I don’t agree with saying anything but voting for joe biden is totally equivalent to voting for trump, which is being said a lot… I don’t see why.
Not voting or voting 3rd party can cause a spoiler effect. But obviously that effect is less than directly voting for the worse guy. Mathematically they aren’t the same.
It is causing a lot of conflict to try and place a moral obligation on strategic voting specifically.
Everyone who is about to yell at me: I’ll probably vote strategically, that is my plan. I just don’t agree with all this hatred for 3rd parties.
3rd parties aren’t bad, but our system punishes people for supporting them. It would be best if we could say “I’d like the 3rd party to be in charge, but if not them, then at least Biden.” In that case, I would totally support 3rd party candidates.
But if we ever want ranked choice voting, it’s going to be implemented by democrats, not republicans.
I agree with all that. Your point about ranked choice is why I personally think state elections are more important than presidential at the moment, and is one of the major reasons I have for still voting democrat.
I think when it comes to telling other people how to vote, people should be more careful to not accidentally encourage hopelessness and voter apathy by the way they phrase it.
You’re right, but the people beating their chests all over the internet about taking some kind of moral high ground or voting with their conscience also should be mindful that many of us will be the first people strung up on the wall if Trump’s fascist vision comes to pass, so we’re more than a little uneasy at how cavalier they are about the dangerous situation we’re currently in. People should place whatever vote they think will keep Trump as far away from power as physically possible. Right now all signs are pointing to his counterpart from the other major party, because none of the 3rd party candidates have either the campaign infrastructure or the policy chops to carry them through to the finish line. So if it turns out that best option is Joe Biden, so be it. If it’s not, so be it. But in either case the singular goal should be to keep Trump away from DC. Everything else is just white noise.
I heard that same song and dance 20 years ago. Just replace “Trump” with “Bush”. At the end of the day, no Democrat is ever going to say “Hey, you know what? This election actually isn’t very important, so vote for whoever you want!”
If Biden wants my vote, he has to earn it, and that starts with not endorsing genocide.
I’m not going to argue against what you think you heard 20 years ago, except to say that if you don’t believe Trump is the single most dangerous candidate to ever run for the presidency, then you go into 2024 more optimistic than me. I pray for our health and safety in 2025, and if his next coup attempt succeeds where the last one failed, I pray that we’ll survive the bloodshed after the fall.
You can rest in the knowledge that if Trump either wins or there’s a successful coup he likely won’t control the entire country for very long because it will escalate to a civil war very quickly when California, Michigan, New York, Washington, and the other blue states tell him to fuck off
Don’t get me wrong it will still be horrific for all of us, but i dont think most blue states will be willing to fall in line so readily after his first term and the dictatorial shit he’s been mask off about recently
Yeah, remember when how the people who voted for Nader got us Bush, who ignored reports of a terror attack before 9/11 and got us into an unnecessary 10-year war in Iraq causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in expenses for the US government, which was then translated into "We don't have money to stop veterans from freezing to death in their homes, stop complaining"?
Definitely not a big deal, definitely just a nice little politics as usual moment. Who cares about Red Team or Blue Team, Both Sides Bad!
And if you don't think Trump, who attempted an outright autocoup, is worse, I have a bridge in fucking Brooklyn to sell you.
You’re right, that the net impact is exactly half of voting for trump instead - in that you only reduce biden’s vote, as opposed to increasing trump’s.
In less consequential elections, I absolute agree that voting for the candidate you want is key. But the risk here of a bad candidate is not just a shit period of government, but a genuinely significant risk of incurring a coup.
If you assume a default vote of “any viable candidate other than trump”, you still move in the same direction as voting for trump instead if you vote for a 3rd party candidate.
In countries with a healthier (not two party) system, this is typically the point where the centrist and left parties tend to form an electoral alliance to avoid the disaster candidate. That doesn’t really work for presidential elections though, so individual votes need to take on that same role to minimise the risk.
I can only accept that as an argument for why strategic voting is smart. It doesn’t make sense to me as an argument for saying voting for the candidate you want is morally wrong in contexts where it could cause a spoiler effect. This is where people are blurring the line that bothers me.
