ITT: you’re a Trump supporter if you call genocide genocide.
There’s a lot of people who plan on voting Biden, myself included, who effectively feel held hostage at this point. “Don’t criticize support for genocide or Trump is going to destroy the country and probably kill a lot of people” is probably one of the most frustrating political discourses I’ve ever experienced. The folks making this argument are right in that Trump winning is bad for everyone, including the Palestinians, and I can empathize with the pragmatism there. That said, that argument rings hollowly for me, because it comes across as so utterly cynical. It reads (to me) as though genocide registers at the same level of urgency as dysfunction at the DMV. They’re sorry for the inconvenience (and probably they really are sorry that it’s happening) but non-combatants getting starved, shot, drone striked, and buried under rubble by our allies is just not something that’s convenient to deal with right now. I wonder if they think the Palestinians find it very convenient.
Broadly, Biden supporting this genocide in the way that he has is costing him the election. Acknowledging this doesn’t mean you support Trump. Arguing that if you don’t support Biden in-spite of this position is headspinning, and some posters here (@PugJesus@lemmy.world ) are doing the work of trying to separate the left from Democrats in this regard.
The problem is that beating/ guilting/ shaming voters doesn’t work. It literally never has. Its been demonstrated, over and over again to be a counterproductive strategy.
So what if you’ve been convinced that its OK for Biden do a little genocide? The whole god-damned point is that other people don’t believe the same thing you do, and if you actually want to stop Trump you really only have two options. You can either try to convince voters that a little genocide is acceptable if its coming from Democrats, or you can try and convince Democrats that no amount of genocide is acceptable, regardless of the ally committing it.
Its far more sensible to bring your criticisms to the Democrats in showing that you wont vote for them if they don’t shift their positions on Gaza, than it is to engage in a demonstrable failure of an approach to rhetoric to try and shame people into voting for a only slightly less supportive of genocide candidate.
You can move a politician. Every election cycle politicians move positions. I mean fucking hell, look how far the left was able to drag Biden last election cycle! He basically went from a Republican slate of policy positions to something actually on the left. He didn’t do this his own; he did this to get elected because that’s what the voters wanted. Biden can be moved on this, but blaming voters, especially when you know they are on the right side of the issue, is setting 2024 up for disaster.
It often seems like Democrats have nothing but contempt for their voters. Its not clear to me that they care. Its only a very very few number of Democrats who are actually responsive to their voters.
The problem is that beating/ guilting/shaming voters doesn’t work.
You forgot to add gaslighting.
or you can try and convince Democrats that no amount of genocide is acceptable, regardless of the ally committing it.
The problem is that there is absolutely no way of “forcing” the (so-called) “Democratic” party on this through “formal” means - if you vote for them and they win, they will simply know that they can get you to rubber-stamp their complicity in genocide. If you vote for them and they lose or you punish them by not voting and they lose, they still won’t care - they know that four years of Trump will force you back to the ballots to vote for them in four years’ time anyway. In fact, I suspect they are betting on the latter scenario.
You’re being pushed up against a wall - a wall that wouldn’t be there if you actually lived in a democratic society.
PugJesus has been a constant wedge between Leftists and Liberals. They only serve to be a terminally online agitator, and whenever it’s pointed out that their agitative propaganda only serves to confirm anti-leftist bias among Lemmy.world’s liberals and further ruins a broader leftist-liberal coalition, ironically making fewer people vote for Biden, they just mald and disengage.
When I asked what they truly believe, they believe themselves to be a leftist that doesn’t agree with Marx’s Dialectical Materialism.
They reserve only the harshest criticism for actually existing Socialist movements, such as when they trashed the Black Panther Party, but fight tooth and nail for a nuanced view of Liberalism and Liberal movements against Leftists.
No leftist is pure enough, no liberal impure enough.
It truly makes me wonder if PugJesus has any actual firmly held beliefs or if they just act in reflex.
Nobody thinks a little genocide is okay. Nobody is saying that at all. But it’s not a choice between a little genocide and no genocide. It’s a difference between a little genocide and a LOT of genocide. When Trump gives his blessing to glassing Gaza with a nuke, will you tell the remnants of the civilians that are left that it’s fine because the Democrats will understand now that they should’ve been harder on Israel?
What is actually more important? Doing what’s best for the Palestinians from the options that actually exist, or punishing Democrats?
I’m not any happier than you are about the choices that we have, but wishful thinking doesn’t give us a third path. This isn’t a movie. To get a third option you’d have to convince at the very least a plurality of the population of the US to vote for another candidate that is gung-ho behind forcing Israel to stop (a proposition that isn’t guaranteed even if the US cuts off all support today, by the way). That’s a tall order, especially with how well it’s going convincing 100 or so people on a Lemmy thread.
I mean, for me it’s hyperbole, but whether it’s a literal nuke or a completely unrestrained Israeli army outfitted with unlimited US weapons, the outcome for Palestinian refugees in Gaza isn’t much different.
The problem is that beating/ guilting/ shaming voters doesn’t work. It literally never has. Its been demonstrated, over and over again to be a counterproductive strategy.
Ah yes, the evidence of that being [checks notes] Hillary, a notoriously unpopular and uncharismatic politician, narrowly losing due to the electoral college.
I guess people in 2020 were just REALLY fired up about Biden, huh?
She didn’t lose narrowly because of the electoral college.
She lost massively because even knowing the rules of the election didn’t campaign at all in the Midwest swing States while receiving increasingly alarmed warnings from the local DNC members in those States.
Your response is like a loser going ‘I wouldn’t have lost if it wasn’t for the rules’ when everyone knew the rules in advance.
You can argue for getting rid of the electoral college and if be right there with you. But you don’t get to pretend it’s not a thing when trying to win before you get rid of it.
Nobody on Lemmy likes genocide, as far as I can tell. I saw somebody who was in favor of it a couple days ago, which makes 2 users I have ever seen.
So first a whole bunch of people got up and said, I’m never voting for Biden because he ruined the economy and fucked up on climate change and made marijuana illegal again and did family separation and caused Covid and also personally did a genocide and is super happy about the war in Gaza because it’s exactly what he wanted
Then a second whole bunch of people said hey every single one of those things except part of the last one isn’t true, also, Trump is worse on the genocide piece
And so now the first people are insisting that what the second people said was, “Don’t criticize support for genocide”. That wasn’t the point. The fact that a good bit of what the people in the first group are saying, is wrong, means they get people disagreeing with them, which always gets misrepresented as some lunatic pro-genocide silencing of criticism. But it’s pretty much never a message of “please stop criticizing my genocide guy otherwise Trump might win.”
If you want to express urgency about helping the Palestinians, please do so. Send messages to your congresspeople. Vote “uncommitted.” Go to a protest. Tell Biden he’ll only get your vote if he (X, Y, Z). Any of those things, or something else. Sounds great.
I think the thing you’re hearing is more “I want to end genocide just as much as you do, now let’s talk about how to do it, and also yes how to avoid one that’s 10 times worse that depending on how we go about it might be one of the possible outcomes.” I don’t see why that would be frustrating to hear. And I don’t think it’s at all the same as “please stop criticizing Biden that’s not allowed” or anything like that. Most of the threads on this topic have their most upvoted comment as “Jesus Christ I wish he wouldn’t do that” or something along those lines; this fiction where criticizing Biden for enabling this genocide is at all unpopular is not at all the reality.
I wonder if they think the Palestinians find it very convenient.
Actually, one of them weighed in on Lemmy on this exact narrative, where people are using his dead relatives to justify this one very particular political stance about being reluctant to vote for Joe Biden (and for some reason not to justify getting involved in some electoral or non-electoral way to actually help his relatives who are still alive). He wasn’t about it.
Is it a straw man, though? Just look at the post we’re in. OP, at face value, wants the democrats to win but thinks they’re bungling the odds by supporting genocide. There’s already multiple commenters accusing them of being Trump supporters, as well as at least one commenter I’ve seen so far suggesting that we can’t be critical about this now because the election is too important.
There’s already multiple commenters accusing them of being Trump supporters
Yes, because he framed his point in one particular emotionally resonant way that just maybe by pure coincidence tends to do more or less nothing at all for the Palestinians except hurt them, and by pure coincidence happens to feed Trump’s chances in the election.
The strawman I was specifically responding to was that commenter “you’re a Trump supporter if you call genocide genocide”. I’ve called it a genocide many many times; never got called a Trump supporter. I’ve said Biden is enabling it, said all the Palestinians will be dead by the time he works his way around to real consequences for Netanyahu at this rate, compared the Biden State Department to the Nazis, lots of stuff. I said we should contact our representatives and left some links (not that it did a fuckin thing.) Linked to a Ralph Nader interview where he talked about how to demand concessions in exchange for your vote, to put pressure on elected officials like Biden, particularly as it applies to this genocide. Never got called a Trump supporter.
