OP, per Rule 4, for accessibility reasons, an image of text must either have alt text or a transcript in the post body.
Edit: Counting this as a warning for future posts, OP, but since you might not be here to address this, a transcript in a comment as a lesser substitute:
Bushra Shaikh (@Bushra1Shaikh): How TF did Americans vote the clown in, not once but TWICE.
Readers added context
This creator posted on Election Day 2024: "Punish the democrats for their passive response to the genocide in Palestine. If there ever was a party who should have stood firmly against it, we would’ve assumed the Dems. They proved otherwise. F Kamala Harris. Hope she loses.” [truncated URL to the post here]
I apologize if I’m just being stupid about this, but I take this opportunity to ask: how do we add alt-text to an image on Lemmy? I always add it on Mastodon, but I’ve never figured out how to do it on Lemmy (I use the web interface, maybe it requires a special app?). I’ve seen that others have done it, and I see that it’s a rule here for images of text, which is good. But HOW to do it?
Thanks!
Edit: Thanks everyone for the answers!
images on lemmy are shaped like links, and alt text is supposed to fit in the description, so when completed it looks like this:
Thank you for having and enforcing this rule. It’s appreciated!
I know it’s not a lot, but when I was doing some UI work on PCSX2, I tried the screen reader Orca on Linux to see what a blind person’s experience interacting with the UI was like. It was unusable. There was practically nothing. (Apparently on macOS it was kind of okay, but not because of anything the PCSX2 application was doing correctly.) It was staggering how terrible the experience was; even the tab ordering through the UI elements wasn’t enforced, so the element focus was like a game of connect-the-dots darting around the window. We weren’t using any – even trivial – accessibility functionality in Qt. To this day, I think most of that still needs to be done, as I only managed with my minimal knowledge to fix some low-hanging fruit (which would hopefully have at least helped a little).
What prompted me to try this? PS2 games are such a visual experience, after all. A fan replied to our Mastodon account saying that 1) he was totally blind from birth, 2) he loved playing PS2 games growing up, and 3) his favorite one was OutRun 2006 (yes, the high-speed racing game). This wasn’t a gag; he was visibly blind and detailed his experience. This wasn’t a one-off either; multiple users who note that they’re totally blind in their bio have followed the account. It really humanized something I’d conceptualized generically as something you should do because it’s a good thing to do. The most succinct way to put the lesson I was smacked in the face with was: “If you build it, they will come.”
That is, I know for sure that it’s not just a formality when I enforce it.
o7
I remember arguing for days, in 2024, that the whole “Democrats are bad because Palestine” thing was clearly a psyop by Russian bots trying to mess with the election. I really need to improve my persuasion skills. Like by a lot.
Pretty sure Democrats doing nothing to stop the genocide in gaza was a factor to their detriment in the election, bots aside
Even knowing that Trump was going to actively help Bibi? That’s the thing I didn’t understand: sure, the Democrats were not doing much to stop the slaughter, but from the previous Trump administration we knew Trump was going to actively help.
Ok, but you see how massively demoralizing this conversation is, right?
Making logical points weighing up two distinct yet similar stances on genocide is only going to suppress voter turnout.
It shouldn’t. It’s basic harm reduction.
One side probably won’t stop it, but they’re on our side so there’s a sliver of a cintilla of a chance we could pressure them into it.
The other side absolutely would not, vocally stated he would help accelerate it, and would laugh in our faces and do even more to accelerate it for no other reason than it made us mad.
The choice should have been obvious, even if I and everyone else would have preferred better options.
The very fact that the Trolley Problem exists as a thought experiment and there is still active discourse over the correct solution should tell you why people didn’t all feel that they had a responsibility to vote for harm reduction. You can’t expect an election that resembles a famously divisive philosophical thought experiment to turn out with everyone arriving at the same conclusion, and it’s pointless to dwell on the fact that everyone didn’t fall in line with what you think is obvious rather than adjusting to the reality and acting accordingly. That means getting candidates elected in primaries that aren’t going to put us in the same trolley problem come time for the general.
If every election is a decision between the lesser of two evils and both evils become more evil over time then harm isn’t actually reduced in the long run. This is why harm reduction is a failing long term electoral strategy.
See people aren’t exclusively machines.
I know people who felt that both sides at least tacitly supporting the genocide was so depressing that for their mental health they basically checked out of politics.
No, that response isn’t helpful, but it’s a very real thing that happens to real people. They needed a candidate that cared that people’s lives were ending across the sea, and neither side offered that.
