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?

The USA has several legally binding treaties etc promising military cooperation with Israel. Harris isn't allowed to break them legally. Any change to this would have to be passed by the house and senate. So it genuinely doesn't matter what Harris or anyone else wants.

The US needs to fix their voting system before they can start voting third party. It's probably even more difficult with Trump

4 years ago, Democrats said the border wall was stupid and bad. They said that Republicans were racist for claiming all Mexicans were drug dealers and criminals. Today, Harris is saying she's gonna build the border wall, be tough on migrants, and has basically adopted Trump's policies on immigration.

There is no indication that the Democrats will not be just as bad as the Republicans on Israel in 4 years.

To address your second point "not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump"; why isn't the opposite true? "Not voting for Trump is a vote for Harris", follows the same logic, so refusing to vote or voting independent should be net neutral, no?

This election should be a slam dunk victory for Harris. The data shows that adopting leftist progressive policies is popular. Biden dropping out resulted in $4 million in small donor fundraising. Picking Walz resulted in another $2 million. People got really excited when it looked like the Democratic party was making leftist progressive movement.

Since then, the Dems have been aggressively moving towards the center. More lethal military, inciting panic about the border, ignoring Palestine. This has resulted in an extremely tight race as people are no longer excited to vote for Harris.

I want Harris to win. Moving leftward politically will attract more voters. Taking a firm stance on stopping the Israeli government's genocide is a leftist progressive policy. The bag is right there, she just needs to grab it.

Because they don't understand that voting is just one part of the democratic process.

Because I live in one of the many many states were my vote doesn't matter at all.

What's the point of casting a worthless vote in favor of genocide?

People here act like we live in some kind of actual democracy lol.

She's campaigning on building the wall. she's endorsed by dick cheney and 200+ reagan and Bush admin staffers. we have sent more aid to Israel in the past year than we ever have since Israel was invented. she has stated that her support of Israel is iron-clad. the current admin has broken records for the amount of oil and gas extracted extracted in the past 4 years. she has refused to voice support for the trans people who are supposedly going to be protected by her admin. she has kicked Palestinian people out of her campaign events, while instead parading around Richie Torres, a person who famously has stated multiple times that Palestinians deserve their eradication. her policy page has removed all mentions of medicare for all and paths to citizenship. she has promised to make america's military the most lethal fighting force in the world.

she has decided that the "moderate conservative" who will never vote for her is more important than all the progressives and leftists who probably would've. just like Hillary Clinton and Dale Earnhardt, she's going to crash into a wall because she can't turn left.

European here, stuck in the middle of all this.

Please vote Harris.

The winner of this ellection will be the president of all americans, not just of its supporters.

an election is just a nudge in one direction. real change takes many electoral cycles or a revolution.

If you want to do a revolution please do that on your own time or think long term electoral strategy.

Dont be stupid, be usefull. Even if it hurts.

people dont seem to see the difference between ending up with a party for which a good chunk of their supporters think that what Israel is doing is a genocide vs ending up with a party for which all of their supporters think not only that what Israel is doing is justified but should also do the same to all middle eastern countries (together with direct USA involvement).

I think there are two major subgroups within this group.

First one is immigrants whose families are from the middle east/Palestine who are rightfully very angry at all the world for doing jack shit about Israel committing genocide. What they have to realize is there are unfortunately only two options going ahead: 1- as it is now, maybe somewhat better in future, or 2- much worse. There is no third option that is going to come out of these elections but one where there is potential for change (potential coming from the supporters mentioned above) vs %100 chance of things going for the worse. Note that I am not talking at all about the candidates themselves at all, just the demographic that generally votes for them.

The second group is probably China or Russia fans who just want to see America suffer by getting Trump elected. These are very short sighted people with whom you cannot really have a coherent conversation with.

US Elections are decided when they do redistricting and manipulate the voting districts to ensure the results they want and isn't a real democracy. The US is run by oligarchs who run their enterprise corporations and the power is concentrated there, not in the government.

