Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this?
Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this?
And I'm being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don't understand it. Can someone please "steelman" that argument for me?
Since no one seems to be taking OP's question seriously, I'll take a stab at this. There are a variety of reasons.
Some people feel that voting is offering material support to a specific candidate or system, and they simply cannot bring themselves to do so given the horrors that that person or system is either supporting or failing to condemn.
Others may feel that strategically withholding their vote as a punishment may motivate democrats to take these types of issues more seriously in the future.
Or they may feel that their vote is more impactful in magnifying the voice and power of third parties who offer more meaningful solutions to end the killing, even if they won't win.
Others still may believe that Trump's incompetence will accelerate the end of America imperialism and lead to a better global political situation sometime in the future.
Finally, some people feel that voting won't matter at all and is a distraction from efforts to directly slow or stop the war machine.
I don't personally endorse any of these viewpoints, but some are relatively serious positions and others are not, in my opinion.
A lot of people did in fact set aside Gaza until Trump was stopped. As for those that didn't, they should have listened to Bernie Sanders. I did months ago and went all-in on Dem support. There were multiple times when I wrote up an angry post about US support of Israel and then didn't post it because I didn't want to turn a voter into a non-voter or worse a Trump supporter.
I understand their position of never rewarding ethnic cleansing and war crimes though. They chose to make sure the Dems know they would never "settle" for the illegal killing of civilians. The support for Israel made it especially hard for Arab Americans to vote Dem. It's difficult to support a party that has been in power during the whole conflict yet gives unconditional support for the internationally condemned murder of Arabs.
I'm sure a lot also felt disenfranchised by the bipartisan protest suppression and condemnation. Even in Dem states peaceful protesters were punished, and sometimes pro-Israeli protesters who attacked got away with it. Then there was the whole "vote with us or else" pressure that went on for months. Dissenters like the "uncommitted" voters were insulted by the party that wanted their unconditional support.
So it's not like it's completely insane. But as Sanders points out that position only makes things worse and has done so.
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
Before I start let me note that in the end this particular group of people didn't affect the election. Harris is on the way to losing all swing states. Her failure is much deeper than Gaza policy. Blaming anti-genocide voters for this is just copium.
With that out of the way, you can divide people with this position into two groups: Arab Americans and everyone else. Arab Americans are people who are feeling the genocide firsthand. So, obviously, they tried to appeal to the Harris campaign and get them to move from Biden's position on the topic. The result: They were either ignored or antagonized by Harris. That led to the abandon Harris campaign in Michigan and elsewhere. Harris considered those people acceptable casualties in her failure of a campaign, and so they were burnt out and the momentum behind the Uncommitted movement and others turned from "let's save our Palestinian brothers" to "fuck us and Palestine (because let's face it, that's basically what Harris was saying)? Then fuck you too". Harris thew them under the bus and was thrown under the bus in turn. Maybe not very logical, but a very predictable reaction. Harris treated Arab Americans with just that much contempt, and then she and her enablers had the gall to tell the people attending a funeral every other day to "shut up and vote for her".
Now as for everyone else, it's a more simple instance of taking a stand against a politician for doing something you cannot accept. Now there is a pragmatic idea here that if you allow the DNC to get away with this they'll think supporting genocide actually wins elections, or that their electorate are such pussies that it doesn't matter what they think. Add in the goal of pressuring Harris to drop that policy that was important at the start of the Harris campaign and of course the idea of not wanting to vote for genocide and this was the result.
Of course it's not all 100% logical, but there is logic here beyond "omg bad guy I no vote".
Because if it wasn't Gaza, it would have been another excuse to not lift a lazy goddamned finger and still delude themselves into feeling "morally superior"while sitting on their fat mediocre asses at home.
Before Harris, they also leaned heavily on the "Sleepy Joe" bullshit and "two old white men up for election, who cares". Once the old "Sleepy Joe" element was removed from the equation, they had to find a way to keep their goddamned stubbornly lazy and ignorant narrative intact.
Now that the election is over, most of these "concerned and outraged" deadweight assholes will never think about Gaza and the plight of its' people again. And they will keep on feeling smug about themselves.
The arguments are as stupid as you guessed.
These are naive emotional people who are dumb as fuck. I know so many in my life and it's like arguying with a brick wall.
Children still believe we live in a black and white world, democrats are in power now, genocide is happening, they will not vote for them. The concept that both will finance the genocide but another will be much worse is not something they can understand.
You have others that want to intentionally punish democrats for not doing anything. Great in the meantime, Trump will provide a full carte blanche to Nettanyahu in the middle east, he will continue what he's doing, annex everything without any limits. They were partying in Israel after Trump won.
A third group wants the system to break down because they think if you're a post collapse society, they will be able to build their utopia.
Yes as dumb idiots living in la la land.
Steelman:
The US is currently a fascist, imperialist state. It has brutalized the global south, indigenous people, and POCs generally since its founding and will continue to do so unless the status quo is disrupted and changed significantly.
The Democratic party supports the same militaristic policies and the same neoliberal economic system that the Republicans do. The primary difference between the parties are various social issues that may make life somewhat better or worse for US citizens, but will never address the core problems of fascism, imperialism, and capitalism. Both parties support and protect the status quo. This status quo only benefits the bourgeois class and rich white people and harms literally hundreds of millions of others around the world.
The Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties that the Left has any degree of leverage over since the Democrats want the Left to vote for them. So, organizing to essentially boycott the Democratic party is a powerful method of protest that could effect real policy change. It is possibly the only effective method of protest left since the US police & surveilance state is cracking down on protests and the Left has no chance protesting violently against the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
The only way to make that threat matter to the Democratic party is to follow through if the demands aren't met, even - or especially - if it means a second Trump term.
The liberal establishment has ignored and abandoned the working class for decades while dangling the carrot of milktoast social democratic reforms that rarely come to pass, but they blame the same people they abandoned for not energetically voting for them. They say it is a moral imperative to vote for them, but they are incapable of bettering the lives of working class people.
Strawman:
It would hurt my feelings too much to vote for COPmala Harm-us. Plus, Trump would let Putin annex Ukraine. Also, I'd risk touching grass if I went outside to participate in bourgeois electoralism. Gross.
Reality:
You can, and should, do more than one thing. Voting for Kamala is effectively playing defense against outright, full-throated fascism a la Mussolini even if you'd still consider the US fascist - it is clearly worse under Republicans. So vote, play defense, AND organize to raise class consciousness, provide mutual aid, protest when possible, and contribute to socialist causes. Letting Trump win would be a bad move. But, ultimately it is not the Left's fault that he won. He won the popular vole and the electoral college vote by a large margin - larger than all third party socialist/socialist-adjacent candidates' votes combined.
Honestly for a portion of the ones here online, I don't think they actually care that much about Gaza except as a convenient tool to attack Americans. It's academic to them. I don't expect it'll stop once Trump is in, they'll just switch to criticizing Americans overall. They're mostly leftist agitators, and I honestly think they hate moderate progressives the most, since we're trying to improve capitalism which makes it harder to undermine and destroy.
For people that actually do care, it's a personal, emotional argument about not being able to feel good about it, which I understand. It's a sort of trolley problem. If they don't vote, they kinda just walk away and the trolley runs over a bunch of people, but they don't have to watch and bear a sense of personal responsibility at that emotional level for being a part of it. It doesn't actually benefit Gaza, but there's only so much they could really do anyway.
I think some people have explained it decently, but as someone who did not vote for Harris, I have a simple explanation:
I do not want the Democratic party to think it's Ok to be slightly better than Trump.
If I'm going to be honest, trans rights and immigration are minor issues compared to inequality and war in Gaza.
The Dems can be better, but they choose not to. Me voting for Dems signals that what Dems are doing is acceptable, but it's not. I supported third party in 2024, and I will continue to do so until the Democrats get serious reform.
(For those who think it would be "less bad" with Harris, that's the problem. I don't care for "less bad" when the duopoly got us here regardless. Represent the people.)
If you have a particular ideological hang up revolving around the difference between explicit and implicit consent to be governed...
You can view yourself as morally correct for not voting for anyone whom you do not fully support.
Thus you have not given explicit consent to either candidate, or the voting system itself.
Its basically 'Don't blame me, I didn't vote, therefore I am not responsible.'
Its the trolley problem, but you just walk away from both tracks and the lever, and then claim that you did not consciously act to cause any harm, therefore you are guiltless.
...
Unfortunately by this logic it does also mean that you give implicit consent to literally everything your government does if you do not speak out against everything it does that you don't like, or take some explicit action to countermand.
...
It's an extremely sophomoric, cowardly and irresponsible stance to take in a situation like this, but there is an underlying logic to it... its just that this logic is ridiculous and absurd.
Chatgpt translation of a french politician's analysis on the matter :
Spoiler
In this election, the United States of America couldn’t choose the left because it simply wasn’t an option. Vice President Kamala Harris aligned herself with President Biden and thus approved everything he did—and everything he didn’t do, especially when it comes to the genocide in Gaza. Biden allowed it to continue in all its aspects, month after month, for over a year now. And today, he stands by as Lebanon is invaded and airstrikes occur in neighboring countries. Therefore, the Democrats are directly and personally responsible for this genocide, and it has sparked outrage around the world. How could such a powerful and wealthy country, a political model for so many, which funds and arms 70% of Netanyahu’s war, do nothing to stop this genocide? This heavily discouraged working-class voters and, more broadly, people with a strong humanitarian conscience sensitive to the suffering of others.
Trump won because Kamala Harris and this American "left" were unable to mobilize the popular electorate. One could even say they kept their distance from it to appeal to opposing voters. Yet, society showed its left-leaning pulse in referendums held alongside the presidential election. Even in states where Trump won, votes on reproductive rights resulted in victories for the “pro-choice” side. In states where referendums on wages or quality of life were held, left-leaning solutions often won. So we are witnessing a shift to the right in the United States, as in France, but it is driven by the political and media elite. The elites on both sides resemble one another, with their media outlets and pollsters, seeing society as more right-leaning than it actually is. This is devastating when the left fails to stand its ground: the right gains free rein, and the popular left demobilizes. There was no political expression available for those voting in favor of leftist measures in various states. The Harris presidential candidacy didn’t represent these views, so voters didn’t turn out. They gave up. Out of frustration, some may have even voted for Trump, but I believe this was minimal.