That hurt Kamala’s chances in a very real way, and might even be the deciding factor for Trump’s second term.
While you and I can look at this and go “Wow, that’s not logical, she’s way better than Trump”, the Democratic campaign should have had political scientists and psychologists that knew about this well-documented phenomenon. I imagine they did, and ignored it, because siding against Israel would’ve cost money.
So while it’s true that the choice was still objectively obvious, it’s also completely true that the Democratic campaign absolutely mishandled it, because this isn’t some new phenomenon, and group human psychology isn’t unpredictable. It’s also not the fault of those who didn’t vote because of that.
Yeah, the choice was bad or worse, and people chose worse. Life sucks sometimes, they need to grow up.
I don’t want to cut off this gangrene foot because it will be unpleasant. Let’s just wait it out and see what what happens.
This was never a difficult decision and the ones that thought it was are fundamentally simple people.
Palestine is where Leopards Ate My Face meets Meanwhile On Grad. The two extremes have a common goal of destroying the country. MAGAts are shocked that Republicans are getting us into another war in the Middle East and the country is going hell. Gradbots are so pissed off with the the Democrat’s (“blue maga”) lack of spine against Israel that they want to burn the country to the ground in vengeance.
If your memory can last more than seven seconds, burning America to the ground starts to seem pretty reasonable.
Burning the US down would be doing the world a favor
Yes, I can see that it would be demoralizing, and it was demoralizing. The Schumer/Biden wing of the Democrats deserves to be cast into the bonfire of the vanities, they are completely useless. And while this might sound sarcastic, I truly believe they have ended their usefulness, if they ever had much.
But we are talking about human beings and their lives. It may not make much of a philosophical difference to compare different stances on this senseless slaughter, but it makes eminently practical sense to save the lives you can. An American Presidential election was not going to produce much of a genocide-stopping president in 2024, and I hope 2028 does better, but there were distinct differences in approach and stance and collaboration with Bibi.
Case in point, look up “Gaza floating pier,” vs. “Trump Gaza resort.” it’s not about philosophical differences when you are starving.
the floating pier from day one was to have israeli guards at the end of it. It was a pretend situation where Israel could have instead just opened one gate into gaza instead for the exact same effect. Its a transparent and idiotic PR game and always was, and evidently you fell for it. Or you’re pushing the same braindead propoganda narrative with a straight face. How was the pier any different than a gate on land?
Fuck demoralizing. People made a conscious choice to screw the United States for ar least 3 more years…all because they were “demoralized”. So how bad are they depressed right now? “I’M DEMORALIZED…SO I’LL DO SOMETHING THAT WILL MAKE IT EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.” Here in the south, we call that “short bus thinking”. Yeah, I called those people the terrible R word…maybe I’ll take it back when they stop acting that way. And I don’t give a fuck. They fucked up. They can own it or cry into their lattes. I REALLY don’t give a fuck about their whining.
Your shitty system will always produce fascism as long as you don’t hold the slightly less fascist party accountable. Last election the dems threw immigrants and palestinians under the bus in the name of ‘appeasing the center’ next election it will be trans people that will lose all political support and some time afterwards the dems will fold on womens rights in their stupid attempt to become the republicans lite edition.
Uhh trans people lost support last election. Or were you not paying attention to all the anti-trans legislation coming out.
Not doing much to stop it is a weird way of saying actively helping it.
I see you too are actively helping it then. It’s your own words!
Yeah buddy I wasn’t saying not actively working against it was helping it. I meant literally helping it. That Administration was actively arming the Israelis and aiding in the genocide. Super weird that you didn’t know that.
Ok then tell me this, did Bibi like Biden? Did he want Biden to win? Did he think Biden let him do all he wanted? What did Biden say about Bibi in return?
Then you can look at things like Republicans voting to force continued sales of weapons
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/us/politics/house-bill-reverse-israel-arms-pause.html
Meanwhile; https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5429072-sanders-resolution-fails-israel-military/
Tell me what Biden could’ve done that wouldn’t amount to starting a war?
You’re such a ghoul, actively helping people like Musk and Miller and ensuring Trump won’t put up obstacles for Israel murdering people in Lebanon and Iran. Because it’s more important to you that people get martyred against their will for your personal ideological purity. You knew the genocide would get worse if Trump won and you decided that would be better
Pretty trivially easy question. Biden could have done a lot of things – vetoed funding and stopped running interference for Israel in the UN. And he could have called it a genocide and illegal on the world stage. Biden refused to call it a genocide. He could have called for an international force to stop the killing. He also flew recon missions for the Israelis with US drones over Gaza didnt he.