Remember that in online spaces (and IRL in reality), there are astro-turf/sock puppet accounts that will make claims to sway public opinions.

To push her to change her stance... you only own your vote. That's the only leverage. She is the reason they aren't voting for her.

It's the Trolley Problem. Many people finding themselves in that problem would say, "Of course I flip the switch, one person is less than five people".

But if you take a step back it's reasonable to ask, "WHY did I suddenly find myself in this Trolley Problem? Trolleys don't spring into existence fully formed like Athena springing from Zeus' forehead. They are designed and built, piece by piece. The switch was setup by the agency of someone. People were kidnapped and tied down by force. I was placed here on purpose."

So given that realization it's also reasonable when told you must choose to say, "Why? You designed this system. You tied the people down. You could have done it differently and instead deliberately did THIS. I had nothing to do with it and I refuse the premise that I must participate in your fucked up game. No matter what happens the blood is on your hands and I refuse to share in your guilt."

That's the essential argument. There's the realpolitik decision to do "less harm", but you can also reject the fucked up premise.

I wonder the same thing, specially since Trump is also pro-Israel and voting for either one wont save Palestine

I voted for Harris, but I feel like it's pretty obvious why someone would vote third party instead.

One need only reject the premise that voting should be a strategic act of harm reduction. Mind you, I'm not saying "is" here. I'm saying "should be".

We may not take their approach, but you have to admit that there's value to it. They are embracing the world as it ought to be, whereas we are trying to work with the reality of the situation as we perceive it.

And we could be perceiving incorrectly. For all we know, Trump could loose-cannon his way into making Netanyahu's whole party lose their next election. It may not be likely, but nothing in this world is certain.

For all we know, the Heritage Foundation could destroy so much of the government and economy so rapidly that it weakens all of the property rights and FBI operations aimed against self-sufficient mutual aid, and communes start springing up all over the place. It's not likely without massive turmoil, starvation, and bloodshed. But however unlikely, we cannot predict the future!

Cyncism is costly in terms of mental health and well-being. In order to choose pragmatism over principles, we must accept a reality where no good choices exist. But that's not something we can do everywhere. We can't repeatedly choose the "least miserable option" and still be able to hold ourselves together and function. It's just not possible.

Humans need hope to survive. They need a hill they can hang onto. They need to be able to say, "on this ground, I fight for what should be rather than what is."

Some people's hill is their ballot.

Simple. You punish zionists and democrats for backing genocide. If they keep losing on their positions then they'll learn to work for your vote. That's why always voting red or blue no matter what is bad. It just makes your vote worthless because you'll vote for them no matter what.

2 reasons jump to mind.

1. When I listen to people who personally identify with the people of Gaza, it goes way beyond logic. They have a completely emotional reaction. Their choices are almost completely driven by the question of, "Who is doing what, right now?" Questions of, "Who will do what 6 months from now?" take a distant back seat.

2. Every time the topic comes up, Democrats dogpile on them and call them morons. People will often respond with something like, "Yeah but that's OK because they ARE morons." I won't argue if that's true or not but it's pretty obvious that line of reasoning won't win a lot of converts.

Majority of the people who are saying this are Arab-Americans. They know how bad Trump will be, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of Biden back in 2020. Unfortunately, after a year of witnessing their entire ethnicity being written off as an acceptable casualty in the name of international diplomacy and foreign lobbying, they've become numb and just stopped caring. There have been repeated instsnces of Democrats actually silencing them from speaking up as well. They've adopted a scorched earth mentality and are deciding to send a giant "fuck you" to Harris and the entire Democratic party.

And the Democrats are also allowing Israel to do whatever they want. There's not much of a difference between the two on this topic.