I’m not sure why anyone would expect trump to not also fund the genocide of Palestinians.
Bluntly, the policy differences between the two are insufficient, but the behavior of trump supporters themselves is part of my considerations. Having trump as president for 4 years inspired incredibly fucked up behavior from conservatives.
The greatest support Trump could ever receive in 2024 are democrats running Biden.
But yeah, if Biden loses it will be the fault of progressives who didn’t fall in line, not the establishment for running awful candidates.
History continues to repeat itself. It’s always Progressive’s fault, never Democrats. Even when checks notes, Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. Nobody blamed the moderates for nominating her. They all blamed the Progressives for not ‘falling in line.’
Were… were the moderates not going to fall in line behind Bernie? Hmm. Hopefully you can start to see what a crapshoot this all is and how you’re doing your part perpetuating it.
I’ll vote for democrats when they run candidates that represent me and the moderates can just ‘fall in line’ because they’re so afraid of republicans.
In the two party American system its a choice between two devils. Right no thats looking like Biden vs Trump. Not choosing one of these devils is a vote for the devil you preferred even less. Its a shitty system sure but for now its what we have. Are these two devils really equally bad from your perspective?
If people supporting the lesser evil don’t want to end up with the greater evil, then they should run candidates who are good. Trump won the presidency because people nominated one of the worst candidates in history over someone who was legitimately a good option.
This isn’t that difficult. We don’t solve these problems because we don’t want to.
You can keep doing your part to perpetuate a system that caused George Washington to never speak to Thomas Jefferson again, but I’m done.
If you have a problem with me, tell everyone who supports the lesser-evil it’s their fault. As soon as they start supporting someone good, I will join them.
If they cannot do that, then that is a tacit admission that they would prefer to not have my support.
I voted for Clinton in 2016 as the lesser of two evils. She lost. Maybe the Democratic party should listen when voters are telling them their candidate is shit.
I don’t need a historical precedent. This is a democracy. The votes are not owed. The votes must be won. If 4% is the number who are telling you something and you can’t win without that 4%, it might behoove you to pay attention to what they’re telling you.
I didn’t downvote you. It’s almost like other people exist in the comment section and can vote.
I don’t give a fuck about downvotes. I care about people taking negative action toward society, convinced it’s the right thing to do, with zero argument. Enjoy your trump vote
Do what you need to do of course, but know it will backfire. If enough idealistic people like you refuse to vote for the Democrat then we are at risk of losing what democracy we have had for a much worse system. Remember, Trump was happy to put kids in cages.
The greater of the evils would happily seek to make me go round out my trans friends and kill them, then later seek to get my white friends to round me up and kill me after that’s done. I’m really happy you feel you have the luxury of moral superiority, but that doesn’t matter here at the endgame.
The lesser of two evils is currently arming, funding, giving military planning and operational guidance to, and vetoing UN resolutions for an apartheid state that has bombed thousands of women and children in the last two months. A state that has 2+ million people living in a squalid hellhole somewhere between a ghetto and a concentration camp. Where the majority of people are now displaced, lack food, and clean water. Where there are likely still thousands of bodies decaying under rubble all paid for with our tax dollars.
Worst case scenario I’ll end up in a mass grave here too. But I’m not going to actively vote for it to happen to someone else so that it won’t hypothetically maybe happen to me.
As I said, I am happy for your comfortable position (mental or otherwise) to be so noble. I can’t help change the world if I’m dead or in work camp, and honestly helping the marginalized in my community already takes all the effective energy I can muster. I guess since I can not hold all of the world’s sins at hand, I must defer to you and grab a shovel?
Dems and repubs will never change the laws to weaken their power and strengthen 3rd parties. Full stop. Waiting for it to happen is foolish. Abandon the evil.
It’s not even douche vs turd sandwich at this point. It’s a dead horse vs the biggest traitor to the US in modern history. It’s a single vote system. Both sides think this and somehow one actually believes the only possible vote is for the felon. Everything is broken and I’m not going to perpetuate it. I wish I could illegally immigrate to northern Europe and get free everything. Too bad I’m a highly educated US citizen which means I need a matching high skilled job, several years, and a couple hundred thousand euros.
