What happens in November is up to Biden – it will not be the fault of the protest voter if Trump is elected. The questions remain: does the Democratic party fear Trump as much as we do? And does it value its voters enough to shift away from an approach to the onslaught in Gaza that a majority of Democratic voters are against?
If you vote blue or left no matter what then you minimize your reach and power. When the elected officials have to work for your vote is when your vote matters. Biden or trump palestine issue isnt gonna change just like foreign policy hasnt changed blue or red. At the very least youd punish biden and set precedence moving forward. We clearly also need reform so we dont end up with two terrible human beings.
Sure, Genocide with Trump is clearly the better choice
Or you can vote for someone like Jill Stein or Cornel West who isn’t genocidal.
Anyone against voting uncommitted supports genocide, plain and simple. There’s no other explanation, Biden doesn’t even lose anything from those votes, it just let’s him know that his base is pissed about him supporting genocide. Vote uncommitted or for a less zionist candidate, if you don’t or you’re against this then your position on Gaza is clear. What other reason would there be to oppose that?
Biden is the less zionist candidate.
Primaries. This is about primaries. There’s other dems running that’s aren’t as zionist, you should vote for them or uncommitted
Biden isn’t getting primaried you absolute doughnut…no this is not at all about primaries.
Your can’t vote uncommitted in generals, only primaries. You literally have no idea what you’re talking about cx why tf why don’t you quit while you’re only a few hundred miles behind
They are delusional and claiming it’s someone else’s fault if Trump is elected is the pinnacle of idiocy.
You’re talking to Biden supporters, right? Right?
You know they aren’t. They don’t see the irony, and they certainly don’t feel any personal responsibility.
Derp
You’re absolutely right.
Anyone who is more willing to work with someone who is ok with supporting the people who killed 10’s of thousands of innocent people, rather than someone who isn’t is a complete fucking moron and deserves whatever we get if trump gets elected.
Welcome to Dumbass City, population: everyone itt saying that not voting biden in the primaries will somehow get trump elected xD yall are legit just as stupid as trump supporters, you straight up have no idea how primaries work but you’re too proud and too blindly, unshakably loyal to admit it cx vote uncommitted or vote for genocide, those are your options and you’ve made your opinions very clear on the matter. Have a shit day! Hope you trip and fall into a thorny bush :3
Democrats demand party unity but will unify only to the center while the republicans keep moving the center further to the right. They like to claim that the left is doing purity testing, but democrats are the biggest purity testers, where you have to do things their way or they say you’re being unreasonable and unrealistic and they will probably label you a republican in secret or a russian asset for daring to hold a different opinion.
Something Something First Past The Post voting. Electoral reform Yada Yada Yada. Solidarity herp de derp derp
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA 🇵🇸💕
It’s not a binary issue. Both left wing protest voters and the dems are wrong IMO. (obvs in some states your vote doesn’t make a difference so have at it, protest away)
No it’s going to be their fault. If we lose Social Security, Medicare, public schooling, basically every social safety net, any regulatory power the government has, and a right to free and fair elections then that will absolutely be on them. They’ve said that those things don’t matter to them in this scenario. If you’re for the destruction of all that then fuck you. It’s pretty simple.
It won’t be the protest voters fault of Trump is elected but it would be something they could have prevented. Four more years of radical conservative judge appointments would create generations of degradation of women and minority group rights.
If that happens, protest voters could have prevented it, the DNC could have prevented it, Biden himself could have prevented it, all of the state governors and state legislators who didn’t fix gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts could have prevented it. You and I could have prevented it if we had gone door-to-door to get more people to the polling places. And so on.
It’s easy to say that any one group could have prevented it, but how do you choose who to target when doing so?
So then protest voters are just wasting time by not voting since their protest doesn’t matter?
So then protest voters are just wasting time by not voting since their protest doesn’t matter?
Protest voters actually do vote. By definition.
I’m just tryna vote for the lesser, by far, of two evils. It’s a fucking binary system, you can stomp your feet all you want and still get a genocide and possibly much worse, or you can at least preserve hope for a better future.