I feel like you have to understand the circumstances of those affected most by this genocide to understand. It's easy to be logical and vote Harris as she is the least worse option, but that's harder to do when directly affected. I consider the blame to be entirely on the Democratic Administration and Harris' Campaign Strategy. They have had every opportunity to change course, and them deciding not to may very well cost them the election. I will not blame anti-genocide voters, especially those who are directly affected and have lost loved ones.

I'm still voting for Harris, on the basis that change from public pressure is far more unlikely under Trump.

The rhetoric coming out of the White House, when it has been focused on peace or restraint, rather than continuous war, has been undercut at every turn by its actions. The constant supply of weapons — $17.9 billion of bullets, bombs, shells, and other military aid in the past year — has allowed Israel to keep waging its war on Gaza, and in recent weeks, expand that war to Lebanon and threaten to escalate its conflict with Iran. Despite documentation of U.S. weapons being used in probable war crimes, and credible allegations that Israel is committing genocide in its war on Gaza, the bombs have continued to flow.

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/09/white-house-oct-7-israel-war-gaza/

Here you can track the rhetoric and actions of the Biden Administration month by month. The US has been supplying the weapons used for Israel's genocide unconditionally for a year. Against international law, against domestic law, against the will of the majority of the population, and all with US taxpayer money. This is pro-genocide foreign policy.

Harris, instead of breaking from Biden on this issue, has not deviated. She has repeatedly ignored the voices of Palestinian Americans, Arab Americans, and Muslim Americans on this issue. These people are directly affected, they have friends and family in Palestine and Lebanon that have been killed by Israel. She has not only taken their votes for granted, but has offered no concessions and ignored their voices. People are angry at Biden and Harris for this. They desperately want change, but they don't see that from the Democratic administration.

Despite Trump's horrendous track record, he has gained in their support solely because of how Harris has campaigned. It's not logical, but it's hard to be when directly affected by the actions of the current administration and no prospect for change. Advocating them to vote for the 'lesser evil' doesn't work when the 'lesser evil' is directly responsible for the deaths of their loved ones. Trump successfully framed himself as a Dove and Hillary as a warmonger in 2016. He's using that same tactic now. It would be a completely unsuccessful framing if Harris pivoted to Arms Embargo or Conditional Aid, but that has not happened.

Breaking from Biden would be a major boost in voter output.

• Split Ticket (July 2024)

• New Poll Suggests Gaza Ceasefire and Arms Embargo Would Help Dems with Swing State Voters (Full YouGov Report) (May 2024)

• Data For Progress Poll (May 2024)

• American Attitudes: Shifting Realities After the Unfolding Genocide in Gaza (Nov 2024)

• https://instituteforglobalaffairs.org/2024/09/vox-populi-battlegrounds/#full-report (Nov 2024)

They believe that taking a moral stand against the Democrats, who are supporting Israeli genocide, is worth it even if that means that Trump, who even more fervently supports Israeli genocide, becomes president.

The U.S. also has a huge defense industry that has made people ridiculously rich at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Those billionaires are heavily invested in the defense industry, so it's not in their interests that wars end at all.

This is that "military-industrial complex" that former President Eisenhower warned us about so many years ago. His concern was that the U.S. would become bogged down in an endless series of "forever wars" that do nothing but transfer wealth to the already-wealthy.

Keeping that military industrial complex well-fed is the reason why so many politicians have such a boner for war. Not only to keep their wealthy sponsors happy, but to keep tax money and jobs flowing to their states, which just happen to manufacture war materiel.

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.

Because it's a far right party. Trump happens to be more far right, but that doesn't change that fact. I'm not voting for far right, neoliberal, genocidal freaks.

At how many genocides do you draw the line? If the democrats committed a second one along with the Palestinian genocide they are committing right now? You'd again say trump would be worse, vote for Harris. If they committed three? Four? No matter what they do, Trump would do worse, so again you'd tell us to vote for Harris.

I draw the line at a genocide and at everything this neoliberal party stands for. I am not giving that party my approval because it is going in the exact opposite direction of what I stand for. At some point, the lesser evil is too evil.

