During negotiations with the DNC and the Harris campaign, we were repeatedly told by interlocutors that Harris couldn’t meet any of our basic requests (a policy shift from Biden, a Palestinian speaker at the DNC, a statement distinguishing herself from Trump on Israel, or even a meeting with Michigan families who lost loved ones to Israeli bombs) because of AIPAC-aligned politicians like Fetterman, who might take to TV, rile up suburban white and Jewish voters, and fracture the party’s coalition in a swing state.
That political calculus alienated a key voting bloc, although likely not large enough to have shifted the ultimate election outcomes, that should be part of a durable Democratic majority. But few will ever be held accountable for that choice.
A Fetterman staffer condemning Uncommitted for not advocating for Palestinians ‘the right way’ is like an arsonist scolding the fire department for using the wrong hose.
Voting isn’t some bargain between a thousand voting groups and one candidate. Let’s break it down.
THERE ARE TWO CANDIDATES
YOU PICK THE BEST CANDIDATE
Note that ‘best’ isn’t ‘great’; nor is it ‘good’, ‘awesome’, etc. And, while there are more candidates, sometimes only two have a chance (Hi Ross Perot!). So it’s a binary choice. There has to be someone in office. You pick the least-worse one.
The unmentioned third option is “If you vote third party or don’t vote at all, you accept the consequences of a worst-case scenario”.
I’m really thinking America didn’t educate people on ‘this or that’.
Pro genocide comments like this don’t surprise me anymore. I urge you to post more like this during the upcoming elections to remind people what the Democratic Party and its base really are. Voters might be scared into voting for the Democrats again.
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That’s not how democracy works…
Being restricted to two candidates is just like a one-party state with an extra choice for shits and giggles.
People vote with their conscience on whatever candidate they feel represents them. And it’s THEIR business.
Anything else is NOT democracy. Nobody is entitled to your vote. That’s the one power you have.
It is unfortunately how the US democracy works. Nobody around today set this system up. We simply realized how it does and doesn’t work.
Nope. Two parties is a huge improvement over one. Three is an improvement over 2, etc.
3 > 2 > 1
Wasn’t there like 6 parties?
No you can force a political party to abide by your wishes by showing you are willing to not vote for them.
What lesson can the Democratic party learn from this?
No you cannot. They don’t even know that you exist. The simple reality is that the one and only possibility for major progress is for Dems to win big and win often. When that happens, Dems will all be competing with each other to show themselves to be more progressive than the other guys.
No you see, they don’t want to hold politicians accountable. They’d rather bootlick while blaming individual voters for being stuck between a rock and hard place.
Instead of uniting against Trump, let’s fracture the left by yelling at each other for voting the wrong way! Even though that has never worked in the history of ever!
I wish these people could understand that blaming people for voting “wrong” is literally the opposite of democracy and just devolves into nothing ever getting better.
Like you shouldn’t have to do that, people make good choices when they have good options!!
Angsty, disaffected, adolescent me in the 1990’s believed that repeated rounds of “least-worst” would lead to, well, it’s here. He wasn’t proved wrong.
That’s literally what it was intended to be. Political party conventions once were real, high-stakes meetings to hash out a platform that appealed to as many interests as possible.
The elections over champ, you can stop screeching the same thing over and over again. Unless you’re already gearing up to lose the next election too.
Sounds like US democracy with the US voting system is deeply flawed and the only moral action is to no longer engage with it. Otherwise you are expected to choose between different approaches to an ongoing genocide.
Personally I pull the lever in the trolley problem. Not pulling the lever definitely doesn’t equal washing one’s hands of the outcome.
Both tracks have the same people on them. The elections aren’t there to influence US policy, but to give it legitimacy. The capitalists and bureaucracy are what actually control government policy.
Oh I didn’t see this is lemmy.ml. You’re making a false equivalency sorry. Both parties are bad but one is clearly less bad by a mile.
Anyway I said what my personal preference is. I’m allowed to have an opinion on the trolley problem while also acknowledging it’s one of the most famous problems in philosophy precisely because so few people agree.
The DINOs failed to win the election, I still think they’d be less bad than this.
This is irrelevant and falls into great man theory. The US government has 23 million employees and is a massive sprawling system with its own dynamics. It reacts to world events based on these dynamics. The US government is not controlled by this or that party, or the elections. It is not designed for such democratic input since it was designed as a dictatorship of property owners. In its early days, this was quite literally explicit, but even to this day, the iron grip of the bourgeoise is maintained on government strategy.
The trolley problem is garbage nonsense, and applies to basically no real world situations. The trolley problem is only famous because it’s easy to think about, not because it is philosophically sophisticated. In the real world, there are an monumental number of possible paths that can be taken, each with outcomes that cannot be exactly predicted in advance. The trolley problem only works in real life if you are basically God.
Aight well I don’t find any of that to be incompatible with my POV so 🤷♀️
I get it you don’t like harm reduction. Some of us do though why do you have a problem with that
To put it in computer science terms, you are mistakenly believing that your “greedy algorithm” of harm reducing (seeking the best option at this time step) will lead to the global optimum (the best possible outcome at the end).
Why the fuck would you put peoples humanity in computer science terms. You know what? Don’t answer. That’s some Nazi shit.
“Harm reduction” is what got us to this place is why I have a problem with it. This is the inevitable result of lesser eviling your way through politics.
If you guys weren’t so gung ho on supporting the dems no matter what, and forced them to do some good for once, Trump wouldn’t have been elected the first time much less the second one.
The only reason the Democrats are willing to spill so much blood is because they know people like you will defend them.
You have no idea what my politics are and you’re assuming A LOT that simply isn’t true about me. I’ve been against the DINOs since well before Trumps first term
Ok I don’t have time to continue debating this sorry I’m trying to get a Lemmy server set up so I can hopefully hedge against the incoming bans on all our transsex communities now that fascists have fully taken over
That’s the politest way I can think of saying what I’d like to say so we should probably stop. Thank you & goodbye please never contact me again
You overestimate how much power you have in this situation. We don’t get to pull the lever. The choices given to us have been approved by the same people who are tying people to the tracks.
You are either tied up to the track or shoveling coal into the trolly’s furnace.