this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
662 points (100.0% liked)

World News

45154 readers
3477 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 month ago (10 children)

It's kinda fascinating how every single comment section about another Trump news is filled with folks dogging on a minority who voted third-party and not the, what was it, third of the country (?) who didn't vote at all.

Do you all really think that those who trully didn't vote because of the Palestine would somehow change the final outcome? Were they that numerous?

This is a genuine question, I'm not trying to be snarky.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Given the highly political atmosphere of Lemmy, I have the impression that most users vote hard. Most in the liberal side were vocal about their desire to vote Kamala to prevent *gestures broadly* from happening. However, users from the tankie instances, amounting to a third of lemmy, regularly decried the democrat option, instead urging protest votes or abstention.

The world isn’t lemmy, lemmy is lemmy. And lemmy has plenty people to clown on for actively choosing this.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Vote hard? The 'liberal' side was worried about gestures broadly at what's actually happening in reality right this very moment. Lemmy isn't an island, it's a megaphone.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Full ballot, urging others to do the same.

Dude, this is a trans-positive communist Linux forum. We are far from representative of society at large. Lemmy is as much a megaphone as my mouth is a cup. Take a sip, if you dare.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Take a sip, if you dare.

Don't threaten me with a good time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I guess we know where you stand then.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not just lemmy, it's something I've seen on other sites as well as traditional media (repeated by news anchors, commentators and even politicians). It's just weird to me that the focus is on such a small number of voters instead of those who simply didn't care enough/were prevented from voting/weren't successfully convinced by the democrats.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It might be different elsewhere but I can only speak to what I see on lemmy, and it seems appropriate here. I don’t check out other sites or watch the news enough to notice their talking points, so I can’t speak on that. I do know that I saw similar calls for protest voting in 2016, and they left a strong negative impression on me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Understandable, it just seems like a wider sentiment based on my limited exposure to this topic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Irl, I do see hear complaints about non-voters. Fewer of them on lemmy, where words were aimed mostly at voter disenfranchisement efforts, but I did see them during the election.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I'm not from or in the US which is why my question was mostly about what I've seen online and some media snippets. I have no idea about IRL sentiment, though I assume it varies like with everything.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago (1 children)

America has a FTTP voting system, so time has distilled its presidential election into to 2 real choices. This was one, and the milquetoast status quo party is the other. By that merit, not voting for one party helps the other party, though not as much as voting for the opposite. In our case, the opponent of the milquetoast party is the crypto Nazi party.

I'm not the other person you replied to, but personally I think there was a clear choice between the two candidates in regard to which one was better for the Palestinians given their track records. Granted, maybe not good enough in these voters opinions, given that they enabled a genocide in the first place and refused to swiftly correct that action.

Besides billionaires and straight, white, conservative, "Christian" men, I honestly don't know who benefits from a Trump/Musk presidency as compared to a Harris/Walz presidency.

I get that democrats weren't good enough, they rarely are in my opinion either, but I do consider them better than this. And yep, she and Biden enabled a genocide, no argument there. I even empathize with those that feel adamant that either we have justice all, or justice for none. But I think we are a little frustrated that in the fatalistic protest, Kamala's opponents ensured the doom of not just Palestinians, but women, LGBT+ folk, and likely many more.

But hey, price of eggs and all too, right?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Frankly I'm getting sick and tired of every story about Gaza being filled with smug comments blaming everything on liberal Lemmy members. Biden was a shit candidate who was losing badly before Gaza ever happened. Harris was a golden opportunity to pivot the Biden campaign into something that stood a chance of winning and instead Harris ran on a campaign of "I'm exactly like Biden but a little younger" which is the most gobsmackingly stupid decision of a political campaign in at least a couple decades.

Harris didn't lose because of Palestine. I mean it didn't fucking help, but there were plenty of other reasons she lost. So can we please stop with all the annoying smug "are you happy with what you did?" comments? It's getting really fucking old.

Now for what I actually wanted to say.

Besides billionaires and straight, white, conservative, "Christian" men, I honestly don't know who benefits from a Trump/Musk presidency as compared to a Harris/Walz presidency.

