And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
I can’t speak for others, but I can tell you why I didn’t vote for Harris.
I am a lifelong independent voter. In 2016 I wrote in Kanye West, in 2020 I wrote in Nobody, this year I didn’t even vote. (I also voted Bush in '04, Ron Paul in '08, and Obama in '12) I go to the polls even if I am planning to writing in a presidential pick because there are usually ballot issues or other races I care about.
I decided not to vote when the DNC opted to not hold a primary even though absolutely no one wanted a Biden second term and the deal was elect Biden in 2020 and they’d find someone good for '24. After Biden’s disastrous debate and he dropped out, I was angry because everyone said no to Kamala already in 2020, but they still ran her.
On the issues, Kamala is too centrist for me and Gaza is a deal breaker. Most Palestinian casualties have been civilians and waaaaay too many children. Using my tax dollars to kill foreign children is not acceptable. I don’t care that Israel is our ally or they they provide us an important strategic resource in the region. I honestly don’t care if Israel wants to do a genocide or if Palestine wants to do a bunch or terrorism, that’s on them. But we don’t have to support it and I won’t vote for anyone who will.
The Democrats at least call for a ceasefire in Gaza, even though they send weapons to Israel. Trump openly admits that he would like Bibi to flatten the place with no regard for human life.
But I guess both parties are the same.
To the dead Palestinian children they are.
Are you a dead Palestinian Child? No.
Not voting is basically the same as giving Netanjahu Carte Blanche to kill more innocent palestinians.
While I understand not being happy with the Status Quo there’s also always a worse option. You now elected that “Worse Option™”.
I accept my responsibility in how things have turned out. I would feel absolutely horrible and would be wrought with guilt for my entire life if it had come down to a single vote, but I would not have voted for either Kamala or Trump even if I had gone to the polls.
I understand that makes me responsible in a very small way for Trump winning and I don’t like it, but I accept that. It was a risk I was willing to take in February when I decided not to vote.
Gaza wasn’t why I decided not to vote at all, the disconnect between voter and politician and the way queer issues were completely abandoned this election were why I didn’t vote. If Kamala had said she would end our alliance with Israel if they didn’t stop killing civilians she still wouldn’t have gotten my vote because I wasn’t casting one to begin with.
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As I am not eligible to vote in the US I certainly didn’t.
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All I am is disappointed, I ain’t pretending to be anything else.
I strongly think what you did is incorrect but I appreciate you sharing your view, and disapprove those who downvoted you. Upvoted.
Agreeing with you on Palestine, but I think Trump will be way worse, in that case and many others.
Kanye West?
well at least you’re consistent…
Btw, your chosen course of actions indirectly supported the option of spending even more tax dollars on killing people in gaza, so you might want to consider breaking your consistent streak of picking the wrong choice and try woting in a way that aligns with your stated goals
If Gaza is such a hot topic for you, how do you justify letting someone that absolutely despises muslims and would love to see them eradicated, enter the white house and likely lift all restrictions on Israel and delivery anything they ask for? There’s little doubt that Haris would have changed the situation much at all, but a Trump win basically solidifies the Palestinian’s fate to die as Israel’s war equipment guinea pigs. Do you feel like your inaction is fine because either way, the genocide doesn’t end?
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Do you feel like your inaction is fine because either way, the genocide doesn’t end?
Pretty much. Less genocide is not a compelling argument. The children who died with Kamala in the White House would be just as dead with Trump.
What about the kids who wouldn’t die under kamala but now will? You say less genocide is the same, but even if it’s 10% less, I bet those 10% of kids would want kamala.
I strongly disagree with aspects of your perspective but I appreciate your honest engagement
Morals and ethics are subjective and based on emotions. That’s why science doesn’t say what’s good or bad. I don’t think you can prove or disprove this argument. People who are strongly focused on Gaza and simply reject views that challenge their own.
Morality is not subjective. It is not (or at least should not) be based on emotions.
Morality is most definitely subjective. Talk to different groups around the globe and you’ll find different moral boundaries. The morals posed by Islam differ from christianity, which differ from buddhism, which all differ from nihilistic views, and still further diverge from tribal morals of small secluded tribes of people. While they shouldn’t be based on emotion, they do tend to be reactionary and emotional at their outset. And breaking them within any particular group tends to get you strong emotional responses.
