I voted for Biden in 2020. This was despite the fact that he is one of the main architects of modern American slavery through his crime bill which made the US the nation with the highest proportion of its own citizens imprisoned by far, who are quite literally slaves according to our constitution. This was despite him participating in the lies which caused us to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis in our pursuit of blowing up Halliburton’s stock value and taking control of large parts of the oil trade. This was despite his support of the neoliberal consensus which has lead to the deterioration of the economic, social, and physical health of the average American while the wealthiest’s share of the economy continues to grow meaninglessly. In fact, it was relatively easy for me to vote for Biden because the person he was running against was Trump who demonstrated worse tendencies on all of the above (while actually softening some prison laws, still fostered the increased social acceptability of acting according to blatant racism so I can’t even give him credit here) and more. According to my utilitarian principles, the evil choice I made was morally superior to the evil choice I did not make. Recent events have me re-considering this motivation.
To be clear, my opinion of Trump has not changed. Under Trump, I am sure I will be more likely to lose my loved ones or even my own life, although I am personally less at risk than his main targets. I am also sure that his influence would at least maintain if not increase the atrocities committed by the Likud-lead Isreali government with whom he has a strong relationship. Christian Nationalism is extraordinarily dangerous and if some of their desires are pushed through there’s really no telling the extent of future horrors we may have to deal with. If Project 2025 has a certain degree of success we may consider any pretense of democracy to be nullified. If I were only considering the immediate consequences of my decision, I would still support Genocide Joe.
I phrased that last sentence like that intentionally and it is the inspiration for this essay. The lesser of two evils in this case is now facilitating a genocide and I think that’s significant. In 2020 I didn’t think I had a red line which would cause me to allow a greater evil, and within the last few months I’m coming to find that I do have a red line I have to consider in and of itself and that line is genocide.
This is what I find particularly frustrating when I try to engage this topic in good faith, even among Biden supporters who are lucid about recognizing what is clearly happening before their eyes with their implicit support. Yes, they tell me, there is a lot they don’t like about Biden but he is the better choice. There is some equivalence implied here. Biden is guilty of a lot of things like union busting, failure to support a public option despite promises, the continuation of many unfair border policies, and oh yeah genocide too. I really want to emphasize that we are talking about the categorization and systematic elimination of a group of people from their homes which could not be happening as it is now happening without the economic and political support of the Biden administration. This is now among the issues we are telling Democrats we are ok with or not ok with via the use of the only political currency left to us being our votes.
“Vote Blue No Matter Who” is a phrase that made me sick the first time I heard it and I have only grown to detest it more, especially since I acted according to it it through my actions in 2020. Recently I realized that this is less of a call to action and more of a threat. More explicitly, this phrase can be understood as “Vote for our candidate or the Republicans will fuck you up.” We better pay up or they can’t be responsible for what happens to us. Like other organizations who make threats like this, by paying up we are supporting them in what they do even if it’s under duress. As long as their heavy, the Republican party, is out there fucking people up the Democrats have license do anything as long as it’s not as bad. The DNC made a hard right-wing shift with Clinton and have been moving right since then, just not as far as the Republicans have. This is where damage control has gotten us. Democrats have pushed through so many boundaries and now we’re at genocide. Now the promise is, “You better support our genocide, or the Republicans will make it worse and fuck you up too.”
What is going to happen if we tell the Democrats that even though they are facilitating a genocide, we’re still going to pay up? What is the message the DNC will read from that? What precedent is going to be set? Are we going to be safer now that genocide will be seen as something we can compromise on? Do we really believe that Trump is the worst threat they can make, or that the lesser of two evils couldn’t eventually be worse than Trump? Do we really think by making this compromise here, on top of all the compromises we’ve made over the last few decades, that after this time everything will suddenly change and we can start talking about making average peoples’ lives better for once?
