Anyone who is mad about Biden should consider that Trump's people are ready and willing to nuke the entire Middle East on the chance that it will start the Rapture.
Half a loaf is better than getting shot.
Like, it's not even a close call. And I'm still not seeing how biden's actual record isn't a factor. He's done a pretty solid job with the resources he's got. A good chunk of Congress is a terror cell at this point, the supreme Court is stacked with zealots appointed for life, and he's still managed to get a lot of good stuff done.
He's managed to get a lot of okay stuff done, which was better than expected.
People keep saying this as though presidents in the past get SHIT LOADS done, when in reality most of them don't do shit and the Republican ones start wars, give money to the rich and crash the economy.
So you can't even compare him to previous presidents becuase previous Republican presidents have been DISASTERS.
So we can only really compare him to previous Democrat presidents and I'd say he's gotten more done than most of them.
At this point, lauding Biden is a waste of time, because the GOPs will go straight to 'whaddabouts' and sidetrack the discussion with lies.
I don't talk about voting for Biden, it's all about stopping Donnie.
I mean, that's kind of been the strategy this whole time and it's not doing very well. Conservatives are a lost cause, we should be soley focused on driving turnout of Democrat voters and people who don't vote. Those groups are all saying they want something/someone to vote FOR, not just someone to vote against. Donald Trump is clearly an existential threat to our entire democracy, but these people aren't worried about that. They're worried about paying their bills. They want someone to make their day to day lives better and Biden has done a lot of things that help every day Americans, theyve just never heard about it.
The pitch needs to be "here's what we've gotten done even with Republicans fighting against all of it along the way. Send me a solid Democratic majority in Congress and we'll get X, Y, Z done." Get Jeffries and Schumer to have legislation prepared and ready to go that the caucus will pass without a single GOP vote if necessary. Then, most importantly, follow through and pass that shit.
Biden has accomplished more in 3 years than Obama did in 8.
He is still sending weapons to Israel. Run a non genocidal candidate if you want my help.
Otherwise you will get nothing from me.
Oh yes. Trump will certainly not continue that.
At some point you just have to accept that this will happen and you can't change it. From that point, pick your best future.
I pick the one that will let me sleep best at night, and knowing I didn’t support genocide will let me sleep great.
But you did. You paid taxes and live in this country. Your lack of voting shows apathy, it doesn't absolve complicity.
If you really want to change it, you participate more, not less.
Rephrase I will sleep fine knowing I am not directly supporting genocide nor the people who enable it.
I will NOT vote for someone who is helping innocent children die.
You’re right about my indirect support, but I can not change that.
You aren't voting for anyone. No one is. This is a first past the post voting system. You don't vote FOR people, you vote AGAINST people. And by not voting, you're saying you won't vote against either party.
Yep. I voted against trump last time, I got a president who supports genocide.
If genocide and genocide are the only two options then what does it matter who I vote for?
If the only thing you care about is genocide, then it doesn't matter.
It also means you don't care about improving the lives of your neighbors or mitigating other kinds of damage.
If that's how you really feel, then you do you. But being a single issue voter leads to very weird outcomes.
Devil I know vs the one I don’t.
Run someone who doesn’t support killing innocent by people.
Why is that so hard?
Should be easy. Should be simple. Clearly isn't. And you can't change that. So what will you do?
In first past the post, failing to vote is the same as a vote for the person you like least.
You may not like the game, but even by not playing you're playing.
You don’t deserve my vote just because you are the less shitty person.
They have plenty of dick riders like you to take care of it, don’t worry.
They have plenty of dick riders like you to take care of it, don’t worry.
That's how Trump got elected last time.
Well, sounds like you need a better candidate
Don't live in your idiotic country so this one's gonna be on you chief.
Out of curiosity: does your opposition to genocide extend to you joining protests, contacting your representatives, and encouraging others to do the same?
Or do your principles only extend as far as you not actually doing anything?
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
Sorry about the multiple replies, no clue what’s up with that.
When I try to delete them it just says “Error.”
Let's establish the situation. There's only two outcomes of the election. Any other possibilities are so remote we can dismiss then.
Biden wins. The status quo continues.
Trump wins. More Palestinians and innocent children die.
There is a clear outcome here that is going to be worse and kill more people. You have three options on how to act:
A. Vote for Biden
B. Vote for Trump
C. Don't vote for either of them
If you pick A, 1 becomes more likely. If you pick B, 2 becomes more likely. If you pick C, 2 also becomes more likely because of the electoral college. If you pick A or B, you'll feel guilty. If you pick C, you'll (incorrectly) feel like you're innocent and not complicit.
You say you care about the people dying. That means you want the outcome with the least deaths, 1. If you want to outcome 1, you should pick A. Why are you refusing to?
No one here is delightfully voting for the genocide to continue. We want to stop it, but that isn't an option. Shouldn't we then act to minimize the death toll as much as we possibly could?
