this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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If more people voted, this would not happen right now :) but both sides the same and voting doesnt matter.
But the people who stayed home because the democrats didn't offer them a pony are noble and should be regarded with the utmost respect!
"Didn't offer them a pony" doesn't equate to "stop funding a genocide in Israel". This level of callousness is exactly why people stayed home
If they thought genocide in Israel was bad, why did they make it worse and global?
If they cared about human rights, they'd be defending human rights. People who make matters worse out of spite are not the good guys. I wish they at least owned their awfulness instead of crying all over social media how people blame them for the things they actually did, when they themselves happily boasted about it just a month ago.
I'm getting so tired of liberals who spend all their time complaining about people not supporting their preferred genocidaire instead of demanding candidates that aren't aspiring genocidaires.
It is the candidate's job to win the election, not the electorate's. If the anti-genocide voting bloc was enough to swing the election (it wasn't) then maybe your candidate shouldn't have supported a fucking genocide in spite of that.
The US style "Liberals" seem to be incredibly subservient, prefering to blame millions of people for not chosing their "boss" rather than the "boss" for not even trying to appeal to those people.
All the talk of the supposedly Go Getter and Independent spirit in America and yet around here we are faced with an overwhelming amount of American arse-kissers who are seemingly unable to even conceive that maybe, just maybe, "the boss" was the one who did things the wrong way, causing millions to refuse to chose them and hence has most of the blame for the outcome.
On the upside, watching this is a wonderful opportunity to learn a lot about the evils of people being mindless unchallenging followers of "Leaders" in Politics.
People didn't abstain from spite, they abstained from a correct belief that the system doesn't work for them, or they couldn't vote against their conscience. Your own framing of lesser evilism and weighting voting more than other kinds of political activity inevitably creates the situation where people can't just cast a vote strategically. You dismiss 3/4 of the picture in order to make a point based on only 1/4 of the information, in other words, you are distorting the truth to fit your narrative.
Politics often comes down to a struggle between two views, but your attempt to shunt anyone who didn't vote the way you did into some enemy category is, predictably, no strategy at all. Unless your strategy is to divide the electorate, which sort of defeats your entire premise.
Actually try to understand other people as having minds and wills of their own, rather than narcissistically making your own view the objective one (like a religion might) and then condemning others (like a religion might) for their sins.
Their not voting created this situation in the first place. They wanted this situation. People who are hurt by this situation are rather justified in hating the people who put them into it. You say it's because these people choose to do this on their own, because of their own free will. I agree with you on this. But THEIR justification in creating this situation does not fucking matter to others. It does not matter if somebody stabs you in the back because they hate you or because they are trying to make a point or out of boredom or out of some philosophical whatnot, what matters to you is that you have a knife sticking out of your back and bleeding to death. And when you turn around, what you see is your attacker crying a river about their right to stab you and why are you blaming them? It's not like THEY hate you like THOSE other guys!
Fact is that if they voted for the other side, they would have a perfectly stable democracy (lol, not really) where they could then campaign for stuff they want without the world being on fire around them. Which btw, they aren't doing with the word being on fire around them either, but if they did it now, they'd be wiped off it by the powers they put into place.
Your "leaders" created this situation in the first place by refusing to even acknowledge the concerns of those voters, much less address them.
It would be far more reasonable for a handful of Democrat Party leaders to move their position in a handful of subjects to address grave moral concerns of millions of their natural voters than for them to expect than they could get the votes of all the millions for whom those things were important without conceding an inch on those subjects.
Want to see who gave the election to Trump on a platter: look inside the Democrat Party.
You are entitled to hate whoever you like, but hate doesn't make you right. In fact it might be altering your judgement just a little.
I think its a little dishonest to collapse everything down to this one moment, that decides the moral standing of a person, whether they are for or against the movement to defeat trump and the criminal right wing. Its important to take into considerations what came before, at least, not to mention that the country is a big diverse place largely controlled by private interests. If you aren't out here trying to educate people and wanna sit on the sidelines and judge others I won't stop you, but IMO you really have very little right to judge when the time comes.
It's not dishonest. This election was a vote between the status quo and outright fascism. If you didn't vote against fascism, you supported it.
There's no nuance here. Your reasons don't matter. If you didn't vote against the guy who straight up said he would be a dictator, you're culpable for the situation we're in now.
You people treat this like it's some zero sum game. The democrats did screw the pooch, but so did the people who didn't vote to stop fascism. Both can be true.
Why so quick to blame the people rather than the democrats incompetence. You say its all or nothing until you need nuance to support your perspective. Even if you're right, and the emphasis of blame, what blame is going to accomplish though remains a mystery, is on the people who didn't vote, it doesn't justify this seething, well you called it, hate.
