Imagine a scenario with multiple political parties competing to defeat the Republicans. With more representative electoral systems, voters could choose any candidate they prefer, ensuring that even if their choice doesn’t win, their vote can still be counted against the republican party with no spoiler effect. Since voting methods are determined at the state level, we don’t need to wait for federal changes; some states have already implemented electoral reform. Alaska recently picked a more moderate conservative over Sarah Palin because of Ranked Choice voting
Who would oppose having multiple chances to take power from the Republican Party? The Democratic Party would. In states they control, they could replace First Past The Post voting with an electoral system without a spoiler effect. Yet year after year, election after election, the democrats sit on their hands and do nothing about FPTP voting.
Democrats frequently acknowledge the shortcomings of FPTP voting, and have done so for longer than I’ve been alive. Just mention voting for a third party to any Democrat, and they’ll readily express their awareness of the flaws in the voting system used by most states. Comments for articles about the Green Party will further illustrate their understanding of this issue.
The Democrats seem to prefer the country balancing over a fire pit of fascism rather than truly competing for our votes. Party over country at all costs.
Another post that makes me further double down on voting 3rd party. It is because of this mentality that not enough people vote 3rd party to make a difference. Also, I refuse to reward genocide.
Holy shit these comments...
Guys, I think you have over-saturated your target forum. Too many on the same site, you gotta tell the higher ups to spread it around more so it's not so obvious.
Edit: Just for folks who may not understand: Harris has to walk a fine rhetorical line before the election. The reality is, if she comes out strongly about Israel/Palestine in any way whatsoever, she will lose. People here can't seem to grasp this fact. Maybe they don't live in the US and understand the political/social climate here? Or perhaps they're just too young?
She will lose, and Trump will give Netanyahu carte blanche to expand his ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
I wish I knew how Harris actually feels about the situation, and I believe her reticence to support Israel in the way Biden has is a good sign. But no, I wish I knew what she's going to do; all I know is that it's far better than the only other possible alternative. Anyone who's gonna say 'der how you know that,' is disingenuous as fuck. You know why. I'm not going to explain that shit again.
I don’t know who is driving the Gaza protest rhetoric. It’s a question that should be answered. Because the absolute anti-Democrats narrative while simultaneously getting extraordinarily butthurt if anyone points out the Trump/Republican stance (and the fact it’s Congress that votes the Israeli aid) is indicative of foreign-based propaganda that cares NOT AT ALL about Gaza. It’s about getting Trump re-elected. Either that or the people posting here and across social media calling this war a genocide are just plain stupid or really, really feel self-fulfilled by their own anger.
You wanna complain about an actual genocide, look up what’s happening in Sudan as we speak.
There was no massive Jewish/Muslim conflict for a 1000 years in the region. The biggest massacre in the region against the Jews was probably the Siege of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099, albiet exact numbers are not available. The crusaders killed everyone in the city with a death toll as low as 3000 to as high as 70000. This includes all Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
When I tried to look at the pogroms done against Jews in the Levant the history is actually remarkably scant. While they did happen, my impression based on just reading the wiki article was that they were caught up in larger conflicts in the region and it wasn't a deliberate targetting in the same way the Tsar's cossacks targetted Jews. And in all those cases the dominant power always came to their rescue and compensated them for the damages done by their persecutors. Also it appears that the worst perps weren't Muslims, but Druze (who are not Muslims).
In short, Trump is not only highly dishonest, but also a worthless shitbag who has been struggling his entire life to enshittify the world we all live in. He is worse than Bezos or Zuckerberg, because at least Amazon is a decent shopping platform, and Zuckerberg's facebook helped many people (myself included) to reconnect with childhood friends that I thought I would never speak to again).
Lmao genocide is not a “highly complex geopolitical issue”
It is neocolonialism that has been going on for a while (not 1000 years??) and is now ramping up to full on blatant murder, genocide, and devastation for the Palestinian peoples.
I can think of something US govt can do literally right now to help; STOP GIVING ISRAEL FUCKING WEAPONS!
