this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 66 points 10 months ago (12 children)

An actual genocide is happening right now. If biden doesn't feel pressured to stop the genocide at the risk of losing votes in an election year, what makes you think he'll stop it when he's not at any risk of losing the election?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't think he'll stop. But from a practical standpoint you're voting between the status quo level of genocide, and an even GREATER level of genocide. Voting for MORE genocide is objectively worse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think he’ll stop.

If anything, he'll interpret a victory as a mandate.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps. But Trump will ALSO interpret victory as a mandate, as he's ALREADY interpreted LOSS as a mandate, and so we're clear on his stance...

"In statements since the war began, Trump has promised, if elected, to cut off all US aid to Palestinians and urged other nations to follow suit if he returns to the Oval Office.

The former president also pledged to bar refugees from Gaza under an expansion of his first-term travel ban on Muslim-majority countries; expel immigrants who sympathize with Hamas; revoke the visas of foreign students deemed “anti-American” or “antisemitic”; and impose “strong ideological screening” to keep out foreign nationals who “want to abolish Israel”."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps. But Trump will ALSO interpret victory as a mandate,

I'm not worried that my vote will be interpreted by Trump as a mandate to support genocide, because I'm not voting for Trump.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Completely understood. Not implying you would. Just trying to impress as a matter of general statement how important it is that he NOT win. He will interpret victory as a mandate. I know everyone is sick of hearing it, but it is so important that it bears repeating as much as the discourse can support, because the voices claiming a noble ideological victory from abstention have no such qualms about flooding the conversation wherever they can.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Several genocides are going on right now, and have been for decades, almost like it's got nothing to do with who's in charge in the US or something.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What kind of sociopathic hand waving is this? This is like if a strawman had a child with whataboutism and all it ate was apathy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, it's a European telling you to stop believing your own hype.

The US is not the center of the universe, your support matters but you alone are not the factor that is going to save or doom Palestine.

Vote based on what's best for your own country and realise that we neither expect you nor want you to solve everything you deem to be an issue.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Vote based on what’s best for your own country

I mean this emphatically: if you're not an american, you do not want americans to vote for what is best for their country.

Literally nothing good (or maybe almost nothing good, depending on who's asking) has come from America pursuing its interests abroad.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (8 children)

It is so funny how you keep spewing right wing nationalist nonsense while feebly attemptig to care about a genocide

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

We send billions to israel every year and have only greatly ramped up the support as israel has ramped up the genocide. If the US simply stopped that support, it would go a long way. Following your logic, people get murdered all the time, so we shouldn't do anything about murder, even if we're the ones directly enabling the murderers.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (2 children)

what makes you think he'll stop it

Odds are better for Biden. Slim is better than none.

Get it clear: this isn't a vote about Biden. It's a vote about America and it's a clean binary choice between two bad options; one worse than the other. If you don't choose the far-less-worse imperfect option, you need to be okay with the worse imperfect option if it should emerge victorious.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

The odds aren't slim for biden stopping this, it's simply zero. Democrats rely on republicans being worse so that they have an excuse to do nothing. If you have two parties, one that preserves the status quo and the other that makes things worse, then things are only going to get worse because republicans are eventually going to win in our intentionally broken system.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

The city is on fire and people are arguing whether we should vote for the shitty fire fighter in the fire chief election when the only other candidate is literally an arsonist

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You're vastly overestimating the power the US has. We can't even get our allies to stop funding Russia and selling them advanced technology.

The only people capable of stopping what is happening in Gaza are Netanyahu and the Israeli people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

The US is directly sending billions in support to israel. In fact, many of our allies in Europe are doing so much more for the Palestinians than the US. You'd have a point if the US weren't the #1 direct supporter of israel. Do you think the US is sending billions of dollars directly to Russia?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

An actual genocide is happening right now.

Yeah, but Biden's not the one committing it. Biden is an incidental element of a much larger apparatus and if that apparatus is primarily meant to commit this particular genocide, he's not a particularly effective one.

what makes you think he'll stop it when he's not at any risk of losing the election?

Literally nothing. No one is arguing that borderline unconditional support will make Biden change his mind. Why would you even ask? On the other hand, if making Biden think he's gonna lose won't sufficiently motivate him, then threatening to not vote is just an ineffective strategy. Your premise undermines the conclusion you seem to be hinting at.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is about preserving a system that's at least recoverable in it's current state. If you don't vote for Biden your voting for an authoritarian regime and it's not even an exaggeration. Trump just had a promo video referencing a new Reich in America.

This is the easiest decision American voters have ever had. Go look up what happened when Trump was in power for 4 years and what has happened with Biden for 4 years. We have data on how they both acted in power. That's incredibly rare. Compare them objectively.

