I mean, Trump is also defending genocide too though…
Trump being worse deosn’t mean we can’t criticize Biden right now as the sitting president. I have been very supportive of the need to vote for Biden over Trump, but the Democrats need to stop doubling down on denying the atrocities in Gaza already.
Like they aren’t even using nuance or anything at this point. Threateninng the ICC is absolutely ridiculous.
This is unilaterally discrediting our country on the world stage. Trump was bad enough, but we could tell the world over half the county opposed him, and that he lost the popular vote.
This guy won the popular vote, and he’s out there supporting genocide. What a fucking embarrassment to humanity these “leaders” are. Fuck them both.
Obligatory yes, I will be voting for Biden again to fend off Trump. I’ll like it even less than I did last time, though.
You are absolutely not obligated to say who you will be voting for.
If anything you’ve undercut your ‘fuck them both’ by following it with ‘but of course I will be supporting THIS ONE SPECIFICALLY’.
Do what you want at the voting booth but don’t undercut your own message by announcing your hand.
Buddy, our country is not so great on the world stage. You honestly think we can sink lower?
We’ve been down this road so many times and it’s always a kick in the pants when we get hung up on it again and again. To properly take a moral stance you need to gain momentum before the primaries. Biden has not been shy about his stance on Isreal and bibi has been chasing this car like a dog on crack.
First things first.
Criticizing Biden is fine, and everyone should, for the first three years and six months.
Also, if it wasn’t clear, Biden is super pissed off at Bibi for all his shit. But once trump is defeated we’ll all dogpile on. (Agree dissing ICC is vr bad as well fwiw)
Until then, there is not much difference between “not voting bc genoside” / “grr biden genocide democrats” and https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/
I can only think people either are very aware of it (because it’s exactly right) or not aware of it at all, possibly their first time eligible to vote.
Bibi may lose this election for Biden, and spiral the world downward. This will only strengthen the ties the US has with Israel, however. Trump would absolutely throw a ton of weight behind them, and perhaps even involve the US directly in the genocide.
Bibi doesn’t give a shit about Biden, and Biden is showing an astonishing amount of weakness by not standing up to him. I’m fucking embarrassed for him, and the entire democratic party.
But once trump is defeated we’ll all dogpile on.
So one of the other things that is very frustrating is always being told that we just need to wait until after the next election to criticize anything. Our election cycles never seem to end.
Bull, to the fucking shit. Genocide isn’t just something you can fucking put off. Unless you don’t really care about the genocide. Seems you’re more upset at the optics. And let’s also mention that Biden is not any more angry at the genocide than you seem to be. All his moves are token and theater and even that was only bought with mass protests and plunging confidence numbers.
People are being genocided ‘TODAY’
Democrats have no choice but to condemn the ICC and deny the genocide is happening because for some completely unknown reason the electorate has been lead to believe Israel is a good, moral state actor with absolutely no ill-intent and has never done anything wrong that was unjustified.
Now if they ever lie to me about Israel and I find out about it…
I don’t think anyone is denying the atrocities. Or at least none that I’ve seen-
But what I AM seeing is a lot of people that understand the nuance in the situation, and trying to explain that not voting is going to get Trump. I also see people coming back to challenge this in bad faith knowing it’s been explained to them many times over.
But we’re not allowed to call these people what they are. So we have to play along with it and pretend it’s all legitimate.
The only reason you feel you have to pretend that it’s legitimate is because it’s true on face-value: democrats have chosen a losing position and are going to lose because of it. Rather than pledging fealty before we need to it’s far more important to work to get democrats to ammend their policy
Wishing people would ignore the issue and hold their nose isn’t a strategy to keep Trump out, it’s denial
A fact of living in a liberal democracy is that residents have the right to openly criticize the government
If that right is no longer exercisable then we are already lost
If Dems don’t like what voters are saying then they should change their policy. Very simple solution.
I don’t think anyone is denying the atrocities.
“Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what’s happening is not genocide.” - Joe Biden.
Yes, but Republican voters pretty much ALWAYS vote, and they vote R down the whole ticket. A large portion of people who vote for Democrats only show up to vote if there is someone they can get excited about. Establishment Dems should consider this a law of the universe; it simply is the way it is. Instead of continuously trying to bully these people into showing up to vote (which has the opposite effect) maybe they should start asking what would get these people excited to vote for Joe. And then get Joe to do those things.
They act like everyone owes them a vote. They don’t. They are asking for something from the left, they need to start negotiating in good faith and expect to have to give something in return. Doing anything less than whatever it takes to get people to vote for Joe should be considered them trying to lose and get Trump elected again.
That would work if voters are reasonable but they’re not, there’s been something every single time - and yes it’s always ‘but this time it’s serious’
I have a question, seriously: why are we looking to the President - the Chief Executive Officer - to define our policy? Isn’t he supposed to only implement the policies that have been enacted by Congress? Despite how Rs tried to portray Obama, and how Trump would act if given half a chance, the role of President isn’t identical to that of King - just how much leeway does he even have here? When tRump tried to insert himself in the opposite manner way back in the day, we impeached him - the President can propose but not define policy, right?
On that note, he did try to halt funding to Israel. Republicans in Congress overruled him. Ofc the reality is far more complex than what I am portraying here, b/c while he must enact existing policies, again he also should propose new ones too… which he isn’t doing much of. But how could we even tell the difference between Biden attempting to “work within the (existing) system”, set forth by our behind-the-scenes overlords and Congress + Supreme Court (heavy sidenote: with its current make-up, that Trump put into place), vs. him not really caring that much about the issue at all? Or really, at the end of the day, is there even a functional difference between them?
