i really want to understand what they thought they would accomplish
I’ve been asking for almost two years and no one will say. I get a lot of “screw you, fascist!” And “Oh, so everyone has to have a plan now?!?” amongst other head-scratching non-answers.
The most important thing appears to be to not be involved in any decisions, movements, or other political realities that might conceivably ever have a chance at existing in our lifetimes. I guess.
Honestly at this point most are indistinguishable from straight up FSB bots. Divide the left, no other goals.
either the group that would not vote for harris is small enough that they don’t deserve representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
or the group that would not vote for harris is large enough to have impacted the election and deserved representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
The group that would not vote for Harris is small enough that they will be overrun with demented fascism as a definite result of their ill-informed “voting strategy”.
The group that would not vote for Harris is large enough to be roundly mocked and derided for such an obvious and preventable fuckup.
you are incorrect, the only one with a voting strategy is the democratic establishment. and they are obviously bad at math. or have chosen this result vs reaching out to their orphaned base
I think these are the people who choose “Do nothing” on the 5-v-1 trolley problem. i.e.: they would rather let 5 people die than take an active role in killing one. I can understand the moral argument, but it really does make for objectively poor outcomes.
The Trolley Problem isn’t a correct Games Theory representation of this situation, not even close:
For starters, those doing the chosing don’t know for sure what’s down each track (we do know now, with hindsight and only for the chosen branch, but that’s long after making the choice and you still don’t know what would be down the other track)
Second, it’s not an individual choice, it’s a mathematical calculation (not even an average) of multiple choices which were not coordinated (i.e. each individual does not know enough at the time of their own choice to predict the final result), so unlike in the Trolley Problem, there is no individual responsibility.
Last but not least, this is a cyclical choice were how many victims are on the tracks for the next choice is influenced by what was chosrn in an earlier cycel and even how many people made that choice - sending the tram down a line with more victims now might actually mean fewer victims on the line of one or even both branches for the next choice, or the opposite (clearly past choices created this situation were both candidates were Genocide supporters hence there we’re far more victims on both tracks)
You have either been deceived by this propagandistic misuse of Games Theory and are now parroting it without fully understanding it or you are knowingly being deceitful for the purpose of supporting the leaders of your party.
if you intervene you own the consequences. Who tied these people to the tracks? are they watching me decide? refusing to participate in a rigged game is perfectly rational and moral.
You don’t get to choose whether you are in the trolley problem. Once you’re standing in front of the lever, choosing to not intervene is still a choice.
it’s unwise to negotiate with terrorists, and for similar reasons I would say that it is unwise to participate in a system that legitimises your own destruction
You are not responsible for actions which you do not take, and further, you are not responsible for consequences proceeding from actions you did not take.
The trolley problem is designed specifically to illustrate the simple logic of utilitarianism. It allocates no blame to whoever tied the guy to the tracks, and doesn’t usually include any consideration of context. Unlike reality, the trolley problem reduces a qualitative moral decisionmaking to a pure binary, in a complete vacuum. It exists to demonstrate that one number is bigger than another number, with a couple of extra steps. No relationship to reality.
If you have a choice whether you wanted to have it or not, and you choose not to act. That in and of itself is you making a call as to what outcome you prefer. You are therefore responsible.
Choosing not to act is still a choice own it. You would choose to let 5 people die instead of 1 so that you don’t have to feel responsible but you are. You are putting your emotions over the lives of others.
There is such a thing legally speaking as gross negligence. You chose not to act and a worse outcome happens when you had the ability to stop it. Your argument would never hold up in court.
You can try to claim moral superiority all you like but in the end it’s just an excuse to allow you to put your feelings over the lives of others.
As a Canadian I’m am disappointed and disgusted by the selfishness of the US populace both left and right in different ways. Get off your high horse and own your decisions. The time for change is at the grassroots level. Stop with your mememe “morality” and do something beyond the absolute minimum of voting if you even did that.
Whatever you gotta tell yourself, but the election happened and votes were counted and now it’s another four years of killing everything. If you didn’t do the one thing that you could do, that’s neither rational nor moral.
I said I understand the argument. You can rage at how the people got on the tracks and look for the real culprits all day, but while you’re ‘solving’ the big problem, people die who didn’t have to.
How about the Blade Runner question: You come across a tortoise on its back, belly baking in the hot sun: do you flip the tortoise on its feet or worry who flipped it on its back while you watch it die?
i would intervene with the tortoise, and i’d happily wear the consequences. I’m not obliged to be a pure witness nor am i bound by any kind of prime directive. I can explain to my conscience why an extra tortoise exists due to my actions but i couldn’t say the same about the trolley problem without extra information.
