No it’s a candidate you mostly agree with. I for one don’t care for a party that doesn’t fight for medicare for all, doesn’t fight to restore the courts, doesn’t imprison traitors and rapists, that supports genocide, that pumps more funding into cops and ICE, that strives for “the most lethal military in the world”, that continues to subsidize fossil fuels, that legally bars workers striking, that doesn’t bother to codify Roe, and ultimately when they finally get around to doing something, they assume that giving government money to market driven companies will best solve problems.
The problem is that they are not progressive at all. Like literally what position of Harris is progressive? It is all either keeping the status quo or regressive.
You wanna known what a progressive point is now. Dont kill trans people. That is where we are right now. That is the line of progressivism now that trunp won. Congratulations overton window shifted
As a leftist, I can tell you there was a fuck of a lot more than one issue that I didn’t agree with Biden or Harris on. I still voted for her, but I can tell you I won’t hold my nose again.
What happened, in general terms, is that Gen Z kept the previous elections from slipping too hard to Republicans, and Harris went viral for calling them dumb. And she was pro-genocide, and she was a cop-loving prosecutor out of California. She basically screamed “DINO.” Then, when the Democratic primaries happened, Biden lied and said he was going to run again, which basically killed any other chance for a popular candidate to emerge to challenge Trump. So when Biden finally changed his mind, we were forced to vote for Harris or Trump.
If you want to blame something, blame the Democratic Party playing games with their internal processes to keep the people from having a candidate they actually wanted. Nobody even wanted Harris as VP. She got it, much like Biden under Obama, because she was a “safe” moderate.
And I can tell you, as a regular voter. I had people at my door for her 12 different times asking me to vote.
We shouldn’t have even allowed Biden to say he was going to run a second term, but the entire establishment went along with it as political theater to put her on the ballot.
Why did Trump win? Because American elections are fucked and never favor the popular vote and because enough people were fucking pissed. The Liberal idealists were pissed because dispite popular opinion our leaders ignored them most of the time, and the Conservative minded were pissed because they had 4 years of “Fuck Joe Biden” propaganda.
Your opinion means little to me beyond suggesting that we likely share similar morals. I’m not interested in engaging in infighting with people I probably agree with 70 percent of the time.
I edited my impulsive comment. I’m only pinging you as a courtesy so it doesn’t look like I’m trying to rewrite myself into someone more moderate. Be cool. Do crimes. Aim that anger at someone who actually hates you.
They (US politics) literally do though, right? At least that’s my impression as a non US person.
If my understanding is correct it would need an overhaul of the constitution to change that, right? (The part about representatives of states cascading to select the representatives who then select the boss).
I’m quite uneducated though in US politics so perhaps I’ve got something completely wrong!
The number of combinations of choices in social and human affairs is pretty much infinite so politics in a real Democracy could theoretically be infinite-sided (though only if there were no “representatives” of citizens and people directly voted on everything - i.e. direct Democracy)
Because the US isn’t really a proper Democracy (more like an attempt at one), the vote itself in American has only 2 real options, but there are other ways to expand the number of choices because the two main parties in America are umbrellas for ranges of possibilities and they do have somewhat democratic (rigged, but still with more choices than the actual vote) internal selection systems in the form of Primaries.
If one properly analyses it, it turns out the presidential selection system in the US, then it’s really a multi-stage affair in which two of the stages - the Primaries and the actual vote - are open to the public (though there is quite a lot of selecting going on behind closed doors even before the Primaries),
So if people participate in both Primaries and the actual vote, they de facto have more choices than 2.
Also another thing to keep in mind is that this is a cyclical process and the outcomes in one cycle - i.e. who won and by how much - influence what happens in the next cycle so the vote itself defines not just what happens in one election, but also which choices will be made available - i.e. which candidates will be fielded - in the next.
All this means that if one actually cares and makes an effort, there’s more “Democracy” to be had than it might seem at first sight and the vote itself has more influence than just that immediate choice, so anybody claiming that “you have no choice but to vote lesser evil” either has a simplistic view of things or are purposefully trying to deceive others.
This is without going down into the whole local politics and civil society participation, which in the US is almost as livelly Democratic as in Europe.
You are correct although I don’t even think the two party system is related to the constitution. I think it’s more about precedent than anything else. The country is too conservative to change the way things are done even when it’s not legally bound. I’d love to leave this shithole. The day trump won in 2016, I lost faith irreparably that we’d ever be decent again. As you can imagine, 2024 nuked the tiny sliver of hope I had again. I expect the worst moving forward. I grew up in a world that this generation was supposed to be able to fix. But the oligarchs have ensured only the oldest most corrupt rich asswipes alive can access power so that dream is dead.