I don’t know. I truly don’t know. All I know is that while Biden may not be as liberal as people would have hoped, tRump is actively anti-liberal. And those are our two choices. :-( If we want better, perhaps we need to put forth some effort to make it happen. Like step up and actually run for office - and then dodge all the literal death threats + attempts that would result from conservatives for doing so. Otherwise, we get whatever they offer to us - they meaning those who will actually act rather than simply talk. Which remember, Biden is one of them, and he even has already made it to the short-list of the only two candidates who matter, which isn’t nothing!
He also called the ICC warrant against Israeli leaders outrageous and is stonewalling every attempt by the UN to intervene against Israel.
I don’t think he gets a pass on this
Biden has been deliberately bypassing Congress to send Israel weapons: https://lemmy.today/comment/8531642
He gets to balance the power of Congress. He can refuse to enforce their bullshit. But more importantly he’s the leader of the Democratic party. He has massive influence on the direction the party takes, and can put pressure on members who get out of line.
I think most people are done with people who try to “work within the system set forth by our behind the scenes over lords”… We want someone who’s going to call them on that crap constantly and fight against it with every move they make. Biden is clearly not doing that.
I actually got heavily involved with politics after Bernie. Including running for office in a very red district where I had no chance of winning (just happened to be where I was living). Turns out, the establishment would rather reject anyone left of them and lose to Republicans, than to move an inch to the left and anger their masters
Also USA killed this many civilians in Iraq per year, during the entire duration of the war.
and what happened? oh yeah actual leftist rabble roused and protested the Iraq war, whereas centrist Dems were lockstep with Republicans to invade over lies.
Great example, it really shows how little Dems have cared about leftists for decades.
Aaaaand…how did that protest go for ya? Did it work? Did anything change?
No?
Imagine that.
Great example. It really shows how little the far left understands nuance and common sense.
Shhh! People haven’t been terminally online about Israel/Palestine for the past several years juy to admit, in this moment, that their own country commits larger atrocities every day. What do you expect them to do, admit that their own country was founded on settler colonialism and that their continued participation amounts to what Zionism is: a belief that the settlements you live on are legitimate and should be protected?
This is such a weird gotcha, because I don’t know a single person who denounces the Israel’s genocidal behavior who isn’t also denouncing America’s genocidal behavior. Like, yeah, killing innocent people is bad; let’s keep this bandwagon going and overthrow all genocidal governments, please!
Shitty justifications for Biden’s support for genocide I’ve actually seen on lemmy:
In third place: That’s the way we’ve always done it.
In second: We’re worried that the people who chanted “Jews will not replace us” will call us antisemitic.
And now in first place: Trump did it so that makes it ok.
Let’s just get this clear: Most everyone “defending” genocide aren’t happy what’s happening. If the world was perfect and always going the way we wanted, this would never be. We don’t vote Biden, even if we celebrate the (all too uncommen) victories. We vote Blue, for hope.
Let’s just get this clear: Most everyone “defending” genocide aren’t happy what’s happening.
Provided you ignore how angry they get when you suggest that Biden stop supporting genocide.
The way I interpreted their comment is that people often mention Biden supports genocide and some people may assume Trump doesn’t - so it’s worth mentioning that of course Trump supports genocide too (on top of all the other horrible shit he supports contributing to why he shouldn’t be in power).
I would be amazed if anyone on lemmy.world was at all unaware of trump’s encouragement of genocide.
I am amazed that anyone on lemmy.world could have possibly thought people on lemmy were unaware of Trump’s encouragement of genocide.
I am not surprised that it seems to be the only concern.
Trump wants to be dictator and is talking about a third term and you dipshits still keep on with your divisive nonsense meant to push people into political apathy. Lol this site’s political discourse has been completely hijacked by bad-faith, blame Dems at all costs bullshit.
To those not acting in bad faith, you should vote Biden because at least you know he will peacefully step down when his term is up. Trump will try more J6 style violence to stay in power. Could you imagine 20 years of Trump, or if he appointed one of his kids president?
Pull your head out of your ass and vote Biden.
Sounds like Biden and the Dems should be trying pretty hard to get young people and progressives to show up this year… Maybe calling them “dipshits” isn’t an effective tactic? In fact, I would say this is the kind of thing that turns people off from giving a shit… Are you TRYING to get Trump elected? How about instead of bullying the voters you’re trying to convince to do what you want them to do, you could try putting that pressure on the Dems to start doing what it takes to get people to show up and vote
What I find amusing is that the primary season hasn’t even officially ended yet. The convention is in August. There are numerous states that haven’t even cast a ballot for Biden. And we’re already absolutely inundated with “You have to vote for him or you’re a traitor to your nation!” hyperbole.
You’d think people could at least save their most hysterical outcries until the general election season has officially started. But no. Everyone on Lemmy is expected to bend the knee right now, at this very instant, because otherwise Trump might become President… six months early?
There’s simply no room in the political calendar for any kind of criticism of the sitting President.
Biden hasn’t been great. He dragged his feet on issues he campaigned on (e.g., student debt relief), he sounds eve older than he is, and perhaps most gallingly, he didn’t unequivocally renounce the genocide in Gaza immediately. Inflation sucks and wages aren’t high enough for most to survive, let alone thrive. I can name a dozen progressives off the top of my head I’d rather have as president.
First past the post voting and the two-party system give us little chance at the national level for meaningful fast change.
