And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
I can’t speak for others, but I can tell you why I didn’t vote for Harris.
I am a lifelong independent voter. In 2016 I wrote in Kanye West, in 2020 I wrote in Nobody, this year I didn’t even vote. (I also voted Bush in '04, Ron Paul in '08, and Obama in '12) I go to the polls even if I am planning to writing in a presidential pick because there are usually ballot issues or other races I care about.
I decided not to vote when the DNC opted to not hold a primary even though absolutely no one wanted a Biden second term and the deal was elect Biden in 2020 and they’d find someone good for '24. After Biden’s disastrous debate and he dropped out, I was angry because everyone said no to Kamala already in 2020, but they still ran her.
On the issues, Kamala is too centrist for me and Gaza is a deal breaker. Most Palestinian casualties have been civilians and waaaaay too many children. Using my tax dollars to kill foreign children is not acceptable. I don’t care that Israel is our ally or they they provide us an important strategic resource in the region. I honestly don’t care if Israel wants to do a genocide or if Palestine wants to do a bunch or terrorism, that’s on them. But we don’t have to support it and I won’t vote for anyone who will.
The Democrats at least call for a ceasefire in Gaza, even though they send weapons to Israel. Trump openly admits that he would like Bibi to flatten the place with no regard for human life.
But I guess both parties are the same.
To the dead Palestinian children they are.
If Gaza is such a hot topic for you, how do you justify letting someone that absolutely despises muslims and would love to see them eradicated, enter the white house and likely lift all restrictions on Israel and delivery anything they ask for? There’s little doubt that Haris would have changed the situation much at all, but a Trump win basically solidifies the Palestinian’s fate to die as Israel’s war equipment guinea pigs. Do you feel like your inaction is fine because either way, the genocide doesn’t end?
Do you feel like your inaction is fine because either way, the genocide doesn’t end?
Pretty much. Less genocide is not a compelling argument. The children who died with Kamala in the White House would be just as dead with Trump.
What about the kids who wouldn’t die under kamala but now will? You say less genocide is the same, but even if it’s 10% less, I bet those 10% of kids would want kamala.
Kanye West?
well at least you’re consistent…
Btw, your chosen course of actions indirectly supported the option of spending even more tax dollars on killing people in gaza, so you might want to consider breaking your consistent streak of picking the wrong choice and try woting in a way that aligns with your stated goals
To be fair he hadn’t outed himself as a racist asshat in 2016. He was just a narcissist I thought was funnier than Trump.
As to your point about my inaction contributing to more dead in Gaza, I am indifferent. Any blood on our hands in Gaza is unacceptable. Had Kamala been chosen in a primary I might have considered voting for her as a compromise candidate, but having her foisted on us after the other compromise candidate was too stubborn to step down before he got in the way is bullshit.
Gaza was what OP asked about, but it’s definitely not the only thing I care about at the polls. The main reason I decided not to vote at all is because the will of the people is not reflected by any politicians. There are a dozen issues most Americans agree on (legal weed, minimum wage) that our current politicians won’t address because they are at odds with donors. I decided it wasn’t worth participating in the political system again until our elected officials do what we want instead of their donors.
If the oligarchy wants to take over officially I can’t stop them, but I don’t have to participate either.
I strongly disagree with aspects of your perspective but I appreciate your honest engagement
its funny, because literally the next post after yours was this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/07/trump-blank-check-netanyahu-war-iran-panetta
Late but here’s my model of the situation. Sort of a WIP and very new but a /gen effortpost, so I welcome thoughts:
It’s individualism versus collectivism. The collectivist understands intimately the function of working together for the protection and future of the group. There is no doubt in her mind about the practical nature of her actions because she can see them play out in her community. The individualist, by contrast, operates solo; everything for him is about your vote, your candidate. This leads to a divide between the individualist and the material outcomes of his actions. This gap—this absence of practicality, we might call it—leaves a vacuum where symbolism can enter. This becomes a problem not when symbolism is simply encountered by the individualist, but when the symbol becomes the act, when the vote becomes a kind of personal expression, and any thought for collective consequences falls by the wayside.
“Ordinarily,” if we imagine such a thing exists, these two identities intermix and act in a complex and altogether non-problematic way; I don’t wish to imply that individualism is simply “bad” while collective action is “good.” For example, concepts of individualism are fundamental to advancing human rights to consent and bodily autonomy.
However, the setting and background of your question is the USA, a country with deep, deep historical ties to white supremacist, capitalist, colonialist, even fascist values, all of which hold the individual as intrinsic over the collective. The result is that hyperindividualism is catastrophically rooted in the heart of U.S. society—even in progressive and leftist spaces!