And “starting a war”? with who, Israel? Are you stupid? That war would last 5 minutes. Biden took massive amounts of money from AIPAC his entire career, and called himself a zionist all the time. Your pretending he had no choice and was simply a victim of circumstance is pure lies. He was massively bribed. A corrupt peice of shit genocide supporter. He would absolutely lose his case and be imprisoned if the US had done the right thing and signed onto the ICC. He belongs in an orange jumpsuit, sharing a cell with trump.
Its illegal to send weapons or money to a country that is committing genocide. Biden could have simply said he cannot legally support Israel in any way and then just not. Instead Biden chose to lie for Israel aboiut 40 beheaded babies and provide unlimited diplomatic support, going so far as to bomb Yemen for resisting.
Democratic leadership knew this would decrease turnout, they prioritized unlimited support for Israel over winning the election.
Which is a fucking stupid line for people to draw when the opposition was advertising that they would actively do more in a worse way.
In terms of any actual metric, Biden was as bad if not worse than Trump in Gaza, but because BlueMAGA were engaging in mass genocide denial when it was their team doing it, they don’t realise
Who started a war with iran? Who went into another country and kidnapped their leader? Who is blowing up random boats in the carribean? Who bowed to north korean generals?
No biden os nowhere close to trump. Youre being willfully ignorant on this
I can’t fathom how any of those people thought Trump would consider Palestine anything but a future golf course. It’s been annihilated as a country and a people under Trump.
Those people were too busy cranking their own holier-than-thou hogs to consider it. Which is why they’re confused (see OP) and retreating to their FSB-designed playbook.
There is no justification for supporting genocide
Agreed. And look - double extra genocide now. So. What did we learn.
There’s nothing double or extra, it’s just affecting you at all now which is the only thing you actually give a shit about
Well, no and you’re wrong, and wrong again, so probably best to wrap it up there.
Anything’s possible when you make shit up kiddo
Or maybe we should demand politicians who aren’t genocidal? I’m not a Russian bot, I just refuse to follow the same bullshit “vote blue no matter who” harm reduction narrative that just leads to infinitely more harm in the long run.
The car is already skidding on the ice. Saying “we should have taken the subway” is not useful at that point in time.
We’ll still be skidding in 2028, and 2032, and 2036, and 2040, and so on. Picture yourself in 2044 making this same argument. Now we’re arguing about Hitler (D) who wants to put trans people in prison, and Hitler ® who wants to put trans people in death camps. Both candidates are willing to launch a nuclear weapon in behalf of Israel. The car is already skidding, it’s too late to change things. If you don’t vote for Hitler (D), then you’re letting Hitler ® win.
Flash back to 2026. “Vote blue no matter who” just means democrats don’t have to appeal to leftists at all. In order to win, they just need to appeal to the right. Let’s force them to appeal to the left instead.
No. Voting in big elections is not the only action you take. This is a conflict with multiple fronts. You need to organize, talk to people, use every option.
Just abandoning the electoral front in this conflict is stupid
Voting in big elections is not the only action you take.
When did I say that it is? Please organize. Please vote in primaries. Do use every option. And also, force the Democratic party to understand that they have to appeal to leftists to get leftist votes, even when a conservative democrat wins a primary.
Is there any possible way to disagree with you that you won’t read as a Russian bot trying to undermine democracy?
It’s such a thought-terminating cliche that anyone can use to dismiss any criticism. I could just as easily say that you’re a DNC bot. Like, fuck critical thinking, I guess.
Why, of course there is! I certainly went from an early stance of “Israel is just defending itself from a terrorist attack” to “Alright, what they are doing to the civilian population in Gaza is clearly genocidal.” Then I went on to include what the “settlers” are doing in the West Bank with tacit sanction of the government under the same genocidal umbrella.
If the thesis is, “There was no attempt by Russian bots to sway public support of Palestinian civilians against the Democrats,” you’d have a hard time convincing me.
If the thesis is, “GenZ was well-informed about the plight of Palestinians before TikTok told them to look into it and shaped their opinion,” also unlikely to convince me.
If the thesis is, “There was no attempt by Russian bots to sway public support of Palestinian civilians against the Democrats,” you’d have a hard time convincing me.
There are bots out there trying to convince everyone of everything. That in no way means that you get to dismiss everyone voicing a particular viewpoint as being a bot.
