If the “online lefties” were so powerful a block perhaps Dem’s leadership should have courted their vote. If they were so minor a block that “online lefties” should be ignored then you’re targeting the wrong people.
But you know this already, I told you before the election that way to win the “no genocide” vote isn’t to try convince them to vote “yes genocide”. It’s to try convince the leaders to stop supporting genocide.
This post is the same punching down shit you were doing before the election.
I’m a trans person. Do not use my people’s name to justify genocide. All the trans people I know were extremely wary of supporting Harris. Palestinians are an unpopular minority group, just like trans people are. If corporate Democrats are willing to throw Palestinians onto the pyre, they would be willing to do so for trans people as well. This was obvious to every trans person I know who was politically active. And now, as anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have predicted, corporate Dems like Newsom are throwing trans people onto the pyre right on schedule.
Again, those willing to let one minority group burn are extremely likely to do so to another group. That’s the whole fucking point of the “first they came for…” poem.
You’ll find trans people in the post. What are THEY saying.
I don’t know how to get comment links, else I would do the work for you.
But to answer your question. I don’t think Pug is punching at me at all, I’m not American. I also don’t think trans people are punching at me much either, I’ve read their comments.
It appears you misunderstood my comment. Punching down was referring to people not in power to change the dem platform. Punchin up was referring to people in power to change the dem platform. Which way is Pug punching in this post?
I answered the question posed to me. In order to make this a DIscourse and not the morally superior MONOlogue it always seems to be please answer mine.
I couldn’t get through to you last time. Perhaps we can have a more productive discussion this time.
In the vain of good faith though: how is centrist democrat policy changed? A mega donor asks Kamala to support fracking and she does.
In the vain of good faith though: how is centrist democrat policy changed? A mega donor asks Kamala to support fracking and she does.
First, the Dem platform in 2024 was still the most left platform in my lifetime. Is that damnation by faint praise? … yeah. But we also work with what we’ve got, and acknowledging that the Dems have become more left since the Clinton years, and even since the Obama years, is an important note to make.
Second, Harris was, unfortunately, always an opportunist ghoul. A lot of fuckery led up to her nomination, most of it the fault of Joe Biden running despite decreasing medical fitness for office (while accusations of dementia were passed around, the simple, natural slowing of the mind with age is more likely - and not really less damning, considering a president must be at the top of their fucking game considering they’re the top official of an entire nation of hundreds of millions of people) and then dropping out (the correct choice, but again, only necessary because of the unwise decision to run again in the first place, while an incumbent).
Third, the way you change centrist Dem policy is by showing up to primaries, nominating progressive candidates and then getting them elected in the general. The DNC is made up of former and current party officials, not randos picked from the Country Club. They are there because they’ve demonstrated an ability to get elected and re-elected at some point in their careers - they are there because we, the voters, put them there. And while you can talk a lot about how moderates and conservative Dems shape the narrative, ultimately, the fault is on us, the voters, or at least the ones voting for centrist ghouls every fucking primary, for not kicking their wretched asses out.
You want Dem policy to change? So do fucking I. Elect, and convince others to elect, progressives in the primaries, and then back them to hilt in the general regardless of whether there’s a sudden change of heart regarding the ‘purity’ of the candidate by some of your radical circles. We need to move the country left, and “It’s not left enough!” may be a legitimate concern, but not when the alternative is “So let’s move it right”.
When Republicans are elected every fucking general election, the message overwhelmingly given to the Dems is either “Go right” or “Fuck, the country isn’t ready for more progressive policy”, depending on whether they’re (respectively) centrist ghouls or left-leaning.
Helping this matter would be ranked-choice voting. If there are any measures in your area, please, support them - there’s been limited success in this country for ranked-choice as interest in the idea has increased - including the Dem primary that saw Mamdani (MAY HIS ENEMIES BE DESTROYED) nominated. It will help many on the fence in primaries make a more progressive choice by reducing the fear of right-wing candidates eking out over moderate candidates.
Ok, again, I mostly agree. Except Dems did go right this election. They had Republicans advocating for them. They lost. The most damning thing an election campaign can experience is losing. Dems may learn from that courting republican votes lose them elections. Their bank accounts will suggest they do the same thing again.
Secondly, I don’t see the “no genocide” vote being a left Vs right issue. There’s plenty of genocides to go around lefties like myself can “no true Scotsman” but history is riddled with genocides.