Lol, living in a world where "anti-genocide" is actually a thing people say is messed up.

Single issue voters just seem to be the excuse of Democrat party for if they lose.

Just like election fraud is of the Republican party.

doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.

And what if they seem equally likely to escalate the situation?

Trump says he'll let Israel finish the job. Kamala says she disapproves of what's happening in Gaza, but will always support Israel and will always provide them with weapons.

Same fuckin' thing.

to put pressure on the US government with regards to the situation in the Middle East

This was where I was at 6 months ago. They even had the gall to say, "things will shape up as we get closer." This is an attack vector and no, it will only go away after the election. People who defend the stance who aren't foreign actors are useful idiots.

Never again means never again, I will not be party to it.

They already lived through 4 years of Trump and have decided it is worth doing it again instead of letting the party most currently responsible for said genocide to win.

Point being that Harris has outright refused to meet any sort of demands on Israel. There was no reduction in arms nor any restrictions placed on Israel, and Harris fully intends to continue that policy.

If she loses, it means that she failed to meet her constituents demands, which means they'd have to actually meet them in the next election to win.

Also because I have a hard time seeing how anyone who lost entire family trees would listen to "uM AkShuLly TrUmP woUld bE 9999x WorSe, wE jUst NeEd tO ProTest aFTER tHe ELeCTion" as if we didn't just full send billions of dollars in munitions and weapons to Israel.

Electoral College with First Past The Post electors. Hundreds of millions of american votes are dumpstered for the presidential election. So a significant portion of protest voters in deep red OR deep blue states aren't impacting the outcome. Only swing states decide the outcome and even then it is only a few districts within those states. And so the electoral outcome for the presidency gets reduced to the most salient wedge issues in those communities.

It just so happens some things are not so localized an issue. So the idea (or one of them) is to demonstrate whether there is a meaningful voting bloc to be had here that deserves to be listened to, or can continue to be ignored.

Lots of people foolishly think political parties can learn lessons.

I’m going to tell you a secret.

The people who say this, the leftists that threaten to withhold their votes, tend to vote strategically anyways. But threatening to withhold votes is one way to apply pressure to politicians to do things like, say, stop promoting a fucking genocide. And then liberals lose their minds for some reason and make it totally irrelevant. And then we have a genocide that lasts for 75 years and starts world war 3.

it's like people forget that trump was already president before. the Israel/Palestine conflict is not new. i'm pretty sure every US president since Israel was founded has supported Israel in every form the conflict has taken. there's more gas on the fire now, but it's not like trump wasn't stoking the flames when he was president last time, and it's weird to think he wouldn't actually contine the bipartisan US policy of providing material aid to Israel, regardless of what fucked up shit they do.

both candidates will support genocide, so at that point you can either not vote, and just let the chips fall where they may, vote for a third party candidate who won't support genocide (because they won't get elected), or choose between the two genocidal options based on other factors, and try and minimize the damage in other arenas.

What has the current administration actually stopped Israel from doing? Every line in the sand has been crossed and there have been no consequences, trump won't be worse for Palestine than Kamala

Both candidates will support Israel, so for pro palestine voters it's a "Would you like to vote for the Shitty Party, or Less Shitty Party" situation, where not voting from these parties is shunned upon because it will help Shitty Party win.

Because they’re willing to chop off their nose to spite their face, as the saying goes. Only in doing so they’re going to screw over the rest of us and apparently they don’t care.

Harris is the only sane choice.

The vote should be for someone who can get enough electoral college votes to win in the first place, and from there the one who is more likely to listen to public pressure, as well as the same for any congressional seats on the ballot. And probably not vote for the one who is threatening to send the military after those who disagree with them.

Your vote is your consent.

Imagine for a minute that your perfect political candidate was running. The only catch is that if they win they are promising to personally execute your family in front of you. The other guy is gonna kill your family too so everyone tells you to stop being such a single issue voter and vote for the lesser evil.