If the thesis is, “GenZ was well-informed about the plight of Palestinians before TikTok told them to look into it and shaped their opinion,” also unlikely to convince me.
And you believe that the thing that changed was bots and not video evidence of genocide?
Give up pursuing anyone of any argument these days. You’re better off calling them a dickhead and blocking them. That’s what I do now.
Fuck nonvoters and third party voters.
Yeah. I didn’t handle that well myself. But in all likelihood people were not going to change their minds anyway. It’s like trying to speak English to a duck.
This was all over Lemmy, too, along with all the other social media platforms.
It pretty much disappeared everywhere the instant trump won, as well as the complaints about grocery prices and the lies about gas prices.
The exception was lemmy, prob thanks to hex, grad, and ml, where people still find the time to randomly inject democrat hate.
That’s because it was a push by foreign propaganda campaigns to influence the US election. Israel and Russia both had a vested interest in having Trump win.
Or it could be that the Democrats are so unpopular that a billion dollars can’t win them an election. No, you’re right, it’s because of Russia the Democrats failed to communicate their platform effectively.
It’s both. The Democrats are incompetent, but it’s also true that Russia used their vast propaganda network to influence the election. This isn’t exactly some secret.
Anyone who had a problem with genocide must be a russian. That’s the only possible explanation.
Jesus christ you’re disingenuous as fuck. That’s clearly not what I said
Okay, so:
- Voting Democrat in the general election is the choice with (edited in: the) least horrible consequences and
- Voting Democrat in the general election isn’t nearly enough to stop the ratchet-effecting into fascism, and a stand-for-nothing placeholder centrist Democrat president in 2028 will probably just lead to Trump-3/Vance/someone similarly horrible in 2032
are unfortunately both true.
Also, non-MAGA Americans - (EDIT: liberals, not the party leaders) and leftists alike - need better people skills. With infighting like this, Republicans hardly even need to lift a finger.
Voting Democrat in the general election isn’t nearly enough to stop the ratchet-effecting into fascism, and a stand-for-nothing placeholder centrist Democrat president in 2028 will probably just lead to Trump-3/Vance/someone similarly horrible in 2032
I mean, we could also just vote for a Democrat in 2032 and not have fascism. Or, we could defeat fascism in the United States if the left would just get up off it’s ass and DO SOMETHING instead of just complaining like they always do.
I’m serious. What the hell has the left actually done in this country to change anything, to stop fascism, to defeat capitalisim? Where are the collectives so I can get a job without having to go to a soul sucking corporation? Where are the “citizen patrols” so we don’t need to rely on fascist police to protect people? When somebody loses their job where’s the help, the support structure? When someone gets evicted and their house gets stolen by the bank what are the leftists doing about it? Where’s the alternatives to “the system” you all say you’re going to undermine but never actually do? This is all stuff that I’ve literally been hearing from the left my entire life, where the hell is it? Is it ever going to actually happen? I haven’t seen shit from “the left” in this country except a bunch of stupid youtube videos about how the latest blockbuster movie or YA novel doesn’t have enough representation in it or how celebrity/politician/CEO XYZ is bad so you better not support them/listen to their music/read their latest book else you’re supporting [insert bad thing here.] You understand me not playing a video game or watching a TV show becasue someone bigoted was involved in it’s creation changes nothing, right? You understand standing around holding a sign blocking traffic isn’t going to change anything, right? None of that virtue signaling shit matters, except to make yourself feel good. You know what actually CAN change things? You know what actually CAN defeat fascim? Voting. But we can’t even get the left to get up off it’s ass and do that every four years.
So you don’t like Democrats? Would the president of Venezuela been kidnapped if Kamala were president? Would ICE be out in the street busting down doors and sending people to death prisions in Columbia? Would ICE be straight up running people over and shooting them? Would Elon Musk and his band of dipshits have gutted the social safety nets so millions of kids starve to death? Would bombs be murdering entire families in Iran right now? The answer to these questions is “NO,” and anyone who thinks otherwise is part of the problem.
So please, don’t give me this shit about how voting democrats somehow “enables fascism” because that’s a load of B.S. 100 years ago it was LEFTISTS who made this country better. Because of LEFTISTS we have a 40 hour work week, and an 8 hour work day. LEFTISTS stopped child labor. LEFTISTS passed anti-corruption laws. LEFTSIST broke up the trusts, smashed monopolies, and stopped greedy corporations from spewing thier shit into the water and air. 100 years ago LEFTISTS got up off their asses and made the country a better place. And how did they do it? BY VOTING. Because protesting doesn’t change things, making tik tok videos that critique mainstream media doesn’t change things, throwing cans of soup at the Mona Lisa doesn’t change things - LAWS change things. And you pass laws by voting.