Look, this is the system we have and it sucks, but the choices are “weak candidate” vs “evil candidate that is likely going to try to destroy our democracy.”
Voting third party means voting for the second guy, which is going to make our shit system even worse.
no we’re not. You’re both right. You’re right that you are absolutely allowed to not vote for someone if you don’t feel like that Person is representing you.
But just know that by not Voting for Biden, you are making it easier for Trump to win. This is just the way the System works. There is no Opinion to be had about this, this is just Fact.
My distinction is that the blame should be put on those voting for the ‘lesser-evil’ to maintain a negative peace instead of those fighting for a greater good.
Blame everyone who voted for, checks notes, Hillary fucking Clinton to guarantee a Trump presidency just so Bernie couldn’t fuck the ruling class.
It’s their fault, not ours.
The lesser evil is still evil. Good people aren’t bad for not going along with it.
When the lesser of two evils becomes lesser of two genocides we can either accept this is a stupid strategy that does not and has not worked across decades, or double down and accept everything that comes because of the strategy, like Trump.
We are civilians, we do not get to change the system, we don’t even get to recall our federal reps after the election. We can vote once every year or so and that’s it. Either keep doing what got us here or try something new but your power ends at the ballot unless you have the time and money to basically stalk politicians.
There will never be a good time to abandon lesser evilism, and there will always be an evil that could win. In fact by nature of lesser evils, the winner must be evil. The best time to break away is whenever you can convince yourself to do so. For many people genocide is a hard line and they are realizing this. It’s hard to fault someone for trying something new when the old way bore genocidal fruit.
There are multiple states and territories for which the margin of victory for presidential elections has never been so slim that their state flipping would have ever effected the race. Its hilarious watching centerests get mad when something like less than 20% of the country has any material leverage on how it shakes out.
Bernie would have challenged the billionaire classes power and hoarding of wealth. The democrats knew he was a slam dunk against trump, but chose to risk losing the election in favor of protecting the status quo.
Especially since it’s a lie that they’re moderate. If you’re taking a global view, they’re actually right-wing. The moderate, centrist positions are what Bernie was advocating. The Overton Window in US politics has moved so far to the right it’s ridiculous.
If you vote 3rd party, it is absolutely a vote for trump. The reason this is said over and over is because history has born it out as 100% how it works. Stick your fucking head in the sand and be smug and self righteous all you want. Reality will remain intact
I don’t want to sound like I’m defending Biden, but I don’t know why people find this surprising. I’ve only been paying attention to politics for about 30 years, but he’s been saying this loudly and proudly for as long as I can remember.
Maybe people are just now noticing because it suddenly matters more than it used to. It definitely hits different when Israel is actively attempting a genocide, and it feels to me to be in pretty fucking terrible taste to beat that particular drum right now, but people are acting like this just came out of left field. He has been absolutely consistent about calling himself a Zionist for decades. It really shouldn’t have come as a shock.
Maybe people didn’t realize he’s a Catholic? Or thought that meant something other than implicit commitment to Zionism? Seems kind of hard to believe tbh
Basically its to do moreso with post wprld war 2 politics. Basically after the war and what happened in the concentration camps came to light (I know there was more but I aint making a list) a lot of people implicitly or explicitly supported Israel. This fact bled over into Catholic doctrine cause suprise suprise the organization of old fucks are old.
I suspect now that the holocaust is fading from living memory such thing shall change, but until the boomers and the silent generation become a minority in politics it will most likely stay the same.
Because belief in the biblical end of times requires it of those who believe in it.
The Catholic church are not the only christian church guilty of this, but they do believe it. The papacy did for a time reject it, politically, but that was a short lived period in the church.
Now, the most influential Catholic in the free world (maybe besides the Pope, if you’re a Catholic) is pro Zionism.
I have no idea what the dude is smoking. The Catholic church is explicitly against zionism. They wanted Jerusalem to be an international city.
