As non-american I agree you guys should definitely vote Harris, despite Dems being terrible Trump would absolutely be worse on each topic Dems are bad. That being said, rethoric of this post is straight up facist. Using threats of personal consequences for “wrongly” exercising ones right to vote is wild.
This violates rule one doesn’t it? “Shaming people for voting”
If Kamala looses: All of the blame gets put on third party voters for not “voting hard enough” (especially if she wins the popular vote and looses in the electoral college). Absolutely none of the blame gets put on her supporting genocide, her vague positions, the fact that her campaign page contains very little about her views or policies, her support of fracking, her general support of oil and gas, her support of genocide, and her support for imperialism. Of course that could all be incorrect but Kamala refuses to dispute those claims.
If Kamala wins: She will do basically nothing, compromise with the Republicans, allow states to ban abortion, allow states to restrict womens rights, allow states to ban trans healthcare, generally allow the far-right to do whatever they want, and continue to fund genocide. When all of this happens third party voters will be blamed for “not voting hard enough” and Kamala will take no responsibility whatever.
Regardless of outcome the next election: The Democrat candidate will be even more right wing because leftists didn’t “vote hard enough”, they will be even more bipartisan and even less progressive. All of the Liberals will demand everyone vote for this candidate yet the candidate will make no attempt to implement any popular policy. Americas rapid decline into fascism will continue and nobody in power will do anything to stop it.
Once again I ask the question what harm is reduced by “harm reduction”? If anything a more accurate term would be slowing down fascism. But what Liberals refuse to answer is what practical purpose is there to slowing down fascism? Congratulations you get maybe a few extra decades from fascism but then what? Clearly Liberals are buying their time but what exactly are they buying their time for? What is the grand strategy? We’ve already seen the Democratic Candidate clearly use fascist rhetoric, how long is it until these compromise candidates compromise the rights of minorities? How long until they compromise on Fascism? I would vote “harm reduction” if I knew that at the end of it all theres a plan to eventually fight back but I dont think there is one. I think the Liberal plan is to keep doing “harm reduction” indefinitely, however even if you’re a hardcore liberal you have to acknowledge thats a fundamentally unsustainable plan.
TLDR: The only people responsible for Democrats not getting elected are the Democrats themselves and their corporate sponsors who hold them back from instituting popular policy, I get its easy to pin the blame on some group but fundamentally thats little more then a logical fallacy.
The old “if you’re not with us then you’re against us” position. How about the dems adopt policies that inspire people to vote for them.
I’ll vote Dem, but I am ashamed beyond measure of the Dem party. Despite the public doing all they can to stop Trump, the actual candidates running against Trump are sitting on their asses and refusing to take serious action. This “Blue Wave” is not approval FOR Harris-Walz, but rather DISAPPROVAL for Trump. Dems are ultimately more responsible for fascism in the U.S. than their voters.
All in all, the entire United States Government is at fault. This is just one reason why I want an independent Cascadia.
Harris will hold any announcement of dropping weapons shipments to israel till the very last day to see if the polls tell her she will get away with supporting the genocide and still winning the election. The more doubts she has, the more she might flip. So might as well hold your vote till the last second and play out this game of chicken.
It’s sadly the same story in the UK the public are sick and tired of the Tory’s bullshit. Unfortunately the Labour Party has never been soo right wing. Normally they they wouldn’t have have stood a chance on such an authoritarian, uninspiring manifesto but here we are. The cynicism of the people in charge of the Labour Party stinks to high heaven. They fucked the party while the left were in charge then purged them when they retook control. I’ll be lucky to still be about by the time the left ever get control again.
Canada is setup to have a Conservative majority after the Liberals utterly ruined everything for 2 and a bit terms. The Liberals are a centre-right party that campaigns as a centre-left party and it has caused a huge rightward-drift.
We’re pretty screwed because somehow people think the solution to unaffordable housing and whole industries being captured by oligarchs is austerity.