I remember when people used to make jokes about how like, if one side says “kill all the Jews” and the other side says, “don’t kill anyone,” the reasonable centrist position would be to kill half the Jews. It was a way of parodying centrists and lesser-evilism, because any line of logic that leads to that kind of mass murder is obviously wrong.
These days, the joke doesn’t work because people are unironically screaming about how you have to support the person who wants to kill half the Palestinians or you’re a bad person. You all have become such ridiculous self-parodies that there’s nothing I could say to criticize you that’s worse than your own stated positions.
Voting to save half the Palestinians isn’t worth it, because half still die.
=>
Any effort for Harm reduction is useless if there is still some Harm
=>
Why save some Jews if most still die? Might as well profit because its more convenient for you.
Voting to save half the Palestinians isn’t worth it, because half still die.
Voting to kill half the Palestinians is not morally justifiable because genocide is inherently unjustifiable. So no, I wouldn’t profit off the Holocaust, because I’m opposed to genocide.
Why save some Jews if most still die? Might as well profit because its more convenient for you.
I don’t see why you wouldn’t profit off the Holocaust. Either way, the genocide is going to happen. Stopping the Holocaust simply isn’t on the table. But we can either have the Holocaust, or we can also have the Holocaust plus you get some money out of it. Which one is the “lesser evil?”
Maybe you can even donate a portion of your Holocaust profits to a charity. See, if you weren’t profiting off the Holocaust, someone else would be, and would they donate to charity? Harm reduction!
I’m the one saying no, fuck that shit, a line has to be drawn. You’re using some insane troll logic to twist “drawing a hard line against genocide” to “supporting genocide.”
That’s some “anyone who doesn’t scribble in a unicorn on their voter sheet supports genocide” bullshit. In the real world we have to vote for real people with thoughts and life experiences we don’t always 100% align with.
I’m sure once all the Palestinians are dead they’ll take great comfort in knowing you not once compromised in your unwavering support. They’ll die in your honor. With dignity.
I can be like, “I’m definitely pro-access to hormone treatments in most circumstances for adults, but I still think having transitioning a person’s sex is a big decision, should be made cautiously, and can have lasting psychological effects.” And I’ll get 100+ down votes.
I mean, just because you pretend you were subtle here doesn’t mean you’re not still admitting to being transphobic and mad you cannot get away with it scot free.
The reason you get downvoted is because its, in your case likely unwitting, concern trolling.
It is nobody’s decision but the person receiving treatment.
While it’s important that people are fully informed of the risks and potential downsides associated, the specific wording of the talking point you are repeating is designed to infantalize and remove the option under the guise of “caution”.
Ironically this is a perfect example of how liberals end up supporting conservative and/or fascist policies.
That’s the thing: that sounds reasonable until you take 5 minutes to research and find that there are already a fuck ton of roadblocks and checks in place to make sure it’s what they want and the best option. That statement is either made in bad faith or in ignorance. A trans person trying to get access to surgery and a woman trying to have her uterus removed have similar, but unique, levels of difficulty.
Pretending anyone can make that choice on a Tuesday and undergo serious surgery on a Wednesday is either super ignorant or a bad actor. You can’t even do that shit for normal healthcare procedures.
But the viral right found its token examples, and those examples became the face of an entire problem that didn’t exist.
Maybe because it’s a disingenuous and ignorant defense that plays into the right’s framing that “their transing the kids”, ignores the reality of ‘de-transitioners’, sows doubt on puberty blockers, and is just the casual whitewashed version that is used to make the more controlling legislation palatable.
Like why should you get “close enough” points for this take on Lemmy of all places.
Leftists love to abandon a candidate they mostly agree with as long as there’s one single issue that doesn’t align perfectly.
No it’s a candidate you mostly agree with. I for one don’t care for a party that doesn’t fight for medicare for all, doesn’t fight to restore the courts, doesn’t imprison traitors and rapists, that supports genocide, that pumps more funding into cops and ICE, that strives for “the most lethal military in the world”, that continues to subsidize fossil fuels, that legally bars workers striking, that doesn’t bother to codify Roe, and ultimately when they finally get around to doing something, they assume that giving government money to market driven companies will best solve problems.
the response is always lesser of two evils stuff. yes, kamala is less evil than trump. still evil, though.
Progressive Puritanismtl is the reason why Trump got elected both times.
Neither Hillary nor Kamala were progressive enough so a large enough portion of people just didn’t vote.
Meanwhile, so Republicans always vote.
The problem is that they are not progressive at all. Like literally what position of Harris is progressive? It is all either keeping the status quo or regressive.
You wanna known what a progressive point is now. Dont kill trans people. That is where we are right now. That is the line of progressivism now that trunp won. Congratulations overton window shifted
If all we cared about was winning, why would we not just become Republicans?
As a leftist, I can tell you there was a fuck of a lot more than one issue that I didn’t agree with Biden or Harris on. I still voted for her, but I can tell you I won’t hold my nose again.