So, when you see a pro-Palestinian proclaim abstention or that they voted third party, you are witnessing the complex outcome of genuine compassion intermingled with the values instilled by white supremacy and individualism. And so you hear the phrase, “I just can’t in good conscience vote for XYZ.” To degrees varying between people, the vote loses its material value and becomes nothing more than a symbolic moral statement.
This doesn’t mean the leftist non-voter is a white supremacist, of course! Rather, it’s that they have been deeply affected by the presence of those values in their cultural context and have not yet had the opportunity or experience with group frameworks to question their assumptions and reassert the significant importance of collectivism.
So, in conclusion, the unnuanced TLDR is “because America is a racist capitalist hellhole.” The good news I conclude from this, though, is that collectivism can be learned and promoted. Cultural values are definitely not static, and perhaps with education, support, and time, mindsets among leftists can be shifted to better support the whole of the community.
Steelman:
The US is currently a fascist, imperialist state. It has brutalized the global south, indigenous people, and POCs generally since its founding and will continue to do so unless the status quo is disrupted and changed significantly.
The Democratic party supports the same militaristic policies and the same neoliberal economic system that the Republicans do. The primary difference between the parties are various social issues that may make life somewhat better or worse for US citizens, but will never address the core problems of fascism, imperialism, and capitalism. Both parties support and protect the status quo. This status quo only benefits the bourgeois class and rich white people and harms literally hundreds of millions of others around the world.
The Democratic party is the only one of the two major parties that the Left has any degree of leverage over since the Democrats want the Left to vote for them. So, organizing to essentially boycott the Democratic party is a powerful method of protest that could effect real policy change. It is possibly the only effective method of protest left since the US police & surveilance state is cracking down on protests and the Left has no chance protesting violently against the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
The only way to make that threat matter to the Democratic party is to follow through if the demands aren’t met, even - or especially - if it means a second Trump term.
The liberal establishment has ignored and abandoned the working class for decades while dangling the carrot of milktoast social democratic reforms that rarely come to pass, but they blame the same people they abandoned for not energetically voting for them. They say it is a moral imperative to vote for them, but they are incapable of bettering the lives of working class people.
Strawman:
It would hurt my feelings too much to vote for COPmala Harm-us. Plus, Trump would let Putin annex Ukraine. Also, I’d risk touching grass if I went outside to participate in bourgeois electoralism. Gross.
Reality:
You can, and should, do more than one thing. Voting for Kamala is effectively playing defense against outright, full-throated fascism a la Mussolini even if you’d still consider the US fascist - it is clearly worse under Republicans. So vote, play defense, AND organize to raise class consciousness, provide mutual aid, protest when possible, and contribute to socialist causes. Letting Trump win would be a bad move. But, ultimately it is not the Left’s fault that he won. He won the popular vole and the electoral college vote by a large margin - larger than all third party socialist/socialist-adjacent candidates’ votes combined.
when you are laser focused on a single thing, anything else just slides past you. making life changing decisions with limited information is a uniquely american trait
Because if it wasn’t Gaza, it would have been another excuse to not lift a lazy goddamned finger and still delude themselves into feeling "morally superior"while sitting on their fat mediocre asses at home.
Before Harris, they also leaned heavily on the “Sleepy Joe” bullshit and “two old white men up for election, who cares”. Once the old “Sleepy Joe” element was removed from the equation, they had to find a way to keep their goddamned stubbornly lazy and ignorant narrative intact.
Now that the election is over, most of these “concerned and outraged” deadweight assholes will never think about Gaza and the plight of its’ people again. And they will keep on feeling smug about themselves.
I’m not American, and I don’t agree with these people either, but I don’t think that calling them lazy and ignorant makes any sense. In the fucked up democracy of the US it’s clear that the only way to get what you want for the coming 4 years is to vote for the least bad candidate. At the same time I can definitely understand that if you view both candidates was horrible, though one way more horrible than the other, you would feel conflicted about voting for either of them.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Assuming both candidates are still roughly equally “popular”. If both candidates wanted to start a genocide, but one would want to kill only 50% of the amount of innocents that the other would kill, how would you vote? Would you vote for the one who is overall the less bad option, which will in turn make you give your vote for something horrible. Or would you abstain and signal that the democracy as it currently stands has lost your confidence entirely, even if it means that on the short term the consequences might be way worse?
Not voting actually costs the democrats something, and should (if they want to win next time) force them to think how to better represent you next time.