But have you seen the shit Trump has promised he will do as president? We all learned an important lesson from the first Trump presidency: take him seriously, not literally. I shouldn’t need to list the things Trump has promised to do, but here’s a highlight reel:
- Enthusiastically support Israel’s “invasion” of Gaza
- Waste billions on a useless border wall
- Deploy the military domestically to “fight crime”, “coincidentally” in blue states
- Slash federal education spending and let states handle their own education
- Repeal background checks, reopen the gun show loophole, roll back federal laws against gun trafficking, and make it easier for kids under 21 to get guns
- Undo Title IX trans rights
And he won’t stand in the way of any of the Project2025 insanity the GOP wants to pursue.
So, on the left, you have an old man who has maybe made things a little better for some too slowly while ignoring a genocide. On the right, you have an old man who endorses that same genocide, promises to make the country an actively worse place for many, and who has empirically proven he will encourage and endorse insurrection and treason to stay in power.
The best play for the future is two-pronged:
- For the medium/far future: push for electoral reform like IRV/ranked choice voting at the local/state level (to get people used to it), endorse third-party candidates, run for local office, donate time/money to causes that matter to you.
- For the near term, to allow the first bullet point to take root and thrive: Don’t let Trump get elected, which means, unfortunately, voting for Biden.
I am starting to believe that the OP type of people aren’t actually Biden supporters or democrats but paid for Republicans/operatives who have market researched the most effective way to reduce voter turnout. Kind of like how cigarette companies were forced to make anti smoking ads and went with the least effective or most counter-effective campaigns they could go with.
Or maybe I know whats driving voter apathy is because I’m in the fucking group
It’s like the closer I get to neddling exactly what should get you to act in your own self interest, the faster you dismiss it as covert meddling
If you just assume I’m a troll then you will never see the train that is barreling down the track toward you.
Democrats lose without the progressive vote.
#DEMOCRATS DO NOT HAVE THE PROGRESSIVE VOTE RIGHT NOW
The simplest way to “stop Trump” is for Biden to stop supporting Israel’s genocide and yet the Democratic Party sock puppets never ever demand that Biden stops supporting Israel’s genocide and instead it’s everybody else who is to blame for the increasing likelihood that Trump won’t get stopped even while Biden doesn’t shift an inch on his position.
It’s quite the “curious” take that Biden shouldn’t have to stop supporting genocide even to “stop Trump” and instead it’s everybody else who has a moral obligation to vote for a shamelessly committed genocide supporter to “stop Trump”.
The whole thing has a heavy heavy stink of “the boss is always right and you have to support the boss or else” of both Dictatorships and Criminal Organisations.
I think you are very unfair in how you paint the picture. Biden shouldn’t support genocide, obviously. But realistically, you have to choose between 2 genocide supporters. And “stopping trump” is a good reason to vote for 1 genocide supporter over the other. Obviously you don’t like the genocide supporters and you shouldn’t be forced to choose one but you are living in a (practically) 2 party system and both run a genocide supporter.
That you’re fixated on convincing millions to swallow their principles and vote Biden to "Stop Trump"TM shows that you clearly haven’t understand my points or haven’t actually pondered on them rationally:
When a single man refuses to shift his position to “Stop Trump” and demands that to achive that goal millions of people shift their positions instead, that’s what’s very unfair - it’s saying that “my will is more important than the will of millions”.
That’s the kind of shit you expect in Absolutist Dictatorships or Monarchies with rulers who believe their rule is by Divine Mandate (hence they know better than everybody else), not from a President who supposedly represents his voters.
He can’t even claim that his position represents a majority of his votes because polls show most Democract are against the actions of Israel in Gaza - in this he’s actually going against the desires of most of those who elected him in the expectation that a sufficiently large fraction of them don’t care enough on this subject to change their votes or are forced by circumstance (what you and others who think like you are pushing) to vote for him when they don’t want him as President.
That’s not Democracy, it’s Petty Dictatorship and it’s certainly not “very unfair” to point out when elected representatives are acting like they’re dictators.
If they’re wasn’t blame to be directed at democrats we wouldn’t be directing it at them
To democrats in government, pull your heads out of your asses And stop supporting the genocide
I couldn’t make you people any more apathetic if I tried, Jesus
I’m just curious. Were you old enough to vote in 2016?
Not looking to judge or call you out or anything, I’m just curious because you sound a lot like me when they tried to shove Hilary down our throats. She was shit, and I understand how frustrating it is when the only party that hasn’t gone bat shit crazy does whatever the hell it wants because they know there’s no possible way they could piss us off enough to vote Republican.
That being said. I didn’t vote for Hilary. I went third party because the Head Dems needed to learn that they can’t just decide who the nominee will be and then put their finger on the scale during the primary.
Obviously, they did not learn that lesson, and since then the GOP has doubled down on fascism and insanity.
If I could go back, I’d have happily voted for Hilary. If Trump had never won, we’d have a more trustworthy Supreme Court, and clowns like MTG and Boebert wouldn’t be acting the fool for attention.
And that’s why I ask if you were involved in the 2016 election, because we’ve already done this, and it bit us in the ass. That’s why we aren’t trying to talk people out of voting for Biden. If we don’t unify behind this chucklefuck, we may never get a chance to elect someone we actually want again.
For the record, Israel can fuck right off with the shit they are doing, but that’s a conflict that’s been going on my whole life, and expecting Joe Biden, or any one person, to fly in and bring peace to the other side of the world just isn’t plausible.
We’re on the same side here, but if we’re divided on Biden, Trump wins again, and NONE of us want that.
