this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Whenever people express the sentiment that we need Biden to put his foot down on genocide I'm always for it.
But then when you ask them what they want to do it always becomes some nebulous Republican rhetoric about how Trump's not that bad.
Yes we need the genocide to stop, Trump will not accomplish that, he will make it worse.
We can pressure Congress and continue to protest because it needs to stop.
The past eight years have been such a strong argument for ranked choice voting.
yep. either the nebulous version or its evil unveiled sibling “well maybe leftists will mobilize more if we let another maga win happen/voting is about holding them accountable so let’s fire brandon 🤓”
mfs out here acting like the overton window doesn’t exist
What the actual fuck? They are pretty clear what they want. ONE we stop giving weapons to isreal. TWO we stop getting in the way of a cease fire. THREE we start giving humanitarian aid to trapped Palestinians. FOUR we cooperate with The Hague on what evidence we have on isreal war crimes.
These are things we could do without much effort that would have immediate impact on both stopping the genocide and boosting his numbers.
I get we want “our strategic ally in the Middle East” but maybe if we stop doing all the war crimes and genocide we wouldn’t need to write a blank check to Israel every-time they run out of genocide juice. If our status as an ally to isreal is contingent on what we are doing, we are not an ally we are being used.
It seems this thread pops up every time Fox News talks about Biden’s slipping numbers. The disillusionment of the left is real. And calling them out and saying “but trump!” Is not going to convince them, it’s not like they forgot.
If they complain about Biden being complicit in genocide. Now the time to do it. And it’s up to them if they follow through with their threat, and it’s up to Biden if he’s willing to risk it
I'm not asking what Biden could do, I'm very clear on what he could do.
What I'm saying is what we as individuals could do to pressure them realistically.
You're failing to recognize the inherent biases of the voting system, we all know that our system favors a two party outcome. Which is to say it's a statistical improbability for anyone except for the two most popular parties to win.
This isn't just my opinion this is well known statistical fact with many years to back it up.
This puts us in the awkward place of choosing the least bad candidate, Obviously pressuring Biden isn't working and I'm not happy about it.
But when we consider our vote we have to consider more than just the situation in the middle East, something that the Republicans don't even want to fix.
That's why I think it would be better to pressure Congress and to push for ranked choice voting and to continue to protest.
Because at least rank choice voting would allow us to vote for a better option rather than the least bad option.
You fell into the same trap, no actionable advice to the individual.
You will never, short of a violent revolution, EVER get Congress to pass ranked choice voting. That would dilute both parties power. Preventing you from having a meaningful choice is the only true bipartisan effort. And democrats have already said they would veto any primary vote on candidate when they wish. And have stood in the way of states enacting ranked choice voting on a state level.
Also you might convince accelerationists to not follow through with the threat of not voting or voting trump. But unfortunately that is probably the smallest fraction of those disillusioned. Most normally never vote, and a bunch feel the system is broken and feel betrayed by Biden. It takes effort to get these voters, and Biden has unfortunately done less then nothing. Well other then holding excusing college debt over peoples heads to enact piece meal whenever his number take a dip.
Truly Biden has to do something to galvanize his base, because it’s looking grim
You might be right, Biden could very well lose. It's an important issue he has not taken enough action on.
Reactionairies and single issue voters are a part of every political system, problem is that the opposition is status quo.
My only issue is that a large part of our base here on Lemmy who should know better than to promote apathy and accelerationism
To be clear I don't necessarily blame them it's hard to be pragmatic in times like these but things can always get worse and if we're not careful they will.
I'm even up for a violent revolution. What I'm not up for is an apathetic slide.
Its a very hard pill to swallow when on one hand Biden is supporting genocide by giving weapons to Israel, on the other hand we are dragging our feet on giving weapons to Ukraine and Biden seems to not be bothered. And in the most pragmatic terms, Ukraine is fighting the world’s most successful proxy war against our direct enemy. That started to lose ground once we started withholding our support. And on the third hand Biden is supporting big oil when he promised to not do that.
On top of all that, i know that if Biden remains as president the next election cycle will have another trump, and it will again be “we can’t campaign on your interests! Its an election year with the literal incarnation of evil”! And we will continue to shift the Overton window rightward.
These posts resonate with me because i wake everyday and question if i should still vote for Biden. And these posts do not make it easy to say yes.
He's been pro-giving weapons to Ukraine Congress had dragged their feet but that's not the point.
You should vote whoever best represents your interests. If no candidate does then find the next best option.
If you want to start a violent revolution in support of Ukraine, Palatine, more aggressive environmental targets etc. I'll be the first in line but I will never condone reactionary voting/apathy. All it does is make the system worse.
I appreciate that. But bread and circuses still hold more sway than the need for change. And just to be clear. A vote for Biden is still apathy, just a slower decline than the Republican flavor. I see no way to vote ourselves out of this tantrum spiral we are in.
When Fox News does another gloating over Biden’s further slipping numbers, let’s skip the part where we blame the disenfranchised voters, yea?
No, I will blame them, at least partially I'm not saying it isn't understandable, things are hard all around and the complexities of voting don't make it any easier but it is every individuals duty to uphold democracy to the best of their ability.
Absence of a vote is still a vote.