Lesser of two evils works when we’re talking about blocking universal healthcare or police reform. When you use that bullshit to justify pulling the lever for genocide, you just don’t care that much about genocide.
And when you use that justification to enable someone who’s going to increase support of that genocide what does that make you? Sure sounds like you’re supporting more genocide than a Biden voter is.
Hey, how about you just work with us this time and then here in four years we will pretend to care about what you wanna do.
That seems to be the Democrat playbook anymore
You’re not wrong, but it beats the GOP’s playbook, and it’ll buy us some time to do the actual work of building a viable third party that might have a chance after 20 years of constant support from local elections on up.
Not voting sends no message other than you’re fine with how things are so you can’t be bothered. Threatening a comfy 2-party system with a solid alternative will make them sweat.
Run for something locally.
Do something about it.
Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be just tuning in every 4 years. Local elections, primaries, etc. People only pay attention every 4 years. That’s part of the reason why we’re here.
I know the names, office locations, and names of the assistants of my congressional representatives, do you?
Sounds like you’re perfectly capable of understanding how participation is beneficial. Maybe you could advocate more people participate and the resulting benefits vs cynical bullshit designed to turn people off entirely?
Look at those goalposts fly!
Tried that.
Remember, behind every cynic is a crushed optimist
Oh suck rocks. There’s one party that does try to pass legislation that helps people, that is better for the environment, better allocations of spending priorities, and generally aren’t fucking cartoon villains.
And it ain’t the Republicans.
Being mad that things weren’t done the way we Think They Should Be™ and dismissing the realization that geopolitics is an extremely complex system is childish. Throwing temper tantrums, threatening to take your toys and go home because you didn’t get your way is childish.
There are many factions to appease in the US electorate, particularly on the left. And while I personally feel like Israel should have been cut off decades ago which may have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, there are a lot more who feel differently. Am I going to hold that against the group that aligns with the majority of my aspirations even if they are stymied by christofacists at every turn? FUCK NO.
If there are so many of them compared to us, then why are you worried?
My guy, do you understand how margins work?!
My guy, do you not understand that human lives are more important than anything else he can do?
He disregards that, and I’m ok with not being on team “Okay with killing children to get the other things we want.”
That is your team
It’s like people forgot how many Americans died during the height of the pandemic because T**** is a fucking idiot.
Anyone who is even remotely near the crosshairs of the Christofascists needs to pull their head out of their ass and vote Democrat this election.
The Republicunts don’t care if you think “both sides are bad” if you’re LGBTQ+, atheist, non-Christian, think abortion should be freely available, etc.
Ideals and principles don’t stop bullets or beatings.
You’re standing in a room with two levers. If you pull the left one, five people die. If you pull the right one, ten people die. If you don’t pull one, it’s random, either five or ten people die.
So if you choose not to pull, and ten people die, would you feel guilty for the five additional people? You could have prevented their deaths.
Don’t bother. Those kind of ppl never accept responsibility for their actions so the trolley problem is irrelevant to them.
They’re just virtue signalling to reduce Biden s support.
Funny you say this when you all refuse to accept your complicity in the murder of thousands right now.
Ooh, I love thought experiments! You’re in an auditorium. There are three stages. On one stage, a man is guilotining one child every ten minutes. He cries into his handkerchief. On another stage, a man is gleefully guilotining one child every ten minutes and periodically kicking a dog. Both men get loud applause from different sides of the auditorium. On the third stage, almost completely unnoticed by the crowd, Jill Stein juggles bowling pins while tossing candy to kids. A vote will be taken to see who stays on stage.
The train is barreling down a track with five people tied to the rails. It crushes them. You hear the screams and watch the blood spurt and then dribble. Ahead are another group of five people on the rails. You can let the train continue on its murderous path, throw a switch that will shift it onto a different track but cause another train to run over the people, or you can go call 911 because the people are going to be crushed no matter what.
You’re really saying Trump won’t (as he has very specifically said he want to) help Israel kill even more people?