Do you still vote for them? Or do you refuse to participate in the execution of your family?

Losing the election is the only kind of accountability Harris and the Democrats are likely to face for their part in the genocide. Otherwise, what incentive is there for either party to ever oppose it? What message would Americans be sending to the world that we would keep in office someone who's been actively supporting a genocide?

In my situation, I'm in a solid blue state so I'm voting for a third party to push the country to the left.

The Pro-Palestinians fail to understand it does not matter who is the US President because the key advisors within the cabinet are usually Pro-Israeli and many have dual US and Israeli citizenship. No matter what, Israel has the USA by the balls and they will continue to receive billions of dollars of free money. and weapons.

are you seriously going to vote for genocide? wtf? i hope you are a CIA/Israeli bot and not a real person

Obama dropped an average of 60 bombs every day on the middle east and north africa during his presidency.

The US isn't a democracy, and it's elections are nothing but theatre. I recommend asking about this on lemmygrad or hexbear also.

Her stance is practically indistinguishable from Trump's and enables Israel to continue the genocide.

I think something that contributes to people talking past each other here is a difference in belief in how necessary/desirable revolution/overthrow of the U.S government is. Like many of the people who I've talked to online, who advocate not voting and are also highly engaged, believe in revolution as the necessary alternative. Which does make sense. It's hard to believe that the system is fundamentally genocidal and not worth working within (by voting for the lesser evil) without also believing that the solution is to overthrow that system.

And in that case, we're discussing the wrong thing. Like the question isn't whether you should vote or not . it's whether the system is worth preserving (and of course what do you do to change it. How much violence in a revolution is necessary/acceptable). Like if you believe it is worth preserving, then clearly you should vote. And if you believe it isn't, there's stronger case for not voting and instead working on a revolution.

Does anyone here believe that revolution isn't necessary and also that voting for the lesser isn't necessary?

The opposite is more plausible to me: believing in the necessity of revolution while also voting

Personally I believe that revolution or its attempt is unlikely to effective and voting+activism is more effective, and also requires agreement from fewer people in order to progress on its goals. Tragically, this likely means that thousands more people will be murdered, but I don't know what can actually be effective at stopping that.

I think it's because of stuff like this:

I'm not a U.S.A-ian. From my view(might be too critical), I don't think the foreign policy would be greatly affected by the President or party, unless there's some massive movement and notion of losing resources like during the invasion of Vietnam.

There are many contributing factors. Part of it is russian and american oligarchs spending heaps of cash to amplify any and every message that could help trump win.

Democrats are not pro Palestine. They simply don't care about Genocide when Democrats do it. They are Nazis.

Why in the world would you make this thread? Almost every single day for at least the last month (and still often beforehand) there have been threads where the liberals and the leftists aggressively talk in circles on this issue. The odds of you hearing anything new are incredibly low, and you might as well just go back to .ml's c/news threads for the same material.

I just can't keep having people yell the same nonsense at me over and over. If you're really badly in need of leftist takes, I'll DM you on request, but I don't really want to talk about it publicly anymore except in more convincingly leftist spaces than .ml has been rendered by its federation.

The US two-party system is a duopoly, so whichever party you vote for doesn't matter. They are two sides of the same coin pretending to be opposites.

I voted party for socialism and liberation and you can too!

They’re running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel.

Psl is eligible for enough electoral votes to win in a landslide!

If genocide is your red line then they’ve crossed it. How will you respond?

It's a psyop

I reject your original false premise that "so many" are actually doing this.

I have faith that pro-Palestinian folks are on the whole, rational and empathetic enough to know that trump will end the comfort, and even lives, of so many groups of vulnerable people, decidedly inclusive of the Palestinians there. We elect Harris today so that our democracy lives another day. That preserves our rights to fill the streets in protest and interrupt commerce until Israel's genocide ends WHEN Kamala actually has the power to stop it, after being sworn in.