Pope Pius X stated "We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different.
This was over a hundred years ago, and they’ve changed their tone significantly since then.
Here’s a good paper on the modern history of the Catholic church’s approach.
One thing I’ll grant is not all Catholics believe this. But then they also don’t really have an answer to dispensationalism. More on that here (this source is far from unbiased but the historicity is accurate).
Even if he personally has an ideological commitment to Zionism, he should be smart enough to not to say it out loud when it is clearly an issue that supposes a risk to his numbers.
The U.S has a huge number of legal agreements, treaties etc with Israel that go back decades. I'm pretty sure that they give a sitting president a lot of room to play with that he doesn't have with a relatively new arms deal like the Ukraine one.
If you were actually reading the news, you’d know that Biden has found creative ways to continue to aid Ukraine, and that has not stopped as of today. The US is still heavily backing the Ukrainian war effort.
“Three decades ago, the newly independent country of Ukraine was briefly the third-largest nuclear power in the world.
Thousands of nuclear arms had been left on Ukrainian soil by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But in the years that followed, Ukraine made the decision to completely denuclearize.
In exchange, the U.S., the U.K. and Russia would guarantee Ukraine’s security in a 1994 agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum.”
Israel is one USA's major allies. America helped in the creation of the Israeli state. He believes the Jews have the right to their own homeland. These are three likely reasons.
The US didn’t have much to do with the founding of Israel, the UK was the primary colonial sponsor at the time. It wasn’t until a few decades later when the US decided that it was going to need a permanent military presence in the Middle East to ensure the oil flowed that the US became the primary colonial sponsor.
I'd love to see your evidence that the IDF regularly employs sexual abuse as a tactic. I'll wait.
Edit: I'm interpreting each downvote as an admission that you couldn't find evidence, but I'd love to be proven wrong! We do care about facts and the truth here, no?
My guy, do you even hear yourself? I don't think Palestinians are human? I'd think that their sexual assault is acceptable? I doubt you'll believe me, but I don't in fact, think that. Congratulations on your excellent straw man construction skills though.
That first rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, is scum, something that has been acknowledged by plenty of people in and out of Israel. The US has revoked his visa privileges. When he tried to run for a country-wide Chief Rabbi position, the Israeli Attorney General told him to abandon it because of his offensive statements. Members of the Israeli parliament moved to have him disqualified. He lost an election for Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, which is a relatively conservative city itself. The second guy, Krim, is also shitty, though he did apparently state that his remarks were not meant to apply to the modern era. There was also a lot of domestic Israeli opposition against him, including from former PM Yair Lapid.
But beyond these two being living excrement, and ignoring that I could very easily find plenty of examples of Imams saying the exact same thing with an Islamic twist, that isn't what I asked for. I asked for evidence that the IDF regularly employs sexual abuse as a tactic, and you've given me two hyper conservative rabbis saying that they personally would excuse it. Given that their word has precisely zero legal meaning in the Israeli justice system, I don't see that as particularly relevant to the question I asked.
It obviously isn’t necessarily a battlefield tactic but I don’t care. No one with an adult’s understanding of the world who has condemned Israel’s response didn’t also condemn Hamas after Oct 7. This war is not Hamas v. Israel to most people. It’s far right nationalists fighting each other again and again v. Civilians trying to live there lives.
Hamas and Likud/settlers should go out to some empty desert somewhere and kill each other there so normal, sane people can work towards peace.
No one with an adult’s understanding of the world who has condemned Israel’s response didn’t also condemn Hamas after Oct 7.
This doesn't appear to actually be true, unless you mean to imply that a majority of Palestinians don't have an adult's understanding of the word. Don't get me wrong though, this in no ways provides just cause to target civilians.
The majority of (59%) strongly supported or (16%) supported to some extent the October 7 attacks carried by the Hamas-led factions, while 16% supported to some extent [sic]. 11% reported that they neither supported nor opposed the attack, while 13% expressed opposition to the attacks. Strong support for the attacks was notably higher among Palestinians in the West Bank (68%) as compared to Gaza (47%).