Personally I don’t see morals as entirely subjective.
I’d say that ‘worst possible misery for everyone’ is objectively bad and any attempt to move away from that is better.
its arguable but not without merit. its very much the same as you don’t negotiate with terrorists. honestly its disgusting that we are questioning morals of not endorsing genocide instead of demanding aipac and dnc to be investigated for war crimes and defrauding its members for the 3rd election in a row.
questioning morals of not endorsing genocide
That’s a somewhat skewed lens to view it through, as not everyone agrees that what we’re seeing is a genocide. I definitely don’t think it is. I’m open to hearing arguments to the contrary, but so far, everyone I’ve tried discussing it with either gets emotionally captured or doesn’t argue honestly and in good faith, so the discussion goes nowhere.
i don’t know if i can help someone who is ignoring the obvious here which is being echoed by un and every major humanitarian org. if your just objecting from legal pov rather than moral then maybe go through the case prepared by south africa.
copy pasting some links from earlier discussions below on the moral and intent side of things which is based on the what they are themselves acknowledging or rather bragging.
here is one from their own newspaper: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/reservist-eulogized-for-desire-to-take-revenge-against-gazans-setting-home-on-fire-to-boost-morale/
this pos had already killed someone in westbank in front of his kids and wife before oct 7. anyone really believes idf full of slime like this aren’t murdering civilians even kids the moment they see them ?
here they are openly bragging about murdering pregnant women and kids : https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/israel-condemns-soldiers-t-shirts-depict-shooting-arabs/
another one sourced from their own posts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucfxj-faTWI
this has been ongoing since 1948: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjTxDYtNhno
If you can’t make an argument for your view using your own words, then I’m not interested in going any further with this.
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Naïve/entitled people fail to grasp the concept of compromise.
It doesn’t have to make sense for people to convince themselves to do it. It will certainly lead to worse outcomes for gaza
If yoor morals disregard the probable outcomes and is more focused on normative rules you could make some arguments but that kind of purity won’t save a single starving child in gaza
Maybe people believe that it will save a starving child in the future. Like, some future where politicians finally listen to them?
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
And there was a strong push from the Russians.
what moderation ? biden literally told everyone that ukraine is not even getting a paperclip unless we give israel 20 billion as well. he continued saying israel has unconditional support while we were getting footage of pregnant women & kids getting shot at by idf or burning alive in hospital from use of incendiary shells by idf. then harris repeated the same statement on live tv. all this while the working class has been struggling to survive, layoffs everywhere, and price of everything getting doubled.
its not something that can be washed with but that guy will do worse. you can look otherway but dnc basically threatened their voters base with more genocide if not elected. the fact we are even fighting over this instead mass protesting for biden and his administration to be prosecuted shows just how hollow & pathetic the dnc base has become.
There you go again.
Dems bad, who cares if trump is worse.
Well, you’ll get what you wanted when Israel finishes off Gaza and everything else, or starts WWIII when they can’t keep the bombs inside their extermination camp.
You’re out of your mind if you think the israel / Palestine conflict stays local to that area under either administration. This is going to literally and figuratively blow up in our faces. Research the concept of “blowback”.
At no point did I suggest otherwise. In fact , I clearly stated WWIII was on the table. Go make up something else I said.
Arguably WW3 started when Russia invaded Ukraine.
yes the 15 millions or so didn’t care that trump is worse because dnc has become bad enough and its not just the genocide in gaza. threatening people make them do irrational things, specially true for us americans.
there is solid basis that harris would have done nothing to reign netanyahu same as trump. she had accepted even larger donation from aipac than biden who was basically emptying our emergency stockpile faster than we can replenish. if anything there’s chance that trumps narcissism clashes with that stooge and he actually does something good for gaza out of his ego.
Uh, I don’t have anything against America as a whole, but saying y’all don’t like irrational things rings pretty fucking false in my ears atm.
It only took 90 years until the majority apparently forgot 1935-1945 completely.