But then the poor investors of aero/defense industrial complex will whine and complain that their Raytheon stock went down 5% ☹️. Can’t have that now can we
Western settler-colonialism is not “a 1,000 year conflict.” It’s a modern imperialist project.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism_as_settler_colonialismThis is extremely misleading. Fuck Trump 10000 times and kamala is the only sane choice, but stop trying to paint over reality to try and make her look like she's not just a lesser evil.
She didn't just "not promise to solve 1000 year conflict" (which the genocide has been going on for the last 75 years),
she did promise to continue funding genocide with American taxpayer dollars. (Of which the US has been giving and average of $5 billion in tax dollars and weapons to Isreal per year for the last 75 years, since they first invaded Palestine).
We are voting for her because she is the lesser evil. We don't have to be happy about it or stop criticizing her on her bad policies.
Basically: Vote for Harris, but also fuck her for vowing to continue funding genocide. Trump would also keep funding genocide, and he'd also destroy what's left of the west, on top of every other obvious reason he should never be in power again (and never should have been).
I just want to point out I don't believe this is a far left thought. It's a very good Russian disinformation campaign.
We should decolonize lemmy. American expecting an american POV can go stuff themselves. We do not care about your partisan politics. None of the idiots they picked for candidates are on the side of peace. They never have been. This "but they will murder people here" rhetoric doesn't work. Maybe get a taste of your own medecine after you were silent while they were bombing innocent. What, you're afraid of a coup? How many time did america coup'ed and murdered heads of state? The life of your american trans friend doesn't worth more than a woman in beyrouth. This is a deeply racist viewpoint.
Israel is an appartheid state and a colony and should got the south african route. It's not "highly complex". The askenazis came and stole land. The palestinian armed forces agreed to stop fighting in exchange for self-determination in the west bank and gaza. In exchange, they got area C and colonies.
Kamala might fund genocide in Israel. But Trump will fund genocide in Israel, and genocide here.
We can be ideologically pure when we don’t have fascists at the doorstep. Thousands of children just FUCKING VANISHED during Trumps term. What’s going to happen during his second? Texas was (is?) putting barbed wire in the river on the fucking border. Trump will give free rein to murderous politicians (Texas is also about to execute another innocent man btw). People are going to die here.
Hey, mods? Mind explaining which parts of the comments you removed were "misinformation?"
Was it the part where I said the opinions of the people sending the bomb shipments don't change the genocide when the IDF uses them regardless?
Was it the part where I said the US brutally exploits the Global South with predatory IMF loans?
Was it the part where I called Israel a "settler-colonial" project?
Was it the part where I said a democratic One State Solution is the only way to end the genocide, given Israel's dependency on Settler-Colonialism?
Was it where I said Biden approved the IDF's invasion of Lebanon?
Was it the part where I said the Democrats are supporting the IDF in committing genocide?
Or maybe it was the part where I said the US uses Israel to help secure the Petro-Dollar, and therefore doesn't care about the Palestinians at all, and hasn't since the 1940s?
Here's what Joe Biden has to say:
Just want to know which part of that is "wrongthink" on Lemmy.world. This blatant defense of Zionism is ridiculous.
Trump would be a disaster for the middle east. He wouldn't even be good for Israel. Sure, he'd support Israel now, but Trump loves strongman leaders, and there are plenty of them in the middle east, so he'd love Netanyahu, but he'd probably also cozy up to any other regional strongmen and destabilize things even more.
But, the Biden/Harris admin has been effectively sponsoring the genocide by giving military aid to Israel. It's clear that Israel is the biggest military power in the region, and it has been for decades. It has no need for military aid. The best way to help civilians is to make Israel afraid to piss off its neighbors. Right now it's convinced it could beat them in any war, so it's happy to grind the Palestinians into dust, daring Iran, Egypt, etc. to interfere.
Yes, it's a complex geopolitical issue, and an all-out regional war would put many more civilians in danger, not just the Palestinians. But, giving military aid to Israel while they engage in genocide isn't a good way to prevent a regional war.
