If you chose not to decide, you still have made a choice…
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if you stick to your morals and refuse to cosign on genocide abroad and austerity at home,
And which party would this be, specifically? What Democrats are pushing austerity at home?
One side started war with iran while other side didn’t
One side destroyed relationship with strongest allies for nothing while other side didn’t.
One side went to war with people on the streets with ICE and lowered recruitment requirements while other side didn’t.
One side gave us Pete Hegseth while otherside didn’t.
One side started tariff war for nothing while other side didn’t.
Both sides same though I guess?
![Skunk [any]](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/33d8ed35-b2fe-4bb2-b524-83daadc3f15e.avif "Skunk [any]")
On the first point here is Biden’s envoy to west asia Amos Hochstein saying that they expected to be in the same situation with respect to the Ramadan War and the subsequent fallout. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuhJS1d-F6Y&t=169s
Biden energy adviser says "Iranians have a card they never had" with Strait closure
YouTube
Or…
Biden was a strong supporter of the original Iran nuclear deal that Trump eventually withdrew from. Biden tried to negotiate back into the deal while president was not able to during first term. All signs point to more negotiations during a possible biden second term(iranian ppl beginning to distrust their gov), not a 180 turn to invasion…which no one wanted(of either party) and would never have happened under Biden.
Ok, I have Biden’s go-to guy when it comes to diplomacy in west asia saying otherwise, what do you have that supports your claim other than indications (but no commitments) all of which are prior to operation al-aqsa flood?
The fact that you lied about how important he was in the Biden administration is telling. Under Biden he was 1 of 4,000 senior advisors.
He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 2011 and as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs in 2013. In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources but the Senate did not act on the nomination.
Liar.
He was sent by biden to negotiate with lebanon following operation al-aqsa flood. He is a senior figure.
Dickhead.
One side destroyed relationship with strongest allies for nothing while other side didn’t.
The US has never had a single ally, maybe except Israel. Only vassals.
If you think this is the first administration to abuse and antagonize countries it usually works with, you have not been paying any attention to what has been happening for the last 250 years.
The US is singlehandedly responsible for the EU still not being more closely united, as it always had and used its de facto veto over anything.
Don’t forget gutting USAID and research funding, including children’s cancer research, so they can instead pay for the hired thugs in ICE. Legitimately one of the most shameful things the US has ever done in terms of deaths caused, in the short and long term.
One side is circling their wagons around a child fucking pedophile rapist.
The other side isn’t.
NOVEMBER 2028 For President! The actual month of November, serving as actual president of the United States of America America!! FREEDDOOOMMMMMM! I do politic
Uh-oh. You promoted voting. Time for all the dbzer0 and .ml chodes to show up and tell you why you shouldn’t do that.
Which, of course, is all the more reason to vote. If you do the opposite of anything anyone from either of those instances say, you are almost assuredly doing the right thing.
If you sit on the fence as the fence burns down, you’ll end up in the dirt with everyone else.
Am I also a chode or does my chosen instance absolve me of my crimes of wanting to see the USA crumble?
Yes, you are a chode.
If you aren’t blocking toxic instances on Lemmy you don’t give a damn about much and probably won’t vote anyway.
Fediverse in theory: and all these different instances can connect to each other, it’s so cool!
Fediverse in practice: [bullying people for being on the wrong instance]
the instance tribalism is always so unhinged
Blocking isn’t bullying.
Painting with a broad brush much?
Oh I’ve seen a few already. It’d be adorable that they think they are making something resembling a point if it wasn’t so intentionally harmful to the future of so many people that are being oppressed to the point of suicide.
The dumbest thing is how we still haven’t done anything close to what France and other countries are doing to actually make their voice heard. Won’t change my mind. Yes, you should go vote. You should also overthrow the government.
Halloween has been designated as the night we cut down all flock cameras, perhaps we can add to the list?
Too late to vote now. Republicans aren’t leaving so if Americans want their country back, they need to take action. Spoiler, they won’t.
If it was too late to vote the republicans wouldn’t be trying to stop people from voting.
We should start with a national, general strike.
Only if we use the free time to physically hurt the people in power. If everyone just ends up sitting at home or on the side of the road it won’t accomplish much of anything especially since they know we’ll eventually return to work and they can outlast us.