I can’t responsibly ask these questions without recognizing that the threat is very real. I am not an accelerationist and I do not desire the further deterioration of our society in hopes of a positive outcome through violent revolution. I do not want to have to risk imprisonment and death to resist government persecution. I recognize that a breakdown of democracy and subsequent shift to political violence would only advantage those most equipped for and skilled in the use of violence, whose society of nails would be governed by hammers.
It seems to me that failing to support the Democrats this cycle puts us at greater immediate risk of the above, and that is shocking enough to bring most reasonable people under control. The thing is though, I think that by leaving genocide on the table for anyone across the Overton window of elected officials to consider as a socially acceptable tool is a far greater risk in the long term.
I think that by making genocide just another issue of managing how much we can tolerate among the two sides, making it something that is tolerable under some circumstances, or especially encouraging the thinking that the charge of genocide is conditional on the political expediency of it victims, we are ultimately normalizing the general idea that genocide is an acceptable tool for elected officials across our “political spectrum” of right wing and big tent(right wing, centrist, some left wing) to support or even employ in the worst case as long as they call it something else regardless of international law. If this is ok, what is the next boundary the Democrats will push? I want to stop digging the hole we’re in now, suffer the consequences, and deal with Democrats who at least understand they will not get elected if they facilitate genocide. Honestly I’d like one day to not have to make the least evil choice and have the opportunity to support something after the DNC primary, and it doesn’t seem like damage control is leading us in that direction at all but away from it.
In practical immediate terms, Trump is hated outside of his base and has demonstrated that his endorsement is poison to politicians who are not himself more often than not. He is dangerous, but inspires so much more opposition to himself and his ideas than any other candidate I can think of. I even think that Trump’s genocide is going to be received very differently than Biden’s genocide since Trump will be far less tactful and far more honest about his motivations. The worst case scenario is possible under Trump and I don’t think it’s ok to dismiss that, but it is by no means a guarantee that Trump is the one to lead average Americans into fascism. It is a fucking frightening risk allowing a greater evil through inaction, but I think it’s the actual least bad option this time.
I’m open to being challenged on or discuss anything I’ve said here in good faith. I’m also open to rage-induced teardowns of the ideas I’ve proposed here as long as those teardowns are against my ideas and not against me as a person or others who are sympathetic to these ideas. I understand that this is an extremely charged topic and would like to encourage honest conversation as long as it doesn’t bleed into abuse which won’t help anyone.
Edit: Whew, that was some important discussion. I hope it was clear that my intention was to clarify my thinking and explore different perspectives on my argument rather than me judging others for coming to different conclusions or trying to convince everyone I am sure I am absolutely correct. Importantly, I realized this entire argument is secondary. What is important now is direct action. Depending on the degree of success we have with disrupting this sick order, this whole conversation could become moot and that is my strongest desire. See y’all on the street.
My friend had my favorite take I’ve heard on this: organizing to signal to the Democratic Party that Biden is in political danger because of his support of genocide (as Michigan did this week) is arguably more important than not voting for him in November, in terms of tangible impact on American policy. My personal goal is to put as much pressure on him as possible right now, and then I’ll decide if I’m voting for him later this year based on how he responds.
If Biden changes course in a major way I won’t have to risk a Trump presidency just to prove I am serious about not rewarding genocide with my vote they need for elected positions. If they actually believe us rather than making us prove it and take every measure to end this genocide economically and in international court, it would at least quintuple my faith that our democracy isn’t doomed. My cynical side thinks that they are confident it’s all a bluff and will make no changes, but I would highly prefer the good path.
It was never a secret what an awful man Joe Biden is, for many of the reasons OP listed in their post. Many people in 2020 said something similar: “Elect him and then pressure him to the left.” It’s a useless sentiment.
Since 2020, despite partisans’ supposed pressure, we’ve not only seen another genocide, but homelessness has spiked, wages have not improved in a meaningful way, education and health care are still cost-prohibitive, prices for everyday goods are 2-3x what they were Pre-Biden, Roe has been repealed and SCOTUS has made it very clear they’re going to target queer people next, and they’ve added hundreds of billions more in debt to help Ukraine while neglecting Americans. He even withheld $600 of promised COVID aid. He’s been such an atrocity of a president that it’s likely to get Trump reelected.
