Summary
Key leaders of the “Abandon Harris” movement, which encouraged voters to oppose Kamala Harris due to U.S. support for Israel during the Gaza war, are now expressing unease about Trump’s incoming administration.
Many in the movement, including prominent Muslim leaders, voted for Trump hoping he would bring peace to the Middle East.
However, concerns are growing over his Cabinet picks, such as Mike Huckabee and Tulsi Gabbard, which some see as troubling for Muslim communities.
It gets harder to continually extend sympathy and solidarity with all of the fucknuts who are ostensibly allies on the left, when they focus on a single media-focused disaster, and they try to “send a message” to their own side, by backstabbing them and helping the fascist who will be 1000x worse.
Progressives who proclaim their hate for both parties are simply binary thinkers whose privilege insulates them from the consequences of their “principled stands”. They wonder why the country doesn’t just hand all power over to Progressives… go blow.
Unfortunately it boiled down to selecting the lesser of the two evils and the Abandon Harris clowns chose the neo-Nazi MAGAts which will send, for free, a nice assortment of 155 mm artillery shells to Israel… From my point of view, zero sympathy for your FAFO.
Yep. They’re getting exactly what they voted for, whether they like it or not. They might not have liked Harris’ limp wristed attempts at encouraging moderation and restraint, but Trump’s plan was to “Finish the problem” and will not just enable, but actively encourage genocide.
I’ll never understand how people could vote for Trump over Harris on the Israel thing.
Trump was crystal clear he would give Israel whatever they needed to get it done and quick. Democrats rolled over for Israel but at least made it known they weren’t happy about it. Which is most certainly not enough but still.
I just hope the Democratic party takes the hint that their extremely middle-of-the-road approach to these and many other serious problems is killing them during elections. They should stop trying to please everyone (and especially the far-right) and commit to an actual opposing viewpoint.
The Democratic Party is not trying to please everyone. They’re answering to their owner’s commands and campaigning to voters in ways that don’t offend their owner’s demands.
No Trump lied he would bring peace. Harris said she would give Israel everything it needs. You are switching the sides around.
Trump lied he would bring peace
No, Trump told the truth; there will be the kind of peace you find at the site of hundreds of mass graves.
The fuck are you talking about
If you do not know you are in an echo chamber.
Ah yes my differing opinion is because I’m a mindless sheep caught in an echo chamber but you, oh enlightened one, are here to educate us with your unbiased, very informed, well-sourced facts that trump our feefees.
So where are these sources?
Trump’s peace is by massive weapons exports to Israel so they could carpet Gaza faster and call for an end to the war. Can’t have war in Gaza if there are no Palestinians left!
He promised some vaguer peace in Ukraine and we’re all afraid of what that’s going to translate into.
Honestly I’m thinking a lot of this was another Russia-sponsored propaganda campaign. I’ve noticed that WhAt AbOuT IsRaEl is coming up a lot in response to articles or discussions about the shit they’re pulling, as if one can’t oppose the shitty actions of both.
No no no,they saved Palestine, remember?
Now that the Dems aren’t in control all those Palestinians are perfectly safe.
Right, tankies? That’s all you were screeching about back in November. Now it’s cricket chirps, like Palestine even mattered to you lot. Disgusting.
There has been a recurring argument (not mine, heaven forbid) both prior to and in the aftermath of the election that not voting for the dems would show them that they can’t keep running away to the right and still expect to win. It would teach them a lesson.
It baffles me that they think a) the Dems would actually learn the lesson, b) the alternative wouldn’t be that much worse and c) the alternative that quite explicitly aimed to abolish democracy entirely would willingly afford the dems a chance to learn that lesson. If they can’t eliminate democracy itself, they’ll try to neuter and bias it as heavily as possible until they’ve got the same kind of pseudo-democratic one-party fuckery that you see in other countries like… China, North Korea, Russia, Belarus…
Huh, that’s funny, seems like all the countries whose boots they’re so eager to lick. I’m sure that’s coincidence, right?
Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t believe it’s coincidence at all. I think it’s part of a deceitful strategy to undermine democracy through spreading willful ignorance and channeling voter frustration and disillusionment into frustration with democracy itself. Hell, there are even people claiming that a dictatorship is a necessity of revolution, that you can’t build a new and better system without placing someone in charge of building it - because that worked out so fucking well with the other communist revolutions, right?
