Fact remains, not voting is basically is half a vote for Trump, and Trump is going to be MUCH worse for the citizens of Gaza.
What is Biden doing which reduces harm?
He reduces harm by not doing whatever trump would be doing if he were elected last election.
He could be doing more to try and reduce harm or at least least to promote harm, but trump would have made it so much worse.
Just remember, trump could have been elected in 2020 and been in office the last few years instead while this was all going on. Does anyone think Palestine would be in a better position if that were the case?
That’s not a real answer.
It is in so much as anyone can look at what trump did in his first term, and what the consequences of that term have been. Such as roe
What relevance is Roe v Wade to Gaza?
None, it’s an abstract to highlight what was (during the trump presidency) and what is (the trump judicial appointment consequences).
To be closer to Gaza, we can look at the koshoggi assassination inaction, the soleimani assassination, and the infamous “Muslim ban” to gain contextual basis for trump’s expected stance on anything Gaza related.
There’s lots of rambling talk by trump on the middle east, but as example related to my list, this article describes his opinion of gazans pretty well. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/trump-muslim-ban-gaza-refugees
How is that different to what Biden has done in his term? None of those are related to Gaza. Biden has done zero to limit Israel in any way whatsoever. Biden pulled all US troops out of Afghanistan in a clusterfuck of a manner; I don’t think he has done anything to merit saying he’s better than Trump in that regard.
You sound in bad faith or unaware of the situation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Israel_in_the_Israel–Hamas_war
“The Joe Biden administration stated that Israel would receive “whatever it needs” to support its offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.”
I guess “whatever it needs” it’s still better than sending israel atomic bombs or draft every american citizen to go there. Make sure to advertise for them so they can still send israel “whatever it needs” and not for example for a third party that would do what it’s needed to stop the genocide.
You sound in bad faith or unaware of what Trump has said.
Trump’s quotes on the genocide:
Israel should “finish the problem.”
On Biden’s administration: “Frankly, they got soft.”
"When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, Israel will once again be protected, Iran will go back to being broke, terrorists will be hunted down, and the bloodshed will end.”
“Fully support Israel defeating, dismantling, and permanently destroying the terrorist group Hamas,” while telling the Republican Jewish Coalition later that month that Hamas fighters “will burn forever in the eternal pit of hell." That month, his campaign also said that, if elected again, he would bar Gaza residents from entering the U.S. as part of an expanded travel ban.
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable,”
26 billion in harm
reduction.But it’s fine, he’s a Democrat. You are not legally allowed to criticize democrats.
Oh look, another totally real account (awesome name by the way. Makes it easy).
Huh? I’ve been here longer than you.
Voting for Harris is voting for Harris. Voting for Trump is voting for Trump. Voting third party is voting for Trump. Not voting is voting for Trump. Eating spaghetti is voting for Trump. Why won’t you just vote blue!?
Jesus, another one who doesn’t know how to track cause and effect. There sure are a lot of you lil guys, hey! Like Tribbles, but not as cute.
Really shows that people weren’t paying attention in Civics class. Zero clue how FPTP and the spoiler effect work.
Let’s pretend you have 2 people that decide to not vote for candidate A or candidate B.
If candidate A has 50 votes and bad polices for Gaza, and candidate B has 51 votes and even worse policies for Gaza, then by sitting out, those two people have effectively allowed the worse option to win.
It’s just basic arithmetic.
Okay.
What people mean when thwy say those things is: voting for anyone except Harris increases Trump’s chances of winning compared to a Harris vote. This is trivially true.
You seem unaware of how bad the situation already is. I encourage you to search for news and reports from inside gaza. The fact that it could get worst highlight that they are already making deals and supporting an evil government. The only way it can get any better is if someone other than red and blue get in power.
Nobody other than red or blue is getting in power for the next 20 years or so at least. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you and the people you’re voting to protect can be helped by your vote.
If it can’t get any worse than you mine as well cross it out from your voting criteria. I assure you that come January either Trump or Harris is going to be president. Mine as well prioritize other issues such as Ukraine. Ukraine can and will get worse under Trump.
I’ve been following this for years and have worked for non-profit media watchdogs that publish underreported stories about this conflict.