And this is coming from someone who voted Biden in the hopes that a cultural win against rising fascist interests might turn back the clock, but I was wrong. Biden, either in his greed or fecklessness (depending on who you ask, I suppose) has created the conditions for a probable fascist takeover. Personally, I think it’s greed.
I’m not sure there’s a reasonable argument to be made that there isn’t a fascist candidate in the next presidential election. One candidate will stab you in the front. The other will stab you in the back.
Also, just a personal pet peeve, but people need to stop using the word ‘democracy’. We don’t have one, and it was designed that way.
So, I actually agreed with most of what you just said, as of 2020. Biden seemed to me like another crooked rich white guy who’s been in Washington all his life, and I didn’t have real high hopes for him. You touched on a couple of specifics of his history that fed into that, yes. Honestly, I don’t have real high hopes for the majority of the Democrats; I like Bernie Sanders and there are individual Democrats who do pretty good things from time to time but I think by and large Washington doesn’t know and doesn’t care what ordinary people need, and that’s why the country is as fucked up as it is. The whole reason Trump was even able to have a showing in the election was because the Democrats, like the Republicans, have mostly turned their backs on working people ever since Jimmy Carter. I still voted for him obviously, because the available alternative was “let’s invade Mexico let’s kill the vice president if he won’t play ball with seizing power,” but it wasn’t because I was real happy about the idea of Biden.
I was genuinely very surprised. He forgave a ton of student loan debt, he issued marijuana pardons, his economic policy actually seemed invested in benefits for working people. There’s a common talking point about the rail strike – did you know that his labor department kept working the issue after the strike, and got the workers their sick days? There’s a whole list of stuff that he’s done that radically outside the norm for a standard Bill Clinton center-right Democrat goon.
I also think it’s weird to hammer on him for Gaza when he didn’t invade Gaza and he didn’t create the murderous pro-Israel foreign policy that’s been a US mainstay for 50+ years – basically, Biden is not the one committing genocide. I think the link “Biden = Genocide” is a talking point that anti-Biden people like to hammer on because there is some fairness to it. It’s to his credit that he did put sanctions on a handful of Israeli settlers which is way outside the norm for US presidents. He is now using the words “cease-fire” which Western leaders as a rule tend to try to avoid saying because Israel doesn’t want to stop killing people. Is any of that enough? Fuck no. Is he enabling Israel now? Yes. Do I hope that the political price he’s paying for supporting Israel will convince him and future presidents to maybe not give them a free pass for their state-sponsored murder? Fuck yes. But he’s not calling the shots on the ground for the IDF while they’re killing people, either.
I mean, I’m obviously going to vote for him if he’s the nominee. Not because I love the Democratic establishment or feel “allegiance” to them or anything, but because Trump is the end of the fucking world. I vote to try to produce better outcomes, and to me Trump is so clearly a Hitler-reincarnate that I would vote for a rotting whale carcass if it was running against him.
I genuinely do not get this “Biden is bad, so it’s okay if someone 10 times worse wins the election” logic. I would actually really like to have some option for someone not Biden to support in the general election, but if it winds up that the DNC refuses to listen to reason and runs him again, I definitely plan to vote for him because… I mean, if you don’t like Biden enabling genocide by not reversing US foreign policy (which, again, I don’t either), then you’re really going to hate it when Trump announces suddenly he’s going to nuke Iran because it’s full of vermin and dirty diseased people and he’s sure that some of them are nice people but anyway we did it because all the military is full of his loyalists now.
We are screwed. That’s a key feature of the nature of the current US economy.
That doesn’t mean that I think it’s a good idea to take someone who did work to fix some aspect of it, from absolutely pitiful to slightly-less-awful-and-pitiful, and scream “GENOCIDE JOE GENOCIDE JOE” in their face and enable instead someone ten times worse, who will actively take us backwards to the best of his ability for the entire time he’s in office. That seems, in fact, to be counterproductive.