I’m old enough to have voted in the last 4 elections, i remember 2016 plenty. Do you know what I remember about it though? Hillary, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and all the major news outlets, all the major online publications being shared on all the major social media platforms proudly and confidently parading around poll numbers showing Hillary would blow trump out of the fucking water. I don’t remember hardly any of her campaign positions, because at every fucking stop she was mocking and deriding trump and his supporters. She was even mocking her own constituents by deriding Bernie.
She was as surprised as everyone else that the electorate she needed to show up chose not to come out for her, and if you ask literally any non-voter or protest voter from that election, they would tell you the same thing: ‘the establishment doesn’t give a fuck about my interests’.
I voted for hillary (and i’m embarrassed by it). I don’t think voting third party would have changed anything about that outcome. What I wish i had done was spend every goddamn minute of every goddamn day leading up to election day SCREAMING at everyone that would listen to take the concerns of the electorate more seriously. I cannot stress enough how absolutely idiotic it is to be wasting any time shitting on the interests and concerns of the voters in 2024 by chanting “vote for Biden or else”. It is the same fucking thing hillary did, and BIDEN WILL LOSE.
If anyone here is even remotely concerned about Biden losing in 2024, they should be running for the mountains and amplifying what voters are actually concerned about, and pray to fucking god Biden has the compassion to listen. If it means personally threatening to withhold your vote in order to make that possibility ring true, then absolutely do it. I don’t care if you think that’ll make someone apathetic, if any one of us reliable democratic voters is even considering not voting for him, I would bet it on my life that millions of others are already feeling the same thing.
The level of arrogance displayed in the memes here about ‘if you don’t vote you’ll cause a dictatorship’ is absolutely staggering (personally calling out @PugJesus@lemmy.world here) The only people those memes are for are people who will have their reality shattered when their worst fear comes true after november.
I’m not sure if you’re aware but the third party vote in 2016 slanted more towards voters who typically vote Republican.
Also: unless you lived in a swing state in a swing district your third party vote probably didn’t cost Hilary anything in the Electoral College.
And I doubt you were the reason her campaign chose to ignore said swing districts in swing states. Don’t feel guilty and don’t carry the water of their mistakes.
These are just accelerationists who already hate ‘the west’.
It doesn’t matter what the occurrences around the world are, or who is at bat. They will always find something to blast the Internet with during election year in hopes to push the worst candidate up in the polls.
It’s obvious and hella funny considering their mental gymnastics.
Lemmy as a platform was designed for this exact purpose; spread misinformation and cloud actual conversations with image macros of pigs shitting on its own balls and shitposts.
ITT: you’re a Trump supporter if you call genocide genocide.
There’s a lot of people who plan on voting Biden, myself included, who effectively feel held hostage at this point. “Don’t criticize support for genocide or Trump is going to destroy the country and probably kill a lot of people” is probably one of the most frustrating political discourses I’ve ever experienced. The folks making this argument are right in that Trump winning is bad for everyone, including the Palestinians, and I can empathize with the pragmatism there. That said, that argument rings hollowly for me, because it comes across as so utterly cynical. It reads (to me) as though genocide registers at the same level of urgency as dysfunction at the DMV. They’re sorry for the inconvenience (and probably they really are sorry that it’s happening) but non-combatants getting starved, shot, drone striked, and buried under rubble by our allies is just not something that’s convenient to deal with right now. I wonder if they think the Palestinians find it very convenient.
I mean its barely about what people here think.
Broadly, Biden supporting this genocide in the way that he has is costing him the election. Acknowledging this doesn’t mean you support Trump. Arguing that if you don’t support Biden in-spite of this position is headspinning, and some posters here (@PugJesus@lemmy.world ) are doing the work of trying to separate the left from Democrats in this regard.
The problem is that beating/ guilting/ shaming voters doesn’t work. It literally never has. Its been demonstrated, over and over again to be a counterproductive strategy.
So what if you’ve been convinced that its OK for Biden do a little genocide? The whole god-damned point is that other people don’t believe the same thing you do, and if you actually want to stop Trump you really only have two options. You can either try to convince voters that a little genocide is acceptable if its coming from Democrats, or you can try and convince Democrats that no amount of genocide is acceptable, regardless of the ally committing it.
Its far more sensible to bring your criticisms to the Democrats in showing that you wont vote for them if they don’t shift their positions on Gaza, than it is to engage in a demonstrable failure of an approach to rhetoric to try and shame people into voting for a only slightly less supportive of genocide candidate.
You can move a politician. Every election cycle politicians move positions. I mean fucking hell, look how far the left was able to drag Biden last election cycle! He basically went from a Republican slate of policy positions to something actually on the left. He didn’t do this his own; he did this to get elected because that’s what the voters wanted. Biden can be moved on this, but blaming voters, especially when you know they are on the right side of the issue, is setting 2024 up for disaster.
I’m just amazed at the amount they punch left then don’t understand why it’s always an issue.
Maybe I’ve gotten too old and cynical to be surprised by it.
Its been the theme of the modern Democratic party to work diligently to cut off your nose to spite your face.
I mean look at the recent jungle primary in California. Adam Schiffs campaign spent millions supporting Republicans in that primary to avoid having to compete against Katie Porter.
It often seems like Democrats have nothing but contempt for their voters. Its not clear to me that they care. Its only a very very few number of Democrats who are actually responsive to their voters.
The problem is that beating/ guilting/shaming voters doesn’t work.
You forgot to add gaslighting.
or you can try and convince Democrats that no amount of genocide is acceptable, regardless of the ally committing it.