A child who survives in outcome 1 could die in outcome 2. If you don't strive for outcome 1, you have blood on your hands. Do you care more about having a falsely clear conscience, or do you want to save lives? It's very easy to say you want none of them to die. It's not as easy to take an action that you know will still result in people dying, but it kills fewer people.
If you are genuine in your convictions, and I choose to believe that you are, I am confident that you'll make the decision to try and save lives, at whatever personal cost to yourself.
I care about not supporting the killing of children.
If you actually cared, you wouldn’t give in to the lesser option.
Genocide is genocide is genocide.
Call me complicit if you want.
I will not actively support genocide in any form.
I can not stop it but I can not support it.
Do you care more about supporting the killing of children than you actually do about the killing of children itself? You're putting your morals ahead of human lives.
I'm not pleased to pick a lesser option, but there is no realistic option that will stop all the death instantly. You don't have to like it, but you have to acknowledge reality. This is going to continue no matter how you vote. All you can do is influence how many people it'll affect, and hope that puts us on a road to outright stopping these things in the future. Do you think Israel would feel so emboldened if Trump wasn't a possible leader?
And this doesn't even take into consideration other issues. Ukraine needs to be able to defend itself from Russia. If they don't get military support, Russia will kidnap and kill even more children. Republicans don't seem to care about that, but Democrats are pushing for that military support to happen. Here there is an option for your vote to stop the death of children. I wish it was Palestinian AND Ukrainian children, but the world is a shitty place, and all we can do is try to make it less shitty.
So I ask again. Do you care more about supporting the killing of children, at the expense of the actual killing of children?
Do you support killing children at all?
Why is this only confusing to Americans?
Every other country in the world other than ours sees what they are doing.
Withdraw our support and then see if Israel is still willing to keep up their actions over the last few decades.
They wouldn’t have done any of this shit because they would’ve known that they would’ve got their asses handed to them by everyone around them.
You cannot in anyway get me to support those genocidal bastards.
They are using the US aegis to do all of this and it is time we withdraw that.
Let them deal with the consequences of their own actions for once.
Maybe it will give them the attitude adjustment they need, if they want to toss around nukes then they will become an international pariah.
It won’t matter soon anyway, you will get what you want, Israel will massacre tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands and after that people like you will say “ oh well, there’s nothing we can do about it now let’s just forgive them and try to move on” and then they’ll do the same fucking thing as Putin is doing over and over and over just like all of the other innocent safe killed over fucking decades and you guys still want to support them
It really depends on what a Trump reign will look like, right?
Will he be able to round up tens of millions of people and deport them, as he has promised? Will he institute another Muslim ban, as he has promised? Will he stay in office after his next four year term, as he has said he wants to? Will he use the office of the president to persecute political opponents, as he has promised? Will he "root out" all the "vermin" in the United States, as he had promised? And if yes: who will get declared to be "vermin?" How will they be "rooted out?" Will he make torture legal, as he promised? Will he bring back family separation and child detention camps? Will he threaten nuclear war again? And if yes, will some crazy regime take him up on the offer?
And if all of that or even just a fraction of that comes to pass, will you still sleep well, knowing that you might have been able to stop all of that but voting for the lesser of two evils was just beneath you?
Because ultimately, that's the decision you're making.
Yep! People like to try and pretend you can not be neutral but unless I am voting FOR trump then I am not canceling out someone else’s vote.
I won’t help you guys re-elect a genocide supporting president either way.
We keep talking about Israel is not doing enough to stop civilians and wringing our hand while on our knees sucking Netanyahu’s dick and just begging him not to cum on our face because we need to look presentable.
They openly killed journalists, on video, with physical and forensic evidence, right after the journalists switched from recording the Lebanese side to the Israeli side.
While clearly marked as being press.
Defend that, also I am still waiting for those beheaded babies that the IDF used to rile everyone up with.
You know, the one the president you want me to support said he saw and then had to walk back later.
People like to try and pretend you can not be neutral
Refusing to participate doesn't make you neutral. It makes you complacent.
Are you okay with countries that see what's happening in Gaza and do nothing so that they don't have to get involved?
I can support the countries that are not actively supporting genocide.
Btw bad example, as far as I can tell, only the us is actively supporting genocidal actions, but I will reject anyone who is doing so.
I would much rather them do nothing instead of supporting Israel.
Don’t get me twisted, when 10/7 happened I completely supported them and felt grief for them and their suffering, then they decided to kill a bunch of kids.
Do you support killing innocent children as well?
Do you support killing innocent children as well?
Oh I'm staying neutral on this by not picking a side. That's a completely acceptable course of action right?
Yes it is!
Good job you’re learning.
Personally I disagree with you on the importance of not killing children, but you are free to have your own opinions.
Well I'll be able to sleep soundly at night knowing I haven't taken a stance.
That's a pretty juvenile take. Not voting doesn't mean you disapprove of both candidates. It means they are both equal (equally good or equally bad) to you.