Biden did exceed my expectations by doing a lot of what you mentioned, and I was fully ready to support him as better than nothing rather than bad but not the worst. I would have been thrilled with another few years of non-chaos and a handful of good deeds which are even more progressive than almost anything we’ve had in decades. After he did a 180 on unions after getting called out for busting them we have had some real meaningful progress in the area of labor rights. I was ready to accept Biden not on terms of my own desires and values but in the context of the pressures of an American president, especially one since the Citizen’s United decision. Like pretty much everyone who typically votes Democrat, I have my preferred candidate but would support the nominee considering the danger of the alternative.
I never thought I would be a single-issue voter and I’ve even thought that engaging like that is naive and even immature. My thing is that once both of my choices are pro-genocide I have really started to re-consider the political direction we’re heading and what has lead us to this point. I don’t think we’re now experiencing how bad it can get, and I’m now considering how things might have been different if voters had made a stronger stand by letting pre-Trump Republicans win to show the DNC that their behavior will have electoral consequences. The thing is we really had no idea how things would go when this kind of thing would have far less dire consequences.
I am fully aware that Biden is far from unique in his support of Israel regardless of what they do. Although especially severe, the current ethnic cleansing going on is far from the first push and is happening in the context of the greater genocide which has been occurring for the better part of a century. The US has almost always supported and covered for them, as you mentioned. You are also correct to say that Biden isn’t himself driving this genocide and is even attempting to reduce the carnage through diplomacy. I will even go so far as to say that a Democrat supporting Operation Cast Lead in 2004 wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker for me if they were running against GWB, and I consider that event to be heinous. I am holding Biden to a different standard than I would have in the past, and this is due to context.
In 2004 Operation Cast Lead was a fringe issue with managed exposure and general bipartisan support. Only those who had gone out of their way to learn about the situation outside of American media, government, and education in 2004 had any idea what was really going on. Anyone making a big deal about it would have been easily swept under the rug. Everyone else can credibly claim that they had no idea what was really going on. The whole Overton window was from “I support Israel” to “It’s a very complicated situation, and I support Israel,” and this was due to the extent of the information Americans were commonly exposed to at that time.
2024 is quite a bit different than 2004. Information is now out of control for good and for bad. All the information which has always been managed to be pro-Israel still exists but is now no longer the whole picture the average person sees. Despite the best efforts of the US and Israeli governments to manage exposure carefully of this event, no such ability for such overwhelming control exists at the moment without cracking down on free speech. As a consequence, far more people than these governments are comfortable with have seen what they don’t want to be seen. The New York Times and the Washington Post are the same as they’ve ever been, but it is more commonly understood now than ever that these sources are far from objective as they claim to be, and foreign english-language media is more accessible than ever. The information is everywhere and now everyone at least has the opportunity to learn as much about it as they can. At this point anyone sticking to the government line is responsible for the behavior of choosing to believe lies for whatever reason, and anyone interested in what is true and is not true understands that our government is facilitating a genocide. It is now a well-known and well-understood issue compared to decades past.
Although Biden didn’t himself order this ethnic cleansing, he has chosen to support it economically and politically. What has been happening would not be happening to this degree if not for this support. I consider the behavior of the Biden administration to be instrumental in the level of destruction which has been undertaken, and I blame Biden for not even conditioning our political and economic support on the polite requests he’s been making which are barely even acknowledged. This behavior disturbs me because it’s as if they aren’t even considering holding Israel to any reasonable standards regardless of the new rapidly spreading awareness that what Israel is doing is plainly horrendous. They expect no consequences for fueling the genocidal fire.
With that context, unlike in 2004 the general voting public is aware that a genocide is happening and their voting behavior knowing this is going to be taken into account in future political strategy. They know that we know there’s a genocide happening, so whatever message we send with our voting behavior is going to be considered in future political action. I hope the message they receive is “We know there’s a genocide, and the reason you lost is because we can’t support a genocide” rather than “We know there’s a genocide, but your threat worked so we voted for you anyway. It’ll take a lot worse than that to lose my vote!” I know that from the administration’s perspective, 2024 is no different than 2004 in terms of the potential consequences of funding a genocidal action. I think it would be a good thing if they were wrong about that.
