There is no such thing as magic in this world, but if there was a magic genie that would let me bet my life that one of those people you mentioned would not be president six months from now, in exchange for a Twix ice cream bar, even if you had convinced the entirety of all lemmy federated servers to vote for them, I think I’d take it up.
So your options are three people who have absolutely no chance of getting even a single electoral college vote, let alone a majority. Or in other words, to potentially feed the spoiler effect.
Being a single issue voter doesn’t make sense at the best of times, but when it means you’re voting for someone who has no chance of winning and potentially helping an even worse candidate get into office, it’s even worse. If we had ranked-choice voting on a nationwide count, it wouldn’t be as bad (and would be fine if after you’d voted for those candidates on the one issue you actually weighed in between the major candidates), but that’s sadly not the world in which we live.
Go ahead and vote third party if you’re in a state like Alabama where there’s no chance of a difference regardless. But in a swing state, third party votes can and do add up to lives lost.
Well purely on the genocide topic… While both major parties appear to be okay with one genocide, only one of them appears to want to do their own genocides within the US.
Where on earth did you get that from my comment? If one genocide is bad, surely that same genocide (although arguably made more effective) plus an entirely separate, second genocide is worse?
Yes Kamala is in favor of a two state solution and thinks more should be done to protect the innocents caught in the middle, and Trump told Netanyahu to “finish the job”.
Except for southern “blue dog” Democrats, Abortion is a relatively “safe” topic to pander to single-issue voters on because the only people hyper-opposed to it are single-issue voters on the other side who were never going to vote liberal anyways. There’s virtually no down-side.
Israel is a more thorny & nuanced issue for Democrats though and not as clear cut. Israel is committing genocide and we shouldn’t be supporting them, but there’s alot of Jewish-American voters in key states, you’ve got AIPAC and a plethora of other Jewish/Israeli lobbies with alot of influence, you’ve got big military contractors who like Israeli money, and then you’ve got bigwigs in the military who see Israel as a strategic partner. Completely dropping support for Israel risks upsetting alot of interests and handing them over to Republicans to be used against Democrats. It’s shitty, but I’m assuming that’s the calculus going on with Democratic leadership.
Also, Israel is much much less reliant on the US for aid than in times past, and I think there’s a fear that if we stop supplying them, somebody else will and then we’ll have absolutely no influence over anything they do. We have much less influence over them than alot of people think. If they saddle up with China or Russia, the gloves come off and I think we’d see it much worse than it is now. As hard as that is to imagine, it can always get worse. And if we let Republicans get control, it will get worse.
Also, Israel is much much less reliant on the US for aid than in times past, and I think there’s a fear that if we stop supplying them, somebody else will and then we’ll have absolutely no influence over anything they do.
It seems like the prevailing narrative tries as hard as it can to bury this fact. Unilaterally withdrawing aid doesn’t magically make Israel stop what they’re doing, they can easily get support elsewhere. All unilaterally withdrawing does is throw away our only real bargaining chip to try and nudge them toward ceasefire.
Do they? Most liberals I’ve spoken to on the topic seem to mostly be glad that people who were previously anti-abortion single-issue voters are now realising that their previous stance was perhaps not the best idea.
I never really got this. Sure, we ALL want world peace, but what are you expecting to happen?
Hamas is attacking Israel, so I understand Israel wanting to protect themselves, and take out terrorists, but blowing up random Palestinians is NOT the way to do it.
The only way a third party can end someone else’s war is by obliterating one of the sides.
However, an American leader CAN directly shape American policies, so I’m going to support the Dems to avoid cataclysmic damage to our country, rather than shit on them for not solving someone else’s problems.
I never really got this. Sure, we ALL want world peace, but what are you expecting to happen?
Israel is attacking Palestine, so I understand Palestinians wanting to protect themselves, and take out terrorists, but blowing up random israelis is NOT the way to do it.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say with this response. I agree with the reversal completely. I’m willing to listen, because I am sympathetic to all the very real destruction happening over there, but can you explain how shitting on Harris benefits Palestine at all?