And if you think the two are equal because of one thing that they agree on (as bad as that thing is), you mean all the things they disagree on don't matter (like peaceful transfer of power, lgbtq rights, fascism). And even on that one thing, the two have very different approaches, and one is far more inclined to change position in the future. But apparently that wouldn't matter either, because they are both equal right now, because they both support Israel right now.
So they both support a genocide, seems like a grand reason to vote for neither.
You don’t get a pity vote for not being as bad as the other guy it just means I won’t vote for him either.
And in a first past the post voting system, like the one we have, your lack of voting mathematically increases the chances of Trump winning. That's a fact. You are voting for Trump, even if you say you're not. I'm sure you'll sleep fine at night, but all the harm he causes will be because you died on a hill that didn't even mean anything.
No friend I am voting for no one. You can try and twist it however you want, but they’re 3 options -1, 0, and +1.
At this point, I am choosing 0, I could pick -1 by voting for trump.
I might as well by your logic, right?
My not voting is the same as just adding to his total and doesn’t cancel one of someone else’s vote for Biden, right?
Idc what the rest of you do, I will not vote for someone who actively supports genocidal actions.
Why bother voting at all? What changes if you vote for a third option?
Congratulations on handing the W to Trump, Russia and Iran.
I’m not handing anyone shit, I’m just not going to vote for genocide.
I think most people value aesthetics over pragmatism. If a car ran a red light most people would, in a philosophical sense, say, "Well they're in the wrong." and step out in front of the car. It's better to be right than to do good because one of those things makes us feel good, while the other is just work.
Hmm, let's see where that gets you.
I will sleep great knowing that I in no way supported genocide.
But you do you
What a joke.
I know! I can’t believe that some people are cool with voting for genocide.
You can't believe it because you know it's not true.
Not sucking up to Israel and Jewish special interests is an even better way to lose an election.
Ok, better to lose than to directly and unequivocally support genocide.
Did not everyone say it would be better for a Russian soldier to go to jail or just kill themselves instead of fighting Ukrainians?
Why should they kill themselves and the rest of us just support a different kind of genocide?
Is Palestinian skin a little too brown for our support?
We buy weapons FROM Israel. Like it or not, Israel is a military asset.
Ok, that changes nothing about what I said.
Well you live in a facist leaning and fascist sympathising country. Now what? Apathy doesn't seem like the best course of action.
So I should vote to support genocide?
If a vote either way supports genocide and no vote does nothing to stop genocide, what's the tangible difference?
If nothing you do matters, then the only thing that matters is what you do.
What I choose to do is to not support genocidal actions in as many ways as possible.
I can’t stop them from doing it, but I can choose not to support it myself.
Don’t worry though, they are increasing the bombings in south Gaza now as well so soon it will just be a bunch of dead people and after that it doesn’t really matter, because people will all forget in time.
But that’s the plan and it is working so 🤷♂️
If nothing you do matters, then the only thing that matters is what you do.
I do agree with this. However, voter apathy is literally doing nothing. If you are paying taxes, you are still contributing to and arguably passively supporting it.
Actions I would think might matter are things like protest, campaigning for a third party against the thing you are against, running yourself, or retreating from this government's rule.
It could be argued that just by living in the country and not actively opposing the issue, then you are supporting it. Saying "I don't support this thing so I didn't vote for anyone", then pay taxes to the government that does the thing and enjoy the rich society of the country that does the thing, you're more actively participating in the thing than opposing it.
I know 100% where Biden stands by his actions.
trump says a lot of shit that he just can’t back up.
His nickname should be hummingbird, but he thinks it is alligator.
So on one hand I have a guaranteed wolf in sheep’s clothing on the other I have a no-toothed and idiotic wanna be wolf in a bear’s clothing.
Policies we can roll back, deaths we can’t.
And you are okay with letting Ukraine get genocided as well just to shove it to Biden? Trump will only encourage Israel and Putin to keep going so you hate genocide but want to vote for more of it? That's fucked up.
No, I am deliberately not voting for more of it. Feel free to twist it however you want though.
Apt username
Israel is bound by treaty to defend Israel as we are allies.
Biden is mostly trying to prevent a shooting war between Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Which would 100% involve nukes and obliterate the global economy for decades. (Imagine all European - Asian oceanic trade just stopping).
That's why he's doing it. Hamas is a proxy agent for Iran they are using against Israel.
So I should support guaranteed genocidal actions now to maybe possibly prevent an event that might theoretically happen?
Also, when someone is committing genocidal acts, maybe it is time to break treaty with them.
Let Israel act however it wants without big daddy USA backing them and then let’s see their actions without the biggest military in the world backing them.
They only walk around wagging their ducks because they have backing.
Let them handle their own problems without us and then see how they act.
It is very easy to be a bully when you have a bigger friend to help.
Moving the baseline to "nukes" doesn't invalidate legitimate concerns around Biden's handling of events.