Until then, we stay vocal and we place the pressure to end this where it firmly belongs - Netanyahu and the Israelis instigating and enabling this historically horrible thing.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17919598

So many? What kinda numbers are we talking here?

It feels like watching Trump burn the middle east to the ground instead of Harris would be cold comfort for anyone proud of not actively voting for a different genocide abetting candidate. There is no anti-genocide candidate, sadly, but one party has at least the shadow of a conscience that can be pressured later.

It's the difference between those for whom leftism is an aesthetic and those who want material progress. Those who value the aesthetic can't bear to compromise their aesthetic by voting for Harris, while those who care about people's material conditions and doing work to actually make progress do vote for her.

You got many answers, but part of it is because of shit like this.

Everyone else is basically going to give you dogshit answers, here, and I'm not gonna read through the thread to confirm that because I've been in enough of these threads on lemmy to know that it's going to be the most oversimplified and horrible hand-wavy explanations you could've hoped for. I think maybe the collective effort people put into their posts on the internet is dwindling as a result of mass adoption and various social media incentive structures, to the point where even platforms like lemmy are gonna get filled with horrible dogshit and just the worst oldest facebook memes of all time. Don't listen to all those fucking morons, listen to me, I'm the only one effortposting in this removed, because I have psychosis and like to write these out as a way to take notes and review my talking points.

SO, at the lowest level, you have gerrymandering. This applies to things like city council seats within cities, it applies to what gets defined as "inside" and "outside" the city and the county, it applies to districts that elect representatives at the state level, and it even, to a certain degree, applies to the states themselves. Basically, every time the electorate gets subdivided, something you would otherwise think is a good thing, as it lets people be governed more with concerns local to that subdivision, instead, those lines get drawn up most often to favor the party that is currently sitting in that seat. Being that this is instituted at pretty much every level of governance, and that people don't tend to change addresses super often, especially homeowners, this contributes to why most states are not swing states, and why most votes are very predictably "wasted", or, are used by the parties to cancel out other very predictable votes, or are used to further secure and entrench power with more overwhelming margins.

You also have first-past-the-post voting in the vast majority of places, abbreviated as fptp voting, in which you have a single, non-transferable vote. Proponents of this system can basically only defend it on its braindead simplicity, because there's not really any reality in which it accurately represents the interests of the voters. If you think of a voting system as being a way for voters to clearly communicate their preferences, and have those preferences followed, then fptp voting only provides one bit of information: "I want this guy". It doesn't rate candidates in relation to each other, it doesn't tell anyone whether or not you would prefer one candidate over another. So, people get locked in to voting for one candidate which has proved to be consistently popular, and has a good chance of winning so they don't "waste" their vote, which as previously described, is probably already wasted, and so we get locked into a two-party system pretty much everywhere.

Both these systems combine to severely limit the weight of anyone's vote. It effectively means that, outside a couple gerrymandered suburbs, in particular swing states, which can be figured out well in advance of elections, the rest of the votes don't matter. Most votes are just locked in a system where they are effectively being used by the sitting parties to cancel each other out.

Most local races are funded at the local level, meaning they tend to favor older, much more well-off candidates which don't necessarily represent the majority of people's interests. This outsized power can be increased with gerrymandering. Americans also tend to favor sitting candidates over new candidates, both because of FPTP, and also because culturally FPTP has become ingrained, meaning incumbent candidates tend to be able to sit around for as long as they want. Primaries are pretty much unilaterally controlled by the parties that run them, as we have seen in this election, and they are able to pretty effectively select who it is that they want to be elected through the funding and backing of the party, within their territories, which is something that's happening at every level, and not just at the presidential level. So, economics and economic disparity has a great role to play in who is able to run for local positions, on top of obviously having a very clear role at higher levels. Less money can also have a very outsized impact in local, smaller elections, where candidates can court corporate interests and party interests and then bankroll their way into a position pretty much guaranteed. This is why you can pretty much dismiss anyone who's going to suggest that you go and run for local office, as though that's some gotcha. They wouldn't know, because they probably also haven't run for their local offices, but especially at the higher levels, those local offices tend to be controlled by elderly small business owners and a bunch of lawyers. Canvassing and commercials are pretty effective, especially when you can concentrate these on the gerrymandered fraction of the population with values already favorable to institutional powers, which is having an outsized impact.

