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Why are so many Pro-Palestine (I am pro-Palestine and anti-genocide) Americans refusing to vote for Harris due to her stance on Israel? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.

Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.

I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.

Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.

Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.

Edit 2: This blew up, it’s a little overwhelming right now but I do intent on replying to everybody that took the time to comment. Just need to get in the right headspace.

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[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 93 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (25 children)

Majority of the people who are saying this are Arab-Americans. They know how bad Trump will be, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of Biden back in 2020. Unfortunately, after a year of witnessing their entire ethnicity being written off as an acceptable casualty in the name of international diplomacy and foreign lobbying, they've become numb and just stopped caring. There have been repeated instsnces of Democrats actually silencing them from speaking up as well. They've adopted a scorched earth mentality and are deciding to send a giant "fuck you" to Harris and the entire Democratic party.

And the Democrats are also allowing Israel to do whatever they want. There's not much of a difference between the two on this topic.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 56 points 3 weeks ago (21 children)

There is a difference between them on this topic.

If Trump were in office now, every liberal here would be screaming for the genocide to end and trying to understand how anyone could let this happen.

With Biden in office and his VP as candidate, they are trying to sell you on their candidate rather than working against the genocide.

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world -3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If the election were between Trump and somehow someone even worse who was calling to nuke the entire area and turn it into glass, then I would absolutely be pushing for Trump. Shockingly, if we are trapped in a horrifying, dystopian version of the trolley problem (which we are), I'm going to make the choice that causes the least damage.

Using another analogy, if you have a badly broken arm, you can either set it and try to keep it immobilized, or you can let it stay how it is and all but guarantee that it gets fucked up even worse as it heals wrong. Voting third party is like saying "I don't like either of those options since they both involve my broken arm, so I choose to pray to the Moon Goddess". There is no option that immediately stops your arm from being broken. You can delude yourself and say the Moon Goddess will magically fix it, but in reality, you are choosing the option that does nothing and makes it worse. Choosing to set your broken arm doesn't make you "pro-broken arm", it's just the only practical choice given a terrible situation.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago

If the election were between Trump and somehow someone even worse who was calling to nuke the entire area and turn it into glass, then I would absolutely be pushing for Trump.

It does not get worse than genocide. The habit of inventing a hypothetical bigger and harder gun to hold to marginalized peoples' heads doesn't work on this one.

Shockingly, if we are trapped in a horrifying, dystopian version of the trolley problem (which we are), I'm going to make the choice that causes the least damage.

We are not trapped in a trolley problem. You are a human with agency. You can join organizations, you can educate, you can take action. Reducing your political agency to a lever pull for genocide is a helplessness taught to you by the political class because they just want you to vote for them even when they commit genocide right in front of your eyes. They want you to think of Palestinian lives as strategically expendable and that you are actually smart, not racist, for toeing that line. And your compliance with their demands is exactly what ensures they can shove any monster down your throat as a candidate. Harris is complicit in genocide and didn't win a single primary but Dems say, "well, time to fall in line". Dems strategists know that "progressive" Dems do this so they do nothing for them in policy, they just deploy PR goons to vote against every 4 years. Compliant voters enable their own irrelevance.