What happened, in general terms, is that Gen Z kept the previous elections from slipping too hard to Republicans, and Harris went viral for calling them dumb. And she was pro-genocide, and she was a cop-loving prosecutor out of California. She basically screamed “DINO.” Then, when the Democratic primaries happened, Biden lied and said he was going to run again, which basically killed any other chance for a popular candidate to emerge to challenge Trump. So when Biden finally changed his mind, we were forced to vote for Harris or Trump.
If you want to blame something, blame the Democratic Party playing games with their internal processes to keep the people from having a candidate they actually wanted. Nobody even wanted Harris as VP. She got it, much like Biden under Obama, because she was a “safe” moderate.
And I can tell you, as a regular voter. I had people at my door for her 12 different times asking me to vote.
We shouldn’t have even allowed Biden to say he was going to run a second term, but the entire establishment went along with it as political theater to put her on the ballot.
Why did Trump win? Because American elections are fucked and never favor the popular vote and because enough people were fucking pissed. The Liberal idealists were pissed because dispite popular opinion our leaders ignored them most of the time, and the Conservative minded were pissed because they had 4 years of “Fuck Joe Biden” propaganda.
you’re not a leftist if you voted for Harris.
Your opinion means little to me beyond suggesting that we likely share similar morals. I’m not interested in engaging in infighting with people I probably agree with 70 percent of the time.
I can tell.
I edited my impulsive comment. I’m only pinging you as a courtesy so it doesn’t look like I’m trying to rewrite myself into someone more moderate. Be cool. Do crimes. Aim that anger at someone who actually hates you.
Well then allow me a chance to rephrase my original comment. You can’t be a leftist while voting for the Establishment Democrat candidate.
Change happens when we organize and come together. We are well beyond gatekeeping. This is enemy of my enemy time
Are you familiar with the following phrase? “The Democrat party is where leftist movements go to die.”
There is no left in the US. Democrats and Republicans are just different flavours of the same Conservative shit…
Hell, the Overton window has slid so far right that even the Liberals here in Canada are basically conservatives from about 20 years ago
I believe this line of thinking only serves to sanewash right-wingers.
Only true if you think the entirety of politics fits in 1 bit.
They (US politics) literally do though, right? At least that’s my impression as a non US person.
If my understanding is correct it would need an overhaul of the constitution to change that, right? (The part about representatives of states cascading to select the representatives who then select the boss).
I’m quite uneducated though in US politics so perhaps I’ve got something completely wrong!
The number of combinations of choices in social and human affairs is pretty much infinite so politics in a real Democracy could theoretically be infinite-sided (though only if there were no “representatives” of citizens and people directly voted on everything - i.e. direct Democracy)
Because the US isn’t really a proper Democracy (more like an attempt at one), the vote itself in American has only 2 real options, but there are other ways to expand the number of choices because the two main parties in America are umbrellas for ranges of possibilities and they do have somewhat democratic (rigged, but still with more choices than the actual vote) internal selection systems in the form of Primaries.
If one properly analyses it, it turns out the presidential selection system in the US, then it’s really a multi-stage affair in which two of the stages - the Primaries and the actual vote - are open to the public (though there is quite a lot of selecting going on behind closed doors even before the Primaries),
So if people participate in both Primaries and the actual vote, they de facto have more choices than 2.
Also another thing to keep in mind is that this is a cyclical process and the outcomes in one cycle - i.e. who won and by how much - influence what happens in the next cycle so the vote itself defines not just what happens in one election, but also which choices will be made available - i.e. which candidates will be fielded - in the next.
All this means that if one actually cares and makes an effort, there’s more “Democracy” to be had than it might seem at first sight and the vote itself has more influence than just that immediate choice, so anybody claiming that “you have no choice but to vote lesser evil” either has a simplistic view of things or are purposefully trying to deceive others.
This is without going down into the whole local politics and civil society participation, which in the US is almost as livelly Democratic as in Europe.
You are correct although I don’t even think the two party system is related to the constitution. I think it’s more about precedent than anything else. The country is too conservative to change the way things are done even when it’s not legally bound. I’d love to leave this shithole. The day trump won in 2016, I lost faith irreparably that we’d ever be decent again. As you can imagine, 2024 nuked the tiny sliver of hope I had again. I expect the worst moving forward. I grew up in a world that this generation was supposed to be able to fix. But the oligarchs have ensured only the oldest most corrupt rich asswipes alive can access power so that dream is dead.
Lol. This mf thinks leftists “mostly agree” with Harris
That “single issue” is literally genocide. I don’t really care if Adolf Hitler aligns with me on wanting to make train rides free.
Gazabrained take. Protest another two state politician while Trump posts AI memes of hotels on Palestinian land.