It would be nice but it’s functionally impossible due to the size and spread out nature of the US. Half the country could shut down and the other half wouldn’t even feel it. You’d need every port city and shipping company, ship rail and truck, you’d need virtually every service worker, you’d need a majority of financial institutions, in every major city in every state. And they’d need to hold for weeks. It’s not possible, and wouldn’t be even if we didn’t have the awful dog-eat-dog antisocial bullshit culture we have.
America should call the French for help overthrowing the government, like they did 250 years ago
France isn’t overthrowing their government, they’re protesting. Huge difference.
I’m down for both.
Nobody is saying you cannot demand better from your elected officials.
But if you sit at home you let fascists win.
You can’t demand better when you give up the only leverage you have against them.
Your leverage is voting in the primaries, but I’m betting you don’t do that. A protest vote is a vote for the winner in our system no matter how you feel about it.
“I’ll vote for you, but you better change or I’ll vote for you again”
“I won’t vote, and make sure the side with the most repugnant people who vote for the most repugnant choice wins.”
What leverage? “Give into my demands or I’ll shoot myself in the foot”?
Sorry, that should be “give into my demands or I’ll sacrifice the lives of the weak and vulnerable because their lives mean less to me than making a political point”
“You can’t vote for who actually represents you! You have to vote for your oppressor because if you don’t they will make me suffer! So, throw yourself under the bus to protect my comfort because I refuse to have solidarity with those who are currently oppressed by the status quo.”
The establishment party you keep trying to force people to vote for are already sacrificing the weak and vulnerable to maintain the system of capitalist-imperialist oppression. The party is the one sacrificing them by refusing to meet the demands of the people they are supposed to be representing.
The only (legal) leverage over the ruling class the people have is their vote for who to put in power. If you prove to always give them power regardless of if they meet the obligations of their representative position then you have thus abandoned any leverage you had to incentivize them to change.
The system is a broken one that is set up to ensure that the ruling oligarchy can continually oppress the working class so long as they threaten the middle with a “greater evil”. And it will continue as is until people stop letting perfect be the enemy of good by waiting for the perfect time to change their habits and actually vote for someone who truly represents them instead of continuing to abdicate all their political autonomy into the hands of the lesser evil.
^^^^^^ the protest non voters are part of why so many Ukrainians are dying, why Israel has stronger and more deadly weapons, why climate change just got massively accelerated, why research funding and USAID got gutted (including life saving vaccines and children’s cancer research). some many of you will die but not me so that’s a price I’m willing to pay.
If you’re going to not vote out of protest maybe don’t do it in the most impactful election of our lifetime.
So you can demand better. But actually taking any concrete action to hold a party accountable when they ignore your demands is beyond the pale.
Gotta love the “logic” of ShitLibs.
But actually taking any concrete action to hold a party accountable when they ignore your demands is beyond the pale.
Yeah that’s not what they said (nor implied) though, is it?
The Republican Party thanks you for your service.
They should be thanking Clinton and Obama for creating the material conditions that made Trump and fascism viable in US electoral politics.
You make the critical mistake in assuming that not voting for the Dems actually hurts them.
I’d say they’re also happy to be in perpetual “opposition”.
So really the only thing not voting is doing is saying that you want more dead children.
I don’t care if it hurts them or not. I’m not voting for a lesser evil or a greater one. I’ll vote my conscience, and if more of you did we’d live in a better world.
Fucking non-voters complaining why the democratic party doesn’t cater to their whims, never connecting that it’s because they don’t fuckin vote. But you don’t become a tankie through reason or logic.
I vote in every fucking election. I am a former paid Democratic campaign staffer. I also will not cosign on a genocide nor will I vote for any candidate offering less than full-throatednsupoort for trans rights.
I love being Schrodinger’s voter to ShitLibs like you though. Pick a lane: either my vote is worth enough that the DNC should have to earn it by stepping over a bar that’s on the fucking floor, or my vote isn’t needed and the DNC doesn’t have to cater to me. But if you’re telling me it’s my fault when the other capitalist shitweasels win, I’m gonna have to tell you it’s the fault.ofnthe party that doesn’t care enough about my vote to piss off their Wall St Paymasters to earn it.
“We can demand better! We are still going to abdicate power to you regardless of if you listen but we can still technically make the demands!”
There are loads of people who think you can’t demand better from your elected officials. People were out protesting Mamdani for being a liberal zionist and I saw plenty of commenters saying how they must’ve been paid opposition because how could anyone be criticising Mamdani?
