I saw that. I’m very glad we got one of our own in Congress, but it’s likely too little, too late.

I don’t think I’ll be able to go anywhere, realistically, anyway. I’m going to hold down the fort in my blue state and hope they shield me from the worst.

thank you. I really appreciate that.

There are plenty of cis gay folks. “Straight” just doesn’t work if you’re trying to describe non-trans people.

Had my name change hearing a couple days ago, I’m now legally Audrey! Going to the office for the first time in girl mode and I’m terrified. I’m honestly kinda concerned that the timing of this might prevent me from voting. I live in Seattle, though, so it won’t affect the Presidential election

Even in that case, there really isn’t much reason to vote for a third party. Especially if they’re one that only pops up on presidential elections while making zero effort to build an overall movement. There are some that probably are genuine, but I suspect most people willing to stand in a third-party presidential candidacy are likely either grifting or intentionally trying to act as a spoiler. Honestly, unless one of the major parties collapses or we actually somehow move past the first-past-the-post voting systems, third parties in general are just a waste of time and effort that could be used on something more effective. I honestly think that if you’re in a state where your vote in the presidential election doesn’t matter, writing in the name of someone like Bernie Sanders or leaving it blank would be a better use of a vote than a third party.

yeah, I’m done here. Zero effort is being put in to justify most of your positions, which makes sense because you can’t. There’s some hilariously bad faith arguments here that’s I’m not even going to address because honestly, this post has been superseded by others and we’re only ones reading it at this point.

please stop wasting people’s time with obviously false arguments like “trump and harris are the same”. not only is it wrong, it’s painfully simplistic and reductive. no nuance, just black and white thinking so that you never have to think critically. like, you just drop that nonsense so that you don’t have to do the hard work of arguing why we should risk a trump presidency.

I know that I haven’t been very charitable to you, but you led off this discussion by basically calling me “privileged” and saying I’m pretty much a trumper, and then you drop dumb argument after dumb argument(and I have noticed that you threw my “parroting” and “idealism” criticisms back at me… you’re not very original, which tracks for someone who isn’t thinking for themselves). It’s pretty telling that your most effective arguments are those nitpicking something I’ve said.

your position is dangerous. that is why i have indulged you this long. trump CANNOT be allowed in, and we must do whatever we must to prevent that. trump will send my trans ass to a camp. harris WILL NOT. this is life and death and i need you to stop making stupid arguments that you obviously haven’t thought through

I watched some of the video, and holy shit was it awkward. You could tell that everyone else was completely confused as to why Trump was doing this. They played some music to fill time after a couple people fainted, and then Trump just abruptly decided that he was going to “dance” to his playlist instead of continuing with the Q&A. Kristi Noem actually rolled with it initially before trying to interrupt, but Trump insisted on playing more music and weakly swaying from side to side some more. I didn’t think Trump could really surprise me anymore… but what the hell was that!? He isn’t exactly beating the “weird” allegations, that’s for sure.

The U.S. voter base does not realistically have a choice regarding Gaza in this election. None. Zero. Nada. Do not even try going on about third parties or withholding votes. I know from your comment history that you’re trying to dampen harm reduction votes, so I’m not trying to convince you. But when it comes to casting a vote in the 2024 election, failing to cast a strategic vote against Donald Trump when so many people will suffer if he comes back is a completely indefensible position. It’s probably safe to say that everyone on Earth, save perhaps Russia, will be worse off if that monster comes back. I voted uncommitted in the primaries. I’m fucking massively pissed off about the genocide the U.S. government is aiding and abetting. But there isn’t shit I can really do about it save protest. This is a first-past-the-post voting system. It punishes and discourages third party voting. If you oppose Trump, and vote Stein, then you threw away a perfectly good vote that could have been used to block Trump. That’s the thing about this system, and why it sucks so bad: you’re forced to cast a vote against the viable candidate that you dislike more by casting one for the other viable candidate. It doesn’t mean you particularly like or support the candidate you voted for, but the system actively punishes doing anything else. U.S. voters aren’t exactly the cream of the crop, but even they get this, and with the massive upswing in polarization lately, even fewer people would vote for a third party. Voting third party in the U.S. is completely useless. In a general election, votes are not endorsements. People can and do swallow their pride and do what needs to be done. And what needs to be done is to prevent a second Donald Trump presidency and Project 2025 from becoming reality. That’s it. Fascism’s coming and only a fool(based on the emotions involved, I will give American Muslims a pass, though it is very much not in their best interest to have Trump Part II) would screw around here because they’re so desperate to feel superior to others because they “took the high road”.

continued from the last comment

I would be curious to know what the “effective difference” between, historically, Trump and Biden is because the functional difference has been negligible. I’m also old enough to recall the Obama vs Romney and old enough to recall they were also marketed as polar opposites. The only major difference between then and now is the faces and increased normalization.

This is such a ridiculously bad argument that I’m absolutely stunned that someone would actually think this would work. You’re wrong on this, full stop. I am begging you to step out of your bubble and compare and contrast Harris’s proposed policy agenda and Trump’s Agenda 47/Project 2025 and tell me that they’re the same. Like, this take is so atrociously foolish that it must have been formed by uncritically parroting the Russian propaganda promoting apathy and despair that is infesting leftist corners of the internet. Like, if you can’t agree that Republicans have gotten massively worse over the last few years somehow, if you somehow view even Trump and Romney as the same, then your view is so skewed that it becomes functionally useless.

Have you not been paying attention to the attempts at organizing under the current Biden administration?

Yeah, the reaction to the student protests about Gaza definitely disturbs me. There are few things at play here, first off, it’s easy for unscrupulous Israel supporters to dupe people into believing that criticism of the Israeli government is inherently antisemitic. Add in some right wing provocateurs exploiting the situation by attacking the heads of these universities, and you get what’s happened so far. Also, Israel itself has a weird amount of influence throughout the government to the point where it’s actually illegal for U.S. companies to boycott them(I work in the logistics industry, and we have to do training every year to recognize signs of a boycott of Israel. If we find some, we literally cannot legally do business with them.) Israel is actually particularly difficult to protest against. I don’t think that leftist organizing will face quite that amount of pushback. Even if it does, repression under Biden is going to be much easier to deal with than repression under Trump(the man sent goons in unmarked vans to harass, detain, and intimidate BLM protesters in Portland. He’ll do much worse next time, when the guardrails have been removed).

As well as nationalistic propaganda which I am desperately trying to help you see past. The actual workings of the us government are significantly different than what was taught in your AP high school history class and I need you to have more intellectual curiosity and less parroting.

This is basically what I’ve been trying to argue to you(though the propaganda source in your case would be different).

Yes, the only difference is that Trump will actively encourage vigilantism while being largely ineffective whereas Harris will do the ‘I promise we are doing everything in our power to prevent these gross mischarges of justice!!! But we need to build more prisons in order to effectively combat attacks against our democracy.’ song and dance. See the “kids in cages”, Roe v Wade, war on the homeless, Iran escalation etc. comparing Trump Vs. Biden.

What a lousy, bad faith argument. I don’t pretend that things are going well, but for you to suggest that trans people are in danger from Harris is insane. I have replied to you not out of any conviction that I’ll change your mind, but to convince everyone else that you aren’t particularly worth listening to. You have proved that point. Like I said, the fact that you can’t discern the painfully obvious difference between the mediocre status quo Harris and the absolutely fascist Donald Trump means that we’re in an impasse here.