Why is he calling the genocide a “war”?
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Sheep dog is still sheepdogging
This is persuasion done correctly. “I understand how you are feeling. Israel’s crimes and US support of them should be important to all of us. You aren’t wrong to have your reservations, and I agree change is needed. That being said, please let me tell you why it’s important to participate.” No insults, readily apparent empathy, and a sound argument.
People have been doing exactly that since back when we were trying to somehow get Biden to win.
The message isn’t the thing. It is the speaker. Because even the tankiest of tankies are going to be wary of insulting Sanders in front of their audience. And this is why celebrity endorsements matter.
People have been doing exactly that since back when we were trying to somehow get Biden to win.
No. Centrists have been screaming that anyone who has the slightest misgivings about their genocide is a trumpist russian shill bot child. There has been no understanding whatsoever because centrists cannot fathom disliking genocide.
And this is why celebrity endorsements matter.
Good call. When your “role model” (for lack of a better term) takes a position on something, it tends to give it more credence to the target audience.
I have a great deal of respect for Bernie Sanders, so his words carry some weight with me. He is being a voice of reason.
Edit: I’m changing my stance on how common this is after a few hours looking at top election posts and comments across boards. The abuse definitely exists, but in most places it WASN’T at the top. While “vote bullying” happens, I was wrong about how much support it gets. I’m happy to be wrong and glad to see that people usually are pretty decent about presenting their arguments. I still think OP’s article shows how people should be convinced.
I get what you are saying and half-agree.
Where I respectfully disagree is that people have always been this reasonable.By writing “this is how it’s done correctly, with respect and logic” I’m juxtaposing Sen. Sander’s approach vs. “vote with us or else you’re -insert insult here-” posts, comments, and memes. I’ve seentons ofsome attempts to dehumanize or discredit critics of Biden/Harris/Dems on Lemmy and other platforms. You are right thatsomemost have always tried to be empathetic and civil.I also agree high-profile endorsements matter. That bugs me a little bit because I think arguments should succeed or fail on their own merits and not reputation. But I know I’m a consciously “have no heroes” person because I believe everyone is fallible. I definitely have people I respect a lot, but no one that I’ll agree with all the time.
Generally speaking, people AREN’T saying “vote with us or else you’re a piece of shit” to anyone who is (good faith) complaining about Biden’s horrendous record on genocide and Kamala being unlikely to be much better. We almost always point out "Yeah… it sucks. But do you think trump will be any better? and get responses along the lines of “WELL I WON’T VOTE FOR GENOCIDE!! THAT IS MY LINE!!!”
It has nothing to do with the way the message was said and pretending otherwise is an active insult to everyone who gives a shit.
The only reason this MIGHT make a dent is because it is Bernie Sanders. The guy who opened a lot of people’s minds to the reality that there is something better than late stage capitalism and beltway liberals.
people AREN’T saying “vote with us or else you’re a piece of shit”
Lemmy is doing precisely this, in this very thread, and has been doing this in literally every thread where this comes up since 2023. The issue that needs to be addressed is whether or not “Trump worse” is working as a strategy. What Bernie is saying here isn’t new, and maybe he’s saying it better, or its better coming from him than other surrogates. ymmv. I would argue you’ve already captured all the votes you can get using this approach. Now what about the votes you aren’t getting with the argument “Trump worse”?
I think without a pivot on this Harris is leaving the easiest 1-3% of voters to get on the table. And they’ve been there since the last day of the convention, where Harris conveniently showed Arab-americans the exit rather than the podium. Its a small group, but its more than sufficient to be a deal breaker in this election. You can’t force them to go for Harris, and no amount of telling them they have to has changed their minds.
Going forwards, how do you get these voters to vote for Harris?
Lemmy is doing precisely this, in this very thread, and has been doing this in literally every thread where this comes up since 2023.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
I am an AAPI. I already know no candidate gives a shit about me. Hell, it says something when frigging Yang seemed palatable for like… five minutes. And with the way geopolitics is shaking up? If you thought the anti-asian hate was bad during the lockdown parts of COVID, just wait until we are in a cold war gone lukewarm against china like we are with russia.