I imagine they were talking about the “liberal Zionist” thing, since it’s such an absurdly stupid claim to make about him.
It’s not a protest, it’s a surrender.
More like 3 people vote to drive off one cliff, 3 people vote to drive off another cliff, 3 people don’t vote, and 1 person votes not to drive off the cliff.
The 3 people who didn’t vote in your scenario could band together and vote to drive off any cliff or no cliff at all. But they won’t…because what? Their vote doesn’t matter? Not a perfect cliff? Not a perfect non-cliff? Their favorite streaming series just got released and voting is really hard?
Still a bunch of dummies not using their power.
Everyone voting to not drive off a cliff would be the best choice. Doesn’t help that liberals keep shaming people who vote that way.
Yeah, people voting against their own best interests is crazy. I guess to some people driving off a cliff is worth it as long as they get to decide who pees in which bathroom?
No, they’re making a “both sides bad” argument when one side wants desperately to find an excuse to exterminate trans people, and the other is milquetoast and ineffective.
I know you guys won’t, because your job is to convince as many people as possible not to vote after all, but god do I yearn for the day when the Democrats start to appeal to non-voters by other means than “at least we’re not as bad as the other guy”. If you think that this is an effective strategy, you might just be able to wrestle defeat from the jaws of victory. Just keep letting marginalized folk know that they shouldn’t count on their lives improving, because you’re commited to doing just slightly better than the opposition. Don’t campaign on promises of anything materially better, only on being paid off by the same interests groups as the “other side”, except for the fact you’re going to keep doing those things they paid you for - but politely. And if you think that the existence of my argument against your strategy on the internet is going to ruin your chances for it working at all, and you’re going to blame those arguing against it for your loss while you’re blasting the same old points of “we rape and murder arguably less”, then BOY can I figure out the results it’s going to bring.
Anyone who was going to vote for the lesser evil is going to do that anyway. Anyone who’s on the fence will most likely decide to sit this one out (again). Claiming it’s someones moral obligation to vote for terrible (but slightly less) people is going to depress votes, exactly as it did with Harris. Change your strategy or lose.
Just fucking… talk about the affordibility crisis and your plans to end it. About universal healthcare. About how Israel is a bunch on genocidal bastards. Just anything other than this proven, time and again, losing strategy. You have a field full of targets and a loaded gun. Only way you can miss is if you point it at your head. Or go further right to win MAGA voters, I guess…
There are democrats talking about those things, you just aren’t listening.
It’s too bad Harris didn’t during the ‘24 election, though
She did, you just weren’t listening.
Yup.
Selective hearing. It’s insane how often people complain about Dems not doing something when it’s literally part of their party’s policy platform and has been for a while.
Or how often I see someone complain about something the Dems aren’t doing when it’s something their party or their president literally passed or signed an EO for. People just don’t pay attention. And then you list out the bills or EO’s in question and they move the goalposts and cry harder to compensate for their inability to pay attention.
Do they need to do more? Duh. Do they actually get stuff done? Yeah, they actually do. And compared to the other party that only works in opposition to Americans, they technically get infinitely more done than their opponents.
It’s a combination really. Of Dems not being good at messaging and people just not fucking paying attention.
Messaging is hampered when the message is delivered by people who oppose you. The Dems don’t need help to shoot themselves in the foot, but they get it anyway.
I am, despite not being from USA I am following the midterm races from the imperial core because I know their results will affect my life, the way they did in previous elections. This post, and the vast majority of the propaganda spouted by Dems, is exactly that, though. There’s more criticism from the estabilishment Dems towards politicians that do make those points, like Mamdani or El-Sayed, than towards their opponents in the White House. And what does most of them do say about their plans in office? How do they campaign? Exactly the way you see here. And don’t get me wrong, I want bad politicians to lose and good ones to win. It’s good some do have reasonable strategy, they will do better than the dumbfucks who keep blasting that uncommited voters that don’t care about politics as much as they’ve been taught not to care, that just want to get through their hard day of work and worries - that those voters have to to make time to go and vote for slightly less known Epstein associate. It’s not even that I want those dogshit politicians to lose, though I can’t claim I see presidency of Newsom going better than Trump’s in terms of quality of living for people in USA, but probably noticably better for me in Europe. It’s just that they WILL LOSE AGAIN unless the messaging capabilities of the propagandists improve.