Nobody said it did. The point is that Trump's handling would certainly be worse.
I agree.
So anything done that is better than the worst President in victory should go unchallenged?
We are Lemmings, aren't we (in the debunked mythological running of a cliff sense)?
There was a ceasefire, that was good. After instructing people not to call for one, it was helpful to see that.
Biden would get my vote in a general. But we have to stop making the worst decision maker the baseline.
That is unfortunately less of a social phenomenon and more of a logical result of our combination two-party/first past the post system. After years of having to strategically vote against the worst option instead of for the best, we are only left with a "lesser of two evils" decision.
I vote for Swalwell, happily. That's my district.
I still write him at times to encourage some types of things or express disagreement with others. Trump's existence matters almost nothing in that calculus.
Same would apply to Biden. We can hold people accountable and disagree with decisions while still voting for them.
We need not become unquestioning sheep. And polls matter.
we have to stop making the worst decision maker the baseline.
The worst decision maker is literally the other option.
For voting, yes. But for accountability or assessing competence?
No. We have other ways of assessing competence. And those need not lead to lost votes.
Of course. The comment was probably directed to the bots telling us we are genocidal if we don't vote third party (thereby allowing Trump to take over and oh by the way nuke Gaza or whatever)
Disagreeing with Biden <> vote third party.
Lemmy needs to stop confusing those two ideas. The strong reactionary misunderstandings that ensue are unhelpful and honestly... Kind of intellectually bankrupt.
As soon as the debate ended, CNN began post-game coverage
This is the problem with US politics. Turn your elections into a sports match and people are gonna tribe up. Total circus.
Turn the news into a for-profit industry, and you get competition for eyes.
While the news has always been a for-profit industry, Citizens United turned election years into billion dollar windfalls for news outfits.
I’m pretty sure that’s why USA Today owns almost all the local papers in my state. They can float the payrolls between election years, or cut a bunch of local reporters and send their own around following primaries in the state with the most campaign money each week.
I don’t believe the news was always for-profit. Early television news actually cost the station money and was provided as a service for the public good.
Things took a turn for the worse sometime in the sixties, accelerating through the eighties and devolving into the shitshow we have today.
I don’t believe the news was always for-profit.
No it wasn't, and it would referred to as the Fourth Estate.
Look at the history of newspapers. They started a war at one point to sell more papers. Which is how the term yellow journalism was coined.
It’s true that the fairness doctrine made broadcast news better for the period when they were losing money, right up to about when Kennedy was assassinated, but that’s been long gone for decades, and only really helped radio and OTA TV.
It’s true that the fairness doctrine made broadcast news better
My comment that you replied to was related just to broadcast news, and not newspapers. The Big Three.
Turn the news into a for-profit industry
No more Fourth Estate for you!
One thing I have learned from GOP in last 3 years is that If you repeat a lie non-stop over and over again it eventually becomes the truth.
The truth to them, not to the rest of the planet.
Unfortunately, it may very well prove to be "truth" to enough people to get Trump re-elected. Remember, we're now in an era where "Truth isn't Truth" (Rudy Guiliani) and people are "entitled to their own 'alternative facts'" (Kellyanne Conway). An era where personal grievances are valued over objective facts, and people will vote against their own best interests just for the possibility of hurting "them". We are now living in an idiocracy.
Here's the problem. Donald Trump could say that Biden has monkeys flying out of his ass terrorizing Washington DC in search of bananas. Now, you and I both know that's ridiculous and, in any sane world, should be ignored for the stupidity it is. But here's the problem. You can say how stupid the idea is all you want, but if 51% of people you need to vote for you have serious concerns about monkey's flying out of Biden's ass, then he needs to either come up a plan to handle flying monkeys, or sit by the wayside as Trump gets re-elected because voters were too concerned over monkeys flying out of his ass.
Trump just throws shit at the wall to see what sticks. If something he says doesn't resonate, he just starts staying something else. If pushed back on something he said, it was just a joke and you're being sensitive.
It doesn't matter how absurd the shit he says, he'll suddenly tack on "everyone's saying" or "you know it, I know it, everyone knows it" except the people you don't like. They're stopping you from it.
Trump just throws shit at the wall to see what sticks. If something he says doesn’t resonate, he just starts staying something else. If pushed back on something he said, it was just a joke and you’re being sensitive.
The problem is the amount of shit that ends up sticking to the wall.
It doesn’t matter how absurd the shit he says, he’ll suddenly tack on “everyone’s saying” or “you know it, I know it, everyone knows it” except the people you don’t like. They’re stopping you from it.
It's one of his many tells. When he uses phrases like that, that's how you know he's not only full of shit, but knows he's full of shit. I've always wanted to play poker with the man; he's so god damned stupid I could beat him holding the 2 of diamonds and a basic Forest from Magic: the Gathering.