That said, I'm not surprised conditions in Israeli prisons are very poor, though they're unfortunately not remotely alone in the global context in that. It's also worth noting that the Israel Prison Service is independent from the IDF and operates under a completely different ministry. I'm not saying that it's not horrendous, because it is, but it doesn't rise to the same severity in my mind. I do genuinely appreciate you providing an actual source though; I certainly don't think Israel is any angel.
I obviously don’t think Israelis in Hamas’s care get better treatment than Palestinians get in Israel’s care. There’s new atrocities and victim testimony reported daily. It just seems like this whole thing is a horror show and to condemn it all is the only reasonable response.
During the prisoner exchange, it was reported that Palestinians can be held for 6 months in Israeli prisons and then, if they’re tried, face a military court with a 97% conviction rate. It’s not as horrible as grabbing people off kibbutzim but it’s not something to brag about. It’s easy to end up disgusted by it all and respond emotionally to anyone who takes a firm side.
I’ve been personally just trying to be on team civilian and find a way to have empathy for everyone not fighting. It’s natural to pick a side but war usually just brings out the worst in people at the worst possible time.
I mean, a majority of Palestinians are not adults. But also, being in the position of die and give us your land and your options are: die or fight back. Most people are probably gonna be on the fight back side, even if those who fought back didn’t do the greatest of things. Especially where you likely are not being told all the things they did outside of “we are fighting for your freedom.”
Not like most people who supported 90% of wars America has been in know everything America did in those wars.
He is a piece of shit, to be clear, but his words also have exactly zero legal relevance in the IDF, so, while certainly objectionable, that isn't what I actually asked for, which was evidence the IDF actually regularly performs sexual violence.
I'm sure Hamas' religious authorities aren't exactly spreading love love peace peace either, not that that matters.
Because the parent comment explicitly mentioned the IDF?
If you're going to discard any evidence coming from Israelis, you're not actually open to any evidence that might challenge your views at all. Which is fine, but don't pretend to be looking for a rational discussion then.
Because the parent comment explicitly mentioned the IDF?
He said “Hamas and IDF are one and the same.” Why do you only ask for evidence about the IDF?
If you’re going to discard any evidence coming from Israelis
The only “evidence” I’ve seen about Hamas rape cases are testimonies. They probably happened, but every news article has only cited testimonies. Have you seen evidence of Hamas committing rape that isn’t just a testimony?
I also hold the IDF to the same standard and don’t take Hamas’ claims against them at face value. Both could be lying or telling the truth, but objective evidence leaves way less room for ambiguity and manipulation.
That is sickening, but I'd point you to what's right below that headline.
The army has removed the commanding officer of the unit and opened an investigation
So some asshole commander committed atrocities and is facing consequences for it, because this is not an accepted practice in the IDF, which was the claim I'm asking for evidence of. Do you think Hamas officials punished anyone involved in the October 7th attacks who committed sexual assault or attacked civilians?
At face value I do get where you’re coming from, but this is standard practice, and I’m happy to provide the evidence you are looking for, because it’s important that the truth comes out and I respect you for asking for it.
IDF officers and investigators intentionally cover up murders and abuse, even when leaked internal correspondences admit the killings were totally unjustified and offer alternative explanations to be given to the press.
The Guardian’s correspondent in Israel, Chris McGreal, wrote about a conversation he had with the Israeli military commander in southern Gaza at the time, Colonel Pinhas “Pinky” Zuaretz. The Colonel both admits that his troops murder children for no reason, and implies it’s necessary to prevent the Holocaust from happening again. In court, he claimed the whole of southern Gaza was a combat zone and anyone who entered parts of it had made themselves a target.
Also from the article: “An Israeli army officer [who] emptied the magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl, Iman al-Hams, and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old, was cleared by a military court. [The girl] was shot and wounded after crossing the invisible red line around an Israeli military base in Rafah, but she was never any closer than 100 yards. The officer then left the base in order to “confirm the kill” by pumping the wounded girl full of bullets. An Israeli military investigation concluded he had acted properly.”
timesofisrael.com
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