Or hell, even kill Americans? He’s floated that idea multiple times too.
You’re using a lot of words to cover up your central premise: when it comes to death, Biden and Trump are equally bad.
Which is how I know you’re a fucking shill.
Same but in the mean time I’m going to continue to donate and help push for progressives and those who keep fighting to get rid of the bullshit first past the post voting system and electoral college bullshit.
Hope for whom? A better future for whom? If personal selfishness outweighs the value of humanity, then we’ve already lost, and the outcome of the election is irrelevant.
for whom?
The gay and trans people who won’t get murdered? The women who won’t die in abortive childbirth?
Are there not gay and trans people in Palestine right now? Or is it only American LGBTQIA 🏳️🌈 folks that matter?
Haha are you … serious? You know what Palestinians do to gay people, right? Right?
Is it worse than a genocide?
Yes.
How?
You’re arguing in bad faith. Everyone should know this guy.is a false flag right wing nutbag.
CHECK HIS POST HISTORY HE DOESNT ARGUE IN GOOD FAITH
That’s a Thought-terminating cliché.
It’s entirely possible that there are multiple points of view concerning this conflict and the upcoming election. Please, look at my post history, it might be inciteful.
Please, look at my post history, it might be inciteful.
What a Freudian slip lol
Uh oh are we throwing a tantrum bc someone doesn’t agree with you? Grow up cx
Also Idk if Guy Levi has anything to do with this, it’s prob best you leave him be 🌸
It’s reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally simple:
Voting Biden in gives us time to take all this energy we’re mustering up and using it to promote broader, more significant changes. We don’t stop at the election and instead use the next four years to push toward a better tomorrow.
Too many people are stopping at Trump v. Biden. Too many more are stopping at Them v “The System”.
Change takes time. When you vote for Biden, you vote to reset the clock, and then it’s time for all of us to get to work.
Exactly. If Trump wins, he will outright BAN the Democratic Party, at worst. We will all either be Republicans, or we will be prisoners. And if that happens, the only group with the means to oppose him and the GOP Fascists is gone. And yes, the DNC absolutely has the means. They have all the tools they need. Now, I will admit that they lack the will to use those tools, but if Trump wins they’ll never get the chance to use them.
Can you explain how you expect to push for a better tomorrow after Biden is re-elected?
The reason I am reluctant to vote for Biden is that he is supporting genocide. If Biden continues to give away large quantities of child-exploding bombs, and he is still rewarded with reelection, then what leverage will the anti-genocide movement have left?
It seems like if Biden can ignore the anti-genocide movement and still win, then we can expect Biden to keep ignoring for 4 more years.
Tell me: What do you expect Trump to do?
I expect Trump to continue being a boogeyman so people like you can keep saying this instead of working for any real change that makes people’s lives better. ‘Just push Biden left’ turned into ‘Well you have no other choice’ real quick.
You don’t think Trump is harmful?
Where did I say that? Putins using Ukrainian Nazis as his boogeyman, do you think that implies Nazis aren’t harmful too? Bibi is using Hamas as his, same question.
Ok so you’ve admitted you think trump is worse and you only have 2 choices cuz fptp voting.
I expect Trump to do horrible things. I expect Trump to be worse than Biden.
What does that have to do with my questions?
It has everything to do with your question. Biden has already proven he is willing to roll over on many issues. Biden has gotten a lot done these last four years, far more than most of us expected. Meanwhile, and I am NOT downplaying the severity of the genocide, people like you are using that in exactly the same way you accuse people like me of using Trump. Thing is your reluctance to help Biden get into office, and acknowledgement of the likely atrocities Trump would attempt, does you no favors. You can’t see past your own anger to the bigger picture, and it’s a damn shame. Because where Biden buys us time to continue coming together and push for change, Trump will attempt to lock us, and the very many minorities, LGPTQ+ communities, and any person not white and certainly anyone who stands against him, possibly and quite literally behind bars. He is so damned bad that the ENTIRE WORLD was pushing back against his Presidency and are terrified of him winning again. Except Russia.