Every single fucker who gargles dictator cock under the guise of “communism” and “leftism” is an authoritarian, a traitor against the people they feign class solidarity with. You don’t save democracy by not participating. You don’t hold politicians accountable by supporting their opponents.
And that’s being charitable and assuming they’re just misguided, not intentionally malicious foreign actors.
well said
I’m not from the US but I know that I would really struggle morally to cast a vote for either party.
Yes, voting for Trump because of Palestine is stupid, but I can easily see how voting for the party that keeps sending money and weapons, and supporting them in the UN, while pretending to ask them to “be more careful about killing civilians”, would not be very desirable either.
The US electoral system is absolute dogshit, but in my opinion the Dems lost this election all by themselves.
Edit: are the downvotes because you disagree, or because you’re upset that I’m right?
shocking - It’s almost as if there was a coordinated media campaign to paint both sides the same, and convince a bunch of people to vote against their own self interests. Absolutely did not see this coming… Nope, absolutely not.
hypocrites, these people are two faced hypocrites. they get what they wanted with the election and now their all upset? if these people are not the definition of a hypocrite idk what is.
Well, they voted for the leopards eating faces party and now their faces are being eaten by leopards. Huh.
Funny how that works.
anti genocide voters are not hypocrites.
People who ignore the realities of strategic voting in a FPTP system, then pat themselves on the back for their moral superiority are hypocrites. Anti-Genocide wasn’t even on the table. Ignoring literally every other issue that was on the table just so they can feel good about throwing away their vote makes them hypocrites.
The Palestinian people have gained absolutely nothing from those anti-genocide votes. They’re virtue-signalling at best, intentional spoiler votes at worst.
Meanwhile, there are labour protections, checks on corporate enshittification, mechanisms to slow down the accumulation of wealth and institutions of democracy that the incoming administration will tear down (or at least try to) that the alternative wouldn’t. All of these are victims of that arrogance, to think that an anti-genocide vote is worth more than an anti-christofascism(+genocide) vote.
They’re virtue-signalling
Harris lost across nearly every single demographic. Thats disengagement, not virtue signallers. You wish it was virtue signallers so you would have someone to be mad at besides Harris.
Oh I have plenty of people to be mad at - Putin, Netanyahu, Trump, Harris, Biden, the DNC, the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, authoritarian bootlickers masquerading as leftists…
Voter disengagement is an issue, yes, but people advocating for voting against Harris on grounds of voting against Genocide (which, you know, is the whole topic here) fail doubly: First, they pretend it’s the core issue of the election and their vote puts them on the anti-genocide side, and second, they pretend it was a topic of the election at all, such that there would even be an anti-genocide side to put them on.
So yes, I am mad at people pretending that voting against Harris somehow makes them more virtuous. I’m even more mad at the people voting against her for actually relevant reason, but that’s not the topic here.
So yes, I am mad at people pretending that voting against Harris somehow makes them more virtuous.
Sometimes when given an impossible choice the only possible choice is not to act, or to choose something thats not on offer. Some people felt they had to make that choice in the last election, and I dont see how you cant empathize with that. Some of them werent voting for trumps policies as much as they were voting for trump to come in and do what he said he’d do-- burn this system to the ground with a flamethrower. If your family were getting genocided and you existed in a voting system which gave no choice on the ballot but to continue it, wouldnt you be brave enough make that third choice, or would you simply vote to kill your own?
I’m mad just like you– I’m mad at the DNC, the centrists, and Biden/Harris for creating that situation and not forcing some other outcome. Sometimes these bad things happen because we allow for them to and make space for them to exist. You and me.
Why didnt MANY more Dems register their dissatisfaction with genocide in the “uncommitted” vote? Are we so indifferent to what bad policies Biden/Harris was proposing? It would have cost Dems nothing, Biden was going to win over Williamson in that half arsed primary anyway. But the dem voters by and large couldnt even be bothered to lift a finger to signal disapproval with our government sponsoring a far right wing genocide of some “browns” (and some reporters, doctors, aid workers, american citizens etc) in some far away country. By and large, only the youth, progressives, and muslims were willing to even do this symbolic vote to message our leadership that this stuff mattered a lot.