For example, if i am being observed then my decision becomes data, which carries its own weight and precedent. If the situation was arranged to view my response, then I am obliged to not participate, to send a signal to the experimenters to not tie anyone up on the tracks for future observers. I condemn everyone in front of me to death but how do i know they won’t be killed regardless? whoever arranged the situation obviously didn’t value their lives very highly…
A mentally ill guy who’s mentally ill because his alcoholic father treated him horribly as a kid, and his father was an alcoholic because he lost his job because of the economic recession.
What now?
are they watching me decide?
Why do you care? Does that affect your decision?
There is no “non-rigged” game, this is a very messy world burdened with centuries of unfairness. At some point you’ll have to move on from merely pointing out who’s at fault towards actually trying to fix things.
the trolley problem is the rigged game. It captures none of the important ‘messiness’ of the real world and ultimately is used to help you rationalise voting against your own best interests within a 2-party political paradigm
You barely responded to anything I wrote. The key words seem to correspond, but nothing here actually builds upon the previous comments, it’s either restating things or saying something (as far as I see) unrelated and illogical.
What exactly are my own best interests that I’m supposedly voting against by supposedly voting for Democrats? Why are my best interests crucial here anyway? Could we also take into account the 200 dead Iranian children’s best interests? I think they’re more important than mine, honestly.
I had a long chat with you about this recently. And I don’t think I said “screw you fascist” or “who needs a plan?” And I think I stated it pretty clearly. If the democrats want our votes, they have to not arm genocide. Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position. If literally no votes are held back for that modicum of decency then they have absolutely no reason to change. There’s absolutely nothing confusing or illogical about it, and I don’t know why y’all pretend you’re so bamboozled by it. I mean…you can disagree, go for it. Vote blue no matter who if that suits you. That’s what I think.
But you want to know what I feel? All of you are in here with a photo of two characters whose lives have been destroyed, imagining “this could be me thanks to those assholes who wouldn’t vote for this to happen to other people.” It’s so unbelievably selfish. We all gotta just accept that Palestinians will suffer like this…that’s the price we pay for it not to be us.
so now we have a fascist rapist pedophile con man in office, the genocide is worse than ever, and now we have a new genocide in the making, not to mention in the states, and i’m skeptical that “votes” will even be a thing ever again.
because they would have been better off under trump? how’s that going btw?
how about the iranians? how about immigrants? how about education? healthcare? environment? economy?
dude, the “i won’t vote for genocide” thing is noble, but you’re ignoring the real world in favor of your idealistic delusion of a country where we can just throw our vote away and think that will change something.
can i tell you a secret: the united states of america will NEVER stop fellating israel. no matter who is president. did you think jill stein (or who the fuck ever) would snap their fingers and all of a sudden put a leash on israel? honest question
I mean…i’m sure you agree with this: if the democrats want to win, they should not be making choices that cost them votes. Their post-mortem on 2024 tells them that continuing their pro-genocide position cost them votes (according to axios anyway, who I guess got a peek at it somehow. the democrats have decided they are not going to publish it.).
That’s real pressure for them to change. Not voting for the democrats created that pressure. They now know that abandoning israel will lead to a net-increase in their votes.
And yeah, I would hope that when looking down the barrel of more domestic fascism, knowing that it will matter from a purely Machiavellian perspective, the democrats will stop arming a genocide.
Like…I get how scared everyone is. I have family members who are undocumented immigrants in the US. It is terrifying. My neice might get shipped off to some el-salvadorian torture prison. Life would have been better for them if Harris had won. But I don’t regret refusing to vote for Harris because (a) I reject the claim that I have some ethical culpability for what the the fascists do (that’s just some ontological fuckery that I can’t straighten out in my mind, even with the benefit of a philosophy undergrad and years more of school and work figuring out all kinds of tax-law fuckery), and (b) people taking this position has created measurable pressure on the democrats to change. I guess there’s also the sneaky (c) my vote would not have counted anyway because I’m not from a swing state.
you’ve done a lot of work to justify your wrong position of doing nothing to keep the rapist pedophile fascist con man moron out of office.
bravo.
i’m sure you’re very proud of yourself. but you haven’t defended your position in the slightest, despite your “i’m an undergrad in philosophy” (fucking seriously, dude?) “authority” on the subject of how a populace should avoid authoritarianism, which is a key objective in a democracy.
don’t worry bro–i give it 50/50 whether the votes will even matter in november, and if we come out on the bottom, then the chances will be 00/100. but that’s just me. maybe the country will wake up and realize that in order to change things for the better, the only thing we can do is flush our votes down the toilet.
for fucks fucking sake. i’m glad you’re happy with yourself
My neice might get shipped off to some el-salvadorian torture prison.
You have done a lot of work to justify your voting to continue arming the genocide of Palestinians. And hey, if you find that convincing, have at it.
And you’re jumping through some real conceptual hoops to blame me for what Donald trump does lol I didn’t vote for him. You did vote for Harris.
