Activists from around the country told The Intercept that they will advocate for an anti-war agenda at the convention in August and withhold their vote in November unless an adequate candidate steps up, listing policy priorities such as support for a permanent ceasefire and standing up to the pro-Israel lobby as it intervenes in Democratic primaries. Even as the Biden campaign insists that he will not step aside, many Democrats appear to be lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative candidate, with some Democratic governors being floated as well.
“My number one criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza,” said Saad Farooq, an uncommitted voter in Massachusetts. Farooq said it was unlikely that the Democratic National Committee would select any candidate who took a stance against Israel’s ongoing war, and that he would support Green Party candidate Jill Stein if she were to appear on the ballot in Massachusetts.
Will Dawson, an uncommitted voter in Washington, D.C., named several factors that could get him to switch his vote from the Green Party’s Stein to another politician. First on his list is a promise to call for an immediate ceasefire and fighting the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Congress.
“This candidate would also ideally work toward pulling further away from the Israeli colonial project over time, with the goal being repealing our absurd financial support, ending the foreign interest agency of AIPAC, and pushing for a nation-wide boycott a la [South Africa] during their apartheid,” Dawson wrote.
The candidate would also have to push to reform the Supreme Court, he added. “The candidate would have to promise to both push for justice impeachment, and expand the courts,” Dawson said.“If a replacement candidate met both of these requirements, I would absolutely consider switching my vote from Jill Stein. Hell, I might even knock doors/canvass for them!”
Nothing is improved by Trump being elected; for Gazans , for Israelis, for Americans, or anyone else.
Which is why we need to run a candidate with a shot of beating trump…
It’s too important of an election to let Joe have one more go out of nostalgia.
It would be easiest for everyone if he stepped aside, but he’s not willing to.
It blows my mind that people can argue that Trump is the worst possible outcome for our country and the world, and then follow that up with “we need a candidate that can beat Trump”. If everyone knows what is at stake (democracy), how is Biden not capable of beating Trump? Do people think that not voting, or voting 3rd party is going to somehow keep Trump out of the white house? Anything but a vote for Biden (or whoever ends up on the ticket opposite Trump) is who everyone needs to vote for, or they have chosen Trump and doomed us all.
Do you think it’s easier to convince 10s of millions of voter’s minds?
Or get Joe Biden to understand that polls show people don’t want him and that the best thing he can do to prevent trump is step aside.
Seriously.
Do you think anyone on this forum has a direct line to Biden?
Such a troll take
Removed by mod
I can’t say for certain what caused the injury, but I’m sure we can all agree that there is an injury.
Oh look. Same person who shows up at any anti-Biden post trying to convince people not to vote for Biden, but stops just short of saying they want Trump to win.
Let’s see all your “genocide Joe” type of comments directed to all the GOP members in Congress who happily support Israel’s efforts.
If Trump gets elected, he’d show Israel what real genocide looks like.
or if Biden is elected
maybe a few miniscule scraps will make to the people but nothing progressive or meaningful
our lives are worse than four, eight, twelve, sixteen, or however many four years you want to go back our lives get worse every election no matter who wins
some of have waited our whole lives for a change with parents and grandparents who have done the same
You’re beyond stupid if you vote for Cheeto Chimp.
Tell that to my friends who’s parents weren’t allowed to get married until our lifetimes or who’s great grandparents were classified as 3/5ths of a person
I recall Democrats not getting on board with gay marriage equality until after polling showed it to be more popular than banning gay marriage.
You mean they got elected by gasp giving voters what they wanted???
I.E.; not actually leading the charge for human rights, following along only when not doing so would have hurt their standing, and taking credit for reluctant half-measures implemented through the courts (and overturned just as easily by current courts) rather than having put in the effort to amend the bill of rights or at least to pass a federal law while they had the chance.
And we didn’t abolish slavery for 89 years after declaring independence. We can absolutely agree change is usually painfully, unnecessarily, terribly slow but it does happen, requiring time, work, and sacrifice
our lives are worse than four, eight, twelve, sixteen, or however many four years you want to go back our lives get worse every election no matter who wins
Is what I was replying to and it’s objectively false.
An important caveat is that positive societal change is absolutely not inevitable, generations have fought to improve the injustices of their times and we must carry on their legacy lest we allow their sacrifices to be in vain
I getcha.
Yeah, the necessity of our current times seems to be following that 80-year generational cycle…
What’s sad to me is how all of this has seemed inevitable since at least as far back as the DNC boosting Trump and conspiring against Bernie in 2016. I couldn’t have guessed the form it’d take, but I knew that our Von Hindenburg Moment was on the way since the '08 crash got followed up by the astroturfed Tea Party pulling Republicans to the right while Occupy Wall Street went nowhere at all.
What’s scary is that I still can’t see even a vague outline of the future past 2025. I wouldn’t even bet we’re having elections in 2028, much less what Trump will do with the new criminal immunity for presidential acts and a supreme court majority in his back pocket.
Nobody’s coming to save us, so it’s up to us to save each other.
I getcha.
Yeah, the necessity of our current times seems to be following that 80-year generational cycle…
What’s sad to me is how all of this has seemed inevitable since at least as far back as the DNC boosting Trump and conspiring against Bernie in 2016. I couldn’t have guessed the form it’d take, but I knew that our Von Hindenburg Moment was on the way since the '08 crash got followed up by the astroturfed Tea Party pulling Republicans to the right while Occupy Wall Street went nowhere at all.
What’s scary is that I still can’t see even a vague outline of the future past 2025. I wouldn’t even bet we’re having elections in 2028, much less what Trump will do with the new criminal immunity for presidential acts and a supreme court majority in his back pocket.