And that is why a lot of AAPI folk kind of go right wing. They, like their parents, decide it is easier to try to ingratiate themselves wit hteh white supremacists than to show solidarity. But the rest of us? We rapidly learn that there IS no solidarity with us because we are “model minorities” and get told to shut the fuck up when more important minorities are being discriminated against.
But also? That isn’t the only issue. There are AAPI women and AAPI lgbtq+ folk and so forth. And thus, you actually look at the issues and vote in your interests even if neither party really gives a shit. Because you have more than one issue (and, even that, one party is still a lot less shitty)
So if “Well… neither is great but one is a whole lot worse in these very concrete ways” isn’t working?
You get a celebrity influencer to say it. Like Sanders.
We rapidly learn that there IS no solidarity with us because we are “model minorities” and get told to shut the fuck up when more important minorities are being discriminated against.
Its like the trolley problem exemplified. Blue-dog democrats be like “well someone needs to get crushed under the weight of this thing”.
Edit: I’m adjusting my stance because while I can find abuse in many threads most of the time it WASN’T in the top comments. Seeing what actually makes it to the top proves I was wrong and I won’t cherry-pick comments further down to argue I’m “right”. “Vote bullying” exists so I’m not deleting, but when I looked for other examples I found that most of the time upvotes are for reasonable folks.
I’ll give one high-ish profile example that illustrates what I’m talking about: /c/politicalmemes has nearly 6k users, which is fairly big for Lemmy. In the last 6 months, the #3 top post with 1.91k upvotes is about how not voting because you feel there’s no good choice means Republicans win and not seeing that means “you have a problem”. The top comment in that post is about how people saying Biden isn’t doing enough are propagandists. The #3 top comment literally tells dissenters to “do a lot more shutting the fuck up”.
As I’ve said from the beginning: it’s not universal, but it shows up regularly enough to make me appreciate Bernie’s approach.
The meme sub. Where people intentionally try to make jokes and antagonize each other?
Edit: While I stand by what I say below about the sentiments being genuine, when actually reading top comments across boards - in most threads the top comments are pretty civil and reasonable. I was wrong.
I believe the meme and comments actually reflect the views of the people posting them. Perhaps I’m wrong, but the sentiments come across as very genuine and so I don’t think it’s accurate to dismiss them as “just joking”. I also picked it because I remembered it and so it was faster than trawling through other threads for examples.
“I’ve never seen liberals act like assholes, so it must actually be the leftists who are assholes”
I’ve seen threads from only hours ago where lemmygrad denizens were shitting on Sanders as far too conservative. Like… honestly, at this point, I think many people in that crowd are just leaning into being agitprop trolls for t3h lulz, or something like that. It’s deeply stupid imo, but they seem to not care.
Nah it’s just america’s center being extremely right-wing.
The tankies on Lemmy are not the progressives that Sanders is speaking to.
Those progressives feel disenfranchised by Democrats and will rightly drop support for the “moderate” candidate next time there’s an election where the alternative is not a mask-off fascist. Some of them might do it this year, unfortunately. Maybe this is their first time voting, and they’re struggling with settling for the lesser evil. Maybe they’ve been doing it all their life and they’re tired of it. They’re the ones Sanders is trying to persuade.
Tankies, on the other hand, don’t actually give a fuck about their own moral arguments. They would be in Gaza murdering Palestinians with their own hands if they thought it would accelerate the collapse of the US and the rest of the western world. But why get your hands dirty when Trump can drop MOABs because of “the power” or whatever dumb shit he’s going to do. They hope Trump wins so that China and Russia will need to rescue the world from a fascist dictator in the US. They’re hoping for a new world order - like what the allies did after they defeated nazi germany.
It’s easy to confuse them around here because there are so many tankies among the well-meaning progressives getting swept up by tankie opportunism.
This is where I’m at. I’ve been open that I’m voting for Kamala, but people are literally posting that she has “no scandals” unironically, and will call you a Russian bot or a Trump supporter for disputing that. It’s absolutely unhinged, and does nothing for her election.