You know there’s an entire rest of the world that exists right? A rest of the world that has already started preparing sanctions against Israel if the conflict continues to escalate?
Realistically, we’ve seen this all beat for beat before. Israel treats Palestine as an apartheid state, eventually a group forms to try and resist Israel, Israel crushes that group’s bones into dust for a few years, and then once they can offer no more resistance, Israel returns Palestine to an apartheid state. The pattern has repeated itself several times now.
That’s because nobody believes biden/Harris and for good reason. They’re lying, they have just as much of a plan to turn Gaza into prime oceanfront real estate for wealthy NYC metro area zionists with dual citizenship as the republicans. They’ll just paint the bombs with progress pride and blm flags while lying to your face about their intentions and speaking out of both sides of their mouth depending on their audience. It’s sickening. They’re both going to genocide Palestinians, does it really matter if they’re turned to glass in days or in weeks?
I was born and raised Jewish, going to Hebrew school in addition to English school from preschool to 14. The horrors of the Holocaust and all it’s trauma was shoved down my throat at far too young of an age to be appropriate. Never again means so much to me, one of my deepest held beliefs. Never again isn’t just Jews but any group hunted down for their ethnicity (not to mention all the other undesirables murdered in the Holocaust, such as the disabled and queer).
What’s going on in Gaza is a Holocaust. I can’t live with myself and sleep at night if I vote for trump or Harris, because materially for Gaza they are the same. I voted third party. In 2020 I held my nose and voted for biden. I’m disgusted with myself for doing so. He managed to be worse than I could ever imagine. And the liberals were out to fucking brunch for the past four years.
I will drink liberal tears all damn day long. They can whine and cry and carry on like entitled spoiled rotten children all they want. They were warned that they would lose if they continued to pursue the path they were on and that’s exactly what happened and I have zero remorse for it. And for the record, I’m a visibly queer woman who’s experienced a lot of physical violence in my life for being queer.
So you voted to have it happen in the USA and Ukraine too as well as Gaza? 😅
What have you done except be out to brunch for the last four years? Fucking liberal trash
What’s with the hate for brunch? 🤣
It’s important to remember the Holocaust happened largely because people didn’t do enough to stop it. “First they came for the Communists…” and all that. The Nazis were a fairly minor party for years, but they were able to consolidate power because their opposition wouldn’t rally against them. Coalition requires compromise.
I am not happy with the Democrats either, but they were the better option. And abstaining from a decision between bad and worse doesn’t help anyone. By allowing Trump to take power again when we might have stopped it, we are all responsible for what comes next.
Another moron who doesn’t know how voting works. Take all the third party votes, give them to Harris in swing states, and she still fucking loses the popular vote and electoral college in a landslide. And most the senate! And likely the house too! GREAT JOB OUT TO BRUNCH LIBERALS!
HARRIS LOST BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS REFUSED TO RUN A CANDIDATE THAT WENT THROUGH A REAL PRIMARY SINCE 2008!
It’s true that Trump had a simple majority of votes, but you can win the electoral college and lose the popular vote; this is typically what happens for Republican victories. Kamala lost MI, PA, and WI by 3% or less. If those had flipped, she would have had her 270. You are right that third party votes wouldn’t have been enough though. The bigger problem was reduced turnout from people not voting at all.
The fact that Republicans also managed to do so well in Congress to me suggests that the problem for Democrats wasn’t really just their choice for presidential candidate. Voters really care about immigration and inflation right now, and those tend to be stronger for Republicans.
Thankfully trump won both instead of winning the electoral and losing the popular. If it was remotely close or god forbid a repeat of the 2000 election we would be in a hot shooting civil war right now with states threatening secession. So as much as I hate the guy im grateful it wasn’t close as it buys us more peace and more time to organize against his worst impulses.
The democrats lost the senate and likely the house because they didn’t have a candidate worth voting for for president. I think they would of had much closer margins if they were able to turn voters out but they couldn’t because their unelected anointed nominee was trash.
Yeah maybe you’re right about Kamala’s unpopularity being reflected on Democratic congressional candidates. Everyone’s quick to point fingers about why the election results are the way they are (myself included of course), but it’s honestly hard to say which factor had the most impact.