“Incited”? Why didn’t they just comply? If they had just complied nothing would have happened to them! /s
Vivek doesn't have a chance. He's so lazy, he's repeating these ancient conspiracy theories that have long since run their course. Just more evidence that he's in it for the notoriety, since he can't be bothered to come up with anything novel.
Anyone who is mad about Biden should consider that Trump's people are ready and willing to nuke the entire Middle East on the chance that it will start the Rapture.
Half a loaf is better than getting shot.
Like, it's not even a close call. And I'm still not seeing how biden's actual record isn't a factor. He's done a pretty solid job with the resources he's got. A good chunk of Congress is a terror cell at this point, the supreme Court is stacked with zealots appointed for life, and he's still managed to get a lot of good stuff done.
He's managed to get a lot of okay stuff done, which was better than expected.
People keep saying this as though presidents in the past get SHIT LOADS done, when in reality most of them don't do shit and the Republican ones start wars, give money to the rich and crash the economy.
So you can't even compare him to previous presidents becuase previous Republican presidents have been DISASTERS.
So we can only really compare him to previous Democrat presidents and I'd say he's gotten more done than most of them.
At this point, lauding Biden is a waste of time, because the GOPs will go straight to 'whaddabouts' and sidetrack the discussion with lies.
I don't talk about voting for Biden, it's all about stopping Donnie.
I mean, that's kind of been the strategy this whole time and it's not doing very well. Conservatives are a lost cause, we should be soley focused on driving turnout of Democrat voters and people who don't vote. Those groups are all saying they want something/someone to vote FOR, not just someone to vote against. Donald Trump is clearly an existential threat to our entire democracy, but these people aren't worried about that. They're worried about paying their bills. They want someone to make their day to day lives better and Biden has done a lot of things that help every day Americans, theyve just never heard about it.
The pitch needs to be "here's what we've gotten done even with Republicans fighting against all of it along the way. Send me a solid Democratic majority in Congress and we'll get X, Y, Z done." Get Jeffries and Schumer to have legislation prepared and ready to go that the caucus will pass without a single GOP vote if necessary. Then, most importantly, follow through and pass that shit.
Biden has accomplished more in 3 years than Obama did in 8.
He is still sending weapons to Israel. Run a non genocidal candidate if you want my help.
Otherwise you will get nothing from me.
Oh yes. Trump will certainly not continue that.
At some point you just have to accept that this will happen and you can't change it. From that point, pick your best future.
I pick the one that will let me sleep best at night, and knowing I didn’t support genocide will let me sleep great.
But you did. You paid taxes and live in this country. Your lack of voting shows apathy, it doesn't absolve complicity.
If you really want to change it, you participate more, not less.
Rephrase I will sleep fine knowing I am not directly supporting genocide nor the people who enable it.
I will NOT vote for someone who is helping innocent children die.
You’re right about my indirect support, but I can not change that.
You aren't voting for anyone. No one is. This is a first past the post voting system. You don't vote FOR people, you vote AGAINST people. And by not voting, you're saying you won't vote against either party.
Yep. I voted against trump last time, I got a president who supports genocide.
If genocide and genocide are the only two options then what does it matter who I vote for?
If the only thing you care about is genocide, then it doesn't matter.
It also means you don't care about improving the lives of your neighbors or mitigating other kinds of damage.
If that's how you really feel, then you do you. But being a single issue voter leads to very weird outcomes.
Devil I know vs the one I don’t.
Run someone who doesn’t support killing innocent by people.
Why is that so hard?
Should be easy. Should be simple. Clearly isn't. And you can't change that. So what will you do?
In first past the post, failing to vote is the same as a vote for the person you like least.
You may not like the game, but even by not playing you're playing.
Such a narrow minded take. Would you sleep fine if your not voting gets Trump elected and he ends up bombing the shit out of the middle east because his looney zealot friends want the world to end? What if it came down to one vote? How would your stupid ass sleep then?
I would sleep just fucking fine.
You don’t deserve my vote just because you are the less shitty person.
They have plenty of dick riders like you to take care of it, don’t worry.
That's how Trump got elected last time.
Well, sounds like you need a better candidate
Don't live in your idiotic country so this one's gonna be on you chief.
Out of curiosity: does your opposition to genocide extend to you joining protests, contacting your representatives, and encouraging others to do the same?
Or do your principles only extend as far as you not actually doing anything?
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
Sorry about the multiple replies, no clue what’s up with that.
When I try to delete them it just says “Error.”
Let's establish the situation. There's only two outcomes of the election. Any other possibilities are so remote we can dismiss then.
Biden wins. The status quo continues.
Trump wins. More Palestinians and innocent children die.
There is a clear outcome here that is going to be worse and kill more people. You have three options on how to act:
A. Vote for Biden
B. Vote for Trump
C. Don't vote for either of them
If you pick A, 1 becomes more likely. If you pick B, 2 becomes more likely. If you pick C, 2 also becomes more likely because of the electoral college. If you pick A or B, you'll feel guilty. If you pick C, you'll (incorrectly) feel like you're innocent and not complicit.