Only billionaires are benefiting. Straight, white, conservative, Christian or even men, none of those groups in any combination is benefiting. They may not be getting shafted as hard as others are, but only billionaires are going to see anything even remotely positive out of this.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Sorry hearing "We told ya so" is so irritating to you. The collective focus will shift over time.

You're right, Harris absolutely lost because she wasn't good enough. But yeah, people are going to remind you that the alternative is worse, so that hopefully we can avoid this if there ever is a next time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Kamala didn't lose because of Palestine. She lost because DNC centrism has been a political dead end since at least 2012. 2020 was the anomaly; Trump only lost because of Covid.

Centrists are just using the Palestine issue as a scapegoat for their own failures. Kamala/Biden was doomed long before Palestine.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But yeah, people are going to remind you that the alternative is worse, so that hopefully we can avoid this if there ever is a next time.

The thing is though that I don't think anyone doesn't already know that. The people who legitimately didn't vote for Harris in the general election won't care because they'll say "I didn't vote for Trump either, so it's not my fault" and no amount of everyone telling them it is or explaining the reality of our terrible first past the post system is going to change that. You're basically preaching to the choir here and it's frankly nothing but a distraction from addressing the real and pressing issue of the white nationalist fascists literally seizing power right now. The thousandth "told ya so" post isn't doing anything more than the last 990 did besides stroking your own ego.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, it's also part of the discourse in social media, too. The person I replied to actually asked for the opinion related to those who share the same sentiment as I do. In this instance, it is kinda on you that you kept reading the thread.

Though I would agree that the overall focus should be on what we do from here. And to that, I'd like to see some form of organized community action, protest, or something like that start to pick up steam so that I could support or participate in.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

The issue is that it's practically the only thing being commented in any post related to Palestine and it's drowning out all the useful discussion that needs to be taking place. Pick any post about Palestine and look at the comments and the overwhelming majority of them are some variation on "boy, I bet all those people who refused to vote for Harris are so happy now", which is about as useful a comment as all the idiots that used to rush to post "First" on articles back in the day.

These "told you so" comments are so pervasive it's starting to feel vaguely like astroturfing. A bunch of comments encouraging non-Republican voters to fight amongst themselves and drowning out any possible productive discussion or organization sure sounds like it would be a brilliant move by the fascist supporters. I'm not suggesting everyone making those comments is astroturfing or a troll, but the absolute way that's blanketing all discussion around Palestine sure does make me wonder if some of them are.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There was a poll of non-voters who voted four years ago. The number one reason they gave for not voting was the genocide in Gaza at 29%. I was surprised by this, but yeah you can potentially say she lost because of Palestine.

I agree she was a shit candidate who, if anything, aimed to the right of Biden. The Democrats are terrible. I still voted against Donald Trump. I'm not here to gloat at all, but look at the situation the world is in now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Thiel is white and certainly not straight, and I guarantee he is immensely benefiting.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yes, because everyone who could have voted and didn't bears responsibility for looking the other way while Trump gained the presidency.

And everyone who was vocal at any point about not voting for Harris for any reason is culpable for assisting Trump in gaining the presidency, and for influencing others to do the same.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Got it. It's all the fault of people, not the inept dnc for this situation.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Seems to most in this thread dnc is faultless though

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I hear you... I see tons of dnc hate here too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Which many seem to not want to see or hear

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

It's a world filled with people who believe what feels good

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

See, that's kind of what I'm talking about. Based on the results I've seen, all the votes for independent candidates combined amounted to less than 2% of all counted votes. Do you really think those 2% had a bigger impact on the end result than the 90 or so million of people who didn't vote at all?

I'm not saying they had no impact, it just feels weird to focus so much on those who cared enough to take part in the democratic process while treating the rest as a secondary issue.

To clarify, this is just my observation based on internet comments and some news snippets I've seen. I understand things might look different IRL and from a perspective of someone in the middle of this madness.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's equally fascinating how people like you think that only one group can be to blame for an electoral loss and that blame can't be shared.

