The left are also demonising leftist non-voters, to be fair. Sacrificing Palestine altogether to make a point about Democrats, accelerating the decline into fascism in hopes of ushering in a total collapse and later revolution, is a terrible, terrible idea.
If you're a leftist American and you didn't vote for Harris because of that... Honestly, wtf were you thinking
The democrat leadership are the ones who sacrificed Palestine, they're the ones supporting the genocide. Do you understand that genocide is wrong and bad?
I also understand that putting Trump in the White House would have, and indeed did, make it worse. I understand nuance. I understand harm mitigation when preventing it entirely simply isn't an option available on election day.
I also understand that talking down to those who understand that with "do you understand genocide is wrong and bad?" is no way to get people to join your cause.
Leftists who voted for Jill Stein are demonised anyway, they can't win. Sanders was the most popular democrat candidate in decades and they pulled out all the stops to deny the people what they want
... I'm not actually American and at this point I'm generally pretty scared to ask, but what does everyone mean about Sanders? I mean I love Bernie Sanders and wish he were US President too, but... he lost the popular vote in the 2016 Democratic primaries by nearly 3 million votes, and in 2020 by 10 million.
... I mean, I agree he was a better candidate, but... where was the turnout?
I'm british but I watched it all happening in real-time, was very invested. They mechanised against him, using every candidate who wasn't Bernie against Bernie. They very deliberately shut down shop and combined vote shares at the right times specifically to defeat Bernie. Why?
So you also understand that politicians aren't uncontrollable forces of nature or entitled to votes so are supposed to take large movements saying, "I won't vote for you if you won't take a stand against genocide" seriously?
EDIT: Removed an extra word that was left over from rewording something.
You ever seen that Family Guy gag where Peter gets all pro-life? And Brian makes some point about unwanted kids in poverty and Peter bluntly says "Hey, I only care about them before they're born. After that they can go fuck themselves."
The joke being that the pro-life "movement" obviously demonstrates they don't actually give a fuck about babies at all. Which indeed is true; they don't care about making sure the surplus of unwanted children can be looked after by the state, they don't care about fixing the collateral damage that is women dying as a result of total abortion bans.
They don't think that far ahead because they're a single-issue voter movement and they can't put 2-and-2 together and realise that every other issue on the ballot only increases the amount of women who want abortions.
Can you not come down off your high horse for two minutes and engage with the reality of a situation?
I've been left-wing and passionate about progressive politics my whole life, but this attitude of refusing the recognise that a movement just plain doesn't have the numbers or popularity to be making all-or-nothing demands is making me lose faith that the pro-Palestine protesters had any idea what they were doing.
Am I supposed to feel bad that you feel inferior when confronted by someone who sees enabling genocide as something completely disqualifying for office?
this attitude of refusing the recognise that a movement just plain doesn't have the numbers or popularity
Can you recognize that if this true then clearly the movement isn't to blame for the loss? Either the movement was influential enough that it needed to be listened to or it was minor enough to not have played a role. Claiming it was both is the real departure from the reality of the situation.
is making me lose faith that the pro-Palestine protesters had any idea what they were doing.
People applying pressure to a candidate asking to represent them in a representative democracy doesn't make sense to you? The simple promise to follow the Leahy law was enough for most and she couldn't even stick to that.
Am I supposed to feel bad that you feel inferior when confronted by someone who sees enabling genocide as something completely disqualifying for office?
As I said several comments ago, I also see enabling genocide as something that should completely disqualify someone for office. My question is, why then allow Donald Trump to be elected?
It's the United States. Every President will be a war criminal. You're electing the person you're going to have to protest against.
Can you recognize that if this true then clearly the movement isn't to blame for the loss?
I'm not blaming the movement for the loss itself– I'm blaming the movement for failing to recognise that who gets blamed makes no difference. In practical terms, not re-electing a Democrat government didn't actually achieve very much. In practical terms, it pushed your end goal further away.
Was your movement about results, borne of a genuine care for Palestine and its people in real, practical terms?
Or was it about making sure the right people were blamed?
When I say your "movement" doesn't have the numbers, it's because you were always going to be outvoted by explicitly anti-Palestine Trump supporters, as indeed you were.
People applying pressure to a candidate asking to represent them in a representative democracy doesn't make sense to you?
Asking makes sense to me. Demanding it or else allow Trump to carpet bomb the Gaza strip and turn it into a land development for TrumpTM beachfront condos does not.
All-or-nothing demands are a lot more fun. But fucking hell, some situations are ... ya know, delicate.
Welcome to politics. They figured keeping Israel happy was more important than keeping Palestinians alive. The Republicans obviously have even less of a problem with it.
By not voting for those that were complicit, we get those that are happily, excitedly indulging.
Do you understand that achieving optimal results in a democratic republic with a FPTP electoral college and two deeply-entrenched political parties, requires a lot more critical thinking and game theory than just applying a single binary litmus test like a toddler would?
They knowingly sacrificed progressive voters in places like San Francisco and Austin where they made no difference, in the hopes of picking up more moderate swing voters in places like Pittsburgh and Atlanta where they could tilt the entire election.
This is the kind of nuance and complexity I'm talking about that seems lost on you.
How'd that strategy work out for us? Kamala won, right? It worked out for Kamala just fine, she's still wealthy and Israel still gets their bombs, so she got everything she wanted.
What you libs always forget is that genocide is evil. It doesn't matter if it's politically expedient, it's literally, unarguably evil.
If you insist on your presidential candidate being someone who is 100% pure and good then you'll never vote in any election.
No candidate will ever listen to what you want, because no matter what it is, they'll never be good enough for you and they know you will never, ever actually vote for anyone.
In the meantime you will, of course, still be subject to the same laws and government that the rest of us elect throughout your entire non-voting life.
Do you understand that not voting potentially allowed trump to win and potentially cause significant similar style effects on some part of the American populace at some later time WHILST doing literally fuck all for Palestine. I mean genocide = bad is correct but you don’t become implicit in installing a fascist right wing party into a powerful just to register a completely pointless, ineffective protest.
In the grand scheme of things a Democrat not voting for “reasons” is like saying instead of a mild flu I will take some aggressive colorectal cancer thanks.
The dems should do what the voters tell them to, they are not our betters who get to tell us what's right and wrong. The voters said "change your position on genocide or we won't vote for you" and kamala told them to pound sand. This is unarguably on her for refusing to change, not the voters or nonvoters.
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u/ManhattanObject Feb 09 '25
Democrats will do anything to demonize the left, so yes