What is it with you, good and evil, love and hate, is this really a political platform or strategy that others should adopt? I'm actually serious, if some politician got up in front of america with your rhetoric it would be called demagoguery. Which doesn't make you wrong necessarily, like I've said I agree with your central argument, but the way you represent it is incredibly toxic, and a big reason why many people stayed home in fact.
In fighting the right you have become exactly what the right says about the left, so much so it is beyond parody. Some might call it ironic, but I would say it is dialectical. Hopefully you get over this issue you seem to be stuck on, so I dont have to waste any more time on you or others who myopically follow your same flawed rationale, which does nothing but give cover to the democrats and consultants who so badly lost this election. This is why hate is a dead end, it blunts your ability to reason through these very important problems brought on by the rise of Trump, but also capitalism more generally.
Because the democrats aren't the only ones who deserve the blame. Like I said, the democrats are to blame and the people who didn't vote are to blame. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Many systems failed getting us to this point, but voting was the very last line of defense.
I'm not trying to absolve the democrats for running a garbage campaign, but you're trying to absolve the people who knew the consequences of their actions and chose to sit back and let it happen.
Again, because the democrats didn't give them a pony, they chose to let fascism happen, and now they're trying to justify it.
"Didn't give them a pony" and "didn't stop genociding Palestinian children" are actually mutually exclusive concepts.
I'm giving them a pass at what? They hold no institutional power, why kick down like some conservative? No I believe in holding power responsible.
The nyt published this yesterday https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/us/politics/democrats-trump.html where top democrats admit they have nothing to offer voters, other than "not Trump." It's not giving them a pass to like try and imagine their perspective, based on actual research done by polling agencies, publications, as well as IRL conversations. I feel like you just want to feel better than others, to believe that the action you took made a difference, and maybe you need that justification to deal with the world.
Especially since it was a good amount of bullying to vote against Trump by the democrats and their mouthpieces that caused people to be disaffected and stay home. So I agree there is plenty of blame to go around, but let's not leave out one of the main culprits: people like you who make discourse toxic and muddy the waters with false framings of very important issues, because their leaders are incompetent nincompoops who can't do anything but go to brunch and blame the left for every problem they created.
If your excuse for sitting out this election was because of the Palestinian genocide, you are a special kind of stupid. There was not a single option for this election that would have stopped it. Full stop.
Harris and Biden may not have been ideal, but they weren't going to actively make the situation worse like Trump. They were actually pushing for a ceasefire.
Now, you'll never get the chance to have a fair election again, because you can't vote out fascism. Your tantrum cost you the country and it's going to end with genocide here. Millions are going to suffer and die slow and painful deaths because you decided to stick it to the democrats.
You can try to distance yourself from this as much as you want, but the only way for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing, and you did nothing and let evil triumph.
For the umpteenth time I voted, I never encouraged other people not to vote, I agree with the logic that says vote to keep trump out. How many times do in have to tell you people, I'm extremely politically active I am the opposite of "do nothing and let evil" do anything. I'm on keywiki, are you? I helped organize palestinian liberation groups because of my convictions. All you did was vote, which I also did, but I don't spend the next 4 years using it against people. Its what I do on one day of political activity, and then I do other things as well.
What have you organized since Trump came to power? I've been helping/working to distribute lit to immigrants, and set up an immigrant rights group in my city. So please spare me the sanctimonious strawman, please? I'm not what you think I am, clearly. Save your paragraphs for yourself, if you're so determined to indict a hypocrite.
Leave me alone now
That's exactly what you're doing. Ignoring how much worse the situation is if you abstain from voting because you're focused on the lesser evil. Even on Gaza Trump said he wants to "clean it all out". Even on this issue the greater evil is worse. Stop pretending there was anything noble about letting that monster have power again. The system doesn't work so they let an even worse one take over and people who abstained or protest voted bear some of that responsibility for the consequences
I don't frame questions in terms of lesser/greater evil. I actually don't need religious concepts at all to understand this situation, all I have to do is listen to people and remember what came before.
You're so divorced from reality that there are no actual people who you are condemning, you're just mad at some strawman constructed by the party that humiliated itself, for it was the democrats failures that lost. You're buying into a ridiculous narrative that deflects all crit away from the democrats and puts it in some strawmen. It's like conservatives with their woke washing of all politics, or bad faith liberals and "tankie".
And to be clear, I don't agree with people who abstained to vote, I did not abstain to vote. and I didn't encourage anyone to abstain. I am very politically active and fundamentally agree with your logic. However...
What I despise is the scapegoating and strawmanning that is just endlessly regurgitated on this site.