The problem is that there is absolutely no way of “forcing” the (so-called) “Democratic” party on this through “formal” means - if you vote for them and they win, they will simply know that they can get you to rubber-stamp their complicity in genocide. If you vote for them and they lose or you punish them by not voting and they lose, they still won’t care - they know that four years of Trump will force you back to the ballots to vote for them in four years’ time anyway. In fact, I suspect they are betting on the latter scenario.
You’re being pushed up against a wall - a wall that wouldn’t be there if you actually lived in a democratic society.
Or you’re not being gaslit, Biden is being honest, and you’re wrong about the underlying factual premise.
PugJesus has been a constant wedge between Leftists and Liberals. They only serve to be a terminally online agitator, and whenever it’s pointed out that their agitative propaganda only serves to confirm anti-leftist bias among Lemmy.world’s liberals and further ruins a broader leftist-liberal coalition, ironically making fewer people vote for Biden, they just mald and disengage.
When I asked what they truly believe, they believe themselves to be a leftist that doesn’t agree with Marx’s Dialectical Materialism.
They reserve only the harshest criticism for actually existing Socialist movements, such as when they trashed the Black Panther Party, but fight tooth and nail for a nuanced view of Liberalism and Liberal movements against Leftists.
No leftist is pure enough, no liberal impure enough.
It truly makes me wonder if PugJesus has any actual firmly held beliefs or if they just act in reflex.
Nobody thinks a little genocide is okay. Nobody is saying that at all. But it’s not a choice between a little genocide and no genocide. It’s a difference between a little genocide and a LOT of genocide. When Trump gives his blessing to glassing Gaza with a nuke, will you tell the remnants of the civilians that are left that it’s fine because the Democrats will understand now that they should’ve been harder on Israel?
What is actually more important? Doing what’s best for the Palestinians from the options that actually exist, or punishing Democrats?
I’m not any happier than you are about the choices that we have, but wishful thinking doesn’t give us a third path. This isn’t a movie. To get a third option you’d have to convince at the very least a plurality of the population of the US to vote for another candidate that is gung-ho behind forcing Israel to stop (a proposition that isn’t guaranteed even if the US cuts off all support today, by the way). That’s a tall order, especially with how well it’s going convincing 100 or so people on a Lemmy thread.
Do people think nukes will really happen or is it hyperbole? Jared kushner wants to own beach front property in Gaza.
The problem is that beating/ guilting/ shaming voters doesn’t work. It literally never has. Its been demonstrated, over and over again to be a counterproductive strategy.
Ah yes, the evidence of that being [checks notes] Hillary, a notoriously unpopular and uncharismatic politician, narrowly losing due to the electoral college.
I guess people in 2020 were just REALLY fired up about Biden, huh?
They were really fired up AGAINST Trump.
Its 4 years later.
In terms of the policy position that is going to decide this election, they have the same policy: Genocide for the people of Palestine.
You should stop being an apologist for genocide.
She didn’t lose narrowly because of the electoral college.
She lost massively because even knowing the rules of the election didn’t campaign at all in the Midwest swing States while receiving increasingly alarmed warnings from the local DNC members in those States.
Your response is like a loser going ‘I wouldn’t have lost if it wasn’t for the rules’ when everyone knew the rules in advance.
You can argue for getting rid of the electoral college and if be right there with you. But you don’t get to pretend it’s not a thing when trying to win before you get rid of it.
This is such a weird strawman
Nobody on Lemmy likes genocide, as far as I can tell. I saw somebody who was in favor of it a couple days ago, which makes 2 users I have ever seen.
So first a whole bunch of people got up and said, I’m never voting for Biden because he ruined the economy and fucked up on climate change and made marijuana illegal again and did family separation and caused Covid and also personally did a genocide and is super happy about the war in Gaza because it’s exactly what he wanted
Then a second whole bunch of people said hey every single one of those things except part of the last one isn’t true, also, Trump is worse on the genocide piece
And so now the first people are insisting that what the second people said was, “Don’t criticize support for genocide”. That wasn’t the point. The fact that a good bit of what the people in the first group are saying, is wrong, means they get people disagreeing with them, which always gets misrepresented as some lunatic pro-genocide silencing of criticism. But it’s pretty much never a message of “please stop criticizing my genocide guy otherwise Trump might win.”
If you want to express urgency about helping the Palestinians, please do so. Send messages to your congresspeople. Vote “uncommitted.” Go to a protest. Tell Biden he’ll only get your vote if he (X, Y, Z). Any of those things, or something else. Sounds great.
I think the thing you’re hearing is more “I want to end genocide just as much as you do, now let’s talk about how to do it, and also yes how to avoid one that’s 10 times worse that depending on how we go about it might be one of the possible outcomes.” I don’t see why that would be frustrating to hear. And I don’t think it’s at all the same as “please stop criticizing Biden that’s not allowed” or anything like that. Most of the threads on this topic have their most upvoted comment as “Jesus Christ I wish he wouldn’t do that” or something along those lines; this fiction where criticizing Biden for enabling this genocide is at all unpopular is not at all the reality.
I wonder if they think the Palestinians find it very convenient.
Actually, one of them weighed in on Lemmy on this exact narrative, where people are using his dead relatives to justify this one very particular political stance about being reluctant to vote for Joe Biden (and for some reason not to justify getting involved in some electoral or non-electoral way to actually help his relatives who are still alive). He wasn’t about it.
Is it a straw man, though? Just look at the post we’re in. OP, at face value, wants the democrats to win but thinks they’re bungling the odds by supporting genocide. There’s already multiple commenters accusing them of being Trump supporters, as well as at least one commenter I’ve seen so far suggesting that we can’t be critical about this now because the election is too important.