So you’re angry at the victims now huh. I’m struggling to be concerned about centrist anger. We’re all going down civlization’s toilet together now, on the centrists watch. Maybe the centrist dem voters will finally feel that they have something in common with anyone but their own immediate family and their bank accounts. But frankly I’m not holding my breath, and I dont care much about centrist anger myself. Why take advice or criticism from those you dont respect?
And that last line:
I’m even more mad at the people voting against her for actually relevant reason, but that’s not the topic here.
Our funding of war crimes and mass murder is not a relevant reason to push back eh. Well that says a lot about you doesnt it.
An impossible choice between…?
The persistent myth that both parties are equally bad is patently bullshit propaganda by those fostering that disengagement. Pretending that all the other issues don’t matter in the face of the decision between “not going to stop genocide” and “going to make it worse” is narrow-minded. Again, if someone thinks “I’m not going to vote for genocide” is a justification for “I’m not going to vote against the fascists”, they’re trying to show their virtue with respect to genocide, while not actually caring about anything else except that signalling of virtue. That’s the hypocrisy.
The persistent myth that both parties are equally bad is patently bullshit propaganda by those fostering that disengagement.
I cant agree. The utter lack of pressure on dem leadership to counterbalance AIPAC money is not how “democracy” is supposed to work, and by acting like we have no choice in these things we guarantee a continuance of that lack of choice forever. I’m not up for that.
Good chat, I dont think we are going to come together on this point, but I thank you for the civility and I hope we all come out of this somehow.
Lol
voted for Trump hoping he would bring peace to the Middle East
what
I guess you could argue that total eradication of anyone that Israel hates will bring peace so they were sorta right
Like bringing balance to the force by murdering all the Jedi. Technically correct
But don’t call these people stupid. That would be racist.
People I’ve interacted with on Lemmy 👆
Edit:
Are these people in the room with you right now 🙄
Right here dumbass.
For all I know you dropped a bloody slur. That link is useless, “dumbass” - the comments were removed.
Theirs isn’t, dumbass. Read the title and the comment they responded to. What other context do you need?
Lmfao bro you’re ridiculous. We are missing MULTIPLE chunks of the conversation.
And no it’s not racist to say someone is wrong just because they’re part of a marginalized group. I think it’s incredibly arrogant of people to speak on behalf of of other marginalized groups like that, and yes they get pretty racist if you go too far down the “we know what’s best for you and your people” path, but to just walk out and say “you can’t critique them that’s racist” is ridiculous to me. And if that’s not what the conversation is saying, who can blame me for reading it how I did? We’re missing half the damn conversation. But apparently that doesn’t matter to you?
In their head, probably.
Your comments were removed we have no clue what you said.
The comment I linked directly proves what I said in the top level comment. No further context is necessary.
Ok
The Abandon Harris campaign was quite clear they did not expect Trump to be better. The writer has a pretty clear agenda.
Discipline the voters. Don’t dare try to influence our constantly right drifting policies. You better vote for us no matter what or else.
“Many in the movement, including prominent Muslim leaders, voted for Trump hoping he would bring peace to the Middle East”
How the FUCK would you hope for that? Have you been living under a rock and didn’t know who Trump actually is and what he does? The Muslim ban Trump? That Trump? Bringing peace to the Middle East? Seriously?
The American electorate is stunningly stupid and disconnected from reality. Look up some of the trending Google searches on election day, they’re stupider than you think
Devotion to religion is also a red flag for inability to think critically. Being conditioned not to think for yourself is a tenant of all religions. The more fundamental the less thought is happening. Trump and the republicans have realized this and used it to his advantage almost exclusively.
decades of dismantling the education system will do that to you…
This is a bullshit excuse. The average America receives a very well rounded education. They choose not to use it.
By what metric? We’re behind most other developed nations.
Yes: the guy who banned Muslims from entering the US on his previous term will end the war and bring peace to the Middle East.
monkey’s paw curls
palestinians are thoroughly genocided and Gaza + West Bank + other lebensraum in the area have all structures reduced to grade #7 gravel
That is also technically peace, in that there is no more fighting. It’s just a really bad one.
