"If you didn't want fascism you should have voted!"
"If you didn't want fascism you should have voted!"
996 comments
-
I mean... I'm not in love with the idea of "blocking movement to the left", but I sure as fuck would take that over the freespin to the right we are on for now. Like, I get that Dem's need to step their game way the fuck up because you don't win elections by being the "second worst choice"... but still. If we didn't want accelerated fascism...
-
You didn't have a choice, the economic system in the US concentrates power in the hand of people with money and they are fascists. If it wasn't 2024 it would be 2028 after 4 years of congressional stalling. The path the US is on is predetermined, they don't have to fix every election to the vote, they fix a percentage of them over the course of decades to push the policy to the right.
-
You're not wrong. But if I had cancer, and a doctor gave me a way to delay the inevitable, I would take it. Maybe it can't be fixed, maybe it's totally fubar. But I don't have it in me to just give up and willingly let people suffer without a fight.
-
But I don’t have it in me to just give up and willingly let people suffer without a fight.
Unless those people are Palestinian, then fuck 'em.
-
I get why you are pissed off, and have every right to be. How both parties of the American government have treated the Palestinian genocide is beyond reprehensible, immoral, inhumane, and frankly disgusting. And that is only a small slice of the harm caused by the US across the globe. All of which I condemn wholeheartedly.
But Trump is actively making it harder for anyone to help slow, stop, or otherwise prevent additional unnecessary death and suffering. So while yes, the genocide would have continued under the Dems, there may yet have been innocent lives that could have been saved that will now be lost. When faced with saving 1 out of a 100, or 0, I believe that 1 life is worth saving. I even have the audacity to hope we could have saved more than just 1 out of 100.
I don't intend to give up on anyone, but I also have to accept that my power is limited. So doing what I can to prevent the genocide from accelerating, in the hopes that it gives even one more child a chance to escape, is worth it to me. Maybe it isn't the best strategy, but it is the best I could do with my time and ability to affect change to the best of my knowledge. I certainly would have preferred if the US electorate had united to solve these problems long ago, and we could have used our collective force for unambiguous good, but when even my parents won't listen to me on the changes I think the country needs to make, steering the entire country in the right direction is beyond me at this point. Despite that fact, I still can't just bury my head in the sand and say "sorry Palestinian child, I could have done everything in my power, kicking and screaming, to give you a snowballs chance in hell. But instead I felt it was more important to give up to the feelings of despair".
I get that a lot of folks, yourself included I assume(?), believe that abstaining from voting or voting 3rd party would send a strong message that we will not be complicit in the countries support of a genocidal regime. And I can see why that would be your strategy, maybe in 100+ years that kind of strategy would actually amount to more saved lives, I can't say for sure. But what I do know is that in the short term, our collective inability to keep Trump out of office has made many things worse for many people, minority groups most of all, and has made sure that the Palestinian genocide has only accelerated with the enthusiastic support of the US government under the Trump administration.
But with all that said, I hope that you haven't given up either, and are with me in doing the best you can to help anyone you can to the best of your abilities.
-
and has made sure that the Palestinian genocide has only accelerated with the enthusiastic support of the US government under the Trump administration.
No, he hasn't. The genocide was every bit as "accelerated" and the supporting of the US government every bit as enthusiastic under the Democrats, and you only think otherwise because liberals were engaging in mass genocide denial and apologia when it was their team doing it. In this sense, Trump has been better for Palestine, because at least now liberals are actually acknowledging what's happening.
This also torpedoes the "lesser evil" argument for me, because how can I trust people to vote lesser evil when they won't be honest with themselves about the evil the democrats were doing?
-
you only think otherwise because liberals were engaging in mass genocide denial and apologia when it was their team doing it.
Well, no. Actually I think it is accelerated because the Dems engaged in performative humanitarian efforts, which while largely ineffective still presented a minor barrier to the complete genocide. Trump on the other hand has called for Israel to "finish the problem", said that the Gaza strip just needs to be "cleaned out". Beyond that Trump has said things to the effect of "US will own the Gaza Strip", pushing to displace all remaining Palestinians, which is by definition escalating the situation to a declared ethnic cleansing, which Trump said mitigated by saying is only "a small number of people relative to things that have taken place over the decades and centuries.". His administration has even been directly consulted regarding airstrikes and said that "All hell will break loose" on the enemies of Israel and the United States
And given all of that, it is fairly clear that he is throwing the full weight of the US government behind the genocide, without even the faintest facade of decency or "humanitarian efforts". So while it's obvious that the Dems were still allowing the genocide to move forward, it was being ever so slightly hampered by their desire to "appear humane". Trump has removed those final barriers and now it is accelerating.
And you don't have to take my word for it, you can take it from the warmongers mouth. Israel’s far-right former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who quit Netanyahu’s war cabinet earlier this year to protest the Gaza ceasefire deal, confirmed the synergy between Trump’s thinking and extreme conservatives in Israel, saying on Xitter “Donald, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship” in response to Trump's proposed plans for Gaza.