You don’t want to vote? Then don’t. But don’t give me this bullshit about how it doesn’t do anything, because it does. It’s the only god damned thing that actually changes things.
What the hell has the left actually done in this country to change anything, to stop fascism, to defeat capitalisim?
Well, the 5-day workweek and the end of child labor, to start.
Lol, you mean those things that I literally mention in my post? Yeah like I said they did accomplish that, 100 years ago. Back when leftists actually, you know, voted.
What has the left actually accomplished, say in the last 30 years?Elevating Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately, your party cannot tolerate leftwing populism because it threatens the capitalist oligarchs (or “campaign donors”, I think is their preferred language) who own them, so they rigged their primaries to guarantee his loss, coalesced around an already-half-senile racist creep, and paved the way for the rise of rightwing populism as an inevitable response to the material reality that neoliberalism has failed the population.
Aside from that, the left has coordinated a very organized response to ICE terror across the country while mainstream liberals show up once every few months for No Kings protests which have no specific demands except to request Trump stop being something he already is not. They have also contributed significantly towards changing public opinion on the genocidal Zionazi regime, to the point where more Americans now sympathize with Palestinians than their occupiers, while your party continued funding the occupation and genocide and praised the police who beat nonviolent student protestors working towards that end.
The legalization of cannabis can’t be solely attributed to leftists, but they certainly contributed to that accomplishment as well. And the decriminalization of psychedelics even moreso.
Now let’s flip the question on you. What have the Democrats actually accomplished in the last 30 years?
Yeah so I asked “What has the left actually accomplished” not “what ineffectual actions are they doing to stop fascim after it’s already taken power.”
The legalization of cannabis can’t be solely attributed to leftists, but they certainly contributed to that accomplishment as well. And the decriminalization of psychedelics even moreso.
So those things were decriminalized by passing laws, correct? Kinda sounds like something you have to be politically active and vote for. Or do laws magically just pass when you stand around in the street with a cardboard sign?
Now let’s flip the question on you. What have the Democrats actually accomplished in the last 30 years?
Well, there was that thing you tried to take credit for, which is legalizing marijuana. We can also add legalizing gay marriage on top of that, those are two things that come to mind.
ok Blue MAGA, you do your thing
I’m just sick of people trying to blame me for the actions of the people I voted against when they themselves were too lazy to turn out and do the absolute minimum to combat fascism
If I can chose between certain defeat and possible defeat in 4 years, I chose the latter.
I agree - voting Democrat in the general election is the choice with the least horrible consequences. But it’s not enough.
This is what will keep happening if the Dems election strategy remains “if you don’t vote for us you get that asshole”. And use them as an excuse not to do anything.
Get the F off of x.
Plenty of people on lemmy saying the same exact things too. It’s crazy.
I voted for her but if they put Gavin newsom, I don’t know if I can care anymore.
If it was a race between Gavin Newsom and JD Vance I’d vote Newsom in an instant.
It’s not going to be JD. Mark my words, save my comment, it’s going to be Tucker Carlson. And if that happens and Dems haven’t changed their tune we are absolutely fucked.
I agree but it’s like asking “where would you like to be stabbed?”
For any Democrat trying to “move to the center” I’d like to point towards Labour in UK and ask them how that’s going.
Thankfully 2028 is a political lifetime away and Newsom might not even be relevant.
Labour UK has been kind of astounding to watch. They started strong then somewhere around six months in it started to get wonky. And now it’s like some sort of Labourexit. Bizarre. But I guess that’s why the Greens are growing.
Newsom would do good things for the country and the world just like Harris or even Biden 2.0 would have.
Newsom would tell the base to fuck off while funding ICE and war, guaranteeing republican victories in 2030 and 32. He would be a Biden 2.0.
Biden did a lot of great things during his time as president and it’s a testament to the failing american education system and the right-wing propaganda machine how people couldn’t see it.
He also enabled genocide in Palestine and set the stage for Trump to win
All in all, a net negative to the world.
Dumb shit americans voting Trump or third party brought Trump into power.
I hate that guy, but hate cannot make Me act against My own interests. Well it can a little bit, especially in fast moving situations. But it can’t do it with big decisions like My vote.
Yea, but from all his talks and bills I don’t trust him to not be against queer people. So in a way they both will be against my own interests.
He will be more against queer people than whoever the Republicans put forth? Really?
