My favourite is telling a trumper I don’t fucking care what they think.
Letting the air out of their sails is more entertaining when it’s become obvious they are living for the drama of controversy and feeling their opinion matters so much to someone else than the message itself.
let me know when she stops supporting a genocide, promises to retain Ms Khan, and actually has detailed plans for inflation/health care and then i’ll care.
What if I told you: No Shit
Part of the fucking problem is that Dems seem to have kinda given up on ever getting anything nice. The only thing that matters is “BEAT TRUMP”. Healthcare, civil/labor rights, debt relief, the anti-war movement, environmental protections, business regulation, green infrastructure development… none of that is even being offered up.
The only thing you hear is “Whatever position you have, know that Trump will be worse than Harris, so you have to vote Harris”. How do you go up to someone’s door and ask for their vote on those grounds? What do you say to someone who looks at Trump and Harris, shrugs, and says “They look the same to me”?
It isn’t the MAGA voter that you have to worry about. It’s the voter that’s been getting burned election after election by disappointment and can’t be bothered this time around.
What do you say to someone who looks at Trump and Harris, shrugs, and says “They look the same to me”?
What do you say? You say “are you suffering a stroke, would you like me to call you an ambulance?”
Americans aren’t being given a real choice here, too bad, but that’s how it is. Anyone who is eligible to vote but doesn’t realise Trump is a genuine threat to democracy the world over maybe shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
If you were caught in someplace where you didn’t have access to water, and the only choices were a bottle of piss with blood in it (Trump, in this metaphor) and a warm, stale coke light (Harris, in this metaphor), which one would you choose? Neither of them are particularly enjoyable or healthy in the long run, but if you were in a place which had no access to fresh water (spelling out my metaphor here, but democracy), you would die without consuming liquids. Still, you probably wouldn’t choose the pissy blood, because that’d actually be dangerous to drink no matter how dehydrated you were. A warm, stale coke light would still be a functional drink, no matter how much you’d never choose it if you had an option.
See where I’m going?
Chomsky did have a good point once about how there’s a difference of the type of lack of democracy that you can see between America and Russia. (I’m Finnish, btw, fuck Putler.) He made the point that Americans tend to like to think they have a choice, whereas Russians are pretty openly certain they don’t. As a heavy exaggeration, that is. I don’t recall which book it was, but I think it was honestly one of his books from the 70’s about linguistics, which made it weird, since it started with a chapter about CIA shenanigans and propaganda.
I’d never vote republican under any circumstance. …But if I click “Harris” am I complicit with her clearly stated intentions to commit mass murder, when I also have a choice to not vote for either candidate? Whats the responsibility of individuals which comprise and propel groups which openly state they are about to commit that stuff? Does “Do the least harm” just not apply in some situations? I know that legally its not a defense. If you aided murder you are getting punished unless its self defense, which this is not.
If I travel to the edge of the middle east and someone wants to kill me for his murdered wife and children who died screaming, burning slowly in a israeli hellfire missile strike, do I have it coming? I honestly dont know. Part of me thinks yes, I have it coming if I voted for either Harris or Trump. Can someone more philosophically inclined than me help me with this?
Metaphor wise, it feels like l’m being told to shoot an innocent or maybe get shot myself.
Does “Do the least harm” just not apply in some situations?
I think its a fundamentally false choice. People get bound up in the moral weight of their vote, when they spend an hour or two making the decision every 2-4 years. Then they spend 2080 man hrs+ / year working for an employer and god knows how many hours engaging in consumerist behaviors which plays a drastically more meaningful impact on the political and social economy of their neighborhood than the weight of their votes.
A Harris guy working for Raytheon has more blood on their hands than a thousand Trump voters who work construction or do email jobs. A postal worker doing the yeoman’s work of processing all those mail-in ballots has more consequence to their community than a dozen canvassers trying to GOTV. A gym teacher making off-color jokes about LGBTQ students in the locker room is going to weigh heavier on civil rights than a hundred ACT BLUE donators.