You know what I didn’t do? Get all emotional about how I really don’t want to vote for Biden now, and suggest a particular framing for the issue that will help Trump, but won’t help the Palestinians. I suspect that if I started doing that, and did it consistently every day from a variety of different viewpoints and combined it with a bunch of other criticism of Biden that wasn’t true, then people might suspect I was a Trump supporter. But I don’t do that. Why? Because I’m not a Trump supporter.
Yes, because he framed his point in one particular emotionally resonant way that just maybe by pure coincidence tends to do more or less nothing at all for the Palestinians except hurt them, and by pure coincidence happens to feed Trump’s chances in the election.
I’ve seen so many tinfoil hat comments from you at this point that I’m sure you must be feeling lonely.
I’m not rooting for a trump presidency. I’m rooting for Biden to stop a genocide, and I believe 1000% Biden will lose on this issue alone if he doesn’t address it.
Will dropping his support for Isreal really get him voters? I’m not sure we can say that. He will loose support from zionists and believe it or not they are the ones that put him in office the first time. We knew back then.
The best and really only thing would to be stop the concerted effort to supress voter turn out. Then again the bad actors aren’t going to stop and the rubes will follow them into the pits of hell. So pretty much, fucked every which way. Enjoy your moral highground while we are all under a mountain of shit.
But also why shouldn’t it? It’s a contemptible thing for him to do (like at least don’t be public about it, that way voters can safely ignore it)
The best and really only thing would to be stop the concerted effort to supress voter turn out.
I could not disagree more, his approval is already the second lowest in modern history. I don’t know about you but I don’t know how to campaign around ‘yea, he’s supporting a genocide, BUT’. nor would I fucking want to! How much shit should I be expected to have to eat just so I can get voters to ignore possibly the most publicly grotesque international policy i’ve ever seen?
We tried ignoring voters in 2016. Sure let’s try that again, see if it works this time
Every additional issue Biden ignores he looses a portion of his base’s enthusiasm. Sure, some of these people would never vote for Biden for a bunch of reasons, but everyone has a limit to what they’re willing to concede on, and I have to say that supporting a genocidal project is a pretty big one.
It would be irresponsible if we weren’t sounding the alarms that he’s strayed too far away from his winning coalition. That’s not me being principled (even though it is), that’s me being pragmatic.
Everyone else who’s rallying a couple hundred users on lemmy to ignore that issue is covering their eyes to the oncoming train.
So first a whole bunch of people got up and said, I’m never voting for Biden because he ruined the economy and fucked up on climate change and made marijuana illegal again and did family separation and caused Covid and also personally did a genocide and is super happy about the war in Gaza because it’s exactly what he wanted
For the record: this is a strawman. You know that saying about Republicans always accusing others of the things they’re guilty of themselves? I would suggest not following the Republican playbook.
I mean, I exaggerated for humor, but people did absolutely say:
Biden ruined the economy
Biden fucked up on climate change
Biden betrayed us by not decriminalizing marijuana after he said he would
“Separating families at the border” got worse under Biden
Trump’s Covid policy was amenable to people steering him the right way whereas Biden cancelled a bunch of the safety things we needed
Biden is the one doing the genocide
Aside from the genocide, the last few were so laughable that it’s easy to conclude I just made them up as a pure strawman, but yes I absolutely had people tell me the un-exaggerated version of them.
Would it be better if I spelled out exactly what were the literal things people told to me instead? Yeah maybe I shouldn’t “joke” in this way if I’m gonna be saying other people are using a strawman.
Migrants who cross the border illegally wait under open skies or sometimes in tents or structures made of tree branches while short on food and water. When the number of migrants was particularly high last year, they waited for several days for Border Patrol agents to arrest and process them.
Gee said there was “significant evidence” that Customs and Border Protection, of which Border Patrol is a part, has physical control over minors at the outdoor locations. For example, CBP vehicles occasionally transport or drop off migrants to the camps and for a time, gave out wristbands to organize migrants by when they had arrived.
“This is a tremendous victory for children at open air detention sites, but it remains a tragedy that a court had to direct the government to do what basic human decency and the law clearly require,” Neha Desai, senior director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law, said in a statement. “We expect CBP to comply with the court’s order swiftly, and we remain committed to holding CBP accountable for meeting the most rudimentary needs of children in their legal custody, including food, shelter, and basic medical care.”
Cites to the statutes for detention on who and how long, as well as the 2018 Supreme Court decision I referred to, authorizing indefinite detention.
The horrid conditions are factors of other statutes related to budgets and sovereign immunity. I’m sure I can point you to some of the civil lawsuits about conditions so you can trace back the Republican policy of cruelty as it permeated immigration law.
There’s a massive number of people coming in, a big increase, and the Republicans have been blocking increases in funding for the US law enforcement agencies that deal with them (which, the left gives him grief for because increasing funding for ICE means he’s a monster), and increases in the number of judges so there’s not this huge backlog. So yes, there’s a huge number of people and not enough US resources to properly care for them.
I.e. migrants are being left in limbo in inhumane conditions for long lengths of time. However, Biden’s attempted several times to solve that and been specifically prevented. It’s hard for me to see that as something which he is deliberately doing on purpose.
I addressed the thing that you said, which was perfectly fair although I feel there’s a reasonable reason for that situation which isn’t Biden’s fault. The thing the other person said to me wasn’t that, though; it was specifically that Biden had made family separation worse, which is absurd.
So yes, there’s a huge number of people and not enough US resources to properly care for them.
And yet I’m sure they’ll find the money to get it done now that a judge has ordered them to. It’s almost like Biden is actually hostile to asylum seekers.
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats plan to force a vote Thursday on the bipartisan border security package that Republicans blockedthis year, an attempt to flip the script on immigration politics, a major vulnerability for President Joe Biden.
The legislation, negotiated by Republican and Democratic senators, is designed to reduce border crossings, raise the bar for migrants to qualify for asylum and quickly turn away those who fail to meet it. It empowers the president to shut down the border if certain triggers are met. If it becomes law, it would be the most sweeping set of migration restrictions in decades. Biden has endorsed the bill.
The Republicans are calling for more and more cruelty (e.g. raising the bar for aslyum). Biden is trying to alleviate the exact conditions you’re describing, in addition to compromising with them some of the cruelty you’re asking for, and you’re giving him shit for it.
What in your world should he do? Magic a bill into existence that will fix the conditions you’re talking about, without getting it through congress or needing the support of the Republicans?
Why are you saying that weakening his position against the Republicans until things get better is the way for you to solve that problem? Are you happy with the babies waiting outside in the hot sun for months and months until your plan bears fruit, should he withdraw the current bill and go back to the drawing board and them just wait outside until your plan comes through?
Why is Biden always infantilized by his apologists? As if he was completely impotent. He is the president of the United States. In our system, that gives him extraordinary power. He can go to all out war with any country on Earth for 60 days before getting any kind of permission from Congress. If the presidency is such a weak office, why are you so worked up about the prospect of Trump being president? Apparently he’ll need permission from Congress before he adjusts his tie.
Biden does not need an act of congress to not treat asylum-seekers like shit. That is a deliberate choice of his administration. Just like it was a deliberate choice to split up arms shipments to Israel into 100 seperate lots so he didn’t have to report them to Congress.
Sure, and other people also had very different criticisms of him than your list that aren’t as easy to dismiss. The strawman is you cherry-picking these to argue against in order to demonstrate some blanket point about people who don’t want to vote for Biden, when only one of these is the actual point of the conversation (and not in the hyperbolized way you presented it).
So yeah, I would 100% suggest not committing a logical fallacy while you’re criticizing others for committing that logical fallacy.
I’ve been on the receiving end of names such as “Genocide Lover” and man is that just exactly what I wish my Dad who went to get cigarettes and never came back would have called me before he left. I agree with you. People for some damned reason seem to be stuck.
The Genocide sucks balls.
Trump sucks balls.
Trump + Power = Genocide Ball Sucking on a whole new level
Biden sucks a bit less balls, though would suck far less if he stepped up and actually condemned the Genocide properly. Currently, Biden’s big balls are on fire.
Like, none of this situation is good. Most of it is malicious and evil on too many levels, and faaaar more complicated than the majority of us realize. At the end of the day we do have three significant immediate problems:
Ukraine and Putin
Gaza and the Genocide
Trump and the GOP
We CAN focus on all of these and it doesn’t have to be to the exclusion, or support/lack-thereof, of the others. Problem is, every time you say “Shit’s bad and this Genocide is evil, vote Biden for the love of God.” Someone comes screaming in with a, “BIDEN?! YOU SUPPORT GENOCIDE?!” and you can’t get a sideways word in.
