I don’t like Biden either, but anyone with half a brain knows there are two choices in the 2020 election. If we had a sane voting system, voting third party might be worth it, but as it stands, no one but you knows your favorite candidate exists and unless you want to become their campaign manager that will still be true in November. Even if you did, and even if you convinced two thirds of the people who would otherwise have voted for Biden to vote for your chosen candidate instead, Trump would still win because half the country voted for him and your guy only got a third. If you vote third party you might as well stay home.
Not voting isn’t going to stop the genocide in Gaza. The US will continue to funnel them arms no matter which candidate wins this November. Trump practically campaigns on how much he hates the Jews. He’ll also make life a living hell for anyone who isn’t a straight cisgender male back here at home.
A vote is not an unconditional endorsement, and “sticking it to leftists” and “refusing to support genocide” (that’s not what voting for Biden is doing, by the way – a vote for either candidate is a vote for genocide and a vote for neither is an endorsement of both) is not more important than keeping the furthest right politician America has ever seen out of office.
I hate Biden as much as every other leftist here. But I’ll still vote for him because Trump is worse. If there’s a single bone in your body that cares about the lives of your trans friends you will too.
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Yo you kids can’t behave, I will look this now, it’s Easter and I don’t want to have this burning here
Do I hate the two party system? Yes. Do I hate the fact that centrists like Joe Liberman who literally killed universal healthcare in the US are revered and embraced by Biden’s party? Yes. Do I hate the fact that Democrats are always dismissive of liberal ideas and often act like complete jackasses and can’t admit that when Obama was running there were a ton of Clinton supporters that didn’t vote for Obama in a blatant act of pure hypocrisy? Yes.
Do I fucking hate Nazis and Fascist? Fuck yes.
Hence why even if I don’t like the Democrat running, I’ll vote for them and honestly, Biden isn’t too sucktastic. Except for kyrsten sinema, she can fuck right the hell off forever.
Do I hate the fact that centrists like Joe Liberman who literally killed universal healthcare in the US are revered and embraced by Biden’s party?
Joe Biden explicitly said he would veto any legislation involving universal healthcare. You oppose universal healthcare, but you’re hiding behind the spectre of “centrists”.
Do I hate everything going on in this country? Yes. Do I still keep voting to have the same shit happen over and over? Yes.
I hate how so many critics talk about they when criticising a political party. Get involved. Run for local office, become a part of the inside of the party. How can Democrats ever represent younger leftists, when so few of the younger leftists let their voice be heard outside of anonymous forums?
Yeah lemme get like $2,000,000 so I can go run for office.
Liberals would rather blame leftists than actually fight fascism.
If you look at how many times liberals staged a coup and put a dictator in charge because a country decided to democratically elect a vaguely leftist president you start to realize they much prefer fascism to leftism. Now they’re just doing the same thing domestically.
You could say similar about our leftist history. How many countries did we instigate revolutions in to overthrow even somewhat democratic governments?
Radicals will rationalize anything including putting Trump back into office.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?
That logic doesn’t follow. We used insurgencies to overthrow leftist democracies in favor of fascism, so leftists something something?
See: Weimar Republic
Leftist here. What are you doing to “fight,” brother?
What would you recommend?
There are folks preparing for armed insurrection. I would say there are probably enough of those folks already, I’m not saying they’re wrong, just that it’s easy to think of that as a default solution and miss the much more important foundation building work.
Collective disaster preparedness is indistinguishable from preparing the logistical side of a revolution. The art of was says that for every person on the field of battle, 7 are in support.
The idea of the revolutionary with a gun is attractive, especially for those of us socialized male. But there are a lot of critical roles that are revolutionary and are not that. In a lot of ways the glorification of the militant serves the state by making the resiatence easier to kill. Focus on the things that are harder to justify killing people over and harder for feds to figure out how to disrupt. The armed part of the Panthers were used to justify the attacks, but the breakfast program is why they were a real threat.