Harris tried to convince people that, since all the economic indicators were positive, their lives were therefore better. And here we touch on another dimension of this election’s outcome. In the U.S., as in France when President Macron boasted, we heard on all sides that things were improving: lower unemployment, rising income levels, and so on. But ordinary people, those who live by their labor, don’t see things that way. Most Americans know their wages haven’t improved. Most Americans see that they must work harder to maintain a lower quality of life, working more to earn more only to pay for things that cost increasingly more due to inflation, like food. But also the everyday essentials that go unmentioned! While we discuss taxes to denounce social security contributions, we never talk about “private taxes.” Profits and dividends are essentially private taxes on production, benefiting only a few, while public taxes benefit everyone. This is the reality. How many other costs are never counted in mandatory contributions? You’re required to insure your car, your home; you’re required to buy a certain number of things without which you could be penalized for not having. All these costs have risen!
[...] So, if you work more, maybe you earn more, but you live less comfortably and life becomes increasingly difficult. And ultimately, you live in an ocean of poverty. Even if you have a quiet home, which is your right, when you walk through the streets, you see people sleeping on the ground. You find all kinds of signs of human distress, which hurt you because you can’t pass by without noticing. Above all, you feel personally threatened by it. That’s why what just happened in the United States is a preview of what will happen in all democracies. Today, leaders shift further to the right, scapegoating immigrants, young people, and, broadly speaking, life itself, criticizing it and its risks. All while saying that people are ungrateful because things are supposedly getting better. These leaders will be increasingly punished at the polls. But the situation for those in power remains the same. Trump is a billionaire surrounded by billionaires. He still plans to cut taxes. He still plans to raise tariffs on imports, hoping to make it more attractive to produce things domestically. His form of protectionism is not the same as the protectionism we advocate for. We support “solidarity-based” protectionism, which aims to protect local production where it's necessary. For instance, we need to protect local agriculture from imports. But in other areas, we must stop letting the market dictate everything as is happening now. We see factories closing one after another because they can’t compete globally against countries with cheaper social and environmental standards.
If Trump imposes the tariffs he has planned, prices in the U.S. will rise until domestic production fills the gaps. It’s simple: these goods will cost more. You can’t avoid them, and they aren’t made locally, so you’ll pay more. He hopes this will push Americans toward local products. Let’s hope there are any to turn to. Personally, I don’t believe the U.S. can rebuild a productive base strong enough to compete with “the world’s factory” in China and the rest of Asia. This goes for us in France, too.
Let’s draw some lessons from this. First, for democracy to thrive, there must be real debate on programs, not just on personalities. When all candidates say the same things, there’s no space for real discussion. This is why it all ends in insults and a pitiful spectacle, as we saw in the U.S. There must be genuine policy choices that engage society’s intelligence rather than relying on rejection, hatred, and the discrediting of others. Two worldviews are facing off, in the U.S. as elsewhere. And society understands this. Is it “everyone for themselves,” or is it “all together”? We need this discussion, but in the end, we need to make choices based on concrete, opposing options—not just endless repetition of the same ideas.
We must also draw a strategic lesson: society needs alternative choices. That’s why we’re fine with being called the “radical left.” It’s not how we, see ourselves, but at least people understand we are proposing something different. Otherwise, people turn away from voting or lean increasingly to the right, looking for scapegoats. The second lesson is that good or bad economic numbers alone don’t convince people to vote a certain way. When people are told the numbers look good, it’s really just a way of saying they have no choice but to vote to keep things the same. People know that under capitalism, their lives are unlikely to improve, but their environment could be entirely devastated. And for those with bad numbers, it’s a way to say nothing can change because of that, as we see in France. Good numbers, bad numbers—the conclusion is always the same. But if we keep things the same, we’re heading for disaster.
We can’t win against the “every man for himself” mindset unless we explain why “all together” is essential. An election should be a vision for the future. The world is entering a dangerous phase. At each step, we must reflect on what has just happened and learn from it. The next time challenges come, we must reflect and make informed choices.
Kamala Harris, like President Joe Biden, bears personal responsibility for the genocide against Palestinians. They armed those responsible and stood by when they had the means to stop this catastrophe. Harris and Biden are responsible for once again mocking the public, providing none of the answers that American workers expect from a Democratic Party that wants to be the U.S. left. Americans need to break free from this stifling two-party system that prevents progressive choices. I regret that Bernie Sanders and the left of the Democratic Party continued to carry water for Kamala Harris and that Party.
Everywhere, we need the courage of our convictions. We must stand firm. Even if we lose because we couldn’t convince others, at least we fought. The worst thing is to lose both our ideas and the elections. That’s why we must learn a lesson from this. And broadly, everyone who wants to break with today’s system must take this lesson seriously—politically, socially, ecologically. We must all believe it’s crucial to stand firm, without compromising to seem more acceptable to our opponents, as Kamala Harris did. This world is unbearable for the majority. A different future must be possible for life to be bearable. And we must take this personally. We must act, not just let events unfold without doing anything, shedding tears before and after—tears of fear, then tears for what we’ve lost.
It doesn't have to make sense for people to convince themselves to do it. It will certainly lead to worse outcomes for gaza
If your morals disregard the probable outcomes and is more focused on normative rules you could make some arguments but that kind of purity won't save a single starving child in gaza
Edit: spelling
its funny, because literally the next post after yours was this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/07/trump-blank-check-netanyahu-war-iran-panetta
I was born and raised Jewish, going to Hebrew school in addition to English school from preschool to 14. The horrors of the Holocaust and all it’s trauma was shoved down my throat at far too young of an age to be appropriate. Never again means so much to me, one of my deepest held beliefs. Never again isn’t just Jews but any group hunted down for their ethnicity (not to mention all the other undesirables murdered in the Holocaust, such as the disabled and queer).