Like I said, I’m a lawyer. I’m used to weird mental gymnastics. I only mention my bachelors in case your mental gymnastics require a doctorate in philosophy to understand or what? Like…walk me through how you get to my moral culpability for the actions of Donald trump, as someone who didn’t vote for him. Explain that to an idiot like me.
I am responding to brynden here, but this is for anyone, especially those who believe the most moral choice in Nov 2024 was to vote third party or not at all…
Do you pay taxes to the US government? If you do, could you explain to me how not voting for Harris absolves you of moral culpability for genocide, but giving thousands of dollars every year to the Feds (who have always been controlled by a major party), who will use that money to directly fund genocide, doesn’t make you even more culpable than that single vote for Harris?
I had a long chat with you about this recently. And I don’t think I said “screw you fascist” or “who needs a plan?” And I think I stated it pretty clearly
That’s true, that was not you. We did have a good chat and iirc you had voted for Dems up until Harris? I forget but you weren’t against voting, you just had the single issue that defined all others.
Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position. If literally no votes are held back for that modicum of decency then they have absolutely no reason to change.
Yeah, but that’s where we are now and it’s very very bad. I disagree that change of the kind you’re looking for will come about through throwing the election to avowed fascists, but it is at least a defined position with room to move forward, which is a lot more than some of the other intransigent non-voters.
I think “throwing the election” is overstating it. Harris lost votes because she decided to continue arming a genocide. The democrats know that…if they didn’t know it before (doubt), they do now. Their position cost them votes. That’s what their post-mortem says, according to Axios anyway. So if they don’t change course, they’re choosing to have fewer votes. They really really should not risk choosing to have fewer votes.
If the democrats want our votes, they have to not arm genocide. Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position.
The problem is that this way of thinking is backwards and ineffective. I don’t give a shit about rewarding Democrats with my vote; I care about securing the most favorable conditions I can. When both popular options are bad, that means picking the less bad one, even if it’s only slightly less bad; even if it’s exactly as bad by one metric, and only better on other metrics. Our votes aren’t to give them some achievement trophy, they’re to determine who will be making policy decisions.
Further, it isn’t really an effective way to force them to change. People who didn’t vote for them didn’t fill out a questionnaire to communicate why they didn’t vote for them. The only way they get that information is if it’s given to them somehow.
They have information about what will happen if they break with Israel: AIPAC will dump tons of money into opposing them. Not only will they lose the Zionist portion of their voter base, but wealthy Zionists will inundate them with attack ads to jeopardize other portions of their base.
They’re going to do calculations, based on the actual communicated data they have, to weigh the number of voters they’d lose vs. the number of voters they’d gain by withdrawing support for Israel. The data against withdrawing support for Israel is highly organized, heavily funded, and very clearly communicated. However widespread you think the movement to withdraw support is, it’s less organized, less funded, and less clearly communicated. From the perspective of DNC leadership, the calculations are clear.
If you want them to change, you need clear, organized data to show them what the change needs to be and how many people support it. You need tens of millions of signatures on a clearly worded petition. Otherwise, you’re essentially just a loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment.
I disagree with your ethical framing (to my personal moral compass, I’m less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide), but setting that aside, I guess this loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment have had an effect. The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
They know. The calculations are clearly against supporting a genocide…which should be a no brainer no matter how organized or funded the genocidiers are.
less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide
You seem to be a strict deontologist. I do not subscribe to that worldview. I find it childish and self-centered, both ineffective and rarely consistent. But putting that aside, “legitimacy” is irrelevant. It will continue with or without your personal blessing. It’s moralistic posturing with no material effect.
The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
I don’t think that’s what it says at all. I think it may have said that it resulted in a raw loss of votes, I do not think that it reflected a net loss of votes. I think their data implies they would have lost more votes in changing positions than they would have gained. Like it or not, the propaganda is strong, and there are more low-information voters than high-information ones. Go against Israel, and you go against AIPAC. Go against AIPAC, and you’re in for a world of hurt on the political field. You’re not just losing active Zionists, you’re losing fence-sitters who are not immune to waves of attack ads.
Obviously not supporting a genocide is a no-brainer, but the majority of voters have no brain to speak of. You can’t beat organized and well-funded propaganda with the silent treatment.
Hamid Bendaas, a spokesperson for the IMEU Policy Project, said that during the meeting “the DNC shared with us that their own data also found that policy was, in their words, a ‘net-negative’ in the 2024 election.” Two other senior aides at the pro-Palestinian organization also said the DNC had drawn that conclusion.
What do you mean, you don’t think that’s what it says? Have you seen it? I’d love to get a copy if you’re leaking it! Do you just mean you imagine it wouldn’t say that?
I’m not a strict deontologist; I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole. The democrats and the republicans actually have power. They are the moral agent here.
In a trolley problem (since you seem like someone who might be familiar), voters are just watching from afar and wishing for the people at the switch to make one choice or the other. And that’s fine. But don’t give me shit for not wasting my time wishing.
I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole.