And I feel the same way about the electoral + popular vote thing. If the Democrats are going to lose anyway, a convincing defeat can at least be a wake up call for change. And this way we don’t have to worry (much) about people claiming it was rigged.
These next four years are for you.
Hahaha I bet you’re the type to report your latino neighbors who voted for trump to ICE.
Typical blue MAGA liberal bullshit.
Go be mad at the democrats instead of voters who refuse to vote for horrible genocidal candidates. They had a whole fucking presidency to pick a successor to biden and they still managed to lose in a landslide it’s so fucking pathetic it would be funny if their political malpractice and brainwashed blue no matter who voters weren’t so fucking dangerous.
I voted.
So did OP.
But inversion didnt
I voted third party.
Read it again.
Whoooosh (Listen, I know you got the point, you know the point I made, we gonna disagree no matter what, let’s move on)
If blue no matter who worked, the Democrats would have won. So that’s obviously not a thing.
It worked for some democratic voters, but not for the 14 million others.
The blue no matter who voters have no morals or ethics and consider this a team sport, and the democrats are their team. They don’t criticize their team or hold them accountable, when they lose, they blame everyone else but themselves for not having higher standards.
The democrats refused to hold a competitive primary and are now crying and carrying on like spoiled rotten children that they lost. Anyone paying any attention at all could of seen this coming from a mile away. Smug elites who think they know better than the people who’s votes they need to be elected. It’s not rocket science why they lost.
so just to recap here, and I’ll put the facts in bullets.
- you’re Jewish
- refused to support literally the only candidate that had majority support
- installed a LITERAL NAZI as president through sheer incompetence
- did it all to make people suffer
- will take great enjoyment out of the suffering
you sound like a cool dude. I really hope you have a positive experience with the Nazis when they open those concentration camps.
oh you thought those camps were for them. no, those camps are for us.
You know Jews voted en masse for trump because they want to glass Palestine a little faster, right?
Also, go back to brunch you piece of shit liberal.
I didn’t vote for a fascist. The democrats ran a PIECE OF SHIT CANDIDATE THAT LOST IN A LANDSLIDE. Go fucking blame the party that REFUSES to hold a primary that they don’t fuck with since 2008.
Enjoy drone strikes and beeper bombs and Israeli AI companies hunting for dissidents on social media. Oh yeah, that’s all in israel/Palestine right now but the blowback will bring it to the US in no time.
All of that is happening under the BIDEN HARRIS administration, trumps not in office yet.
Go back to fucking brunch you useless piece of shit.
Non voters are just as responsible for the loss of democracy. They are not a single bit better than any MAGA even if they like to claim they are. They chose fascism over democracy
What’s worse is they’re now acting like they got one over on the Democratic party like “ha, stupid Democratic party. I bet they won’t learn”. Like what? You played YOURSELVES, you’re the ones who are gonna suffer. You fucked yourselves over just to spite Harris? Wtf??
Yeah, I have so many discussion with non voters who sre fucking stupif. “But but Gaza!!” completely ignoring how Trump was escalating the conflict when he was in power and how he praised Netanyahu for his handling of it. If the think the dems are bad for Gaza they have not paid attention to republicans.
Fucking over the usa to own the libs
Lib v lib violence
America hasnt had a democracy my entire life.
It did. It was just a flawed democracy. Now it will be full on fascism. So instead of hope it will get better one day it has gone the worst possible outcome and will not get better until the entire country looks like Berlin '45
yawn no it isn’t. I recommend you spend some more time learning american history and less time spouting your nonsense from across the pod.
Late but here’s my model of the situation. Sort of a WIP and very new but a /gen effortpost, so I welcome thoughts:
It’s individualism versus collectivism. The collectivist understands intimately the function of working together for the protection and future of the group. There is no doubt in her mind about the practical nature of her actions because she can see them play out in her community. The individualist, by contrast, operates solo; everything for him is about your vote, your candidate. This leads to a divide between the individualist and the material outcomes of his actions. This gap—this absence of practicality, we might call it—leaves a vacuum where symbolism can enter. This becomes a problem not when symbolism is simply encountered by the individualist, but when the symbol becomes the act, when the vote becomes a kind of personal expression, and any thought for collective consequences falls by the wayside.