It’s fucked up that your democracy came to this. It has become an annoying game theory dilemma instead of voting for the candidate that you actually believe in. Our system here in the Netherlands is certainly also not perfect, since we have too many parties and too long coalition negotiations, but at least I feel like it represents people way better. Anyone can start a party and capture seat if they represent a large enough niche.
I said the same thing about people like you before the election, and I’ll repeat it again. The laser focus on single issue voters was and will always be mostly an excuse to blame someone else.
To look at it another way, if this one issue actually decided the election, why didn’t Harris change her strategy two months ago? … Maybe it’s because this wasn’t the determining issue. Or it was, and her staff was incompetent. Take your pick.
OP asked for a steelman but good try
I know one of those people. they are now angry the left lost… 🙄
This is all that needs to be said on the subject.
It is rich to criticize the Democrats for claiming moral superiority while doing nothing, as a justification for not voting for the candidate who would at least try to put a leash on what Israel is doing to Gaza.
If you want what’s best for a suffering people, you should vote for the candidate not trying to give their oppressors a blank check. All of America is responsible for what the president we chose does next.
It’s the trolley problem. You see a trolley about to kill 5 people. You can pull a lever (vote) and make the trolley only kill 1. In this case, that 1 person is also in the lineup of 5. This distinction makes it obvious the only option is to pull the lever (vote).
I agree that people should’ve voted, but I disagree with this one-dimensional line of thinking. I can see the argument that by voting for the democrats their current behaviour and this fucked up system as a whole is warranted. It’s not as simple as “why not vote, it costs you nothing”. By voting this horrible “democracy” is legitimised and the democrats and the system will not change their approach. The US deserves a democracy that actually allows for representation instead of this duopoly of garbage and more garbage
No it’s not. Both the trolley problem and the prisoners dilemma are individual event thought experiments.
Real life is different, it is continuous. The rational choice for an individual event can be very different than a continuous one.
Take the prisoner’s dilemma (or game theory) for instance, it is the rational decision (nash equilibrium) to rat your fellow prisoner out but if you have to do it again and again, then the best strategy is to NOT rat out your fellow prisoner (only rat when they ratted you out in the last round).
Reality is often like this, and elections are also like this. It gets complicated real fast.
They mistakenly believe that by pulling the lever they are complicit in the trolley. That by interacting with the trolley on the trolley’s terms, they are consenting to the trolley’s actions.
I used to believe that too once… Once.
I was disabused of that notion before 2012, but sadly not enough people were.
Inaction is also an action. You’re always playing the game, might as well learn the rules.
This is actually a very good comparison, thank you.
The arguments against voting in the USA sound similar to the trolley problem
Some people wouldnt choose to be the reason of the death of one person even if doing nothing causes the death of multiple people
This is very american - these Gaza supporters protest the suffering of people thousands of miles away and yet think it is okay to bring suffering to everyone in his/her own street
Yeah but also they all die anyway. Nobody is “saved” in this situation. In fact, it’s way worse now.
What’s going to happen in Gaza is going to be horrifying.
That just means you value your own ability to evade blame over the lives of real people.
Yes, this is how I felt. I would rather not choose to vote for the ‘lesser of two evils’ and pretend that’s good. It’s not just Gaza though, it’s corporatism, war profiteering, and terrible policy.
I would rather see the system collapse and possibly die in the process than support another shitty government even if it’s the less shitty one.
That’s a horrible outlook, and I’m sorry you’ve been driven to that point. I understand, as I have been there before.
Now that I’m older, I realize that pulling the lever is the right thing to do as much as it hurts. I don’t think letting apathy win and watching the government go full Fash was the correct choice, but I don’t blame you, or others who decided the same. The system isn’t going to collapse, though, it’s just going to get a lot shittier for awhile.
Think of voting this way:
Signing your name to a candidate/psrty and what they’ve done/signaled they will do.
A lot of people can’t stomach a candidate who has been courting the neocons and softening their previous mildly progressive stances from the last time dems had a primary and the progressives were showing up in numbers. Everyone got in line and the debates were about M4A, erasing federally held student debt, raising the minimum wage, etc. Sanders single handedly dragged the party to the center (technically more “left” than they were) in 2016/2020 and the dems responded by po’mouthing like they cared about those issues, but then circled the wagons and kicked those voters to the curb.
The party has shown over and over again that they don’t give a shit about working class people, those of us that want real change. They want to maintain the status quo. Which is progressively more hostile capitalism.
Signing your name to that constant move rightward is unthinkable for some. And understandably so.