You are very much not. Again with the “legitimizing”. There is no “legitimacy” metric in elections. Power doesn’t scale with vote count. All that matters is which side beats the other. If only one person “legitimizes” the system, and everyone else refuses to vote, the winner still has all the powers of the president. The outcome is exactly the same as if every single voter chose them.
They don’t get fewer powers for winning with only one vote, they don’t get any extra powers by winning by 100 million votes. The concept of “legitimizing” the system is a fiction that exists only in the mind of deontologists.
In the trolley problem, voters are voting on whether to pull the lever. If enough people vote to pull the lever, the lever is pulled. It’s even more clear cut than the trolley problem, because Gaza is on both tracks. You don’t even save them by not pulling the switch, you just let everyone else on that track die too. There’s no reason not to pull the switch, there is no dilemma. Inaction is objectively the wrong choice.
My goodness you’re sweet! I think you have an extremely charitable faith in your government.
Obviously if you think voters get to determine outcomes then not voting seems completely absurd! I have power I’m not using! But the reality is that the people absolutely do not have power. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” by Gilens and Page is a good starting point. Its conclusion is that there is no correlation at all between public opinion and policy. On the other hand the correlation between the economic elite’s policy preferences and the policies adopted shows up on the graph as a nice, neat upward-slanting line at 45 degrees, with a 70 percent correlation between strong elite support and policy adoption. Later studies have continued to back up this finding. It doesn’t make the press much, of course, because no one with power benefits from this getting talked about.
You are imagining the voters are a person with a lever that’s red on one side and blue on the other, with all the corresponding policy on the two tracks. I think the trolley problem analogy I described is closer to useful. There are two with power arguing over how to handle the lever (or maybe even…at the risk of complicating the trolley problem even further, levers!), and voters are far away, wishing or shouting their support for one or other of those people with power. When the democrat or republican wins, they’ll pull the levers to enact the policies they see fit to.
And yes, voting absolutely legitimizes the system, why do you think they always cite turnout statistics? What do you mean there is no legitimacy metric in elections? It’s absolutely untrue that all that matters is which side beats the other. If a population boycotts an election, that’s an expression of power and absolutely delegitimizes the results. That’s an extreme example, but it applies all the way up. The United States wants to pretend to be a democracy; it has to pretend that its people get a say in how things are done. Participating in that system absolutely legitimizes that narrative. I’m not saying you should never do it, just because it’s a lie. If the democrats changed course on palestine I’d be banging on doors for them, trying to get as many people to vote as possible, even though I know it’s a lie that they are doing it for any reason other than to help in their struggle with the other bourgeois party. That little grain of legitimacy from your little vote is not a lot, but it’s something. And frankly, if your vote isn’t going to matter anyway because you don’t live in a swing state, that grain of legitimacy is the only thing you can contribute.
If a population boycotts an election, that’s an expression of power and absolutely delegitimizes the results.
This is your central flaw. It doesn’t. The winner still gets sworn in, they still choose their cabinet, they still enact their policies. Life goes on without your input.
Being opposition doesn’t make you left. These aren’t people that oppose capitalism they are people who want a capitalism that is easier on the domestic working class. At the expense of the imperial periphery of course, though this goes unsaid. I sort of like them but their end goal is not the destruction of capitalism.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but capitalism isn’t going anywhere in the US. You’re in a tiny echo chamber if you think that the wholesale destruction of capitalism is even a viable choice.
I don’t believe we are going to destroy capitalism. I believe capitalism is going to destroy itself (or most of the world which is kinda the same thing) and we have to prepare and alternative for when that happens. This belief does not come from online message boards it comes from reading innumerable books on political economy and history. The echo chamber is where I go to find like minded people.
You are not bursting my bubble. I have existed in yours most of my life and understand it well. I have made a choice between two world views that I have plenty of experience with and I am satisfied with that choice.
They are alright and I wouldn’t mind seeing more people like them in our government. However, we have fundamentally different goals and major disagreements on policy that aren’t exactly reconciliable. I only said it would be nice to feel somewhat represented but I am aware that’s entirely unreasonable given my political agenda stands in direct contradiction to that of the people who run this country.
I actually do not know what you are talking about. The only statement I made here is that I feel unrepresented and wish it wasn’t that way. Where did you get the idea that I am politically uninvolved?
actually it would be fucking nice if we could reach 50% agreement of the issues. too bad the establishment dems have more in common with republicans then their own base
I’ve been asking for almost two years and no one will say. I get a lot of “screw you, fascist!” And “Oh, so everyone has to have a plan now?!?” amongst other head-scratching non-answers.
The most important thing appears to be to not be involved in any decisions, movements, or other political realities that might conceivably ever have a chance at existing in our lifetimes. I guess.