Very simple. Enough people withhold their votes and the Democrats will be forced into a ceasefire
Do you think Joe Biden retired for funsies? They looked at the polling and dumped him. And as I was right about before, while everyone told me otherwise, nobody likes Biden anyway.
You say they’ll be forced into a cease fire. Do you think that’s something they can just flip a switch and make it so? That’s an ongoing war on the other side of the planet involving at least three groups of people. In the meantime, you withhold your vote and Trump becomes president again. Now what?
We gotta get Harris there before we start asking her for favors.
Ok, so let’s assume there is no change in the US stance on Gaza. You and anyone you’ve convinced, don’t vote. Trump supporters are unaffected. Trump is now president. Then what? Have you made the world a better place?
Enough people withhold their votes and the Democrats won’t have the power to do anything about a ceasefire, but Donald “finish the job” Trump will have the power to make the genocide even worse.
They don’t. But even assuming they did, withholding a vote is going to increase the chances of a party who want to make things worse getting into power.
Your choices are between a terrible status quo and making the situation even worse. Why are you so intent on defending the choice that makes things worse?
There is no difference between this and a strike. Just like with striking if enough people are willing to take the risk the goal will be achieved. If not it results in a loss.
By actively opposing the activism you are ensuring the goal will not be reached. Which in the end will not even be to your benefit if you want ceasefire voters to vote for Harris.
In your analogy, Republican voters are the massive number of scabs coming in to replace the striking workers and thus making the strike ineffective or even counterproductive.
But also… You do understand that this isn’t a strike, right?
People who keep voting for poor policy are the scabs. Republicans are an entirely different company who have bad policies. We want to not become that company.
Ahh, I see… You’re confusing the shitty, corrupt union (Democrats) with the company (the USA).
We need to fix the US electoral system so that we have better choices. But until we can do so, we need to do harm reduction. Accelerationism, including in the form of not voting or voting third party, is not harm reduction.
There is no fixing the electoral system. You’re not going to fix a company from the inside. They will ban ranked choice voting if it ever starts gaining traction.
Two major examples of this are Bernie Sanders being ousted by the establishment when he was about to win in 2016 and UK’s Jeremy Corbyn who got straight coup’d by Zionists because he was about to win.
Democrats will use every dirty trick in the book they never use against Republicans if someone comes up who will challenge the establishment. The moment the elite is endangered they will break every single rule in the book to overthrow their challenger.
You cannot change the system from the inside if the people are the top have already proven they will never allow that.
Voting for third parties is tied for the second most effective way to increase harm. Without changes to the electoral system (changes I personally do believe are possible, despite your defeatist attitude), third party votes will always be spoiler votes. The only way to more effectively increase harm is to vote Republican.
Voting for Democrats isn’t a good long term strategy, but it’s the only strategy that has any hope of actually keeping my trans friends around so they can see the long term, and it’s the least bad of all the options right now. Voting third party, or not voting, is effectively a 1 vote swing away from the Democrats to the Republicans, whose policies are pretty clearly to make the genocide in Gaza worse and to start other genocides and forms of suffering. Voting Republican is a 2 vote swing towards that.
So I’m choosing the least bad option, and the option most likely to open up better options down the line. You’re choosing an ineffective option and then pretending to have the moral high ground even though what you’re choosing is ineffective virtue signaling.
Voting third party is also worse for the Palestinian people given that it gives Donald “finish the job” Trump a better chance at the White House. This has already been established - it’s not my fault you’re ignoring facts that are inconvenient to your pre-selected conclusion.
The current situation still has the Democrats with a less evil perspective. Evil? Yes. But less evil than the Republicans. And moreover, as you’ve yourself said, the Democrats are movable on the topic. Third parties are not a viable alternative, and 2016 showed how easily voting third-party can lead to a worse alternative. You don’t have to like it. You can and should protest against Harris’s current stance. But Harris is also the only electoral option that gives us a chance of getting better policies.
So, going back to that poem: voting for the Democrats is the most effective electoral way to speak out for both the Palestinians and the LGBTQ+ community (along with many other groups the Republicans would target). Voting is necessary, but not sufficient.
BTW, on a different topic… those are some interesting hours you keep. What time zone is that? GMT+3?