You think good and evil are religious concepts? That's a new one. And I'm the one divorced from reality lol. People who abstained choose to do nothing about the rise of fascism. I do not blame them as much as someone actively supporting it but they absolutely share the blame for doing nothing to stop it and it's absurd to give them a pass as we suffer the consequences of their decision
Hitler was appointed as the lesser evil according to the liberal government that appointed him.
Lesser evilism is the most evil option in all scenarios.
And Trump is the lesser evil according to maga. Your point is we should just do the opposite of what liberals think? That's the entire philosophy of Republicans so that adds up
Greater evilism is as dumb as it sounds
Trump is the ideal leader according to maga, not a lesser evil.
If you're going to troll, at least get the basics right, lib
The choice also has never been binary.
You think maga thinks Trump is more evil than Biden? Who's trolling? Pointing out all the bs in your points is not trolling.
Give me a third choice, that's what we both want. We did not have that, how do you not get that? Not voting helped Trump
No, troll.
The lesser evil is not good, it's the less evil option.
Trump, to maga, is a good option. If there were a hundred candidates, they would pick Trump.
Biden, to no one, is a good option. If there were a hundred equal candidates, no sane person would pick Biden. He is evil. He is a ridiculously racist, ridiculously right wing, ridiculously evil person. He spent his career harming the working class and reducing your rights.
Only in a captured system where you only have two options would anyone ever consider voting for Biden, and only if his opponent is worse. He would be the lesser evil.
Drinking a bottle of gasoline is less bad than drinking a gallon, but it's not good. And it's never your only option no matter how thirsty you are.
I hope writing at a second grade level has cleared up your ignorance and misunderstanding.
To your last point, there's always more than two choices. Always. In every system of governance. You didn't find any other option tasteful, because out of all of them you still wanted evil — you just wanted less.
When did I ever make that claim? Disagreeing with you does not make someone a troll that's a pathetic fallacy grow up. A "good" option is less evil than an evil option how are we even arguing this right now?
Were arguing this point because you're objectively wrong.
The lesser evil is not good, it's evil. Good is not less evil than evil, it's not evil.
It's not a spectrum. Its a different option. Beef is not less poultry than turkey, it is beef.
You're pretending good and evil isn't a spectrum and calling it objective. I think we're done here.
We are, hope you enjoy the camps you voted for. I mean you just voted too put others in those camps, so, I hope you enjoy what you damned others to.
I voted for Dems and seeing what the guys you let into power are doing I am very proud of that vote
You just repeated the claim in this comment.
The good option for magas is Trump, their less evil option is Biden, the evil option would have been a competent third party or a protest or literally anything but voting.
The good option for people that aren't evil was doing anything to stop either Harris or Trump from taking office. Anything at all. Treason is the better option than voting for either destruction of the US people.
The fact you don't understand that nothing in life is binary is how were arguing this right now. Good is not the lesser evil, it is good. The lesser evil is still just evil.
You seem to think there was a third candidate that could have won the election. There were two. Binary means two possible values. Yes this was binary and not voting helped one of the two. Things in life absolutely can be binary have you ever flipped a coin? That's an absolutely absurd claim to make. You're very much living in a different reality
A third candidate was a possible option, yes. And there were plenty. If you vote for people they win. That's not the only option you had or will have in 2026/2028
As far as your second point, a coin flip has endless possibilities, the easiest to demonstrate is it landing in its side, rather than a face.
Exceedingly few things are binary, and those that are are rarely that way naturally and must be forced into being that way.
And that is about as likely to happen as a third candidate is in our current system
Looks like you're realizing how ridiculous your statement was 🤡
Incorrect on all counts. Sucks you'll be in the camps and never help, all so you can jerk off to the false idea that you were right.
Like abstaining and letting the camp makers into power? That thing you're literally advocating for? You cannot be this stupid. Check your home for a gas leak
..the thing I'm advocating for has been the only thing in history to threaten and dethrone fascists.
You can't vote them out, kiddo.
You understand that a viable third candidate would be to be on the ballot right? You understand how absolutely impossible it would be to get a third candidate to win in a write in vote right? You can't believe that. I just refuse to believe you are genuinely stupid enough to believe that. Do you just not understand how ballots work???
So far, Gaza is infinitely better than it was previously. Colleagues are seeing less people at a clinic in the south, with a lot of displaced people returning north. They even returned to checkout an office up north and assess the damage. Sure, it's not fine / okay, they are returning to rubble, no schools and no hospitals, but the ceasefire is holding for now.
Netenyahu kept it going to help Trump. This ceasefire was coming regardless when there was no reason to keep it going
BlueAnon
Furhermore, Trump and the Oligarchs have yet to seize the good parts of Gaza for their own. That's coming.