Honestly at this point most are indistinguishable from straight up FSB bots. Divide the left, no other goals.
you get to choose one and only one:
either the group that would not vote for harris is small enough that they don’t deserve representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
or the group that would not vote for harris is large enough to have impacted the election and deserved representation, in which case the democrat establishment is to blame.
you can’t have both
The group that would not vote for Harris is small enough that they will be overrun with demented fascism as a definite result of their ill-informed “voting strategy”.
The group that would not vote for Harris is large enough to be roundly mocked and derided for such an obvious and preventable fuckup.
You can have both.
you are incorrect, the only one with a voting strategy is the democratic establishment. and they are obviously bad at math. or have chosen this result vs reaching out to their orphaned base
I think these are the people who choose “Do nothing” on the 5-v-1 trolley problem. i.e.: they would rather let 5 people die than take an active role in killing one. I can understand the moral argument, but it really does make for objectively poor outcomes.
The Trolley Problem isn’t a correct Games Theory representation of this situation, not even close:
You have either been deceived by this propagandistic misuse of Games Theory and are now parroting it without fully understanding it or you are knowingly being deceitful for the purpose of supporting the leaders of your party.
if you intervene you own the consequences. Who tied these people to the tracks? are they watching me decide? refusing to participate in a rigged game is perfectly rational and moral.
You don’t get to choose whether you are in the trolley problem. Once you’re standing in front of the lever, choosing to not intervene is still a choice.
it’s unwise to negotiate with terrorists, and for similar reasons I would say that it is unwise to participate in a system that legitimises your own destruction
If you do nothing, you own the consequences too, even if you try to pretend that you don’t.
And they are much worse consequences. Much worse than the 5:1 ratio of the original trolley problem
You are not responsible for actions which you do not take, and further, you are not responsible for consequences proceeding from actions you did not take.
The trolley problem is designed specifically to illustrate the simple logic of utilitarianism. It allocates no blame to whoever tied the guy to the tracks, and doesn’t usually include any consideration of context. Unlike reality, the trolley problem reduces a qualitative moral decisionmaking to a pure binary, in a complete vacuum. It exists to demonstrate that one number is bigger than another number, with a couple of extra steps. No relationship to reality.
If you have a choice whether you wanted to have it or not, and you choose not to act. That in and of itself is you making a call as to what outcome you prefer. You are therefore responsible.
Choosing not to act is still a choice own it. You would choose to let 5 people die instead of 1 so that you don’t have to feel responsible but you are. You are putting your emotions over the lives of others.
There is such a thing legally speaking as gross negligence. You chose not to act and a worse outcome happens when you had the ability to stop it. Your argument would never hold up in court.
You can try to claim moral superiority all you like but in the end it’s just an excuse to allow you to put your feelings over the lives of others.
As a Canadian I’m am disappointed and disgusted by the selfishness of the US populace both left and right in different ways. Get off your high horse and own your decisions. The time for change is at the grassroots level. Stop with your mememe “morality” and do something beyond the absolute minimum of voting if you even did that.
Fix your shit American sorry not sorry
Whatever you gotta tell yourself, but the election happened and votes were counted and now it’s another four years of killing everything. If you didn’t do the one thing that you could do, that’s neither rational nor moral.
I said I understand the argument. You can rage at how the people got on the tracks and look for the real culprits all day, but while you’re ‘solving’ the big problem, people die who didn’t have to.
How about the Blade Runner question: You come across a tortoise on its back, belly baking in the hot sun: do you flip the tortoise on its feet or worry who flipped it on its back while you watch it die?
i would intervene with the tortoise, and i’d happily wear the consequences. I’m not obliged to be a pure witness nor am i bound by any kind of prime directive. I can explain to my conscience why an extra tortoise exists due to my actions but i couldn’t say the same about the trolley problem without extra information.
For example, if i am being observed then my decision becomes data, which carries its own weight and precedent. If the situation was arranged to view my response, then I am obliged to not participate, to send a signal to the experimenters to not tie anyone up on the tracks for future observers. I condemn everyone in front of me to death but how do i know they won’t be killed regardless? whoever arranged the situation obviously didn’t value their lives very highly…
A mentally ill guy who’s mentally ill because his alcoholic father treated him horribly as a kid, and his father was an alcoholic because he lost his job because of the economic recession.
What now?
Why do you care? Does that affect your decision?
There is no “non-rigged” game, this is a very messy world burdened with centuries of unfairness. At some point you’ll have to move on from merely pointing out who’s at fault towards actually trying to fix things.
the trolley problem is the rigged game. It captures none of the important ‘messiness’ of the real world and ultimately is used to help you rationalise voting against your own best interests within a 2-party political paradigm
You barely responded to anything I wrote. The key words seem to correspond, but nothing here actually builds upon the previous comments, it’s either restating things or saying something (as far as I see) unrelated and illogical.
What exactly are my own best interests that I’m supposedly voting against by supposedly voting for Democrats? Why are my best interests crucial here anyway? Could we also take into account the 200 dead Iranian children’s best interests? I think they’re more important than mine, honestly.