I don’t know how much I can tell you this, or how I can get it through to you. Blame the Leaders. We don’t blame Steve from the factory floor for Boeing’s doors falling off.
We know how people actually play the “ultimatum game” and it isn’t how game theory says they should. You have to give them enough for them to accept your offer. Offering a penny out of £100 makes them reject your offer even though you’d both be the better for it. That’s the world we live in.
Except Dems did go right this election. They had Republicans advocating for them.
Other than on trans issues, which they became suddenly very quiet about, and much more muted language on police brutality, which polls, unfortunately, turned largely against even from African-Americans after 2020 (copaganda runs strong in this fucking country), Dems largely did not move right from 2020 - the 2024 party platform includes stronger positions on climate change, environmental issues, and wealth redistribution.
Now, courting the right by trying to go for the whole “Country over party” aesthetic was absolutely idiotic and alienating - but it was largely not coupled with major policy changes.
Secondly, I don’t see the “no genocide” vote being a left Vs right issue. There’s plenty of genocides to go around lefties like myself can “no true Scotsman” but history is riddled with genocides.
In the US, the right-wing is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian genocide, and centrists are overwhelmingly neutral on the matter of Palestinian genocide due to the massive and effective propaganda campaigns run by Israel and Israeli proxies to portray it as some, deep, complex issue and the IDF as “The most moral army in the world” (blech).
The no-Gaza-genocide vote was overwhelmingly left-wing. Or, rather, liberal and left. The point is that it was not evenly distributed across the political spectrum on the justification that genocide is generally viewed as bad; it was overwhelmingly concentrated on the more left leaning end of the spectrum on the justification that right-wing and centrist types tend to be sympathetic to Israel or hostile to Palestine.
I don’t know how much I can tell you this, or how I can get it through to you. Blame the Leaders. We don’t blame Steve from the factory floor for Boeing’s doors falling off.
Steve isn’t voting for safety and QA reductions in this scenario, though. We live (or lived) in a democracy, however flawed it may have been. We, the voters, were voting for safety and QA reductions.
The leaders are absolutely to blame. Every individual member of the DNC bears significantly more blame than any individual voter.
But that still doesn’t absolve voters of responsibility.
When the Nazis invaded Poland, the chief culprits were the ones giving the orders and making the plans - but the rank-and-file soldiers were also still guilty - and so were those who had quietly went along with the Nazi regime because opposing the Nazis was too much trouble.
That there are different levels of guilt does not absolve the least guilty of still being guilty.
We know how people actually play the “ultimatum game” and it isn’t how game theory says they should. You have to give them enough for them to accept your offer. Offering a penny out of £100 makes them reject your offer even though you’d both be the better for it. That’s the world we live in.
“Dems need to give more than an ultimatum” and “When push comes to shove, you have to make the less-bad choice” are not mutually exclusive options. At the infinite encouragement of purity politics, only an exact match with the voter’s desires would be ‘earning’ their vote - all else would be, legitimately, an ‘ultimatum’ forcing the voter to choose between compromise or giving up entirely. While “They disagree with one issue of mine, I can’t vote!” is a extreme example (though, unfortunately, one that does crop up), the principle that disagreement with the less-bad option should be grounds for rejection when the opposition is something as serious as literal fucking Nazis should be emphasized to be insufficient in scale of offense to be a moral reaction.
The abstainers were offered 10$ out of a million - a legitimate travesty and ghoulish behavior from the Dem party - and the abstainers chose to murder minorities instead - a much worse travesty. It’s not even something as ‘mild’ as “We both fail to gain” - my life may very well be forfeit these coming years - and the issue that many of these voters abstained on - Gaza - is set to become, and the opposition openly campaigned on making, significant worse and more murderous. And that’s an… already gruesome scenario. That’s not even getting into all the other factors that we will be suffering from under a Nazi regime.
As for blame. I agree that all involved share blame. And you, what culpabilty do you accept? (I’ve tried to word this civilly, it just doesn’t read as anything other than hostile, it isn’t meant as such, take the following as the bad orator that I am). Someone deriding purity politics wouldn’t suggest they’re pure in the situation. (Again, not intending to be a dick… I just can’t figure out a better way, seems like something to put into an llm and get it reworded… I dunno)
I’m suggesting the culpabilty you accept (I suggested at the time and now) was getting angry at the vegans, constantly hate posting against them instead of pushing leadership to plan with, for, or around them. In effect, I’m pointing out you punched down, not up. The vegans have less power than the animal rights group leaders, if you can’t make the leaders close the puppy farms, at least make them stop supporting puppy farms.
