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this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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Leopards Ate My Face
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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.
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.
D and R parties both need independent voters to win any election. For example, even if every D voted for a D, they would lose without independents voting for them in significant numbers. This has been a political fact for many years.
So... why did the Harris campaign target REPUBLICAN voters (instead of Ds and independents)? They wasted a lot of vital time on that ("He doesn't need to know who you voted for" etc), and they knew that they would lose if they did so.
She knew it too, Harris isn't stupid. She took a knee.
yep, and the Dem leadership still support israel no matter what they do. They learned nothing and will try to set up the same voter hostage situation in every vote from now on.
We don't live in a world of "should", in the real world of course it is demoralizing and affects the vote turnout.
We all know the US government will back Israel no matter what... and the voters can only punish the incumbent party for doing so.
65% of Democrats don't want to finance Israel. Two thirds of their own party, that's massive!
Voter turnout will continue to fall; D and R parties will continue to lose voters (now down to 30% registered voters each) and the Independents will continue to grow (now up to 40% of voters).
Why? Because our major parties ignore what their constituents actually want, and we can only punish one party every term.
It shouldn't be that way, but it is.
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.
People preaching harm reduction whose candidates only ever increase harm over the last offering know this. They're arguing in bad faith.
Perhaps. But that's not the world we live in. Demanding an electorate to suddenly change in a way it never has and start behaving like Homo economicus is only going to lead to further loses.
What is more the "Democrat are bad because Palestine" was the opposition's framing. The argumeny was pretty unanimous that the policy on Palestine was going to cost the Democrats the election. The Democrats were bad because they knew full well they were going to choose to lose over changing that policy.
And that's just tunnel visioning at only the Israeli policy.
Yeah, the choice was bad or worse, and people chose worse. Life sucks sometimes, they need to grow up.
If genocide is bipartisan, then the less bad choice is whatever collapses the US the fastest. You wouldn't try to choose the leader of Nazi Germany based on who's going to run the holocaust most effectively
The US was doing it anyway before Trump2.0
Not doing much to stop it is a weird way of saying actively helping it.
They were selling weapons to enable the genocide you're downplaying by refusing to call it a genocide.
Yes. Because what so many folks can't seem to get is that different people are different. And they have different ethics.
This is literally the entire point of the trolley problem. Yes, you can stick your fingers in your ears and say, "always pull the lever for the track with fewer people on it." But that's just not how ethics works. Utilitarian ethics is one way to live life, but utilitarians have this incredibly annoying habit of assuming that theirs is the only valid ethical system, and that you're a complete moron if you follow any other school of thought.
You're demonstrating a utilitarian sense of ethics. One who follows a respect-for-persons belief system would say that the ends don't justify the means. That it's not fine to pull the trolley lever, even if that would result in a net saving of lives. That it's fine to vote to hold people accountable, even if that will objectively result in net material harm. It's not always about the greatest good for the greatest number. Otherwise, for example, we would never put any research dollars into studying cures for rare diseases. Those dollars could always objectively do more good elsewhere.
Hell, even our criminal laws don't follow a utilitarian sense of ethics. You can't legally get out of consequences from killing someone by saying, "this on net saved lives." Even if you can objectively prove it, you're not legally allowed to kill people. It doesn't matter if your murder on net saves lives, you're still a murderer. If a gang kidnaps your two children and tells you, "you must go kill this other one person if you want them to live." If you do that, if you go and kill that stranger to save your own kids? You will be charged and convicted of murder. You're not allowed to kill one innocent person to save two innocent people.
Many people voted against or refused to vote for Kamala because they were trying to punish her and the Democratic Party. Voting is the only way we have of holding politicians and parties accountable. Millions of voters saw the horrific haughtiness and barbarity of how the Democrats acted around Gaza, and they wanted to punish them for it. It was about holding them accountable. It was about justice. Many voted against Kamala to punish her for supporting genocide. And if the likely thing came to pass, if Trump supported genocide as well? Well those voters would vote against him for the same reason. They vote to hold people accountable for past actions, not to speculate on future ones. Maybe not how you vote, but again, people are different and can use whatever ethical system they want in choosing their vote.
Again, you can argue greatest good for greatest number, but that isn't the only system of ethics out there, and it's not even the system that defines the foundation of our legal codes.
Doing nothing to stop it, cheering on Universities and police that beat and punished protesters, refusing to let Ruwa Romman or anyone else anti-genocide speak at their convention, etc.
Their policy was bad and they were assholes about it at every opportunity. It's honestly amazing she got as many votes as she did.
I mean, the democrats ARE bad because Palestine. But the Republicans are worse, by A LOT.
If more people could know more than one thing can be true like you do, we'd probably have the energy crisis solved and relative peace globally...
Harris saw a 6M vote undercount relative to Biden. You can argue all the reasons why, but you can't deny Democrats would have won if they'd been as popular in 2020 as they were in 2024.
It's bizarre to see people insist this collapse in support has nothing to do with the policies of the party people stopped liking.
In the same vein, there's a real hard November coming for the GOP this year. Their incompetence is going to cost them.
Exactly. And frankly, any person who blames the voters rather than the politician is a deplorable. You have to be the biggest dumbass on Earth to think that trying to shame voters is a good electoral strategy. Kamala lost because she was a terrible candidate. Her loss is her fault. Not the voters.
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.
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.
Most of the genocide and leveling of Gaza happened under Biden. But yes it continued under trump. Israel owns both US political parties.
So I dont know why you say "under Trump" -- its the exact same thing under both Trump and Biden. We let Israel do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, to whoever they want, funded by us.
Seems you want to pretend Dems are better about it but I dont see how you can contrive any difference between 100% enablement and support.
By "Palestine" do you mean "supporting genocide in Palestine"?
Liberals: I can fix that voter, I just need to find the right logic combo in my persuasion.
Also Liberals: if voters were rational they would vote for the lesser evil.
Keep lecturing people, I am sure it will work this time around.
I was fighting that battle right there alongside you, but yes the astroturfing was enormous. Sometimes I felt like I was the only sane person out there.
It helps to remember that there were hundreds of millions, potentially billions, of dollars going specifically to shilling for trump and putin and disparaging the democrats.
Or maybe I just don’t like genocide.
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.
"People who oppose genocide can't possibly be human: they must be foreigners"
You guys I just as fascist as MAGA you know