I had a long chat with you about this recently. And I don’t think I said “screw you fascist” or “who needs a plan?” And I think I stated it pretty clearly. If the democrats want our votes, they have to not arm genocide. Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position. If literally no votes are held back for that modicum of decency then they have absolutely no reason to change. There’s absolutely nothing confusing or illogical about it, and I don’t know why y’all pretend you’re so bamboozled by it. I mean…you can disagree, go for it. Vote blue no matter who if that suits you. That’s what I think.
But you want to know what I feel? All of you are in here with a photo of two characters whose lives have been destroyed, imagining “this could be me thanks to those assholes who wouldn’t vote for this to happen to other people.” It’s so unbelievably selfish. We all gotta just accept that Palestinians will suffer like this…that’s the price we pay for it not to be us.
so now we have a fascist rapist pedophile con man in office, the genocide is worse than ever, and now we have a new genocide in the making, not to mention in the states, and i’m skeptical that “votes” will even be a thing ever again.
congrats on your moral superiority
And all the democrats had to do to avoid it was not arm a genocide? Which they shouldn’t have done anyway? Failing to see how this is my fault.
Sorry if we got in the way of your plan to throw palestinians in the woodchipper and go back to brunch. Congrats on your moral inferiority?
because they would have been better off under trump? how’s that going btw?
how about the iranians? how about immigrants? how about education? healthcare? environment? economy?
dude, the “i won’t vote for genocide” thing is noble, but you’re ignoring the real world in favor of your idealistic delusion of a country where we can just throw our vote away and think that will change something.
can i tell you a secret: the united states of america will NEVER stop fellating israel. no matter who is president. did you think jill stein (or who the fuck ever) would snap their fingers and all of a sudden put a leash on israel? honest question
I mean…i’m sure you agree with this: if the democrats want to win, they should not be making choices that cost them votes. Their post-mortem on 2024 tells them that continuing their pro-genocide position cost them votes (according to axios anyway, who I guess got a peek at it somehow. the democrats have decided they are not going to publish it.).
That’s real pressure for them to change. Not voting for the democrats created that pressure. They now know that abandoning israel will lead to a net-increase in their votes.
And yeah, I would hope that when looking down the barrel of more domestic fascism, knowing that it will matter from a purely Machiavellian perspective, the democrats will stop arming a genocide.
Like…I get how scared everyone is. I have family members who are undocumented immigrants in the US. It is terrifying. My neice might get shipped off to some el-salvadorian torture prison. Life would have been better for them if Harris had won. But I don’t regret refusing to vote for Harris because (a) I reject the claim that I have some ethical culpability for what the the fascists do (that’s just some ontological fuckery that I can’t straighten out in my mind, even with the benefit of a philosophy undergrad and years more of school and work figuring out all kinds of tax-law fuckery), and (b) people taking this position has created measurable pressure on the democrats to change. I guess there’s also the sneaky (c) my vote would not have counted anyway because I’m not from a swing state.
you’ve done a lot of work to justify your wrong position of doing nothing to keep the rapist pedophile fascist con man moron out of office.
bravo.
i’m sure you’re very proud of yourself. but you haven’t defended your position in the slightest, despite your “i’m an undergrad in philosophy” (fucking seriously, dude?) “authority” on the subject of how a populace should avoid authoritarianism, which is a key objective in a democracy.
don’t worry bro–i give it 50/50 whether the votes will even matter in november, and if we come out on the bottom, then the chances will be 00/100. but that’s just me. maybe the country will wake up and realize that in order to change things for the better, the only thing we can do is flush our votes down the toilet.
for fucks fucking sake. i’m glad you’re happy with yourself
wow dude…
You have done a lot of work to justify your voting to continue arming the genocide of Palestinians. And hey, if you find that convincing, have at it.
And you’re jumping through some real conceptual hoops to blame me for what Donald trump does lol I didn’t vote for him. You did vote for Harris.
Like I said, I’m a lawyer. I’m used to weird mental gymnastics. I only mention my bachelors in case your mental gymnastics require a doctorate in philosophy to understand or what? Like…walk me through how you get to my moral culpability for the actions of Donald trump, as someone who didn’t vote for him. Explain that to an idiot like me.
how’s that genocide thing going? is that fixed now, or…?
in our current situation, what are next steps? throw our votes away again?
Yeah the better version of this meme has the text, “Well at least she didn’t say anything antisemitic.”
Wow you really showed them.
I mean…actually though; their postmortem says they lost net votes due to arming the genocide.
But I’ve been told that it wasn’t enough to change the outcome? Which is it?
There’s that brunch thing again. I guess eating at 11am is horrifyingly bourgeoise, but that seems kind of dumb.
Brunch is lovely.
But I’m using brunch as a metaphor for “living a comfortable life and not worrying about the suffering inflicted with your tax dollars.”