If candidate A wants you to hide your queerness and use the wrong bathroom, and candidate B wants to force you to be straight or go to jail or a conversion camp, are you really going to throw your hands up in the air and say it’s not worth voting?
Voting for someone does not mean you support everything they stand for. It just means you think they are the best option of what has been laid before you.
Voting for someone does not mean you support everything they stand for.
I’ve seen what centrists do when they don’t get their very first choice. They campaigned against Mamdani and formed a PAC to get McCain elected.
“Option A is really, really bad for me. But I’m not sure if option B wouldn’t be somewhat bad, too. So I will just watch and let option A happen.”
— You, and millions of other propaganda victims helping fascists win
I’m getting pretty tired of voting for the ‘slightly less bad’ blue fascists, though.
No one’s arguing voting Dem is a magical cure-all. Your local Dem will not be 100% aligned with your worldview (unless it’s you in office).
But 65% is more than -200%. A shit-ton of so-called “lefties” cannot do basic math.
But 65% is more than -200%.
Nah, it’s more like “-40% is more than -200%”
Still headed toward fascism and abuse … just a bit slower.
We’re in a car heading toward a cliff, and we have a choice of whether to hit the gas or the brakes. But the brakes are really shitty and can only slow us down slightly – no way they’ll stop in time.
So instead we hit the gas or do nothing…really?
Your local Dem will not be 100% aligned with your worldview (unless it’s you in office).
Biden and trump supported genocide, so they supported 100% of everything you’ve ever been.
The 65% brings us further right so the Republicans can be more evil.
Does it.
No. Stop being wrong.
Single issue voting is how fascists win.
Voting is how fascists win.
This won’t be fixed by voting. It never could have been and it never will be.
Voting is how fascists win.
I’m just quoting the stupidest thing I’ve read this week for posterity.
Am I wrong?
Well, I don’t know here, let’s fucking use a brain cell or two.
Arguably, sure, facists win because people vote for them.
And do you know how facists lose? PEOPLE VOTE FOR NOT-FASCISTS.
So what you said was true and also the most useless fucking worthless statement I’ve read all week.
After all, the entire fucking point here is STOP VOTING FOR FASCISTS.
The English language has an nice expression for that: “cut off your nose to spite your face”
Both can be true. How TF we have 4 years to produce a candidate against trump, and the best we got was walking corpse Biden 2.0 and then Kamala “I’m speaking while your homeland is genocided” Harris.
americans when politics take up more than 1 bit:
Leftists love to abandon a candidate they mostly agree with as long as there’s one single issue that doesn’t align perfectly.
they mostly agree with
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.
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.
who wants to kill half the Palestinians
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.
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.
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.
this garbage again. now it’s voter fault that they forced a superpac shill who told the voters to stfu while bombing kids in refugee camp and let megacorps fck working class. this time they didn’t even bothered with a sham primary like hillary or biden.
all mainstream dems other than aoc, warren and bernie are still spitting on its base. has harris or dem leadership done one thing to change their stance or support its people after election ?
keep voting lesser evil and you will keep getting two faced snakes with better propaganda.
Why are you whining about these shitlibs who won’t change their view? You won’t get centrist Democrats moving to you. You need to replace these people through primaries.
Is that the excuse not to vote, if you’re in that country? So you got something to whine about?
Aren’t there primaries going on now? If so and you haven’t, why aren’t you voting for or helping out your chosen candidate, one who isn’t a shitlib?
did i say anything about not voting in primaries ? harris didn’t even get 1000 votes in 2020 primaries and was made vp in place of warren who came third with 3 million votes. what primaries were there in 24 ? its interesting that close to midterms we are again seeing this “lesser evil” jargon to sell garbage candidates backed by aipac and dnc elites
i am voting all the primaries, but i am not voting for some trash like newsom even if he wins in 28 primaries by 99%. instead of palantir and oracle like trump, he will be killing working class for all the ai parasites like openai and meta.
did I say anything…
You said sham, which indicates by proxy a lack of desire to participate.
harris didn’t get…was made vp…
Yes, I said shitlibs won’t change. Primaries have nothing to do with who gets picked as VP. They’re there for you to put who you want in as runner. Works well enough for the other team.
What primaries…
None, shitlibs.
Its interesting…
Really? Why are you surprised? Fun fact: this has been going on for a long, long time. Why? Because the people don’t vote in numbers, not do they understand their system well enough to get it to work for them.
