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Asklemmy @lemmy.ml dependencyinjection @discuss.tchncs.de

Why are so many Pro-Palestine (I am pro-Palestine and anti-genocide) Americans refusing to vote for Harris due to her stance on Israel?

As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.

Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.

I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.

Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.

Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.

Edit 2: This blew up, it’s a little overwhelming right now but I do intent on replying to everybody that took the time to comment. Just need to get in the right headspace.

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  • Three points:

    • Biden and Harris are right now with their actions physically supporting the Genocide. Trump talks about supporting the Genocide even more. Well, guess what: Trump lies shamelessly (as the Democrat propaganda here doesn't stop reminding us of in everything but, "strangely", not this subject) and isn't even competent when it comes to actual execution. So on one side we have an absolute certainty that the candidate supports the Genocide and on the other one we have a probability that its so based on the statements of a known liar. I would say the claims that Trump is worse on this are doing a lot of relying on Trump's word (on this subject alone) in order to elevate his evilness of this above that of people who are actually, right now, shamelessly and unwaveringly supporting the Genocide with actual actions.
    • If the Leadership of Democrat Party manages to whilst refusing to walk back on their active support of a Genocide, win the election with a "otherwise it's Trump" strategy, they will move even further to the Right because that confirms to them that they can do whatever they want and still keep in power. Now, keep in mind that the Democract Party leadership already supports Fascism (ethno-Fascism, even, which is the same kind as the Nazis practiced), so far only abroad (whilst Trump does support Fascism at home) so there isn't much more to the Right of that before Fascism at home. You see, for a Leftie voting Democrat now will probably be the least bad option in the short term, but it's very likely to be the worst option in the long term because it consolidates and even accelerates the move of the Democrat Party to the Right.
    • Some people simply put their moral principles above "yeah but" excuses and won't vote for people supporting the mass murder of children.

    In summary:

    • Trump's Genocide support is a probability based on his word, willingness and ability to fulfill it (i.e. his competence at doing it), whilst Harris' is an actual proven fact with actions happening right now.
    • A vote for the Democrats whilst their policies are so far to the Right that they're supporting modern Nazis with the very weapons they use to mass murder civilians of the "wrong" ethnicity, if it leads to a Harris victory will consolidate this de facto Far-Right status of the party and maintain momentum in going Rightwards. Voting like that is, IMHO, a Strategically stupid choice even if the case can be made (and that's the entirety of what the Democrat propaganda here does) that Tactically it's the least bad choice.
    • Some people can't just swallow their moral principles, especially for making a choice which isn't even a "choose a good thing" but actually a "choose a lesser evil", and "Thou shall not mass murder thousands of babies" is pretty strong as moral principles go.

    • i agree mostly with you, even thought i'm a foreigner. i'd just like to point out that even though there are doubts about trump continuing america's support of a genocide (and i believe he won't have that much of a problem since both major parties in america support it), there's everything else about him.

      and also, everything else about the dems too. let's just say that major lawfare campaigns against progressive governments here in latin america have been conducted under dem rule in the u.s.. brazil and uruguay had their coups d'état orchestrated by the johnson administration. honduras, paraguay and brazil suffered lawfare coups under the obama administration.

    • It's sad that no democrats are pulling to the left on the major foreign policy issues. Illian Omar said the best thing for Ukrainian children is to ensure that Ukrainian nazis can control regions they hate. Bernie has recently said that "Israel has the right to defend itself" even if he has also said a ceasefire is important. The only voice who would trade the demonic warmongering US empire for an extra hotel or two is Trump.

      • If the Leadership of Democrat Party manages to whilst refusing to walk back on their active support of a Genocide, win the election with a "otherwise it's Trump" strategy, they will move even further to the Right because that confirms to them that they can do whatever they want and still keep in power.

      If the Republicans get absolutely walloped in the election for running a wannabe dictator, it will show them that the extremism isn't going to work and they have to run reasonable candidates to have a chance at winning. Then next election when they present someone who isn't a megalomaniacal idiot who wants to be a "Dictator Day 1" it will require the Democrats to do better and put more effort than "not a dictator."

      Letting the Republicans be this close will cause the Democrats to move further right because the leftists aren't going to vote for them anyway, and they sure as fuck won't vote for Republicans, so moving to the right to steal 1000 votes from Republicans is better than moving left and gaining 1500 votes from people who otherwise wouldn't vote.

      • Whilst the first paragraph does make some sense, it presumes that in such a situation the Republicans would not conclude it's the style of the candidate rather than his ideas that caused the rout. That might be a little optimist considering that the traditional Republicans' were just as far right economically before and almost as right in Moral issues, but they had a different style of candidate (remember Reagan?).

        It might also be a little optimist to expect an absolute walloping of anybody, Republican or Democrat.

        That said, it's a valid scenario, though it relies on very low probability events.