And if their protest vote changed nothing, what was the point of it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You're accusing me of something I never did. I'm asking because pretty much all the blame I've seen is put on those protest voters and the topic of non-voters rarely, if ever, comes up in these comments.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I very specifically said "people like you" because I did not know if you were amongst the people I was talking about.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

To me saying "people like you" implies similarity between "them" and the person you're saying it to but whatever.

To reiterate, I don't think these people are blameless (every bit of resistance counts after all) but I feel like for many normal people, politicians and media commentators, they (pro-Palestinian protesters, LGBT folks etc) became a scapegoat that completely stole the focus from all the rest of the potential voters who didn't feel strongly enough to oppose an openly fascist candidate. It's just weird to see.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't think they are being a scapegoat at all. I think they are being told they share in the blame. And they refuse to admit it, some to the point of saying ludicrous things like "ethnic cleansing isn't as bad as genocide and Harris wanted genocide."

There is a lot of blame to be shared.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Perhaps I'm just unlucky enough to stumble mostly on comments focusing on them. I was however lucky enough I didn't have to read explanations like the one you've quoted here yet.

There is a lot of blame to be shared.

That's for sure.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There's a lot of frustration at the segment of the population who 1) vocally said that Harris would be just as bad as trump in regards to Gaza 2) loudly argued that failure to listen to them in regards to Gaza would cost the Democrats the election, and 3) said that anyone who was willing to vote for Harris despite not perfectly walking the line in regards to Gaza was a supporter of genocide. "The lesser of two evils is still a vote for genocide", and "it's not like it can be more genocide" are both things that have been said to me.

So, according to the people in question: yes, they are that numerous. I'm incredibly sad that I seem to have been right, but also fuck you to all the absolute assholes who accused me of supporting genocide because I'd rather the president get a middling cease fire and shamefully keep sending munitions to Israel than have us actively send troops to ethnically cleanse Gaza. Congrats! You got what you wanted! No more war in Gaza, because we're going to finish it now.
Even if they're in they're not large enough to matter, electorally, they were consistently aggressively smug and superior to anyone who said that maybe trump wasn't going to be the savior of the Palestinians, as evidence by his explicit words.
It's cathartic to be mad at people who were condescending towards you when they were wrong, even if you'd rather not be right, purely because they called you a bad person for wanting the same thing but thinking their way to get it wouldn't work.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Well, for point 2, they were kind of right. It's mostly a self fulfilling prophecy, but when a sizable chunk of your voting block says "take this position if you want my vote" and then you take the opposite position it really shouldn't come as a surprise if you subsequently lose the election. That 100% was on Harris.

Whether Harris would have been better than Trump (for Gaza) is perhaps a more interesting question. Ultimately Israel is going to be using their own troops for this not US troops because US troops aren't going to go along with gunning down unarmed civilians in mass the way the Israeli troops will. Whether it's Trump or Harris that wasn't going to change. The biggest difference is just one of political posturing. Harris would have made disapproving statements and basically said "we're very disappointed in Israel" while still sending the exact same weapons and funds Trump is sending. Maybe Israel would have played things more low key, maybe not, we'll never know now. So point 1 is kind of a wash.

Point 3 is really a more abstract moral question I suppose. At what point does something cross over into "supporting genocide". Does sending money to the Israeli government count? What about doing business with companies that do so? What about having the power to do something about it and instead choosing to do nothing? I think we can all agree that Trump absolutely supports genocide. The argument for if Harris did is far less concrete, and for people who voted for Harris (or I guess Trump for that matter) more nebulous still.

The real problem ultimately though is that none of this existed in a vacuum. If this was literally a referendum on how the US should respond to Israel that would be one thing, but that was such a tiny slice of a much bigger discussion. The biggest and most concerning of which was Trump essentially admitting that he was planning on staging a coup of the US government which meant no matter how the Gaza situation was going to play our Trump absolutely could not be let anywhere near the office of the president.

The election is over though, Harris lost because she ran a shit campaign on proven losing policy. People need to get over that and focus on actually dealing with the shit sandwich we've collectively been handed instead of continuing to point fingers and argue about whose fault it was.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The election is over though, Harris lost because she ran a shit campaign on proven losing policy. People need to get over that and focus on actually dealing with the shit sandwich we've collectively been handed instead of continuing to point fingers and argue about whose fault it was.

