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So you don’t like Trump or Harris – here’s why it’s still best to vote for one of them
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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politics
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There's more discourse about the Democrats because there's less disagreement about Republicans being bad. I wrote up a post about Trump's foreign policy doublespeak a while back where I called out anyone who might support Trump from an isolationist standpoint. It didn't get much engagement, but that's not my fault. Most of my comments are responding to things other people say and there are more Harris supporters than Trump supporters.
I might remind you that Lemmy was developed by communists, so an alternative explanation is that communists are more likely to both vote third party and use Lemmy.
The idea that we're secret conservatives is so absurd that I doubt you actually believe it, and are just using the accusation as a talking point to discredit the other side. Conservatives are awful at impersonating communists, they don't read or understand leftist theory and typically can only make it a few hours at most before breaking character and shouting slurs. You're vastly overestimating their intelligence and creativity. To say that Bayes' theorem supports your accusation is patently absurd.
At some point, claiming that communists are just conservatives in disguise means claiming that conservatives read more leftist political theory than liberals do. As entertaining as it may be to imagine a bunch of good ol' boys getting together and starting a book club where they discuss, like, the finer points of Simone de Beauvoir, I think if you're doing Bayesian analysis you should probably assign that a pretty low probability. They don't even read their own theory, much less ours.
Except you don't need to read a lot of theory to endlessly repeat Conservative talking points whilst advocating voter behaviour likely to lead the world's most powerful military to be controlled by fascists. You must have come across "communists" who just spout putin's talking points?
Like I said, and you seem to have missed it, not everyone supporting Trump is American, and not everyone supporting Trump is stupid.
Trump himself is really very stupid but he's worked with some less stupid people who know what lines will track well with different voter bases, and lemmy.ml has swallowed the third party guilt-free-complicity line really enthusiastically, but not as wholesale as it swallowed the push America right to push it left line.
So no, sorry, just as it's really hard to tell sarcasm about Trump from support, and just as it's really hard to tell satire about Trump from actual things trump said, it's almost impossible to tell sincere leftists who were duped into parrotting rightwing talking points about the election from trump supporters busy doing the duping.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I find it hard to believe that it's a swan. After all, if you're pissing in the petrol tank, don't ask me to spend a long time listening to why it's good for the engine.
Oh, so now it's that you're surrounded by secret agents from foreign countries, and that's the only reason people disagree with you. I'm assuming that there's no possible evidence that would falsify this conspiracy theory, right?
Superb straw man there.
Some people are spouting these right wing talking points about voting because they're left wing and have been duped.
Some people are spouting these right wing talking points about voting because they're right wing and doing the duping.
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are Americans.
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are not Americans.
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are not very clever.
Some people who are spouting these right wing talking points about voting are clever.
You claim that half of these couldn't possibly exist, because for some reason you think that only Americans approve of Trump, you believe that only Americans want to influence the American election and you characterise all Trump supporters as dumb rednecks or something more offensive, then I point out the even ones exist and you claim I'm a conspiracy theorist. Wow.
Nowhere did I claim this. Kind of funny that you strawman me right after accusing me of strawmanning you.
A conspiracy theory is not something that is impossible to be true, it's just implausible. It could be that the checkout clerk at my local grocery is an undercover FBI agent, why couldn't it? It's just that there's no evidence for it and it would be pretty unreasonable to assert that, especially if there was no possible way to falsify it.
I could just as easily claim that you're working for US intelligence, I'd have just as much basis. But I'm not a paranoid conspiracy theorist, so I don't. By Occam's razor and the principle of charity, I assume that you simply believe other things than me. That concept of people having different beliefs and values seems to be something that liberals simply cannot grasp - as if there's one obviously correct position and everyone else is either stupid or being deceived by bad actors. It's quite silly.
I don't espouse any "right wing" positions, and I don't generally see other people on here doing the same. My criticism of liberals is from a leftist perspective, grounded in leftist values and theory, and drawing from leftist intellectual traditions. It's just that liberals want to lump anyone who disagrees with them on anything for any reason as right wing in order to discredit and dismiss them.
Er...
This you?
Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. Are you accusing me of being a foreign secret agent or are you not?
I think you misunderstood. I have no idea what your nationality is and I don't think you're a secret agent.
Ok, then I don't understand what you're accusing me of.
Parrotting right wing talking points to an extent that I doubt your motives.
I can't tell the difference between sincere leftist people who have been duped into advocating right wing talking points loudly and long on lemmy and right wingers pretending to be left wing doing exactly the same thing.
