during the invasion of Vietnam.
They believe that taking a moral stand against the Democrats, who are supporting Israeli genocide, is worth it even if that means that Trump, who even more fervently supports Israeli genocide, becomes president.
nice hasbara
Describe “even more”? In what specific material ways would trump increase support for Israel?
Even calling it “Israeli genocide” is transferring responsibility. “Supporting” is an understatement. The democrats ARE THE ONES DOING THE GENOCIDE. Biden can stop it with a single phone call. Israel is not an independent state; it is a subordinate of the US.
Telling people to vote for your party, a nazi party, at the absolute peak of your depraved inhuman bloodthirst, because the other side might be worse, is the most cynical fucking thing I’ve ever heard.
So when Trump wins and my rights to exist are stripped even further, I’ll be sure to thank you for it
Republicans and Democrats were unable to stop legislation from the Judiciary with Roe v. Wade and later Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Super PAC’s donate multiple lifetimes of dollars to Presidential candidates in a quid pro quo system protected by the first amendment under Citizens United v. FEC. Americans outside the oligarchy will never exhibit their influence.
If oligarchs find your existence icky, they have the power to remove your “right” to exist. You lack the power to prevent it. Instead of thanking anyone, I suggest we take the power back. Punch up.
stop voting for genocide.
I genuinely do believe we’re going to look back this time as inexcusable. Right now, Netanyahu’s extreme right flank is now advocating for settlement of the parts of Gaza that have been ethnically cleansed. Specifically, they’re saying that as long as the army stays there for a permanent long-term occupation, that can be the first step to proceeding with settlements.
It’s so much worse than even the Iraq war. I’ve seen by some estimates that the Iraq war displaced 2 million people, and the deaths, before they stopped counting, were between 100,000 and a quarter million.
I think the deaths and displacements in Gaza probably are going to exceed those, and it’s concentrated in a much smaller area, and it’s horrifyingly closer to affecting the whole population.
Simply put there’s no excuse for this moral atrocity.
And here’s the but: I don’t see how a strategic attitude of indifference to who runs the State department brings it closer to an end. And I don’t see that that attitude is one of even pretending to try for an alternative. I do think supporting politicians especially in their Democratic primaries is a positive step. And I do think, as with the Iraq war, galvanizing a sea change and discrediting everyone who is associated with what happened in Gaza is necessary. I believe it is urgent to do something, and the actual channels of aid that can meaningfully do something right now exist entirely outside of party infrastructure of either party. But I also think, for how true that is, using that to lose sight a very real and very serious differences between the parties that also affect human welfare in numerous ways, would be to needlessly visit tragedy upon tragedy. I wouldn’t want to lose American democracy into the bargain, and I don’t think it’s nuanced to be in indifferent to that.
it’s the greater Israel project. they openly talk about it
the most cynical fucking thing I’ve ever heard.
Yes, it’s cynical. It’s based on the jaded belief that democracy is 90% dead, and Americans only get to make one of two meaningful choices.
The opposite belief, which is that America is a democracy and you can vote for whoever you want, is hopeful and patriotic. It puts a lot of trust in the American system. It shows faith that politicians have our best interests at heart, and that it’ll all work out if you just say what you want.
Is that how you want to describe yourself? As a patriot who believes in America? It doesn’t seem to align with your worldview, but it’s what your actions are saying.
I honestly appreciate the downvotes as a counter of angry people shamed into silence
Good. You should be fucking ashamed.
Yeah the “democrats are the REAL nazis” is tiring when you get comments from the republican hero agent Orange: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/
Shut the fuck up. I never said the republicans weren’t nazis. I’m just fucking sick of you being an out and open nazi and acting like you fucking aren’t.
“Everyone I don’t like is a nazi”
Everyone on the side of genocide can be called a Nazi, yes.
Their tiny liberal brains can’t handle anything that isn’t a binary choice.
They have fully accepted, absorbed and now spout George W Bush’s slogan of “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” without any irony that they are the terrorists!
I think something that contributes to people talking past each other here is a difference in belief in how necessary/desirable revolution/overthrow of the U.S government is. Like many of the people who I’ve talked to online, who advocate not voting and are also highly engaged, believe in revolution as the necessary alternative. Which does make sense. It’s hard to believe that the system is fundamentally genocidal and not worth working within (by voting for the lesser evil) without also believing that the solution is to overthrow that system.
And in that case, we’re discussing the wrong thing. Like the question isn’t whether you should vote or not . it’s whether the system is worth preserving (and of course what do you do to change it. How much violence in a revolution is necessary/acceptable). Like if you believe it is worth preserving, then clearly you should vote. And if you believe it isn’t, there’s stronger case for not voting and instead working on a revolution.
Does anyone here believe that revolution isn’t necessary and also that voting for the lesser isn’t necessary?
The opposite is more plausible to me: believing in the necessity of revolution while also voting
Personally I believe that revolution or its attempt is unlikely to effective and voting+activism is more effective, and also requires agreement from fewer people in order to progress on its goals. Tragically, this likely means that thousands more people will be murdered, but I don’t know what can actually be effective at stopping that.
They can’t be arsed to choose pragmatically between two bad candidates when voting and we’re to believe they can do a revolution that involves several harder choices? Do these people think revolutions are easy walks in the park where you never have to make hard choices like, for example, killing your neighbors for being in the way of the revolution or how to handle POWs, etc.
Some people assume that voting and political activism are mutually exclusive, these people are stupid and won’t win a revolution. These two things are not mutually exclusive, voting doesn’t stop you from protesting and being politically engaged and vice versa.
Voting while planning a revolution is like sealing up a broken window with plastic until you can replace it. Basic maintenance so the whole thing doesn’t get worse before the replacement is ready.
What has the current administration actually stopped Israel from doing? Every line in the sand has been crossed and there have been no consequences, trump won’t be worse for Palestine than Kamala