Beyond that, in the United States, Trump has attempted to silence dissent against the genocide. From attempting to strong arm colleges into forcibly stopping protests on campus, to deporting any foreign nationals who speak out, to instructing the Justice department to "aggressively prosecute pro-Palestinian activists".
Which kinda torpedoes the claim that "Trump has been better for Palestine", especially on the ground of "now liberals are actually acknowledging what’s happening." I don't really see how a group of people who have no political power, and are actively being silenced from using their freedom of speech and assembly, could be an improvement at all. Doubly so when the Trump administration isn't even asking Israel to pretend to not be committing a genocide, but rather encouraging it.
Which kind of puts us at an impasse. Because the logic of your claim that "Trump is actually better for Gaza" sounds... insane to me. And even if your logic was correct, I don't see the value in promoting Trump now, given that he is still committing genocide and needs to be stopped just as urgently.
But given your world views, I think you kind of need your rational to be true just to protect your sense of self. Because if it isn't, then you would have to reconcile the fact that your efforts may have played a part in making things worse for the LGBTQ+ community, women, minorities, the world economy, the education system in the US, privacy laws, and the few Palestinians in Gaza that otherwise could have been saved (if only so the Dems could save face).
Here is the kicker however, despite your rather colorful accusations towards my character, I don't think you are out to intentionally cause harm. We are both limited in our abilities to affect change, and (I hope) are doing the best we can with the knowledge we have to make the world a better place.
So maybe instead of assuming that "lesser evil voters" are "untrustworthy" and seeing them as your enemies, recognize that many of them share the same goal as you. Recognize that we need to work collectively towards these goals. And if you think there is a better way, speak up! I'd be glad to listen, especially if you have a good plan moving forward instead of trying to rehash decisions long since cast. But don't think listening is somehow admitting defeat either. As far as I'm concerned, we are not enemies and we are not competing to prove who is "more responsible for the world's problems". We are all going to need to work together if we are serious about making this world a better place for everyone.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Blocking movement to the left is why you're left with a rightward trend. Not just because the right itself "moves right" but because Dems' political nature breeds false consciousness and confused disillusionment. Dems promise basic things like a student debt jubilee and then do a little weak attempt at it. So then people leave them behind. Even worse, Dems help create the degrading conditions that provokes an anti-liberal backlash (liberalism being the dominant ideology of capitalism, not just US Dems), and then Dems work their hardest to fight the associated leftward shift. But not the right: their radicals are useful for crushing that new left, as the left is anticapitalist.
Most importantly, the bourgeoisie electoral system provides an illusion of control. You don't actually choose the lesset evil. You just throw in a vote for candidates preselected for you by capital and the party (a party in which you have no say) who will never actually be able to fight the right or adopt anticapitalist positions, and will therefore never be left. You, and the people, are not in control in this scenario. This scenario just provides consent for what capital wanted anyways, just with two different flavors: genocidal fascism with a good PR team for the theoretically empathetic and genocidal fascism with an okay PR team for braying hogs.
-
Up until the moment we have enough confirmed support for a progressive movement, status quo is a hell of a lot better than accelerated fascism; if only to buy more time to build the aforementioned progressive support. I'm all for actual leftward movement, but gambling on unconfirmed support is stupid. Even the liberals understand that, in their sports-team monkey brain.
The left has no plan sufficient to deal with this. I hear vague rumblings about strikes and revolutions and the power of the working class united, but the working class isn't united yet. There is no organized, validated plan to effect that revolution. There's no leftist Project 2025. That's a natural consequence of the commendable independence of leftists, but it has the unfortunate consequence of being tactically untenable. The right uniform under the banner of their dictator, the left squabbles about trivialities.
It's not that I wish it to be so; I would vastly prefer the left to have a functional plan to secure power. But it is the reality; I see neither such a plan, nor the necessary organization to implement such a plan. That's why we vote lesser evil. We strive for the stationary phase of the ratchet to avoid the freewheeling phase, because we don't yet have the organized strength to break the pawl from its housing.
Once we have that organized strength, and not sooner, we can break the pawl. Sooner, and the ratchet spins freely to the right.
-
And how's that working out for you?
-
A bunch of shortsighted cosplayers with no sense of praxis or political literacy protested the do-nothing Dems and we got the freewheeling fascism MAGAs. How's that working out for you? How's the glorious revolution coming?
-
So it's not working then?
But I assume you're going to keep doing it anyway. All while continuing to accuse other people of being short sited with no sense of praxis.
-
Flagrant hypocrisy! This was your plan, not mine. How's it working? Did a third party win? Did we end the genocide in Gaza yet? Don't equate your plan's failure with our recognition that it failed. You gambled, and this is what we get. Own it, maybe learn something about implementation.
-
Yup, looks like I was correct; you are going to keep doing it anyway, while desperately projecting your own failure onto others.
-
Keep up the "I'm rubber you're glue" act buddy, it's age appropriate. I wanted Trump to lose, you wanted Harris to lose. You got your wish, this is on you. Or keep blaming everyone else who tried to warn you that it was a stupid idea, how dare they point out the glaring flaws in your strategy. Let's see if that makes a leftist plan materialize.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
996 comments