I get this, but playing it safe is going nowhere. Trump was elected not because he was a decent candidate, but because he was a gamble that paid off in spades.
voting third party is bad? first past the post problem
The harsh reality is that leftists, in their outrage over Gaza, are being manipulated to serve the very forces they claim to oppose. Netanyahu, with the same calculated cynicism as Putin, is using this moment of crisis to bolster his own political survival by helping Trump’s re-election bid. AIPAC, already firmly in the Republican camp, is actively working to secure Trump’s victory, just like the leftists—though they may wear different masks. At the core, both groups are contributing to the same outcome: Trump back in power, where Netanyahu and his far-right allies can continue their genocidal wars unchecked.
Leftists may express moral indignation and feel superior in their righteous anger, but at the end of the day, they are playing right into the hands of Netanyahu, Trump, and Putin. They are weakening Kamala Harris, who has a precarious balancing act between Jewish and Arab-American voters, and ensuring that Trump and his cronies can capitalize on this division. Despite their different emotional reactions along the way, both AIPAC and the leftist protesters are on the same side when it comes to the pragmatic analysis: they’re both paving the way for Trump’s return to power. And that’s all the Republicans, Netanyahu, and Putin truly care about—using anyone, even their critics, to achieve their goals.
It’s deeply ironic that a group that prides itself on its materialist analysis can’t seem to distinguish between what they think they’re fighting for and what they’re actually enabling. They claim to oppose imperialism and oppression, yet their actions are directly aligning with the interests of Netanyahu, Trump, and their right-wing allies. For all their talk of understanding power dynamics, they’re blind to the fact that they’re advancing the very agenda they claim to detest.
Or, you know, Kamala could just come out and denounce the Israeli Genocide.
This oft repeated spin straight out of the Political Propaganda 101 book that it’s all the lefties’ fault for not supporting the Democrat Party whilst their leaders unwaveringly support what is well on its way to become the 21st Century Holocaust rather than it being the fault of the Democrat Party leaders for unwaveringly support what is well on its way to become the 21st Century Holocaust hence they risk losing leftie votes, would be hilarious if it wasn’t such an obvious insult to the intelligence of most people.
That the argument always boils down to “these very important people can do whatever the fuck they want no matter how evil and any consequences of that will be the plebes’ fault since should have supporting them” (the kind of “logic” an abuser uses) betrays the tribalism hypocrisy that it really is (hence its obvious subservient mindset) rather than the well intentioned advice it tries to pass itself as.
If the objective was truly and only to Stop Trump, the everybody would be equally pushing for it, but apparently it’s not as the Democrat Party leadership refuses to stop supporting what’s the biggest evil in this century (so far) and instead send their minions around to parrot the abuser’s Book Of It’s Your Fault You Made Me Do It claiming that the fault for the consequences of the choices the Democrat Party leaders is really of everybody else but them.
This response reeks of naive idealism wrapped in self-righteous moralizing. It’s easy to demand that Kamala Harris “denounce genocide” as though it’s a magic wand that will instantly change the geopolitical landscape, let alone the electoral map. To put it bluntly, if she does that, she will almost certainly lose the election. Would that it weren’t the case, but the world (and the United States) doesn’t work that way, and acting like it does betrays a complete lack of understanding of realpolitik. The Democrats are navigating a complex minefield of domestic and international pressures, and while you sit on the sidelines demanding moral purity, your actions are doing nothing but helping the very forces—Trump, Netanyahu, and the far-right—that thrive on division.
Claiming that it’s somehow more virtuous to tear down Harris for not meeting your purity test while ignoring the consequences of a Trump re-election is either willfully ignorant or disturbingly reckless. You cast aside the actual stakes—continued authoritarianism, eroded democratic institutions, and worsening conflict—because you’re too blinded by your own self-congratulatory sense of moral superiority. If the goal really is to stop genocide and halt far-right imperialism, then, no matter how you cut it, your tactical ignorance is making you an unwitting ally to the very people perpetuating it.