Truly, the gullibility of some people simply beggars belief.
Yeah, his vision of peace was Israel getting rid of anyone who they don’t have good relationship with.
Wait wait, I remember a guy who was constantly arguing and berating everyone about how Biden was just the worst Satan reincarnation or some shit and how we all needed to band together against both him and Harris. Oooh @HomerianSymphony , you still around, bud?
We’d like an interview.
They were probably just astroturfing, and now that they’ve successfully completed their objective, they’ve got no reason to stick around.
I still see a handful of the useful idiots that were on here paroting those talking points, and I have to wonder if they’ve been able to accept that they were sold a bill of goods.
I have to wonder if they’ve been able to accept that they were sold a bill of goods.
They were the bill of goods. They were a line item on the Trump campaign budget. Their temp job is over so they’re not posting.
Well yeah but there were also useful idiots who actually bought it and did that work for free.
The true believers don’t disappear.
Genocide Joe is a demon who put his own ego over the good of the country. He knew he couldn’t win, he knew Kamala couldn’t win, and yet he (and his/her campaign) stuck with the losing playbook because they don’t believe anything they say
Looks like that user no longer exists, at least on Lemmy.world
From what I see the user went to Bluesky, but we don’t know if he really did it or if his account was suspended.
What did sticking with genocide Joe and Kamala get you? They knew they were gonna lose and didn’t change course 1 bit
You sure aren’t living up to that name with comments like that.
Look, it wasn’t about Biden or Harris or Obama or whomever else you want to project your shitty little excuses on. This cycle was about stopping a then would-be dictator. We were trying to do right by the world. Not by you. Not by the MAGA cultists. Not by Gaza or Ukraine alone. For everyone through stopping someone who had made it clear he, and through the agreement and support of the GOP, would do worse.
Then you single issue idiotic disappointments wouldn’t wake the fuck up. Yes, the Dems fucked up. Harris started strong and some snob Left probably ancient “strategist” convinced her to shift gears and she toned it down, along with other bad choices. It was shit. You know what I can die knowing I did?
Not voting someone who might actually be fucking evil BACK into the Office of the Biggest God Damn Chair we have. So kiss my ass, Schwdinehund, at least we tried to stop what’s coming.
Biden had no chance of winning. Kamala had no chance of winning. Their campaigns knew that.
If stopping a would be dictator is so important they would run someone with a chance. The Democratic party is dead, sticking with it means you want to lose
Sticking with it wasn’t a choice. You seem to believe taking our current situation and just rolling that shit back is a time machine we have the capacity of producing. There was no other candidate and we knew that. Unless you have a realistic suggestion that would have worked at the time.
We’re listening.
Biden put his ego over country and stayed in the race because he didn’t care if Trump won. Kamala accepted the nomination even though her team knew she couldn’t win because she didn’t care if Trump won. The Democrats don’t care if they lose, supporting them means you don’t care if you lose which means you don’t really care about stopping the would-be dictator.
Okay, at the risk of being censored: You’re actually being stupid.
We do NOT support the current Democrats, nor the party, nor their way of doing things. We supported trying to make sure Trump did not get a second term by standing beside the only candidate(s) that had a chance because there wasn’t anyone else. So stop for a second and think because it’s clear you’re a single issue voter: You can’t stop repeating the same faulty freaking logic.
Then is not now.
Then does not mean we supported them.
We wanted a better world. Days where we don’t have to worry so much. We support Gaza and Ukraine.
If this and much, much more means supporting the opponent of a would-be dictator, then we fucking do so. That’s the difference. WE SAW THE BIGGER PICTURE and did what we had to do.
It was what had to be done. The Dems fucked up their messaging. However, people like you chose to fuck our home and possibly the world to greater and lesser degrees because you stand so damned fucking stalwart it’s like trying to convince a brick wall to fall over with kind words of encouragement. If I live through these next four years I hope to be a part of the team that writes the history books. If I am I’ll make sure to cite people like you, @MisterScruffy , for your contribution towards tyranny and dictatorship.
And for the record: Yes, I’m pissed. Not at you, you’re dumb. At what brought us to this point.
He just tried to start a war with Iran, NBD.
