General Politics Discussion (XI) [ARCHIVED] World • Page 1069

I tend to agree, but I have realized that some of that is colored by me living in Pennsylvania. If I lived in New York, maybe my opinion would be different, but there is no choice for me. I'll fucking canvas if I have to, cause it is that scary here.

 

i dunno, this guy just randomly found my account from a quote tweet and his header is biden harris and his other tweets support that he is not an undercover conservative. online is the outlet but tons of dem voters think like this

 

my personal revulsion to sending guns to the people that snipe toddlers makes this hard to understand for me

 

Whitmer has seemed pretty adamant she isn’t going to be going anywhere, so I think it’s safe to take her out of VP consideration.

 

if they’re in a non-swing state it’s not a huge deal, though I’m all about running the score up on Trump in the popular vote. My thinking was always if the polling is within 5% you gotta do what you can to stop Repubs from getting into powe

 

You mean it’s not just that you’re “not pumped” about slaughtering families and causing mass suffering? Oh!

 

I mean, that will happen under Trump, too, and then some against American citizens who don't align with his political beliefs.

 

Basically my whole approach to the whole left divide over Kamala thing is "hey both have valid points. You do your thing and I'll do mine. Just neither side be a dick to the other. We'll see eye to eye again after the election is over no matter the result"

 

I was at the point where I could swallow everything with Biden except how he’s handled Israel since October and my default is I’ll vote Kamala as long as she at least positions herself to have more empathy. But I totally understand folks who feel so lost by this party that they fight in other ways. I see it a lot with the climate and environmental justice grass roots folks, they make changes locally because federally it’s all the same except for lip service

 

Obama drone striked an American and under Biden cops cracked skulls of peaceful pro-Palestinian college students and stood by and watched as a zionist lynch mob went even farther. Did you watch the Sonya Massey video? I’d like to live in whatever America you’re in

 

Lmao. Her brain trying to compute that making it obvious it never entered her mind that they could go after Trump for his age too

 

FL dems strategy right now seems to be solely drumming up potential left leaning anti-trump turnout by promoting Amendment 3 (legalize weed) non-stop literally everywhere. You can't go online, watch local tv, or listen to radio in FL right now without getting a "vote to legalize it" ad.

It's cynical and lazy but it very well could work to cross that 6-10 point margin we need to flip blue again. Plus there is an underlying anger right now with FL Republicans over insane out of control home insurance premiums, would be smart of dems to stoke that weakness.

 

Is this lady a republican? I genuinely don't know her.

 

The old people in FL will never allow legal weed

 

I have smoked bowls with so many old people. You would be surprised.

 

Florida is becoming like Ohio in the general election. Probably best to not cater your strategy to them, they’re lost causes for now

 

I looked at that 2008 Obama map, and it's crazy that it was realistic at that time.

Also...underrated that I haven't heard a word about the assassination attempt in a couple days.

 

I see glimpses of hope. Major demographic change since covid with tons of Millennial transplants now. Polling is still within the 10% or less margins. A major push of young voter and traditionally independent non-voter turnout could potentially squeak out a dem win.

I don't think FL is a part of the DNC strategy at all and they're investing nothing here. The state dems are basically throwing a hail mary hoping turnout for other stuff will be the turnout push for a surprise win.

 

So, I’ve long said that I think voting or not voting, those are incredibly small almost nebulous political acts based on individual moral calculations. I don’t believe in trying to make someone feel bad for voting for what they see as harm reduction any more than I want to be hollered at for what - in my view - is my choice to not vote for people who will export human misery on a historic scale (I believe the facts bear out that Dems do this basically to the exact same extent as Republicans do it). Vote or don’t vote, I’m more interested in what people are willing to do outside of voting once or twice a year (or more commonly, every four years). Voting against Trump doesn’t make any of us truly resistant to him and everything he represents, just as not voting on its own is not a form of protest against the injustices of the two parties. Doomerism on the left is just as annoying to me as when people show up to vote for Dems and pat themselves on the back for it. So please understand that I’m not advocating for nihilism or for being holier-than-thou about voting. If you feel morally called to vote for a Democrat, then go ahead and do it.