And that’s before we even discuss the ongoing genocide in Gaza funded and armed by the US. While this administrations representatives in the UN and in any official capacity constantly run defense for the genocide.
Plenty of people could not fathom putting their name on that tragedy.
None of this means that republicans aren’t fuckin neofascist shits. But…how many times have the voters left of the dems been told to eat shit and vote blue because the other guy is worse? WHILE CONSTANTLY COURTING THE RIGHTWING VOTERS WHO MAY HAVE FINALLY GOTTEN SICK OF IT?! Kamala literally said she would be different from Biden by having a Republican in her cabinet. WHAT.
With everything going on, this party said, “yeah, fuck all that. Let’s see if we can grab anyone to the right of us.”
I got sidetracked, but this is the thing. It’s not binary, because geopolitics isn’t binary. The worlds issues aren’t binary. But a binary choice is all we’re given to make.
Just…what. And neither of those two choices was actually going to solve the problems. One was maintaining the problems while one was the problems plus more problems. That’s not an attractive choice.
We all get that trump is much worse. But everyone else needs to understand how sickening that shitty choice was for anyone with a conscience about what’s going on in Gaza, what’s going on with their neighbors. Signing on for more of the same was completely unthinkable for some. That has to be understandable if we are ever going to change things.
We’ve been on the road we’re being forced down now as long as I’ve been around. And the road just keeps going forward. The dems’ proposal is “maintain the course.” The republicans’ was “mash the gas.”
Some people couldn’t stomach going any further down this road. That’s not making a choice to mash the gas. Because the world is not binary.
But you and everyone else posing similar questions is saying “how could you vote for mashing the gas by not wanting to continue down this road?? :(“
I love your road / mash the gas analogy. Great work I’m gonna steal it!
Hah please do!
They believe it because that’s what people have been told to believe.
It should be glaringly obvious that trump’s implied policy that he will let Israel “finish the job” is far worse than the dems poor attempts at negotiating cease-fires or any other moderation on Israel’s aggression.
All the propaganda has focused on the democrat (in)action regarding Israel. Zero on trump’s plans.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
That’s what the propaganda machine has been pushing.
And there was a strong push from the Russians.
That’s because nobody believes biden/Harris and for good reason. They’re lying, they have just as much of a plan to turn Gaza into prime oceanfront real estate for wealthy NYC metro area zionists with dual citizenship as the republicans. They’ll just paint the bombs with progress pride and blm flags while lying to your face about their intentions and speaking out of both sides of their mouth depending on their audience. It’s sickening. They’re both going to genocide Palestinians, does it really matter if they’re turned to glass in days or in weeks?
what moderation ? biden literally told everyone that ukraine is not even getting a paperclip unless we give israel 20 billion as well. he continued saying israel has unconditional support while we were getting footage of pregnant women & kids getting shot at by idf or burning alive in hospital from use of incendiary shells. then harris repeated the same statement on live tv. all this while the working class has been struggling to survive, layoffs everywhere, and price of everything getting doubled.
its not something that can be washed with but that guy will do worse. you can look otherway but dnc basically threatened their voters base with more genocide if not elected. the fact we are even fighting over this instead mass protesting for biden and his administration to be prosecuted shows just how hollow & pathetic the dnc base has become.
There you go again.
Dems bad, who cares if trump is worse.
Well, you’ll get what you wanted when Israel finishes off Gaza and everything else, or starts WWIII when they can’t keep the bombs inside their extermination camp.
You’re out of your mind if you think the israel / Palestine conflict stays local to that area under either administration. This is going to literally and figuratively blow up in our faces. Research the concept of “blowback”.
At no point did I suggest otherwise. In fact , I clearly stated WWIII was on the table. Go make up something else I said.
Arguably WW3 started when Russia invaded Ukraine.
yes the 15 millions or so didn’t care that trump is worse because dnc has become bad enough and its not just the genocide in gaza. threatening people make them do irrational things, specially true for us americans.
there is solid basis that harris would have done nothing to reign netanyahu same as trump. she had accepted even larger donation from aipac than biden who was basically emptying our emergency stockpile faster than we can replenish. if anything there’s chance that trumps narcissism clashes with that stooge and he actually does something good for gaza out of his ego.
Uh, I don’t have anything against America as a whole, but saying y’all don’t like irrational things rings pretty fucking false in my ears atm.
It only took 90 years until the majority apparently forgot 1935-1945 completely.
It’s simple, for a voter that doesn’t have other important things or believes the candidates to be equal in other things, like the economy, it becomes a moral choice to not vote for genocide.