You know who does? Yep, Republicans. They do this time in time out and religiously. They don’t piss and moan about this candidate or that; they vote the nutbag in at primary time then follow up. They do, not whinge.
I am voting all the primaries
Good, if you and enough others do it, you should get your candidate.
but I am not voting for some trash line Newsom
Who is better than Trump, if he’s the candidate and you don’t nothing changes and your system allows no other approach. You will be letting your country down again.
instead of palantir and trump
If you think Newsom is as bad as Trump you’re outright stupid.
“this time sham” meant the 24 primaries where the democratic candidate was selected for us based on the most obedient pet for superpacs and israel.
as for other points, i dont give a shit what republicans do. if a candidate doesn’t meet the minimum standards, no one should be voting for them. we will never get a candidate like obama or sanders ever again if we keep voting snakes painted in fake blue color. and sooner or later they will as bad as red snakes. or worse
dnc elites only stopped whining about mamdani during the primaries when it became clear its helping him as most nyc voters hated them as much as republicans
the 24 primaries
Didn’t happen because the incumbent was originally running. That only changed because it became apparent he’d get flogged.
The ones who did have primaries were Republicans, though they all pulled out when…it became apparent who they’d all vote for. Hmm.
I don’t give a shit what Republicans do
I would. They school you pretty much every election, both the centrists and the left.
Sanders
Was an independent and never getting their support.
Obama
Is a centrist and not that much better than Harris so I’m not sure where you’re headed with that. That said, Obama was a very good president. I have no doubt Harris would have at least been better than Trump and here’s the kicker…there’d certainly be no war and there’d be a peace process underway in Gaza.
sooner or later they will be as bad as red snakes
I hear this a lot but have yet to see it come to fruition, as tepid as they are
DNC elites
Never stopped whining about Mamdani until the last gasp, so much so, one ran against him. They don’t change and you will not drag them to it. You’ll kill your country trying though.
I love how you call others shitlibs. Yikes, you’re like king of the liberals. Zero understanding of politics, just parroting terms you don’t understand.
they sure are using alot of indian “accounts” to push propaganda, guessing russian ones are to obvious.
It’s a fundamental flaw with the 2-party system. There are no good options, only a “lesser evil” option.
Yes, so vote for the lesser evil.
The primaries is where you try to get your candidate to the general election. Vote for your chosen choice here, and then vote against the fucking Nazi party during the general election. It’s really not hard.
People who sat out this last election are worse than trump supporters. They knew how bad trump was, and decided not to take a stand against him.
The party doesn’t offer good candidates in primaries, either. The only people I’ve found actually worthy of my vote have been from the DSA, PSL, or Greens. This is why the Dems will never support ranked choice voting, it totally destroys their ability to siphon political power from the left.
And trump voters knew how bad he was and decided to support him, i dont think you understand how fucked up in the head trump voters are
Kamala Harris would have won the election had she not become best buddies with Dick Cheney and his daughter. All she had to do was to criticise Biden’s mistakes, and promise to do better.
Trump didn’t win. Democracts gifted the election to Trump.
Democrats will go to court and argue that they have the right to interfere with the will of the people in primaries. They will protect incumbent centrists like Henry Cuellar but not incumbent progressives like Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. They will sue to make sure no challenger appears on the ballot in all 50 states. They will appoint a candidate no one but genocidal centrists like at the last moment without a primary.
Then they’ll say shit like “The primaries is where you try to get your candidate to the general election. Vote for your chosen choice here”
Because and only because they like how the primary system is rigged in favor of the genocidal shit they like.
They will say “No Kings” and issue blanket pardons to the guilty.
All true. And still, if one is a fucking adult, one can see that the GOP is now, quite literally, a facist party, and the Dems are still orders of magnitude less harmful. Once one is in that voting booth, one votes against the much worse party even if the alternative is still bad. I don’t care one criticizes the party up to the election, and swears up and down one didn’t vote Dem, or even lies and says they didn’t afterwards, one still votes Dem or they are simply demonstrating that they have enough privilege or insulation to ride out a fascist administration without much difficulty.
I’d be very curious to see how many of you vote for someone who killed your entire family. Hey, you may even have the opportunity to by the time Trump dies and federal Dems expect you to pretend that they did anything to stop this.