Lots of bandying about the term “BlueMAGA” too, which is just… so, so dumb. That’s not what this is. That’s not what anyone is saying. The only point I’ve been trying to make to those people is that if you don’t want to have a fascist takeover in the US, your one and only one option is to vote for Harris. I hate that our system works that way, but it does, and it’s not changing in a week. Pretending we’re not subject to the constraints of the electoral system we exist in is a recipe for defeat - and again, a fascist takeover.
And your one point is factually incorrect for a large majority of Americans. If you live in any number of non swings states you can safely vote against harris via a 3rd party. Dont worry the lemmings like yourself before reading this post will still give her the win.
The only place your statement would be remotely true is on swing states. And at that point I put the blame squarely on harris. 🤷 Tis gonna be a shit show and she has no one to blame but herself.
There are many shades of tankies.
The hardcore Hasan fans (and, probably Hasan himself) are generally good folk with strong leftist ideals who drink a bit too much of the kool-aid and have a tendency to be useful idiots who spew blatant pro-russian propaganda (remember the first few days of the war in Ukraine? I sure do). But when someone they know/“know” cares about them is saying something? They listen.
Hexbear and lemmygrad are full of the kind of tankies who manipulate THOSE tankies. The ones who are gleeful to spew pro-russian propaganda because it proves they are REALLY leftist… or because they are literally paid to do so.
Can’t wait to see this post and comments screenshotted on hexbear 🍿
Sanders is a SINO according to the tankies, and plenty of commenters have trashed him here the other times this argument has been posted.
Pfft.
Just had someone tell me that Bernie is too old and can’t think any more.
They just want an excuse to get noticed and pretend to be badass.
I really wish the USA was just seeing the end of a double-term Bernie presidency. I’m not dumb enough to pretend that it would have all been roses and prosperity (especially with the pandemic), but missing the setbacks of that 1st Trump presidency alone would have been pretty great. I -think- I’d prefer a younger president, but if an older president had to be chosen then Bernie seems articulate and compassionate.
Someone downvoted you for wanting to have seen a Bernie Presidency.
I don’t have words for these people.
Finally! Not the video link! Thank you!
That was my bad. Thank you for everything you do!
They’re using synpathy towards people suffering genocide to try and coral people to the polls. I’ve seen this before. What happened with Roe V Wade? Why are kids still in cages at the border? Why is minimum wage still so low?
Madam Vice President, too little has been done on issues that were previously promised. I cannot take these people at their word.
Want my vote? End support now. It’s been a year of genocide with you at the right hand of Biden. All those lives lost happened on your watch. I will not be duped into voting for someone who has been complicit in commiting genocide, who is now promising to stop that same genocide because it happens to coincide with their political goals.
I will not support a genocide, on the promise of it being ended, only to wake up on January 21st just to hear 'Well, the situation is more complicated than just simply ending support, but I vow…!"
You’ve had a year to end it, and too little has been done to stop it. I will not vote for a genocidal candidate. I will not say that I support genocide by voting for these people. I will not be an accomplice.
It’s sickening to think that they probably allowed the genocide to continue just to use it as a carrot to lead people to the ballot box, all the while lining the pockets of the military industrial complex.
Fuck off with your promises, you’re in the White House now.
Good plan dude. Trump to the rescue.
I don’t think anyone thinks trump is going to rescue anything.
Oh okay, then you’re voting for Harris, right?
The lady in favor of continuing to support a genocidal regime? No.
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Virtue signalling about genocide and letting the ‘genocide to the max’ guy win will show the Palestinian people how much you care for their plight.
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I didn’t create the situation, I’m just reacting to it. Feel free to tell your kids and grandkids that, when given the choice, you actively supported a genocide.
You are both actively supporting and working to accelerate said genocide. Feel better?
I am already complicit by virtue of birthplace, that doesn’t mean I have to take an active role in supporting the lesser evil.
Then you’ve chosen to support the greater evil.
You can hate the two party system all you want, but it’s the reality we live in.
You’re actively supporting genocide.
It’s very obvious to absolutely everyone that allowing Trump to win will produce the worst possible outcome for palestinians.