My favorite example from the past of a revolutionary project I worked on was our local GDC’s food security committee. We started with a shared pantry for members. This allowed some members to engage in riskier things like striking because they knew they’d have food covered. Other times it just supported people through hard times. We did some guerilla gardening on some abandoned plots. I learned to forage. Eventually it grew in to a few folks regularly bringing canned food to houseless camps and providing them material support.
Houseless camps are a threat to the stability of the state. They are necessarily a lawless space which threaten the legitimacy of the state.
The biggest lesson we need to take away from the Syrian civil war is that whoever can fulfil the needs of the people becomes the regional power. The state will control resource (like food) to control people. If you can disrupt their ability to control those resources or provide alternatives, then the state has less power to leverage. Simultaneously, fascist terrorists will attack the infrastructure in order to inflict suffering and control people. In both cases, providing things like food to comrade makes resistence possible and undermines the legitimacy of an authoritarian state.
A state that cannot fulfil the needs of its people loses legitimacy. But the other pillar, aside from fulfilling needs, is the legitimacy of the infrastructure of violence. My other favorite project was an independent journalism and public records activism collective. Lucy Parsons Labs OpenOversight is a plarform for police accountability. Since police ultimately will never be held accountable, pointing this out weakens the state’s ability to leverage them without losing legitimacy with the people.
So erode the narrative of the state and build it’s replacement. If you read Che Guevara’s Guerilla Warfare or any book like that, you’ll realize that the literal fighting part is probably the smallest and least import part of a revolution. The fate of the revolution is decided long before anyone picks up a gun.
So go talk to your neighbors, find out what they need. Organize with comrades. Join food not bombs. Push local disaster prep groups to support houseless camps, since it’s also indistinguishable from supporting people after a major natural disaster. If you do all the legal and easily justifiable things then if a fed infiltrates your group they just end up doing a lot of work without being able to disrupt anything.
Finally, go read as much as you can about the Rojava. Learn about Libertarian Communalism and think about how that translates to the US context.
To do any of this you need to organize. Start a book club or join one. Join FNB. Find other people. Talk to your neighbors. You would be amazed how many normal people actually want radical change. I’ve talked to liberals who are really radicals who haven’t figured out how to make it actually work. Don’t discount normal folks, because revolution is impossible without their involvement.
Edit: a note on foraging, one of the critical things for a revolutionary guerilla force is soap. Most US cities have abundant horse chestnuts (buckeyes or conkers). These are natural soap and can be used for laundry detergent, hand soap, or body soap. To anyone in an urban area, you’re welcome.
They recommend nothing at all.
Remember comrades,
-Direct action (strike, strike, strike, preferably imo, and hold ur surplus value hostage)
-Mutual aid
-Voting to ensure you can pursue the first 2 with minimal govt interference
All are acceptable avenues. All are necessary. None are mutually exclusive.
Stop pretending to be a radical leftist when you support genocide: https://midwest.social/comment/8554707
“Support genocide” in this case means not abandoning a 70 year ally when our other allies are already worried we are fickle and support or dont support them based on whos in charge every 4 years.
Also, trump appointed 3 supreme court justices, who will be there FOR LIFE.
Assassinate'em, you say?No, just kidding.
I’m just someone watching from Europe, getting a little concerned 😔
I hope the closer we get to the election the miss obvious this becomes to everybody.
I’m voting for a third party instead of the slightly less evil fascist. I recommend y’all do as well. Dr. West and Claudia La Cruz are good options.
If you’re not in a swing state I recommend you do the same.
That’s your right. You aren’t even required to understand that the consequences of your actions are that you’re making it easier for a guy who said he wants to be a Dictator, a guy who said he “wants to finish the problem” with regards to Palestinian genocide, a guy who has probably just been outright purchased by a conglomerate of foreign influence.
You’re giving that guy a helping hand.
And that’s your right.