Either we step the fuck up and stop being bitches and work together for a change over the next few years, or all this shit, every single part of it, will occur again in 2028. Including, as happens nearly every god damn fucking time, a serious situation that splits our attention and our support while the Right looks on and smirks. Every. Time. And we keep falling for it because we care.
I’m not angry, I was asking an honest question that no one has answered yet: how?
You say you take the genocide seriously, and you say electing Biden is buying us time to push for change, so answer my question then:
How will we effectively push the Biden administration to change Gaza policy after he is re-elected?
Not just Gaza. You’re stuck. Broader change. Biden is already showing he is willing to make changes and roll over on many issues. So we do what has always worked: We stand as a united voice. We come together to vote in more progressive local and State representatives while also collectively looking Biden in the eye and saying what we want.
None of this “If you won’t then I won’t.” bullshit. Literally one issue at a time.
The reason I’m angry is because this is actually incredibly simple. We live in an age where we can organize so god. damned. easily. Yet we keep finding ourselves at each other’s throats. Gaza IS a situation that is causing us to split. Yet not reelecting Biden is the wrong way to go right now because we don’t have a reasonable alternative. Not this time. This time it is truly binary.
So take that energy and carry it past the election and into further elections and further actions. Elevate our voice. We can still make that difference, though I feel we are slowly running out of time courtesy of the Republican party’s actions, and our own party’s inability to come to consensus. Both inside and outside the Chamber. Say what you will about Republicans: When it comes time to act, they often do so single-mindedly, even if it hurts them too.
Because that is literally the entire campaign for the DNC: “but what about Trump!”.
They love Trump because he’s the ultimate boogeyman to strong-arm voters to fall into line.
Tell me: What do you expect democrats to do when they can just point to the next election and claim that democrats are owed votes for not being the other guy? Do you honestly think democrats will listen to voters? They’re already not listening when the vote matters most.
Make the next four years matter so they can’t do that.
I wish the democrats would make the four years matter. Somehow obama made little difference in eight years while trump drove us to the edge of armageddon in only four. So far biden doesn’t inspire much confidence.
The Right tends to come together against something. The rest of us banter and point fingers at one another. Bluntly speaking, I’m disappointed with the majority of people who aren’t on the right. We quite literally need to shut up, stop arguing constantly, and work together, while collectively standing in voice and action.
yeah thats what we are saying.
and if both options mean genocide (or one is only less bad about it, whatever that means) them its time to reconsider if you truly live in a democracy
US democracy is weak. With first past the post voting, a two party system is inevitable. But not voting Biden because he is “genocidal” is the dumbest excuse ever.
Fight to change the voting system, but don’t fight it by getting a literal fascist elected. Because that’s what you are responsible for if you don’t vote.
What’s dumb is putting “genocidal” in scare quotes and acting like genocide is not actually that big of a deal. I won’t vote for Biden or Trump because I value my vote too much to give it to an evil scumbag, red or blue. I’ll vote for Jill Stein or Cornel West.
So Trump it is then. Good look with your genocide then.
You do realize genocide is a fait accompli.
Wrong
“Fake news.” – used to negate the sources of an argument, often while providing alternate or misleading information to push an individual’s own interpretation of a subject; popularized by politicians in the US in 2016.
Look, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is indisputably horrible and it’s absolutely the fault of Israel’s government. It may very well be genocide. International investigations will show.
Right now, it’s a war zone and it’s very hard to gather reliable evidence. That’s why I put it in quotes.Not voting for Biden on this single issue is insane. It directly benefits Trump who, other than Biden, won’t try to ease the situation. He will actively make the conflict worse. He’ll also do his best to dismantle what is left of US democracy and worsen the lives of millions of people.
Fight for a better voting system. Protest against Biden’s foreign policy. But please don’t throw away your vote and give the world another term of Trump.
How will stein or West get past 270?
They can’t
Congrats you’re still helping trump.
Logic really isn’t your strong suit is it?