“Ordinarily,” if we imagine such a thing exists, these two identities intermix and act in a complex and altogether non-problematic way; I don’t wish to imply that individualism is simply “bad” while collective action is “good.” For example, concepts of individualism are fundamental to advancing human rights to consent and bodily autonomy.
However, the setting and background of your question is the USA, a country with deep, deep historical ties to white supremacist, capitalist, colonialist, even fascist values, all of which hold the individual as intrinsic over the collective. The result is that hyperindividualism is catastrophically rooted in the heart of U.S. society—even in progressive and leftist spaces!
So, when you see a pro-Palestinian proclaim abstention or that they voted third party, you are witnessing the complex outcome of genuine compassion intermingled with the values instilled by white supremacy and individualism. And so you hear the phrase, “I just can’t in good conscience vote for XYZ.” To degrees varying between people, the vote loses its material value and becomes nothing more than a symbolic moral statement.
This doesn’t mean the leftist non-voter is a white supremacist, of course! Rather, it’s that they have been deeply affected by the presence of those values in their cultural context and have not yet had the opportunity or experience with group frameworks to question their assumptions and reassert the significant importance of collectivism.
So, in conclusion, the unnuanced TLDR is “because America is a racist capitalist hellhole.” The good news I conclude from this, though, is that collectivism can be learned and promoted. Cultural values are definitely not static, and perhaps with education, support, and time, mindsets among leftists can be shifted to better support the whole of the community.
Because they are poorly educated americans maybe
The result of 40+ years of republicans destroying the education system, who’d ever have guessed
wtf ? what kind of education you are got to think that genocide should be non-issue for voters ?
They’re a trash person with no real empathy and failed to realize that arabs had control of 25 electoral votes.
Because if it wasn’t Gaza, it would have been another excuse to not lift a lazy goddamned finger and still delude themselves into feeling "morally superior"while sitting on their fat mediocre asses at home.
Before Harris, they also leaned heavily on the “Sleepy Joe” bullshit and “two old white men up for election, who cares”. Once the old “Sleepy Joe” element was removed from the equation, they had to find a way to keep their goddamned stubbornly lazy and ignorant narrative intact.
Now that the election is over, most of these “concerned and outraged” deadweight assholes will never think about Gaza and the plight of its’ people again. And they will keep on feeling smug about themselves.
This is all that needs to be said on the subject.
I said the same thing about people like you before the election, and I’ll repeat it again. The laser focus on single issue voters was and will always be mostly an excuse to blame someone else.
To look at it another way, if this one issue actually decided the election, why didn’t Harris change her strategy two months ago? … Maybe it’s because this wasn’t the determining issue. Or it was, and her staff was incompetent. Take your pick.
OP asked for a steelman but good try
This is fucking rich lmao.
You know who I always see busting their ass protesting, striking, aiding their fellow worker? Not fucking democrats, I’ll tell you that. It’s always third parties who get demonized for not voting for a fascist and then told they get what they deserve when they’re out there serving as a shield against the worst of fascist violence. Americans are so politically illiterate it’d be funny if y’all would go down alone and not threaten to burn the rest of us down with you.
I’m not American, and I don’t agree with these people either, but I don’t think that calling them lazy and ignorant makes any sense. In the fucked up democracy of the US it’s clear that the only way to get what you want for the coming 4 years is to vote for the least bad candidate. At the same time I can definitely understand that if you view both candidates was horrible, though one way more horrible than the other, you would feel conflicted about voting for either of them.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Assuming both candidates are still roughly equally “popular”. If both candidates wanted to start a genocide, but one would want to kill only 50% of the amount of innocents that the other would kill, how would you vote? Would you vote for the one who is overall the less bad option, which will in turn make you give your vote for something horrible. Or would you abstain and signal that the democracy as it currently stands has lost your confidence entirely, even if it means that on the short term the consequences might be way worse?
Not voting actually costs the democrats something, and should (if they want to win next time) force them to think how to better represent you next time.