You say you care about the people dying. That means you want the outcome with the least deaths, 1. If you want to outcome 1, you should pick A. Why are you refusing to?
No one here is delightfully voting for the genocide to continue. We want to stop it, but that isn't an option. Shouldn't we then act to minimize the death toll as much as we possibly could?
A child who survives in outcome 1 could die in outcome 2. If you don't strive for outcome 1, you have blood on your hands. Do you care more about having a falsely clear conscience, or do you want to save lives? It's very easy to say you want none of them to die. It's not as easy to take an action that you know will still result in people dying, but it kills fewer people.
If you are genuine in your convictions, and I choose to believe that you are, I am confident that you'll make the decision to try and save lives, at whatever personal cost to yourself.
I care about not supporting the killing of children.
If you actually cared, you wouldn’t give in to the lesser option.
Genocide is genocide is genocide.
Call me complicit if you want.
I will not actively support genocide in any form.
I can not stop it but I can not support it.
Do you care more about supporting the killing of children than you actually do about the killing of children itself? You're putting your morals ahead of human lives.
I'm not pleased to pick a lesser option, but there is no realistic option that will stop all the death instantly. You don't have to like it, but you have to acknowledge reality. This is going to continue no matter how you vote. All you can do is influence how many people it'll affect, and hope that puts us on a road to outright stopping these things in the future. Do you think Israel would feel so emboldened if Trump wasn't a possible leader?
And this doesn't even take into consideration other issues. Ukraine needs to be able to defend itself from Russia. If they don't get military support, Russia will kidnap and kill even more children. Republicans don't seem to care about that, but Democrats are pushing for that military support to happen. Here there is an option for your vote to stop the death of children. I wish it was Palestinian AND Ukrainian children, but the world is a shitty place, and all we can do is try to make it less shitty.
So I ask again. Do you care more about supporting the killing of children, at the expense of the actual killing of children?
Do you support killing children at all?
Why is this only confusing to Americans?
Every other country in the world other than ours sees what they are doing.
Withdraw our support and then see if Israel is still willing to keep up their actions over the last few decades.
They wouldn’t have done any of this shit because they would’ve known that they would’ve got their asses handed to them by everyone around them.
You cannot in anyway get me to support those genocidal bastards.
They are using the US aegis to do all of this and it is time we withdraw that.
Let them deal with the consequences of their own actions for once.
Maybe it will give them the attitude adjustment they need, if they want to toss around nukes then they will become an international pariah.
It won’t matter soon anyway, you will get what you want, Israel will massacre tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands and after that people like you will say “ oh well, there’s nothing we can do about it now let’s just forgive them and try to move on” and then they’ll do the same fucking thing as Putin is doing over and over and over just like all of the other innocent safe killed over fucking decades and you guys still want to support them
It really depends on what a Trump reign will look like, right?
Will he be able to round up tens of millions of people and deport them, as he has promised? Will he institute another Muslim ban, as he has promised? Will he stay in office after his next four year term, as he has said he wants to? Will he use the office of the president to persecute political opponents, as he has promised? Will he "root out" all the "vermin" in the United States, as he had promised? And if yes: who will get declared to be "vermin?" How will they be "rooted out?" Will he make torture legal, as he promised? Will he bring back family separation and child detention camps? Will he threaten nuclear war again? And if yes, will some crazy regime take him up on the offer?
And if all of that or even just a fraction of that comes to pass, will you still sleep well, knowing that you might have been able to stop all of that but voting for the lesser of two evils was just beneath you?
Because ultimately, that's the decision you're making.
Yep! People like to try and pretend you can not be neutral but unless I am voting FOR trump then I am not canceling out someone else’s vote.
I won’t help you guys re-elect a genocide supporting president either way.
We keep talking about Israel is not doing enough to stop civilians and wringing our hand while on our knees sucking Netanyahu’s dick and just begging him not to cum on our face because we need to look presentable.
They openly killed journalists, on video, with physical and forensic evidence, right after the journalists switched from recording the Lebanese side to the Israeli side.
While clearly marked as being press.
Defend that, also I am still waiting for those beheaded babies that the IDF used to rile everyone up with.
You know, the one the president you want me to support said he saw and then had to walk back later.
Refusing to participate doesn't make you neutral. It makes you complacent.
Are you okay with countries that see what's happening in Gaza and do nothing so that they don't have to get involved?
I can support the countries that are not actively supporting genocide.
Btw bad example, as far as I can tell, only the us is actively supporting genocidal actions, but I will reject anyone who is doing so.
I would much rather them do nothing instead of supporting Israel.
Don’t get me twisted, when 10/7 happened I completely supported them and felt grief for them and their suffering, then they decided to kill a bunch of kids.
Do you support killing innocent children as well?
Oh I'm staying neutral on this by not picking a side. That's a completely acceptable course of action right?
Yes it is!
Good job you’re learning.
