I'm not banned yet because the admin's at least a bit sympathetic, but I sure as hell don't think 90% of the group's gonna want to speak to me after this. I told them I'm voting and campaigning for a 3rd party candidate who is anti-Israel and pro-trans and explained that I could not in good conscience vote for Biden after his blatant and willing complicity in genocide. Here are some of the arguments I encountered in response to that:
- "Not voting for Biden makes it easier for Trump to win, and Trump will genocide trans people in addition to Palestinians. Therefore anything you do supports genocide, so you might as well support less genocide."
- "Your trans friends will all know that you're functionally anti-trans." (I'm sure this would be a shock to my trans friends in my org, all of whom have made it clear they will also not vote for Biden)
- "Trump would genocide Palestinians even harder."
- "Biden wants to stop the genocide, but the Republicans won't let him."
Some choice quotes:
Have pride in your self centeredness, I guess.
Choosing someone who you know cannot win, especially as they're not the chosen candidate, is only symbolically different than choosing apathy.
It's just objectively how it works in this system. There is no non vote.
And it is most depressing your friends here at home are not important enough to check one box for.
And this:
[The Palestinian] genocide is going to happen regardless of the two. But the one that's happening here, that one can be stopped. And you refuse to do anything about it because you think you're so much better.
You're right about one thing, though. I do think I'm better than people who give their endorsement to running over Palestinian children with tanks.
And I'm better than people that choose two genocides at once, I guess. If we're ranking each other. I'd laugh if it wasn't stupid.
I live in an "important" swing state. PA. Seems to end up deciding most of the elections for the last couple decades.
Joe Brandon hasn't "earned" my vote. And honestly until Oct last year, sure, I probably would have "lesser evil" waddled my ass over and pushed the button for him. But when he came out on Oct 8 and lied about beheaded babies (a lie which was literally known FROM THE JUMP to be a lie) and promised to support Israel in anything to come, well the chances of me voting for his geriatric genocidal ass dropped to zero within about a week.
I'm obviously not justifying any of this stuff, but let's say he let the IOF bomb totally confirmed and proven (publicly released intelligence afterward to prove it) militant sites for a week. Then said "ok, you killed all the guys who broke in, you destroyed a bunch of their shit, you're done. Give them all the people you have detained and get back all the Israelis who were taken on Oct 7." Again, not saying this would be justice. But I think this basic scenario is what the world broadly expected. A totally disproportionate retaliation, thousands murdered, then resolve things back to the status quo as it existed Oct 6. Again, I think this would've been bad. But we wouldn't have a genocide and STILL this ongoing ethnic cleansing and mass starvation. I could plausibly say "Joe allowed all this, but Trump would've just done the whole thing." But obviously we don't even live in the lesser evil world...
And it's not like I'm a single issue "fuck you Biden" guy. Supporting the genocide was just the absolute last straw on a camel that had come into existence with a broken back.
Other shit Biden has done which is just explicitly moronic outside of Israel support:
Biden didn't promise most of that, in fairness to him, but also that's exactly why he was dogshit and Bernie, who was already the compromise candidate, was the only acceptable candidate in 2016/2020. (Obviously his stance on Israel is... bad.)
I didn't vote in 2016 after Bernie got fucked because fuck Hillary. She's a warmonger and she can and will rot in hell. I will never vote for her, gun to my head. And I won't be voting for Biden nor his replacement if there is one. Not because Trump is better, no, domestically he's gonna be more of the same mostly but in some specific areas it will absolutely be far worse. And the fault for that lies on, well, obviously the Republicans but also the dems who have enabled him and still continue enabling him by actions such as still supporting an animated corpse named Joe Biden. If they were serious about not having Trump elected they wouldn't be supporting Israel during an obvious genocide and they'd have done things to those IN POWER who enabled Trump last time. They didn't do shit. They locked up some hogs that broke into the capitol building, ok, but Trump isn't in jail nor does it seem he will be going. Bannon got caught on the self-caused refusal to testify- he should've been rotting already. Same for Roger Stone, Stephen Miller, Jared, Trump's sons, etc. No one in power in the Democratic Party has demonstrated to me that they believe even 1% of their bullshit... so why should I?
Voting for Biden won't make things better. Not voting for him won't make things better either. Nothing is gonna get better purely through these two parties and elections. Real power and any good change will emerge from normal people, probably through good union leaders that pursue politics. That's the best case scenario anyway, because the realistic scenario for the US specifically..... well.... I'll spare everyone that doom reading.
But yeah, liberals can suck my ass. Not voting for genocide Joe. He was already 98% shit on Oct 6....... then he went and did a genocide. Fuck him