I think a lot of it is this weird parasocial thing where it’s like you have to “support” a politician to vote for them. With very rare exceptions I don’t “support” any US politician, like I’m friends with them. I just want to get as good an outcome as I can for me and the other people in the world, and I think that’ll come from a combination of choosing better outcomes within the system that’s presented, and working outside the system to try to change it to introduce as much actual democracy into it in the long run as is possible.
I personally think the alternative perspective is a weird one, where politicians and policies are monolithic and unmovable, and challenging them necessarily means damaging the entire system. I was always taught that the strength of democracy was its enabling of negotiation, but you’re suggesting that there’s no negotiation to be had at all.
I think proactively committing to voting for a morally abhorrent candidate (a candidate promoting a morally abhorrent position, if you prefer) is less than submissive, it’s actually giving up the only possible leverage you might have had in order to accept a reality that hasn’t happened yet.
It’s absolutely a choice you are making, and even if you’d feel better if that didn’t make you guilty of ‘supporting’ genocide, i think it’s kind of self-evident.
I think proactively committing to voting for a morally abhorrent candidate (a candidate promoting a morally abhorrent position, if you prefer) is less than submissive, it’s actually giving up the only possible leverage you might have had in order to accept a reality that hasn’t happened yet.
I talked about this - withholding your vote to put pressure on Biden and communicating to him effectively that that’s what you’re doing makes perfect sense to me. I linked to the Ralph Nader article where he talks about doing that.
If I thought Biden read Lemmy and would read my comments and react differently in Gaza, would I do my comments differently, so as to avoid taking the pressure off him that he’s currently feeling? Yeah, maybe. Probably. I don’t think that’s the reality, but if I thought that, I probably would do my comments differently.
I’m just saying how I look at the election. Unless Biden had some sort of mental break that made him start acting worse than Trump in terms of what he’ll do with power, I’m planning on voting for him. If I thought lying about that would create a positive impact in some way, then yeah, maybe I might. IDK. Maybe not. I definitely wouldn’t be as vocal about how ok a job he’s doing, yeah.
Proactively committing to not voting for preservation of American democracy and prevention of catastrophe around the world, because Netanyahu started a genocide and Biden hasn’t caused a revolution in American statecraft by opposing it for the first time in history, doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, though. Why is the genocide in Gaza a red line but preventing a genocide in Ukraine, or saving a million American lives from the next pandemic, or mitigating climate change (to whatever extent we even still can) moving the needle away from billions of lost lives in the not-too-distant future, why aren’t those red lines?
It’s absolutely a choice you are making, and even if you’d feel better if that didn’t make you guilty of ‘supporting’ genocide, i think it’s kind of self-evident.
It seems kind of weird to get all amped up about how great a job you’re doing at not supporting genocide, by doing something that endangers Palestinians specifically but also apparently makes you feel better. I think I linked somewhere to a comment from someone who claimed to be Palestinian American who actually specifically asked Americans not to do this (use his dead relatives as justification for their political stance which was going to endanger him much more along with many of his still living relatives). It’s on bestof if you didn’t see it.
There are lots of Palestinian Americans calling on people to Abandon Biden. One token Palestinian American on Lemmy who disagrees isn’t particularly persuasive.
“If it came down to Trump and Joe Biden, I will vote for Trump. Because it doesn’t get worse than Joe Biden,” a man named Salah told me. His friend, Amad, added, “Biden was supposed to be the peacemaker. The comfort-maker. Instead, he became accessory to the biggest genocide in modern history.”
…
“Imagine thinking it’s a good argument to say to a community that has lost 30,000 people, ‘Watch out for the guy that’s going to ban you.’ You’re really asking me whether I’m going to take a ban or a genocide? I’ll take a ban,” Zahr told me.
“I mean, we’ve literally seen our families and our people being thrown into mass graves. Babies blown to bits. It’s not some far-off thing to us,” he said. “It’s been a struggle to declare our own humanity while mourning for our people being massacred.”
…
The truth is Ahmed was one of the only Arabs I could find in Dearborn who openly admitted they actually planned to vote for Biden in November.
If I thought Biden read Lemmy and would read my comments and react differently in Gaza, would I do my comments differently, so as to avoid taking the pressure off him that he’s currently feeling? Yeah, maybe. Probably. I don’t think that’s the reality, but if I thought that, I probably would do my comments differently.
I don’t think you realize how far reaching popular opinion can spread through social media. I don’t think Biden is reading, either, but if the sentiment that he’ll lose was more widespread, then I think that would absolutely put pressure on him. I also think the complacent stance can reach quite far, which is why it’s frustrating seeing people like pugjesus so militant about reinforcing it and why I think it’s frustrating to you to see me and others agitating action. (It wouldn’t make sense for you to be worried about bad actors otherwise)
Proactively committing to not voting for preservation of American democracy and prevention of catastrophe around the world, because Netanyahu started a genocide and Biden hasn’t caused a revolution in American statecraft by opposing it for the first time in history, doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, though
I’ll tell you what I read into this: American imperialist state action is so ingrained in the democratic party that it is inconceivable to you that they’d let it go, even in the face of a literal fascist taking control. And I think the people you’re talking to here, who’ve felt for a long time that America has been on the wrong side of geopolitical struggle for 80 years, find that to be the most damning part of your position.
It’s inconceivable to wish fascism onto the people of America and the world, but that the democratic party can sooner accept it than consider pulling back the American global apparatus is… well, I guess it makes it hard to root for them, doesn’t it?
It seems kind of weird to get all amped up about how great a job you’re doing at not supporting genocide, by doing something that endangers Palestinians specifically but also apparently makes you feel better
I think what you mean is that it’s convenient, but I obviously don’t see it that way. I think it would absolutely help the Palestinians for the US to stop obstructing justice against Israeli leaders, and I don’t accept the premise that their reality would somehow be worse than it already is if trump was egging Israel on. The UN is already poised to react against Israel, if they cross a lot more lines they’d risk expulsion (along with us). Who knows, but it’s not just about Palestinians, the US has abused its influence across the globe and setting the record straight about what the electorate will tolerate would undoubtedly help more countries down the line, if Biden accepts the critique.
Yours is probably the correct take, or near enough. The U.S., on a sociocultural level, tends to take sides. It’s nurtured into us. Sports is arguably the biggest reason, though throw in the news, social commentary, and a bit of high divorce rates, amongst other reasons, and you’ll have yourself a cake split down some middle. While far more complicated than this simple explanation, the reality is we are divided. This division makes it really difficult to want to agree with someone who doesn’t take your exact stance. Whatever reason justifies such firm footing on shaky ground is further falsely reinforced by those who exist just to rabble-rouse, 2024 Digital Digger Edition; “Our Words Harm”.
It’s become difficult to look at comments stuck in the social node of Biden=Bad or Bust in good faith, because they often don’t discuss and instead tend to yell.
Which really is sad, because we do need to come together.
Nobody on Lemmy likes genocide, as far as I can tell
As someone who frequents worldnews from lemmy.world, a sizable amount of IDF apologists who do actually defend genocide show up every week, although they consistently get banned.
There’s also a bunch of wackos on Hexbear and Lemmygrad who will sneer with joy at the idea of Ukrainians getting displaced to never be able to return, although you have to dig in to find them.
Criticize all you want. I certainly do. But understand at the end of the day that as pathetically little as Biden is doing to help, he isn’t doing literally zero. Allowing Trump to win is objectively voting for MORE genocide, and in fact, the end of any potential for a Palestinian state in any form. None of this is secret - none of this is speculation. If people would take 15 minutes and read the ACTUAL Trump middle eastern peace plan that he ACTUALLY PUT FORTH when he was president, it’s pretty obvious he would allow MUCH MUCH worse than Biden without batting an eye.
There is no room for argument on that. Is Biden bad for Palestinians and allowing genocide? Yes. Would allowing Trump to win be WORSE? Yes. You’re upset that angry wolves are eating someone, and you should be. But the solution is not replacing them with angry bears.
It’s not just a character flaw you have - it appears to be endemic to dem apologists in general.
Since you’re one of the first I’ve seen even acknowledge it, I would love to understand from you what kind of media diet or environment produces this blindness to critique. I suspect it comes from abject terror of conservatives & fascism and a sense of powerlessness to affect real change outside the narrow system given to you by voting, even though voting is also deeply disempowering.
My acknowledged character flaw is my preachiness about my position, particularly in a environment like a lemmy thread where we’re all shouting into a void. I do not, however, make apologies for my position.