You can’t force voters to take blame for something they don’t want to (look what a bear of a time I’m having with you). Certainly not with memes. It takes an involved, and I hope like this one, empathetic conversation to do that. That’s just people… They don’t play the ultimatum game the way the game theorists said they should, that’s just people. some people have hard lines and genocide isn’t an unreasonable one, that’s just people.
If the “online lefties” were so powerful a block perhaps Dem’s leadership should have courted their vote. If they were so minor a block that “online lefties” should be ignored then you’re targeting the wrong people.
God, if I hear this mathematically illiterate argument one more fucking time, I’m going to fucking blow.
Elections in the US are won and lost on 1 or 2 percentage points.
Tell me this - if leftists make up, say, 3% of the Dem vote, and anti-leftists make up 10% of the Dem vote, is it viable to court leftists at the expense of losing anti-leftists?
If leftists are willing to let literal fucking Nazis win because they haven’t been courted, instead of putting the groundwork in to change the demographic leanings of the Dem party, they can go fuck themselves, because that makes them fucking Nazi enablers, and not much better than the Nazis themselves.
Dems were willing to let Nazis in. Dems wern’t willing to deal with the Nazis when they had the chance. Now Dems are willing to vote with the nazis. Punch UP not DOWN. We blame leadership in all things except politics it seems.
The leadership of the Dem party is absolutely guilty, and most people here, on Lemmy, recognize that.
The problem is that voters (and, especially, non voters) are also guilty, and many on Lemmy refuse to recognize that.
Man, in a just world, probably almost every high-ranking member of the DNC would deserve a noose. But we also fight with the tools we have, and we elected the tools (ha) in the DNC. Have a problem with those tools? I do too. Let’s get rid of them next primary (please, for fuck’s sake, please). But when it’s them or the literal Nazis, you gotta go with the tools.
Idiotic tools who do the bare minimum are preferable to literal Nazi genocide, man.
I mostly agree. Fight with the tools you have but this now, as I told you back then, isn’t the tool you’re looking for. Sowing devision keeps us divided.
On this occasion the ‘no genocide’ people happen to be right. Imagine an animal rights group that constantly and perpetually hate-posted about vegans.
Punching DOWN isn’t the correct tool. Punching UP might be.
But is it sowing division to point out that dividing the vote is, itself, divisive, and has very real and serious consequences?
Is it not divisive to encourage and normalize non-voting even when faced with literal Nazis running because of insufficient policy on the part of the only serious opposition candidate?
Imagine an animal rights group who campaigned against a ballot initiative to stop puppy farms - because it didn’t also stop factory farms, ultimately failing by a measly 1% of the vote? Would it not be realistic and reasonable for people in that animal rights group to be pissed that puppy farms were perpetuated, at no gain to any animals, because a section of the animal rights group wanted a more radical option - a legitimate desire, but one which led to actions which worsened the situation instead of helping it?
Not really. In this analogy I know this group exists and plan for, with, or around them. If vegans found an activist group that better aligned with their goals why would I be surprised or upset they went to that one?
None of this is surprising, or at least it shouldn’t be. We know how people actually behave.
Furthermore in this analogy the animal rights group isn’t campaigning to stop puppy farms, they’re campaigning for puppy farms. Of course people that care about animal rights didn’t support them.
Not really. In this analogy I know this group exists and plan for, with, or around them. If vegans found an activist group that better aligned with their goals why would I be surprised or upset they went to that one?
If that activist group then campaigns against the “imperfect” initiative, sinking it by 1% point, why wouldn’t you be upset at them? “It’s just politics, it’s just their point of view” isn’t a particularly left outlook, it’s… well, very ‘moderate suburban liberal’. Politics are often a matter of life and death - in the most literal sense. Being upset is pretty low on the totem poll for intensity-of-reaction with that in mind.
None of this is surprising, or at least it shouldn’t be. We know how people actually behave.
Not being surprised that some people are self-defeating and being upset that people are self-defeating and that other, ostensible allies are defending them for being self-defeating and encouraging them to continue being so are two different things.