There’s already multiple commenters accusing them of being Trump supporters
Yes, because he framed his point in one particular emotionally resonant way that just maybe by pure coincidence tends to do more or less nothing at all for the Palestinians except hurt them, and by pure coincidence happens to feed Trump’s chances in the election.
The strawman I was specifically responding to was that commenter “you’re a Trump supporter if you call genocide genocide”. I’ve called it a genocide many many times; never got called a Trump supporter. I’ve said Biden is enabling it, said all the Palestinians will be dead by the time he works his way around to real consequences for Netanyahu at this rate, compared the Biden State Department to the Nazis, lots of stuff. I said we should contact our representatives and left some links (not that it did a fuckin thing.) Linked to a Ralph Nader interview where he talked about how to demand concessions in exchange for your vote, to put pressure on elected officials like Biden, particularly as it applies to this genocide. Never got called a Trump supporter.
You know what I didn’t do? Get all emotional about how I really don’t want to vote for Biden now, and suggest a particular framing for the issue that will help Trump, but won’t help the Palestinians. I suspect that if I started doing that, and did it consistently every day from a variety of different viewpoints and combined it with a bunch of other criticism of Biden that wasn’t true, then people might suspect I was a Trump supporter. But I don’t do that. Why? Because I’m not a Trump supporter.
Every additional issue Biden ignores he looses a portion of his base’s enthusiasm. Sure, some of these people would never vote for Biden for a bunch of reasons, but everyone has a limit to what they’re willing to concede on, and I have to say that supporting a genocidal project is a pretty big one.
It would be irresponsible if we weren’t sounding the alarms that he’s strayed too far away from his winning coalition. That’s not me being principled (even though it is), that’s me being pragmatic.
Everyone else who’s rallying a couple hundred users on lemmy to ignore that issue is covering their eyes to the oncoming train.
I’ve been on the receiving end of names such as “Genocide Lover” and man is that just exactly what I wish my Dad who went to get cigarettes and never came back would have called me before he left. I agree with you. People for some damned reason seem to be stuck.
The Genocide sucks balls.
Trump sucks balls.
Trump + Power = Genocide Ball Sucking on a whole new level
Biden sucks a bit less balls, though would suck far less if he stepped up and actually condemned the Genocide properly. Currently, Biden’s big balls are on fire.
Like, none of this situation is good. Most of it is malicious and evil on too many levels, and faaaar more complicated than the majority of us realize. At the end of the day we do have three significant immediate problems:
- Ukraine and Putin
- Gaza and the Genocide
- Trump and the GOP
We CAN focus on all of these and it doesn’t have to be to the exclusion, or support/lack-thereof, of the others. Problem is, every time you say “Shit’s bad and this Genocide is evil, vote Biden for the love of God.” Someone comes screaming in with a, “BIDEN?! YOU SUPPORT GENOCIDE?!” and you can’t get a sideways word in.
I think a lot of it is this weird parasocial thing where it’s like you have to “support” a politician to vote for them. With very rare exceptions I don’t “support” any US politician, like I’m friends with them. I just want to get as good an outcome as I can for me and the other people in the world, and I think that’ll come from a combination of choosing better outcomes within the system that’s presented, and working outside the system to try to change it to introduce as much actual democracy into it in the long run as is possible.
So first a whole bunch of people got up and said, I’m never voting for Biden because he ruined the economy and fucked up on climate change and made marijuana illegal again and did family separation and caused Covid and also personally did a genocide and is super happy about the war in Gaza because it’s exactly what he wanted
For the record: this is a strawman. You know that saying about Republicans always accusing others of the things they’re guilty of themselves? I would suggest not following the Republican playbook.
I mean, I exaggerated for humor, but people did absolutely say:
- Biden ruined the economy
- Biden fucked up on climate change
- Biden betrayed us by not decriminalizing marijuana after he said he would
- “Separating families at the border” got worse under Biden
- Trump’s Covid policy was amenable to people steering him the right way whereas Biden cancelled a bunch of the safety things we needed
- Biden is the one doing the genocide
Aside from the genocide, the last few were so laughable that it’s easy to conclude I just made them up as a pure strawman, but yes I absolutely had people tell me the un-exaggerated version of them.
Would it be better if I spelled out exactly what were the literal things people told to me instead? Yeah maybe I shouldn’t “joke” in this way if I’m gonna be saying other people are using a strawman.
Nobody on Lemmy likes genocide, as far as I can tell
As someone who frequents worldnews from lemmy.world, a sizable amount of IDF apologists who do actually defend genocide show up every week, although they consistently get banned.
There’s also a bunch of wackos on Hexbear and Lemmygrad who will sneer with joy at the idea of Ukrainians getting displaced to never be able to return, although you have to dig in to find them.
Criticize all you want. I certainly do. But understand at the end of the day that as pathetically little as Biden is doing to help, he isn’t doing literally zero. Allowing Trump to win is objectively voting for MORE genocide, and in fact, the end of any potential for a Palestinian state in any form. None of this is secret - none of this is speculation. If people would take 15 minutes and read the ACTUAL Trump middle eastern peace plan that he ACTUALLY PUT FORTH when he was president, it’s pretty obvious he would allow MUCH MUCH worse than Biden without batting an eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan
There is no room for argument on that. Is Biden bad for Palestinians and allowing genocide? Yes. Would allowing Trump to win be WORSE? Yes. You’re upset that angry wolves are eating someone, and you should be. But the solution is not replacing them with angry bears.