What’s going on in Gaza is a Holocaust. I can’t live with myself and sleep at night if I vote for trump or Harris, because materially for Gaza they are the same. I voted third party. In 2020 I held my nose and voted for biden. I’m disgusted with myself for doing so. He managed to be worse than I could ever imagine. And the liberals were out to fucking brunch for the past four years.
I will drink liberal tears all damn day long. They can whine and cry and carry on like entitled spoiled rotten children all they want. They were warned that they would lose if they continued to pursue the path they were on and that’s exactly what happened and I have zero remorse for it. And for the record, I’m a visibly queer woman who’s experienced a lot of physical violence in my life for being queer.
Think of voting this way:
Signing your name to a candidate/psrty and what they’ve done/signaled they will do.
A lot of people can’t stomach a candidate who has been courting the neocons and softening their previous mildly progressive stances from the last time dems had a primary and the progressives were showing up in numbers. Everyone got in line and the debates were about M4A, erasing federally held student debt, raising the minimum wage, etc. Sanders single handedly dragged the party to the center (technically more “left” than they were) in 2016/2020 and the dems responded by po’mouthing like they cared about those issues, but then circled the wagons and kicked those voters to the curb.
The party has shown over and over again that they don’t give a shit about working class people, those of us that want real change. They want to maintain the status quo. Which is progressively more hostile capitalism.
Signing your name to that constant move rightward is unthinkable for some. And understandably so.
And that’s before we even discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza funded and armed by the US. While this administrations representatives in the UN and in any official capacity constantly run defense for the genocide.
Plenty of people could not fathom putting their name on that tragedy.
None of this means that republicans aren’t fuckin neofascist shits. But…how many times have the voters left of the dems been told to eat shit and vote blue because the other guy is worse? WHILE CONSTANTLY COURTING THE RIGHTWING VOTERS WHO MAY HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN SICK OF IT?! Kamala literally said she would be different from Biden by having a Republican in her cabinet. WHAT.
With everything going on, this party said, “yeah, fuck all that. Let’s see if we can grab anyone to the right of us.”
I got sidetracked, but this is the thing. It’s not binary, because geopolitics isn’t binary. The worlds issues aren’t binary. But a binary choice is all we’re given to make.
Just…what. And neither of those two choices was actually going to solve the problems. One was maintaining the problems while one was the problems plus more problems. That’s not an attractive choice.
We all get that trump is much worse. But everyone else needs to understand how sickening that shitty choice was for anyone with a conscience about what’s going on in Gaza, what’s going on with their neighbors. Signing on for more of the same was completely unthinkable for some. That has to be understandable if we are ever going to change things.
We’ve been on the road we’re being forced down now as long as I’ve been around. And the road just keeps going forward. The dems’ proposal is “maintain the course.” The republicans’ was “mash the gas.”
Some people couldn’t stomach going any further down this road. That’s not making a choice to mash the gas. Because the world is not binary.
But you and everyone else posing similar questions is saying “how could you vote for mashing the gas by not wanting to continue down this road?? :(“
My own argument to these people has been that I'd prefer they go out and cast their (wasted) votes for a third party, rather than simply stay home. A lot of Lemmy disagrees with me on that, focusing on the (true) realization that their third parties won't get elected.
In this election's current aftermath, much of the blame has been stating that voters were just lazy or unmotivated. The only thing this message encourages is to repeat more rallies, make more promises by demographics and region so people know to get out and vote.
If you vote third party, it sends a message that you are motivated to vote, but you are not pleased with the current messages of the party. That results in a very different change of action.
Unfortunately, this whole practice is extremely long-term-focused. Many people in this election have been desperate for short-term solutions, like the Ukraine/Gaza wars. Ideally, this kind of reaction would have started in 2016/2020 - but third-party votes have been miniscule in those elections too.
If Democrats knew they'd lose for supporting genocide,.they wouldn't have done it. It's precisely because blue-no-matter-who voters convinced them that they were invincible that they ended up losing. They thought they could bully the base into voting for them because enough of the base was willing to be bullied and proud of it.
On the other side, Trump is more likely to lose the war on Palestine.
The best argument I came across went something like this: if we show the Democratic Party that we’ll accept something as horrible as genocide as long as the Republicans are worse, then we’ve completely surrendered our agency as voters.
Powerful statement. It was the most coherent, rational, well thought out explanation I’d seen. It didn’t come off as a condescending lecture on morality, either. I actually considered their argument for a couple days, but ultimately, I decided it wasn’t strong enough to risk another Trump administration.
To quote a user from another thread:
Theyre not the ones that need to learn. Voters need to learn DNC is a bunch of wealthy moderates grifting voters.
To start, we have to understand that the genocide of Palestine started before the October 7th attacks. Israel's rampant illegal settlements in the Gaza strip may have been the final straw that provoked Hamas to make a move, but Palestinians have been abused, forced into ghettos, and murdered by private citizens for decades. All of this, and nobody in the West ever really batted an eye at the suffering except for a handful of informed leftists.
