this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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The actual argument is that we can do a lot better, but disingenuous political hacks shriek "THAT MEANS YOU THINK BOTH ARE THE EXACT SAME!!!1" and so we're stuck with voting "not the other guy" for the rest of our lives as the wealth gap keeps widening, everything gets less affordable, the climate is still worsening, and nothing improves in any meaningful capacity.
We COULD do a lot better if it wasn't for all those idiots sitting under the scales. There's a shit load of people that actively want everything on the right side of that scale. There's groups of people actively supporting Israeli because they believe it'll bring about the apocalypse and let Jesus return.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/gaza-war-evangelical-leaders-cheer-end-world-1234884151/
Hagee has MILLIONS of followers. And not on twitter, in real life. People who live their lives in service to his vision. People who donate money and time to the cause.
And those are just the zealots. There's millions more that do whatever these people say "just to be on the safe side" in case they're right.
In total they compromise about 15-20% of the population, which is roughly the entire population of France or the UK. https://www.deseret.com/faith/2021/10/28/22750589/what-the-latest-data-tells-us-about-christian-nationalism-pew-research-center-andrew-whitehead/
These people cannot be reasoned with, they are blood bound members of a death cult and the only recourse we have is to out vote them. It fucking sucks.
We could do a lot better right now, but biden has demonstrated time and again that he won't take action even when he can. The genocide in Gaza is the perfect example. He'll say he's sad and frustrated but then supplies israel even more to continue their genocide. It's hard to believe that if we just vote in democrats hard enough that they will take action when they refuse to take action on things they have the power to right now.
I'm just blocking the idiots that post these. So tired already of their bullshit.
That's not what is being addressed here and I think you know that.
There are LOTS of people who equate the two sides and say they are no different. This is a toxic lie and you shouldn't defend it
There is not. Most people who criticize Biden believe we could do better including not supporting the mass killing and ethnic cleansing or Palestinians by the Israeli state.
And the reality is that as far as the presidency is concerned on that specific topic we have a choice between someone who has been maintaining the existing status quo vis a vis Israel and Palestine but has been successfully pressured into at least looking like he's trying to stop it by his base and the guy who, last time he was in office, made it worse by moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and several other actions, plus everything else wrong with his policies. As far as the presidency goes, those are the only two options, so while we could maybe have done better before, we don't have a different option now.
So, between "bad but can be influenced to be better" and "far, far, demonstrably worse and only descending," the only two actual options, which should people vote for?
I won't tell any one who they should vote for. However, I think the time to influence the president is now. We'll see if he is influencable for this particular horror.
Have you tried to speak up to your elected officials to influence the US government to change it's current position so that we aren't enabling the Israeli government in its massacre of the Palestinean people?
It's plain to anyone who is willing to see that this administration has been influenced in a positive direction vis a vis Israel, and they are doing much more to help the Palestinian people than the "turn Gaza into a radioactive parking lot" crew that is the other option will do should they regain power. And yes, I have called the offices of my elected representatives, which didn't go very far because they're Republicans.
I do not share your compunction about telling people that a vote for better is better, even if better is not ideal, because I'm an adult who has been paying attention to how it has been and is promised to be worse. There is no viable third party, and mathematically there will not be until every state changes away from First Past the Post, which will not happen before the election. Therefore, the better of the two parties, obviously the Democrats, should be voted for. Full stop. Up and down the ballot. Anyone who decides to not vote this way is indicating that they are fine with the Republicans regaining power, and aren't allowed to complain about the leapords eating their face should they win. The only instance in which voting third party is acceptable is for smaller local elections, and even then that's if they did a good job canvassing. You should help them canvass, if there are any nearby.
I am too, believe it or not, an adult. I have different values that lead me to different decisions. I've refrained from condescending to you even though we disagree. I hope shining a light on that will change the tenor of this conversation.
Regarding Gaza, I see that the administration has been inching away from the full support of Israel. But from I can tell, it's been wholly rhetorical. While I would like a long term ceasefire, I know that that's unlikely at this moment. However, this doesn't mean that the Biden administration lacks leverage. They continue to supply the IDF with weapons. Biden needs to stop this. Second, threaten cutting off funding to Israel. We average about 3 billion dollars in yearly aid to Israel. The last time a present threaten to cut off funding to Israel was HW Bush in 1991.
