As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.
Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.
I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.
Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.
Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.
Edit 2: This blew up, it’s a little overwhelming right now but I do intent on replying to everybody that took the time to comment. Just need to get in the right headspace.
4 years ago, Democrats said the border wall was stupid and bad. They said that Republicans were racist for claiming all Mexicans were drug dealers and criminals. Today, Harris is saying she’s gonna build the border wall, be tough on migrants, and has basically adopted Trump’s policies on immigration.
There is no indication that the Democrats will not be just as bad as the Republicans on Israel in 4 years.
To address your second point “not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump”; why isn’t the opposite true? “Not voting for Trump is a vote for Harris”, follows the same logic, so refusing to vote or voting independent should be net neutral, no?
This election should be a slam dunk victory for Harris. The data shows that adopting leftist progressive policies is popular. Biden dropping out resulted in $4 million in small donor fundraising. Picking Walz resulted in another $2 million. People got really excited when it looked like the Democratic party was making leftist progressive movement.
Since then, the Dems have been aggressively moving towards the center. More lethal military, inciting panic about the border, ignoring Palestine. This has resulted in an extremely tight race as people are no longer excited to vote for Harris.
I want Harris to win. Moving leftward politically will attract more voters. Taking a firm stance on stopping the Israeli government’s genocide is a leftist progressive policy. The bag is right there, she just needs to grab it.
The USA has several legally binding treaties etc promising military cooperation with Israel. Harris isn’t allowed to break them legally. Any change to this would have to be passed by the house and senate. So it genuinely doesn’t matter what Harris or anyone else wants.
The US needs to fix their voting system before they can start voting third party. It’s probably even more difficult with Trump
Because they don’t understand that voting is just one part of the democratic process.
My logic (I don’t live in the us but for the sake of argument, let’s pretend I do) is that if a politician can commit a livestreamed genocide, and they win the election, it signals to politicians that there is no line they can cross that will make their campaign unviable.
It would be more ideal if the Democrats could have been punished for their war mongering years ago, but you never punish your representatives for crossing even the most egregious possible line, then you truly don’t have any power over them and have fundamentally given up.
If tommorow, even 10% of the dems indicated in polls that they would not vote for kamala because of gaza, it would force the DNC to take a stronger stance on the issue because the race is too tight. If this had happened many months ago, the Democrats could have been forced in giving concessions. But the Democrat voter base has made sure that the demmocrat party has no need to give concessions. They have used themselves as meat waves to ensure that the genocide can continue smoothly.
US Elections are decided when they do redistricting and manipulate the voting districts to ensure the results they want and isn’t a real democracy. The US is run by oligarchs who run their enterprise corporations and the power is concentrated there, not in the government.
To push her to change her stance… you only own your vote. That’s the only leverage. She is the reason they aren’t voting for her.
Because I live in one of the many many states were my vote doesn’t matter at all.
What’s the point of casting a worthless vote in favor of genocide?
People here act like we live in some kind of actual democracy lol.
Electoral College with First Past The Post electors. Hundreds of millions of american votes are dumpstered for the presidential election. So a significant portion of protest voters in deep red OR deep blue states aren’t impacting the outcome. Only swing states decide the outcome and even then it is only a few districts within those states. And so the electoral outcome for the presidency gets reduced to the most salient wedge issues in those communities.
It just so happens some things are not so localized an issue. So the idea (or one of them) is to demonstrate whether there is a meaningful voting bloc to be had here that deserves to be listened to, or can continue to be ignored.
to put pressure on the US government with regards to the situation in the Middle East
I wonder the same thing, specially since Trump is also pro-Israel and voting for either one wont save Palestine
Removed by mod
2 reasons jump to mind.
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When I listen to people who personally identify with the people of Gaza, it goes way beyond logic. They have a completely emotional reaction. Their choices are almost completely driven by the question of, “Who is doing what, right now?” Questions of, “Who will do what 6 months from now?” take a distant back seat.
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Every time the topic comes up, Democrats dogpile on them and call them morons. People will often respond with something like, “Yeah but that’s OK because they ARE morons.” I won’t argue if that’s true or not but it’s pretty obvious that line of reasoning won’t win a lot of converts.
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people dont seem to see the difference between ending up with a party for which a good chunk of their supporters think that what Israel is doing is a genocide vs ending up with a party for which all of their supporters think not only that what Israel is doing is justified but should also do the same to all middle eastern countries (together with direct USA involvement).
I think there are two major subgroups within this group.
First one is immigrants whose families are from the middle east/Palestine who are rightfully very angry at all the world for doing jack shit about Israel committing genocide. What they have to realize is there are unfortunately only two options going ahead: 1- as it is now, maybe somewhat better in future, or 2- much worse. There is no third option that is going to come out of these elections but one where there is potential for change (potential coming from the supporters mentioned above) vs %100 chance of things going for the worse. Note that I am not talking at all about the candidates themselves at all, just the demographic that generally votes for them.
The second group is probably China or Russia fans who just want to see America suffer by getting Trump elected. These are very short sighted people with whom you cannot really have a coherent conversation with.
European here, stuck in the middle of all this.
Please vote Harris.
The winner of this ellection will be the president of all americans, not just of its supporters.
an election is just a nudge in one direction. real change takes many electoral cycles or a revolution.
If you want to do a revolution please do that on your own time or think long term electoral strategy.
Dont be stupid, be usefull. Even if it hurts.