I remember when people used to make jokes about how like, if one side says “kill all the Jews” and the other side says, “don’t kill anyone,” the reasonable centrist position would be to kill half the Jews. It was a way of parodying centrists and lesser-evilism, because any line of logic that leads to that kind of mass murder is obviously wrong.
These days, the joke doesn’t work because people are unironically screaming about how you have to support the person who wants to kill half the Palestinians or you’re a bad person. You all have become such ridiculous self-parodies that there’s nothing I could say to criticize you that’s worse than your own stated positions.
You mean kill all the Palestinians, but do it with decorum
So you don’t care about saving half the Palestinians?
Have you watched Schindler’s list? Would you just have profited off the Holocaust, because saving a few wouldn’t matter?
Most “I’m privileged enough that my vote doesn’t impact me” position I’ve ever heard.
What the fuck are you talking about? What a bunch of bizarre leaps of logic.
How on earth do you get from “I’m opposed to genocide” to “I would be fine profiting from the Holocaust because who gives a shit?” Show your work.
Voting to save half the Palestinians isn’t worth it, because half still die. => Any effort for Harm reduction is useless if there is still some Harm => Why save some Jews if most still die? Might as well profit because its more convenient for you.
There’s the work.
Voting to kill half the Palestinians is not morally justifiable because genocide is inherently unjustifiable. So no, I wouldn’t profit off the Holocaust, because I’m opposed to genocide.
I don’t see why you wouldn’t profit off the Holocaust. Either way, the genocide is going to happen. Stopping the Holocaust simply isn’t on the table. But we can either have the Holocaust, or we can also have the Holocaust plus you get some money out of it. Which one is the “lesser evil?”
Maybe you can even donate a portion of your Holocaust profits to a charity. See, if you weren’t profiting off the Holocaust, someone else would be, and would they donate to charity? Harm reduction!
I’m the one saying no, fuck that shit, a line has to be drawn. You’re using some insane troll logic to twist “drawing a hard line against genocide” to “supporting genocide.”
This is you.
That’s you.
That’s some “anyone who doesn’t scribble in a unicorn on their voter sheet supports genocide” bullshit. In the real world we have to vote for real people with thoughts and life experiences we don’t always 100% align with.
I wonder how many percentage points genocide counts for in your book, in terms of “not 100% align with.” 1%? 10%? Because for me it’s like, 99%.
I’m sure once all the Palestinians are dead they’ll take great comfort in knowing you not once compromised in your unwavering support. They’ll die in your honor. With dignity.
Why didn’t you answer the question? You said it’s “not 100%.” I’m just asking you to be a bit more specific.
Its fascinating how many people in these comments failed the trolley problem. Actually insane.
This is also what immediately jumped to my mind when reading this discussion, it’s the trolley problem.
BlueMAGA ghouls are as evil as the regular kind
You’re getting downvoted for being right.
You see this readily on Lemmy.
I can be like, “I’m definitely pro-access to hormone treatments in most circumstances for adults, but I still think having transitioning a person’s sex is a big decision, should be made cautiously, and can have lasting psychological effects.” And I’ll get 100+ down votes.
I mean, just because you pretend you were subtle here doesn’t mean you’re not still admitting to being transphobic and mad you cannot get away with it scot free.
The reason you get downvoted is because its, in your case likely unwitting, concern trolling.
It is nobody’s decision but the person receiving treatment.
While it’s important that people are fully informed of the risks and potential downsides associated, the specific wording of the talking point you are repeating is designed to infantalize and remove the option under the guise of “caution”.
Ironically this is a perfect example of how liberals end up supporting conservative and/or fascist policies.
You just can’t help yourself.
Correct, societal problem require group effort and you’re pulling the wrong way.
You just can help instead.
That’s the thing: that sounds reasonable until you take 5 minutes to research and find that there are already a fuck ton of roadblocks and checks in place to make sure it’s what they want and the best option. That statement is either made in bad faith or in ignorance. A trans person trying to get access to surgery and a woman trying to have her uterus removed have similar, but unique, levels of difficulty.
Pretending anyone can make that choice on a Tuesday and undergo serious surgery on a Wednesday is either super ignorant or a bad actor. You can’t even do that shit for normal healthcare procedures.
But the viral right found its token examples, and those examples became the face of an entire problem that didn’t exist.
Maybe because it’s a disingenuous and ignorant defense that plays into the right’s framing that “their transing the kids”, ignores the reality of ‘de-transitioners’, sows doubt on puberty blockers, and is just the casual whitewashed version that is used to make the more controlling legislation palatable.
Like why should you get “close enough” points for this take on Lemmy of all places.
Thank you for demonstrating the point in the most predictable way possible.
Thank you for not engaging with a single part of the actual argument.
So you want to take away access to care for some adults?