Personally I disagree with you on the importance of not killing children, but you are free to have your own opinions.
Well I'll be able to sleep soundly at night knowing I haven't taken a stance.
That's a pretty juvenile take. Not voting doesn't mean you disapprove of both candidates. It means they are both equal (equally good or equally bad) to you.
And if you think the two are equal because of one thing that they agree on (as bad as that thing is), you mean all the things they disagree on don't matter (like peaceful transfer of power, lgbtq rights, fascism). And even on that one thing, the two have very different approaches, and one is far more inclined to change position in the future. But apparently that wouldn't matter either, because they are both equal right now, because they both support Israel right now.
So they both support a genocide, seems like a grand reason to vote for neither.
You don’t get a pity vote for not being as bad as the other guy it just means I won’t vote for him either.
And in a first past the post voting system, like the one we have, your lack of voting mathematically increases the chances of Trump winning. That's a fact. You are voting for Trump, even if you say you're not. I'm sure you'll sleep fine at night, but all the harm he causes will be because you died on a hill that didn't even mean anything.
No friend I am voting for no one. You can try and twist it however you want, but they’re 3 options -1, 0, and +1.
At this point, I am choosing 0, I could pick -1 by voting for trump.
I might as well by your logic, right?
My not voting is the same as just adding to his total and doesn’t cancel one of someone else’s vote for Biden, right?
Idc what the rest of you do, I will not vote for someone who actively supports genocidal actions.
Why bother voting at all? What changes if you vote for a third option?
Congratulations on handing the W to Trump, Russia and Iran.
I’m not handing anyone shit, I’m just not going to vote for genocide.
I think most people value aesthetics over pragmatism. If a car ran a red light most people would, in a philosophical sense, say, "Well they're in the wrong." and step out in front of the car. It's better to be right than to do good because one of those things makes us feel good, while the other is just work.
Hmm, let's see where that gets you.
I will sleep great knowing that I in no way supported genocide.
But you do you
What a joke.
I know! I can’t believe that some people are cool with voting for genocide.
You can't believe it because you know it's not true.
Not sucking up to Israel and Jewish special interests is an even better way to lose an election.
Ok, better to lose than to directly and unequivocally support genocide.
Did not everyone say it would be better for a Russian soldier to go to jail or just kill themselves instead of fighting Ukrainians?
Why should they kill themselves and the rest of us just support a different kind of genocide?
Is Palestinian skin a little too brown for our support?
We buy weapons FROM Israel. Like it or not, Israel is a military asset.
Ok, that changes nothing about what I said.
Well you live in a facist leaning and fascist sympathising country. Now what? Apathy doesn't seem like the best course of action.
So I should vote to support genocide?
If a vote either way supports genocide and no vote does nothing to stop genocide, what's the tangible difference?
If nothing you do matters, then the only thing that matters is what you do.
What I choose to do is to not support genocidal actions in as many ways as possible.
I can’t stop them from doing it, but I can choose not to support it myself.
Don’t worry though, they are increasing the bombings in south Gaza now as well so soon it will just be a bunch of dead people and after that it doesn’t really matter, because people will all forget in time.
But that’s the plan and it is working so 🤷♂️
I do agree with this. However, voter apathy is literally doing nothing. If you are paying taxes, you are still contributing to and arguably passively supporting it.
Actions I would think might matter are things like protest, campaigning for a third party against the thing you are against, running yourself, or retreating from this government's rule.
It could be argued that just by living in the country and not actively opposing the issue, then you are supporting it. Saying "I don't support this thing so I didn't vote for anyone", then pay taxes to the government that does the thing and enjoy the rich society of the country that does the thing, you're more actively participating in the thing than opposing it.
I know 100% where Biden stands by his actions.
trump says a lot of shit that he just can’t back up.
His nickname should be hummingbird, but he thinks it is alligator.
So on one hand I have a guaranteed wolf in sheep’s clothing on the other I have a no-toothed and idiotic wanna be wolf in a bear’s clothing.
Policies we can roll back, deaths we can’t.
And you are okay with letting Ukraine get genocided as well just to shove it to Biden? Trump will only encourage Israel and Putin to keep going so you hate genocide but want to vote for more of it? That's fucked up.
No, I am deliberately not voting for more of it. Feel free to twist it however you want though.
Apt username
Israel is bound by treaty to defend Israel as we are allies.
Biden is mostly trying to prevent a shooting war between Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Which would 100% involve nukes and obliterate the global economy for decades. (Imagine all European - Asian oceanic trade just stopping).
That's why he's doing it. Hamas is a proxy agent for Iran they are using against Israel.
So I should support guaranteed genocidal actions now to maybe possibly prevent an event that might theoretically happen?
Also, when someone is committing genocidal acts, maybe it is time to break treaty with them.
Let Israel act however it wants without big daddy USA backing them and then let’s see their actions without the biggest military in the world backing them.
They only walk around wagging their ducks because they have backing.