These are people who believe in invisible sky wizards. Clearly, they’re capable of believing any amount of BS.
I have zero sympathy for those who only regret their vote for Trump now that his policies - which were always obvious - come back to haunt them personally.
HE SAID HE WAS GONNA
AND I DIDN’T THINK HE’D ACTUALLY
Trump’s word and actions rarely line up, he isn’t right in the head enough to know what he’s doing, but if he thinks it helps Trump he will.
And yet he spent a whole lot of effort blocking totally not Muslims from immigrating. Why would you not take him seriously when he said Israel should finish the job?
Oh no I absolutely believe Mr. “Muslims need to wear special IDs” says the truth when he threatens to kill Arabs.
So did Harris.
I voted for Harris. I voted for Biden. I voted for Clinton.
I still wouldn’t warn a single one of them if they were about to get hit by a bus.
Its harm reduction. They don’t solve anything. They just keep us treading water sinking slowly whereas Republicans start taking a hammer to the hull to open up new holes.
I voted for Harris. I voted for Biden. I voted for Clinton.
I still wouldn’t warn a single one of them if they were about to get hit by a bus.
American Democracy in a nutshell. You get two choices, they’re both awful for different reasons. One of them wants to see you executed for your religious beliefs/sexual preferences/nation of origin. The other is continent to sell bunker buster bombs to some raving psychotic mass murderers overseas. Nobody is going to do shit about climate change, though, so we’re all on the clock in the long run.
Its harm reduction.
It increasingly feels like the closest thing to harm reduction the US achieved was the time Trump fucked up his COVID response and a bunch of his senior leadership choked to death on their own lung fluid.
There was roughly 20 different elected positions on my ballot.
The real problem with American politics is everyone is so focused on the POTUS that they ignore the politicians who have an actual measurable effect on their quality of life.
I challenge anyone to look up your local town hall and see when the next city council meeting is. Go to it and see what they talk about and vote on. Notice the other people who go.
Many cities have public meetings for police oversite too. They’re even less attended than city council meetings
I challenge anyone to look up your local town hall and see when the next city council meeting is. Go to it and see what they talk about and vote on. Notice the other people who go.
I’ve been to a few city council meetings. When you’re there as part of an organization lobbying for a particular policy, you can at least see the terms of the debate and understand who to lobby, what the blockades are, and why a seemingly good-idea isn’t getting through. But if you’re just sitting in on meetings, its like tuning into CSPAN at a random point in the day. You’ve got no historical context. You don’t know who you’re listening to or why they’re talking. And there’s a ton of maneuvering going on behind the scenes that you can’t glimpse because you’re not really a part of it.
Add to the problem, a lot of people aren’t really wedded to their communities. I live in a neighborhood in which people move in and out every five years or so, chasing a better job or looking for better schools or trying to find more garage space for their giant cars or cashing out on a sudden jump in their home price. Trying to get them engaged in a fight over the ten-year-plan for mass transit is basically impossible because most of them won’t be here in ten years.
I don’t say this to discourage anyone from going. But this isn’t something you can just bootstrap your way into. You really need a community of more knowledgeable and engaged people to introduce you to what is going on and why. Otherwise, you’re just listening to a couple of people argue over the preferred way to renovate municipal drainage on the opposite side of town for an hour.
I gotta keep moving because my rent keeps going up. Let’s hope I find that cheaper basement
Another massive problem is the voting system which could barely be designed better for forcing a two party system on you. There is no room for someone getting 30% of the vote and of course they should then have about that much influence.
It increasingly feels like the closest thing to harm reduction the US achieved was the time Trump fucked up his COVID response and a bunch of his senior leadership choked to death on their own lung fluid.
Herman Cain approves this message.
American Democracy in a nutshell. You get two choices, they’re both awful…
The democratic process doesn’t start on election day.
Yeah, it starts when someone has a billion dollars and wants to influence government.
10 million Democrats x $100/each - $1 billion
People are more powerful than they think.
Yes give them more money, they’re doing such great things with the money that’s already given to them.
I’m not giving another dime to the Democratic Party so it’s more like 9,999,999 Democrats.
I wouldn’t even be in the party if we didn’t have closed primaries in my state.
fair enough.
