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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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It doesn't though. I disagree with Biden but he's not actively trying to take away my rights. Its a lesser of two evils situation, and acting like its not is either naive or malicious.
I want ranked choice voting so it isnt always this lesser of two evils bullshit, but that's not the reality.
If you don't vote biden, that's your choice, but that isn't some brave silent protest. That's giving up. What are you doing to change things? Right now. I voted in my local elections just recently. We lost every vote, but I did it anyways. I'll be voting in any primaries I can, and for any election I'm able. When I'm financially able I'll be donating to candidates who I personally support.
Unless you want a full on revolution, work around the bullshit system we have to make it better. Realistically, I don't think there is the public will for a real revolution.
This is harsh and I mean it to be. If you don't vote you are doing nothing. If you aren't campaigning or helping somebody else do so, you're doing nothing. If you are simply whining on the Internet about how both candidates are shit and you give up, then you've given up. Don't pull this "enlightened" both sides are equally shit idiocy. Its simply not true.
If you honestly think that the only way to change is revolution, then plan one. Nobody wants to hear you shout to the void that you won't be participating in the bare minimum of directing a democracy/republic.
You're fine with Biden supporting a genocide in Gaza as long as it doesn't personally effect you, is that right?
This is an internet comment section. We're all shouting to the void, nothing anyone says here matters. This is all just for fun.
I never said I supported the shit in Gaza. I don't. I want a ceasefire. I want a free and independent Palestine. What, realistically, do you want me to do to make that happen? Voting for Trump won't help. Voting third party won't help. Not voting won't help. Enlighten me.
Or is this more "if you haven't given up too you must be complicit" bullshit? What have you done? I'll continue to do what I can to make a positive change, despite the lack of power I personally have. I'd encourage you to do the same, to pick up whatever hypothetical twig you have laying around and swing it, rather than putting down others for doing what they can, in the fucked up situation we are in. Citizens have political power as a collective, not individuals, and if you back out of that collective you're just giving up what power you do have.
If you vote for Biden you are voting for genocide. Fact.
Our votes are our only leverage over Biden. If the Biden team cares at all about winning reelection then Biden will reconsider his unlimited support for Israel, and if he does I will 100% vote for him. Until then? No ceasefire, no votes.
Also I haven't given up? Hell, I'm still voting downticket for Democrats! But I will not vote for genocide. That's my red line. I can not compromise myself that far, I'd literally rather die (and because I'm a trans commie, Trump might actually fucking kill me so yeah)
Trump will be just as bad, if not worse. He regularly praises dictators for their human rights abuses and wants to reimplement a travel ban from many middle eastern countries, and has stated he doesn't want any refugees to come from those areas, I believe specifically including Gaza.
I understand the decision you've made, but I disagree. I still feel that biden v trump means I vote biden, because trump is both worse for the US, and worse for the people suffering in Palestine. I hope Biden changes his stance and actually calls for a ceasefire, and I will continue to let my representatives know this.
You do what you gotta do, but I'll never support Trump, through direct action, or inaction.
Trump will also make Democrats think twice about their unlimited support for Israel, so it's actually a mixed bag.
At the very least libs like Bernie would have the courage to endorse a ceasefire under Trump, even if they won't under Biden.
Read Bernies most recent book on Capitalism and how we should abolish it before you call him a lib, just cause he preaches Healthcare, College, and Scandinavia for the votes doesn't mean he and the other DemSocs in congress don't have radical aspirations.
"Hmmmm Fascism but it forces the Dems to have a humane foreign policy if they survive the persecution." Quite the mixed bag you got there.
Watch Bernie refuse to endorse a ceasefire as thousands and thousands of children die in screaming burning agony. Right now there are certainly hundreds of children buried under rubble dying of thirst. They are terrified and alone and no one will help them and they will scream and cry and beg for days until they finally die. That's what Bernie supports under Biden, and what you support by voting for him.
I bet some of them saw their parents die before they were buried. I bet some of them saw friends, siblings, cousins, and neighbors die too. Right now they can probably smell the burning stinking rot of unburied corpses lit on fire by white phosphorous, and all they can think of is how hungry they are because they were starving before they were buried under rubble. If you support this you are my enemy.
He has proven to me that he is a spineless liberal and I regret ever voting for him. He's worthless like all social democrats.