If Harris had won, the most likely outcome is that the immediate conflict would eventually be paused, just like it paused after the second intifadas. No land would be returned, no settlements removed, but Hamas' forces would be decimated to the point they could not fight back and Israel would return to their quiet slow genocide until the stars align to renew their attack once more.
Now that Trump has won, the most likely outcome is...that the immediate conflict will eventually pause, just like it paused after the second intifadas. Israel isn't an island, if they ramp up their aggression ever further, eventually other parts of the world will push for sanctions on Israel. A Trump win doesn't suddenly give Israel carte blanch to build the gas chambers, they still have to pay lip service to international law. Israel will inflict a grievous wound on Hamas, deep enough that it will take another generation before conflict resumes, and go back to expanding their settlements.
This genocide has been happening since before I was born, and multiple Democrat presidents have had an opportunity to say something or work towards curbing Israeli aggression. They've all vaguely promised to work towards a two-state solution, knowing that the current two states are what they want. If Kamala Harris couldn't even call it a genocide, then she was no different, and it would be foolish to think she would actually take any steps towards meaningfully stopping Israel.
Only if you don't recognize that Trump would be much, much, much worse. And what we see from the election, many can't seem to see that (in any way).
It's simple, for a voter that doesn't have other important things or believes the candidates to be equal in other things, like the economy, it becomes a moral choice to not vote for genocide.
If they believe there will be human rights violations elsewhere, like in the US, but one candidate and not the other, then the moral choice becomes to limit harm.
Much of this argument stems from different base assumptions, as follows-
-
Neither Trump nor Harris will commit other human rights violations, and they are materially the same to my family; staying home is the moral action.
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Trump will commit human rights violations, voting for Harris is the moral action.
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They will both commit more human rights violations; staying home is the moral action.
The people who were saying to stay home and not vote fell into camps 1 or 3. If you're unsure of why someone would believe in number 3 you should know we have illegal debtor's prisons that are ignored by the federal government, LGBTQ abuse that has gone unchecked by the federal government, illegal denial of asylum directly by the federal government, ... the list goes on. But rest assured there are reasons people would see them both as committing human rights violations in the US. This is not some Russian info op like the DNC fanboys would have you believe.
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Gaza was fucked no matter what, but some people thought the price of selling our country out was worth not ruining their perfect image of themselves.
If you never do anything, you never have to compromise your morals. Taps forehead
btw gaza's still fucked. You did nothing.
because americans see voting the same as buying and endorsing a thing which is objectively wrong.
Not buying a product hurts the manufacturer.
Not voting does jack shit. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
America has powerful Karen/Kyle energy where people overreact to a slight flaw in service and this argument is the Karen/Kyle Tantrum argument over genuinely bad policies supported by Harris. They think if they take a fit this election they will be in a better spot next election. The reality is that more poeple will be homeless and out of reach. The media will be in worse shape.
Voting is always a trolley problem.
But overall I don't think that's the biggest group of people. The majority of people that didn't vote I think were tuned out of the election because of ongoing failures.
I think there are no right or wrong. It became clear that both Democrats and Republic pushing the same exact support for Israel. When it comes to Palestine there are no lesser Evil.
Leading to this election, Israel burned hospitals and people in tent alive in Jabalia, barely any internet access, no water or food enters for almost 50 days now.
They carpet bomb gaza, attack UN bases, and finally declare UNRAWA can no longer work, another UN agency.
This is under Democrats. They already finishing the job.
Now what exactly Trump or republic will do is going to be the same. nothing will change because we are at the worst and there is nothing more they can do to make the situation even worse.
So if they are the same, and the government is not listening then what is the point of participation in election?
- Due to the failings of the electoral college system, my state was almost guarenteed to vote the same way as it has for the last 30 years
- I did not strongly agree with either party/candidate
- I dispise the current two party system that both major parties are incentivized to maintain
- Voting for a third party who is incentivised to push for change via ranked voting and other methods does aid them even if they don't win
If my state was likely to be contested, I may have voted differently. Voting for a third party in my case however had a greater impact than fighting or joining the tide of my state
- An overly simplistic/naive view of the world. (Not sure what they expect here? Stopping weapons and technology transfer? Maybe the US going to war with Israel to stop the Gaza atrocities? Or are they just expecting something symbolic? If Harris publicly denounced Israel's actions, would that be enough?)
- Thinking that the US President has more power than they do in reality (Congress and the Courts, checks and balances)
- Some logical fallacies they've convinced themselves into believing. False Dilemma Fallacy maybe? https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/common-logical-fallacies
Only a Sith deals in absolutes
I think people need to stop asking why didn’t people vote for Harris and as why DID people vote for Trump.
I think everyone on the whole, is completely underestimating the completely apathetic to politics voter. There is a TREMENDOUS section of the population that would sway from Trump if they felt energized to do so. Kamala was not it. Her policies were not it. Her stance alone on Gaza was not enough (but should not be dismissed).
People voted for trump because they: are a huge supporter, or they felt they had a fatter wallet during his administration. They feel burned by Biden and Kamala is more of the same. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
Biden shouldn’t have even run, no one wanted it. He even said he’d be a transitional president. Then he backed out and Democrats held no primary. Why would any apathetic voter (especially the ones who were unaware Biden dropped out, check google trends) vote for the guy who made their bank accounts smaller if that’s all they care about?