I mean this with all sincerity: fuck off.
Arguing that letting this and everything else happen is better than what Harris brought to the table doesn't just get forgotten because the people who said this would be better are upset they were wrong and don't want to be blamed.

The "winning policy" is evidently "ethnic cleansing". That's what came of all this, do you get that? Milquetoast ceasefire and continuing the slow push towards a two state solution lost to ethnic cleansing.

Whether it's Trump or Harris that wasn't going to change. The biggest difference is just one of political posturing.

Trump has already increased the weapons being sent, rolling back a Biden administration block on certain weapons. You can't just say "no, they won't use US troops" when we're on an article about trump wanting to use US troops for ethnic cleansing. Why do you think Israel gets a say in what troops go in? It's not like they can stop US if we want to send ours in. Why do you think American troops wouldn't do these things?

We're not at the hypothetical stage here. There have already been concrete changes in policy that are beyond "posturing".

The real problem ultimately though is that none of this existed in a vacuum. If this was literally a referendum on how the US should respond to Israel that would be one thing, but that was such a tiny slice of a much bigger discussion.

Yes, and that's exactly the point. Even if their policies on Gaza were exactly the same, which they very much were not, it would still be better to have voted for Harris because of so many reasons, none of which mattered to the people who swore to not vote for her over Gaza.

This is being civil about things. We're not saying that the people who refused Harris because of Gaza are transphobic, antivax, anti-education, anti abortion, racist misogynists, even though supporting Harris evidently makes one a genocidal racist in their eyes.

Maybe if people said "you know what? Maybe I made a mistake" there wouldn't be such animosity, but here we are. Better a mask off fascist than an imperfect compromise.

And don't worry, I am doing what I can to deal with the shit sandwich they wanted us to have. That doesn't keep me from having the ability, nor seeing the need for, needling people who thought that this would be better for Gaza than what Harris wanted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean this with all sincerity: fuck off.

Same to you you annoying whiny git.

That doesn't keep me from having the ability, nor seeing the need for, needling people who thought that this would be better for Gaza than what Harris wanted.

Except you're not doing that, you're just being annoying and pissing off people that fucking voted for Harris for no god damn reason. The election is over, Harris lost, and now we need to deal with fucking Cheeto Mussolini and instead of doing something useful you're spending every opportunity to bitch and moan about how everyone is getting what they deserve now. At this point I'm just going to stop reading the comments of any post about Palestine because the comment sections are all just cesspools of people wanking off about how right they were this entire time.

Harris never should have backed Israel and it along with all the other idiotic policies she pushed cost her the election just like everyone said it would. People were begging her to run on better policies and instead her campaign was "vote for me or else" which failed to convince enough people. It sucks and now we're all suffering because of it, but as much as it's the fault of the people that didn't vote for her it's even more her and the DNC's fault for running a crap campaign. It is literally a politician's job to convince people to vote for them, and Harris failed at her job.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you voted for Harris you're not the person being talked to, are you? They asked why people were mad at those that voted third party.
Why would I be mad at people who voted for Harris?

I don't buy the whole "you're not allowed to be mad at the voters!” thing. They had the same information I did, and decided that instead of saying "gee, the easiest thing I can do to in anyway stop the obvious bad things that could happen is to vote against trump" they did some form of "not that".

If it's a choice between the zoo and the crotch kicking factory, and three vote for the zoo, four for the crotch kicking, and three more couldn't be bothered to vote, *I'm gonna be mad at the people who voted for the crotch kicking as well as the people who didn't vote", and I'm gonna be frustrated when they say it's the zoo's fault for not advertising more and we need to move on and hold hands through the kicking.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

It was a huge talking point before the election. We really needed to punish Democrats for not stopping Isreal.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I mean if you're going to dog on minorities then you gotta dog on the white people he has majority support from.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It's funny because millions of people did vote, but it was never counted. And unlike 2020... These uncounted votes are proven 🤷

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

That's another thing I didn't see brought up nearly enough. Granted, I'm not extremely tuned into American media so maybe it is a hot topic there but yeah, thanks for mentioning it.

load more comments (1 replies)