If they believe there will be human rights violations elsewhere, like in the US, but one candidate and not the other, then the moral choice becomes to limit harm.
Much of this argument stems from different base assumptions, as follows-
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Neither Trump nor Harris will commit other human rights violations, and they are materially the same to my family; staying home is the moral action.
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Trump will commit human rights violations, voting for Harris is the moral action.
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They will both commit more human rights violations; staying home is the moral action.
The people who were saying to stay home and not vote fell into camps 1 or 3. If you’re unsure of why someone would believe in number 3 you should know we have illegal debtor’s prisons that are ignored by the federal government, LGBTQ abuse that has gone unchecked by the federal government, illegal denial of asylum directly by the federal government, … the list goes on. But rest assured there are reasons people would see them both as committing human rights violations in the US. This is not some Russian info op like the DNC fanboys would have you believe.
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I think people need to stop asking why didn’t people vote for Harris and as why DID people vote for Trump.
I think everyone on the whole, is completely underestimating the completely apathetic to politics voter. There is a TREMENDOUS section of the population that would sway from Trump if they felt energized to do so. Kamala was not it. Her policies were not it. Her stance alone on Gaza was not enough (but should not be dismissed).
People voted for trump because they: are a huge supporter, or they felt they had a fatter wallet during his administration. They feel burned by Biden and Kamala is more of the same. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
Biden shouldn’t have even run, no one wanted it. He even said he’d be a transitional president. Then he backed out and Democrats held no primary. Why would any apathetic voter (especially the ones who were unaware Biden dropped out, check google trends) vote for the guy who made their bank accounts smaller if that’s all they care about?
I voted for Harris but not without reservations. The democrats do nothing to resonate with the left, and continue to distance themselves from leftist policies, which were popular on ballot measures this election.
I asked my coworkers who are mostly black and Puerto Rican (some of them even converted to Islam; none of them seem like atheists). They all agree that Trump will abolish taxes on overtime and forced child support (they swore that they would still pay for what their children actually need; I guess I gave them a “look”). Honestly, I couldn’t find a real source of Trump even promising these things. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was made up on social media.
It seems that many non-white urban folks voted for Trump. It seems most people just want a promise of food and shelter if they put in the work (people are working so many hours now). There’s probably a logical reason why neither party has a platform anymore.
Asking people why they voted for trump, genuinely, required people to actually talk to people different than them and not get triggered and lose their shit in the process. That’s a tall order these days.
I’m a lifelong political independent (far left and politically homeless in the US) so it’s a lot easier for me to have conversations with trump voters than it is for blue maga to do so.
The summary of the frighteningly many trump voters I know in VT is that they hated both candidates but found trump marginally better on the economy (they’re worse off now than they were four years ago) and foreign policy (biden was straight up weak, trump can argue that he’s “anti war” although anyone with half a brain shouldn’t believe him he’ll bomb Iran the first chance he gets). They don’t like the Christian fascism, they don’t like the racism, they don’t like the homo/transphobia (or are ambivalent on the trans part, I’m gay and I can confidently say these people aren’t homophobic) - but ultimately these social issues take the backseat to the fact that inflation is fucking them and we’re on the verge of WW3 and both of these things objectively got worse under biden.
Non voters are just as responsible for the loss of democracy. They are not a single bit better than any MAGA even if they like to claim they are. They chose fascism over democracy
What’s worse is they’re now acting like they got one over on the Democratic party like “ha, stupid Democratic party. I bet they won’t learn”. Like what? You played YOURSELVES, you’re the ones who are gonna suffer. You fucked yourselves over just to spite Harris? Wtf??
Fucking over the usa to own the libs
Lib v lib violence
Yeah, I have so many discussion with non voters who sre fucking stupif. “But but Gaza!!” completely ignoring how Trump was escalating the conflict when he was in power and how he praised Netanyahu for his handling of it. If the think the dems are bad for Gaza they have not paid attention to republicans.
America hasnt had a democracy my entire life.
It did. It was just a flawed democracy. Now it will be full on fascism. So instead of hope it will get better one day it has gone the worst possible outcome and will not get better until the entire country looks like Berlin '45
yawn no it isn’t. I recommend you spend some more time learning american history and less time spouting your nonsense from across the pod.
People are tired of voting for the lesser evil. So now big evil won, and the idea is that that will teach little evil to stop being at all evil.
On a more serious note, I think for a lot of people Gaza was the drop that spilled the glass rather than THE reason they didn’t support Harris.
good short answer.