I’m just in the camp of people who thinks it’s entirely possible for this to get even worse, and Trump is very cozy with Bibi.
more cozy than someone remarking his zionist views multiple times, hugging him like a long time friend and helping his government with “whatever it needs”? I guess it can get to the point where trump suck his dick live but look it’s already a shit show and the solution is someone else.
Not to be pedantic, but wouldn’t making an endorsement make them no longer “Uncommitted”? Yes, Harris could and should be better on the genocide happening in Gaza, but “Uncommitted voters still uncommitted after not meeting with candidate” also isn’t much of a story.
It’s a pretty massive story considering that the uncommitted movement, which did the most to unseat Biden, wasn’t given a voice at the convention.
If not for uncommitted, Democrats would have lost this long ago.
So to not come to the table, Harris waves the right to disavow knowing the consequences of ignoring the only movement in the US not interested the genocide of the Palestinian people (to be clear, the Democrats are an objectively pro genocide party, with minority elements of dissent).
So it’s Harris’s votes to lose. Its not like they are going to Trump, but it’s an easy 0.5-1.5% of the electorate that she’s leaving on the table.
This is just the same vibe-based reasoning but with sprinkles.
Firstly, was Biden unseated because of uncommitted? Or was he unseated because Democrat donors saw his poor performance during the debate and withdrew their support? Just because uncommitted exists, does not mean that they were effective.
Secondly, surely there’s a non-zero number of people who support arming Israel. I freely admit that I haven’t been following this conflict, but it doesn’t seem much of an assumption to say that some votes would be lost if Kamala withdrew support for Israel. Would she lose more votes than she would gain? That certainly seems like a possibility.
Thirdly, withholding your vote, and convincing others to withhold theirs, is precisely what Russian and Chinese bot-farms want you to do. Well done.
Vibe based is you kiddo. All the actual data we have our hands on supports my way of thinking. It was in the polling for literally months, but weevil brained blue maga couldn’t get it through their thick skulls. People were getting banned left right and center here, on lemmy., for expressing the very real observation that Biden was going to lose this election.
Also:
I freely admit I haven’t been following this conflict
Then why the fuck is your mouth open?
Then why the fuck is your mouth open?
Well, since we’re being dicks about it: Provide the actual data, then, or get the fuck out. We’re not interested in your interpretation, we have no idea who you are and less than no reason to trust you.
No, all the data says I’m right. We have all the best people working on it. They’re saying it’s all the best numbers.
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No point meeting them because what they want, the complete defunding of Israel, is a political impossibility.
They aren’t going to listen to the reasons it’s a political impossibility, so there’s no point talking to them.
And here I thought they just wanted Israel to stop their genocide of Palestinians
Shit, I bet if they’d negotiated in good faith people would’ve been happy for them to just stop butchering the children. I’d personally be happy if they spares one child live for every one they choose to murder - but I’m just a bit more reasonable than most, I guess
That’s not what they want of Harris. They honestly believe that if we stop funding Israel, the genocide would stop.
It wouldn’t. Israel has never needed our help to commit war crimes, but you can’t convince them of that.
If Israel doesn’t need the free weapons that cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, then lets stop wasting the money.
Oh, I agree, we should have cut them loose decades ago, but here’s why that won’t happen:
- The pro Israel lobby is too powerful and has too much money:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=Q05
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/industry-detail/Q05/2024
- The evangelical vote demands “we” control the holy land so Jeebus can come back.
"A 2017 LifeWay poll conducted in United States found that 80% of evangelical Christians believed that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ’s return and more than 50% of Evangelical Christians believed that they support Israel because it is important for fulfilling the prophecy.[112]
According to the Pew Research survey in 2003, more than 60% of the Evangelical Christians and about 50% of Blacks agreed that the existence of Israel fulfilled biblical prophecy. About 55% of poll respondents said that the Bible was the biggest influence for supporting Israel which is 11 times the people who said church was the biggest influence.[112]"
If Israel never needed the aid to commit war crimes, why would the US continue to send 20000lb bombs etc? Those are not defensive.
We want Harris to deny all non-defensive munition shipments. Stop aid until Israel comes to the table in good faith and stops escalation
We would, because the stated purpose for our support is so that Israel can defend against a potential attack.
