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Definitely it's our duty to pressure him to change his mind. In fact, there are so many ways to do that. But holding your vote hostage is not one of them.
In fact, holding your vote hostage is just about the worst thing you could do, because 1) Biden will never know about it, since it amounts to a mere mathematical 1 or a 0 that doesn't bring any information to him, and 2) it directly supports the election of a candidate who would bring more genocide. If genocide is your single-issue-vote, and it sounds like it is, then you are absolutely making the worst political choice you can. That's not my opinion; that's a mathematical fact.
Never was a more clueless statement expressed on lemmy.
My dude, like you said it is our duty to reach out to him and try to change his mind. Politics is not decided once every four years in the ballot box. That's how presidents are decided. Politics is policy, and that is decided every day of the year. If you sit on your ass and every for years you make a protest vote in support of the greater evil, you are the exemplification of the "idiot swing voter" who is so dumb they vote against their own interest. In other words, the exact kind of person who the GOP bamboozles in order to retain their power.
If your goal is to minimize genocide, are you honestly comfortable playing the role of a stooge who actually helps bring about more and worse genocide???
Throw out this idea that a protest vote will do anything helpful at all. A protest vote mathematically helps to serve the person who you least want elected. This is a mathematical fact. For example, if you hate Democrats but you just don't love Trump enough, so you do a protest vote for the Libertarian candidate, your ballot is actually doing more to help Biden! And conversely, if you absolutely don't want Trump to win, but you don't like Biden enough to vote for him so you do a protest vote for Greens, or a write-in for AOC, or whatever, you are actually giving support to Trump!
This is mathematical fact, not some opinion of mine and the other posters here. That's what we're trying to illustrate to you and those like you.
I sympathize with your position. I would prefer AOC, or Bernie, or some other candidate than Biden. But the election is a binary choice, and doing anything other than voting for candidate A or candidate B works out mathematically to supporting the candidate you favor the least.
So back to holding Biden's feet to the fire. Do that. Always do that. March, sign petitions, be an activist. Write emails to Biden. Write to your senators and House representatives. Be active in politicians beyond pressing a button once every four years. That's how you make a difference.
And if you actually care about genocide as much as you post about it, then please grasp the undeniable reality that a protest vote actually undermines your own cause.
That's why I'm going to try and reach out to make it known to their campaign that this will keep me and many other people from voting for him. I encourage everyone to do this. I'm not going to sit on my ass and do nothing, I'm going to rub their noses in the fact that they are destroying their own reelection chances by supporting genocide.
This is leverage that you are just leaving on the table. What influence do you have if your vote is guaranteed? They can ignore everything you say or want because you're locked in. Your marching is worthless, your petitions are worthless, your activism is worthless, you are nothing to them because they already have your vote. Why should they give a shit about you?
Me? I want to make it clear that my vote and the votes of many other progressives are on the line. They think they can ignore us because we're locked in. We have to tell them they're wrong, they have to understand that they can't ignore us or they will lose.
Again, blue-no-matter-who voters are irrelevant to them. They can exploit you as hard and long as they want and you'll beg for more.
I've explained the solution to the problem, I've explained why holding your vote hostage doesn't work the way you think it does, and I've explained how you're being duped into supporting the end result you claim not to want above all else.
I don't see any point in continuing this. You didn't seem to read or acknowledge what I wrote, and just went and repeated the same thing all over again. It's like you've put yourself up on a pedestal of moralizing ignorance and just plug your ears to everything that threatens to knock you off. I can't force you to understand something if you don't want to understand it, and I don't feel like repeating myself over and over again when it won't be acknowledged or read.
You'll probably reply with some more insults and straw man arguments like you've been doing, but some other user whose mind isn't closed with arrogance and whose thinking is not blinded by their own privilege might see then and realize just how blind, foolish, and self-defeating this purity position is.
Okay, maybe I'm fucking stupid. I must be!
Your solution is:
I do not see any explanation for why Biden should give a shit about blue-no-matter-who voters who march or protest or write petitions or send letters or emails or call or anything. I don't get it. Why should their campaign care what a whiney blue-no-matter-who voters says? They're guaranteed to vote for Biden, there's no reason to bother listening to them at all! What leverage do they have?
What is the mechanism of action that makes marching or petititons or emails work when your vote is already locked in?