I am responding to brynden here, but this is for anyone, especially those who believe the most moral choice in Nov 2024 was to vote third party or not at all…
Do you pay taxes to the US government? If you do, could you explain to me how not voting for Harris absolves you of moral culpability for genocide, but giving thousands of dollars every year to the Feds (who have always been controlled by a major party), who will use that money to directly fund genocide, doesn’t make you even more culpable than that single vote for Harris?
Do you all live off the grid on a barter system?
Because you don’t pay taxes voluntarily? You pay taxes under duress. If you don’t they put you in prison.
So, your ethical/moral framework is optional. Only comes into play if there are no consequences or fallout from you doing the right thing. Got it.
That’s true, that was not you. We did have a good chat and iirc you had voted for Dems up until Harris? I forget but you weren’t against voting, you just had the single issue that defined all others.
Yeah, but that’s where we are now and it’s very very bad. I disagree that change of the kind you’re looking for will come about through throwing the election to avowed fascists, but it is at least a defined position with room to move forward, which is a lot more than some of the other intransigent non-voters.
I think “throwing the election” is overstating it. Harris lost votes because she decided to continue arming a genocide. The democrats know that…if they didn’t know it before (doubt), they do now. Their position cost them votes. That’s what their post-mortem says, according to Axios anyway. So if they don’t change course, they’re choosing to have fewer votes. They really really should not risk choosing to have fewer votes.
The problem is that this way of thinking is backwards and ineffective. I don’t give a shit about rewarding Democrats with my vote; I care about securing the most favorable conditions I can. When both popular options are bad, that means picking the less bad one, even if it’s only slightly less bad; even if it’s exactly as bad by one metric, and only better on other metrics. Our votes aren’t to give them some achievement trophy, they’re to determine who will be making policy decisions.
Further, it isn’t really an effective way to force them to change. People who didn’t vote for them didn’t fill out a questionnaire to communicate why they didn’t vote for them. The only way they get that information is if it’s given to them somehow.
They have information about what will happen if they break with Israel: AIPAC will dump tons of money into opposing them. Not only will they lose the Zionist portion of their voter base, but wealthy Zionists will inundate them with attack ads to jeopardize other portions of their base.
They’re going to do calculations, based on the actual communicated data they have, to weigh the number of voters they’d lose vs. the number of voters they’d gain by withdrawing support for Israel. The data against withdrawing support for Israel is highly organized, heavily funded, and very clearly communicated. However widespread you think the movement to withdraw support is, it’s less organized, less funded, and less clearly communicated. From the perspective of DNC leadership, the calculations are clear.
If you want them to change, you need clear, organized data to show them what the change needs to be and how many people support it. You need tens of millions of signatures on a clearly worded petition. Otherwise, you’re essentially just a loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment.
I disagree with your ethical framing (to my personal moral compass, I’m less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide), but setting that aside, I guess this loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment have had an effect. The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
They know. The calculations are clearly against supporting a genocide…which should be a no brainer no matter how organized or funded the genocidiers are.
You seem to be a strict deontologist. I do not subscribe to that worldview. I find it childish and self-centered, both ineffective and rarely consistent. But putting that aside, “legitimacy” is irrelevant. It will continue with or without your personal blessing. It’s moralistic posturing with no material effect.
I don’t think that’s what it says at all. I think it may have said that it resulted in a raw loss of votes, I do not think that it reflected a net loss of votes. I think their data implies they would have lost more votes in changing positions than they would have gained. Like it or not, the propaganda is strong, and there are more low-information voters than high-information ones. Go against Israel, and you go against AIPAC. Go against AIPAC, and you’re in for a world of hurt on the political field. You’re not just losing active Zionists, you’re losing fence-sitters who are not immune to waves of attack ads.
Obviously not supporting a genocide is a no-brainer, but the majority of voters have no brain to speak of. You can’t beat organized and well-funded propaganda with the silent treatment.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/22/dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaza
What do you mean, you don’t think that’s what it says? Have you seen it? I’d love to get a copy if you’re leaking it! Do you just mean you imagine it wouldn’t say that?
I’m not a strict deontologist; I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole. The democrats and the republicans actually have power. They are the moral agent here.
In a trolley problem (since you seem like someone who might be familiar), voters are just watching from afar and wishing for the people at the switch to make one choice or the other. And that’s fine. But don’t give me shit for not wasting my time wishing.
You are very much not. Again with the “legitimizing”. There is no “legitimacy” metric in elections. Power doesn’t scale with vote count. All that matters is which side beats the other. If only one person “legitimizes” the system, and everyone else refuses to vote, the winner still has all the powers of the president. The outcome is exactly the same as if every single voter chose them.
They don’t get fewer powers for winning with only one vote, they don’t get any extra powers by winning by 100 million votes. The concept of “legitimizing” the system is a fiction that exists only in the mind of deontologists.
