#I 100% understand that *just elect the lesser of two evils* is getting really fucking old

[vully-andthegoose]

if trump gets elected bc leftist idiots didn’t vote bc they didn’t were too busy doing performative ideological grandstanding i’m gonna kms

[all-the-fun-of-the-cirkus]

okay, so.

waltz.

rarely have i watched an episode and immediately come here to talk about, but i have a lot of thoughts i need to get out

so firstly, the title. obviously a callback to duet from the first series (still the best single chunk of star trek i've seen yet). that one was a two-hander between kira and marritza, the former already having condemned the cardassian and the latter struggling to work through what he did in the occupation, and this is the same with sisko and dukat. except marritza felt genuine remorse, accepted he was wrong, and that's what dukat can never do

he's awful, i know, but he's a fantastic character, because he is a character. he has a sense of humour, soft spots, humanising (so to speak) moments, he's a real, fleshed out person, who just happens to be, as sisko says, true evil. and that works because he truly, genuinely believes he isn't. and what's more, he needs everyone to see that too. we saw that with his relationship with kira, his banter with sisko, his constant bemoaning that the bajorans didn't accept him, it wasn't just posturing, or pr, he genuinely needs to be liked, and he can't understand why people don't, because as far as he's concerned, as people so often point out, he's the hero of the story in his own mind, and he can't be wrong

that's played out superbly in his hallucinations here; weyoun is his cold and clinical side, dumar his arrogance and pride, kira his doubt and self-loathing, and they criticise and needle him throughout, but in the end, crucially, they're all telling him the exact same thing - what he really thinks

and what he wants to hear is that he's the good guy, which is where the political metaphor gets interesting. this whole time i've interpreted the occupation of bajor as a holocaust allegory, obviously, the cardassians are the nazis, bajorans jews. and that is of course a big part of it, but the connection i didn't make until now is the british empire

dukat's big speech is fully "white man's burden," the bajorans as savages centuries behind cardassia, following backwards religion, no technology, who clearly needed civilising by their superiors, bringing into the light, and dukat was the kind father helping guide them into the light. and he really believes it's for the best! he tells himself he doesn't despise them, that he doesn't want to wipe them off the face of the galaxy, it's their fault for being too stupid to appreciate him, to see what he's trying to do for them, how he only wants to help them if they'd only stop resisting and submit to those who know better than they do

part of this is that he insists that he's "one of the good ones," that another prefect would have been harsher, crueler. and this is where it gets interesting, because he's probably right. a leader who didn't care about being liked might have killed more bajorans, worked them harder, starved them more, executed them more. dukat may, indeed, have been the lesser of the evils, and that's not really in dispute. what's really compelling about this is that the story never lets this be an excuse. so death rates dropped by 20%? that's great! why didn't they drop by 100%? so labour camp output dropped by 50%? cool, you were still keeping people in labour camps and enslaving them

and i find that uncomfortably compelling in the current climate. i'm not american, but i see full well what's going on there, and it disgusts me. because there's several genocides going on right now, and i'm going to focus on palestine, because the democrats are gleefully funding that genocide and protecting its perpetrators from any repercussions, brutally coming down on any protests. and when people understandably say "hey what the fuck," they remember there's an election this year and go "well is the republicans were in power this genocide would be way worse! you gotta pick the lesser of two evils!" and you know what? they're right! the genocide would probably worse if the republicans were in power! but the democrats committing a less-bad genocide doesn't mean they aren't still committing genocide! because the lesser of two evils is still evil, and sometimes there's no shade of grey

[jutsomethoughtsihave]

My rights aren't more important than innocent people being killed in the most demonic ways possible. Kamala will also be bad for "minorities" (please don't use that word again) and women. Her saying she's for women's rights is the same as her saying she's for Palestinian rights. She has already said she will not allow abortion clinics on federal lands. Everyone that is affected by Trump's policies knows Kamala will be the same. Everyone seems to forget Biden has been the president for four years. He promised to undo Trump policies and he kept them. Even going as far as override EPA rules to keep them in place. Biden and Kamala do not care about climate change. Fracking is one of the most destructive things you can do to the environment. We won't even have a planet in 100-200 years if we keep letting there be elections between two evils. One party says the evil out loud and the other does it quietly while pretending they're not evil. I had planned on coming out to my family but they planned on voting Kamala no matter how much I pleaded. They will never know because I don't feel safe around liberals either. They will sell out my rights for a false sense of comfort. We need more votes on the left. According to political scientists and independent journalists, Trump will definitely be winning. The people that claim to be progressive who are voting for Kamala keep saying stuff like "Our country is moving to the Right, and progess isn't popular right now, so I'm not gonna waste my vote on progess." It makes absolutely no sense to vote against policies you'd rather have just because boomers and elder gen x don't want progess. It's that same mentality of "I'm not gonna help that person who crashed their bike because no one else is". We need all the people who call themselves progressives or even "leftists" (which is meaningless anymore) to actually show they care instead of being afraid and continuing to keep this illusion of good vs bad (they're both bad) alive. Please join us. Your vote will not be wasted. And if the bad guy wins, then we'll fucking fight them will full force and we'll be there together. I promise.