Moral high ground about Israel, while correct, is a hill compared to the mountain of evidence that shows what has happened and will continue to happen under trump if he returns to power. State secrets for sale, supreme Court seats, threats to never relinquish power, codified laws hunting down women who seek abortions, laws against trans and gays, j6 insurrection....you're actively supporting that by not standing against trump.

Abstaining from voting for Biden this fall is a vote for Trump in a first past the post system. You will be complicit. You will literally be responsible for violence against minorities having played an active part in helping trump return to power. It's hypocritical to allow that while condemning Biden on Israel.

I get it, I promise. I didn't vote for Hillary or Trump in 2016 and I see now what that ended up doing to our country. I regret it. I won't do it again.

It's impossible to reconcile your disgust for Israeli support from America with the violence you will permit to minorities in America if you don't vote for Biden. You're not wrong for hating it, but you must realize what you're going to do to people with a no vote or a throwaway vote.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Democrats preserve the status quo while republicans push things further to the right. Since our system guarantees that both parties will win at different times, the trajectory is always to the right. I'm voting for democrats down the entire ballot like I do every single election, but it will ultimately not make a meaningful difference. Democrats are using minorities as a shield for their own failings and inaction. If you don't vote for democrats then they claim it's your fault for whatever situation minorities find themselves in, but democrats do the bare minimum they can for minorities when they do get voted in. You're providing a prime example when you use minorities in the US as an excuse to change the subject from genocide in Palestine.

"Identity politics" is a loaded term, but democrats will absolutely play different disadvantaged groups against one another to stop progress. They did it in 2016 when Bernie was talking about the need to help poor people and democrats came out with "but what about poor black people?!" even though democrats don't do shit for poor black people either and as if poor black people aren't included in the group of poor people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I’m voting for democrats down the entire ballot like I do every single election, but it will ultimately not make a meaningful difference.

The older I get the more I realize that the only way to change anything is to be a massive, endlessly annoying prick. Sure, vote or whatever, but if you don't like the options provided I think the least (literally the least) one can do is to - and this will sound silly - relentlessly meme on centrists to agitate them to do something.

even the ancient romans understood that a solid anonymous dunk posted on a statue can sometimes be the most agitative kind of messaging.

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

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as the saying goes. My only hope as far as voting goes is that democrats get a majority so large that they can't just conveniently flip two senators to continue to do nothing. I feel like democrats purposefully eek out the smallest victories they can so they can pretend to be powerless. It's either that or they're ridiculously incompetent, neither inspire confidence. They're just too good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Regardless, their excuses and lack of results will be even more flagrant if they're given a huge majority.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I suspect that there's a lobbying pool, and as the majority grows the reward for flipping sides gets bigger.

I think it would be bad but a little funny if democrats split their tickets, and they get a supermajority in congress but lose the presidency or vice-versa. They'd get nothing done and shit would get worse, but it'd probably mitigate the worst of the damage and they'd be trying to analyze what went wrong for a decade.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I'm literally pointing out your hypocrisy. I'd rather noone one be suffering from a fanatical authoritarian figure be that netenyahu or Trump, but it isn't a super secret centrist agenda to point out that you will be furthering the suffering of people domestically to make yourself feel good about protesting something that will happen under trump or Biden regardless.

Soapboxing about Democrats doing nothing is demonstrably false, the population has moved farther left quicker than the government, obviously. government is slow. But politics has always trended more progressive than it was in the past. The populace has to drag it kicking and screaming, but it does happen.

I'm probably further left than you, I'm further left than most people. Socialism, Karl Marx, anti capitalism, and French razor blades type stuff.

It doesn't make me centrist to protect lgbtq folks and women at home with my vote. The fact that you're salty that I'm pointing that fact out and you feel for some reason that that isn't a meaningful difference is a you problem. I'm not here making excuses for the status quo to continue, it's just the facts that we need to do that for now during this election to help the most people possible and your ignoring that.

I can vote for Biden and still criticize him and socially be part of a collective voice that is screaming for change. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Your saying minorities have been a pawn for centrists to use, but your ideology is suggesting that it would be better to ignore them and allow violence against them to continue and ramp up under trump. All because other people are suffering, who, tragically, will continue to suffer regardless of the president. That's insane and morally dispicable.

At least your still voting for Biden even if you don't believe anything I'm explaining so thank fuck for that

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Because the ballot box is not the only means of civic duty. Contine protests, ramp up activisim, engage in our society more than just voting once every 4 years.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The democrats will ignore all those too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Did a democrat ignore you? Have you tried calling for them to be nuked?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I think you misunderstand; bad faith fuckwits only get one of every four years to spread the disinformation. And this is an election year, I'm loving all the sino/rusky/Iranian players trying so hard to sway the vote.

(We're all laughing at you, you're only seeing upvotes in your echochamber that has hidden down votes. This is the reality of the world and you're hiding from it).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)
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