I am not a dem apologist - I am a utilitarian. I would love to see both Biden and Trump out on their asses and a viable, functioning third party option. But that is one of a number of things that are not realistic right now. I look at the world right now and I don’t have the ability to look at the trolley problem we’ve been given, sit down, and refuse to make a decision because I believe it’s going to somehow punish the trolley for daring to give me a choice I don’t like. I have to choose whether to pull the lever.
The absolute reality of this election boils down to two logically consistent positions that make sense.
The system is so utterly unsalvageable and without merit that I am willing to make any sacrifice to force a shock to the system that might be big enough to shatter it in the hopes that something better can emerge in the future.
The best we can do is to minimize damage until an opportune time to push for greater change.
Both of these positions are logically consistent, and make total sense. I don’t happen to agree with the first one, but if that’s your jam? I understand it. But own it. The logically inconsistent position that drives me absolutely crazy is to claim that a Biden loss is somehow consistent with a moral crusade to protect Palestinian refugees. That’s absolutely insane and illogical to the point where it is at best based in ignorance and at worst reeks of intellectual dishonesty. If you are motivated primarily by the fate of Palestinians, a Biden victory or loss is not about Biden at all. If you are motivated primarily by number 1, and you want break the eggs to make the omelette, have the moral courage to be honest about it. I, for one, am not in that boat. I don’t have the ability to perform the fancy, nonsensical mental gymnastics necessary to sacrifice an entire culture of people on the altar of my ideological purity and then claim with a straight face that I’m somehow doing it for their benefit. I have to do the cold, calculating work of estimating how many people will ACTUALLY die and/or suffer as a result of the decisions I do or do not make, and then make an unpalatable choice that protects the things I find important because that’s just how life is. A series of sub-optimal choices that reflect the messy reality we live in.
I expect everyone to do the same, even if the things they find important aren’t the same things I do. But when someone claims to value the same things I do and ALSO make decisions that are against those interests by EVERY single sound and reasonable measure? I already dealt with that kind of nonsense when I used to get dragged to church.
As pointed out earlier, this person I responded to in this thread isn’t that person, and I do apologize for implying otherwise. But the person I’m talking about here DOES exist. That person is in this thread. And that person needs to hear this.
Okay, I don’t really want to debate the merits of the position. I could but I don’t think we’re too far apart on it. So the character flaw is the preachiness and I misunderstood that’s what you meant, but you still have said something very interesting that I want to understand. I really wanted to know about this:
As pointed out earlier, this person I responded to in this thread isn’t that person, and I do apologize for implying otherwise. But the person I’m talking about here DOES exist. That person is in this thread. And that person needs to hear this.
See, this is a mistake that people making pro-dem arguments - whether out of utilitarianism or some misguided sense of allegiance - keep running into. I have seen so many arguments that boil down to (and I’m not saying this is exactly what you did but it’s a general pattern):
A: Biden is screwing the pooch for XYZ clearly stated factual reasons.
B: You want Trump to win.
A: No, I think people should probably vote for Biden but he’s tanking it for XYZ clearly stated reasons.
B: Fuck you, MAGA/Ivan.
I was asking you about it because you are literally the first person out of dozens of these exchanges that I have ever seen admit to being wrong about this. I think that’s honestly admirable, and I was asking because I really want to understand if you have any insight as to where your misunderstanding came from.
If your answer is that it doesn’t matter because the person your argument is for is out there somewhere, then I think that’s a problem for reasons I can explain if you want to hear them. If you have another explanation I’m interested.
You’re right - my posts aren’t referring to a SPECIFIC person, but general statements targeted at a casual reader of the thread.
I think this is where most people’s overreaction comes from - being so passionate about the desired OUTCOME that they forget to actually be convincing about how to get there. Yes, there are a huge number of us that are not huge fans of many of Biden’s decisions, but voting for him anyway because of the limited number of choices we have. But there are clearly people out there who aren’t as inclined towards making those subtle distinctions, and it’s important that the discourse, as much as possible, makes clear to people that their vote need not be a declaration of undying love. It’s okay to say “Biden, but not happy about it.” It’s really important that those people see the whole view, particularly when there’s so much knee-jerk reaction towards both “YOU MUST SUPPORT HIM” and “YOU CAN’T SUPPORT HIM”.
That said, while of course it eases conscience to talk about how Biden has problems, helping someone who is gung-ho about supporting him to have doubts has almost no tangible benefits to the external reality we live in from the standpoint of the outcome I desire (I don’t post here to be neutral - of course I have a bias), and may actually have a negative impact. Helping someone who is on the fence understand that despite voting being essentially binary, there is a whole spectrum of valid ways to think about it, can lead someone to making a decision that can have a real impact on getting the outcome I see as best, so of course I want to counter the former with the latter.
As someone who voted 3rd party in 2016, I very much regret it. It was a wasted vote and helped Trump get in office. The very same thing can happen again. Don’t get me wrong, I hate that Biden is the candidate. I hated it in 2020 as well. The Democratic party is a joke when it comes to putting up candidates. Until we aren’t a two party system, we have to vote for the lesser of two evils with a plausible chance of winning. If not and Trump wins again, we will only move backwards again. It felt like we took two steps backwards and a half step forward.
How we can generate change is by starting at the local level. Ranked choice voting has already begun at many local level elections. We need to campaign for this and for candidates that can make that happen.
Do not fall for the idea that changing to some other method of voting will fix anything.
Plenty of European nations have all manner of goofy voting systems and parliamentary governments and they’re all still getting fascist parties and coalitions.
Even if we thanos-snapped ourselves into star or ranked choice or some other cheese eating surrender monkey voting style we’d still actually have to be not okay with our government sending 2000lb guided bombs to be dropped on hospitals.
That starts with not voting for Biden because a vote can only ever be seen as a show of support. There is no way to mark the little bubble that says “I’m only doing this to keep trump out of office” or the one labeled “wish it was anyone else”.
You can only show support with a vote and I urge you not to show support for Biden.
You should feel proud of your third party vote in 2016, I sure do. You can say a lot of bad things about trump, but he never laughed about having a nations leader sodomized to death with a knife on daytime tv.
I agree that there’s likely no ‘perfect’ system of government. Mostly because power corrupts most. But clearly the two party system is extremely dangerous so I still want a change to another method. Yes, ranked choice voting isn’t perfect but not trying to change/improve is giving up.
I do want to ask, it seems like you are fine with another Trump term. Do you not think fascism growth would be greater under his presidency? Do you think he won’t support the Israel government or worse, provide even more to them?
Our system of government forms a feedback loop with our social system. We can certainly change how we vote but without changing both the government and social system, modifications to our election process only change the interlink between the two. It’s clear from other extant nations dealing with fascist movements that a different interlink doesn’t fundamentally alter how both the government and social systems respond to material conditions.
It’s not giving up to recognize that a new transmission won’t fix a blown engine and stripped differential.
We might need a new transmission too, but it ain’t gettin us to pismo beach unless the rest is straightened out.
I’m not “fine” with another trump term, and I’m not “fine” with Bidens term or another one.
We are getting fascism. We have, right this very moment, got fascism.
We cannot fight fascism with gentler fascism or inclusive fascism or fascism with a welfare state, we can fight it with socialism, anarchism or communism.
To step away from the polemic for a little bit it’s interesting that you said we shouldn’t vote third party but instead should try to change the voting system. Here I am just asking people to do the easiest thing ever, mark a different box on a piece of paper, and the response is “no, before you do that simple, easy to accomplish thing you have to fundamentally alter how we choose officials!”
I don’t bring it up to make fun of you, because several other people have said that to me, but to ask what motivates that? I mean, do you think the only acceptable outcome for a political party is victory?
First I want to say I appreciate your time and your responses. I appreciate having an actual conversation on the matter because I truly am interested in your thoughts and what you think the best approach may be.
Trust me, I don’t just want to change how we vote, I think that many changes need to be made to our government. My biggest question is how do you think we can make that happen? My opinion (just an opinion) is that the people have a much better chance with making changes through local elections and that the democratic party is more likely (at least at the moment) to put us in the right direction. Yeah, it’s not going to fast or easy.
I consider myself independent. I always tried to vote for the best candidate no matter the party. Then after 2016, I realized that overall the GOP was toxic for the country. I already didn’t like the Democratic party leadership but figured that while they suck, it’s much more dangerous for Trump/the GOP to be in charge again.
Again, I appreciate your time and if you can, please share what you think may be the best option forward. I know you mentioned voting 3rd party but what else do you think people should do?
The time to vote against Biden was back in the primaries. We can try again during the next primary, but if we fuck around during the general, we’re going to find out how much worse a second Trump term will be.
The time to vote against Biden was back in the primaries.
Yeah. I remember centrists screaming that uncommitted votes in the primary were votes for Trump. The only thing that pleases a centrist is silence from critics.
