I really don’t understand this whole Palestine argument. You have the choice between two candidates who both have very similar positions on the issue in a country that has historically never held any other position on it, regardless of who was in power and somehow you make that the one deciding issue for this election even though it literally makes no difference on the issue who you vote for in the election.
There aren’t 2 major sides in the US, there are 3.
The 3rd side never does any formal campaigning (though there is some grassroots self-organised spreading of its message), often wins as it did this time and yet never controls any power because of how the electoral system works.
One might call the 3rd side the Not Voting Party.
The entire Democrats campaign was negative campaigning against the Republican Party, something which did nothing to take “votes” from the Not Voting Party and then specifically on Palestine, their actions, whilst if one judges them relative to the Republican Party were neutral, very strongly helped the Not Voting Party whose appeal on this was that a “vote” for Not Voting is a vote that doesn’t support mass murder of children.
So if you look at it as a 3-sided contest, suddently the Democrat result is easilly explainable: they didn’t as much lost to the Republicans as they lost to the Not Voting Party, and in that loss Palestine probably weighed heavilly, both because the Democrats broke some pretty strong principles for a lot of people (there aren’t much strongers principles than being against the mass murder of children) thus convincing them to go “Not Voting” and because they, while raging about how Trump was a Fascist, were activelly supporting ethno-Fascists in Israel (the worst kind of Fascism there is) in the middle of a Genocide, they looked like evil hypocrites and weakened their only message trying to capture votes from Not Voting - the whole “Not voting at all is like voting for a Fascist” thing: calling the other guy evil and dangerous hardly helps convince the unconvinced when the people saying it are active supporters of an extremelly violent ethno-Fascism that has already killed thousands of babies and tens of thousands of children.
Not voting to absolve yourself from moral responsibility for the outcome is a fallacy though. Many people do believe that inaction somehow makes them less responsible but that just isn’t the case. Inaction isn’t the magical option, you still have to live with the outcome and you still have all the same opportunity costs as with any choice on the ballot.
If you think you aren’t responsible for the events in Israel and Palestine because you didn’t vote for either candidate you are just deluding yourself.
Well, that’s the thing: that’s just your character and your opinion.
Clearly other people feel and think differently and a “Trump is Evil vote Harris to stop him” message didn’t work with them, otherwise the Democrat Party wouldn’t have lost 14 million voters with their strategy of being as bad as Trump in some areas and not much less so in others whilst selling themselves as the “Not Trump” option.
I’ve had these talks well before the election and indeed back them people might have been right (and me wrong) in their expectation that most people would put “Keep Trump out” above pretty much everything else, including their principles, and vote for a no-hope-offered candidate just to stop Trump.
Turns out that 14 million people clearly didn’t got convinced to go vote for a party that offered no actual positive policies, only “We’re Not Trump” a characteristic which, as I pointed out above, would only convince to vote Democrat solely to stop him those who think Trump is trully the most horrible thing in existence.
I suppose that outside the bubble in places like Lemmy a lot of people either did not fear Trump anywhere as much as a certain well-off middle class that hangs around here does or thought the Democrats were about as evil as he is (which is were the Palestine situation comes in: in my opinion it convinced a lot of people that the Democrats too are Evil, since it’s a pretty natural thing to conclude of those who activelly support the mass murder of children).
The impact of the Democrat choices in Gaza wasn’t just about concern with Palestinians, it was also about what it told of the character and morals of the Democrats leadership, which in turn impacts the trust in them and in what they say, which is especially bad for a party with a tradition of lying with half-truths and other such forms of deceit using dialetics trickeries (I suspect with would impact less those using the “just saying anything that comes to his mind independently of it being true or not” technique such as Trump).
A platform of “we’re the most moral choice” doesn’t work all that well when you’re activelly supporting and giving weapons to a genocidal regime mass murdering civilians for their race, including tends of thousands of children and thousands of babies.
Certainly the results don’t seem to indicate that “More people like Trump”, rather they indicate that even in the face of Trump, fewer people could bring themselves to vote Democrat, which is IMHO a horrible indictment of the Democrat Party.
I like how you put the comfortable middle class as those pushing for Harris vs not voting. Not a single person, I know, pushing that initiative is doing it because they are well-off middle class. They are all people in minority demographics, and people who are deeply struggling, that are seeing Trump threaten things they rely on to live. They just don’t happen to be reactionaries.
So lets turn this around, just because you are privileged enough to be able accept Trump, rather than vote for someone who sucks, but isn’t vowing to actively make everything you need to live, get scrapped, while already being in thread bare living situation, doesn’t mean the people who do, are just well-off middle class people.
My point is that Gaza should have no impact on your voting decision at all because not voting, voting Democrats and voting Republicans will get you the same outcome there, which would also be the outcome you got from literally any other US administration or potential administration (as in candidate that lost) in the entire history of Israel’s existence.
Which leaves all the other potential considerations. Trust in the Democratic party can certainly be one of those but don’t pretend not voting makes you morally better on the Gaza issue itself. That whole “inaction makes me better” mindset when action and inaction have literally the same outcome needs to die because it is literally not true.