Nobody’s coming to save us, so it’s up to us to save each other.
They weren’t fully on board until after Obergefell, when they started taking credit for the courts doing what they were too timid to do via legislation.
So edgy.
Yeah anyone who is uncommitted because of Gaza, either was never gonna vote, or is lying to pollsters and is manipulating polls.
Gaza is not on the ballot. Democracy is. End of discussion.
Gonna be a whole lot of Pikachu face on progressive faces.
Those progressive votes might come in handy. But if Democrats don’t want to put it on the ballot they must be very confident in their victory.
Of course they are. Threads like these are full of die-hard blue party voters who refuse to hear any criticism.
Those “progressives” are either Republicans under a different flag, or complete morons who won’t vote Biden when the choice is Biden or Trump.
Come November, if the choice is Biden or Trump, anyone not voting for Biden is helping Trump. Plain and simple.
Jeremy Corbyn won his election in the UK two days ago. His campaign point was Gaza.
The supreme court reform is also not on the ballot. Then what is?
Republicans have their electorate getting the pages of project 2025 all sticky. What do democrats have? Another four years of kicking the can? Same promises as the last time but this time for real?
The Supreme Court is absolutely on the ballot. It always is.
Nah, the DNC went back to the 2016 playbook. It’s “His Turn” now and nothing is going to convince them otherwise. There aren’t even any promises, just the demand for our votes and the automatic assumption that anyone who isn’t a Biden stan is either a Trump stan or a Russian bot.
Yes I can see why you’d think they haven’t talked about policies at all, not paying any attention at all to anything must make it seem like that.
“I’m going to show my anger by making things exponentially worse for myself! That’ll show them!”
inb4 thread gets overrun with “but Trump would be worse” and “we have to vote Biden” as if uncommitted voters didn’t demand their single requirement months ago which Biden could have easily endorsed and easily won this election.
Not to mention Israel still gets 6 months for more genocidal insanity regardless of who wins.
I mean Biden didn’t bring out the military to beat protesters and international news media up to walk across the street to hold up a Bible. Protesters haven’t been swept up in unmarked vans, or tell his detail to beat up a protester at a rally.
My point is that Trump isn’t going to let these people protest Israel in the U.S like that if he wins. So yes, people are going to say “but Trump will be worse”
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
“We need to move to the right to pick up undecided voters”
“Undecided voters want to stop supporting Netanyahu’s genocide.”
“Man, fuck undecided voters. No one needs them. They’re all morons. Let’s ignore them and move to the right.”
those aren’t the undecided votes we want
They aren’t undecided at all. They know exactly what they are doing and it is absolutely not about Gaza at all. If they were truly concerned about Gaza they would not be undecided at all because there is only one viable choice.
It’s not that simple, if gaining undecided votes comes at the cost of more votes than they gain then you’re not going to win. That has been the struggle of the Dems for decades on every progressive issue.
And they continue to assume that they can only pick up more votes by moving to the right.
Party leadership interprets all sensory input as an indicator that they get to move to the right.
Parties don’t decide where the country moves politically, citizens do. If you want people to move left, you have to put in the work to change minds. You don’t sway people at the ballot box. All voting is, is a poll of what people already think and parties try to match their candidates to that poll. The reason our politicians are terrible, is because our people are.
Party leadershit isn’t responsive to the will of the voters.
What I’m saying is, if you only show up on voting day and just complain all other days don’t be surprised when the country moves right. Political change happens every single day of the year, voting is just the political act that reflects that work. We get wet farts like Biden because little of the work is done by the left the make substantive change to our culture. Much of the left views whining as a political act and no more.
Move to the right and blame the left.
Politicians aren’t activists, you’re just confused on how the system works. If you want politicians to change the only thing you can do is apply pressure through their constituents. That means changing minds and motivating people to action. Politicians want to stay in office and largely will be swayed by a shift in public opinion. The right wing is winning because their brand of crazy is highly motivated. It’s easier to moan on the Internet than change minds and change laws.
But changing laws is not as hard as most people believe. A handful of motivated people can change a state law simply by convincing people in their district to call and apply pressure on their behalf. Constituent lobbying is incredibly effective, 10 people convince 10 people each to apply pressure to the right people and suddenly a 45/55 vote becomes 51/49 seemingly over night. I’ve been a part of that more than once to great success. You just gotta put in the work.
Changing minds is harder though, we are competing against media conglomerates that mostly don’t care about truth. But it can happen with work.
Over time that work translates into different politicians, the state I’m in (Minnesota) keeps inching left a hair at a time because the work that is needed keeps happening. It doesn’t happen fast, but it does happen.
Oh phew. I thought people were getting encumbered with all the rape, personal failings, inciting insurrection, misuse of campaign funds, misappropriation of state secrets, hypocrisy, bringing personal feelings and emoluments into state dealings, and being generally incompetent and other unlikeable things. Priorities, people! /s
During the debate Trump said that Israel would finish the job with him elected. In my eyes that’s more/less try to eradicate the Palestinians.
… how can there still be people who think not voting for Biden is a better bet for Gaza? Like really: open your eyes.
You’d prefer to either not vote, vote third party (throw your vote away), or vote for someone who has more or less said they’d continue to support killing innocent people.
Biden isn’t great but is more likely to aim for a ceasefire and some sort of peace than Trump.
It’s the lesser of evils.
… of course voting for Trump is likely pushing the US towards fascism as well, but I’ll ignore that for this (and him being a felon, accused rapist, advocate for the wealthy at the expense of all others, liar, etc) specific comment.