1 million American leftists x $100 to Bernie Sanders or AOC in the primaries = $100 million
and
1 million American leftists x $100 to Green party = $100 million
I already donated a hundred bucks to Bernie.
It didn’t work.
Liberal democracy starts with the donors in a smoke-filled room and ends with one side complaining that the election was rigged.
It started well into the election cycle after Biden refused to honor his one term pledge.
No time for a primary now! Oops didn’t mean to! /$
First Past The Post voting has got to go, or else the USA is toast. A shame the democratic party believes themselves to be more important then the country itself.
I generally agree with your point, but the MIC is a bad example; both parties are equally happy selling bombs to murderers.
Harm reduction is bad?
Obviously, it’s not ideal, but one has to act according to the real life conditions… And in 2024, our only two options were “harm reduction,” and literal fascism with literal concentration camps.
Fuck you if you didn’t choose harm reduction.
To be fair to them, we’re just delaying collapse. It is a choice.
I agree with them that there’s no saving this constitutional structure. In one sense it’s cowardly, because there’s no escape from this capitalist slaughterhouse hellscape without collapse. Collapse is necessary. Trump will certainly usher that in faster.
But Im too much of a softy to let the blood that always has to spill be on my hands.
This country was irreparable since Reagan, a zombie nation oligarch piggie bank. My vote was a cowardly one for a few more years of quiet orderly slaughter, NOT peace.
But we lost, so the slaughter will be loud and bigger than it’s ever been, so maybe it’s time for revolution if we want our kids to have anything left.
Because in 4 years the DNC WILL anoint someone to meet Trump’s economy in the middle, and even I may not be able to stomach voting for that.
I think there’s some truth in thinking that continuing to elect milquetoast corporatist neoliberal candidates just builds up more extremism and discontent as people continue to suffer under option A of 2 - so when eventually a neocon breaks through they tend to be bonkers. It’s why I’m so fucking disappointed in Starmier as he’s clearly going to do fuck all and likely hand the next election to the torries.
That said, that’s a pretty fucking abstract view and there’s always a chance we get lucky. I voted for Harris but I was really hoping we’d get Senator Harris who actually gave a shit and, even if I knew for certain she’d be underwhelming I’d still fucking vote for her because Trump was worse on every issue and would directly cause a lot of additional human suffering. Women would be forced into unwanted pregnancies, trans people would be suppressed or worse - deaths would come from increased incidents of suicide and self-medication, and, lastly, (and I know a fuck ton of pushback on this point here) more Palestinians would die as Trump accelerated genocide.
So yea, I really regret that we are constantly dealt such bad hands but harm reduction is always a good thing to pursue in the absence of better actions.
Seriously though, when Biden dropped out fuck absolutely everyone who defended the DNC anointing Harris instead of running a snap primary.
Democrats going the full Florida route and just nominating Mitt Romney for President in 2028.
At which point, I will roll my eyes, tear up my ballot, and go home. 24 years of voting for least worst, and phone banking for a primary candidate I actually liked in two campaigns to no avail will have been enough for me if the 2028 candidate isn’t an economic leftist, because I already feel like a sucker and capitalism enabler.
The oligarchs were never not going to shoot the hostages for a tidy profit.
It doesn’t have to be a total waste, you can still chip your vote towards a third party to help them get that 5% that gets them ballot access and federal campaign funding.
If you’re only voting for harm reduction year after year and doing nothing to try and organize grassroots opposition to the lesser evil, yes constantly voting harm reduction is bad. It’s how you allow lesser evils to grow into the larger evils of the current DNC, who care more about fundraising than winning.
If you’re only voting for harm reduction year after year and doing nothing to try and organize grassroots opposition to the lesser evil, yes constantly voting harm reduction is bad.
The thing is that this is everyone in America. The left has practically no grassroots organization and expects online complaints about the DNC to magically accomplish something, and the right has astroturfed horse shit that that is on board with whatever the corporatist GOP wants to do.
That been my realization. I voted for harm reduction for what 12 year now like a lot of us and have little to show for it if not less. Yes the other side is a factor but they also seem more successful in their braindead idiot agenda too.
You clearly just weren’t voting hard enough.