Too bad it’s usually 11 people on the bus 5 vote to drive off the cliff at 60mph and 4 vote to drive off the cliff at 30mph and tell the other 2 that if they vote to not drive off the cliff, the 60mph guys will win.
The people in the gray bar in the actual registered voter turnout graph below could band together and vote to, ya know, not drive off a cliff. But they won’t, even though they are the majority.
That’s the most frustrating part about politics. If everyone who thought “I would vote third party but they have no chance of winning” voted third party, the third party could win. But they don’t because it’s too risky, it takes votes away from the party they figure has a chance of winning. This is why ranked choice voting is needed.
It’s funny how even when you have more than 2 parties the system still favors a 2 party system. 2025 was strange for Canada because a lot of people voted Liberal to stop the Conservatives, not because the Liberal was a great option. Green party voters are particularly frustrating because they are a single issue party and their entire platform is pretty much in the NDP platform.
Yup. I was one of the ones who voted liberal when I’d really rather vote NDP but it was more important to stop the conservatives. This is why I wish we had ranked choice voting. A few months ago, I was randomly called for a survey. When they asked me which party I’d vote for if there was an election today, I said NDP. I want polls to show NDP has a chance of winning so maybe next election they will.
“usually” is incorrect here. Voter turnout isn’t 9 out of 11 people.
It's about 66%, so 8 out of 12. Same difference.
well there’s that … so there is 20 people on the bus and 11 bother to vote, 2 intend to vote for the Not Driving Off a Cliff Party, and the other 9 are arguing about how fast we should drive off the cliff.
The other 9 have been convinced that voting not to drive off a cliff has no chance of working so they must pick one of the other parties
They claim to love Democracy whilst not practicing it or getting upset poltics is brought up in their daily lives. Gotta feel bad for those who chose ignorance above all else.
Gotta feel bad for those who chose ignorance above all else.
I don’t feel bad for them. I hate them.
iT’s TrUe ThOuGh
You’re a truthophobe
Years ago, back in trumps first term, my buddy told me he didn’t vote hilary because she wouldn’t give him student loan relief. He had 3 daughters. Trump sat his supreme court justices and a few years later one of his daughters died in a hospital due to birth complications because the doctors were scared to treat her.
get the fuck out of here with this both sides bad utter bullshit.
What if the other choice is also driving off a cliff, but further away?
Then that buys time to develop other choices, still better than not voting.
Yeah that’s what people have been saying since like the 1800s. I forgot who said it or what it was from, but there was a post going around last election with quotes from a bunch of different periods of history with people railing against the two-party system and complaining about how every single election it’s always the same choice between voting for things to stay the same/get a little worse, or get much worse. Every election it’s the same narrative of how this is the most important election’ ever where you have to accept the slightly shitty choice to ‘save democracy’. Going back 200 years. And nothing has been done to change the system no matter how many times the ‘good’ party has been in charge, and the gradual downslide into a fascist shithole has continued regardless of who’s in charge. No matter how many times people have voted in the ‘lesser evil’, y’all are still caught in that bullshit trap. Maybe if a third party had been able to gain some ground in those 200 years things might be different, but people like you claim that voting third party is throwing your vote away just as much as non-voting, so i don’t even know what to say to someone who’s bought in so completely to the fiction that you have any sort of choice in this system. Keep voting and the corporations will keep throwing up shittier and shittier stooges to build the future they want regardless. It’s literally the quote from wargames. The game is rigged and the only winning move is not to play. And also to overthrow your piece of shit government/corporate overlords.
Now with another one of these big bogus showdowns looming down on us, I can already pick up the stench of another bummer. I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing this year is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 – and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.
—Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973)
Thank you.
I have voted (early). There were people on the ballot I knew I was not going to vote for, even though they would be considered the lesser of two evils. Luckily, there was a third choice which was a better choice than the main two, so they got my vote.
The people who say just voting for the lesser two evils works, well Trump proved them wrong. At some point there has to be a major change.
THIS. 1,000%
But the bus driver supports genocide. The whole bus is rotten. We should let the bus go off the cliff and then build a new bus. I’m sure enough of us will survive the crash to build a better bus afterwards. Many people will die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
🤡🤡🤡
It sounds stupid because it is…
Oops, all of the people who had the institutional knowledge to build a new bus died in the bus accident.