Once again I’m Canadian and not old enough so I have no vote to give but I agree with you. I hate this. I wish people would vote 3rd party that’s the whole reason I made the poll. What I am saying is that in this moment during this election we’re too far down to revolt. No matter who wins I can only hope that Americans wake up and fight back. The government does not own the people, they should not have control over their rights. The government does not own the land, they should not have it at their mercy.

I also agree that the “no one else is doing it so I won’t either” mentality is what puts people in those situations in the first place and things need to change really fast at large. Full stop.

The election is less than a month away. We have no time. I wish we did. I wish people with actual gravity in their words would care just a little bit about humanity. I wish regular people were more concerned.

Fuck the “lesser of two evils”. I hate it. I hate it a lot. But right now where we are in this moment the two evils are really our only option. We would need a big ton of people to change to win.

And I empathize with you so much because right now even in Canada my safety is being compromised. The election for my province is currently happening and the Conservative Party is damn close to winning. They’ve stated that if they win they’ll ban gender and sexuality teaching and ban a law that prevents discrimination and bullying for queer people in schools. Me and my friends and every young queer persons safety is at risk and I’m terrified.

I understand you anon. I feel for you. I agree with you for the most part. This is a complicated thing. It sucks.

Humanity has done a lot to get where we are and it’ll probably take a lot to get to a place where we can all live happily free from the establishment but that takes individuals. A fuck ton of them, but individuals none the less. I hope that’s an answer enough.

[missrosienorris]

The Election that is Bad, Part 3

CW: lots of politics, mentions of ableism, a hint of racism and abusive behaviour, also a little corona at the end

Statement of potential privileges and biases: Translucently white. Finnish, and thus less directly affected by US elections, although I’d argue the whole world should be concerned about them. AFAB enby. Probably a gray ace with no gender preference, but frankly I’m not quite sure wtf I am. Rather far left but haven’t found an appropriate ideological label. University educated. Middle class. Young-ish (is 30 still young?) My mental health is ass.

So, I’ve already made a few posts about the US presidential election and the shit it’s stirring up, which is why I’m now giving the series a name. In this post I’m going to lengthily bitch about some arguments between Biden and Sanders supporters that I’m currently seeing a lot, and I’m already planning another post that’ll be a more personal rant about how I’ve had to make a purge in my parasocial relationships because so so so many of the people I follow have morphed into dicks during this election season (or perhaps revealed themselves to be dicks, I can’t assess which one from afar).

In this post I won’t be discussing Biden or Sanders themselves or their policies all that much, but I will summarize where my allegiances lie here for the record, not that my opinion is likely to surprise anyone who’s read any of my stuff before:

I think Biden’s policies suck, albeit not as much as Trump’s but that’s a low bar to clear. I think he’s a neoliberal and a sleazeball, I don’t like his incoherent speaking style or his proneness to temper tantrums and were I American, I’m not sure I could bring myself to vote for him in the general even for harm reduction purposes (but to make it crystal clear, I would never vote Trump either, it would be third party or blank in that case). I think he will lose to Trump if he is the nominee.

I have a soft spot for Sanders despite being way to the left of him, he’s a socdem at best and I’ve never voted for a socdem in my life. However, in a US context, he would be a major step to the left, his policies are alright, and he’s way more coherent than Biden. Some people on the left flanks say he’s too nice and that’s probably true, socdems tend to be like that, but my lizard brain finds the niceness endearing even though I think it’s politically not ideal. I would vote for him in a heartbeat and I have given him money (funneled through a clothing vendor, so yeah I’m a foreign interference Russian bot). I think his chances to beat Trump would be better than Biden’s. Not great, mind you, Trump has quite an advantage going into the general and I’m not sure he’s beatable, although I sure hope he is.

Alright, now then, onto my long-ass rant about bad political arguments.

So, at the time I’m writing this, it sure looks like Biden will be the Democratic nominee, the race isn’t called yet but it’s looking pretty hopeless for the Sanders campaign. Consequently, the Bidenists are looking for everyone to rally around Biden and the Berners are pissed and/or discouraged and many of them are considering not voting or voting third party (and I guess some are considering voting Trump, but I genuinely think that group is real small and I’m ignoring them because fuck anyone who would do that).

Now, there are arguments for both of these stances that I find understandable. Like, I get the Bidenist argument that Trump is worse and therefore a vote for Biden is harm reduction, and I get the concern for the supreme court. I’m not convinced by these arguments, but I get them. On the flip side, I'm very sympathetic to the arguments that Biden is corrupt and awful, and that while Trump may be worse in the short term, voting for Biden will tell the Democratic party that they can keep putting up shitty status quo nominees and progressives will just take it, and thus the party won’t change and more people will be hurt by that in the long run. This is probably the position I’d take if I were in the US, as stated above.