I honestly feel sorry for you. I think there’s a strong possibility your own kids and grandkids will be asking you about this time in history, and I suspect you’re going to realise in future how silly this “do x or I won’t vote for you” position is.
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Would you like me to make a pdf with some words and some awful photos of what palestine would look like with a Trump supported Netanyahu?
You realise that Netanyahu wants you to abstain from voting right?
Russia, China, Israel, all understand that they can’t get you to vote for Trump, so they’ve been pouring many millions of dollars into manipulating your good self into not voting.
In the article from this post Sanders explains in great detail why Harris is the most likely to negotiate a cease fire. Is that what you would like?
If you refuse to vote for Harris you’re actively supporting genocide.
“If I can’t have zero genocide then I don’t care to vote against the candidate that is very likely to be even worse.”
Especially with only two candidates with a chance of winning, a vote doesn’t mean unconditional support for everything that candidate wants. Sucks, but if you want to make your wishes known more specifically, you have to do more than just vote (if even that) and complain on the internet.
If I can’t have zero genocide
Look at where we are.
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The unfortunate thing is we can’t have zero genocide. I just don’t want to be complicit in supporting it. I didn’t create this situation or these choices, I’m just responding to them.
Not voting would make you complicit in making it worse if Trump wins. Doing nothing is still a move.
The genocide is going to happen either way, as both candidates are in favor of it. The only choice I have in the matter is whether to to support those candidates with my vote or not. I am complicit by virtue of birthplace, that doesn’t mean I have to actively support it by helping the lesser evil further their political goals.
They voted against both, dont be mad your candidate was so shit she couldnt clear a ‘dont genocide’ hurdle from a voter. Thats not either your faults or problems its Harris’ problem.
The current system (or voter inertia) doesn’t allow you to vote against both. One of them will win, your only decision is which one you want (or despise less). If your vote doesn’t threaten their win, then when you vote for neither you’re voting for the winner.
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The current system (or voter inertia) doesn’t allow you to vote against both.
false premise.
One of them will win,
Yes.
your only decision is which one you want (or despise less).
false conclusion.
If your vote doesn’t threaten their win, then when you vote for neither you’re voting for the winner.
Man, you’re a mental pretzel. please re-read your statement a few times. think really hard on what you just said. come back when you realize how that statement works both ways and is beautiful nonsense.
You agreed that either Trump or Harris will win. Your vote can only threaten one of them, by voting for the other or an alternative candidate. Same with not voting, the winner won’t care about your missing vote.
That means no action you take in the election will harm both candidates, ergo there is no way to vote against both of them.
That means no action you take in the election will harm both candidates, ergo there is no way to vote against both of them.
mmmm. does it though? you think the goal is to harm one of their campaigns. its not. the goal is to do two things:
- ensure when harris gets into office shes bloodied enough in the deep blue states to know she needs to work with bernie and ideally you know not commit a genocide.
- ensure if trump wins that the democrats control both houses.
you can read my post history. I’ve been very clear on this goal. its the only reason I’m wasting my time atm doing this along with other activities the last 4 months I’d really rather not be wasting my time with. like composing emails to my critters reminding them my vote for them is at risk if the genocide continues.
What amazes me is individuals like yourself won’t even put an ounce of effort into helping Palestinians. just a few hours a day, lie to a few pollsters, email your critters, maybe vote 3rd party for president if you live in a deep blue state.
If harris campaign is harmed by this, well I can hardly be blamed. I didn’t chose her policy positions. I certainly wouldn’t have chosen genocide as a platform. but people do weird things. like mentally contorting themselves into a pretzel to support a genocidal candidate when not doing so is much easier. I hope you manage to find your way, but I doubt it. 🤷♀️
I’m glad to see that you’re doing more than just voting, which I was advocating for in the first post you answered.
The easiest way to get back voters for whom this was a deal breaker, is for Kamala to pivot on the issue.
The rhetorical techniques from surrogates have been out there for months. They don’t work when the candidate is out there eroding them by saying things like “nothing comes to mind”. You can be angry at these voters, you can blame them, but what obviously isn’t working is trying to move them by saying “Trump would be worse”.
The only answer here that works is a pivot from Kamala.