I really don’t understand this whole Palestine argument. You have the choice between two candidates who both have very similar positions on the issue in a country that has historically never held any other position on it, regardless of who was in power and somehow you make that the one deciding issue for this election even though it literally makes no difference on the issue who you vote for in the election.
There aren’t 2 major sides in the US, there are 3.
The 3rd side never does any formal campaigning (though there is some grassroots self-organised spreading of its message), often wins as it did this time and yet never controls any power because of how the electoral system works.
One might call the 3rd side the Not Voting Party.
The entire Democrats campaign was negative campaigning against the Republican Party, something which did nothing to take “votes” from the Not Voting Party and then specifically on Palestine, their actions, whilst if one judges them relative to the Republican Party were neutral, very strongly helped the Not Voting Party whose appeal on this was that a “vote” for Not Voting is a vote that doesn’t support mass murder of children.
So if you look at it as a 3-sided contest, suddently the Democrat result is easilly explainable: they didn’t as much lost to the Republicans as they lost to the Not Voting Party, and in that loss Palestine probably weighed heavilly, both because the Democrats broke some pretty strong principles for a lot of people (there aren’t much strongers principles than being against the mass murder of children) thus convincing them to go “Not Voting” and because they, while raging about how Trump was a Fascist, were activelly supporting ethno-Fascists in Israel (the worst kind of Fascism there is) in the middle of a Genocide, they looked like evil hypocrites and weakened their only message trying to capture votes from Not Voting - the whole “Not voting at all is like voting for a Fascist” thing: calling the other guy evil and dangerous hardly helps convince the unconvinced when the people saying it are active supporters of an extremelly violent ethno-Fascism that has already killed thousands of babies and tens of thousands of children.
Not voting to absolve yourself from moral responsibility for the outcome is a fallacy though. Many people do believe that inaction somehow makes them less responsible but that just isn’t the case. Inaction isn’t the magical option, you still have to live with the outcome and you still have all the same opportunity costs as with any choice on the ballot.
If you think you aren’t responsible for the events in Israel and Palestine because you didn’t vote for either candidate you are just deluding yourself.
Well, that’s the thing: that’s just your character and your opinion.
Clearly other people feel and think differently and a “Trump is Evil vote Harris to stop him” message didn’t work with them, otherwise the Democrat Party wouldn’t have lost 14 million voters with their strategy of being as bad as Trump in some areas and not much less so in others whilst selling themselves as the “Not Trump” option.
I’ve had these talks well before the election and indeed back them people might have been right (and me wrong) in their expectation that most people would put “Keep Trump out” above pretty much everything else, including their principles, and vote for a no-hope-offered candidate just to stop Trump.
Turns out that 14 million people clearly didn’t got convinced to go vote for a party that offered no actual positive policies, only “We’re Not Trump” a characteristic which, as I pointed out above, would only convince to vote Democrat solely to stop him those who think Trump is trully the most horrible thing in existence.
I suppose that outside the bubble in places like Lemmy a lot of people either did not fear Trump anywhere as much as a certain well-off middle class that hangs around here does or thought the Democrats were about as evil as he is (which is were the Palestine situation comes in: in my opinion it convinced a lot of people that the Democrats too are Evil, since it’s a pretty natural thing to conclude of those who activelly support the mass murder of children).
The impact of the Democrat choices in Gaza wasn’t just about concern with Palestinians, it was also about what it told of the character and morals of the Democrats leadership, which in turn impacts the trust in them and in what they say, which is especially bad for a party with a tradition of lying with half-truths and other such forms of deceit using dialetics trickeries (I suspect with would impact less those using the “just saying anything that comes to his mind independently of it being true or not” technique such as Trump).
A platform of “we’re the most moral choice” doesn’t work all that well when you’re activelly supporting and giving weapons to a genocidal regime mass murdering civilians for their race, including tends of thousands of children and thousands of babies.
Certainly the results don’t seem to indicate that “More people like Trump”, rather they indicate that even in the face of Trump, fewer people could bring themselves to vote Democrat, which is IMHO a horrible indictment of the Democrat Party.
I like how you put the comfortable middle class as those pushing for Harris vs not voting. Not a single person, I know, pushing that initiative is doing it because they are well-off middle class. They are all people in minority demographics, and people who are deeply struggling, that are seeing Trump threaten things they rely on to live. They just don’t happen to be reactionaries.
So lets turn this around, just because you are privileged enough to be able accept Trump, rather than vote for someone who sucks, but isn’t vowing to actively make everything you need to live, get scrapped, while already being in thread bare living situation, doesn’t mean the people who do, are just well-off middle class people.
My point is that Gaza should have no impact on your voting decision at all because not voting, voting Democrats and voting Republicans will get you the same outcome there, which would also be the outcome you got from literally any other US administration or potential administration (as in candidate that lost) in the entire history of Israel’s existence.
Which leaves all the other potential considerations. Trust in the Democratic party can certainly be one of those but don’t pretend not voting makes you morally better on the Gaza issue itself. That whole “inaction makes me better” mindset when action and inaction have literally the same outcome needs to die because it is literally not true.