245
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
245 points (89.4% liked)
politics
19862 readers
4538 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't understand. You are quoting two different posts, then concluding that two different people with different viewpoints represents a "double standard"... That is also an idiotic take.
With that said, OPs comment asking what the DNC could have done isn't contradictory or hypocritical if you put it alongside my viewpoint. It simply illustrates that you will never make every voter happy on every plank of your platform. We are all different people with different goals. Democracy is about compromise and understanding that the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Certain non-voters attitude became "because neither side aligns with my very specific interest, I'm just not voting! That'll show the Dems that they can't win unless they support [insert political viewpoint here].". To go back to my elephant analogy, it's like those people saying "I'm going to starve because i can't eat the elephant in one bite!"
So for some people, their line in the sand is a humanitarian Gaza policy, which will likely require a strong military presence to enforce ceasefires and aid deployment. For others it's a distaste for overseas military actions, and any intent to increase American involvement in the middle east. One side is pissed off and won't vote if it looks like you are abandoning Palestinians. The other side is pissed off if you suggest increasing military operations in the region, even if it's to deescalate Israeli aggression. You can't please both.
So voters from both of these camps chose to sit on their vote because they couldn't get what they wanted... In exchange they helped someone that is likely destructive to both camps' larger interests, as well as their specific interests discussed above, get elected. That is their right and choice. Just like it's my right and choice to call them out for supporting fascism through inaction.
Looking at it that way, I'm not sure how you could say our viewpoints are contradictory.
Ok, now apply that criticism to those who (hypothetically) wouldn't have voted if Biden had stopped supplying military aid to Israel.
The Democrats created that block of voters by repeatedly lying about their knowledge of Israel's war crimes. Not only could they have done the right thing by withholding their offensive aid from Israel, they could have also not lied about it.
Democrats tried obscuring the scale of devastation in gaza with their own involvement, and then lost because they got caught and then doubled down. You can't treat your constituents with that much contempt and expect not to lose those voters, and then post-rationalize the lie by claiming that they would have lost more voters had they been honest and intervened.
You seem to think the election was more about punishing Biden for Gaza than preventing trump from destroying America.
Those were the only two choices. Period.
The thing that you don't want to admit here is that you chose trump. You in part made this current reality happen while we tried to prevent it.
Gaza will be gone and you will have literally helped trump do it by not voting Harris.
That fact will never change.
Bingo.
There were two and only two options. There is no reality in which there was another option.
Harris or Trump were going to be president and one expressed disapproval of what Israel was doing and the other straight up said they should finish the job.
Anyone who didn't vote or voted 3rd party, helped usher Donald Trump into the Oval Office and sealed Gaza's fate. They could have chosen to limit the amount of suffering, but they chose to take their ball and go home instead.
No, I don't. Elections allow citizens to participate in deciding their representation, and those candidates campaign for votes by convincing normal people that you will represent their interests.
I shouldn't have to cite the history of how that started for you to understand that's just how it's always worked, and if there was ever an implicit intent for every single person to vote in every election they would have (at least) made election days a holiday (since most polling places were a half-day's trip from land-owning patriarchs at the beginning).
This a-historical fantasy of elections being objective measures of the totality of a voting population's will is an absurd caricature of our democracy, and it's only purpose seems to be to shift the responsibility of candidates to advocate for their qualifications and onto voters, who are not obligated to make that choice when the candidate themselves has abdicated their own responsibility to justify their candidacy.
Gaza will be gone because democrats decided their relationship with a fascist ethnostate was more important than stopping a fascist from taking the executive office, and even your and my vote for Genocide Lite was made into a meaningless sacrifice because of it.