Yes the other side is a factor but they also seem more successful in their braindead idiot agenda too.
The inability to acknowledge the appeal of the opposition and the persistent reliance on “my enemies are only strong because they are dumber than me” have lead to some really depressing political decisions by the Democrats. The Biden/Harris campaign in 2024 really seemed to boil down to saying “If you don’t vote for us, democracy is going away” and “Even Republicans from the Bush-Era like us, so you have to vote for us too”.
And then they lost in a popular landslide, suggesting that (a) democracy is alive and well and (b) neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to like you.
What if its not Republican voters who are stupid for supporting Trump? What if its Democrats who are stupid for supporting candidates lamer and more disappointing than Trump?
I mean I consider myself a progressive so yeah that’s pretty well on mark.
To the lame point, I think a large part of not most Americans think knowledge is lame regardless so arguing things seriously is just dismissed as well.
Le sigh.
I think a large part of not most Americans think knowledge is lame
People spend a lot of their younger years building an understanding of the world, then become cemented in a particular worldview as they get old.
Trying to introduce new ideas to an old crowd is much more difficult than appealing to an audience of young people without any preexisting priors.
Fuck you if you didn’t choose harm reduction.
…thirty years of choosing harm reduction brought us to this point…
…i held my nose and voted against fascism, but if you want to blame someone, blame the f*cking fascists and blame the thirty years of harm reduction which enabled them: pluralities win, that’s how american democracy works…
This is such a dumb take. You can’t say “thirty years of harm reduction brought us here” with the implication that if Republicans won every election in the time frame things would somehow be better, unless you’re actually just a right wing voter.
I’ll say it for the thousandth time: voting in national elections in no way affects your ability to do other activism. If your argument is along the lines of “voting for the worst option will unite the resistance and we’ll make real change”, well, I hope you realize that that “real change” is bloody revolution with an uncertain result.
Harm reduction and neoliberalism just wont work, end of discussion. Its fucking 2024, if you want to beat republicans you need to elect progressives
For years I’ve seen leftists complaining about ‘harm reduction’ and ‘lesser evil’ and how the dems are ignoring their vote. But all we ever do is bicker with ourselves. We don’t have a united front. We don’t have any reliable voting bloc.
They literally don’t care about us because there is nothing to care about. If Dems court one leftist group they risk alienating another because of our unnecessary purity tests and virtue signaling. It’s so much easier and more reliable to get votes if you tack to the center so that’s what they do.
Meanwhile we don’t do any meaningful activism or organizing. We don’t vote practically and only get excited about voting when we have an exciting candidate. Leftists seem to expect their vote to have power but it doesn’t have any. And it’s entirely our own fault because you have to actually do the work to get the power.
do the work
What work is this? Writing your representatives? Voting in primaries? Voting every year there’s an election no matter how local? Knocking on doors and phone banking? Donating to campaigns?
And if that’s not the work, please tell me what the work actually is because I’ve done all those things and have no power to show for it.
Mad respect to you for the effort you put into it - all those things matter. Problem is we don’t do it as a community. Most leftists think their vote is the be-all end-all if they even vote at all, so of course not enough of us are doing what you’re doing.
Beyond that, getting involved locally and/or running for office would be powerful too. Grassroots movements have been shown to work and we don’t have anything remotely like it.
Well said.
Clinton Clinton Bush 2 Bush 2 Obama Obama Fuckface Biden Fuckface
Its as even as you can get over 9 terms (4:5)
Let’s not forget how much absolute harm Bush and Fuckface caused, and I’m not even counting Fuckface’s homicidal COVID response.
The US would have universal healthcare and a sane supreme Court if it wasn’t for Republicans.
I blame both.
Neoliberalism and harm reduction wont work anymore. What the fuck do you think America has been doing the past three decades? If you want to beat republicans, you need to elect progressives, otherwise fascism will keep on rising.
voting is not harm reduction.
It is when both parties get the same orders from the same bribers on economic policy and merely war on how to or if to address some of the social issue symptoms, the ones that don’t effect their briber’s quarterly results.
