this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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And I'm being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don't understand it. Can someone please "steelman" that argument for me?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 42 minutes ago (1 children)

Naïve/entitled people fail to grasp the concept of compromise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 minutes ago

Is genocide not too far to compromise on? Or is it less of an issue because it’s a genocide of Arabs?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 minutes ago* (last edited 9 minutes ago)

I think some people have explained it decently, but as someone who did not vote for Harris, I have a simple explanation:

I do not want the Democratic party to think it's Ok to be slightly better than Trump.


If I'm going to be honest, trans rights and immigration are minor issues compared to inequality and war in Gaza.

The Dems can be better, but they choose not to. Me voting for them tells them that's acceptable, but it's not. I supported third party in 2024, and I will continue to do so until the Democrats get serious reform.

(For those who think it would be "less bad" with Harris, that's the problem. I don't care for "less bad" when the duopoly got us here regardless. Represent the people.)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 29 minutes ago* (last edited 20 minutes ago)

because americans see voting the same as buying and endorsing a thing which is objectively wrong.

Not buying a product hurts the manufacturer.

Not voting does jack shit. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

America has powerful Karen/Kyle energy where people overreact to a slight flaw in service and this argument is the Karen/Kyle Tantrum argument over genuinely bad policies supported by Harris. They think if they take a fit this election they will be in a better spot next election. The reality is that more poeple will be homeless and out of reach. The media will be in worse shape.

Voting is always a trolley problem.

But overall I don't think that's the biggest group of people. The majority of people that didn't vote I think were tuned out of the election because of ongoing failures.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago

It starts with fury. Everything is beyond messed up over there.

Add in: anger funnels focus. Tunnel vision. It almost feels morally wrong to think of another thing. Anger helps you in a physical fight, so this makes sense. Also, ordering lunch while your neighbor's house burns down is kinda dickish.

Add in: first past the post voting. This is the big clincher. It forces two party systems mathematically, and most people understandably haven't heard why.

Factoring in the information in that video, you realize your choice really is Harris or Trump. Third choices get transformed into a vote for the candidate you dislike the most. So you take the best option.

Take away the knowledge of first past the post, and you have every reason to think that third parties will work if you all just had some spine and imagination, god damnit. You resolve not to let yourself be one of the ones who sat by silently while horrible things happen!

Cast protest vote thinking it makes you one of the people who actually helped, not realizing first past the post transforms that vote into a vote for trump, and everybody keeps fighting instead of watching that video and letting the facts it points out inform what they do.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

The arguments are as stupid as you guessed.

These are naive emotional people who are dumb as fuck. I know so many in my life and it's like arguying with a brick wall.

Children still believe we live in a black and white world, democrats are in power now, genocide is happening, they will not vote for them. The concept that both will finance the genocide but another will be much worse is not something they can understand.

You have others that want to intentionally punish democrats for not doing anything. Great in the meantime, Trump will provide a full carte blanche to Nettanyahu in the middle east, he will continue what he's doing, annex everything without any limits. They were partying in Israel after Trump won.

A third group wants the system to break down because they think if you're a post collapse society, they will be able to build their utopia.

Yes as dumb idiots living in la la land.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago

They would rather accelerate genocide than admit they're wrong. It's disgusting

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

To start, we have to understand that the genocide of Palestine started before the October 7th attacks. Israel's rampant illegal settlements in the Gaza strip may have been the final straw that provoked Hamas to make a move, but Palestinians have been abused, forced into ghettos, and murdered by private citizens for decades. All of this, and nobody in the West ever really batted an eye at the suffering except for a handful of informed leftists.

If Harris had won, the most likely outcome is that the immediate conflict would eventually be paused, just like it paused after the second intifadas. No land would be returned, no settlements removed, but Hamas' forces would be decimated to the point they could not fight back and Israel would return to their quiet slow genocide until the stars align to renew their attack once more.

Now that Trump has won, the most likely outcome is...that the immediate conflict will eventually pause, just like it paused after the second intifadas. Israel isn't an island, if they ramp up their aggression ever further, eventually other parts of the world will push for sanctions on Israel. A Trump win doesn't suddenly give Israel carte blanch to build the gas chambers, they still have to pay lip service to international law. Israel will inflict a grievous wound on Hamas, deep enough that it will take another generation before conflict resumes, and go back to expanding their settlements.