I’m not surprised, for example, that bootlickers vote for Trump, or that there are millions of bootlickers in this fucking country. But I am upset about it. I’m not surprised that there are a significant minority of leftists who prefer purity politics to averting and reducing genocide. But I am upset - and I don’t think that normalizing it in the communities I frequent is something that I should stand by and be quiet about.
Further more in this analogy the animal rights group isn’t campaigning to stop puppy farms, they’re campaigning for puppy farms. Of course people that care about animal rights didn’t support them.
Campaigning for regulation of puppy farms, let’s say, since the Dems were quite clearly not anti-Israel, but had clearly shifted to a less pro-Israel position, especially after Biden dropped out.
In that view - when faced between making puppy farms less horrific or letting them continue as usual - or even making them worse - why should I not be upset that an ostensibly anti animal suffering group opted to let suffering continue or intensify instead of stopping it out of some bizarre sense of purity.
Why would you, a hypothetical animal rights activist, blame vegans and not the animal rights group for being shit.
“It’s just politics” is literally the argument of vote blue no matter who:that’s just what you have to do in politics. Sure they’re imperfect, technically true but not how I’d describe someone pro genocide, but you gotta vote for them.
“Don’t look at me, I’m pure, I voted democrat in the general” Purity politics is a meaningless term, vegans aren’t purity politicking (politicing sp?)any more or less than you are, they have a moral outlook and they act on it same as you. Voting republican is abhorrent, voting dem is self defeating (I hope we agree voting pro-genocide is self defeating to an anti-genocise outlook) so what’s a sucker left to do? Not vote, vote something else, bring out the guillotines… It’s all a bit shit, and to get angry at them for it is ludicrous.
Dem leadership made the vote what it was. Dem leadership ignored how people actually play the “ultimatum game”. Dem leadership is who you should be hate posting about.
I, an omnivore, don’t get annoyed at vegans posting about how cruel the meat industry is, because they’re right. I do get annoyed at how cruel the meat industry is as I’m supporting them though. I punch up at those in power, not down.
Yep. And if both the moral abstainers and the third party protest voters all would have voted for Kamala, we would still have Trump as President because the numbers of those people are so small.
Y’all are blaming the people who care the most, when you should be blaming the billionaires.
that’s a stretch. Trump will deport people who disagree with him about fucking kids so you should be driving a stake through his heart by now instead of some random person you decided to hate because democrats are fascists too.
Because for a large number of people, they effectively do not live in a democracy. We’ve known for a long time that the opinions of the poorest 90% of the US population are completely irrelevant to national politics. Millions don’t vote because they rationally realize that their votes are meaningless.
If the “online lefties” were so powerful a block perhaps Dem’s leadership should have courted their vote. If they were so minor a block that “online lefties” should be ignored then you’re targeting the wrong people.
But you know this already, I told you before the election that way to win the “no genocide” vote isn’t to try convince them to vote “yes genocide”. It’s to try convince the leaders to stop supporting genocide.
This post is the same punching down shit you were doing before the election.
You really think trans people are punching down at you for wanting to evade their own genocide?
I’m a trans person. Do not use my people’s name to justify genocide. All the trans people I know were extremely wary of supporting Harris. Palestinians are an unpopular minority group, just like trans people are. If corporate Democrats are willing to throw Palestinians onto the pyre, they would be willing to do so for trans people as well. This was obvious to every trans person I know who was politically active. And now, as anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have predicted, corporate Dems like Newsom are throwing trans people onto the pyre right on schedule.
Again, those willing to let one minority group burn are extremely likely to do so to another group. That’s the whole fucking point of the “first they came for…” poem.
You’ll find trans people in the post. What are THEY saying.
I don’t know how to get comment links, else I would do the work for you.
But to answer your question. I don’t think Pug is punching at me at all, I’m not American. I also don’t think trans people are punching at me much either, I’ve read their comments.
It appears you misunderstood my comment. Punching down was referring to people not in power to change the dem platform. Punchin up was referring to people in power to change the dem platform. Which way is Pug punching in this post?
How do you think the Dem platform changes
PROTIP: It’s not by voters abstaining
I answered the question posed to me. In order to make this a DIscourse and not the morally superior MONOlogue it always seems to be please answer mine.
I couldn’t get through to you last time. Perhaps we can have a more productive discussion this time.
In the vain of good faith though: how is centrist democrat policy changed? A mega donor asks Kamala to support fracking and she does.