Your vote for Biden is only a vote for Biden. It will never be a vote against trump. It will only ever signify support for Biden assistance and denial of a genocide.
The democrats don’t have a crystal ball, they can’t tell that you wish they would run someone else or that you feel forced to vote for their candidate despite his monstrous platform. They will only see support. They will only see what they can get away with.
I’m horrified by what’s going on in Gaza. It’s an atrocity that deserves maximum attention and intervention above pretty much any issue.
Biden is absolutely shitting the bed on this. But Trump isn’t gonna clean the sheets.
It’s not that genocide is a tertiary issue. It’s that both candidates will be complicit in the genocide, so it literally isn’t a factor when looking at the candidates.
ITT: you’re a Trump supporter if you call genocide genocide.
There’s a lot of people who plan on voting Biden, myself included, who effectively feel held hostage at this point. “Don’t criticize support for genocide or Trump is going to destroy the country and probably kill a lot of people” is probably one of the most frustrating political discourses I’ve ever experienced. The folks making this argument are right in that Trump winning is bad for everyone, including the Palestinians, and I can empathize with the pragmatism there. That said, that argument rings hollowly for me, because it comes across as so utterly cynical. It reads (to me) as though genocide registers at the same level of urgency as dysfunction at the DMV. They’re sorry for the inconvenience (and probably they really are sorry that it’s happening) but non-combatants getting starved, shot, drone striked, and buried under rubble by our allies is just not something that’s convenient to deal with right now. I wonder if they think the Palestinians find it very convenient.
I mean its barely about what people here think.
Broadly, Biden supporting this genocide in the way that he has is costing him the election. Acknowledging this doesn’t mean you support Trump. Arguing that if you don’t support Biden in-spite of this position is headspinning, and some posters here (@PugJesus@lemmy.world ) are doing the work of trying to separate the left from Democrats in this regard.
The problem is that beating/ guilting/ shaming voters doesn’t work. It literally never has. Its been demonstrated, over and over again to be a counterproductive strategy.
So what if you’ve been convinced that its OK for Biden do a little genocide? The whole god-damned point is that other people don’t believe the same thing you do, and if you actually want to stop Trump you really only have two options. You can either try to convince voters that a little genocide is acceptable if its coming from Democrats, or you can try and convince Democrats that no amount of genocide is acceptable, regardless of the ally committing it.
Its far more sensible to bring your criticisms to the Democrats in showing that you wont vote for them if they don’t shift their positions on Gaza, than it is to engage in a demonstrable failure of an approach to rhetoric to try and shame people into voting for a only slightly less supportive of genocide candidate.
You can move a politician. Every election cycle politicians move positions. I mean fucking hell, look how far the left was able to drag Biden last election cycle! He basically went from a Republican slate of policy positions to something actually on the left. He didn’t do this his own; he did this to get elected because that’s what the voters wanted. Biden can be moved on this, but blaming voters, especially when you know they are on the right side of the issue, is setting 2024 up for disaster.
I’m just amazed at the amount they punch left then don’t understand why it’s always an issue.
Maybe I’ve gotten too old and cynical to be surprised by it.
Its been the theme of the modern Democratic party to work diligently to cut off your nose to spite your face.
I mean look at the recent jungle primary in California. Adam Schiffs campaign spent millions supporting Republicans in that primary to avoid having to compete against Katie Porter.
It often seems like Democrats have nothing but contempt for their voters. Its not clear to me that they care. Its only a very very few number of Democrats who are actually responsive to their voters.
I hate how dirty they did Katie. But not surprised considering she’d actually hold people to account.
(and of course you got banned from the community but pug is allowed to constantly attack people)
There were 24 hours of bliss about a week ago when pugjesus was temp banned
Just amazed they banned someone for trolling while pug gets to shit and spam everywhere in this community
Frankly I’m a bit alarmed i haven’t been banned myself. I can imagine the mod logs are full of complaints at this point
You forgot to add gaslighting.
The problem is that there is absolutely no way of “forcing” the (so-called) “Democratic” party on this through “formal” means - if you vote for them and they win, they will simply know that they can get you to rubber-stamp their complicity in genocide. If you vote for them and they lose or you punish them by not voting and they lose, they still won’t care - they know that four years of Trump will force you back to the ballots to vote for them in four years’ time anyway. In fact, I suspect they are betting on the latter scenario.
You’re being pushed up against a wall - a wall that wouldn’t be there if you actually lived in a democratic society.
Or you’re not being gaslit, Biden is being honest, and you’re wrong about the underlying factual premise.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence… I assume you have some?
Everyone should block PugJesus for a better Lemmy experience.
PugJesus has been a constant wedge between Leftists and Liberals. They only serve to be a terminally online agitator, and whenever it’s pointed out that their agitative propaganda only serves to confirm anti-leftist bias among Lemmy.world’s liberals and further ruins a broader leftist-liberal coalition, ironically making fewer people vote for Biden, they just mald and disengage.
When I asked what they truly believe, they believe themselves to be a leftist that doesn’t agree with Marx’s Dialectical Materialism.
They reserve only the harshest criticism for actually existing Socialist movements, such as when they trashed the Black Panther Party, but fight tooth and nail for a nuanced view of Liberalism and Liberal movements against Leftists.
No leftist is pure enough, no liberal impure enough.
It truly makes me wonder if PugJesus has any actual firmly held beliefs or if they just act in reflex.
I’m gonna go touch some grass, i’ll pass my baton to you.
Gotchu.
W How is it costing him the election any polls to back this up?
Nobody thinks a little genocide is okay. Nobody is saying that at all. But it’s not a choice between a little genocide and no genocide. It’s a difference between a little genocide and a LOT of genocide. When Trump gives his blessing to glassing Gaza with a nuke, will you tell the remnants of the civilians that are left that it’s fine because the Democrats will understand now that they should’ve been harder on Israel?
What is actually more important? Doing what’s best for the Palestinians from the options that actually exist, or punishing Democrats?
I’m not any happier than you are about the choices that we have, but wishful thinking doesn’t give us a third path. This isn’t a movie. To get a third option you’d have to convince at the very least a plurality of the population of the US to vote for another candidate that is gung-ho behind forcing Israel to stop (a proposition that isn’t guaranteed even if the US cuts off all support today, by the way). That’s a tall order, especially with how well it’s going convincing 100 or so people on a Lemmy thread.
Do people think nukes will really happen or is it hyperbole? Jared kushner wants to own beach front property in Gaza.
I mean, for me it’s hyperbole, but whether it’s a literal nuke or a completely unrestrained Israeli army outfitted with unlimited US weapons, the outcome for Palestinian refugees in Gaza isn’t much different.
Ah yes, the evidence of that being [checks notes] Hillary, a notoriously unpopular and uncharismatic politician, narrowly losing due to the electoral college.
I guess people in 2020 were just REALLY fired up about Biden, huh?
They were really fired up AGAINST Trump.
Its 4 years later.
In terms of the policy position that is going to decide this election, they have the same policy: Genocide for the people of Palestine.
You should stop being an apologist for genocide.
That sounds almost like guilt or shame at the prospect of letting Trump win.
Fucking lmao
She didn’t lose narrowly because of the electoral college.
She lost massively because even knowing the rules of the election didn’t campaign at all in the Midwest swing States while receiving increasingly alarmed warnings from the local DNC members in those States.
Your response is like a loser going ‘I wouldn’t have lost if it wasn’t for the rules’ when everyone knew the rules in advance.
You can argue for getting rid of the electoral college and if be right there with you. But you don’t get to pretend it’s not a thing when trying to win before you get rid of it.
This is such a weird strawman
Nobody on Lemmy likes genocide, as far as I can tell. I saw somebody who was in favor of it a couple days ago, which makes 2 users I have ever seen.
So first a whole bunch of people got up and said, I’m never voting for Biden because he ruined the economy and fucked up on climate change and made marijuana illegal again and did family separation and caused Covid and also personally did a genocide and is super happy about the war in Gaza because it’s exactly what he wanted
Then a second whole bunch of people said hey every single one of those things except part of the last one isn’t true, also, Trump is worse on the genocide piece
And so now the first people are insisting that what the second people said was, “Don’t criticize support for genocide”. That wasn’t the point. The fact that a good bit of what the people in the first group are saying, is wrong, means they get people disagreeing with them, which always gets misrepresented as some lunatic pro-genocide silencing of criticism. But it’s pretty much never a message of “please stop criticizing my genocide guy otherwise Trump might win.”
If you want to express urgency about helping the Palestinians, please do so. Send messages to your congresspeople. Vote “uncommitted.” Go to a protest. Tell Biden he’ll only get your vote if he (X, Y, Z). Any of those things, or something else. Sounds great.