Even if you're a single-issue voter who doesn't care about women's reproductive health, doesn't care about the rule of law, doesn't care about free speech, doesn't care about corruption, and is only 100% focused on the fate of Palestinians, even then you should be voting for Harris. Even if you don't like her policies, there's still a slight chance she'd listen to reason once elected. Trump would be an utter disaster.
The comment section for this type of posts is always such a shit show.
This is essentially saying 2 things:
1 - It's insane that some here seem to think that to remain "independent" of politics you can abstain or vote third party to show your discontent for how slowly the Dems deal with Natenyahu's BS. Your abstain or 3rd party vote does nothing to "move the Dems to the left" when in reality you are removing them from power to give it to Trump, who has already promised to triple down on helping Netanyahu achieve whatever he wants.
The election is happening right now. There's no time and space to negotiate new candidates or parties. It's either the disappointing Dems, or the christo-fascist GOP. The time for standing on principle was 3 years ago, or next year at the start of the new cycle. Today is about pragmatism - how close we can get to the desired outcome, and which of these parties is more interested in listening to your position moving forward. It should be abundantly clear that Harris is by a huge margin the better choice for your desired outcomes.
2 - The Israel operation in Gaza, that we all want to stop, is not something that can be just ended with the click of a button. A bunch of actors in that region are hell bent on killing each other, like when Hamas did genocide on Israel last year, and now we have multiple state actors moving armies against each other. The brain-dead premise that somehow Democrats "want genocide" makes it impossible to have a serious conversation.
If you don't vote for Harris over a mess in the Middle East that we didn't directly create and are not directly responsible for, and that the Biden administration is trying to solve even if it's too slow for your taste; and instead you act in favor of helping Trump who will absolutely empower Netanyahu to do whatever he wants, then not only are you directly voting against your own interests, but you are engaging in a level of dumb-fuckery of supreme proportions. And fucking all of us over hard while at it.
In short: By opposing Harris right at the finish line of the election cycle, you are going to inflict Trump's dictator regime and the runaway christo-fascist GOP on the entire planet, because you are dissatisfied with how mediocre Dems have been at trying to stop Israel. You think this makes you virtuous. It does not.
First and foremost, this isn't a 1000 year war. It's a bit over 100 years at most. The colonization of Palestine started around 100 years ago. Israel was founded in 1948.
Secondly, Kamala isn't working towards achieving shit. Her government is literally still sending weapons to Israel as Israel is shooting at UN peacekeepers, burning people alive, attacking five different countries, and much more worse.
The majority of people want an end to the Unconditional Military Support of Israel. That is the requirement for the US to abide by US and International Humanitarian Law as well. It's not that complicated. You can't say you want to support civilians on both sides when you provide one side with the weapons used to commit genocide against the other unconditionally.
The argument for people who are anti-genocide to vote Harris, is that Trump will not only be much worse than the current administration, but will not be able to be swayed by public pressure in the same way Harris might be. The harm reduction argument is true for domestic policies, but is meaningless for foreign policy when the current administration is assisting Genocide.
Harris is significantly more likely to be pressured to change course from public pressure than Trump, that is the right argument for getting people who are anti-genocide to vote Harris despite the current administration's policy. Because the fight doesn't end after the election, but the fight will be much more difficult under a Trump administration.
When strawman versus just one person isn't anywhere near enough
I was banned from r/LateStageCapitalism for politely supporting a post with this reasoning. I pointed out that Trump would make the conflict even worse for innocents, and voting third-party to make a statement against neoliberal Democrat rule (which is bad) is a position that, in this moment, only the least-vulnerable in America can take when there is a risk of outright christo-fascism threatening the least-enfranchised.
Banned. “This is a socialist sub.” Proceeded to see a post from a mod openly mocking anyone who entertained lesser-of-two-evils arguments; they sounded like a sneering teenager. Over there, it’s all theory and no parsing of theory with reality.
This shit is so fucking stupid....
People ask why Kamala is so far right on so many issues compared to the Dem voter base...