Jesus Christ, you're far down the tankie hole. You realize socialism is an economic ideology, yes? Has nothing to do with Gaza, capitalism doesn't even need Israel to survive in any way. Support for Israel has nothing to do with liberalism please stop reading the party line. In fact by showing his lack of foreign policy skills Bernie has just showed us that he's even more of a socialist then we thought /s.
Regardless you showed yourself as politically illiterate as soon as you carted out the age old "social fascist" line for social democrats. Which again, Bernie isn't even a social democrat, no matter how much you larpers want him to be so you have an excuse to throw your vote away on the SPA or Green Party like that's worked at all the past century.
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. Have you ever read, like, anything written by a communist?
If Bernie isn't a social democrat, why is he supporting Israel's genocide?
These things are completely separate. You can be a fascist Zionist and support it, you can be a Liberal Democrat and support it, you can even be a socialist Zionist like Albert Einstein. Zionism and Socialism are not mutually exclusive.
That's not even mentioning that just recently Bernie put out a statement condemning the actions of Israel
Yes I've read plenty written by communists, I've been a member of a party for fucks sake. But trotting out slogans like "Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism" is absolutely not a substitution for actual political analysis, otherwise Capital would've been a book of catchy chants. Not all imperialism happens because of capitalism, to act like it does would heavily discount the decades of ideological reasoning that's made Christian extremists in the US prop up Zionism within the Republicans and the geopolitical reasoning that's propped it up with the Neoliberal wing of Democrats and its long dead Republican brother in the Republican Neo-Con wing.
Ultimately, yeah, labor Zionism totally exists. It is entirely possible for Marxists to make a rightist error and support empire. History is full of examples!
I'm going to keep calling him a liberal until he calls for a ceasefire because in policy terms he is behaving indistinguishably from the rest of the Democrats.
The bare minimum is calling for a ceasefire. The DSA did it. The Squad did it? Why can't he?
I think you're noble in this respect. I don't think many people want to watch others suffer or for there to be war, however responding by blaming Biden for a war that he has no part in is like blaming Trump for the situation in Afghanistan. Imagine before there were nukes, thousands of years ago, a guy could have a lot of horses or camels and be a big time warlord and not want to get involved in someone else's battles let alone feuds.
Sometimes it's not about acting smart or picking sides, it's about being genuine in your lack of input on the issue. The entire Israel-Gaza conflict has been going on since before even Trump's election, and even more of a loaded gun of a topic than Afghanistan.
I'm a little more torn over this than others... On one hand, this is the appropriate messaging to force Democrats to actually represent the interests of their electorate, the thing they're specifically elected to do. The phone lines of these politicians should be going off 24 hours a day with callers telling them they will never even consider voting for them again unless they show an appropriate level of change, remorse, and action to stop this. Biden should be receiving that 10x over. Additionally, there are groups of people I will never criticize for refusing to vote - should the white lefty criticize the Muslim for refusing to vote for a leader that does not value the lives of Muslims? Should they criticize the Jew for refusing to vote for a leader who commits genocide in their name?
...and on the other hand, as a queer person who follows politics, I still feel any public refusal to vote Biden on my part must be a bluff. There's too much at stake for me to justify going through with it privately... there's my trans life, yes, but then there's also the lives of my trans and generally queer friends, the freedoms of the women in my life, the lives and freedoms of those groups on the national scale, the ability for anyone to vote at all down the line - privately refusing to vote blue for the presidency would not feel like solidarity (partly because it would make the situation I'm refusing to vote over worse, and also potentially make life in the US for Jews and Muslims worse, as Republicans and Trump specifically have enacted things like explicit travel bans before). It would not feel like praxis to virtue signal my refusal to be complicit in one genocide only to be complicit in the all-to-possible ellimination of democracy at home and a subsequent net increase in genocide and funding for it around the world. Voting for Genocide Joe is not cool or satisfying or even right - it's just the least bad... and honestly for what its worth, the least bad has never looked worse in my life.
Thanks for seriously engaging with my comment, I don't think anyone else bothered.
And yeah, I'm trans in a red state. If Trump gets elected it could get really bad for me really fast. I really do believe Biden can be pressured on this issue, though, and I'm willing to put my life and safety on the line to do it.
It's more than just a trolley problem, because my choice to not pull the lever is influencing the trolley's behavior. The trolley can change it's mind in this case.
What's your hexbear username?
Why would I bother?