this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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i mean i guess?
counterpoint: “sleepy joe” was around long before the 2019 general election and the dude still got into office. and that was a powerful phrase too.
i’m not down with what your argument boils down to, that we shouldn’t criticize politicians because it risks elections. this is a GENOCIDE happening. it’s not like this name came up for funsies. america has long been in the business of funding attrocities, and i have no shame in calling on Biden to change that.
The difficulty, in this particular case, is that the alternative is a President who will even more aggressively support Israel's genocide.
Like, I get it. The idea of voting for a party and a president that are actively supporting genocide feels morally reprehensible.
But the alternative will, without question, be so much worse. At least the Democrats can, to some degree, be pressured on this issue. Trump will take the opportunity to murder Brown people and gleefully run with it to the ends of the earth, and along the way he'll burn down what's left of American democracy just for good measure.
This is, quite literally, the trolley problem. You either have to be actively complicit in some amount of horror, or a passive bystander to an even greater atrocity, placating yourself with the knowledge that while more people have died as a direct result of your choices, at least it wasn't your hand on the trigger.
There is no good option here, and there is no morally clean option here. It's awful, it fucking sucks, it's not a choice anyone should ever be forced to make. But for every American, it's the choice in front of them now.
I really love the trolley car problem analogy here. So fitting!
i guess the trolley problem rang true for others here so i won’t dig on that too hard, but it’s not really the trolley problem at all because it’s not a binary choice.
one of those third choices being exactly the topic of this post, wherein voters have used the primary as a way to make their positions heard. will it work? who knows, but at least the uncommited movement are making a choice such that their votes are in no way passive complicity.
No, it's a still a binary choice in the end. Whatever people do before election day or after it, on election day their choices will be "Vote for the less bad genocide enabler" or "Vote in a way that ultimate helps the much worse genocide enabler gain power" (and that includes not voting).
None of which means that people should stop putting pressure on Biden's government to end the genocide. Part of the argument for why Biden is the less bad choice is precisely that it is more likely that he can be affected by public pressure on this issue. So yes, absolutely, apply that pressure. But be careful how you do it, because the danger, as others have pointed out in this thread, is that once you create this mini-avalanche of "Genocide Joe" negative publicity around Biden, you won't be able to stop it before November.
I don't know where the line is there. It's a very difficult path to tread correctly.
It’s not a binary choice. I can vote for a third party in the general or not vote for any candidate who will continue the genocide.
Aka “vote in a way that helps Trump.”
By that logic it’s a vote in a way that helps Biden as well and the two cancel out.
Not in a first past the post election.
That doesn’t make any sense.
I mean, there was an autocorrect mishap, but if you don’t know what first past the post means…
In the general it is indeed, unfortunately, a binary choice. If you could vote for Biden but do not, you have helped the explicit fascists. First past the post voting, babyyyyy
By that logic if I could vote for trump but do not, I have helped the democrats.
Of course, neither candidate is declared the winner by tallying up what third party votes or lack thereof ended up helping them, they’re declared the winner because of the votes cast explicitly for them.
Sure it’s a binary choice “in the end” but I have never been discussing “in the end”. I and OP are looking at the primaries. Now.
The primaries are an example of voters getting the opportunity to untie as many people from the less populous track as possible. Then, down the line, they get the choice to flip the switch or not.
Limiting your mindset to in the end statements is doomerism. I don’t disagree with any of your statements but you’re just looking at things from a perspective I don’t find altogether useful.
And what happens if, as a direct result of the way this campaign was conducted during the primaries, Biden ends up losing? (say, because the GOP somehow latch onto this Genocide Joe thing and turn into a Swiftboat that drags his whole campaign down just enough for Trump to squeak a win).
In that hypothetical scenario would you feel that the right choices were made?
See, no matter which way you come at this, in the end you're still stuck in the trolley problem.
The point is, if you're not considering these actions now in the context of what impact they might potentially have when you get to that in the end point, then you're driving at night without the lights on.
That's not me saying "Don't do it." That's me saying "Think very carefully about how you do it."
as soon as the GOP starts caring about genocide in its messaging hell has frozen over and we might be saved lmao.
so yeah i think the right choices would have been made but i hope you recognize how absurd that hypothetical is.
(edit: oops duplicate comment)
If you'll allow a pretty silly continuation of your metaphor, I think a lot of those people who don't like either option of "pull the lever" or "don't pull the lever" would rather move people from the track and let the trolly go on than just sit there and watch people die. Sure, there's people who would rather take apart the tracks so people can't continually be bound to them, and there's also people who would rather take apart the train, but I think the most vocal critics would be fine with going back to holding their nose and voting for Biden if he just stopped supplying arms to perpetuate a genocide (as well as stopped vetoing UN resolutions for cease fire). That's why there's such a vocal push to no longer be complicit in genocide- to get Biden to take people off the track (there will still be people on the track for a while since we've sent enough weapons to last a while and even after our weapons run out, there'll still be people on the track, but at least we won't be putting them there). But it's honestly exhausting seeing Biden flirt with absorbing ex-nikki haley voters rather than even look at the left to help him stay in power.
Though that being said, there's probably more Nikki haley voters than leftists in this country (I say this as a leftist), so I guess it's a fine strategy if his goal is to win, but expecting leftists and antifascists to be happy with our continual march rightward is silly.
yes! this is hardly silly at all and a continuation of the metaphor i had already expressed