The only answer here that works is a pivot from Kamala.
That’s the only answer you want. That’s not the only answer that works.
Well its clear that the “rhetoric only” approach isn’t working and is insufficient. Bernies rhetoric here and in the video version are good. But its not any different than what we’ve been seeing, literally the entire time from other surrogates. It sums to “Trump worse”.
And its not working. It hasn’t moved the needle. Kamala has been declining in polling pretty precisely since she snubbed Muslim’s at the DNC and then a week after that doubled down on it saying that “nothing would be different” in her administration relative to Biden’s. Since then the scale and scope of Israels genocide have increased, and she’s stayed the course to a continual decline in polling. Its not “the answer I want”, its what the data have to say.
We’re a week out from the election. You’ve convinced all the voters for whom “Trump worse” is a sufficient rhetorical approach.
Now what about the voters for whom that approach is insufficient. Is your plan to leave them on the table? Because it seems to me you aren’t interested in getting their votes, and that puts the campaign in jeopardy.
There is a cohort that appears to be about 5% of voters for whom “Trump worse” is an ineffective argument. If not for a pivot on the part of Harris, what is your argument then to get those voters to show up and vote for her?
I don’t know why we’re assuming that she picks up more votes than she loses by making a pivot on Israel. Not only will she lose votes from other areas of the base, that pivot will drive turnout among the GOP base. 5% means nothing if they lose 5% from Christians/Jews and turn out all the Christian crazies for the GOP.
Unfortunately I think the Harris campaign is doing the right thing with Israel right now. If other people on the left think this issue is worth losing over, I simply disagree. I don’t think there’s a good answer where everyone is happy, just one with less dead Palestinians.
Unfortunately I think the Harris campaign is doing the right thing with Israel right now.
Gross.
why we’re assuming that she picks up more votes than she loses by making a pivot on Israel
Because thats what the data have to say. That’s why we think that.
I think the Harris campaign is doing the right thing with Israel right now. If other people on the left think this issue is worth losing over,
What you need to recognize is that this is something YOU think the election is worth losing over. YOU are the one arguing to leave a sufficient block of voters on the table by not pivoting. That 1-3% of voters is what wins or loses all of these tight races.
This is an aspect that makes me irate. People will say that its pure electoral pragmatism to support Israel, but how is losing Michigan over it pragmatic? I have seen no convincing argument that an arms embargo would be more dangerous for her electorally than continuing to tripple down on supporting Israel. If its not taken as a given that genocide is a pragmatic approach, then it seems obvious that the choice that leads to less genocide is correct, but Harris won’t take it.
I have seen no convincing argument that an arms embargo would be more dangerous for her electorally than continuing to tripple down on supporting Israel.
It doesn’t even have to be that! She can just make a vague statement about considering conditioning arms sales.
Christ, right? If anything, the data we have suggest a pivot gets her back to being a candidate that had momentum and was increasing their share of likely voters.
There is nothing pragmatic about supporting a policy which is deeply unpopular with your base. This is a turn out election. You have to turn your base out, not off.
Because thats what the data have to say. That’s why we think that.
So what is the percentage of voters that she will lose with a pivot? Not the ones she might gain, who does she lose? And what does it do to GOP turnout estimates?
You’re completely ignoring that by changing her position, she can gain votes with one group, and lose votes with another. What you and the data you’re using haven’t done is prove that the former is greater than the latter. It seems pretty apparent to me that the army of data scientists that the Harris campaign is listening to is telling her it’s not.
This is the exact same argument that people we’re using to argue that we had to “stick with Biden” as the candidate. And it was so completely and wildly wrong, it almost cost Democrats the entire game before the clock actually started. A bunch of hand-wringing and what-ifs’. If you want to make those arguments, thats fine. Go find the data and show me there is a political cost to a pivot, because I’ve provided data to say there isn’t, and in-fact, not pivoting is costing her the election. You don’t get to use speculation or uncertainty as a form of evidence.
The evidence is on my side, not yours. If you want to support your argument, go find any kind of evidence you can, work it up, and give us an evidence backed argument to support that position.