No US politician is going to argue Israel can’t defend itself.
The problem is Bibi and Likud re-directing that support for defense into offense.
It’s a really simple solution; stop sending aid. Stop wasting billions of tax payer money. Biden can do it today…he doesn’t need to worry about trying to win an election. Harris could win over uncommitted voters if she were to address the situation in good faith. That is not what is currently happening
That won’t stop the genocide though. Israel doesn’t need us when they are using snipers to kill little kids.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestinian-children-killed-idf-israel-war
Not in good faith
There is no such thing as an “uncommitted voter” anymore. There are just voters who won’t say they are committed because they are talking to someone they want something from. Come November, everyone will vote exactly as they would vote today, barring some extreme political tomfoolery, and honestly, even then, it probably won’t change.
The only leverage you have as a voter is to not commit too early. Show that youre willing to support kamala no matter what, and she wont move an inch on her policies. But if polls show her starting o lag behind, regardless of how people will actually vote when push comes to shove, the maybe, just maybe, shell make some concessions, like not supporting genocide. All of these “never trump, blue no matter who, kamala girlboss power” voters are just throwing away the only chance you have to actually maybe sway things in a better direction.
Handing away that leverage is what was delivering Trump the election on a platter prior to removing Biden as candidate.
It was precisely the same argument they were making about Biden then, that there were not other options other than to blindly support Biden. That’s it was get behind Biden or else.
They were wrong.
They were wildly, incomprehensiblely wrong. OPs, and all of blue magas calculus is so wildly wrong it shouldn’t be dutifully ignored. Where it to be listened to, this election would have been over long ago im favor of Trump.
I’m actually not committed.
Its a weird way to feel but actually I’m not. I keep thinking I might just skip on voting on the president but then vote the rest of the way down ballot.
I dunno it truly seems to not matter and everyone says only local and smaller government roles matter so… I might just vote that way. I haven’t decided yet. I don’t feel great about Harris. I like Waltz though.
But hey now you can say you heard from one.
Supreme Court appointments don’t matter?
And this question alone does, what?
@ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
You wanna stop believing everything a political party claims now?
To answer your question, no, I don’t believe everything a political party says.
I had to go back to the post from 22 days ago to figure out who you even were. I recommended you read that comment section again, because our conversation was not the most memorable comment chain there. I had a conversation with an openly racist troll. I figured it had to be that user again, but your username and user icon didn’t look right.
If the Uncommited Movement won’t endorse Harris then they are making a mistake. There’s still time for them to change their mind. What the Uncommitted Movement cited seemed to be ethical concerns. Moral reasoning cannot help us against fascism and genocide. We need to think in terms of utility. It is useful to endorse Harris because in a two party system either Harris or Trump will be elected. And Harris is the candidate that will do the least harm to the Palestinians. Where as Trump will allow Israel to complete its genocide.
Withholding votes and endorsements isn’t a meaningful way to create change in our democracy. We need to push the Overton window to the left. We do this by both voting for the most viable progressive and/or socialist option in elections and advocating for progressive and/or socialist causes between elections. Allowing fascists to takeover our democracy and kill us in death camps to avoid personal ethical quandaries does nothing to further a progressive and/or socialist agenda.
Also, to be clear, we need a socialist agenda, but a lot of progressives probably haven’t realized that yet. Regardless, a progressive majority would still be preferable over the current neoliberal majority. Any legitimate progressive movement is going to realize they will need to redistribute the owner class’ wealth. Every reform a progressive enacts will be undermined by the wealthy who are incentivized to overturn our democracy to enrich themselves.
I’m not a Democrat. I have no interest in going to bat for the Democrats. I was referencing an article that had an interview with the Uncommited Movement’s preferred speaker and speech. I’m going to advocate for strategies that I think are most the useful for achieving goals such as majority rule democracy, socialism, ending Israel’s genocide, etc. So while Biden was the nominee I advocated voting for him. Now that Kamala is the nominee I advocate voting for her.
edit: Also, to be even more clear, Kamala is a neoliberal, but she is the closest we can get to a progressive this election.
That’s smart, meeting with potential voters who still haven’t pledged their vote yet is definitely a waste of time.
