this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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Political Memes

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"Every previous president would have ended it by now."

"Biden literally couldn't do worse."

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[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Donald Trump is Genocide at home and abroad.

Joe Biden is "only" Genocide abroad, and probably less of it.

Therefore, a vote for Joe Biden is a Vote against genocide.

No, it doesn't matter that he's an active participant in the apparatus that's creating the genocide, because if he's in office there's less genocide. Which is the important part, and pretending otherwise is sophistry. If you abstain from voting, you are increasing the likelihood of more genocide and if you discourage others from voting, you are an active participant in the overall social apparatus that is probabilistically increasing the amount of genocide.

The utility calculation is dead simple: more votes for Biden in key states makes more genocide less likely, and discouraging people from voting for Biden makes more genocide more likely. Therefore, discouraging people from voting for Biden is a pro-genocide strategy and voting for Biden in battleground states is an anti-genocide strategy. You should vote for Biden unless you live in a solid blue state, and even then it's not a bad idea.

TLDR: if you encourage people to not vote for Biden, that's supporting genocide. Accelerationism never works for us.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Basically just the trolley problem, but the tracks are already aligned to killing fewer people. There is a vote on whether to divert the trolley to the track which would kill more people or stay the course. Is there blood on your hands if you abstained and convinced others to abstain which resulted in a win for changing tracks?

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.

-- John Stuart Mill

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Be careful, you might have the 5 real users of Lemmy.ml use their 500 accounts to harass you for posting this.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yeah I dunno, I’m still not going to vote for him. Just goes against my conscious

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cool I’ll tell that to my trans friends when Trump tried to pass Floridas laws federally

At least your “conscious” is clear

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

They can take it up with the DNC. I have no guilt

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah we can take it up with you, because the choice is Biden or Trump, not Biden, Trump, or time travel. Pull your head out of your ass - your little protest vote doesn’t matter now, but your ACTUAL vote does.

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

Go ahead. Take it up with me then. Hope it helps. I doubt it will.

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

Same strategy as you take towards social good, then: being fucking worthless

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

Is this helping your trans friends yet?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is your protest vote saving Palestinians? At least my vote conceivably could have an impact

With one term, Trump stacked the federal judiciary for a generation and eroded the administrative state. If he gets another terms he’ll use his stacked bench to pass his agenda and uphold it when it’s inevitably challenged. How do you think progressive causes will fare then? At least you’ll have your protest vote to soothe your conscience as Trump enacts a little genocide on immigrants, trans people, and anyone else he decides isn’t pure enough.

In 2016 people like you were smugly announcing that nothing bad would happen, like Roe being repealed, and everyone was being dramatic, because Clinton was “just as bad” as Trump. So fascinated to hear what your excuses will be this time around.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can’t bring myself to vote for someone like Joe Biden. Without getting too in depth on my life story, I’ve been falsely arrested before. Hell, I’ve basically paid the price for a crime I didn’t commit. So when someone like Joe Biden promises police reform and then turns around and immediately pours $34 billion dollars into 100,000 more cops and more surveillance, I just genuinely cannot bring myself to vote for him any more than you could bring yourself to vote for your abuser.

At the same time, I have great sympathy for Palestinians. Here in the US and abroad. And I also cannot expect them to vote for someone assisting in the genocide of their friends and family, even if some political arithmetic says they should.

I don’t bemoan you for voting for Joe Biden. But I’m voting third party this time around. Maybe it’ll send a message to the DNC, maybe it won’t. It’s the only voice I got as a singular voter to cast my vote in a democratic process towards what I believe in the most.

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

It won’t, and Trump will be worse for justice than Biden. But live your life

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

It’s an unfortunate circumstance all around

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

Cool, when you and your friends band together and vote for someone who's not apart of the war machine, then you can ride your high horses

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your conscience can be a good indicator that something immoral is happening, but it's certainly not infallible. While I think abstaining is a worse choice, the most egregious course of action being discussed is actively arguing against voting, which is actively harmful and supports multiple genocides including the one ostensibly being denounced by the people who act as such.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think everyone should vote. I’m just voting third party in this case

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

This is the only sane answer in here

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd love to see your solution to the trolley problem 🤣

RIP those track-people.

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

No it isn't. Duverger's Law isn't a particularly difficult concept to grasp.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I voted third party too once. I couldn’t in good conscience vote for either major party. I was living in Florida, and voted for Nader in 2000.

I’ve not been so naive since.

Did I not vote for the killing of children in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did I not vote for the curtailing of medical research? Did I not vote for the hundreds of millions that will die due to climate change?

Learn from my mistake. Because the lessons you learn from yours may not be applicable given what will be lost by the time you realize what you’ve done.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I hear you. And I appreciate your candor and politeness, which can be hard to ask for sometimes.

I’m still planning on voting third party. I’ve voted dem every time since I could vote, I feel like I gotta draw a line in the sand somewhere. But! By golly, if he says he’s going to cut some of the money out of the police, and maybe tighten some things up in the Middle East, he’ll have me again. And he’s got months to do that! And I’m hoping. But if that effort isn’t made and he focuses on the center-right… I just can’t do it.

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

The far right gets a lot of attention politically because they show up and vote Republican consistently.

Progressives are generally ignored because they always have some reason their conscience won't allow them to vote Democratic.

If you aren't a reliable voting block you can't expect your platform to be given priority.

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

Well, hopefully that works out for them

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of all of the self diluted mental gymnastics...

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

it's literally double speak: war is peace, voting for genocide is antigenocide.

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

There are two options: 'some genocide', and 'a lot more genocide'. The race is close, so if not enough people vote for 'some genocide', 'a lot more genocide' will win. 'No genocide' is not one of the options. Do you vote for 'some genocide', or do you assent to letting 'a lot more genocide' win?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm going to vote for a candidate that wants no genocide.

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

Will that actually help reduce genocide or just satisfy your need to be self righteous?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I don't believe any vote will reduce genocide. ballots don't stop bullets.

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

As I said, 'No genocide' is not one of the two options that's going to win. The race is close, not voting for 'less genocide' only helps 'lots of genocide'. So you're helping 'lots of genocide' beat 'less genocide', congrats.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

voting against genocide doesn't help genocide. this is pure doublespeak.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Voting against genocide doesn't reduce genocide. In American elections, the only votes that have an effect are those for one of the two front-runners. Any other vote is an admission of equivocation of the two front-runners. The two front-runners are 'some genocide' and 'lots of genocide'. Equivocating the two means you think 'some genocide' and 'lots of genocide' are equally acceptable. Q.E.D. you accept lots of genocide.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Equivocating the two means you think ‘some genocide’ and ‘lots of genocide’ are equally acceptable.

no. i don't find either of those acceptable. that doesn't make them the same. it just means that neither of them meets the bar of acceptability.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (35 children)

Unfortunately the American electoral system is not ranked choice, so "bar of acceptability" isn't a functionally meaningful concept. In American elections, the situation is as I've described above. Refusing to choose one of the two primary options functionally means you find both primary options equally acceptable.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

....what?

Do you work for the onion?