Until then the conclusion is that Harris is leaving voters on the table with her position on Israel Gaza, because thats what the data we have says.
Go find the data and show me there is a political cost to a pivot, because I’ve provided data to say there isn’t, and in-fact, not pivoting is costing her the election.
You provided half the data and are trying to get people to draw meaningful conclusions about it, while refusing to even acknowledge you’re working with incomplete data.
I’m just confused why you think you can lay out exactly half of the equation, know that you’re not presenting the whole picture, and say with certainty that the data proves you correct.
You lose way more voters than you gain on the issue by resorting to all out condemnation of one of our biggest allies, unfortunate as it is
You lose way more voters than you gain on the issue by resorting to all out condemnation of one of our biggest allies, unfortunate as it is
If only there were some policy between the current enthusiastic unconditional support and all out condemnation.
Maybe if Harris were running as a Republican.
But its not Republican votes she’s leaving on the table. Its literally registered Democrats. And Democrats put the responsibility for the state of things on the Israeli government.
Center right republicans are up for grabs here, idk if youve heard but Harris and Trump are pretty much neck and neck in every battleground state. She’s trying to reach out to Republicans that are fully sick of Trumpian politics. It’s not progressive voters she’s courting nor should she
And if she loses as a result? Then who are you going to blame? The Democrats who left her? the Republicans who didnt join her? Or harris for being so committed to genocide she lost to a literal fascist?
Keep in mind the longer she waits the more likely it is those historically democratic voters are lost due to early voting.
Centrists will do what they always do. They will interpret a win as vindication and an indicator that moving to the right works.
They will blame their left for a loss, announce that the left are unreliable voters, and use that as justification for moving to the right.
It’s her calculus man, not mine. The Harris campaign has decided this is the way to go, if she loses because of it then she loses because of it. I think it’s the right way to go but honestly not really any point arguing about it, we’re gonna find out real soon either way
indeed we are. but then you’ll be stuck knowing you did jack shit to stop a genocide when all you had to do was lie a little bit to make her sweat it out. maybe follow through if your state can take the hit on democratic support. instead you decided your effort was better spent arguing with me and others like me instead of getting in on the game. =)
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Thank you.
You are literally arguing she make a speculative play to turn Republicans instead of going after registered Democrats that she’s lost.
I’m highlighting this to demonstrate for posterity how patently absurd the apologist rhetoric was on this matter.
I feel you. I completely agreed until sometime in spring, when Sen. Sanders first posted an argument very similar to OP’s linked article. One of the major reasons I switched stances was environmental damage and global warming which is threatening horrible suffering for hundreds of millions at least. If for no other reason than that Trump must lose. Afterwards those who stand for ethics and proportional response can try to drag the Western leaders out of complicity with war crimes. Never stop criticizing such unethical and illegal policies, but if you’re American please vote Democrat.
Exactly. For you, that rhetoric was sufficient. But whats clear in the polling is that there is a small portion of voters for whom that is not enough. Harris needs every single possible vote she can get to pull this out. The campaign needs to offer more than just “Trump worse” if they want voters for whom that rhetoric has been demonstrated to be insufficient.
I decide how I will vote based on whether the candidate is close enough to me across all issues. I don’t support genocide, but Harris hasn’t advocated launching strikes against Israeli military bases. That’s a minus. I support aggressively addressing climate change, Harris is not aggressive enough on the issue. Another minus. I believe the government should set prices of goods based on the needs of the populace. Harris wants to impact the prices of some goods, but she supports free market pricing for others. Minus again. I believe in the rights of the innocent in our judicial system. Harris is a former prosecutor.
Harris doesn’t check enough boxes for me, so I’m doing what I did in 2020 again. I’m voting for the only person who truly aligns with my beliefs - myself. Please join me by writing each of yourselves in for President in 2024.
Pointless Stupid Gesture 2024!
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/30/bernie-sanders-israel-gaza-harris-trump
the antisemites have to be clearly and succinctly told this, you see
Netanyahu is committing genocide.
There are Israelis, people of Jewish descent (including Bernie Sanders) and practicing people of the Jewish faith who are vehemently against the genocide being perpetuated against innocent Palestinians.