I cannot personally support a party that I view as complicit in genocide, complicit in the creation of an out of control and violent police state, fundamentally anti-worker and anti-poor people in spite of its historic base, and beholden to corporate interests on essentially the same level as the republicans. The Democrats are, in my opinion, as responsible for mass death and human misery abroad as the Republicans are. Like, I see no meaningful difference between the two at all on foreign policy, where most of America’s historically unprecedented evil manifests itself. The disappointment of my young political life was watching Obama take over the administration of the War on Terror from Bush and not only preserve but actively expand it, while the entirety of the gigantic anti-War movement that had rightly condemned Bush during his tenure basically evaporated when Obama was in charge. They did this because he didn’t offend their sensibilities the way Bush had. It didn’t matter how many innocent millions of people had their lives ruined, Obama was cool and well-spoken and so people couldn’t be bothered to be mad at him the same way they were at Bush. And this is a pattern across all politics - Republicans are anti-worker, but Democrats still supported NAFTA and gutted welfare. Republicans are racists, but Biden still was an author of the Crime Bill that locked up tens of thousands of Black people for non-violent crimes (which prosecutors like Kamala Harris were absolutely complicit in). Republicans don’t care about the environment, but Dems will only go as far as corporate interests will allow them even though it is no where near enough to actually address the problem, leading us off a cliff. Even with abortion or voting rights or LGBT protections, I feel pretty confident in saying that the Dems fundraise on these matters and leave them open to attack because they know it results in more money. If they protected them, they couldn’t send out their pathetic “BREAKING : Abortion is OVER”-style emails.

Then there’s personal considerations - I used to work in Democratic politics, and my time there left me incredibly disillusioned and I think really radicalized me. The only people I saw doing work that made normal people’s lives better during the late Obama and Trump years were organizers and activists. And oftentimes they did it without funneling support into the Dems, who would usually co-opt their efforts. So that’s how I personally want to be. Also, I now live in Chicago, so the Dems do not need my vote. But even if I still lived in Ohio, I don’t think I’d be voting for them. I’m not beyond conditioning my vote - if getting my vote was so important to the Dems that they’d end the genocide in Gaza, lift tens of millions of people out of debt, genuinely do something that averts course on climate change, etc. then I would consider voting for them. However, all we ever get on those fronts are excuses as to either how they cannot or why they will not do those things, so personally I don’t see why they’re worth supporting. Their response is “have you seen the other guys” but eventually that just becomes a built-in justification for horrific decisions. Reagan was Satan, then rehabilitated so that Bush could be the worst ever, who was then rehabilitated because actually Trump is really bad. I don’t consider it impossible that we see Trump rehabilitated in the future by liberals either to paint the next guy as the worst ever.

I absolutely understand the moral decision someone might make about how if it even helps protect one more innocent person, it’s worth voting for Harris. If that’s your calculus, then go for it and more power to you. But go back to how I described the transition from Bush to Obama, and compare that with Trump to Clinton/Biden/Harris: people rightly hate Trump, but when Dems do so much of the same things he wants to do, they are quiet about it because the Dems go about it in a way that is less aggressively offensive to people’s sensibilities. It’s why people decried “kids in cages” during Trump’s term, but excused it under Biden’s term, or even supported him pushing Trump’s border policy a few months ago. It all results in things spiraling into worse and worse and worse places, and I cannot personally square it within myself as genuine harm reduction. I’d rather find ways of helping people and improving the world outside of support for either of these parties. I don’t think we have to work within a system that only ever has helped the rich and powerful make life more miserable for so much of the world.

 

Went back on forth on whether to respond to this, but I will as someone planning to vote, a queer masculine presenting woman, AKA someone who has quite a bit at stake here.

Everyone has already mentioned that it all depends on what state you live in so we can skip over that. The US’ role in violence around the world is massive, especially in regards to Israel. A democratic president won’t make that much better, if at all. And that sucks. I don’t blame anyone who won’t vote for a president who will perpetuate that. While I do believe (perhaps naively) that Kamala Harris can change/grow/evolve, it’s a big gamble to take and understandably, much of her past is unforgivable to a lot.

I don’t think anyone in this thread isn’t scared for the future of the country. For me personally, I’m most likely voting for Kamala because although I don’t think things will get particularly better here for most people, I also don’t think they’ll get significantly worse. That’s not enough for some people and I completely understand that. In a perfect world the democrats would continue getting more and more progressive but I think that’s a very long term goal and I genuinely don’t know if it would actually happen. I think the senate and the house are more significant to vote for at this point. There are several factors that (should) go into choosing candidates to vote for. What’s happening in Israel right now is a genocide and I won’t fault people for not voting for anyone who won’t remove the country and provide aide to Palestine. Those people aren’t wishing harm on those of us who face serious life changes as a result of this election and those two things are not mutually exclusive. For me, I’m going to continue to vote for the lesser of two evils and hope both of those evils continue to move further left. But I don’t think it’s productive or helpful to be mad at people who won’t vote for either presidential candidate as opposed to encouraging them to still pay attention and consider voting on the local level, which I believe most people in this thread are doing. I’d also encourage you to some research on what’s happening in Israel and Palestine because unless I’ve missed some prior posts and comments (which I very well may have) you seem to not have an idea of what exactly is happening there.

 

@Importer/Exporter thats significantly more helpful than what I said lol