It's very plausible to me that you're genuinely intelligent, but I find the blindness to a difference in outcome between the Democrats and the Republican doesn't square with your assertion that you're left wing. It just doesn't add up.
Did you read any summaries of Kamala's policy proposals and of project 25? It doesn't square with the well-read about politics bit and the intelligence bit at all.
What "right-wing talking points" exactly have I parroted? Opposition to genocide? That's a left-wing talking point that the right sometimes parrots.
I'm not blind to the difference between Democrats and Republicans. However, I don't believe in unconditional support for the Democrats, regardless of how bad the Republicans are. To offer unconditional support is to sacrifice every ounce of bargaining power I might have otherwise wielded. The worst possible thing you can do in a negotiation is to walk up to the table and say, "I'll agree no matter what." I do not subscribe to the ideology of lesser-evilism, which is a bad strategy from a game theory perspective. Moreover, genocide is a hard red line for me.
I can’t tell the difference between sincere leftist people who have been duped into advocating right wing talking points loudly and long on lemmy and right wingers pretending to be left wing doing exactly the same thing.
It’s very plausible to me that you’re genuinely intelligent, but I find the blindness to a difference in outcome between the Democrats and the Republican doesn’t square with your assertion that you’re left wing. It just doesn’t add up.
Did you read any summaries of Kamala’s policy proposals and of project 25? It doesn’t square with the well-read about politics bit and the intelligence bit at all.
Again you repeat the claim that I'm repeating "right wing talking points." I'll ask again, which "right wing talking points" am I repeating? Opposition to genocide?
That leftists should abstain from choosing the president, directly or indirectly.
So if I don't rally behind your candidate, it automatically means I'm acting in bad faith? Ridiculous.
I suppose the third of Americans who don't vote are also all right wingers?
That leftists should abstain from choosing the president, directly or indirectly, to preserve their voter purity is the right wing talking point. Like I keep saying, I can't tell the difference between leftists who have been duped by this argument and Republican supporters who peddle it. I genuinely don't know which you are, sorry.
But I really really strongly believe that if you really are a leftist, the fact that someone proposing today that you should be shot by the armed forces for your left wing views agrees that you should abstain from choosing the president because you're a leftist, should at least give you pause. I don't know how you can honestly both sides this shit.
It's not "to preserve their voter purity." At no point have I ever suggested that. It is a tactical choice to build power and exert influence.
As I've told you, the worst possible thing to do in a negotiation is to tell the other side that you'll agree to whatever terms they offer. If the left does this with the democrats, then the democrats will have no reason whatsoever to consider our concerns, they'll just write us off and say, "So what if we tell you to go fuck yourself, what are you going to do, vote Republican?" The result is that they will keep following Republicans to the right, and things will get worse and worse, and that's exactly what's happened, and how we've gotten into this situation in the first place. Lesser-evilism is a failed ideology, that neither makes sense logically nor is supported by historical evidence.
It's long past time to grow a spine and make demands, and that's the only possible way that we're ever going to get the changes we need to address the root of the material problems that allowed Trump to come to prominence. Failure to address those problems is just kicking the can down the road, and if we don't ever address them, then we will keep getting people like Trump forever. Voting for shitty corporate Dems forever is just kicking the can down the road and allowing problems to fester and get worse, there is absolutely zero chance of actually turning things around that way.
Voting for a left-wing third party accomplishes two things, first, telling the democrats that there are votes available if they move left, and second, it begins the process of replacing and unseating them if they refuse. Both of those are longshots, but they at least have the potential to actually change things.
You are strawmanning me when you describe my position as being "both sides are the same." No, one side is substantially worse than the other. But both sides fail to meet the red line of "not supporting genocide," and in a negotiation, if you have a red line, you should follow through with it if you don't want to sacrifice all future credibility and bargaining power. It's just game theory.
It's not a fing negotiation, it's a chance to avert fascism for four more years and you don't care. You just don't fing care.
Voting is a negotiation. I'm not willing to sacrifice my negotiating power out of desperation, because even if it worked, it would only kick the can down the road, while sacrificing any possibility of actually stopping fascism. It's a doomed strategy.
Fascism 2025 it is then. You've made your choice.
The democrats made that choice when they chose to alienate the left. They decided that they don't need people like me to win, so we'll see if that plays out for them. My position is set in stone, I'm not moving my red line on genocide (which is an extremely reasonable and justified line to draw), so it's entirely their choice whether or not I'm part of their coalition.
Fascism 2025 it is then. You’ve made your choice.