Edit: I’m gonna leave this here in case any of you bloodthirsty libs think that you actually care about anyone’s wellbeing. Imagine hearing news every week – maybe even every day – of your cousins dying, your siblings, your parents, your neighbours, people who you spoke to once and remember fondly, everything about your home destroyed in the most brutal and violent way imaginable; some of them died slowly, trapped under rubble for days. Then, you can’t stomach to support or even tolerate the people who haven’t even stopped bombing and sniping and gassing your family, and some fucking privileged assholes in the metropole blame you when their white supremacist state elects one of two white supremacists. Almost inhuman levels of dissonance.
Look at this and say why you think these people don’t deserve to hate you and the system you benefit from.
I’d be very curious to see how many of you vote for someone who killed your entire family.
Well, gosh, I dunno, let’s say Democrats killed your whole family. So you have a choice: One party that killed your whole family, or another party that… also killed your whole family.
I guess it makes no difference! Except all the fucking other ways it does, AND that’s if we accept that on that issue both parties are the same, which they are not (although it’s one of the places centre-right Dems fucking suck, yes).
One of my children hits me with an open fist from time to time, the other one uses a knife. I think I’ll take the kid that only uses their fist over the one that uses the knife. Or some stupid analogy.
Oh, you don’t like either of those? Then act where it matters to make change! Primaries, run for office, support other candidates. But when it comes to voting between fist and knife, I’ll vote fist every fucking time.
This argument is fucking infuriating because all of the asshats voting against our best interests are harming all of us. Yes, it sucks, but you have to take the best option at every fucking level, or you get even worse. Like we are now.
Wow, you wrote all of that and didn’t think for a moment, “maybe my best interests are worse for others.” This is what zero material or systemic analysis does to your worldview. You think all of those people are just what, stupid? Too stupid yo know they should make decisions in your best interest regardless of how much the system that you benefit from has ruined their life? You’re the big smarty pants for acknowledging that these two genocidal parties have different tactics? How fucking delusional.
Maybe extend a sliver of empathy --if you have even that much to spare --and consider how someone would feel to know they are supporting the same people that used sniper drones to pick off their little brother or their father or their mother or the fucking nice neighbour they grew up with. Maybe they don’t care if it hurts them individually to exercise some sort of control over the people that killed their family. Maybe, they think they don’t deserve to suffer the consequences of that system while the metropole lives in comfort.
People don’t have to behave the way you want, and especially do not have to behave in a way that benefits you, understanding why is more important than pretending that there’s a few people who make this fundamentally genocidal system “worse.”
“Scratch a liberal, and a fascist bleeds.”
Wow, you wrote all of that and didn’t think for a moment, “maybe my best interests are worse for others.”
Yes, my best interests like universal healthcare, universal basic income, human rights, not invading other countries, not supporting genocide… or what did you have in mind that you’d like to accuse me of?
You think all of those people are just what, stupid?
Well, yes. To borrow from another reply in here, when the option is BAD or WORSE you choose BAD every fucking time.
You’re the big smarty pants for acknowledging that these two genocidal parties have different tactics? How fucking delusional.
I’m sorry you fail at comprehension. I guess you’re not a big smart pants.
Maybe extend a sliver of empathy
Fuck off, this is a false accusation.
and consider how someone would feel t
Again, you can’t be bothered to comprehend anything I wrote.
Just… fuck off, I’m not going to bother when you don’t bother reading.
Very juvenile way to respond (even when ignoring how foolish it is to claim any federal politician in the US hasn’t supported genocide or that healthcare in the United States in any way benefits the targets of its genocides).
You don’t have to make it public to actually reflect on the consequences of how you think. “You’re dumb and I don’t like what my words mean,” is not really the words of a person who I’d trust to vote in my best interests, anyway. Guess I can say you deserve whatever liberalism throws at you too.
You may be more polite, but everything you’ve said is fucking ignorant. Congrats.
I don’t know how you could interpret this as, “polite.” I’m telling you that your worldview is genocidal. If I’m ignorant, please, tell me how you know what you know. I’d love to hear the decolonial scholars that you’ve engaged with so that I can be cured of my moral degeneracy.
When you can’t even comprehend basic things and try to put things into my mouth I certainly didn’t say, I really don’t see the point, and I should have bailed on you much sooner, I’m just tired of people claiming to not want the fascists to win and yet doing things that help the fascists win.
“Scratch a liberal, and a fascist bleeds.”
What country do you vote in?
Is this question meant to suggest I’m like, from the country of origin of this phrase? No Euro theorists allowed? Or is it that I’m meant to be somehow unaware of the practical conditions in the US by merit of ever suggesting that liberalism is not a practical solution?
Are you a US voter, yes or no. It’s a simple question.
This question isn’t the gotcha you think it is.
So that’s a no then.