In the trolley problem, voters are voting on whether to pull the lever. If enough people vote to pull the lever, the lever is pulled. It’s even more clear cut than the trolley problem, because Gaza is on both tracks. You don’t even save them by not pulling the switch, you just let everyone else on that track die too. There’s no reason not to pull the switch, there is no dilemma. Inaction is objectively the wrong choice.
My goodness you’re sweet! I think you have an extremely charitable faith in your government.
Obviously if you think voters get to determine outcomes then not voting seems completely absurd! I have power I’m not using! But the reality is that the people absolutely do not have power. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” by Gilens and Page is a good starting point. Its conclusion is that there is no correlation at all between public opinion and policy. On the other hand the correlation between the economic elite’s policy preferences and the policies adopted shows up on the graph as a nice, neat upward-slanting line at 45 degrees, with a 70 percent correlation between strong elite support and policy adoption. Later studies have continued to back up this finding. It doesn’t make the press much, of course, because no one with power benefits from this getting talked about.
You are imagining the voters are a person with a lever that’s red on one side and blue on the other, with all the corresponding policy on the two tracks. I think the trolley problem analogy I described is closer to useful. There are two with power arguing over how to handle the lever (or maybe even…at the risk of complicating the trolley problem even further, levers!), and voters are far away, wishing or shouting their support for one or other of those people with power. When the democrat or republican wins, they’ll pull the levers to enact the policies they see fit to.
And yes, voting absolutely legitimizes the system, why do you think they always cite turnout statistics? What do you mean there is no legitimacy metric in elections? It’s absolutely untrue that all that matters is which side beats the other. If a population boycotts an election, that’s an expression of power and absolutely delegitimizes the results. That’s an extreme example, but it applies all the way up. The United States wants to pretend to be a democracy; it has to pretend that its people get a say in how things are done. Participating in that system absolutely legitimizes that narrative. I’m not saying you should never do it, just because it’s a lie. If the democrats changed course on palestine I’d be banging on doors for them, trying to get as many people to vote as possible, even though I know it’s a lie that they are doing it for any reason other than to help in their struggle with the other bourgeois party. That little grain of legitimacy from your little vote is not a lot, but it’s something. And frankly, if your vote isn’t going to matter anyway because you don’t live in a swing state, that grain of legitimacy is the only thing you can contribute.
This is your central flaw. It doesn’t. The winner still gets sworn in, they still choose their cabinet, they still enact their policies. Life goes on without your input.
Apathy is also participation.
They will tell you that AOC, Omar, and Mamdani aren’t really ‘Left’ because they sided with the Dems.
Purity first last and always!
Being opposition doesn’t make you left. These aren’t people that oppose capitalism they are people who want a capitalism that is easier on the domestic working class. At the expense of the imperial periphery of course, though this goes unsaid. I sort of like them but their end goal is not the destruction of capitalism.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but capitalism isn’t going anywhere in the US. You’re in a tiny echo chamber if you think that the wholesale destruction of capitalism is even a viable choice.
I don’t believe we are going to destroy capitalism. I believe capitalism is going to destroy itself (or most of the world which is kinda the same thing) and we have to prepare and alternative for when that happens. This belief does not come from online message boards it comes from reading innumerable books on political economy and history. The echo chamber is where I go to find like minded people.
You are not bursting my bubble. I have existed in yours most of my life and understand it well. I have made a choice between two world views that I have plenty of experience with and I am satisfied with that choice.
I’ve seen people say that Mamdani is a traitor because he didn’t denounce the NYPD after that snowball incident.
Ex-New York Mayor Ed Koch put it so simply.
“If you agree with me 51% of the time, vote for me. If you agree with me 100% of the time, see a psychiatrist.”
God I wish there was a US politician I agreed with 51% of the time. Just for my own sanity if nothing else.
So, Omar isn’t pure enough for you?
Bernie?
They are alright and I wouldn’t mind seeing more people like them in our government. However, we have fundamentally different goals and major disagreements on policy that aren’t exactly reconciliable. I only said it would be nice to feel somewhat represented but I am aware that’s entirely unreasonable given my political agenda stands in direct contradiction to that of the people who run this country.
deleted by creator
I actually do not know what you are talking about. The only statement I made here is that I feel unrepresented and wish it wasn’t that way. Where did you get the idea that I am politically uninvolved?
Meanwhile, American leftists: “if I don’t agree with them 100% of the time they’re not a real leftist”
actually it would be fucking nice if we could reach 50% agreement of the issues. too bad the establishment dems have more in common with republicans then their own base
Someone think of the consultants!
Not arming a genocide is not some extreme purity test.
Oh interesting, I hadn’t thought of that.
That is why you keep bringing up a single issue.
Did your abstaining help Palestine in any way, shape or form? Because Trump has made it worse than whatever Kamela would have done.
And your abstaining definitely made things worse for the rest outside of Palestine.