I voted for Harris but not without reservations. The democrats do nothing to resonate with the left, and continue to distance themselves from leftist policies, which were popular on ballot measures this election.
It starts with fury. Everything is beyond messed up over there.
Add in: anger funnels focus. Tunnel vision. It almost feels morally wrong to think of another thing. Anger helps you in a physical fight, so this makes sense. Also, ordering lunch while your neighbor's house burns down is kinda dickish.
Add in: first past the post voting. This is the big clincher. It forces two party systems mathematically, and most people understandably haven't heard why.
Factoring in the information in that video, you realize your choice really is Harris or Trump. Third choices get transformed into a vote for the candidate you dislike the most. So you take the best option.
Take away the knowledge of first past the post, and you have every reason to think that third parties will work if you all just had some spine and imagination, god damnit. You resolve not to let yourself be one of the ones who sat by silently while horrible things happen!
Cast protest vote thinking it makes you one of the people who actually helped, not realizing first past the post transforms that vote into a vote for trump, and everybody keeps fighting instead of watching that video and letting the facts it points out inform what they do.
I can't speak for others, but I can tell you why I didn't vote for Harris.
I am a lifelong independent voter. In 2016 I wrote in Kanye West, in 2020 I wrote in Nobody, this year I didn't even vote. (I also voted Bush in '04, Ron Paul in '08, and Obama in '12) I go to the polls even if I am planning to writing in a presidential pick because there are usually ballot issues or other races I care about.
I decided not to vote when the DNC opted to not hold a primary even though absolutely no one wanted a Biden second term and the deal was elect Biden in 2020 and they'd find someone good for '24. After Biden's disastrous debate and he dropped out, I was angry because everyone said no to Kamala already in 2020, but they still ran her.
On the issues, Kamala is too centrist for me and Gaza is a deal breaker. Most Palestinian casualties have been civilians and waaaaay too many children. Using my tax dollars to kill foreign children is not acceptable. I don't care that Israel is our ally or they they provide us an important strategic resource in the region. I honestly don't care if Israel wants to do a genocide or if Palestine wants to do a bunch or terrorism, that's on them. But we don't have to support it and I won't vote for anyone who will.
Late but here’s my model of the situation. Sort of a WIP and very new but a /gen effortpost, so I welcome thoughts:
It’s individualism versus collectivism. The collectivist understands intimately the function of working together for the protection and future of the group. There is no doubt in her mind about the practical nature of her actions because she can see them play out in her community. The individualist, by contrast, operates solo; everything for him is about your vote, your candidate. This leads to a divide between the individualist and the material outcomes of his actions. This gap—this absence of practicality, we might call it—leaves a vacuum where symbolism can enter. This becomes a problem not when symbolism is simply encountered by the individualist, but when the symbol becomes the act, when the vote becomes a kind of personal expression, and any thought for collective consequences falls by the wayside.
“Ordinarily,” if we imagine such a thing exists, these two identities intermix and act in a complex and altogether non-problematic way; I don’t wish to imply that individualism is simply “bad” while collective action is “good.” For example, concepts of individualism are fundamental to advancing human rights to consent and bodily autonomy.
However, the setting and background of your question is the USA, a country with deep, deep historical ties to white supremacist, capitalist, colonialist, even fascist values, all of which hold the individual as intrinsic over the collective. The result is that hyperindividualism is catastrophically rooted in the heart of U.S. society—even in progressive and leftist spaces!
So, when you see a pro-Palestinian proclaim abstention or that they voted third party, you are witnessing the complex outcome of genuine compassion intermingled with the values instilled by white supremacy and individualism. And so you hear the phrase, “I just can’t in good conscience vote for XYZ.” To degrees varying between people, the vote loses its material value and becomes nothing more than a symbolic moral statement.
This doesn’t mean the leftist non-voter is a white supremacist, of course! Rather, it’s that they have been deeply affected by the presence of those values in their cultural context and have not yet had the opportunity or experience with group frameworks to question their assumptions and reassert the significant importance of collectivism.
So, in conclusion, the unnuanced TLDR is “because America is a racist capitalist hellhole.” The good news I conclude from this, though, is that collectivism can be learned and promoted. Cultural values are definitely not static, and perhaps with education, support, and time, mindsets among leftists can be shifted to better support the whole of the community.
The moral argument that one should not vote for someone who has been and continues to provide massive material support to a genocide is as clear as day.
Trump is no worse on Gaza than Harris/Biden. Biden/Harris have not really done anything to stop the war and instead keep letting Israel getting away with it, then encouraging it by giving them more money. Trump and Kamala are basically the same on Israel
However at least Democrats voice support for Gaza, as long as they are not in power (executive branch) at least someone will be fighting for Gaza.
In other words, a Democrat house will posture alot and slow down Israeli aid and try to push for more concessions. A Democrat executive and legislative branch will continue steamrolling without resistance
If you have a friend or family member, living or dead in Palestine, how could you vote for her? Even knowing Trump would probably be worse, it's hard to imagine the pain it would cause to choose her name, knowing what she supported, and would have continued to encourage.
(Others mentioned other reasons, and I won't repeat theirs.)
Consider how you'd go about exploiting the opposite case.