First, the Dem platform in 2024 was still the most left platform in my lifetime. Is that damnation by faint praise? … yeah. But we also work with what we’ve got, and acknowledging that the Dems have become more left since the Clinton years, and even since the Obama years, is an important note to make.
Second, Harris was, unfortunately, always an opportunist ghoul. A lot of fuckery led up to her nomination, most of it the fault of Joe Biden running despite decreasing medical fitness for office (while accusations of dementia were passed around, the simple, natural slowing of the mind with age is more likely - and not really less damning, considering a president must be at the top of their fucking game considering they’re the top official of an entire nation of hundreds of millions of people) and then dropping out (the correct choice, but again, only necessary because of the unwise decision to run again in the first place, while an incumbent).
Third, the way you change centrist Dem policy is by showing up to primaries, nominating progressive candidates and then getting them elected in the general. The DNC is made up of former and current party officials, not randos picked from the Country Club. They are there because they’ve demonstrated an ability to get elected and re-elected at some point in their careers - they are there because we, the voters, put them there. And while you can talk a lot about how moderates and conservative Dems shape the narrative, ultimately, the fault is on us, the voters, or at least the ones voting for centrist ghouls every fucking primary, for not kicking their wretched asses out.
You want Dem policy to change? So do fucking I. Elect, and convince others to elect, progressives in the primaries, and then back them to hilt in the general regardless of whether there’s a sudden change of heart regarding the ‘purity’ of the candidate by some of your radical circles. We need to move the country left, and “It’s not left enough!” may be a legitimate concern, but not when the alternative is “So let’s move it right”.
When Republicans are elected every fucking general election, the message overwhelmingly given to the Dems is either “Go right” or “Fuck, the country isn’t ready for more progressive policy”, depending on whether they’re (respectively) centrist ghouls or left-leaning.
Helping this matter would be ranked-choice voting. If there are any measures in your area, please, support them - there’s been limited success in this country for ranked-choice as interest in the idea has increased - including the Dem primary that saw Mamdani (MAY HIS ENEMIES BE DESTROYED) nominated. It will help many on the fence in primaries make a more progressive choice by reducing the fear of right-wing candidates eking out over moderate candidates.
voting for Democrats doesn’t prevent fascism
Ok, again, I mostly agree. Except Dems did go right this election. They had Republicans advocating for them. They lost. The most damning thing an election campaign can experience is losing. Dems may learn from that courting republican votes lose them elections. Their bank accounts will suggest they do the same thing again.
Secondly, I don’t see the “no genocide” vote being a left Vs right issue. There’s plenty of genocides to go around lefties like myself can “no true Scotsman” but history is riddled with genocides.
I don’t know how much I can tell you this, or how I can get it through to you. Blame the Leaders. We don’t blame Steve from the factory floor for Boeing’s doors falling off.
We know how people actually play the “ultimatum game” and it isn’t how game theory says they should. You have to give them enough for them to accept your offer. Offering a penny out of £100 makes them reject your offer even though you’d both be the better for it. That’s the world we live in.
Other than on trans issues, which they became suddenly very quiet about, and much more muted language on police brutality, which polls, unfortunately, turned largely against even from African-Americans after 2020 (copaganda runs strong in this fucking country), Dems largely did not move right from 2020 - the 2024 party platform includes stronger positions on climate change, environmental issues, and wealth redistribution.
Now, courting the right by trying to go for the whole “Country over party” aesthetic was absolutely idiotic and alienating - but it was largely not coupled with major policy changes.
In the US, the right-wing is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian genocide, and centrists are overwhelmingly neutral on the matter of Palestinian genocide due to the massive and effective propaganda campaigns run by Israel and Israeli proxies to portray it as some, deep, complex issue and the IDF as “The most moral army in the world” (blech).
The no-Gaza-genocide vote was overwhelmingly left-wing. Or, rather, liberal and left. The point is that it was not evenly distributed across the political spectrum on the justification that genocide is generally viewed as bad; it was overwhelmingly concentrated on the more left leaning end of the spectrum on the justification that right-wing and centrist types tend to be sympathetic to Israel or hostile to Palestine.
Steve isn’t voting for safety and QA reductions in this scenario, though. We live (or lived) in a democracy, however flawed it may have been. We, the voters, were voting for safety and QA reductions.
The leaders are absolutely to blame. Every individual member of the DNC bears significantly more blame than any individual voter.
But that still doesn’t absolve voters of responsibility.
