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Please, for the love of God, VOTE!
(pawb.social)
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this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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Yes, absolutely. Responsibility can be shared; almost any big disaster is a result of multiple overlapping causes where any number of people could have taken action to make it less likely or prevent it.
In fact, I think the Democrats are a lot more responsible for creating the conditions that led to the rise of Trump than the SDP. The SDP at least had genuine hardship imposed on their country from outside, whereas the establishment Democrats ever since the 1990s have simply been selling out the working class, in an economy that's raking in money hand over fist, because they could and they assumed that nothing bad would ever come of it (to anyone that they thought mattered.)
Okay, that's fair. But what if there weren't other options? If we used a parliamentary system in the US, and we were talking about voting for the Democrats or else a genuine leftist party, I would be 100% in agreement with you about voting for the left instead of the Democrats.
What if Germany used the FPTP system, and you were voting for Hindenburg or Hitler directly to lead the country? Do you think that someone in that hypothetical election who refused to vote for Hindenburg in 1932, because he hadn't done enough to earn the vote, would still feel justified in that decision in 1945?
(Biden isn't Hindenburg; Hindenburg doesn't have a direct analogue but he would be more someone like John McCain IMO, but that's not directly relevant to the question I don't think.)
I wouldn't be committing to voting for Hindenburg 7 months before casting a ballot, especially if doing so not only doesn't address the underlying problem that created the NSPD's popularity but would also likely continue to contribute to those conditions.
You're also assuming that Hindenburg would have won a second election against Hitler, and I don't think that's a given. Nor do I think Biden winning against Trump is a given either, when he's still contributing to the conditions that brought popularity to Trump. He's done quite a lot to undermine his own campaign message, and those of us telling him he's gon a loose if he doesn't reverse course are actually helping him, assuming he takes the opportunity he's being given.
Protesting biden now wouldn't be effective if we all -publicly- got in line and said "we'll sure, he's complicit in genocide but we're all still voting for him anyway". That would be quite a dumb way to protest and put pressure on him to get anything done, wouldn't you say?
Yeah, I feel you on this. I think we're just looking at it from two different perspectives.
I don't think Biden's on Lemmy. I'm not looking at this like he's going to read my messages and think "Okay I got mozz locked in, I don't have to change my Gaza policy now." I'm just saying my thought process out loud; I'm going to vote for Hindenburg instead of Hitler pretty much whatever else happens. I'm not trying to do some kind of bluff where I claim that I'm undecided as a way of putting pressure on, not explicitly telling the Biden campaign that I'm committed to him, so that he'll be forced into different behavior patterns on Gaza.
But the other way does make sense to me. Like the "uncommitted" voters in the primary, or protests at his events because he's abetting mass murder, that makes sense to me. If I were directly in contact with Biden, would I try to do this artifice of pretending I was undecided because of Gaza, that even though Trump is directly supportive of monsters who are 10 times worse and more powerful than Netanyahu, abetting Netanyahu is so bad that I might not vote for Biden? So as to put more pressure on him to change his policy? IDK, maybe. I am not a political specialist but it seems like maybe that's a sensible way to do it.
Yeah, I get that. I do think that direct action on Gaza is probably more effective than just typing out on Lemmy that you're uncommitted in your voting, and I think doing the latter (if it's a bluff, which it would be in my case) runs a little bit of a risk of some other voter reading it and taking it seriously and being swayed to not vote for Biden and abetting mass murder much much worse than that in Gaza. But basically, the core of what you're saying, it does make sense to me, yes.
This is what makes a protest effective. This is why I've been quoting mlk and Douglass and Malcolm x. If there's no threat of harm then no liberty will ever be granted.
Seems to me like you simply don't believe this particular cause is worth threatening this particular harm. Which is fine I guess, but it just makes your claims of caring about it sound a lot like white liberals in 1963 telling mlk 'sure, we agree, but now's not the time, not like this'.
Were making it everyone's problem by protesting, that's the point.
Very wrong. I just don't believe that risking Trump getting elected will help this particular cause. I think there's an significant chance -- I am 100% serious about this -- that the United States would come out at the end of it with an apartheid regime for Arabs similar to Israel's. I think there's an excellent chance that Israel would be emboldened by Trump to actually go in and literally kill all the Palestinians, completing the genocide. I think Trump's election would be catastrophic for the Palestinians, far worse than today, in addition to a long list of other people it would be catastrophic for.
That's why I brought up so many times the example of Boutwell vs Connor. Applying pressure to Boutwell sounds great. Refusing to support him in his election against Connor, because he's a segregationist, doesn't make any fucking sense. It seems like you keep insisting that I object to the first, when I don't and keep telling you that I don't. What I object to is the second. Surely that difference makes some sense?
That's almost exactly what I said. And I agree, it won't be effective [e.g. 'help' this particular cause] if libs keep running cover for his campaign regardless of what he does.
Nothing I've said about protesting until the election has changed. Being loud so other people see the lack of support raises the stakes for Biden so he is compelled to reason.
Like I said, you don't think the risk is worth the cause, that's fine.
Yeah, I get that. Makes sense to me.
Not exactly. A different way to say it would be, the cause is so important and the risk to the Palestinian people (among many others) so potentially catastrophic if Trump wins, that I'm hesitant to support this strategy. But yeah I get where you're coming from.