        The second paragraph is inconsistent with every single thing the Democrats have done in their pre-electoral propaganda, from the whole "vote us or get Trump" (something which wouldn't scare the Right) to the raft of pre-election promises on Left-wing subjects like student debt forgiveness or tightening regulations on giants such as Telecoms a little bit. If they really thought they could win with only votes stolen from the Right, they would be making promises which appeal to the Right, not the Left.

        Besides, the whole idea that Rightwing voters would go for the less-Rightwing party rather than the more-Rightwing party is hilarious: why go for the copy if you can get the real deal?

        From what I've seen in other countries were Center-Left Parties totally dropped their appeal to the Left and overtly went to appeal to the Right, they got pummeled because the Maths don't add up and, as I said above, Rightwing votes will choose the "genuine article" over the "wannabes".

        It's not by chance that in Europe even whilst becoming full-on Neoliberal parties, Center-Left parties maintained a leftwing discourse and would throw a bone to the Left once in a while (say, minimum wage raises) when in government.

        • Center-Left parties maintained a leftwing discourse and would throw a bone to the Left once in a while (say, minimum wage raises) when in government.

          Right-wing oned did the same tbh. In Poland socdem party went from nearly having constitutional majority (2/3rd seats) to complete obliteration and losing every single seat in two terms because they turning into center-right neoliberals (which alrady had their own party so nobody voted on them), but it didn't make them any wiser, they still do the same neoliberal st. Vitus dance, though they managed to marginally return to mainstream since (on a leftwing promises which they didn't even tried to do anything about it).
          Ultimately the party which did the minimal bone throwing was protofascist PiS and this given them 2 full term in government because even tiny breach of absolute austerity policy we see since 1989 shocked people incredibly.

        • It's not by chance that in Europe even whilst becoming full-on Neoliberal parties, Center-Left parties maintained a leftwing discourse and would throw a bone to the Left once in a while (say, minimum wage raises) when in government.

          Are you talking about nations with better electoral systems that can support more than 2 parties?

          Yes, in a 3+ party system Party A moving closer to Party B to take 1000 votes from them but losing 1500 votes to Party C in the process is a bad play.

          In a "Winner takes all" 2 party system where the only thing that matters is having 1 more vote than your opponent to have 100% of the power, Party A moving closer to Party B to take 1000 votes from them is a better position even if it causes them to lose 1900 votes from people who now won't vote for either party. Moving further away from Party B to get 1000 votes from people who are refusing to vote is a losing position if it causes them to lose 501 votes to Party B.

          In a 2 party system chasing the people who are actually voting will always be twice as good than chasing the people who aren't voting.

          • You have it backwards: going after the natural voters of the other side in a two-party system is the riskiest thing you can do because the other party has a massive advantage with those voters which is an historical track record of telling them what they want to hear and them voting for it - rightwingers trust them on Rightwing subjects and are used to voting for them.

            Even if (and it's a massive massive if) a party succeeds at it once due to the party on the other side having deviated too much from its traditional ideology, all it takes for the party on the other side is to "get back to its roots" to recover most of those lost votes and subsequently win, whilst meanwhile the leftmost party that moved to the right has created for itself an obstacle in their own "going back to its roots" in the form of a section of the electorate which feels they were betrayed.

            Sure, they'll eventually get it back if they themselves quickly "go back to their roots", but it will take several electoral cycles.

            Further, if that gap remains too long on the Left even in a two party system it would create room for a third to grow, starting by local elections, then places like Congress, then Senate and eventually even the Presidency.

            One of of the key ways in which First Past The Post maintains a Power-Duopoly is because growing a party enough to challenge the rest in multiple electoral circles takes time and the duopoly parties will try to stop it (generally by changing back their policies to appeal to the core voters of that new Party).

            The US itself once had the Whig Party as one of the power duopoly parties and that exists no more.

            The Democrats abandoning the Left is not a stable configuration for them and carries both the risk that the Rightwing electorate sees them as fake and the Leftwing electorate feels betrayed, and now they're stuck in the middle with a reduced vote.

            • You're saying if a party strays too far that another party can steal some of its voters, the party can "return to its roots" and get all those voters back.

              You're also saying if a party strays too far it can't just "return to its roots" and get those voters back because they don't trust them.

              You are contradicting yourself. If Republicans suddenly become a rational party they'll be trusted by rational people as much as if Democrats suddenly became a leftist party.

              You're also telling yourself: there's no reason for the Democrats to move left because you're not going to trust them anyway. If Kamala came out tomorrow and promised everything you were wanting to say you wouldn't believe her or vote for her.

              The fact is Republicans are going full Fascist, and there are people with conservative ideologies who don't want fascism. That is why they will vote for a Democratic Party shifting to the right instead of the "original right wing party".

              Sure, creating a vacuum on the left increases the viability of a third party, but that's not going to be viable this election so they don't have to worry about it.

533 comments