If I travel to the edge of the middle east and someone wants to kill me
After all the bombings and killings we’ve done in the Middle East, you’re less likely to be murdered by an angry local dissident than to die of cholera or dysentery because the place you landed has no access to safe drinking water.
it feels like l’m being told to shoot an innocent or maybe get shot myself.
You’re being told to feel complicit in a system that’s totally outside your control, while being hoodwinked into participating in systems within your control without thinking about what you’re really doing.
Has she shown regret as a proponent of profits in the California prison system at the expense of humanity?
Has Trump? Is it worth giving up your right to democracy over? Giving up the health and welfare of ALL women. The future of the world over? No it fucking isn’t.
Vote, and then you can go back to being a faceless idiot on the Internet or bot or whatever.
If you are bringing up Trump when I talk about Harris, then we are not having the same conversation. Learn how to use critical thinking, even when your “common sense” gets in your way.
If you want to talk about democracy, then we need to address the problem with our system of elections and representation.
If you want to talk about health and welfare, then neither party gives a shit. Harris shows she is okay with the way things are going except returning to Roe v Wade. Trump blames immigrants, his favorite red herring, because he has no concept of health and welfare. Unless you mean corporate welfare.
I’m not sure what you are referring to in “future of the world over.”
I can see you are as frustrated as we all are with the direction of our politics. It will never stop me from voting, no matter how futile it seems. I wish everyone did. Again, that leads to the topic of systemic issues with our voting. I hope someday our passions for a just and fair country with sound, constitutional decision making will become reality. For now, we are stuck with bought and paid for politicians and self-righteous eccentrics. It IS hard to accept this state of the union.
Whataboutism argument
That is correct. That’s the argument they were making
Two logical fallacies dont add up to a cohesive argument
You’re so smart!
You’re failing to follow the advice of the meme
You’re doing it wrong
What if I told you… return2ozma is part of the problem. They continuously post negative articles about Harris and very little negatives about Trump…
very little negatives about Trump…
The problem with lemmy.world is the lack of Trump-negative articles. There simply isn’t enough of them.
Um, out of interest I went through their posts of the last week or so. Three were critical of trump, one was critical of biden
Perhaps a bit of cognitive bias going on there?
People had an utter panic attack about this a few months ago. It’s just that they post so much stuff that their name becomes recognizable so people freaked out because they noticed some of it, a small percentile really, was critical of Joe Biden. They panicked and tried to ban the user from basically everything they could. Most of them never thought to look and see what you did which is this user basically posts ad nauseam everything they can find. Some of it critical of Biden some of it critical of trump most having nothing to do with politics at all.
I had thought that people calmed down and cooler heads had prevailed. I guess there’s some weak-willed people still out there though.
Nice to know we’re not developing a hivemind like on Reddit /s
Every chamber will form an echo. It’s how humans are hardwired—to seek out community and belonging.
After a certain point, I’m more interested in direct action ideas from like-minded people than yet another debate about utopia.
Yep, and it’s why we’re never going interstellar. Our tribes are too small.
Sounds like good news for the galaxy
We need to send all the billionaires and politicians to space to experience the Overview Effect so they can realize we need to collaborate and stop worrying about our slight differences.
IDK, man, Bezos went up and came back thinking there’s nobody above him.
I had to read this twice to confirm, but it sounds like you’re intending to bring them back from space with this plan?
I’m open to suggestions on that one…
I think slingshotting the rich people around the sun should be considered, even if they just wanted to go to orbit. We can tell them its for the coolness factor.
It would be a shame to launch all those expensive satellites just to bring them back down immediately.
Due to budget cuts the heat shield for re-entry was cut. Thanks to these budget cuts we gave everybody in the lower echelons of your company a big fat bonus.
We hope you have a pleasant stay in space.
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Gurl please. There’s a million “Trump is bad” articles. Why would I post duplicates?