When the Nazis invaded Poland, the chief culprits were the ones giving the orders and making the plans - but the rank-and-file soldiers were also still guilty - and so were those who had quietly went along with the Nazi regime because opposing the Nazis was too much trouble.
That there are different levels of guilt does not absolve the least guilty of still being guilty.
“Dems need to give more than an ultimatum” and “When push comes to shove, you have to make the less-bad choice” are not mutually exclusive options. At the infinite encouragement of purity politics, only an exact match with the voter’s desires would be ‘earning’ their vote - all else would be, legitimately, an ‘ultimatum’ forcing the voter to choose between compromise or giving up entirely. While “They disagree with one issue of mine, I can’t vote!” is a extreme example (though, unfortunately, one that does crop up), the principle that disagreement with the less-bad option should be grounds for rejection when the opposition is something as serious as literal fucking Nazis should be emphasized to be insufficient in scale of offense to be a moral reaction.
The abstainers were offered 10$ out of a million - a legitimate travesty and ghoulish behavior from the Dem party - and the abstainers chose to murder minorities instead - a much worse travesty. It’s not even something as ‘mild’ as “We both fail to gain” - my life may very well be forfeit these coming years - and the issue that many of these voters abstained on - Gaza - is set to become, and the opposition openly campaigned on making, significant worse and more murderous. And that’s an… already gruesome scenario. That’s not even getting into all the other factors that we will be suffering from under a Nazi regime.
As for blame. I agree that all involved share blame. And you, what culpabilty do you accept? (I’ve tried to word this civilly, it just doesn’t read as anything other than hostile, it isn’t meant as such, take the following as the bad orator that I am). Someone deriding purity politics wouldn’t suggest they’re pure in the situation. (Again, not intending to be a dick… I just can’t figure out a better way, seems like something to put into an llm and get it reworded… I dunno)
I’m suggesting the culpabilty you accept (I suggested at the time and now) was getting angry at the vegans, constantly hate posting against them instead of pushing leadership to plan with, for, or around them. In effect, I’m pointing out you punched down, not up. The vegans have less power than the animal rights group leaders, if you can’t make the leaders close the puppy farms, at least make them stop supporting puppy farms.
You can’t force voters to take blame for something they don’t want to (look what a bear of a time I’m having with you). Certainly not with memes. It takes an involved, and I hope like this one, empathetic conversation to do that. That’s just people… They don’t play the ultimatum game the way the game theorists said they should, that’s just people. some people have hard lines and genocide isn’t an unreasonable one, that’s just people.
God, if I hear this mathematically illiterate argument one more fucking time, I’m going to fucking blow.
Elections in the US are won and lost on 1 or 2 percentage points.
Tell me this - if leftists make up, say, 3% of the Dem vote, and anti-leftists make up 10% of the Dem vote, is it viable to court leftists at the expense of losing anti-leftists?
If leftists are willing to let literal fucking Nazis win because they haven’t been courted, instead of putting the groundwork in to change the demographic leanings of the Dem party, they can go fuck themselves, because that makes them fucking Nazi enablers, and not much better than the Nazis themselves.
Dems were willing to let Nazis in. Dems wern’t willing to deal with the Nazis when they had the chance. Now Dems are willing to vote with the nazis. Punch UP not DOWN. We blame leadership in all things except politics it seems.
The leadership of the Dem party is absolutely guilty, and most people here, on Lemmy, recognize that.
The problem is that voters (and, especially, non voters) are also guilty, and many on Lemmy refuse to recognize that.
Man, in a just world, probably almost every high-ranking member of the DNC would deserve a noose. But we also fight with the tools we have, and we elected the tools (ha) in the DNC. Have a problem with those tools? I do too. Let’s get rid of them next primary (please, for fuck’s sake, please). But when it’s them or the literal Nazis, you gotta go with the tools.
Idiotic tools who do the bare minimum are preferable to literal Nazi genocide, man.
I mostly agree. Fight with the tools you have but this now, as I told you back then, isn’t the tool you’re looking for. Sowing devision keeps us divided.
On this occasion the ‘no genocide’ people happen to be right. Imagine an animal rights group that constantly and perpetually hate-posted about vegans.
Punching DOWN isn’t the correct tool. Punching UP might be.
But is it sowing division to point out that dividing the vote is, itself, divisive, and has very real and serious consequences?
Is it not divisive to encourage and normalize non-voting even when faced with literal Nazis running because of insufficient policy on the part of the only serious opposition candidate?