And rather than say "yeah, I can't provide a valid reason she keeps going to the right", we keep getting these posts about how it doesn't matter?
Imagine if Kamala's line was just to the right of yours, whatever you care most about, she's just going to agree with trump on.
And when you go around, asking why you aren't important enough to be on Kamala's side of the line, everyone told you to stop being a baby and be happy with what you get, even tho what you want isn't included in her platform
Like, we don't gain votes by supporting a genocide.
We don't gain votes from a border wall and Trump's other border policies Kamala adopted.
Shit. Just being pro-fracking is going to lose us PA, and trump can't win the election without PA.
That one fucking issue that not a single person can explain why she holds. That's all it would take to prevent trump.
But instead of using your time productively to try and get Kamala to change while there's still time...
You want to shit on the people the party left behind?
Like this doesn't even seem like trying to bully them into voting anymore, you're punching down on these people constantly and gleefully....
You're acting exactly like a fucking trump supporter.
TLDR:
The people trying to pull Kamala left are the ones helping Kamala
You're trying to do the same thing Hillary supporters tried to do in 2016....
Do you honestly not remember how that worked out?
Or is this all intentional?
Hopes and prayers!
This isn't what's happening, though. The Dems and Reps are aligned on Israel because it isn't a moral issue, but economic, which is why Biden has given Israel everything they want, including approving the invasion of Lebanon. The US supports Israel as a settler-colonial project because it helps the US secure power in the region, securing the Petro-Dollar as the world currency. This is how the US exploits the Global South, through predatory IMF loans, aka Imperialism.
Read To Stop Marx, They Made Zion. The genocide of Palestinians is for economic reasons, it cannot stop without a One-State Solution.
Far Left Intellectual: The party is the politically conscious, advanced section of the class, it is its vanguard. Therefore, we must form a vanguard party that pursues the interests of the working class.
MAGA Conservative: This time Trump will fix all the problems.
Lemmy Liberal: If Harris loses, it is because Far Left Intellectuals didn't vote for her, after she did not sound enough like Donald Trump
This is not a 1000 year conflict.
Israel cannot perpetrate it's crimes without the backing of the USA.
Stop excusing genocide and colonialism.
At least the meme acknowledges what a messed up hair trigger situation it is there, as it has been forever, and debunks the naive belief that USA simply cutting off its support would magically bring peace to the region instead of World War 3.
Disgusting pro Israel propaganda...
This conflict started in early 20th century... Saying this shit when genocide is happening is literally promoting the genocide.. Never again 🤡
Can't DNC komissars go back to the news and politics subs... We see you and this pathetic shit.
If US stopped sending billions in weapons for Israel to kill whoever their current target is, that would be a huge blow to the whole 'conflict' (as in, a colonial genocide). Neither of the candidates are willing to do anything of the sort though - Kamala has pledged to continue supporting Israel while Trump has pledged to give all the support Israel needs to 'finish the job quickly'.
And while yes, there's nuance to be found like with literally everything in the world, it's not a reason to dismiss any criticisms thrown at your preferred candidate.
Utterly breathtaking amount of historical confusion.
After WW1 the British, who were the major imperial colonial power at the time, though on a steep decline, had already decided that the strip of land we now know as Israel/Palestine was a strategic necessity in order to ensure a divided and weak middle eastern political arrangement, which could be exploited by mineral and oil investors. The old colonial system was clearly on the way out, and needed to be replaced by a system of international finance neocolonialism that came to prominence after WW2 with the Marshall Plan.
So they knew they couldn't just colonize Palestine, it was against their interests as the seat of international finance capital. This was outlined in broad strokes in the Balfour Declaration written by James Balfour sent to Lord Lionel Rothschild, later adopted with the League of Nations Mandate in 1921. So they backed the Zionist project and started encouraging Zionists to move to Palestine which had an existing Jewish population and whose government was generally tolerant of these Zionists who brought with them lots of foreign capital to invest. This plan continued until WW2 when the industrial economies of Europe, and especially Britain were utterly destroyed by the war. The USA, which had stayed out of the war as much as possible until the battle of Stalingrad that turned the tides against the Nazis, had wanted this since it could then establish itself as the world's industrial powerhouse and seat of neocolonial finance capital. After a period of mass industrialization, this is exactly what happened.