As long as most of the blame is on Biden then sure blame away. But do we really need a post about it everyday? It seems to me this isn’t about changing minds. But more getting our Scapegoats ready if Biden fails.
Oh absolutely. Can't risk Egypt setting market rates on Suez Traffic. We'll support endless genocide to prevent that.
Democrats claim to be the good guys but can't stop themselves from engaging in this massive faschie disinformation campaign about anyone left of genocide Joe. I've not seen a single user in leftist forums saying we should vote Trump for "acceleration" but I can't fucking escape it being thrown around as a consistent fact by dems.
Same with how they can't call a third party vote a "third party vote," its always a "spoiler" or "protest vote," (when they aren't outright lying and claiming anyone not voting Biden is actually not voting and advocating for others to not vote.)
Turns out, if you need leftists to win you should probably stop telling them to eat shit and lying about them at every fucking turn. I'm no political expert but 🤷♂️
The president isn't the entire government there are other places you can put pressure. I'm not saying what's happening is right, I'm not saying that you should vote for him.
If you are moral compass won't allow you to align yourself with Joe Biden I completely understand that.
You have to acknowledge the reality that by dying on that hill you choose the other option whether you mean to or not. We should be rioting the streets to change it but it is the way it is.
It is more complex than that because of things like unequal vote distribution but more or less that's what it boils down to.
"If you don't vote blue no matter who its actually your fault"
No, it's Democrats fault for consistently and firmly moving right time and time again to court ""centrists"" as they tell me as a voter to shut the fuck up , tell me "no we won't consider your positions," and flat out lie about me and my positions to villify me in the eyes of establishment voters.
I didn't say any of that, I sincerely don't care who you vote for or if you even vote.
All I'm saying is in the system as currently implemented, choosing not to vote or to ignore the two party bias is still a vote for one of the two.
Please do not put words in my mouth.
I tend to see "we need to pull Biden to the left" pitched as a solution, right up until it means doing anything to impede Biden's political agenda.
Don't vote for him? You're MAGA.
Don't donate to him? You're MAGA.
Don't block walk for him? You're MAGA.
Say anything critical of him on the Internet? Russian Bot Chinese Wumao Republican Traitor Why Do You Hate America?!
I saw the same thing from Republicans in 2004. "We're at war so any kind of dissent means you're with the terrorists!"
And it worked for Bush. He got another four years out of the hysteria. Maybe it'll work for Biden, too.
I don't think anyone here is equating not voting for Biden to being a Trumpet but due to the reality of our voting system absence of a vote is in and of itself a vote so you have to decide your best option whatever that may be.
Problem is the opposition has the same or worse policies on Palestine and worse policies on a lot of others.
I'm not a fan of this "least bad option" we've got ourselves into either but to equate the two parties or to deny the reality before us is how we allow it to get worse.
Sure. Although, I might go one step further and argue that due to the reality of our voting system (state-by-state winner-take-all) merely being counted in the census in a given district is what really counts as a "vote". The electoral college doesn't care who you vote for, only who won the majority. One of the fundamental flaws of western disproportional representation is how minority voters are functionally unrepresented.
This isn't a problem unique to the US. We routinely see elections caged and captured by dominant political parties with overlapping beliefs, from Japan to France to India. When you're being funneled into a single awful policy, there's little point in debating over which party is better on an issue that receives wide bipartisan support.
"You have to vote for Joe Biden to end the holocaust in Palestine" comes across as utterly tone-deaf, given that Biden's Democrats have been actively enabling said holocaust through arms sales, foreign policy, and willful neglect of international law.
Nobody is. But the endless apology for said "bad option" purely on the grounds that "other guy is worse" only reinforces the badness of the first guy. You're cutting your own team a blank check to rob you when you won't even entertain a third option.
That's before we even get into the futility of voting (D) in a state like Ohio or Florida or Texas (or California or New York or Washington) when the outcome of these elections is all but predetermined. The absolute least you can do is to follow the lead of those Arab/Persian communities in the Midwest and spoil some ballots to demonstrate your dissatisfaction.
Say what you will about "least bad options" but as soon as Biden watched 20% of his Minnesota support evaporate in the face of united Muslim dissident, he did actually start to bend on the issue. Had a more serious left-wing contender been on the ticket, perhaps we would have even seen a primary upset in 2024.
On the flip side, I can't help but note how far-right Evangelicals have bent the GOP on issues by throwing their support to a guy like Trump, when more traditional DeSantis / Christie / Hailey hacks insisted on triangulating between business liberal and social conservative issues.
At some level, you can't ignore the success right-wing radicals have achieved by holding their ground and threatening the success of the party by withholding their support. Moderate Republicans - who just vote for anyone with an (R) in their name because they're scared of Democrats - are the ones getting sidelined by the party leadership. Why should progressives fall into the same trap set by conservative Democrats?
Correct on all counts, no arguments here.
I also don't care what people vote for, only dislike when people encourage someone not to vote or worse accelerationism.
There are a lot of problems with our political system, inaction makes all of them worse.
Accelerationism has always been more cope than strategy.
I've always held that spoiling your ballot is far more effective than simply not voting. But I would also argue that we do a lot of deliberate disenfranchisement, particularly in reactionary states and cities. So if people are getting the sense that voting is futile (or even dangerous), I'm sympathetic to that view.