This response reeks of naive idealism wrapped in self-righteous moralizing. It’s easy to demand that Kamala Harris “denounce genocide” as though it’s a magic wand that will instantly change the geopolitical landscape, let alone the electoral map. To put it bluntly, if she does that, she will almost certainly lose the election.
That utter nonsense. If she stops the shipments she gets progressive votes. And she wont get nearly from the “center” gun nuts and frackers. The only options she has are to wait and see if she magically gets the numbers somehow, or flip halfway on the genocide issue and stop the shipments. She doesnt even need to go to the palestinian side, she just needs to stop the shipments and the outrage on the AIPAC side will make it look like she made some firm stand. She just needs to give a tiny smidgeon. Or she loses.
And to follow up, let’s cut through the noise: the actual revolutionaries are not on the left anymore—they’re on the right. While leftists sit in their echo chambers, recycling the same tired rhetoric about the “deep state,” “holocaust,” “seizing the means of production,” or the “oppressive system,” the right is using that very system to achieve real, tangible victories. You know, that whole “praxis” thing you’ve only ever read about. You call out the “deep state” in theory, but the right is actively bending it to their will, infiltrating and reshaping institutions while you’re busy hashtagging your outrage. You talk about class struggle, but the right is recruiting the working class and mobilizing them into a political force while you alienate them with performative virtue-signaling and elitist condescension.
Decentralized organizing? The right has mastered it. You talk about decentralized resistance, but they’re doing it with militias, grassroots movements, and local networks that bypass traditional power structures. You fantasize about armed resistance, but they’re the ones arming up and preparing for real-world conflict while you rage from behind your keyboard. They’ve taken leftist tactics and have weaponized them effectively—moving the political discourse to their advantage, recruiting new members, and pushing their radical politicians into the mainstream. Trump? SCOTUS? They didn’t come out of nowhere—they’re the result of decades of long-term grassroots organizing by the right that you probably mocked, dismissed, or ignored. Now they’re reshaping the entire political landscape, and you’re too busy whining on social media to see it and too busy applying purity tests to everyone and everything to stop it.
The so-called revolutionaries on the left, with their gaming-chair activism and social media campaigns, think they’re going to change the world with retweets, downvotes, and think pieces. Meanwhile, the right is out there in the real world, moving mountains while you move Lemmy posts. The so-called left is getting beat—badly. And the worst part? You don’t even seem to notice. It’s both incredibly sad and very frustrating. There’s a real revolution happening, but it’s not yours. The left are not the ones changing the world—they’re the ones losing it. And anyone trying to find ways to blunt the tips or create a tactical opening you dismiss from your self-constructed throne of high-morality. How’s the weather up there on your high horse anyway?
Interesting how everyone blames the people and not the corporate party that doesn’t represent the people. If Democrats are struggling to get leftist votes then I suggest they do things that will make leftists vote for them.
I don’t understand what is so difficult to grasp… In a first past the post system, a candidate that panders to leftists will never win. Not in the current political climate at least.
Conservatives line up behind their chosen candidate, but the left can never agree on fucking anything. And conservatives vote.
So we have a situation where only two parties can emerge, and the person representing the left-leaning party (relatively speaking, I know Democrats are not really “left” in general) has a to walk a tightrope in order to get elected. It is impossible for them to please every faction or individual leftist opinion, and trying to do so would end in certain failure.
Harris could very much be privately supportive of Palestine, but if she were to openly condemn Israel prior to the election, she will 100% lose. Yes, that is shitty, but that is reality right now. That’s what needs to be changed, and it doesn’t happen one month before the most important election this country has ever had.
So if you want a Democratic candidate to pander to progressives, then progressives need to make themselves impossible to ignore when there is not an election of this importance going on. That’s how you move the party to the left. Vote down ballot, vote in local elections, organize for progressives candidates, etc.
But until we get rid of this bullshit first past the post system, voting for anybody besides a Democrat or a Republican is an objective waste.