So, given that your vote is pretty much guaranteed to not matter, is especially guaranteed to not matter at the federal level, and is very especially not going to matter if you live anywhere with any significant population density, lots of people take that as an opportunity to piss their vote away on jill stein or whatever other scammer that's running. Of course, third parties would probably be more effective at the smaller local levels, building up larger and larger bases of support until they are more adequately able to challenge the major parties at the federal level, and even try for federal funding, but we've seen such a level of institutional capture at pretty much every level that it's sort of a fucked game to begin with.

It's so fucked up at every level that I'm not sure I would really fault the parties that are running with like, 2% of the votes, in polling, compared to the fucking massive country-wide institutions that are actually controlling elections and messaging. Those that can even get 2% of the votes are likely to get those votes because they've been donated to by one side, the other, or, much more commonly, both, on top of business interests and foreign powers, who all believe that adding in another spoiler candidate will help their candidate get elected.

To hopefully dissuade some idiotic criticisms before they happen:

Q: Well, then what am I to do!?! If I can't vote on a candidate, and have my vote be effective for that candidate, then what have I done politically? What's the alternative?

A: None of that really contradicts any of what I'm currently saying, it's not a valid counterargument. I've told you the reality of the system, if you have a problem with how your current strategy is not effective in that reality, then take it up with reality, not me. I would probably say that organizations outside of the system, organizations owned by a majority of the people within them, organizations that can wield political power, those would probably be useful. Organizations that can punch above their weight class economically would be most useful. We've seen a recent, very minor rise in unionization and union activity, after decades of downturn as a result of government policies, which has been good, but I am concerned again about many of these unions, and especially the older ones, being subject to institutional capture at the highest levels as a result of ill-thought out internal structures and a desire to "keep out the raffle", from elitism, classism, or racism. If I had thoughts of reformism, then I would aim there, and I would probably also aim to create a lot more interconnections between these smaller unions which are more individually vulnerable. One big union, would be a good idea suited to the moment, and I haven't seen it taken up a lot.

And sure, go out and vote, right, but, don't harbor any illusions about what you're doing when you go out and vote. Focus more on your local candidates and your obscure, idiotic local laws and regulations which are probably going to be explained poorly in some half-baked blogpost or news article, if you're even afforded that dignity rather than just having to read shit straight from the charters and laws themselves. Don't just get invested every 4 years when you get threatened with a new form of fascism by corporate media. If you're falling for that shit, then you're probably running around like a chicken with their head cut off, doing worse than nothing. If you're not willing to put in an hour or two of concentrated reading and research in the right places, then you would be better off, at that point, just ignoring all those anxieties, not voting, and eating jalapeno poppers at chili's or whatever else.

Q: This shit is too long, I can't read it all!

A: Tl;dr GOTO 10

Who are these people and where are they? I don't know of and haven't heard of any pro Palestinian voters refusing to vote for her over the alternative.

Could be bad actors trying to sway the vote. Could be sweet summer children who believe the means justify the end.

Some people think the trolley problem is just a funny template.

Propaganda brain rot /thread

Sometimes, I see a quality discussion between principled people who care deeply about the issues. They both want to do what’s best, but simply disagree on what "best" is.

Their opinions can be so far apart, though, that they’re unable to even comprehend the other position.

Assuming you are exactly average, 49% of people are dumber than you. This should help you understand why the US is in this situation.