this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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It's all just right wing propaganda, convince the population 'Biden is bad, take your ball and go home' and you suppress the vote. They can't institute poll taxes or tests any more, and with vote by mail becoming commonplace they can't rely on showing up at polling places with guns to suppress turnout.
When more people vote the left wins, and that's what the right are afraid of, thus the persistent drumbeat of 'stay home if he's not good enough'.
It's crazy a comment like this gets so many upvotes when
If you shut every one of these conversations down with baseless accusations that 20/20 hindsight is gonna be super awkward when someone asked "Who could have seen this coming??"
Concerned, yes, and made all the more so when there are a sizable number of people willing to throw a vote out to make a point because he's not flawless and instead let the wolves in while they pretend that their hands are clean.
You mean he goes around congress to ship weapons to fuel a genocide. Speak plainly.
Wtf does this have to do with anything about the comment you're replying to?
There will be no questions about what happened in that case. It will be because of YOU and people like you posting this shit
You're telling me you believe voters need to cater to politicians? It's Biden's responsibility to represent the people he needs to get elected. His failure to do that is is own. What don't you understand about democracy?
biden isn't on the left, so whether he wins or trump, the left does not win.
This is true, but trump is far further to the right than biden. I'll take losing less over losing more any day even if we can't have an actually left leaning candidate
I expect to have more options on my ballot
I'd love to see a ranked choice multi party system, but as things stand that's not the option we have.
I'm sure that voting for a candidate from one of the two dominant parties will lead to ranked choice voting.
I won't vote for genocide, regardless of the system
Then you will aid it through inaction.
You have aided it by voting for Biden in the 2020 primaries and by refusing to hold him accountable during his term to the people who gave him a chance.
Presumptuous gesture there, personally I supported Sanders in both 2016 and 2020 primaries, but failing that I'll take who has a chance to stop a greater threat over making some protest gesture by writing in someone who has no chance given the realities of the established system.
Another new account was made to comment in another part of this thread to try and argue against voting for an established party because that'll never get a ranked choice vote. To that one I'll say similar to above, making some futile gesture by voting for a non-viable candidate will have even less a chance of getting to the better system sought.
And to the other asking for evidence that the 'genocode Joe' mantra is likely started as an astroturfing campaign, no I don't have some specific source, that was the point of saying it has the 'feel of'. However, if one looks at it for a moment, who benefits by seeking to split the Democratic vote? Who has a noted history of using catchy names to denigrate 'sleepy Joe'? The #hashtag style of things simply reeks of the kind of campaign one would hire a bunch of bot farms to spit out threads like this one in an effort to create a wedge in the more diverse party that just happens to be a threat to the existence of an oppressive 'moral centric' group who seek to impose their world views on the rest of society.
Along with fighting, downplaying, undermining, and trivializing anyone who sees things differently.
There are plenty of moderate and liberal voters finger wagging us to support their pro-corporate trash candidate. We don't need you joining their ranks. What we need is for you to tell them they either need to make material compromises with us or lose to MAGA.
See, I won't do that because these sort of ultimatums are counter productive to the larger goal. If liberal ideals are the end target then saying 'give it now or let MAGA take over for all I care' ends up putting everything that HAS been gained at risk to make a point. Letting the far right take control will inevitably move everyone and everything further away from the end goals making it that much more unlikely to make up that lost ground and make any progress in future administrations.
You're blindly accepting ultimatums handed to us daily by moderate and liberals and then calling it out when we fight back. You're trying to hold us to a different standard than liberal and moderate voters.
Again, this is a two way street. If moderates and liberals aren't willing to make material compromises with us they are also putting "everything that has been gained at risk".
What I accept is math, nothing more or less.
Take a basic presumption that things are near a 50/50 split but on the optimistic premise that Biden ends up with say 53% of the vote leaving 47%✓to Trump. Now this 'movement' comes along and convinces maybe 10% of those people to go some other direction because 'Biden bad' regardless of the issues with Trump.
You now get a 43/47/10 split, which given the nature of the electoral college actually ends up with a Trump landslide claiming the electors in multiple contested state.
Unless you are willing to say that Biden is at least as bad as or worse than Trump (in which case you may as well vote for Trump), or are convinced that you can get a near unanimous vote to go outside the nominated candidate for the Democrat party, then all your efforts does is support a Trump victory. Your personal morals being placated won't do a thing to save Palestine, preserve rights for vulnerable populations, or anything else of consequence.
What this ends up as is essentially the 'Bernie broes' from 2016 who refused to support Clinton and helped get Trump a first term.
You just sailed over everything I called you out on: You are holding progressives and leftists to a different standard than moderates and liberals.
No, I'm simply reiterating the realities of today. The electoral college in all but 2 states as I last recalled awards all the state's electors to whomever wins the simple majority in a state. If things where exactly 50/50 today and these protesting groups siphoned away votes specifically from Biden then you now hand Trump the state. It works the other way too.
Now if somehow these people siphoned an equal amount from both parties it becomes a wash and irrelevant, but since it's a specifically anti-Biden effort that's not likely the case.
Yes, but you're only telling this to progressives and leftists despite having near zero input on policy while giving moderates and liberals a free pass while they enjoy full control of all policy decisions.