They literally just said they were voting for Biden. Why are you lecturing them? All you’re doing is demonstrating that Democrats don’t listen.
Okay, fair point, and I acknowledge it. I’m no saint and I get preachy. It’s a character flaw, and I apologize if I caused offense.
I make the same comment in all these threads, but you don’t have to vote for Biden. I’m planning on voting psl this November and you can too.
Forgive me, but the only psl I know is Pumpkin Spice Latte. Care to explain?
Party for socialism and liberation. They’re running Claudia de la Cruz this go round.
I’m horrified by what’s going on in Gaza. It’s an atrocity that deserves maximum attention and intervention above pretty much any issue.
Biden is absolutely shitting the bed on this. But Trump isn’t gonna clean the sheets.
It’s not that genocide is a tertiary issue. It’s that both candidates will be complicit in the genocide, so it literally isn’t a factor when looking at the candidates.
Its very simple.
If you think it’s bad now, for you, for Palestinians, for whoever, wait until Trump is in power. He’ll commit actual genocide, as in wipe them all out, as he claimed anyways, he’ll install himself as a dictator, as he claimed, and I’m not even starting with that Republican 2025 document that would like to make America into Gilead.
So shit up, swallow your pride, vote Biden. as soon as Biden is elected, protest all you want, block roads, whatever, but for now, vote Biden if you want the world to at least survive the next four years semi recognizably.
An actual genocide is happening right now. If biden doesn’t feel pressured to stop the genocide at the risk of losing votes in an election year, what makes you think he’ll stop it when he’s not at any risk of losing the election?
Several genocides are going on right now, and have been for decades, almost like it’s got nothing to do with who’s in charge in the US or something.
We send billions to israel every year and have only greatly ramped up the support as israel has ramped up the genocide. If the US simply stopped that support, it would go a long way. Following your logic, people get murdered all the time, so we shouldn’t do anything about murder, even if we’re the ones directly enabling the murderers.
What kind of sociopathic hand waving is this? This is like if a strawman had a child with whataboutism and all it ate was apathy.
I don’t think he’ll stop. But from a practical standpoint you’re voting between the status quo level of genocide, and an even GREATER level of genocide. Voting for MORE genocide is objectively worse.
I don’t think he’ll stop.
If anything, he’ll interpret a victory as a mandate.
what makes you think he’ll stop it
Odds are better for Biden. Slim is better than none.
Get it clear: this isn’t a vote about Biden. It’s a vote about America and it’s a clean binary choice between two bad options; one worse than the other. If you don’t choose the far-less-worse imperfect option, you need to be okay with the worse imperfect option if it should emerge victorious.
The odds aren’t slim for biden stopping this, it’s simply zero. Democrats rely on republicans being worse so that they have an excuse to do nothing. If you have two parties, one that preserves the status quo and the other that makes things worse, then things are only going to get worse because republicans are eventually going to win in our intentionally broken system.
You’re vastly overestimating the power the US has. We can’t even get our allies to stop funding Russia and selling them advanced technology.
The only people capable of stopping what is happening in Gaza are Netanyahu and the Israeli people.
The US is directly sending billions in support to israel. In fact, many of our allies in Europe are doing so much more for the Palestinians than the US. You’d have a point if the US weren’t the #1 direct supporter of israel. Do you think the US is sending billions of dollars directly to Russia?
Israel is the west’s vehicle for imperialism in the middle east. It was created by the British through imperialist action and the US has been one of the biggest supporters since. So yes, the US has a huge say in what Israel can do because Israel owes its entire existence to the US and the west at large. If Israel feels so mighty and independent, then they’re free to return the hundreds of billions in aid that we’ve given them and to stop receiving the billions we send them every single year and to not have us fight wars for them.
Israel is practically an American vassal state (or the other way lmfao all things considered) so the USA has a very material power in stopping it
An actual genocide is happening right now.
Yeah, but Biden’s not the one committing it. Biden is an incidental element of a much larger apparatus and if that apparatus is primarily meant to commit this particular genocide, he’s not a particularly effective one.
what makes you think he’ll stop it when he’s not at any risk of losing the election?
Literally nothing. No one is arguing that borderline unconditional support will make Biden change his mind. Why would you even ask? On the other hand, if making Biden think he’s gonna lose won’t sufficiently motivate him, then threatening to not vote is just an ineffective strategy. Your premise undermines the conclusion you seem to be hinting at.
This is about preserving a system that’s at least recoverable in it’s current state. If you don’t vote for Biden your voting for an authoritarian regime and it’s not even an exaggeration. Trump just had a promo video referencing a new Reich in America.
This is the easiest decision American voters have ever had. Go look up what happened when Trump was in power for 4 years and what has happened with Biden for 4 years. We have data on how they both acted in power. That’s incredibly rare. Compare them objectively.
Moral high ground about Israel, while correct, is a hill compared to the mountain of evidence that shows what has happened and will continue to happen under trump if he returns to power. State secrets for sale, supreme Court seats, threats to never relinquish power, codified laws hunting down women who seek abortions, laws against trans and gays, j6 insurrection…you’re actively supporting that by not standing against trump.
Abstaining from voting for Biden this fall is a vote for Trump in a first past the post system. You will be complicit. You will literally be responsible for violence against minorities having played an active part in helping trump return to power. It’s hypocritical to allow that while condemning Biden on Israel.
I get it, I promise. I didn’t vote for Hillary or Trump in 2016 and I see now what that ended up doing to our country. I regret it. I won’t do it again.