You could equally argue I’m helping Biden by not voting for Trump. So tell me Professor Logic, what does it mean if the same reasoning can be used to argue that I’m helping both Biden and Trump?
So which is it? Jill Stein or Cornel West? You can’t vote for both and I suspect that if you were being sincere you would know.
The most salient fact for me is that they are both against genocide, so no, I don’t know. I might flip a coin. I could even vote for De La Cruz. I guess I’m just a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma!
I guess if you live in an already decided stronghold state then go vote for whatever you want. Otherwise, don’t let a fantasy get in the way of the only obvious option if you like democracy.
Otherwise, don’t let a fantasy get in the way of the only obvious option if you like
democracygenocide.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
With this reality looming, many Democratic party loyalists are panicked about the “leave it blank” movement, in which hundreds of thousands of voters have marked “uncommitted” on their primary ballots to protest against US support of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The protest vote is a moral and strategic position that challenges the establishment, delegitimizes the two-party system, and invalidates the assumption that the party line is the voter’s only consideration.
Last month, in primaries in Michigan, Hawaii, Minnesota and Washington, more than 200,000 voters cast “uncommitted” anti-war protest votes, demanding that Biden call for a ceasefire to the horrifying, US-financed genocide in Gaza and an end to Israeli occupation.
In 2008, for instance, Barack Obama was denied a line on the ballot in the Michigan primaries, making Hillary Clinton the only option for Democratic voters.
That margin signaled trouble for the Clinton establishment, and the fact that a majority of those uncommitted votes were cast by Black and young people suggested a potential upset that would soon materialize: Obama went on to win the primaries and delegate counts that would make him the party’s candidate.
As we scroll social media through endless images of death, starvation, grief and the devastation of critical institutions like hospitals and schools, Americans are recognizing we must do more for Palestine.
The original article contains 800 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
If you would otherwise vote for donald; go ahead and do the protest vote.
Glad to see the goldfish memory of voters who missed what happened the last 4 times this has happened. I’m sure it’ll fix it this time and isn’t just a recurring right-wing strategy to alienate voters on the left with propaganda.
They can’t remember further back than the last media cycle, and the can’t think forward further than a week.
I guarantee at least some, likely all of these people were fucking pissed about the death of Roe. They learned nothing. Absolutely nothing.
You know what’s worse than denial of the right to choose? Genocide. That’s what we got for electing Joe Biden last time. Fool me once, etc, etc.
You have the intellect of a 14 year old.
… completely ignoring the only other option was “even more genocide than that”. We didn’t get genocide because we elected Joe Biden. We got genocide because right wingers in Israel want to conduct a genocide. Removing Biden from the equation and replacing him with Trump does not improve the situation. Doing that would be the actual foolish move.
We got genocide because Biden refuses to hold Israel accountable for its actions like even Ronald Reagan did. Don’t pretend that he doesn’t have blood on his hands.
You keep ignoring the fact that Trump would be worse and it makes you look like a shill
“Serial killers get to kill multiple people, why can’t I kill just one person?!”
So why not just say “I will not run for reelection, I have to much controversy, let’s run someone else.”?
Instead they are just barreling on with this motherfucker.
Because the incumbency advantage is incredibly powerful, Biden has beaten Trump before, and no other viable Democrats have indicated they want to run this election. I too would prefer someone else but it’s not like Biden there aren’t solid strategic reasons to run him again.
If Biden steps down then the dnc won’t be holding everyone else from stepping up.
Or maybe he could just STOP SENDING BOMBS and we would have much less of an issue.
If it’s too much trouble to get enough Americans to decide that we should stop sending bombs to kill kids then we deserve what we get
Ah… the: “I’ve chosen this hill for everyone to die on” gambit.
Thinking like a child. May age bring you wisdom and peace.
I’m voting for Biden. Harm reduction as the article said. But, I have a much better understanding of why people would protest vote after reading the article.
And if Trump wins 2024, we can’t put all of the blame on protest voters, when Democrats aren’t listening to their base.