Bernie
Ho Chi Minh knew all about America’s long history of genocide and slavery.
Happily worked with the Americans in WW2.
You don’t always have perfect allies.
Smug liberals will be condescending regardless of who wins any election.
They said condescendingly.
Abstaining or voting third party is an exercise of choice. If you want your candidate to win, vote for them, as we all should do.
Vote for the candidate you support. If you don’t support any, you can choose not to vote.
This is not about “exercising choice”. This is about affecting the outcome.
Vote for the candidate you support. If you don’t support any, you can choose not to vote.
Yes, those are all choices. Just know that everyone else understands the reality of what your vote (abstention) actually means in practice. So just know that you’re being judged.
Your “judgement” is absolutely meaningless today and it will stay meaningless in the future. Who do you think you are?
Abstaining is the pinical of lazyness, it is my opinion that those who do not participate give up their right to complain about politics until the next election. If you like none of the candidates write in Batman, spoil your ballot by drawing dicks on it, I dont care, you showed up and that alone is the important part.
And before you what-about-ism areas where voter supression is happening or heavily gerrymandered districts? Yes, this is a problem that must be fixed, but not participating also dosent help that either.
Decisions are made by those who show up. That’s what it boils down to. I always see it like this: even if I don’t get the result I want, I’ll at least have the satisfaction that my vote cancelled out someone else’s who’s voting against my interests.
So make sure you show up, or someone else who DOES gets to decide for you.
This I agree with. Vote for whoever you want but for fucks sake vote. People died getting us this right.
It’s the absolute bare minimum you can do to improve our society
Unrelated to the message - that’s a bad use of the meme, doesn’t fit at all.
No, the blame lies squarely on the DNC for deliberately ignoring the loud and clear message from third party voters that genocide is a red line in the sand. The blame further lies with the liberals supporting a decaying Empire and never lifting a finger to help anyone, just showing up at the ballot box every 4 years while the US commits manmade horrors beyond comprehension.
Join an org, like the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) or Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), this mess can’t be undone by supporting the Dems harder.
Unfortunately, it’s not a “red line in the sand,” no matter how much you keep repeating it. While a majority of people in the US disapprove of Israel’s actions, a tiny fraction of voters (less than 2%) consider it their primary voting issue, an even smaller fraction of that number would consider withholding their vote or voting third party over it.
While you may not like it, it’s not the major concern for American voters. If you’d like to withhold your vote or vote third party about it, be my guest. The only likely scenario that would result from that would helping Trump get elected. If you’re honestly concerned about Palestinians, you’d be wise enough to not enable an even worse situation for them. There’s a reason Israel’s leadership wants Trump to win and encourages the left to revolt about Palestine.
You’re getting played by Israel, who is using your short-sighted feels to enable them to enact long-term reals, which in their case might very well be the full extermination and displacement of all of Palestine. To truly bring that into being, they, at they very least, need Trump to win. Fundamentally you are siding with Israel over Palestinians, and the immediate sense of moral superiority you feel about it is precisely how you’re being manipulated.
Read your history. Using the left’s lack of political pragmatism to aid in hard-right political takeover isn’t new. Your Bush-ist “you’re either with us or against us” simplification of the world and political calculus makes you an easy mark. You are, quite literally, a tool of Israel at this point.
And the best part, from Israel’s point of view, is you get to feel good about it. Win-win (for Israel).
It’s a red line in the sand if voters make it so.
Secondly, the idea that Israel is depending on the Repblicans winning is hilarious. Biden has given them everything they want, including approving the Lebanon invasion. The genocide is bipartisan.
I think you’re going to by sadly surprised about how bad things can get. The limits of your long-term imagination and the narrowed view upon which you prevail are a little surprising. But, then again, you’re literally helping the Israeli state, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.
WoahWoah, If you truly beleive in minimizing the murder of the Palestinians, why isnt pressuring Harris to change her policy position something you’ll support? Why get on here and trashtalk progressives into letting Harris have her cake and eat it too?