Either way, these types of arguments from either side are pretty reasonable, but they’re not really the ones I’m hearing the most, at least not on the ol’ internet. What I’m hearing is a lot of crap, and I’m now going to list said crap and bitch about it.

1. Biden has dementia and keeping him in the race is elder abuse.

I want to get this real oof one out of the way first, because I drag Biden a bunch and will continue to do so, but this I don’t like. Yeah, the guy is incoherent when he speaks and lashes out a lot, but we shouldn’t be armchair diagnosing him or accusing anyone of abuse without proper evidence of that. I think it’s fair to criticize him for the way he behaves and to point out that Trump will definitely use that against him, but leave health assessments to professionals. Also, I get that a presidential candidate must be scrutinized more than the general public, but some of the stuff y'all are writing about people with cognitive disabilities is like super ableist and not cool. Don’t call people soup brains, for example, that’s trash behaviour.

2. Not voting in the general/voting third party is a vote for Trump.

Hey fuck off, no it’s fucking not. A vote for Trump is a vote for Trump. I get voting strategically, I really do, but the people who choose not to vote strategically are not voting for Trump. Doesn’t matter what the reason is, if you don’t vote for Trump you don’t vote for Trump and are not to blame for Trump. It’s unbelievably shitty to accuse people of being equal to Trump supporters if they don’t line up behind a particular other candidate.

3. Sanders supporters who won’t vote for Biden in the general are making that choice out of pettiness and/or childishness.

This is some ad hominem bullshit and also kinda contrary to the whole “unite the party behind Biden” thing, you don’t typically woo voters by calling them pissbabies. Especially young people don’t tend to respond well to frumpy people condescendingly telling them to grow up. Also it’s usually not true. Most people I know of that aren’t voting for Biden have well rounded reasons why, typically that they think voting for Biden would make things worse in the end. And unless someone tells you why they’re not voting for Biden, you don’t really know their reasons, so assuming “petty and childish” reflects more on you than it does on them.

4. Anyone who WOULD vote for Biden in the general is either a not a real progressive or a “low information” voter.

Shut up about that. Trump is a nightmare and many feel that four more years of him would be so disastrous that they’d rather take four years of Biden as the lesser of two evils. Being super scared of Trump and going the harm reduction route is not a sign that you’re uninformed or not progressive enough, I may disagree with it but not for that reason. The “low information” thing also seems to be directed at minorities a lot, which is kinda gross. Talk about voter suppression and try to reach out to people, absolutely, but sort of implying that minorities are ignorant is not a good look to have.

5. I was for Warren and now I’m for Biden because Sanders supporters are abusive.

I don’t have as strong an opinion on this one as the other ones, I just feel like it’s a super weird take to jump from supporting (relatively) progressive policies to supporting whatever it is Biden’s got going on because some of the Bernie crowd are kinda dicks (which I’m not denying by the way, I’ve seen them, I just feel like policy is more important). As I stated above, I’m not about to start accusing anyone of being a fake progressive or whatever, I’m just saying it’s a little weird and if there are any Warrenites out there who would like to explain it to me that would be swell. Preferably explain it civilly, since many of the #WarrenToBiden types I’ve seen have been surprisingly abusive themselves considering their stance on the whole Bernie bro thing.

6. Not voting for Biden in the general is a sign that you’re privileged and aren’t that affected by the vote, and that you don’t really care if minorities suffer another four years of Trump. Or the converse, voting for Biden in the general is a sign that you’re privileged and aren’t that affected by a continuation of the status quo, and that you don’t care if minorities suffer in the long run.

This argument can just fuck off whatever side it comes from. It’s another ad hominem attack and super reductive, both the people rallying behind Biden and the #NeverBiden people are a diverse bunch. Some are privileged, some are not, and this generalization helps no one. Especially cringe is when someone who is decidedly not part of a minority of any kind makes this argument, which I’m seeing A LOT of. I’m all for identity politics, but this ain’t it.

7. Sanders has said he will support Biden if Biden is the nominee, so you should too.

Why? Sanders isn’t flippin’ Jesus, it’s completely possible to support him and still disagree with him on occasion. I’m not quite satisfied with his explanations considering his record on guns, for example, nor do I think he should co-opt the term “democratic socialist” when he’s really just a socdem (although it is admittedly very funny to see conservative Americans freaking out over the mention of socialism). It’s not weird to not be a sycophant, personality cults are not a good thing.

You know, I’ll probably come up with like 100 more bad arguments I’ve seen floating around once i press the “Post” button, but it’s 3 AM and this post is already dragging even by my standards so maybe I’ll release another one of these at a later date. Until then, please wash your hands, stay safe if you belong to a risk group, and if you don’t belong to a risk group, don’t be a fuckface and hoard the supplies they need or endanger them by not following recommendations to limit the spread. I’ve had a probably-just-a-cold this week and you bet your ass I haven’t left my apartment even once just in case it wasn’t just a cold and I ended up murdering a grandma. Just don’t be pricks.