Activists from around the country told The Intercept that they will advocate for an anti-war agenda at the convention in August and withhold their vote in November unless an adequate candidate steps up, listing policy priorities such as support for a permanent ceasefire and standing up to the pro-Israel lobby as it intervenes in Democratic primaries. Even as the Biden campaign insists that he will not step aside, many Democrats appear to be lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative candidate, with some Democratic governors being floated as well.
“My number one criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza,” said Saad Farooq, an uncommitted voter in Massachusetts. Farooq said it was unlikely that the Democratic National Committee would select any candidate who took a stance against Israel’s ongoing war, and that he would support Green Party candidate Jill Stein if she were to appear on the ballot in Massachusetts.
Will Dawson, an uncommitted voter in Washington, D.C., named several factors that could get him to switch his vote from the Green Party’s Stein to another politician. First on his list is a promise to call for an immediate ceasefire and fighting the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Congress.
“This candidate would also ideally work toward pulling further away from the Israeli colonial project over time, with the goal being repealing our absurd financial support, ending the foreign interest agency of AIPAC, and pushing for a nation-wide boycott a la [South Africa] during their apartheid,” Dawson wrote.
The candidate would also have to push to reform the Supreme Court, he added. “The candidate would have to promise to both push for justice impeachment, and expand the courts,” Dawson said.“If a replacement candidate met both of these requirements, I would absolutely consider switching my vote from Jill Stein. Hell, I might even knock doors/canvass for them!”
During the debate Trump said that Israel would finish the job with him elected. In my eyes that’s more/less try to eradicate the Palestinians.
… how can there still be people who think not voting for Biden is a better bet for Gaza? Like really: open your eyes.
You’d prefer to either not vote, vote third party (throw your vote away), or vote for someone who has more or less said they’d continue to support killing innocent people.
Biden isn’t great but is more likely to aim for a ceasefire and some sort of peace than Trump.
It’s the lesser of evils.
… of course voting for Trump is likely pushing the US towards fascism as well, but I’ll ignore that for this (and him being a felon, accused rapist, advocate for the wealthy at the expense of all others, liar, etc) specific comment.
The choice between a kindly old man that’s trying to get two sides that want war to agree to a ceasefire and a criminal, authoritarian, mean, and petty old man that will just tell one side to bomb the other into oblivion… civilian casualties be damned.
If people are “uncommitted” it’s because they don’t know what’s going on.
“We need to move to the right to pick up undecided voters”
“Undecided voters want to stop supporting Netanyahu’s genocide.”
“Man, fuck undecided voters. No one needs them. They’re all morons. Let’s ignore them and move to the right.”
It’s not that simple, if gaining undecided votes comes at the cost of more votes than they gain then you’re not going to win. That has been the struggle of the Dems for decades on every progressive issue.
And they continue to assume that they can only pick up more votes by moving to the right.
Party leadership interprets all sensory input as an indicator that they get to move to the right.
Parties don’t decide where the country moves politically, citizens do. If you want people to move left, you have to put in the work to change minds. You don’t sway people at the ballot box. All voting is, is a poll of what people already think and parties try to match their candidates to that poll. The reason our politicians are terrible, is because our people are.
Oh phew. I thought people were getting encumbered with all the rape, personal failings, inciting insurrection, misuse of campaign funds, misappropriation of state secrets, hypocrisy, bringing personal feelings and emoluments into state dealings, and being generally incompetent and other unlikeable things. Priorities, people! /s
Gaza is not on the ballot. Democracy is. End of discussion.
Gonna be a whole lot of Pikachu face on progressive faces.
The supreme court reform is also not on the ballot. Then what is?
Republicans have their electorate getting the pages of project 2025 all sticky. What do democrats have? Another four years of kicking the can? Same promises as the last time but this time for real?
Nah, the DNC went back to the 2016 playbook. It’s “His Turn” now and nothing is going to convince them otherwise. There aren’t even any promises, just the demand for our votes and the automatic assumption that anyone who isn’t a Biden stan is either a Trump stan or a Russian bot.
Those progressive votes might come in handy. But if Democrats don’t want to put it on the ballot they must be very confident in their victory.
Those “progressives” are either Republicans under a different flag, or complete morons who won’t vote Biden when the choice is Biden or Trump.
Come November, if the choice is Biden or Trump, anyone not voting for Biden is helping Trump. Plain and simple.