If people will always vote for the slightly-less-worse candidate, then you only ever have to be slightly-less-worse than the opposition. You can sleaze right up to them and be almost as corrupt and evil as they are, so long as there's just a little bit of extra sleaze sticking out that you can point to as the worse alternative. And you can farm the shit out of that, because then the other side never has to improve either - it's an anti-competitive duopoly, where they both agree to only compete over surface details, not their overall horribleness, leaving them free to sleaze right up to the fucking-monster end of the spectrum.
Presumably a percentage of people refused to enable that behaviour, and said that slightly-less-genocide is a bridge too fucking far.
They made it plain from the outset that if the dems wanted to play chicken on this, the dems would lose. That they were not to big to fail, that daddy wouldn't bail them out this time; put down the bombs or you're getting kicked out for real.
The morally-correct choice would have been for the dems to stop supporting genocide, especially with so much at stake.
There's this huge narrative that's been consistently pushed that the actions of politicians are beyond accountability, sent down from on high like acts of god, and that moral responsibility lies only with the voters; that it's meaningless even imagine any obligation for the ruling class to try and be good enough to vote for.
You know, the way the fossil fuel lobby found ways to shift the blame onto the consumer instead of themselves. The way the opioid manufacturers did the same. The way the gun manufacturers did the same. The way plastic manufacturers did the same fucking thing as well. We'll act however we fucking well want to, and if you don't like it, that's literally your problem.
Oh no, you can't hold us accountable now, it's the worst possible time. It's too soon to have this conversation, how can you be so insensitive, can't you see there's a highschool full of dead kids?
Somewhere, sometime, people have to say enough. And they did.
Many people gave up the "vote blue no matter who" sentiment after seeing the results of blue politicians in 2016 and 2020. It's no surprise people are voting with their hearts more than settling for less now.
What's interesting is that the Republican party welcomed in these neglected voters. Can you blame them? The Democratic party doesn't even promote progressive policies anymore. The Democratic party is now the pro-war party too.
I'm not surprised that Trump won. Hilary, Harris, and Biden were all terrible choices
Personally I think people like Tulsa Gabbard and Andrew Yang are playing the long game within the Republican party as the Democrats shut down any chance for change.
For me: Voting represents support for both the process and the government that results from that process. By voting you are essentially expressing that you submit to the electoral process as the sole means for the exercise of political power. Even if you don't like the results, you've agreed to accept it because the rules are more important than the results.
Some obvious problems with that: What if the process itself isn't fair in the first place? We don't really get to choose our leaders. We get presented with a set of options which are acceptable to capitalists and are asked our opinion on which we like more. You could write multiple books on the ways the US electoral process has been structured to disenfranchise people and reduce the impact they can have on their government, but fundamentally it comes down to the fact that the government doesn't represent people and that's a feature, not a bug.
So we end up with a pair of awful candidates who both have done and will do more awful shit. If the election randomly fell out of the sky without context, sure, you could argue about one being technically better than the other. But it didn't. It's this way for a reason. It's this way because people are willing to cede their expression of political power to it despite the fact that it's clearly unaccountable to them.
Voting is just supporting the system that's deprived us of any real democracy while normalizing fascism to protect itself. Voting is a fairly low information form of political expression. You don't get the choice to be like "Oh I'll begrudgingly support this candidate, but this this and that are things I don't like and want them to change." You get two boxes. Each one represents EVERYTHING the candidate stands for plus the implicit choice of accepting the process in the first place.
If people want things to get better, they have to organize and take real, tangible actions rather than just begging capitalist politicians to do stuff for us every 2-4 years. People should be doing this regardless of who's in office, but let's put a fine point on it: People are worried that Trump is gonna be fascist, take away people's rights, and end democracy. Are you just going to accept that because he won the election? Are the rules that bind the process more important to you than the results? If not, you should be willing to do what it takes to stop him instead of chastising that people didn't show up to participate in a sham of an electoral system.
For what it's worth, I actually did go to the polls to vote specifically on an equal rights ballot measure in NY. At least that has a semblance of direct democracy. There I'm explicitly saying "I support this policy specifically" instead of supporting a candidate who just says they support those things while also doing awful shit. It passed, so that's nice. If anything I'm more pissed at Californians for voting against a measure to END SLAVERY than I am with people who didn't want to vote for a person currently engaged in supporting a genocide.
- the world doesn't owe you at least one morally correct choice. They can also just all be morally bad choices. (hello classical greek drama btw)
- morals depend on your point of view what correct behavior is and on the social group you want to be respected and accepted by.
- because of that, morals are subjective, made up, and can be whatever anyone wants.
So xyz being "morally correct" and saying that, is just that person's point of view, and if you have a different point of view, it's just a difference of opinion.
Nobody with a brain believes that. The major advocates of that ideology wanted Trump to win. It was even being propped up by foreign agents.
Maybe if they are young. Its comes up again and again. I voted for ross perot but was lucky it did not effect the election. I mean just the 50 cent gas tax would have been great for the environment given it would have gone into effect in the 90's as a federal tax. Electronic direct democracy. Increase in education and infrastructure. It was hard not to like his proposals.
Because most haven't I will actually answer the call of the question. Voting is perhaps the most important way one can voice their opinion. And carries more effect than most words the average man or woman can utter.