It’s impossible to reconcile your disgust for Israeli support from America with the violence you will permit to minorities in America if you don’t vote for Biden. You’re not wrong for hating it, but you must realize what you’re going to do to people with a no vote or a throwaway vote.
Democrats preserve the status quo while republicans push things further to the right. Since our system guarantees that both parties will win at different times, the trajectory is always to the right. I’m voting for democrats down the entire ballot like I do every single election, but it will ultimately not make a meaningful difference. Democrats are using minorities as a shield for their own failings and inaction. If you don’t vote for democrats then they claim it’s your fault for whatever situation minorities find themselves in, but democrats do the bare minimum they can for minorities when they do get voted in. You’re providing a prime example when you use minorities in the US as an excuse to change the subject from genocide in Palestine.
“Identity politics” is a loaded term, but democrats will absolutely play different disadvantaged groups against one another to stop progress. They did it in 2016 when Bernie was talking about the need to help poor people and democrats came out with “but what about poor black people?!” even though democrats don’t do shit for poor black people either and as if poor black people aren’t included in the group of poor people.
Again, irrelevant.
Biden isn’t doing much (not enough anyway) to stop this but AGAIN… There is bad and there is MUCH MUCH FORKING WORSE.
What part of trump do you not understand? Do you want Palestinians eradicated from the world or what? I don’t get you people. You want things better for Palestinians, awesome! Me too. Now, how do we get there? “Let’s make sure trump gets in office!!!” WTF?
What part of biden can do something about this do you not understand? I’m already doing my part by voting for biden. Now what is biden going to do about genocide? Remember genocide, the thing that’s supposed to be unthinkable? Yet here you are defending biden fully supporting it.
Because the ballot box is not the only means of civic duty. Contine protests, ramp up activisim, engage in our society more than just voting once every 4 years.
I think you misunderstand; bad faith fuckwits only get one of every four years to spread the disinformation. And this is an election year, I’m loving all the sino/rusky/Iranian players trying so hard to sway the vote.
(We’re all laughing at you, you’re only seeing upvotes in your echochamber that has hidden down votes. This is the reality of the world and you’re hiding from it).
The fact that all anybody can come up with is “if you don’t like genocide, you better vote for genocide or else genocide” is proof that
A -democrats are also right wing warmongering fascists, just waving a pride flag
B- America is already lost, there’s no pulling it back, and it’s just a waiting room for the fall of the empire
That’s all you can come up with for your strawman.
Plenty of people find accusations of genocide by Israel to be misinformed.
Watch Biden supporters lash out at communists and muslims if Biden fails to get reelected, rather than looking at the horrendous position the Democrats have taken.
I suspect their time is spent with leftists just because it’s so infuriating to talk to Republicans at all. The leftist will argue long term versus short term strategy, the Republican will argue about what his imaginary friend wants.
Watch LGBTQ+ people get genocided right here in America because lefties decided not to vote against Fascism. Remind us again that you didn’t vote against it when that happens and see how people react.
Watch LGBTQ+ people get genocided right here in America because lefties
Conservative with a gun
LGBTQ dead body
Liberal: “Leftists did this. Now vote for me so I can pardon the conservative.”
Watch LGBTQ+ people get genocided
We’re armed, although liberals are doing everything they can to prevent it.
Red states are expanding their 2A rights while blue states limit their own. You have fascist militias popping up all over the place and what legislation do you think will disarm them? That cat is out of the bag. Us ‘lefties’ understand that Jon Stewart is not going to show up and save us with a witty quip when some christian nationalist has us on our knees in front of a ditch.
There may come a time we’ll all wish we had access to non-nerfed rifles and normal capacity magazines. Liberals are doing nothing productive to deal with this rise of fascism.
I’ll be voting democrat, but let’s not pretend that voting republican light is going to defeat christofascism.
Yeah! And watch immigrants and migrants get deported en mass and draconian fascist law be implemented at the border…oh, what? That was Democrats too? Damn…
Well uh…bodily autonomy? No, dems had a chance to legislate that under Obama and refused to do so.
Hm…
Campaign finance reform? Oh, nope, they take the same corporate money.
As one of those LGBTQ+ people, I have no faith in people protecting me who won’t speak out against genocide
You still have to acknowledge that democrats aren’t going to be the party leading the genocide of LGBTQ+ people.
It’s one thing to say you don’t have faith in them protecting you. It’s another thing to clear the way for the party that actively wants to harm you by not throwing in with the only other party big enough to hold them back.
It’s not a pretty decision. But reality isn’t pretty.
Look at America under the ruling and cultural elite today: Inflation is ravaging family budgets, drug overdose deaths continue to escalate, and children suffer the toxic normalization of transgender- ism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.
Project 2025 Mandate to Leadership. Page 1. Paragraph 2.
They want to barr transgender persons from the military again. Page 104.
The next HHS secretary should immediately put an end to the department’s foray into woke transgen- der activism.
Page 284. They also want CMS (center for Medicare services) to make a national coverage decision citing gender-reaffirming surgery as dangerous. Which has downstream repercussions to medicaid and private insurance. (That’s on page 474).
They want to cock-block Bostick, the ruling which extended sexual discrimination protections for transgender persons. (page 584).
Make no mistake. Transgenders are our conservatives Jews. You could replace “transgender”, “gay”, “LGBT”, “homosexual” etc in that document with “jew”, you’d swear it was written 90 years ago in Germany.
But Biden was able to negotiate with the more moderate fascists!
Most progress we’ve had since Reagan!!!