You’re signing off on everything the US Empire and Israel wants, what’s surprising is that you can’t see that.
Whatever helps you sleep better at night while you help Israel commit genocide.
Whatever helps you sleep better at night while you help Israel commit genocide.
You’ve reached the “I know you are but what am I” level of childishness. That speaks volumes.
you’re a fool or a Russian propagandist.
this election will make waves of change across the world.
to anyone taking this fool seriously I’ll ask you this, where was your conscience when the Uighur people were enslaved.
where was your conscience when Iran was killing woman for standing up for their rights?
where was your conscience when Russia was killing gay men just for being gay?
where was your conscience when North Korea was starving and killing its people?
why didn’t America intervene then? why didn’t you vote your conscience then?
by listening to propaganda like above, you’re not voting your conscience, you’re voting for whatever the propagandists tell you to vote for.
vote to save democracy because we’ve only got the one, and there won’t be a second chance.
Theres a big difference between aiding a genocide vs not showing up to stop one. Are you pretending we are merely being neutral in this Israeli genocide? Thats absurd at best and dishonest at worst.
Progressives are asking for the weapons shipments to stop, and Harris gets the votes to win.
ok, I suppose you don’t support the Uighur genocides by not purchasing any goods in the world market? I mean, if you DO then that would just make you a hypocrite, right?
genocide is genocide. the Uighur genocide has been thoroughly documented and has been going on for about…15 years now? they only started forcing them into internment camps since 2017 though. which reminds me.
where was the outrage when Trump was running in 2016? where was the outrage while he was in office? where was the outrage when Trump continued to do nothing to help those poor Uighur slaves?
did you know that in China you can literally buy organs from Uighur slaves against their will? they’re trafficked as sex slaves, they’re beaten, they’re forced to work to their death, they are murdered just for existing.
so where has all the outrage been for 7 years? oh wait…I get it, it’s too inconvenient because it doesn’t progress the story you want to push.
so I’ll ask more bluntly this time, why is it ok for China to have a genocide and not Israel? is it because they aren’t the right Muslims? or is it because it doesn’t fit the narrative you’re pushing?
Progressives aren’t asking the Dems to commit to even trying to stop the genocide. Progressives are asking Dems to stop actively facilitating and arguably participating in it.
Yeah dude, it would totally make sense to listen to all 3% of those third party voters over the 97% of people who aren’t stupid enough to throw their vote away in such a dumb fashion. That’s how you win elections!
about 1/3 of americans of voting age do not vote. its not just that 3% who are unmoved by the two options served up by the decaying US political system
If the Democrats don’t want votes, then it’s on them when they lose, not voters.
tankies gonna tank.
Someday I hope you’ll get over your hatred of Marxism and Marxists.
doubtful. I used to be one.
hate what you know.
unfortunately Marxist have too great of a fear of what they don’t know and are unable to evolve past their comfort zone.
look at what your Marxist movements have become today and tell me it’s EXACTLY what Karl Marx had in mind.
besides, you think you can take down a system without participating in it? win the people, break the system. Marxist can’t win the people because it has a tumor the size of Russia attached to it that’s been spewing hate and dissent against the system for decades. nobody will trust it for another couple decades.
so yeah, I hate Marxist propaganda today.
You were never a Marxist if you think along those lines, lmao. Explain Dialectical and Historical Matetialism, the basics of Marxism.
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nobody’s going to do that. i guess we’re all dumb because we don’t like your favorite band. grow up.
Ah yes, fascism light. No wonder people are voting third party lol.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay, and the US is a dying empire. They go together
go back to school. fascism is a system of government that’s ruled by the elites.
what you are complaining about is society treating you differently based on the fascist ideologies that you support by not voting blue this election.
IMO vote for whatever you want, it’s your right to do so. I’ll still treat you like the fascist supporting piece of shit you are though, as is my right.
Lol.
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I bet you feel super cool right now. So punk rock duuuuude
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