I think the thing you’re hearing is more “I want to end genocide just as much as you do, now let’s talk about how to do it, and also yes how to avoid one that’s 10 times worse that depending on how we go about it might be one of the possible outcomes.” I don’t see why that would be frustrating to hear. And I don’t think it’s at all the same as “please stop criticizing Biden that’s not allowed” or anything like that. Most of the threads on this topic have their most upvoted comment as “Jesus Christ I wish he wouldn’t do that” or something along those lines; this fiction where criticizing Biden for enabling this genocide is at all unpopular is not at all the reality.
Actually, one of them weighed in on Lemmy on this exact narrative, where people are using his dead relatives to justify this one very particular political stance about being reluctant to vote for Joe Biden (and for some reason not to justify getting involved in some electoral or non-electoral way to actually help his relatives who are still alive). He wasn’t about it.
Is it a straw man, though? Just look at the post we’re in. OP, at face value, wants the democrats to win but thinks they’re bungling the odds by supporting genocide. There’s already multiple commenters accusing them of being Trump supporters, as well as at least one commenter I’ve seen so far suggesting that we can’t be critical about this now because the election is too important.
Yes, because he framed his point in one particular emotionally resonant way that just maybe by pure coincidence tends to do more or less nothing at all for the Palestinians except hurt them, and by pure coincidence happens to feed Trump’s chances in the election.
The strawman I was specifically responding to was that commenter “you’re a Trump supporter if you call genocide genocide”. I’ve called it a genocide many many times; never got called a Trump supporter. I’ve said Biden is enabling it, said all the Palestinians will be dead by the time he works his way around to real consequences for Netanyahu at this rate, compared the Biden State Department to the Nazis, lots of stuff. I said we should contact our representatives and left some links (not that it did a fuckin thing.) Linked to a Ralph Nader interview where he talked about how to demand concessions in exchange for your vote, to put pressure on elected officials like Biden, particularly as it applies to this genocide. Never got called a Trump supporter.
You know what I didn’t do? Get all emotional about how I really don’t want to vote for Biden now, and suggest a particular framing for the issue that will help Trump, but won’t help the Palestinians. I suspect that if I started doing that, and did it consistently every day from a variety of different viewpoints and combined it with a bunch of other criticism of Biden that wasn’t true, then people might suspect I was a Trump supporter. But I don’t do that. Why? Because I’m not a Trump supporter.
I’ve seen so many tinfoil hat comments from you at this point that I’m sure you must be feeling lonely.
I’m not rooting for a trump presidency. I’m rooting for Biden to stop a genocide, and I believe 1000% Biden will lose on this issue alone if he doesn’t address it.
Will dropping his support for Isreal really get him voters? I’m not sure we can say that. He will loose support from zionists and believe it or not they are the ones that put him in office the first time. We knew back then.
The best and really only thing would to be stop the concerted effort to supress voter turn out. Then again the bad actors aren’t going to stop and the rubes will follow them into the pits of hell. So pretty much, fucked every which way. Enjoy your moral highground while we are all under a mountain of shit.
I have seen nothing but evidence that this fucks him
But also why shouldn’t it? It’s a contemptible thing for him to do (like at least don’t be public about it, that way voters can safely ignore it)
I could not disagree more, his approval is already the second lowest in modern history. I don’t know about you but I don’t know how to campaign around ‘yea, he’s supporting a genocide, BUT’. nor would I fucking want to! How much shit should I be expected to have to eat just so I can get voters to ignore possibly the most publicly grotesque international policy i’ve ever seen?
We tried ignoring voters in 2016. Sure let’s try that again, see if it works this time
They ignore voters every election.
The message isn’t vote this turd in it’s hey don’t be stupid and let christo-fascism take root.
And they wonder why they keep losing to the most incompetent people on the planet.
Every additional issue Biden ignores he looses a portion of his base’s enthusiasm. Sure, some of these people would never vote for Biden for a bunch of reasons, but everyone has a limit to what they’re willing to concede on, and I have to say that supporting a genocidal project is a pretty big one.
It would be irresponsible if we weren’t sounding the alarms that he’s strayed too far away from his winning coalition. That’s not me being principled (even though it is), that’s me being pragmatic.
Everyone else who’s rallying a couple hundred users on lemmy to ignore that issue is covering their eyes to the oncoming train.
For the record: this is a strawman. You know that saying about Republicans always accusing others of the things they’re guilty of themselves? I would suggest not following the Republican playbook.
I mean, I exaggerated for humor, but people did absolutely say:
Aside from the genocide, the last few were so laughable that it’s easy to conclude I just made them up as a pure strawman, but yes I absolutely had people tell me the un-exaggerated version of them.
Would it be better if I spelled out exactly what were the literal things people told to me instead? Yeah maybe I shouldn’t “joke” in this way if I’m gonna be saying other people are using a strawman.
He’s not separating families at the border, but he is keeping children in open air detention camps without sanitation or adequate food and water.
Congress writes the statutes on how people are detained.
Show me the statute stating that asylum seekers need to be kept in open air detention with inadequate food, water, and hygiene.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11343
Cites to the statutes for detention on who and how long, as well as the 2018 Supreme Court decision I referred to, authorizing indefinite detention.
The horrid conditions are factors of other statutes related to budgets and sovereign immunity. I’m sure I can point you to some of the civil lawsuits about conditions so you can trace back the Republican policy of cruelty as it permeated immigration law.
Well, I’m sure you know the law better than the judge who ordered them to improve conditions.
There’s a massive number of people coming in, a big increase, and the Republicans have been blocking increases in funding for the US law enforcement agencies that deal with them (which, the left gives him grief for because increasing funding for ICE means he’s a monster), and increases in the number of judges so there’s not this huge backlog. So yes, there’s a huge number of people and not enough US resources to properly care for them.
I.e. migrants are being left in limbo in inhumane conditions for long lengths of time. However, Biden’s attempted several times to solve that and been specifically prevented. It’s hard for me to see that as something which he is deliberately doing on purpose.
I addressed the thing that you said, which was perfectly fair although I feel there’s a reasonable reason for that situation which isn’t Biden’s fault. The thing the other person said to me wasn’t that, though; it was specifically that Biden had made family separation worse, which is absurd.
And yet I’m sure they’ll find the money to get it done now that a judge has ordered them to. It’s almost like Biden is actually hostile to asylum seekers.
Now do asylum policy according to Congress and the Republican Supreme Court…
I don’t get it man.
The Republicans are calling for more and more cruelty (e.g. raising the bar for aslyum). Biden is trying to alleviate the exact conditions you’re describing, in addition to compromising with them some of the cruelty you’re asking for, and you’re giving him shit for it.
What in your world should he do? Magic a bill into existence that will fix the conditions you’re talking about, without getting it through congress or needing the support of the Republicans?
Why are you saying that weakening his position against the Republicans until things get better is the way for you to solve that problem? Are you happy with the babies waiting outside in the hot sun for months and months until your plan bears fruit, should he withdraw the current bill and go back to the drawing board and them just wait outside until your plan comes through?
Why is Biden always infantilized by his apologists? As if he was completely impotent. He is the president of the United States. In our system, that gives him extraordinary power. He can go to all out war with any country on Earth for 60 days before getting any kind of permission from Congress. If the presidency is such a weak office, why are you so worked up about the prospect of Trump being president? Apparently he’ll need permission from Congress before he adjusts his tie.
Biden does not need an act of congress to not treat asylum-seekers like shit. That is a deliberate choice of his administration. Just like it was a deliberate choice to split up arms shipments to Israel into 100 seperate lots so he didn’t have to report them to Congress.
Sure, and other people also had very different criticisms of him than your list that aren’t as easy to dismiss. The strawman is you cherry-picking these to argue against in order to demonstrate some blanket point about people who don’t want to vote for Biden, when only one of these is the actual point of the conversation (and not in the hyperbolized way you presented it).
So yeah, I would 100% suggest not committing a logical fallacy while you’re criticizing others for committing that logical fallacy.
I’ve been on the receiving end of names such as “Genocide Lover” and man is that just exactly what I wish my Dad who went to get cigarettes and never came back would have called me before he left. I agree with you. People for some damned reason seem to be stuck.
The Genocide sucks balls.
Trump sucks balls.
Trump + Power = Genocide Ball Sucking on a whole new level
Biden sucks a bit less balls, though would suck far less if he stepped up and actually condemned the Genocide properly. Currently, Biden’s big balls are on fire.
Like, none of this situation is good. Most of it is malicious and evil on too many levels, and faaaar more complicated than the majority of us realize. At the end of the day we do have three significant immediate problems:
We CAN focus on all of these and it doesn’t have to be to the exclusion, or support/lack-thereof, of the others. Problem is, every time you say “Shit’s bad and this Genocide is evil, vote Biden for the love of God.” Someone comes screaming in with a, “BIDEN?! YOU SUPPORT GENOCIDE?!” and you can’t get a sideways word in.