To clarify my argument, I don’t think that since Biden is bad that alone would lead me to allow a far worse evil to take power. My argument is that supporting a Democratic candidate when they know that we know about the genocide they’re facilitating, they will have a basis to push our boundaries even further in the interests of their campaign funders as they have been doing since since Citizen’s United. I think it’s pretty late to take the extreme action I’m advocating for in my post to allow Trump to run rampant in the hopes that the Democrats understand there are limits to what voters will tolerate. If the lesson they learn is that there are no limits to what voters will tolerate as long as there is a worse option, then I’m afraid our two evil options will continue to get worse.
There is room for a lot of good faith debate here, but FWIW I reckon It is a mistake for the left to prematurely roll over and telegraph an inevitable Biden vote (whether on this or any other issue) just because Trump would be worse. The time for that utilitarian calculus is much closer to November. Right now, if you want policy change — you have to raise hell.
As much as you love to hate ‘em, this is what the Tea Party and their ideological successors got right about wielding power within their own party. When the time comes, by all means circle the wagons and vote pragmatically, but during primary season you have to come across as a credible threat to the party power structure.
I’ll personally be willing to (attempt!) to shame my progressive friends into voting blue, say, around October. In the meantime, I am proud of folks for speaking their mind and standing up for human rights.
It’s really a game of chicken. I’m not about to say I’ll give Biden my vote as long as there’s a genocide and this primary is the safest way to send that message. However, they know that we don’t really have a choice to avoid what could be a catastrophe so they could very well assume we’re bluffing as they usually do. This is why I can’t afford to indicate if I’m willing to vote for a genocide to prevent a worse genocide because they will take any evidence that we’re not serious to not take our demands seriously. Why would they change anything if they know we’ll vote for them regardless? Importantly, I’ve engaged this conversation in February during the primary. The most I’m willing to say is that I’m not arrogant enough to be absolutely certain about anything. Actually driving off the cliff with Biden’s campaign would be a disaster. I’m really hoping we can swerve before the chips are down and we find out how many people are serious.
I largely agree - which is why voting uncommitted in Michigan (or other states where it’s available) is a clever and effective idea.
The fine line, though, is this: it’s logical and just to spend time between now and the fall applying pressure to the campaign and administration to change course via uncommitted votes, campaigns, protests, etc. It’s not logical and just, however, to spend time telling others they should not vote in November, which has become sadly common in every left-leaning space I spend time in.
The former could result in policy changes. The latter is pretty much just pushing to allow fascists into power.
I guess as horrific as it is, I don’t see how genocide uniquely changes the political calculus here. Trump’s administration will almost certainly apply less pressure to reign in Israeli killing as compared to Biden’s, will be less susceptible to pressure campaigns by the American left, and is of course much worse on a whole host of other issues, most importantly on the issue of democracy. If we lose our ability to voice our concerns in society or to vote out leaders who abuse their authority, this leaves us in a worse bargaining position no matter the issue, and this includes the current and future violence our government enacts in other parts of the world.
I think a lot of this comes down to the emotional repugnance of feeling that you are endorsing a candidate by voting for them. But is this really true? I think it is widely known at this point that most American voters are more motivated by defeating a worse ideology than by supporting a good one. I suppose there is a small harm in that Biden or whoever can claim a mandate from their margin of victory, but I think this benefit is small and fleeting and can easily be undone by other actions like protests or public criticism.
You are right to point out that this lesser evil voting strategy is not going to dramatically improve the US government. But neither will sitting out the electoral process. Do you think Biden or Trump will be less likely to support genocide if you sit out? I don’t think so, and if Trump wins again, even ignoring all of the harm he will do directly, he will shift the political landscape further to the right. Politicians always seek to emulate strategies that win, so boycotting Biden and allowing Trump to win will only incentivize democrats to move right. Trump losing twice in a row sends a strong message that his tactics and ideology are not effective or popular, and should not be copied.