Example: they war over forced births, but abortion is often an ECONOMIC decision, and the markets have demanded 2 breadwinners the last few decades to make moar from themselves, which is antisocial and antifuture. You won’t hear either party calling for a single income for most to all being able to support a family. That’s a matter of economic policy. That’s a choice. There would objectively, naturally be fewer abortions without coersion if economic desperation wasn’t defended here by both parties, no threat of state violence required.
No, our choice is on the social issue of forced births? No forced births? Your choice lol… Then get back to work, battery.
There are tons of ways to reduce abortion and, typically, those are supported by Democratic politicians and opposed by Republicans. The concern is not to reduce abortion, there’s actually very little concern about the actual number of abortions that happen by its opponents. The concern is that the opponents want an opportunity for themselves to take a “strong moral stance” against abortion. They prefer a world of more abortions which are illegal to a world of fewer abortions which are legal.
Agreed, but once again, the elephant in the room is not being able to afford to have children. Neoliberals stand in the way with Republicans on human citizens being able to afford a family with one child.
It’s an important social issue, what I’m saying is almost all social issues are heavily informed by and often exacerbated by economic policy that ALEC had more say in than the American people.
I think “one income families” would be a winner if you could convince people it was even possible. I think it’d be a hard sell in the modern culture.
I think the United States, culturally, is on track to have about as much hope in positive change as your average Russian.
That’s what happens when you have a supposed generational leader calling for an age of positive progressive change culminating in… a heritage foundation conceived plan to further enshrine private insurers and the profit motive, the core blight, into our broken healthcare system. Then have his party never stop bragging about doing so. The DNC still acts like we should be thanking them for using their super majority to do… That.
Yeah, at this point, this government is too captured to hope for anything but pain rationally, at least on the timescale of human lifespans.
Unfortunately many don’t take the next step, look at nations that do serve their people like the Nordic model, and revolt for a government that serves them in similar fashion.
Because you do have to be a completely blind, willfully ignorant sucker to still believe our vote can do more than let us tread water.
none of this makes voting harm reduction.
Got it, no one is receiving literal methadone so it it can’t be. /s
Language evolves.
no one was saved from the horrors of the capitalist system by your vote
Is that the only harm that exists? Maybe you should tell that to trans folks…
Agreed, but no one would be threatening to annex Canada or abolish income derived repayment for student loans either.
Even one being slightly less harmful is harm reduction. Both are taking us on a train ride to hell, and one going 65 is still harm reduction when the only other choice is a train ride to hell at 75.
Harm reduction means there’s no good option. You can argue accelerating towards collapse with Trump will make things better faster than limping along until capitalist climate change forces it in 20 years or so, but you never know what you’ll get on the other side, could be an iron fisted military dictatorship with Don Jr. As the permanent figurehead.
Sometimes, providing clean needles so the heroin user doesn’t ALSO get HIV is better than not. Something that works as a metaphor, and also a social policy position our two capitalist owned parties do disagree on in practice. That’s something the owners allow us to have an opinion on, as thats a poorie problem that doesn’t meaningfully effect their profit expectations. No skin off their nose.
If your friend is an alcoholic getting wasted on a bottle of vodka every night, switching them to beer because it has less alcohol is not harm reduction. Rescuing a young woman from Jack The Ripper and giving her to Jeffrey Epstein “for her safety” is not harm reduction. A professional fighter concerned about CTE switching to football is not harm reduction. The lesser of two evils is very much still evil.
Those are all literally harm reduction buddy. If those are the only options available you’d take them because they all mean a better chance of better results in the future. Of course, in these situations you would definitely have better options, but you’re deliberately framing it like there are no others. So are you comfortable saying you’d leave your friend alone with the bottle of vodka, let the woman get disemboweled, and not recommend the sport with helmets?
Those are all neoliberals, nothing good would come of them being president, and the voting results speak for themselves. Neoliberalism wont work in this country anymore, if you want to beat republicans, elect progressives.
harm reduction has a specific meaning…voting is not harm reduction.
Many in the movement, including prominent Muslim leaders, voted for Trump hoping he would bring peace to the Middle East.
Dipshits
I voted for the Westboro Baptist church because I’m a transwoman dating a cisman and I imagine that putting them in a position of power over me can only go well. /s
We fucking told you so.
Do youean the leader of abandon & punish palestine™, right?