Imagine an animal rights group who campaigned against a ballot initiative to stop puppy farms - because it didn’t also stop factory farms, ultimately failing by a measly 1% of the vote? Would it not be realistic and reasonable for people in that animal rights group to be pissed that puppy farms were perpetuated, at no gain to any animals, because a section of the animal rights group wanted a more radical option - a legitimate desire, but one which led to actions which worsened the situation instead of helping it?
Not really. In this analogy I know this group exists and plan for, with, or around them. If vegans found an activist group that better aligned with their goals why would I be surprised or upset they went to that one?
None of this is surprising, or at least it shouldn’t be. We know how people actually behave.
Furthermore in this analogy the animal rights group isn’t campaigning to stop puppy farms, they’re campaigning for puppy farms. Of course people that care about animal rights didn’t support them.
If that activist group then campaigns against the “imperfect” initiative, sinking it by 1% point, why wouldn’t you be upset at them? “It’s just politics, it’s just their point of view” isn’t a particularly left outlook, it’s… well, very ‘moderate suburban liberal’. Politics are often a matter of life and death - in the most literal sense. Being upset is pretty low on the totem poll for intensity-of-reaction with that in mind.
Not being surprised that some people are self-defeating and being upset that people are self-defeating and that other, ostensible allies are defending them for being self-defeating and encouraging them to continue being so are two different things.
I’m not surprised, for example, that bootlickers vote for Trump, or that there are millions of bootlickers in this fucking country. But I am upset about it. I’m not surprised that there are a significant minority of leftists who prefer purity politics to averting and reducing genocide. But I am upset - and I don’t think that normalizing it in the communities I frequent is something that I should stand by and be quiet about.
Campaigning for regulation of puppy farms, let’s say, since the Dems were quite clearly not anti-Israel, but had clearly shifted to a less pro-Israel position, especially after Biden dropped out.
In that view - when faced between making puppy farms less horrific or letting them continue as usual - or even making them worse - why should I not be upset that an ostensibly anti animal suffering group opted to let suffering continue or intensify instead of stopping it out of some bizarre sense of purity.
Again the anger is misplaced.
Why would you, a hypothetical animal rights activist, blame vegans and not the animal rights group for being shit.
“It’s just politics” is literally the argument of vote blue no matter who:that’s just what you have to do in politics. Sure they’re imperfect, technically true but not how I’d describe someone pro genocide, but you gotta vote for them.
“Don’t look at me, I’m pure, I voted democrat in the general” Purity politics is a meaningless term, vegans aren’t purity politicking (politicing sp?)any more or less than you are, they have a moral outlook and they act on it same as you. Voting republican is abhorrent, voting dem is self defeating (I hope we agree voting pro-genocide is self defeating to an anti-genocise outlook) so what’s a sucker left to do? Not vote, vote something else, bring out the guillotines… It’s all a bit shit, and to get angry at them for it is ludicrous.
Dem leadership made the vote what it was. Dem leadership ignored how people actually play the “ultimatum game”. Dem leadership is who you should be hate posting about.
I, an omnivore, don’t get annoyed at vegans posting about how cruel the meat industry is, because they’re right. I do get annoyed at how cruel the meat industry is as I’m supporting them though. I punch up at those in power, not down.
Yep. And if both the moral abstainers and the third party protest voters all would have voted for Kamala, we would still have Trump as President because the numbers of those people are so small.
Y’all are blaming the people who care the most, when you should be blaming the billionaires.
Non voting has been the largest group for several cycles now.
That’s why I differentiated moral abstainers from apathetics who aren’t going to vote no matter what.
I’m becoming more apathetic. You’re choosing between two evils. The lesser evil lives in the realm of myth these days.
Become a socialist instead, and work to remove systemic evil entirely.
you say, in your couch, while people are being deported because of YOU.
you, and many of your buddies have done a full 360 and went full Nazi.
that’s a stretch. Trump will deport people who disagree with him about fucking kids so you should be driving a stake through his heart by now instead of some random person you decided to hate because democrats are fascists too.
Ok bud, time to take a nap.
The margins are close and we need to be able to reach people. Local, state, and federal elections.
Because for a large number of people, they effectively do not live in a democracy. We’ve known for a long time that the opinions of the poorest 90% of the US population are completely irrelevant to national politics. Millions don’t vote because they rationally realize that their votes are meaningless.