The largest argument against these types of stances is that it will create a spoiler effect. This usually operates on the premise that a vote to a candidate is owed and not earned and or that it is impossible to achieve a different outcome besides one of the two establishment candidates. This second premise being the results of people who decry voting 3rd party as useless based on a restriction with no physical or legal basis imposed on our society by our society. There's nothing stopping people from electing anyone else on the ballot.
If you can acknowledge that we as a society have this power the idea of accepting a lesser evil is weakened. If you vote for a lesser evil you perpetuate the broken system you hate. In your example Gaza, if someone feels that the issue is so important it merits a principled stance how can they not take the stance?
It's a matter of pragmatism vs principles.
Intresting that we have 20+ different opinions and answers on this post alone, and many are subjectively right.
My answer would be that Kamala is just another pro-genocide lying ghoul who is bought by lobbyists from different sectors who don't represent the left or working class. Trump is at least honest about being a bought pro-genocide ghoul, and that you can look at in the eyes and fight and protest against unlike genocide joe who still until this morning supports Israel with every war crime imagineable while letting Blinken and miller play mental gymnastics in hypocracy in confrences that "they're trying their best" to end the "war" while sending $25+ billions in military weapons to an ethnostate genocidal aparthied.
With that given,1- It's more exausting and fruitless to fight a murderous war criminal who keeps lying than one is honest about what they want. We just want a clear enemy and be aware of it because we have been fighting a hidden enemy all this time.
2- In short it's the "let it all burn down" logic. You saw that viral clip of Kamala voter shouting at a kid "I don't give a fuck about Gaza bitch!" ?
Emotions and psychology dictate that if I was unrepresented working class, or considered a single-issue voter because of genocide, or an Arab American whose family getting slaughtered by my government and with my tax money, then I wouldn't to want help other issues and would want to see everyone suffers more on all other issues because Kamala would not change anything and probably help improve all other issues other than mine which in my and every fair and just reality is more important than all others.
It's because the alternative is to suffer a slower and longer painful death while no one changing anything anyway.You should make a Twitter account and follow some channels posting the war crimes committed by Israel. Be sure to watch some gore. A beheaded baby every day with their guts flowing out.
You will understand very quickly if you leave the echo chamber and see what the word genocide really means. Only a monster can justify it.
You see, IQ is on a bell curve and 100 is the median. That means half of people must have an IQ below 100. At some number, the exact number is debatable, higher reasoning ability diminishes.
The second factor is education/knowledge. Having none, partial, or incorrect information can lead even rational people down the wrong path.
If you combine these, you get what you are observing.
I'll leave you a quote from Deming... "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it does." I say this because we need to change something if we want a different result.
"Remember, I'm pullin for ya. We're all in this together."
Red GreenDo you have one reason to not vote for Harris, or Many reasons not to vote? Lets say in this Trolley like problem scenario that Flipping the lever to run over one is voting for Harris, flipping it to roll over the list is voting for trump - and rejecting making the choice is walking away.
Thing is - this gets complicated: Just because someone publicly says they aren't voting because of Gaza does not mean 1. they didn't vote, and 2. doesn't mean they don't see all the other problems - because left organizations/groups have a tendency of vilifying anyone that opposes their view points excessively - because they have the moral high ground supposedly - the end result is: People won't speak up about the real reasons, they will stick to the socially acceptable one and move on. It's far easier, simpler.
So: What is on the long list of problems?
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Biden ending the "Stay in Mexico" Agreement.
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Tax payer dollars being sent to illegal immigrants in various ways.
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The way deaths were assigned to Covid - even when the person had stage 4 cancer, and covid was maybe a contributing factor.
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Catch and Release policies found in a number of Democrat stronghold cities - to a point that stores are giving up trying to operate in the regions. And I'm not talking small locations - I'm talking big businesses. Small ones end up going belly up because they can't eat the costs, insurance premiums for protecting your inventory in the areas have gone up and that means small businesses can't afford to insure, and that raises their risks.
Should I continue?
Trumps anti-sanctuary city, record on putting in effective policy to deal with the southern boarder problem, and take on the fact that US cities should be sanctuaries for US citizens - well: That resonates with people. It resonates in California (where voter support from previous years to today went up ~8%), it resonates in New york (comparing previous years to today is ~+7% over previous years), even in Texas (~3% uptick). Trump WON the popular vote with fairly high voter turn out.
The Truth is
No person struggling in their own life, cares all that much about people in another country. When the government can find money to fund a foreign war - people are going to start wondering why they can't find money to fix roads, law enforcement, housing, and other issues back home: It would be far cheaper over all.
In a world where crime has gone up since 2020, while being down from 2013: People are going to see it. And if you live in Seattle, or New York it's difficult to ignore massive stores closing locations and a growing number of vacant store fronts. And should that problem continue - it's going to cause further knock on effects. After all: Blank store fronts are not attractive, and if you make them look full - those looking for space are going to presume it's filled. And these buildings are often times leveraged - and if they reduce lease rates to draw in interest, they may very well have debts called in: And that will hurt the current owners. Worse yet - without revenue coming in, it's very likely that SOME of the maintenance needed is being avoided.
So while some the Gaza issue is JUST the Gaza issue - my bet, is that to a lot of people, it's just the socially acceptable excuse. But honestly - it has some legitimacy as well. After all: Supporting the war effort with a lot now, or a smaller amount over a bit of time nets the same result.
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