Biden and his foolish decisions are giving that guy a helping hand. Try telling Biden to stop being a fucking moron if he wants to win the election.
f there’s a single bone in your body that cares about the lives of your trans friends you will too.
Hey hi, it’s me, your trans friend. And you need to put this energy towards protesting Biden instead of leftists. I honestly feel like you are low key getting trolled and missing the point?
Like, seriously, we all know “shithole countries” Trump would be worse on every single issue, including and especially Gaza. But it’s six months till the election, PLENTLY of time for a course change by Biden. Absolutely a second Trump term scares the 💩 out of me. So i appreciate where you are coming from, but until it’s November, I think pressing Dems and trusting leftists to do whats right day of is the most good y’all can do.
trusting leftists to do whats right
i can’t trust leftists because leftists are stupid. look how they lost italy, the leftists splintered and refused to work together because of petty shit which allowed the right including literal fascists to take over the government. this is the same type of dumb stuff that happens everywhere with leftists, because of their “holier than thou” attitude.
i will not leave the election’s outcome in the leftists’ hands because they always fuck it up when that’s the case. they always refuse to cooperate with the enemies of their enemy because they don’t see them as left enough, despite it being the only option to not have their long-term goals permanently blocked off, and the country always devolves into diet fascism afterwards. it has lost us many nations throughout history, so no thanks.
This is actually straight up revisionism, it was the Liberals who sided with fascists, rather than working with Leftists to stop the fascists, that directly allowed for Hitler and Mussolini to come to power.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the Liberals” but I’m not referring to pre-WW2. I’m referring to right now. The current state of Italy. The one where leftists had the government, and then completely screwed up in the face of a rising right-wing threat because they decided they don’t agree with some of the things the other leftists were doing.
Ah, fair. I am not as familiar with modern Italy, but it sounds like refusing to work together is a two-way street, though I would love to see an example of what you’re specifically referring to.
The easiest (although not best) example for Italy is the PM. The previous center-left politicians in office were by no means perfect PMs, but the left’s infighting and the ensuing breakup of the coalition of various left and center-left parties caused Draghi to resign, and the next (and current) PM is Giorgia Meloni who is an actual fascist who has on multiple occasions reminisced of the good old days with Mussolini in charge and a good economy. Nowadays with hindsight people miss the preceding leftist PMs and think they were actually pretty good after all, but it’s too late for that. The country has already started a tumble towards the right and it’d be extremely hard to get it out, especially considering that the left still is refusing to work together.
There were other factors, such as the left in Italy generally tending anti-Ukraine and the population’s concerns about immigration, as well as the right focusing a lot on anti-LGBTQ rhetoric/paranoia (Italy is a very catholic nation so this was an effective strategy), but the most important factor and the ultimate killing blow was the left breaking apart.
There’s definitely a lot more to it, than that. I’d have to research more, because historically it’s always the Liberals who refuse to work with Leftists against fascists.
Just like now with a bunch if liberals filling up my feed with vote blue no matter who bullshit.
Benjamin Netanyahu himself could be running as the democratic nominee and they’d tell me he’s better than trump.
He isn’t. Netanyahu and trump are two peas in a pod.
Buddy, friend, gamer. It’s march. Can you bring this out in six months? There is no reason to fill everyone’s feed up like this and sow political division on the left over seven months before it’s relevant.
Plus, the pressure looks like it’s working, so a vote for Biden might be a lot more palatable then. A lot of your work might get done automatically
No.
Why are you trying to pressure people to vote for the guy facilitating genocide, instead of for Biden to stop facilitating genocide?
The only explanations I can come up with are either that you support what he is doing, or on some level, you understand we have no influence on policy and so trying to get Biden to do things that will get people to vote for him is a waste of time.
This same shit happened when Obama did fuckall about Bush’s policies and endlessly compromised. Of course, the voters were blamed when Obama lost the house and senate, and in 2016 too.
OP explicitly states a vote for Biden isnt a vote for genocide.