But of course the international finance capitalists, wherever they were stationed, had a plan in place for the region of Palestine; and a few years later, with backing of the international community, we have the tragedy of the Nakba.
100 years of conflict, engineered by the international ruling class of our current world. Obviously regional tensions existed, Muslim and Jewish tradition goes back a very long time and has occupied the same parts of the world for much of it, but the period of peace that existed in the region of Palestine was 500 years long before the British carved up the Ottoman empire for their own benefit.
Bullshit, Israel can barely breathe from all the pressure the US is exerting /s
This is fake fucking bullshit made up by brunch-munching, mimosa-fueled shitlibs. Very tiring.
Who transcribed this? Seriously, people...
Must we endure this witless partisan frothing ?
We get it, you’re on the team, now make something funny or go away.
Hotbed*
Two points:
- You don't measure politicians on their words, you measure them on their actions. When it comes to actual results, the style of salemanship makes no difference whatsoever: only an idiot would trully believe the used cars saleswoman with the smooth talk, half truths and vague statements of intentions that keeps implying she's really committed to getting you a trouble free car whilst always selling you a lemon is any better than the salesman with the brutish and simpleton sales talk that keeps telling you you'll get "the greatest car on Earth" and sells you a lemon. They're both shit, just with a different method of scamming people. Kamala ain't going to do anything but keep on supporting the Genocide all the way to a Holocaust because she hasn't taken even the slightest step in the direction of trying to stop it, quite the contrary
- The only way to get Democrat politicians to not freely act on their sociopath impulses - and anybody who unwaveringly supports the mass killing of people, including tens of thousands of children due to their race is, no matter what excuse they use, with total and absolute certainty a sociopath - is for them to be terrified that their careers will crash and burn. That means losing not just the Presidential election but also massive numbers of seats in Congress and even local elections. A sociopath's only motivation is they themselves and nobody else, so when it comes to politicians that's keeping their career going until they've made millions from selling their services as yielders of the powers entrusted to them by voters to the highest bidder. So people organising locally and for example plastering posters with pictures of dead children and the words "X gets paid to support this" all over the place in the districts of every APAIC supported Congress candidate to FUCK THEM UP for talking money to enable the mass murder of children can, if it succeeds, push the Democrats away fro supporting Fascism and other such sociopath choices, whilst the veritable reek of fear from the OP and others like him posting "We must vote for the smooth talking lovers of Genocidal ethno-Facism abroad so that the overt Fascist simpleton here doesn't win" memes just tells the sociopaths in the Democrat party that there are not limits to what they can get away with and will push the Democrat Party even more to the Right with Fascism In American the ultimate result either way. Sure, Trump not winning now is less bad than him winning, but if that happens in such a way that the Democrat politicians get convinced that there are no limits to the how depraved and sociopath they can be - and sending weapons to people murdering tens of thousands of children because of their race is about as depraved as it gets short of them murdering children themselves with their bare hands - and get away with it, all you did was make sure your Future is Fascism, the only difference being When rather than If.
DEATH TO MURICA IF YOU ARE AN AMERICAN READING THIS AND YOU SUPPORT YOUR COUNTRY, YOU ARE A SCUM. YOU ARE EVIL.
I mean those trashpeople are openly saying they'd rather have the violence done in their name to some innocents in the middle east because they are scared for their trans friends or whatever.
These idiots are openly racists and complaining non-americans aren't happy about them voting for the same idiots who are setting the rest of the world ablaze for the last 50 years at least.
Get back to reddit, idiot.
If you’re tired of this kind of crap you can vote for the party for socialism and liberation. They’re running de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel.
More like, I'm not going to vote for Genocide and both candidates support it. Sorry, you can "lesser evil" cry your heart out, but I have a firm line of not literally putting my name in favor of literally the most heinous war crimes imaginable. Kamala can earn my vote with the bare minimum of promising not to rubber stamp all of the bombs blowing up an open air prison of mostly children.