You have not explained this, so stop insulting me and stop talking down to me and stop telling me I'm a dupe and blind and foolish and self-defeating and simply explain why he should give a shit about you.
Me? I'll march and sign petitions and be an activist and write emails and letters saying I won't vote without a ceasefire. That actually puts pressure on the campaign, it shows them that they need to listen to me because if they don't then they are going to lose.
You? You'll march and sign petitions and be an activist and write emails and letters saying "pwetty pwetty pwees stawp the genowcide uwu" and they could laugh in your face because you'll still vote for them no matter what they do to you. You. Are. Irrelevant. You have no leverage, you can't hold his feet to the fire, you can't apply pressure, you are nothing. You might as well be a dog that can vote.
And there it is, just as predicted.
You insulted me first, so yeah, I'm going to hit back. Go ahead, read up the comment chain. You attacked me, you got nasty with me, and then I responded in kind. I'm not going to just let you punch down on me and take it. Go ahead, be smug that you provoked me.
You're dodging because you don't have an answer. Maybe you didn't read it the first time! I'll post it again for you:
What is the mechanism of action that makes marching or petititons or emails work when your vote is already locked in?
Pointing out that your position is terrible is not an insult to you. Just another one of your dishonest arguments, like how you misrepresent every thing that is said to you instead of engaging with people honestly.
At this point, I can't see you as anything other a troll. Talking to you is like talking to a religious fundamentalist. You have no respect for the other party you're speaking to and only speak down from a position of moralistic arrogance.
And if you're not a troll, then jesus... be better than this.
Here you are, erasing my transness and insulting me by calling me a privileged moralizing purist, as if I don't already compromise so much by voting Democrat. As if I hadn't already compromised all sense of purity when I voted for this fucker the first time. As if I haven't spent so much fucking time agonizing over my politics to come to my conclusions, as if I'm just a "fundamentalist"
Here you are, accusing me of sitting around doing nothing and being a dumb idiot.
And here you are, calling me closeminded and arrogant. Blinded by my own "privilege" - again erasing my trans body and life.
And then you cap it off by just degrading me as dishonest, as a troll, as a disrespectful moralist.
You've insulted me over and over, read up the comment chain. I think you're confusing me for someone else. All I did is point out that you are nothing to Biden. Your voice is irrelevant, because of your own positions, that's not me insulting you! Again, like a dog that can vote - and no, that's not me calling you a dog, that's me saying you have as much impact on Biden's positions as one.
And yeah, maybe saying you're like a dog was too far, but that was after you'd already insulted me over and over. Come on.
Log off. You've worked yourself up too much to have a reasonable conversation.
There it is again.
Look dude, if the shoe fits, wear it.
If you don't want people to think you're a troll, then do better than this.
You. Started. This.
Right here.
I made a sincere comment, expressing why I am withholding my vote, you shat all over it. I got upset. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
Is this what you do? Provoke people until they react and then mock them for reacting the way you want? And you're callingme a troll?
I would not have wasted so much typing and emotional effort trying to talk to you if I was a troll. I'm just fucking stupid.
Contrary to what you think, I'm not trying to provoke you. Yet you've been getting highly provoked anyway. My "shitting all over" your comment was actually me explaining to you how your stance does the exact opposite of what you think it does. I took the time to explain it in detail, and you didn't acknowledge any of it. You just dug in deeper and took it personally almost to the point of having a meltdown.
I don't know what else to tell you. I've been trying to have a discussion here, and it feels like you're trying to have an argument. I haven't seen any effort on your part to discuss genuinely, just fighting and moralizing. Any challenge to your position is taken as a personal insult, to which you then respond with hostility and dishonesty. That's why I think you're a troll.
It sounds like we both agree this was a waste of time, so let's just let it end here. Next time we can both try to do better.
If you don't want to provoke people, don't call them "privileged moralizing purists" or say that our positions are "awfully stupid"
Put plainly, thems fightin words. I engaged with you seriously and you jumped down my throat, and then act like I'm the problem for reacting.
Blocked.
Lol. Thanks for proving my point entirely.
I tried to end this one-sided "conversation" on a cordial, even note. But you still ended up throwing a tantrum and not engaging with anything I said.
You are a troll after all. A privileged, moralizing, purist troll. If the shoe fits, wear it.