This genocide has been happening since before I was born, and multiple Democrat presidents have had an opportunity to say something or work towards curbing Israeli aggression. They've all vaguely promised to work towards a two-state solution, knowing that the current two states are what they want. If Kamala Harris couldn't even call it a genocide, then she was no different, and it would be foolish to think she would actually take any steps towards meaningfully stopping Israel.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 52 minutes ago

So, you’re counting on Trump, known for racist, anti-Muslim rhetoric, will do no different than Harris? Ridiculous. Trump doesn’t care, and it’s clear Bibi doesn’t care.

Also, that doesn’t tell me how that protest vote does anything. If the result is the same, then at least go for the person that won’t destroy even more lives.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Well, iirc, trump mentioned something about wiping the Palestinians out himself (or something along those lines, I halfway forgot as trump says a lot of shit) so let's just say that whatever the result it, it won't be good for the Palestinians.

Also remember that trump is now surrounded by a religious extremists cult who is betting on Jesus coming back in Jerusalem, and they've been working for 4 years to prepare for Trump's return and ehat they can do with a king with nukes

Talking about nukes, so this extremists cult is also betting on the world ending to make Jesus return sooo, yeah, nothing to see here.

Let's see, what other ways will this destroy the world? Oh yeah, Ukraine will be fucked too, trump will just force it to surrender either now, or negotiate "peace" after which Russia either just goes on or zelenski falls out of a window. with that done, the Baltics will be next for putin, don't doubt it. Poland and Czech Republic may follow. What else? Taiwan will be fucked now too so wars all over, yeeeiii.

What other fin can we expect? Climate change is a hoax too, right? Multiple point of no return came and went and shits about to get a lot worse a lot faster

Fuck America, and fuck the majority of Americans, you have ended the world. That basically includes anyone who didn't vote for Harris.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Israel will inflict a grievous wound on Hamas, deep enough that it will take another generation before conflict resumes, and go back to expanding their settlements.

Expanding settlements is continuing the violent conflict, just not as open warfare.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Because the standard for Democrats is perfectionism, but the standard for Republicans is "That's just Trump being Trump."

In other words, they didn't think it through, they got suckered by propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Imagine thinking "stop committing a genocide" is perfection.

Liberals are amazing creatures.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 52 minutes ago

trump will be 100x worse.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Don't worry. Trump won. You'll hear a whole lot less about Gaza and genocide now.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

Steelman:

The US is currently a fascist, imperialist state. It has brutalized the global south, indigenous people, and POCs generally since its founding and will continue to do so unless the status quo is disrupted and changed significantly.

The Democratic party supports the same militaristic policies and the same neoliberal economic system that the Republicans do. The primary difference between the parties are various social issues that may make life somewhat better or worse for US citizens, but will never address the core problems of fascism, imperialism, and capitalism. Both parties support and protect the status quo. This status quo only benefits the bourgeois class and rich white people and harms literally hundreds of millions of others around the world.

The Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties that the Left has any degree of leverage over since the Democrats want the Left to vote for them. So, organizing to essentially boycott the Democratic party is a powerful method of protest that could effect real policy change. It is possibly the only effective method of protest left since the US police & surveilance state is cracking down on protests and the Left has no chance protesting violently against the most powerful military the world has ever seen.

The only way to make that threat matter to the Democratic party is to follow through if the demands aren't met, even - or especially - if it means a second Trump term.

The liberal establishment has ignored and abandoned the working class for decades while dangling the carrot of milktoast social democratic reforms that rarely come to pass, but they blame the same people they abandoned for not energetically voting for them. They say it is a moral imperative to vote for them, but they are incapable of bettering the lives of working class people.

Strawman:

It would hurt my feelings too much to vote for COPmala Harm-us. Plus, Trump would let Putin annex Ukraine. Also, I'd risk touching grass if I went outside to participate in bourgeois electoralism. Gross.

Reality:

You can, and should, do more than one thing. Voting for Kamala is effectively playing defense against outright, full-throated fascism a la Mussolini even if you'd still consider the US fascist - it is clearly worse under Republicans. So vote, play defense, AND organize to raise class consciousness, provide mutual aid, protest when possible, and contribute to socialist causes. Letting Trump win would be a bad move. But, ultimately it is not the Left's fault that he won. He won the popular vole and the electoral college vote by a large margin - larger than all third party socialist/socialist-adjacent candidates' votes combined.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 48 minutes ago

Buddy, you haven't seen American fascism yet. Part of the problem is that people like you scream "fascist" so much that it's lost it's power. A fascist like Trump would have never been able to pull this off if that word hadn't been trivializec.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago

This is a great explanation, well done.

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