You chauvinists really deserved 9/11
Thank you for the clown emojis because I 100% thought you were seroius because of how many fools there are on Lemmy that believe that exact sentiment and they aren’t joking. Juvenile fools.
I almost added a /s too just to be safe
Many people will die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
But not from the genocides?
How does social collapse stop the genocides? Explain that part in detail, because I’m pretty sure any global socioeconomic collapse will accelerate existing genocides and probably add quite a few more. Like, do you numpties understand half the world dies in your best case scenarios, the first of which will absolutely be all the people being genocided currently?
Appropriate emojis considering the message. Hoping they’re in place of a /s
Absolutely in place of /s
Good to know!!
“The five non-voters are the true anarchists who see the violence inherent in the system. Actually the two who voted against driving off the cliff are wrong for even supporting a system in which voters can choose to drive the bus off the cliff. They’re actually worse than the three who voted to drive the bus off the cliff, because they tacitly approve of driving the bus off the cliff just by participating in the system which allows the bus to be driven off the cliff, while fooling themselves into feeling morally absolved of the decision to drive off the cliff! So the non-voters are the only virtuous ones in this situation”
(The /s should be clear, right?)
You’ve angered the .ml and .dbzer0 trolls.
Tankie tears are my favorite beverage.
(The /s should be clear, right?)
… are you new to the Fediverse? I encounter such arguments uttered unironically virtually every time I browse here - especially in election season.
You’re… not wrong…
Might I should have included a second “…right?” after that statement
But the bus driver supports genocide. The whole bus is rotten.
You ever notice how the ‘burn it down’ people fall into two camps?
- not in the affected area: chicken-hawk types who advocate the sacrifice of others.
- in the affected area: I didn’t know the leopards of societal collapse, starvation, and violence, would eat my face.
Just a bunch of moralists sniffing their own farts.
How about nobody in this situation is virtuous.
Go vote for pedo blue and tell yourself how righteous and great you are compared to the other shitty option camps.
Before you bitch and moan at me for differing from groupthink: I will be voting for blue pedo this turn about but I’m not gonna be online in a fart smelling circle with a bunch of do nothing moralists about it.
Please get over yourselves, you vote for slavery that’s out of sight abroad and pedos who eat babies so you can play gta6, you aren’t righteous.
pedo blue
This reeks of desperation.
I will be voting for blue pedo this turn about
Lol. Immediately abandon your morals. You don’t have a problem calling them pedos but you’ll vote for pedos…this time.
Type 2 also includes the “why’s it taking so long? Look at all these people suffering through the collapse. We need to make it collapse faster so we get to the good part faster” people, without acknowledging that this is what collapse looks like: lots of suffering
Making the downfall faster is fighting stupid with stupid. They are still bringing on the end of the world or whatever evangelicals are imagining.
There will be so much shit to eat your grandchildren will still be at it. I do not understand accelerationism or similar ideas one bit.
Yeah but you can just blame all that suffering on the people trying to hold the whole thing together, because obviously if you just let the whole thing collapse then the suffering will end abruptly and a magical utopia can finally descend from the heavens! /s
Who said there was a good part to get to? Turns out damaging the bus in any manner, whether by driving, inaction, or burning it on the road, is all bad. No one has mentioned hitting the brakes... oh wait, which one of you cut the lines?
Abstaining from voting is just a vote to let others choose for you. It does not exempt you from the system.
If you think any of this will convince the commies to vote think again
They are only here too sow doubt and lethargy in the interests of certain oligarchs
Absolutely! You’re part of “the system” due to the fact that you exist…
It’s not a protest, it’s a surrender.
I prefer this equivalence: abstaining is voting according to the result of the election.
You’re banned from .ml, !latestagecapitalism and r/Pyongyang.
I am also banned from .ml and LateStageCapitalism. Anyone who isn’t insufferable and possesses a functional brain is or will be banned from those wretched hives of scum and villainy.
I don’t think the people downvoting this saw the mod who banned kingofras for bad jacketing proceeded to bad jacket someone else in the next thread about this subject.
You forgot to end your comment with “, z-word pigdog!”
Remember: if you stick to your morals and refuse to cosign on genocide abroad and austerity at home, whatever the other guys you’d didn’t vote for do is all your personal fault. No blame whatsoever may be assigned to the party that felt it didn’t need your vote badly enough to stop helping genocide or abandoning Neoliberalism.
-Statements from people who can’t tell politics from sports.