Why would I post duplicates?
It would help your staunch support of the GOP go unnoticed if you did.
Also it would help people like me respect your opinions if you were to show some level of consistency.
Equal level of scrutiny > equal number of negative posts
Maybe there are a million “trump is bad” articles because there are a million unique reasons that trump is bad. We don’t need a million “Harris is bad” articles to make it fair, we need legitimate comparison on equal ground. Nobody is insisting that you repost what’s already been said, but nobody needs to hear “Harris is also bad” when the only reasonable goal of such a thing is to draw a false equivalency in order to either encourage people that voting for trump isn’t actually all that bad, or discourage barely-motivated Harris voters from actually getting up off their asses to vote for her.
To be clear, Harris isn’t perfect, but she’s proven to be competent and capable of growth as a human being who is engaging in a similar human experience as other people and understands the actual struggles we endure, their causes, and has proposed some solutions. The other fucking guy is airing out personal grievances, bitching about consequences for his actions, and spreading blatantly racist lies about immigrants which would make Hitler himself blush.
If anyone is legit not going to vote because of a negative news article posted by a stranger online… they’re dumb AF.
You’ve been here a while and most have told you about how it looks time and time again.
Either you’re the living embodiment of the Skinner “No, it’s the children who are the problem” meme or you’re a “hidden” Trumpet/Russian asset/Bot
And I keep saying I’m far left.
That’s a fine thing to say, but nobody believes you because of inconsistencies in your reasoning.
Then why are you so hell bent on helping Trump?
I see we have gone with option a, living embodiment of the Skinner meme.
I’m not a Democrat I’m not a Republican. It’s the Democrats that are starting to court Republicans even praising war criminal Cheney. Politicians should constantly be critiqued. Hold their feet to the fire.
Welcome to America, where people think that Fox News is a legitimate news source because “‘news’ is right there in the name!”
Oh, okay, glad all we needed was the smart votes and the votes from the deeply politically engaged.
It reminds me of other instances of left purity, where somehow large swathes of voters don’t count because they’re too dirty, or something.
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I don’t see why that’s a problem. This platform not gonna move vote as much as you like to believe, and reading news get you informed on the ups and downs. It’s not like the ml/grad folks that only post bad thing about the west and only good thing about china/russia, i did see ozma post a wide variety of stuff.
This platform not gonna move vote as much as you like to believe,
Man, none of us are gonna move serious numbers of votes. Yet elections are decided by millions of people who are engaging in civic behavior in the election and the lead-up to the election, every instance being inconsequential individually, but in aggregate deciding the future of nations.
“It’s too small, it doesn’t matter” is one of the ways the GOP pushes out consistent wins while the Dems flounder despite nearly every policy, some of moderate Dems and some of progressive Dems, being overwhelmingly popular in this fucking country. The GOP lacks popular policy positions, and yet because they continuously and consistently push their electoral viewpoints at EVERY turn, not just when it’s ‘big’, they get electorally rewarded. They treat civic duty like a religious duty, and yet I have to limp my ass and beg people door to door just to fucking vote against fascism.
… alright, I’ve never begged. My anxiety is bad enough that I keep things polite. But the point stands.
I have to limp my ass and beg people door to door just to fucking vote against fascism.
Rather than beg your party to adopt the policies all the data shows would actually win then this election?
What on earth makes you think the best ‘evelenth hour’ strategy is to try and persuade thousands of people to vote, but that it’s apparently “too late” to persuade a single executive to change one policy?
I can never tell if you people are in bad faith or just legitimately so detached from a realistic view of politics that that sounds profound to you.
Aw, did you get so upset that you decided to downvote everything I commented in the last day? lmao. I guess anti-genocide and anti-billionaire comments are worth a downvote in your eyes. Didn’t have you pegged for a Zionist or a capitalist, but I guess they come in all shapes and sizes.
Some people are good. Can’t say the same for executives.
That’s a good point. There may a reason in that.