Fuck. Off.
Yeah this place is definitely just like, getting canvassed hardcore. big rip
Israel government is already killing whoever they want and taking any land whey want with full military support from the us. Both parties serve the same interests. Don't fall for the propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Israel_in_the_Israel–Hamas_war
Americans are disguisting subhumans. Carrot people not only obeying the farmers, but trying to convince everybody else to do because the stick is very bad.
Nobody cares about your politics. You guys picked to genocidal scummycandidates. Fix your goddamn country.
As a non-american, I do not care who you vote for or who you get at the end. I dont give a fuck about your electoral college or two party duopoly. If you accept the current system you are a genocider and I don't know how you sleep at night. Fix your goddamn country.
Kamala is working hard to do exactly what Trump is on this issue only.
Who cares about snubbing Harris? That's just nonsense. We vote because the policies matter, not because a human being we never met would feel bad if she lost.
This post highlights why liberals are fascists with a friendlier face. The "it's a complicated 1000+ year issue" narrative is the common excuse used to do nothing about the situation (or actively make it worse) while pretending that something is being done. It's the dog and pony show of biden "expressing frustration" about netanyahu while supplying him with all the tools to carry out genocide. You are running defense for genocide while attacking leftists who call to end this genocide. This doesn't make you the enlightened intellectual that you fancy yourself as.
Just some people think like this, you can't categorize all of the far left
Vote Kamala! but still you can just stop vetoing everything the UN tries to do and maybe then you couod at least have a cyprus happen instead of a genocide.
"1000 year conflict"
Ok there's no way this 2 month old OP isn't a party propagandist or something with how they're again shitting on anyone to the left of [insert Dem figurehead for current year's election here]. Yeah man, I feel so heard now. Maybe if Harris appears on Oprah again and continues to talk about how she loves fracking and Republicans and wants to appoint them to her cabinet, that would totally be relatable enough for me to vote for her. You know what, that Cheney endorsement was so groundbreaking that I'll start door knocking while the administration keeps arming the American Empire's rabid dog in the Middle East while she continues building Trump's border wall. You won't get free healthcare or education or anything but with any luck, Yahoo might even drag us into a wider war while the Earth literally melts and your future prospects are stolen from you by the ruling classes. Tax dollars well spent MURICA BABY TWO REPUBLICAN PARTIES LETS GO. I can't wait to be told the same harm reduction garbage in 4 years when the Demcrats get pulled even more towards fascism while the empire declines.
I'm way too jaded by this lib shit to keep huffing the Dem prescribed copium you're on.
I really don't get how people see shit like libs saying you have to vote for Harris or you'll get what's coming to you when Trump comes to power, as anything but voter intimidation.
If the Dems lose the election then that's squarely on them for not having good policy, it's up to them to win voters. How can you look upon someone rejecting genocide and hate them for it? How is that position so hard to understand?
For what it's worth I think people should vote Harris but I can't fault anyone for refusing to do so.
Imagine willingly posting pro-imperialist propaganda and thinking that makes you morally superior...
Side one: Bully punches you in the face, full force and never ceasing.
Side two: Your pleasant enough neighbor annoyingly pokes you gently in the ribs, a few times a day randomly.
"Both are assaulting me!!!"
Yes technically, but one is a very different situation. You first defeat the thing punching you in the head so you can live another day to fight the thing giving you the random poke. Whoever doesn't get the fact that your right to even attempt to fight back is likely the cost of trump at this point... Jan 6th did not happen before in any of our lifetimes, things are tangibly escalating and those of you considering this as a choice at all are just far too comfortable in the rights you think you "own".
this post is so based
Fart left? 🤔
If YoU AgReE wItH ThIs MeMe iTs BeCauSe YoU aRe SoOoOO CoNsErVaTiVe. AlSo, bOtH sIdEs
Ps YoU aRe AlSo aN iMpUrE sHiTlIb