Let them handle their own problems without us and then see how they act.
It is very easy to be a bully when you have a bigger friend to help.
Moving the baseline to "nukes" doesn't invalidate legitimate concerns around Biden's handling of events.
Nobody said it did. The point is that Trump's handling would certainly be worse.
I agree.
So anything done that is better than the worst President in victory should go unchallenged?
We are Lemmings, aren't we (in the debunked mythological running of a cliff sense)?
There was a ceasefire, that was good. After instructing people not to call for one, it was helpful to see that.
Biden would get my vote in a general. But we have to stop making the worst decision maker the baseline.
That is unfortunately less of a social phenomenon and more of a logical result of our combination two-party/first past the post system. After years of having to strategically vote against the worst option instead of for the best, we are only left with a "lesser of two evils" decision.
I vote for Swalwell, happily. That's my district.
I still write him at times to encourage some types of things or express disagreement with others. Trump's existence matters almost nothing in that calculus.
Same would apply to Biden. We can hold people accountable and disagree with decisions while still voting for them.
We need not become unquestioning sheep. And polls matter.
The worst decision maker is literally the other option.
For voting, yes. But for accountability or assessing competence?
No. We have other ways of assessing competence. And those need not lead to lost votes.
Of course. The comment was probably directed to the bots telling us we are genocidal if we don't vote third party (thereby allowing Trump to take over and oh by the way nuke Gaza or whatever)
Disagreeing with Biden <> vote third party.
Lemmy needs to stop confusing those two ideas. The strong reactionary misunderstandings that ensue are unhelpful and honestly... Kind of intellectually bankrupt.
This is the problem with US politics. Turn your elections into a sports match and people are gonna tribe up. Total circus.
Turn the news into a for-profit industry, and you get competition for eyes.
While the news has always been a for-profit industry, Citizens United turned election years into billion dollar windfalls for news outfits.
I’m pretty sure that’s why USA Today owns almost all the local papers in my state. They can float the payrolls between election years, or cut a bunch of local reporters and send their own around following primaries in the state with the most campaign money each week.
I don’t believe the news was always for-profit. Early television news actually cost the station money and was provided as a service for the public good. Things took a turn for the worse sometime in the sixties, accelerating through the eighties and devolving into the shitshow we have today.
No it wasn't, and it would referred to as the Fourth Estate.
Look at the history of newspapers. They started a war at one point to sell more papers. Which is how the term yellow journalism was coined.
It’s true that the fairness doctrine made broadcast news better for the period when they were losing money, right up to about when Kennedy was assassinated, but that’s been long gone for decades, and only really helped radio and OTA TV.
My comment that you replied to was related just to broadcast news, and not newspapers. The Big Three.
No more Fourth Estate for you!
One thing I have learned from GOP in last 3 years is that If you repeat a lie non-stop over and over again it eventually becomes the truth.
The truth to them, not to the rest of the planet.
Unfortunately, it may very well prove to be "truth" to enough people to get Trump re-elected. Remember, we're now in an era where "Truth isn't Truth" (Rudy Guiliani) and people are "entitled to their own 'alternative facts'" (Kellyanne Conway). An era where personal grievances are valued over objective facts, and people will vote against their own best interests just for the possibility of hurting "them". We are now living in an idiocracy.
Here's the problem. Donald Trump could say that Biden has monkeys flying out of his ass terrorizing Washington DC in search of bananas. Now, you and I both know that's ridiculous and, in any sane world, should be ignored for the stupidity it is. But here's the problem. You can say how stupid the idea is all you want, but if 51% of people you need to vote for you have serious concerns about monkey's flying out of Biden's ass, then he needs to either come up a plan to handle flying monkeys, or sit by the wayside as Trump gets re-elected because voters were too concerned over monkeys flying out of his ass.
Trump just throws shit at the wall to see what sticks. If something he says doesn't resonate, he just starts staying something else. If pushed back on something he said, it was just a joke and you're being sensitive.
It doesn't matter how absurd the shit he says, he'll suddenly tack on "everyone's saying" or "you know it, I know it, everyone knows it" except the people you don't like. They're stopping you from it.
The problem is the amount of shit that ends up sticking to the wall.
It's one of his many tells. When he uses phrases like that, that's how you know he's not only full of shit, but knows he's full of shit. I've always wanted to play poker with the man; he's so god damned stupid I could beat him holding the 2 of diamonds and a basic Forest from Magic: the Gathering.
"CNNs Dana Bash puts microphone in front known liar and is surprised when he lies"
Fucking media. Stop giving attention to these clowns.
just another bullshit artist
aint you yanks got your fill of that shit yet? fuck.
“Incited”? Why didn’t they just comply? If they had just complied nothing would have happened to them! /s
Vivek doesn't have a chance. He's so lazy, he's repeating these ancient conspiracy theories that have long since run their course. Just more evidence that he's in it for the notoriety, since he can't be bothered to come up with anything novel.