Regardless, Trump would be an absolute nightmare for the Palestinians…so your argument is not in good faith and just want to invoice emotional responses.
OP recognizes the system there is right now in the US is badly flawed, but since nobody did shit about fixing it these last 4 years you have a choice of pinching your nose and swallowing bad medicine or never have a voice again.
Well in that case, I’m explicitly stating that a vote for Biden is a vote for a dog taking a crap right in your mouth…
That’s not how it works, if you vote for the guy doing a genocide, you are voting for genocide.
I am highly doubtful trump would be worse. All his rhetoric is about ending the conflict, and he was significantly more peaceful than every other president dating back to Reagan at least. He got us out of Afghanistan and didn’t start a new war, unlike every other president since Reagan.
Israel is already getting all they want from the US, you really can’t call a side participating in ethnic cleansing a lesser evil, we’re already at 100% evil.
But this misses the point, to even be posting this shows that you have no hope that Biden will stop the genocide. If you expected the democrats to listen to the people whose votes they need, you’d be telling us he’s gonna do the thing we all want and stop the genocide any day now, and begging the dems to not fuck this up.
a vote for either candidate is a vote for genocide
Demanding people vote for genocide as a lesser of two evils is where we are at now.
As I see it, the genocide is not up for a vote since neither candidate will stop it. It’s the other issues that are up for vote.
They’ve decided to do genocide regardless of what the voters want.
They’ve decided to do genocide regardless of what the voters want.
That may be what they decided, but that is never an argument against fighting genocide. There is still a window of opportunity for that course to change, and the dire nature of this election is a part of it.
Remember Biden isn’t actually the one doing the genocide. That’s Netanyahu and the other Israeli politicians. Let’s not delete their blame by including Biden who has been putting in /some/ effort to stop it (not enough imo, but undeniably some). And remember that even if he stopped weapons shipments the day of the invasion, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome at all.
He’s completely enabling it. The UN would have already stepped in if we weren’t blocking anything above saying the words, “Please Stop.”
The criminal justice system recognizes this. It charges the driver, the lookout, and the trigger puller with Felony Murder.
The fuck you mean the UN would have “stepped in”?
Like you think the UN is going to send troops to stop Isreal??? Or you think that Israel will decide its going to comply with a resolution for the first time?
The criminal justice system recognizes this. It charges the driver, the lookout, and the trigger puller with Felony Murder.
Apples to orsnges. Do gun shop owners get charged with murder for selling guns to people who use them to commit murder? No ofc course not.
I’m talking specifically about him blocking action by the UN. And yes, Israel is not special. If they ignore a binding resolution to stop then the UN will deploy.
Oh and yes, states do charge gun shop clerks if they knowingly sell a gun to be used in a crime or knowingly make an illegal sale, such as the Leahy Law the administration is taking great pains to ignore.
The UN can’t “step in” regardless, plus we let the cease fire resolution pass this time so if they could step in we’re not blocking it.
We let a non-binding resolution pass. The UN is absolutely capable of stepping in, from the Korean War to the Ivory Coast. There’s even movies about it.
Remember Charles Manson wasnt the one that actually did any killings, therefore he must be innocent. Biden is providing the money and weapons to kill, therefore he is responsible, and has done nothing to stop it.
Israel has always been days or weeks away from running out of ammunition and bombs. If shipments stop the bombings would stop. They’ve reupped and reupped and Biden even bypassed Congress to continue supplying bombs.
Either vote for harm reduction or watch as the former president implements a final solution.
How is genocide harm reduction? Is Trump gonna genocide harder or something?
Is Trump gonna genocide harder or something?
I mean… yes… yes he would definitely support escalation of the killings. He has stated he thinks they aren’t going far enough so trump would 100% just encourage full genocide openly
Biden is at least turning on this issue, though obviously it’s way too little and too late… but he is at least reachable and is now saying there needs to be a ceasefire.
Is biden doing enough? Fuck no.