Those would be two material and immediate changes that would make sense to me. Next, support resolutions with other western countries in the UN to move towards a long term ceasefire. Get them to open more land crossing to allow for additional aid to enter via truck. The roads exist. We don't need to build a port.
These steps, would be meaningful. I think it would influence uncommitted voters in swing states. Biden is influenceable now because we are entering into an election. Staying uncommitted means that we have leverage.
I hope that framing makes sense even if you don't agree with it.
Those are good things to want. Since we're talking about elections, it's worth mentioning that of the grand total of two options, only democrats have even a slight possibility for them to happen, wheras the Republicans are saying that Gaza should be nuked, which is worse than what's happening right now, I'm sure you'll agree. Which is to say nothing of literally every single other issue where the Rs are universally much worse.
Feel free to appear uncommitted right up until the general, at which point you and everyone else trying to extract concessions needs to show up. And as long as that happens, I'm sorry for implying you're not an adult.
Somehow you scrolled past a dozen comments proving you wrong to lie about it here
Every comment I scrolled past was some form of agreement. The parent to this comment was the first one critical of the OP.
I don't know what else to say. I'm being sincere. I'm not interested in some victory points. I'd like my views to be taken seriously and not flattened to farsical stance. I'd like good faith interactions, but understand that this is a passionate project for many.
I'm open to discussion if you want to engage in one that isn't focused on trying to dunk on your opponent.
Wow, it’s almost like their’s a third candidate running on similar policy changes… Cost of living, environment and improving people’s lives in a meaningful capacity.
Kennedy is an antivax idiot.
2 minutes in and he says he isn’t
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/21/politics/fact-check-rfk-not-anti-vax/index.html?sp_amp_linker=110aexilamp_id*b3BNdlplVHBjcVNTTlVrU0VxSWhsOUNVNThsVG5Qd3dYN1JlbTBUaEhFaks1YWRNNzh5LUZlY1NBWTc2VlhMQQ..
“For many, many years, I think parents were so gaslighted, and they were scapegoated, and they were vilified and marginalized, so that even parents of kids who were very, very badly injured, knew what happened to their kid, but they were just reluctant to talk about it. And I think now those days are over,” Kennedy said.
“We – our job is to resist and to talk about it to everybody. If you’re walking down the street – and I do this now myself, which is, you know, I don’t want to do – I’m not a busybody. I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get him vaccinated.’ And he heard that from me. If he hears it from 10 other people, maybe he won’t do it, you know, maybe he will save that child.”
Kennedy repeated later in the podcast: “If you’re one of 10 people that goes up to a guy, a man or a woman, who’s carrying a baby, and says, ‘Don’t vaccinate that baby,’ when they hear that from 10 people, it’ll make an impression on ‘em, you know. And we all kept our mouth shut. Don’t keep your mouth shut anymore. Confront everybody on it.”
On a different podcast, he said "Every one of us has an obligation to do a civil disobedience every day. And that could just be walking up to another person – a mother who’s carrying a baby, like I did this morning – and saying, ‘Before you vaccinate that baby, do your independent research.’”
So either he changed his mind -- in which case he should very loudly and publicly say he was wrong and recant his remarks -- or he's a fucking liar.
As a potential voter of his. I guess I don’t really care? If I was never allowed to change my opinion, I wouldn’t be able to grow as a person. With his most recent statement, he’s not anti-vaccine. I can find it but I don’t feel like it right now.
Talk is one thing, actions are another. Give the guy a break.
God forbid I have an opinion about Biden’s old age. Another 4 years of inflation out the wazoo, 4 more years of a state sponsored genocide in Gaza, 4 more years giving $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine. We REALLY don’t have ANYTHING else better to spend it on?
I don't know about this candidate in general, but there's no chance anyone outside of the democrat-republican approval filter will get anywhere near the presidency. It's like the myth of "anyone can be rich if they put their mind to it and work hard enough". In theory enough votes could get any candidate the presidency, but in practice it's impossible (with even lower odds than becoming individually rich).
Especially with that attitude.