I think a lot of it is this weird parasocial thing where it’s like you have to “support” a politician to vote for them. With very rare exceptions I don’t “support” any US politician, like I’m friends with them. I just want to get as good an outcome as I can for me and the other people in the world, and I think that’ll come from a combination of choosing better outcomes within the system that’s presented, and working outside the system to try to change it to introduce as much actual democracy into it in the long run as is possible.
I personally think the alternative perspective is a weird one, where politicians and policies are monolithic and unmovable, and challenging them necessarily means damaging the entire system. I was always taught that the strength of democracy was its enabling of negotiation, but you’re suggesting that there’s no negotiation to be had at all.
I think proactively committing to voting for a morally abhorrent candidate (a candidate promoting a morally abhorrent position, if you prefer) is less than submissive, it’s actually giving up the only possible leverage you might have had in order to accept a reality that hasn’t happened yet.
It’s absolutely a choice you are making, and even if you’d feel better if that didn’t make you guilty of ‘supporting’ genocide, i think it’s kind of self-evident.
I talked about this - withholding your vote to put pressure on Biden and communicating to him effectively that that’s what you’re doing makes perfect sense to me. I linked to the Ralph Nader article where he talks about doing that.
If I thought Biden read Lemmy and would read my comments and react differently in Gaza, would I do my comments differently, so as to avoid taking the pressure off him that he’s currently feeling? Yeah, maybe. Probably. I don’t think that’s the reality, but if I thought that, I probably would do my comments differently.
I’m just saying how I look at the election. Unless Biden had some sort of mental break that made him start acting worse than Trump in terms of what he’ll do with power, I’m planning on voting for him. If I thought lying about that would create a positive impact in some way, then yeah, maybe I might. IDK. Maybe not. I definitely wouldn’t be as vocal about how ok a job he’s doing, yeah.
Proactively committing to not voting for preservation of American democracy and prevention of catastrophe around the world, because Netanyahu started a genocide and Biden hasn’t caused a revolution in American statecraft by opposing it for the first time in history, doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, though. Why is the genocide in Gaza a red line but preventing a genocide in Ukraine, or saving a million American lives from the next pandemic, or mitigating climate change (to whatever extent we even still can) moving the needle away from billions of lost lives in the not-too-distant future, why aren’t those red lines?
It seems kind of weird to get all amped up about how great a job you’re doing at not supporting genocide, by doing something that endangers Palestinians specifically but also apparently makes you feel better. I think I linked somewhere to a comment from someone who claimed to be Palestinian American who actually specifically asked Americans not to do this (use his dead relatives as justification for their political stance which was going to endanger him much more along with many of his still living relatives). It’s on bestof if you didn’t see it.
There are lots of Palestinian Americans calling on people to Abandon Biden. One token Palestinian American on Lemmy who disagrees isn’t particularly persuasive.
Slate went to Dearborn, MI:
…
…
I don’t think he was using that example in good faith, frankly. He’s a reasonable guy but even reasonable people get tempted by convenient evidence
I don’t think you realize how far reaching popular opinion can spread through social media. I don’t think Biden is reading, either, but if the sentiment that he’ll lose was more widespread, then I think that would absolutely put pressure on him. I also think the complacent stance can reach quite far, which is why it’s frustrating seeing people like pugjesus so militant about reinforcing it and why I think it’s frustrating to you to see me and others agitating action. (It wouldn’t make sense for you to be worried about bad actors otherwise)
I’ll tell you what I read into this: American imperialist state action is so ingrained in the democratic party that it is inconceivable to you that they’d let it go, even in the face of a literal fascist taking control. And I think the people you’re talking to here, who’ve felt for a long time that America has been on the wrong side of geopolitical struggle for 80 years, find that to be the most damning part of your position.
It’s inconceivable to wish fascism onto the people of America and the world, but that the democratic party can sooner accept it than consider pulling back the American global apparatus is… well, I guess it makes it hard to root for them, doesn’t it?
I think what you mean is that it’s convenient, but I obviously don’t see it that way. I think it would absolutely help the Palestinians for the US to stop obstructing justice against Israeli leaders, and I don’t accept the premise that their reality would somehow be worse than it already is if trump was egging Israel on. The UN is already poised to react against Israel, if they cross a lot more lines they’d risk expulsion (along with us). Who knows, but it’s not just about Palestinians, the US has abused its influence across the globe and setting the record straight about what the electorate will tolerate would undoubtedly help more countries down the line, if Biden accepts the critique.
Yours is probably the correct take, or near enough. The U.S., on a sociocultural level, tends to take sides. It’s nurtured into us. Sports is arguably the biggest reason, though throw in the news, social commentary, and a bit of high divorce rates, amongst other reasons, and you’ll have yourself a cake split down some middle. While far more complicated than this simple explanation, the reality is we are divided. This division makes it really difficult to want to agree with someone who doesn’t take your exact stance. Whatever reason justifies such firm footing on shaky ground is further falsely reinforced by those who exist just to rabble-rouse, 2024 Digital Digger Edition; “Our Words Harm”.
It’s become difficult to look at comments stuck in the social node of Biden=Bad or Bust in good faith, because they often don’t discuss and instead tend to yell.
Which really is sad, because we do need to come together.
I’m not holding hands with a Nazi, and I’m not voting for someone who is doing a genocide. If that makes me a divisive asshole, so be it.
No idea what it makes you. We’ll see soon enough. I just hope that if Trump does win people like you don’t up and go silent.
Either way actually. Whatever our differences, we can all agree that life could be much better.
Cheers to that. I marched in November 2016 and I’ll march in November 2024. I wish I didn’t have to march in May 2024, but it is what it is.
Marching in November does nothing. Active disobedience and (violently) refusing to accept dictatorship from January onward might.
Tell the rest of that story.
As someone who frequents worldnews from lemmy.world, a sizable amount of IDF apologists who do actually defend genocide show up every week, although they consistently get banned.
There’s also a bunch of wackos on Hexbear and Lemmygrad who will sneer with joy at the idea of Ukrainians getting displaced to never be able to return, although you have to dig in to find them.
If you have to vote for him anyway this is an empty threat. And they know it.
Criticize all you want. I certainly do. But understand at the end of the day that as pathetically little as Biden is doing to help, he isn’t doing literally zero. Allowing Trump to win is objectively voting for MORE genocide, and in fact, the end of any potential for a Palestinian state in any form. None of this is secret - none of this is speculation. If people would take 15 minutes and read the ACTUAL Trump middle eastern peace plan that he ACTUALLY PUT FORTH when he was president, it’s pretty obvious he would allow MUCH MUCH worse than Biden without batting an eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan
There is no room for argument on that. Is Biden bad for Palestinians and allowing genocide? Yes. Would allowing Trump to win be WORSE? Yes. You’re upset that angry wolves are eating someone, and you should be. But the solution is not replacing them with angry bears.
They literally just said they were voting for Biden. Why are you lecturing them? All you’re doing is demonstrating that Democrats don’t listen.
Okay, fair point, and I acknowledge it. I’m no saint and I get preachy. It’s a character flaw, and I apologize if I caused offense.
It’s not just a character flaw you have - it appears to be endemic to dem apologists in general.
Since you’re one of the first I’ve seen even acknowledge it, I would love to understand from you what kind of media diet or environment produces this blindness to critique. I suspect it comes from abject terror of conservatives & fascism and a sense of powerlessness to affect real change outside the narrow system given to you by voting, even though voting is also deeply disempowering.
Since you asked, I’ll answer.
My acknowledged character flaw is my preachiness about my position, particularly in a environment like a lemmy thread where we’re all shouting into a void. I do not, however, make apologies for my position.
I am not a dem apologist - I am a utilitarian. I would love to see both Biden and Trump out on their asses and a viable, functioning third party option. But that is one of a number of things that are not realistic right now. I look at the world right now and I don’t have the ability to look at the trolley problem we’ve been given, sit down, and refuse to make a decision because I believe it’s going to somehow punish the trolley for daring to give me a choice I don’t like. I have to choose whether to pull the lever.
The absolute reality of this election boils down to two logically consistent positions that make sense.