I can never tell if you people are in bad faith or just legitimately so detached from a realistic view of politics that that sounds profound to you.
I can never tell if you people are in bad faith or just legitimately so detached from a realistic view of politics
Leveraging more empathy trying to understand others viewpoints better is seldom completely wasted effort when dealing with non-republicans. But I admit I dont even try with republicans anymore.
I know the anxiety is high in US, and while the rhetoric works in real life, i doubt it did anything in lemmy, a platform of 50k user that mostly made up their mind, to the point they will call any dissenting voice as people against them. While it makes sense because of how notorious the reds are, from the outside it really looks pretty much like idolising a party not dissimilar to the reds. I mean, you guys can’t just accusing republican for idolising trump while at the same time idolising harris, that’s just hypocrisy.
Disclaimer, i’m not from the US so i can’t do much, but i did went through the same thing for the past two elections of my country, to the point the party i voted for is now working together with the one we worked hard to defeat two elections ago. Try give Malaysia election 2018/2022 a read, it’s insane.
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Very few people idolize Harris. Hell, Harris is not particularly popular even within the Democratic Party. The issue is that banging the drum on all the reasons not to vote for her two weeks before it’s decided whether we’re going under a literal fascist regime, or getting another four years of time to unfuck as much as we can, is a strategically stupid decision from any actor who doesn’t want fascism. Yes, Harris is a moderate who supports all the long-standing fuckwaddery of US foreign and domestic policy. No, that’s not particularly relevant ten metaphorical minutes before an election with a candidate who supports all the long-standing fuckwaddery of US foreign and domestic policy getting much worse as a core ideological aim.
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The idolization makes it ridiculous, but the essential difference between the two parties isn’t that “GOP idolizes its candidate while We, The Clear-Sighted, do not!”, the essential difference is “The GOP has openly announced that it’s going for a fascist regime, and the Dems don’t want that.” If someone were insane enough to start plastering Harris’s head on Rambo Trump style, man, it’d be worthy of mockery, but even if it was widespread, it wouldn’t change that one party is essential to support in this election over the other. We want another four years of not-fascism so we can reinforce and build new structures against fascism. Maybe even a better world, though for the next few weeks I’m focused on not getting sent to a concentration camp.
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If you think that a platform of 50k isn’t enough to be worth talking to, I dread to consider what you think of attending town halls.
If you think that a platform of 50k isn’t enough to be worth talking to, I dread to consider what you think of attending town halls.
Look, i know it’s a desperate time now, but to take the 50k in lemmy as undecided rather than an echo chamber is another level of desperate. Like, come on man.
You think the population in a town hall is mostly undecided? I assure you, it’s not.
We do what we do in the hopes that one or two votes might come out of it. That’s all we can do. And there sure as shit are plenty of people here who are on the fence about voting, or voting Dem.
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Yes, it’s important to stop Trump. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that Harris has your best interests at heart. She sees the people as a tool she must convince to get into a position of power. Not as someone who she should serve.
I won’t argue over whether she does have my best interests at heart. It. Does. Not. Matter.
I don’t want to marry her, I want her to keep Trump out of office - and right now, she is the only one who can.
Fun fact: Most exterminators don’t have your best interest in mind - they just want to make a living. Yet, they do keep the bedbugs away, so it’s all good.
America when it comes to electing the most powerful person on the planet: well as long as we don’t elect the fat pants shitting criminal rapist liar again we’re doing a pretty good job.
It’s a little bit below the absolute bare minimum a democracy has to offer but the struggle is still real.
It seems you didn’t read my first sentence. OP implied that Harris will do positive things. She will not. She is nothing more than the lesser evil.
I have read all the sentences, and I agree with the first one.
What I felt needed a little commentary was the rest. See, minds more impressionable than yours and mine may come to the conclusion that voting is pointless if you can only vote for the lesser evil.
I don’t know whether she is better than you think she is - my point was that it doesn’t matter, and that speculating, postulating and pontificating about how she may not be as good as we want her to be just turns people off of voting. Which would be bad.