Should he step down and let other dems run? I think yes… I would feel so much better if we had a candidate who hasn’t been supporting this for as long as biden has.
But would trump be worse on this issues? Absolutely things can get so much worse…
Biden isnt turning on anything, the same day his UN reps proposed the fake ceasefire he supplied more money and bombs.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but as of now what other choice is there?
Think about it for a moment: people are opposing a genocide. Do you think if Biden called for a ceasefire or ended his support for a genocidal regime it would cost him votes?
People sure acting like that is the case the way people are opposing genocide as a valid electoral issue.
So shit, right now?: Bully the everloving fuck out of Biden and anyone supporting the genocide Israel is conducting in Gaza. Fuck them and their genocide. Make it an electoral issue. See what influence can be made between now and voting day, like a properly engaged member of a political system.
If Biden ceased supporting israel, our remaining allies would be all the more disillusioned with our fickle ass nature and our soft powers would plummet.
Guarantee you, if we had a president Sanders, 70 senators would be tripping over themselves to pass Israeli aid and overturning any of his executive orders while calling him an antisemite.
Anyone who doesn’t vote immediately loses the right to complain for the next 4 years.
Don’t like it? Should’ve done your duty and put in a vote.
Fuck you, fence sitters
If you actually care about trump, actually fear what he will do, maybe you should do everything you can to push for policy that will get the fence sitters to show the fuck up, rather than insulting them.
Voting does not wash your hands of responsibility for actively pushing away the people you need voting with you.
Are the fence sitters in the room with us now?
Ok I’ll be voting 3rd party.
Ok, I’ll blame you as well if Trump wins
I’ll blame Biden for refusing to make material compromises with leftists and progressives in order to get the votes he needs.
I’ll blame you when the nazis legislate me and my brethren out of existence. You could have helped to stop this, but instead you decided to sit by and throw a tantrum like a fucking child.
You could help stop this by fighting Biden instead of fighting me.
you guys just dont want to get it do you?
i dont care about making you feel better with your right wing democrat. go actually do something about trump if you care so much.
This will be the most important election in the history of the united states. You have two choices, Dictator, or Democracy. A no vote is a vote AGAINST Democracy.
Every fucking election in my lifetime has been “the most important in history”
You all have cried wolf too many times. If you get eaten, it’s liberals fault.
If it’s so important then why isn’t Biden doing everything he can to compromise with leftists and progressives? Dude should be standing at a podium begging us like “Please! I’m sorry I blocked the rail strike I won’t do it again. Federal workers can continue working remotely. I won’t raise the defense budget again. I will fight to block weapon shipments to Israel. Please help me.”
Or is this democracy not worth that to him?
Lol, troll.
I’m really not. The fact that it’s a legitimate question under these circumstances shows just how pathetic this whole situation is. As Jon Stewart said, if the enemy is at the gates why isn’t Biden taking it seriously?
I hear this every single election.
Dems - “democracy is at stake! THIS IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN YOUR LIFE”
Me - *Holds nose and votes for the lesser evil"
Dems - “thanks guys that was close” Proceeds to sit around with a thumb in their collective asshole for 4 years.
…
Dems - “Democracy is at stake! REALLY guys - THIS is the most important election ever!”
It’s fucking exhausting. If the Dems really wanted people to come out and vote, they would spend less time begging for our votes, and more time representing our collective interests.
I hear this every single election.
-
Because as we move into the future with a larger population and worse environmental destruction, the stakes become greater.
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Because we’ve been on the verge of losing our democracy for a couple decades now. I’m almost 50, we’ve been on the verge since the presidency was taken from Al Gore. It was not this way before that in my lifetime.
You think one election is going to take a nation on the brink to being in safe harbors? This is a battle for democracy that occurs over multiple elections, why is that so hard to understand? You can only repeat what your friends say?
Biden refused to face fascism head on during his entire term. Instead he decided to focus entirely on pleasing moderates and liberals and burning progressives and leftists at every opportunity. This is Biden’s fault.