It’s fucked up that your democracy came to this. It has become an annoying game theory dilemma instead of voting for the candidate that you actually believe in. Our system here in the Netherlands is certainly also not perfect, since we have too many parties and too long coalition negotiations, but at least I feel like it represents people way better. Anyone can start a party and capture seat if they represent a large enough niche.
I know one of those people. they are now angry the left lost… 🙄
It is rich to criticize the Democrats for claiming moral superiority while doing nothing, as a justification for not voting for the candidate who would at least try to put a leash on what Israel is doing to Gaza.
If you want what’s best for a suffering people, you should vote for the candidate not trying to give their oppressors a blank check. All of America is responsible for what the president we chose does next.
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Whether or not you agree, the argument is that the Republican party better supports Israel which continues to minimize casualties in the conflict while defending itself with honor and seeking every diplomatic opportunity for peace which is the best possible outcome for the people of Gaza.
Holy fuck! Can I get whatever drugs you’re on?
I can guarantee you that is not the argument that anyone not voting for Harris because of Gaza was using.
The arguments are as stupid as you guessed.
These are naive emotional people who are dumb as fuck. I know so many in my life and it’s like arguying with a brick wall.
Children still believe we live in a black and white world, democrats are in power now, genocide is happening, they will not vote for them. The concept that both will finance the genocide but another will be much worse is not something they can understand.
You have others that want to intentionally punish democrats for not doing anything. Great in the meantime, Trump will provide a full carte blanche to Nettanyahu in the middle east, he will continue what he’s doing, annex everything without any limits. They were partying in Israel after Trump won.
A third group wants the system to break down because they think if you’re a post collapse society, they will be able to build their utopia.
Yes as dumb idiots living in la la land.
its funny, because literally the next post after yours was this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/07/trump-blank-check-netanyahu-war-iran-panetta
I think people need to stop asking why didn’t people vote for Harris and as why DID people vote for Trump.
I think everyone on the whole, is completely underestimating the completely apathetic to politics voter. There is a TREMENDOUS section of the population that would sway from Trump if they felt energized to do so. Kamala was not it. Her policies were not it. Her stance alone on Gaza was not enough (but should not be dismissed).
People voted for trump because they: are a huge supporter, or they felt they had a fatter wallet during his administration. They feel burned by Biden and Kamala is more of the same. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
Biden shouldn’t have even run, no one wanted it. He even said he’d be a transitional president. Then he backed out and Democrats held no primary. Why would any apathetic voter (especially the ones who were unaware Biden dropped out, check google trends) vote for the guy who made their bank accounts smaller if that’s all they care about?
I voted for Harris but not without reservations. The democrats do nothing to resonate with the left, and continue to distance themselves from leftist policies, which were popular on ballot measures this election.
Asking people why they voted for trump, genuinely, required people to actually talk to people different than them and not get triggered and lose their shit in the process. That’s a tall order these days.
I’m a lifelong political independent (far left and politically homeless in the US) so it’s a lot easier for me to have conversations with trump voters than it is for blue maga to do so.
The summary of the frighteningly many trump voters I know in VT is that they hated both candidates but found trump marginally better on the economy (they’re worse off now than they were four years ago) and foreign policy (biden was straight up weak, trump can argue that he’s “anti war” although anyone with half a brain shouldn’t believe him he’ll bomb Iran the first chance he gets). They don’t like the Christian fascism, they don’t like the racism, they don’t like the homo/transphobia (or are ambivalent on the trans part, I’m gay and I can confidently say these people aren’t homophobic) - but ultimately these social issues take the backseat to the fact that inflation is fucking them and we’re on the verge of WW3 and both of these things objectively got worse under biden.
I asked my coworkers who are mostly black and Puerto Rican (some of them even converted to Islam; none of them seem like atheists). They all agree that Trump will abolish taxes on overtime and forced child support (they swore that they would still pay for what their children actually need; I guess I gave them a “look”). Honestly, I couldn’t find a real source of Trump even promising these things. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was made up on social media.
It seems that many non-white urban folks voted for Trump. It seems most people just want a promise of food and shelter if they put in the work (people are working so many hours now). There’s probably a logical reason why neither party has a platform anymore.