So I think we must continue to use the electoral system to make our voices heard. Primaries, congressional, and local races may be even more important than Trump vs. Biden but yes I think voting for Biden is still the best option in that race. However, we also need to be clear eyed that whether we do or not, the system will not be radically improved through this process. We need to take actions outside of voting. Build our own movements, protest, take nonviolent direct action even. I think we saw under Trump that these actions did have a real effect in limiting his agenda, and I think they will be even more effective against Biden because they will come from within his coalition. But I also think it will require waking up a lot of jaded people on the left who think that Biden is the best we can possibly hope for. This will not be an easy task but may be the most essential obstacle to overcome in improving the situation in the US and abroad.
Although I can’t deny that I don’t feel good about voting for certain Democrats, if voting for a Democrat now were likely to move the country left instead of right I would do it and consider it to be the right decision. Your argument is interesting to me because you are advocating the opposite action to get the same result I desire, which is to stop the Overton window from continuing to drift rightward. I would like to focus on this aspect in particular.
I think politicians, especially if they are skilled enough to be elected into federal congress or the presidency, think in purely practical terms. I do think Biden would be less likely to economically support this genocide if he were out of office because he would then lack the power to support it or to do anything else as president. Of course this would mean the situation would be in Trump’s hands which I agree would clearly be worse. The reason I am considering allowing this worse outcome to transpire is not because I refuse to vote since I don’t feel represented or strongly disagree with both candidates(I don’t think I’ll see a general election candidate I’m happy to support in my lifetime), but because I am deliberately withholding a vote they would have received if they had not continued to facilitate a genocide which could be established as a line they may no longer approach or move past if they want to win. If the Democrats lose an election because of an issue their voters are especially vocal about, I think that they would be less likely to support that issue in the future. If we tell the Democrats that they must stop facilitating this genocide but vote for them regardless, having our votes is significantly more important to them than our disapproval which they could simply disregard since they already have our vote. If they lose an election because they moved too far right on an issue, they will probably stop moving right on that issue. In 2016 Hillary Clinton lost the electoral college despite winning the popular vote, and the message voters were sending at the time was “We do not want Hillary Clinton.” As a consequence, they didn’t run Hillary Clinton again because they want to win. If in 2024 Biden loses and the message voters send is “We do not want to support genocide,” it is my belief that they would be less likely to support genocide in the future because they would consider it a risk to their electoral success.
As for the public reaction to Trump’s election and presidency affecting the overton window, I have observed the opposite effect of Trump’s presence in American politics. Trumpism, though popular, is just to the right of the Overton window. He has a solid base of support and disapproval outside of that. Trumpists are not being featured as legitimate political thinkers on any platforms other than their own. The radical right wing elements inspired by Trump have not become an accepted part of American culture. I have never heard from anyone who feels neutral about neo-nazis or the proud boys. January 6th was not seen as a simple evolution of our politics. Though it is true Trump has emboldened many of the the worst of us, there is a visceral contempt of Trumpism everywhere he isn’t worshiped, and Trumpists are the minority. As I mentioned above, the only Trumpist who has a chance at winning an election is Trump himself. All this being said, Trumpists are still a legitimate threat of course. I am only arguing that Trump inspires more revulsion than support even though he has enough support to be a threat himself.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Trump is going to be the worst Republican we will see if the Democrats believe we will support anything including genocide as long as it’s less severe than what their Republican opponent promises. Right-wing lunatics have been a massive boon to democrats since Trump was elected as there are more people like all of us who would rather see Trump’s ideology defeated than elected regardless of who they’re up against. The track record of Trump-endorsed candidates demonstrates this. Since the democrats don’t need to run on their own merits when they are up against a lunatic, they are empowered to do anything and everything short of what their opponent is threatening. Since winning an election is massively influenced by campaign funding and the majority of campaign funding now comes from the corporate world due to the Citizen’s United decision, the Democrats can govern in favor of Wall Street against workers all they want just as long as they don’t go as far as a Republican would. This means it is to their advantage that the Republicans move even further right or prop up more lunatics. They can then follow along and enjoy the benefits of increased funding. This is the pattern I’ve been observing since 2010 and is specifically what I want to be some limit on. I think genocide is a clear enough issue that it might possibly have an effect, and those invested in the infrastructure passing through Israel will seek to have have their economic interests rewarded through methods other than genocide. I think this pattern will continue until it is stopped in some way, and I hope it is not stopped due to the end of democracy in general which will happen if our two dominant parties keep going right without ever looking back. I don’t think it can be stopped if the Democrats never find a red line which could cost them votes even against the lunatics they’re up against.