Ya, so to punish Biden lets allow an actual fascist to take power and live under that for the rest of our lives. Genius.
If you focused all this energy you’re using to fight your fellow working class Americans against pro-corporate trash candidates and the people who vote for them we’d be in a much better position right now.
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You’d think if they really believed their own bs that democracy was at stake, they would do everything to court votes in swing states, such as, idk, the enormous Arab population in Michigan? Biden clearly prioritizes dead Gazan babies over “democracy.”
I hear this every single election.
Yeah, weird, it’s almost like we’ve been on a slow march towards fascism for decades and as republicans get more and more radicalised they vote for worse and worse candidates as their nominee every election… or something.
we’ve been on a slow march towards fascism for decades
Yes. Including the last three years. See the problem?
Yes?? Idk what point you’re trying to make here.
Procorporate Democrats like Biden cannot save us from fascism.
Lmao typical DNC advertisement regurgitation. This election is not ‘the most important election in history’.
Third party of bust
You may as well be saying “MAGA or bust”.
How do you expect Trump to do as President if he wins?
You realize Trump is just the tip of the iceberg right? It’s not like once he no longer runs the MAGA crowd will disappear. What’s your plan for addressing it? Because we held our noses and elected Biden in 2020 and all he’s done is fucked around for 3 years.
Oooh no you don’t. You can’t do the shitty Manager thing and try to toss this back at me. Answer your own question.
We’ve had lots of plans, there were lots of good candidates in the 2020 primaries. They were all rejected by moderates and liberals. We had the BBB, it was rejected by moderates and liberals. We had the rail strike, it was rejected by moderates and liberals. We have proposed lots of plans. They have all been rejected. The onus is not on us to continue providing plans. Moderates and liberals need our votes to win. They don’t like our plans but refuse to provide any viable plans of their own.
I’m done making plans. If moderate and liberals want my vote they need to demonstrate it. If Biden wants my vote he needs to demonstrate it. Compromise with us or lose to MAGA. Make a choice.
Election of 1860: am i joke to u?
There won’t be another election if tRump wins. Komrad
Does Biden know that?
People need to understand that it’s possible to vote against genocide.
No, it doesn’t matter that he’s an active participant in the apparatus that’s creating the genocide, because if he’s in office there’s less genocide. Which is the important part, and pretending otherwise is sophistry. If you abstain from voting, you are increasing the likelihood of more genocide and if you discourage others from voting, you are an active participant in the overall social apparatus that is probabilistically increasing the amount of genocide.
The utility calculation is dead simple: more votes for Biden in key states makes more genocide less likely, and discouraging people from voting for Biden makes more genocide more likely. Therefore, discouraging people from voting for Biden is a pro-genocide strategy and voting for Biden in battleground states is an anti-genocide strategy. I live in a solid blue state, so I reserve the right to vote third party, but I will also encourage other people to vote for Biden.
You should vote for Biden unless you live in a solid blue state, and even then it’s not a bad idea.
Edit: grammar correction
The endgame of your utility calculation is genocidal. 30 years from now, I suspect you’ll still be blasting this “vote blue no matter who” nonsense when the choice is between a dem supporting 5 genocides and a repub supporting 10 genocides. You’ve been anchor biased hard as fuck.
What’s your plan that makes the endgame not genocidal? Remember to make it fit reality.
You say “make it fit reality”, but why do I feel like what you really mean is “make sure it does not at all challenge US hegemony”.
If your ecocidal political project whose institutions were devised a blink ago by 30 year old slavers starts going genocidal, your project has lost the right to exist. To put it plainly, I think we all have a duty to start thinking about what dismantling the genocidal US empire would look like: reading marx, getting armed, building networks, embracing anti-capitalism, and preparing for this country’s undeniably inevitable backslide into fascism.
Let’s suppose there are going to be genocides, what’s better, 5 or 10?
Thank you for defining anchor bias in such a succinct comment.