Both of these positions are logically consistent, and make total sense. I don’t happen to agree with the first one, but if that’s your jam? I understand it. But own it. The logically inconsistent position that drives me absolutely crazy is to claim that a Biden loss is somehow consistent with a moral crusade to protect Palestinian refugees. That’s absolutely insane and illogical to the point where it is at best based in ignorance and at worst reeks of intellectual dishonesty. If you are motivated primarily by the fate of Palestinians, a Biden victory or loss is not about Biden at all. If you are motivated primarily by number 1, and you want break the eggs to make the omelette, have the moral courage to be honest about it. I, for one, am not in that boat. I don’t have the ability to perform the fancy, nonsensical mental gymnastics necessary to sacrifice an entire culture of people on the altar of my ideological purity and then claim with a straight face that I’m somehow doing it for their benefit. I have to do the cold, calculating work of estimating how many people will ACTUALLY die and/or suffer as a result of the decisions I do or do not make, and then make an unpalatable choice that protects the things I find important because that’s just how life is. A series of sub-optimal choices that reflect the messy reality we live in.
I expect everyone to do the same, even if the things they find important aren’t the same things I do. But when someone claims to value the same things I do and ALSO make decisions that are against those interests by EVERY single sound and reasonable measure? I already dealt with that kind of nonsense when I used to get dragged to church.
As pointed out earlier, this person I responded to in this thread isn’t that person, and I do apologize for implying otherwise. But the person I’m talking about here DOES exist. That person is in this thread. And that person needs to hear this.
Okay, I don’t really want to debate the merits of the position. I could but I don’t think we’re too far apart on it. So the character flaw is the preachiness and I misunderstood that’s what you meant, but you still have said something very interesting that I want to understand. I really wanted to know about this:
See, this is a mistake that people making pro-dem arguments - whether out of utilitarianism or some misguided sense of allegiance - keep running into. I have seen so many arguments that boil down to (and I’m not saying this is exactly what you did but it’s a general pattern):
A: Biden is screwing the pooch for XYZ clearly stated factual reasons.
B: You want Trump to win.
A: No, I think people should probably vote for Biden but he’s tanking it for XYZ clearly stated reasons.
B: Fuck you, MAGA/Ivan.
I was asking you about it because you are literally the first person out of dozens of these exchanges that I have ever seen admit to being wrong about this. I think that’s honestly admirable, and I was asking because I really want to understand if you have any insight as to where your misunderstanding came from.
If your answer is that it doesn’t matter because the person your argument is for is out there somewhere, then I think that’s a problem for reasons I can explain if you want to hear them. If you have another explanation I’m interested.
It seems to me we’re almost on the same page.
You’re right - my posts aren’t referring to a SPECIFIC person, but general statements targeted at a casual reader of the thread.
I think this is where most people’s overreaction comes from - being so passionate about the desired OUTCOME that they forget to actually be convincing about how to get there. Yes, there are a huge number of us that are not huge fans of many of Biden’s decisions, but voting for him anyway because of the limited number of choices we have. But there are clearly people out there who aren’t as inclined towards making those subtle distinctions, and it’s important that the discourse, as much as possible, makes clear to people that their vote need not be a declaration of undying love. It’s okay to say “Biden, but not happy about it.” It’s really important that those people see the whole view, particularly when there’s so much knee-jerk reaction towards both “YOU MUST SUPPORT HIM” and “YOU CAN’T SUPPORT HIM”.
That said, while of course it eases conscience to talk about how Biden has problems, helping someone who is gung-ho about supporting him to have doubts has almost no tangible benefits to the external reality we live in from the standpoint of the outcome I desire (I don’t post here to be neutral - of course I have a bias), and may actually have a negative impact. Helping someone who is on the fence understand that despite voting being essentially binary, there is a whole spectrum of valid ways to think about it, can lead someone to making a decision that can have a real impact on getting the outcome I see as best, so of course I want to counter the former with the latter.
I make the same comment in all these threads, but you don’t have to vote for Biden. I’m planning on voting psl this November and you can too.
Forgive me, but the only psl I know is Pumpkin Spice Latte. Care to explain?
Party for socialism and liberation. They’re running Claudia de la Cruz this go round.
As someone who voted 3rd party in 2016, I very much regret it. It was a wasted vote and helped Trump get in office. The very same thing can happen again. Don’t get me wrong, I hate that Biden is the candidate. I hated it in 2020 as well. The Democratic party is a joke when it comes to putting up candidates. Until we aren’t a two party system, we have to vote for the lesser of two evils with a plausible chance of winning. If not and Trump wins again, we will only move backwards again. It felt like we took two steps backwards and a half step forward.
How we can generate change is by starting at the local level. Ranked choice voting has already begun at many local level elections. We need to campaign for this and for candidates that can make that happen.
I voted Democrat in 2020 and I very much regret it.
May I ask why? Is it for a single reason or multiple?
Because he turned out to be a genocidal ghoul
So what would you rather instead? A combo of fascist and genocidal?
Do not fall for the idea that changing to some other method of voting will fix anything.
Plenty of European nations have all manner of goofy voting systems and parliamentary governments and they’re all still getting fascist parties and coalitions.
Even if we thanos-snapped ourselves into star or ranked choice or some other cheese eating surrender monkey voting style we’d still actually have to be not okay with our government sending 2000lb guided bombs to be dropped on hospitals.
That starts with not voting for Biden because a vote can only ever be seen as a show of support. There is no way to mark the little bubble that says “I’m only doing this to keep trump out of office” or the one labeled “wish it was anyone else”.
You can only show support with a vote and I urge you not to show support for Biden.
You should feel proud of your third party vote in 2016, I sure do. You can say a lot of bad things about trump, but he never laughed about having a nations leader sodomized to death with a knife on daytime tv.
I agree that there’s likely no ‘perfect’ system of government. Mostly because power corrupts most. But clearly the two party system is extremely dangerous so I still want a change to another method. Yes, ranked choice voting isn’t perfect but not trying to change/improve is giving up.
I do want to ask, it seems like you are fine with another Trump term. Do you not think fascism growth would be greater under his presidency? Do you think he won’t support the Israel government or worse, provide even more to them?
Our system of government forms a feedback loop with our social system. We can certainly change how we vote but without changing both the government and social system, modifications to our election process only change the interlink between the two. It’s clear from other extant nations dealing with fascist movements that a different interlink doesn’t fundamentally alter how both the government and social systems respond to material conditions.
It’s not giving up to recognize that a new transmission won’t fix a blown engine and stripped differential.
We might need a new transmission too, but it ain’t gettin us to pismo beach unless the rest is straightened out.
I’m not “fine” with another trump term, and I’m not “fine” with Bidens term or another one.
We are getting fascism. We have, right this very moment, got fascism.
We cannot fight fascism with gentler fascism or inclusive fascism or fascism with a welfare state, we can fight it with socialism, anarchism or communism.
To step away from the polemic for a little bit it’s interesting that you said we shouldn’t vote third party but instead should try to change the voting system. Here I am just asking people to do the easiest thing ever, mark a different box on a piece of paper, and the response is “no, before you do that simple, easy to accomplish thing you have to fundamentally alter how we choose officials!”
I don’t bring it up to make fun of you, because several other people have said that to me, but to ask what motivates that? I mean, do you think the only acceptable outcome for a political party is victory?
First I want to say I appreciate your time and your responses. I appreciate having an actual conversation on the matter because I truly am interested in your thoughts and what you think the best approach may be.
Trust me, I don’t just want to change how we vote, I think that many changes need to be made to our government. My biggest question is how do you think we can make that happen? My opinion (just an opinion) is that the people have a much better chance with making changes through local elections and that the democratic party is more likely (at least at the moment) to put us in the right direction. Yeah, it’s not going to fast or easy.
I consider myself independent. I always tried to vote for the best candidate no matter the party. Then after 2016, I realized that overall the GOP was toxic for the country. I already didn’t like the Democratic party leadership but figured that while they suck, it’s much more dangerous for Trump/the GOP to be in charge again.
Again, I appreciate your time and if you can, please share what you think may be the best option forward. I know you mentioned voting 3rd party but what else do you think people should do?
The time to vote against Biden was back in the primaries. We can try again during the next primary, but if we fuck around during the general, we’re going to find out how much worse a second Trump term will be.
Yeah. I remember centrists screaming that uncommitted votes in the primary were votes for Trump. The only thing that pleases a centrist is silence from critics.
Your vote for Biden is only a vote for Biden. It will never be a vote against trump. It will only ever signify support for Biden assistance and denial of a genocide.
The democrats don’t have a crystal ball, they can’t tell that you wish they would run someone else or that you feel forced to vote for their candidate despite his monstrous platform. They will only see support. They will only see what they can get away with.
I’m horrified by what’s going on in Gaza. It’s an atrocity that deserves maximum attention and intervention above pretty much any issue.
Biden is absolutely shitting the bed on this. But Trump isn’t gonna clean the sheets.
It’s not that genocide is a tertiary issue. It’s that both candidates will be complicit in the genocide, so it literally isn’t a factor when looking at the candidates.
If Biden doesn’t change course on this, he will lose.
POASIWID
In this comment: a bullshit-ass straw man