I would tell the same to anyone who cares to not see a second Trump term regardless of ideology. I'm no more fond of the modern D party than anyone, but it beats the alternative.
No you're not. That's the point. You aren't lecturing moderates and liberals for refusing to make material compromises with leftists and progressives. You know as well as I do the only reason they're voting for Biden is because he's catered to them. Again, you are holding leftists and progressives to a different standard.
Buddy, Biden is going to lose this election and it will be partly because of people like you. If you will not allow any open discussion about how Biden has failed progressive and leftist voters they will inevitably abandon him. Wake the fuck up.
I'll be voting against trump
What will you achieve? Like genuinely explain the material change that your vote for a third party will achieve, other than making trump more likely to win.
the ethics of an action are not in the consequences, they are in the action itself. voting for bad people is bad.
One day you’ll grow up and understand how silly and counterproductive this is. I hope.
your personal attacks don't undermine deontological ethics
In a perfect world this would be a good strategy, but in the real world we have to vote in the way that gets us closest to the way we want the world to be, even though it is likely going to have its own problems. I would love for a third party candidate to win the presidency, that would be a huge step, but it is not going to happen any time soon. Voting for a third party right now is not a vote against the main candidates, it's a vote of indifference, it's saying "I don't care who wins". If trump wins it will only take us further away from a country where a third party can ever win, biden may do that as well, but it won't be by as much. I know biden isn't a good person, but we cannot let trump win again and biden is the only one who stands a chance against him. I know biden has caused a lot of harm, but I also am very worried that the US will no longer be a safe place for me and the people I care about if trump wins.
I don't vote as a strategy. I vote for the person I want to win
https://lemmy.world/comment/8493642
Funny thing, I was just told that progressive idealism is a lie implying along the thread that people don't make reactionary votes out of ideological purity not too long ago.
I don't understand what you are saying or your links relevance
So I'll preface by saying that I feel that a majority of the sudden outrage of 'genocode Joe' has the feel of an astroturfing campaign. Knowing that the viable alternative in Trump would not only continue but likely escalate the situation to prove some tough guy status, the push to disengage or vote 3rd party does nothing to meaningfully fix the problem.
That said, from a philosophical stace then the only benefit to staying home or voting for a more perfect candidate who has no chance to win given the current system is to give oneself a morally/ethically pure standpoint. The 'I didn't contribute to the problem' position. This might give a person some self assurance that they haven't compromised their integrity, but that personal warm fuzzy won't stop the bombs and bring back dead babies. In fact, by making it that much more likely that a second Trump term comes to fruition they've actually exacerbated the problem.
The perfect being the enemy of the better (note that I don't proclaim good) opens the gate for greater harm.
this is vague. is there something concrete that you can point to? vibes aren't very convincing to me.
"in the real world" is a thought terminating cliche
Thinking that voting according to your ethics is totally and completely disconnected from the consequences is a privilege not everyone has. Your ideological purity might have the consequences of harming more marginalized people because in your search for an angel, you believed it was better to vote for the devil than a sinner.
Unless you’re telling me that you think your third-party candidates are absolutely perfect, you’re already voting in degrees of “less bad.” Why wouldn’t you vote for the “less bad” that is more likely to win?
everyone can accept deontological ethics and choose to act in accordance with the categorical imperative. it takes no privilege at all.
It’s a privilege when you choose your ethics model over the real life consequences of others.
not doing the right thing because you're afraid of the consequences is cowardice.
I am a straight, cis, white male with a roof over my head, food in my refrigerator, and dogs I can afford to take to the vet. In your solipsistic worldview, there are hardly any consequences that I would have to face if Trump were elected. I’m choosing compassion.
In your mind, what is even the point of your ethics if it isn’t rooted in caring for and about other people.
that's what it is for me, but, again, i'm a deontologist (i think. i have been leaning toward nihilsm lately but it would be swell to be pulled back from that).
Well if it’s any help, Carl Sagan’s pale blue dot helps me to remember to be kinder to people. While understand how the vast emptiness of the Universe could make someone feel cold and alone, and like nothing really matters, most of the time, it encourages me to have a greater appreciation for everyone that is here. I don’t know if it comes from an evolutionary instinct to persist and extend my existence, or something else, but the rarity of life makes me root for us more. And I guess that’s why I believe living beings matter, and why I won’t accept an ethical paradigm that ignores consequences that hurt people.
I mean I agree with you that it is always the right time to do the right thing, but at some point, the rubber meets the road and lives are affected. Maybe the “right” thing to do is to teach a man to fish, but maybe I do that tomorrow once the man has the strength to cast a net, and for today, I just give him a fish. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
Anyway, I’m glad the tone of our conversation seems to be in a better place now than when we started.
I'm not advocating for purity so I don't need perfect candidates. I'll be happy if they just aren't racist war criminals.
I think Cornel West is a good person and I think Jill Stein is a good person. so I'm probably going to vote for one of them. I think Biden and Trump are bad people, so I won't be voting for either of them.
Hell I'd settle for centerists making material compromises with the left but the mere suggestion that they do so makes them seethe. They'd rather lose to MAGA.