Trump emboldened and supported Netanyahu and made It entirely clear that he would support Israel being a fascist strongman state.
You think he wouldn’t compound the genocide? He’d support Russia in Ukrainian genocide. He’d put American jets in Gaza. Hell he’d put boots on the ground if he thought it’d make him more money or solidify his control.
Stop falling for this bullshit.
Biden is reprehensible but there is nothing, nothing positive in Trump’s entire track record. The worst possible decision? He’s made it at every turn. Cartoonishly exaggerated in his love for despots and dictators: he thinks the fascists belong in power.
Vote Biden. Not because you like him but because the alternative really is that much worse. Always has been.
That’s being a utilitarian.
This is a different argument than the one I was making but I will address it.
The next 4 years would be far better under Biden than Trump. I don’t think it’s good to consider allowing Trump to win and I am terrified of what could happen if Trump were re-elected. The reason I am considering allowing this immediate consequence is that it could be a better option than continuing the unabated rightward shift of both parties. Every election in my lifetime prior to this one, on issues such as war there was an option for and an option against. Now that genocide is on the table, the option is between for and for but worse. How did this happen? We assume there are no consequences for permitting the Democrats to do whatever they want as long as they’re not as bad as the Republicans and here we are. Both parties continue to move right and voting for every candidate who is more right-wing than the candidate who came before them just because they aren’t as radical as their series of opponents who will always be more right-wing than them just means we are demonstrating that we will tolerate anything they do as long as it’s not as bad as their opponent who will always be worse. There is nothing to stop the parties from continuing to move right. What is the next horrible choice we will have to make? Do we really think this election is the end of the process of moving away from voters and toward corporate interests which went into high gear with Citizen’s United by both parties? When the investors are all universally profiting from genocide, how can we redirect Democrats from going with that and profiting majorly from it other than causing them to associate supporting such things with election loss?
It’s like you didn’t even read the original post. Your first three paragraphs are redundant because the OP already mentioned that they agree with you, barring calling it bullshit.
Your utilitarianism the the whole problems they’re pointing out, if you read the actual post, you’ll notice that all it does is draw us further and further to the right, with no end in sight.
If left unchecked, maybe, sure.
Sounds like we all just need to get more involved and hold our politicians accountable. Rather than not voting, I would argue that we should vote to be in a safe place so that we can vote to be in a safer place. By not voting, we don’t have any say. By voting Democratic this time around, we can vote Leftist next time around.
Otherwise I feel like we’re just repeating 2016, which was repeating 2004, which was repeating 1980, which was repeating 1969… That is to say, The U.S. tends to be in a good spot after a Democratic President and it seems to quickly get drawn down to the gutters with Republican ones, and the way in which Americans interact with the world around us seems heavily related to our current President.
And the social aspect is almost more important, as now we’re seeing the direct results of shameless narcissists. That’s exactly why their comment is relevant - just look at how people had been interacting after they chose a side, Ukraine or Russia (and politically, who tended side with which) only barely 2 years later to have almost the exact same situation in Isreal. We can’t say for certain, but I feel very confident that had Trump won 2020, we’d be in the exact same situation except he would be actively inciting harm towards Palestinians in the U.S.