That was my whole point.
See, minds more impressionable than yours and mine
Get off your high horse.
Also: how many people will make their decision for the election based on /c/politicalmemes?
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Harris could sit in the Oval Office and spin around in her chair for four years and still be an immeasurably better president than Trump.
OP’s statement was that she’ll do more than that. I agree that she’s better than Trump. What are you trying to tell me that I haven’t already stated?
Decades of civil service would beg to differ. Of course all politicians in a democracy need to sway voters to vote for them, but it’s absurdly cynical to believe that no politician in any democracy ever has given any fucks about the well-being of their constituents. Unless you’re saying that this is something mostly unique to her, which is equally silly. I have my doubts about how much of her campaign promises can actually be delivered on, mostly due to congressional Republicans who will definitely stonewall everything possible, but it’s outrageous to claim without any supporting evidence that Harris is uninterested in serving the people when she’s already been doing so for her entire career.
it’s absurdly cynical to believe that no politician in any democracy ever has given any fucks about the well-being of their constituents.
It’s a harsh oversimplification, but yes: Most politicians primarily focus on maintaining their own power. Claiming to have the best interest of their constituents at heart is one strategy to achieve that.
without any supporting evidence
Why would she be different than centuries of historical precedent?
Very true, but much more difficult because Harris actually has to commit to something positive. It’s easier for the astroturfers to just throw dirt at Trump.
I do hope you’ll notice how many people have downvoted you. I know it won’t matter to you, but check out that number.
82-page policy plan from Harris, for the naysayers that somehow continue to pretend that the best candidate available to us this election supposedly has no positions
https://kamalaharris.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Policy-Book-Economic-Opportunity.pdf
😭😭😭
Ctrl+F “climate crisis” - only non footnotes result:
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will work to lower household energy costs and create millions of new jobs, ^(while tackling the climate crisis)
Like we get it you’re a centrist capitalist that wants to appease those two classes - but I’m sick of folk pretending that the Democrats are what’s gonna move the needle to the left instead of remembering how they kicked Bernie to the ground because their corpo interests couldn’t stomach actual progressive policies.
Get tf out of here with that vote for the lesser evil shit - bitch at this point it feels like far right fascism has more power to turn people away and toward leftist solutions than this milk toast centrist bullshit pandering smh…
“you see you have to vote for the right of center candidate because otherwise you’re being naïve and not a real leftist, I am very smart!!” - like start fucking voting for your own class interests and abolish the two party system - but frogs must love the warmth I guess…
This is quite disingenuous, as the document offers several things that will help mitigate climate change, including improving energy efficiency of buildings and investing in renewable energy. It also mentions climate resilience (though you won’t find that if you simply Ctrl-F the term).
I’m being disingenuous?
Ok, show me where does the policy book say anything about upholding international climate agreements? Where does it say anything about reducing fossil fuel usage? What does it say about banning fracking? What does it say about taxing mass polluters? What does it say about holding industry accountable for externalities, environmental damage or health impacts? What does it say about, right to repair, production reduction and shifting focus on extending product lifecycles? Nothing!
My screenshot is literally all that’s said about the climate crisis - and you’re the one pretending that some thin veiled renewable energy investment and tax credits incentives for insulation and heat pumps is in any way enough to “help mitigate climate change” - and yeah I’m sure those two sentences about resilience is anything but self-centered slop to protect US interests from foreign oil instability and global warming induced climate disasters.
Look I understand that as an economic centrist that only cares about job creation and GDP you may think this policy has enough to pacify those damn environmental hippies so they shut up and let the economy keep chugging on - but don’t try and convince anyone that this is anything but self-serving capitalistic propaganda 🤡
That’s great, sincerely (despite over half of the pages being cover art, pictures, or other filler).
Use that in their advertising, not more beating a dead Toupee.
Trump deserves all the dirt thrown at him.
