#after voting for the candidate who is the least evil with an actual chance of winning

[sapphoslibrary]

the amount of gen z “leftists” who lack even basic education on the american political system is genuinely astounding and terrifying

[tittyinfinity]

I can't take anyone who defends Biden seriously whenever I'm like "hey there's a candidate who isn't 'the lesser of two evils' and we could work together to get her elected'' and it's blown off like it's nothing as if Biden would win if everyone on tumblr voted for him. Many of your friends who aren't voting next year would love to show up and vote if it wasn't for someone advocating genocide. It's our chance of making an actual difference. But ig insead of pushing for change we're gonna ride the dick of some genocidal fuckhead who's pretty much already guaranteed to lose next year.

And even if a 3rd party candidate can't win (the electoral college still exists after all), we can at least prove to the dems that we won't accept that kind of behavior, because continuing to allow it means that the party can go further and further right, and what good does that do anyone?

Can we please fucking work together.

[mugiwara-lucy]

Listen, it’s not about letting Trump win, it’s about letting the Democratic Party know that they still have to earn your vote in order to affect their policy and their current stance on Palestine. Once they’re elected you can’t make them earn your vote anymore, so it’s important to hold that over their head before the elections.

Also, Kamala Harris is NOT “pro-Palestine” as long as she keeps repeating the “Israel has a right to defend itself” truism, and as along as she continues to talk of a ceasefire without doing anything to enforce it. This is not simply a matter of opinion or stance in the matter, the current United States government is a perpetrator of the violence and they need to be addressed as such.

Part of the reason why drawing a line on the sand with this issue is so important is that American liberalism has a history of elevating their own rights as worthy of pursuit while disregarding the way they themselves are complicit in the erosion of those said rights abroad. Leaders of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Panthers back in the sixties and seventies understood, for example, openly challenged and fought the Democrat Vietnam policy because they understood the hypocrisy of letting their rights come at the expense of people dying elsewhere.

“Vote blue no matter who” mentality creates complacency in officials seeking to be elected, it tells them they do not have to earn your vote. Living in a democracy is about making your voice heard and organizing accordingly, so please stop disparaging any efforts made to effectively challenge current policy and use that democratic power for an actual change.

First of all, I'd like to say thank you for being more respectful to me that some of these other Anons.

I will admit I lost my patience on them but when you've been getting harassed for months, it gets to you.

Now look, if we lived in a parallel universe where Project 2025 wasn't a thing and the person running against Kamala was an idiot like RFK Jr who doesn't seem to want to be a dictator, I'd probably agree more with the Non-Voting stance you all want to take although I'd never do it since I want to exercise my right to vote whenever I can but the reality is we don't. We have an unapologetic, lying, hateful evil RAPIST running for president. And I'm not sure if you're American or not but there's some people who downplay just how HORRIFIC his term was and the lasting ramifications of it. Here's the main consequences of him being in office:

Roe v Wade, Affirmative Action and the Chevron was overturned (stuff which was 50 years old that got lost after EIGHT YEARS).

I'm sorry but i am NOT INTERESTED in seeing what's next to go because of a Supreme Court Justice that he appointed. Especially since there'll be vacancies in the next couple of years and if he appoints MORE YOUNGER MAGA TYPE justices, the Supreme Court will be locked hard right for AT LEAST THIRTY YEARS.

Do you KNOW what will happen to this country at that point??

Now Trump has said when he gets back into office he wants to "restrict" the First Amendment:

And one of his Supreme Court dickriders Clarence Thomas was talking about getting rid of Loving V Virginia (the law that made Interracial dating LEGAL):

So that's why I'm putting as MUCH of my effort into making sure Trump does NOT get back into office as much as I can. It's not that I don't care about Palestine (quite the contrary actually) but if we DON'T HAVE OUR RIGHTS HOW CAN WE HELP ANYONE ELSE?? I ask this and get crickets in response.

And Kamala IS Pro-Palestine. Don't forget this:

And having her in office is WAY BETTER for Palestine that this clown that NOT ONLY SAID THIS:

And LITERALLY TRIED to SABOTAGE Kamala's chances at winning the election by conspiring with Natanyahu to HAVE NO ceasefires made:

Which I'd like to point out is in violation of the LOGAN ACT since normal people can NOT interfere in domestic affairs in other countries.

To say they're the similar is uninformed ignorance at best or just willful lying at worse.

They're NOWHERE in the SAME BALLPARK.

It's not disparaging your efforts as it is just saying if we don't get Kamala, we get the rapist back in office who has talked NUMEROUS TIMES about a third term so I wouldn't be surprised if the ONLY way he leaves is in a bodybag.

(ASSUMING THE MILITARY STEPS IN AND DEALS WITH THEM AS THEY HAVE A MANDATE).

[leonidas1754]

There is no right answer. God I wish there was, but there isn't.

Voting third party IS throwing away your vote, at least for right now. Our two-party system has rigged the game and people don't seem to realize that the majority of voters will probably never see things advocating for third parties, let alone a specific one, and even less will be convinced by it because they understand this too.

Maybe if there was a huge turnout for a third party, it would open more people up to voting third party in the future, because it seemingly becomes possible for them to actually win, and that's a nice goal, but it doesn't do anything right now. Change over time is good, but the discussion around this is what to do RIGHT NOW, and voting third party will not help. Even a large third-party turnout probably won't scare Democrats, hell, even a third party WIN wouldn't truly scare either party into much significance because it can be written off as a one-time miracle and they'll still have control of Congress. History has shown time and time again that this hasn't worked, and while that doesn't necessarily mean it'll never work, can you really fault people for advocating for doing something that might actually help today rather than in fifty years at best? And all of this ignores the fact that getting a third party into the White House isn't even guaranteed to actually change anything, because politicians lie and can be thwarted in their attempts even when they don't lie.

That's why people always say that voting third party is effectively throwing your vote to Republicans. Because it is, in a sense. If you're voting third party, you're essentially accepting the worst candidate, whichever that candidate is (it's just that usually said worst candidate is indeed Republican). Our system needs to change, but voting third party right now is not going to bring about the change needed in the timeframe people want/need. We're looking at decades at best, most likely, for that sort of influence.

At least it's still better than not voting at all.

People are saying vote for the lesser of evils if only to try to minimize the further harm that can be done and to have the best chance of changing things for the better. Because unfortunately, the situation isn't just Gaza. The rest of the world doesn't stop because of this horrible, horrible atrocity.

I can't fault people for not wanting to vote Biden. But people wanting to vote Biden aren't just excusing his stance on things, even if this specific tweet looks goddamn horrendous out of context. Most of the people advocating for voting for him in spite of it are doing so because they believe that letting a Republican into the White House again is guaranteed to make things worse, especially if that Republican manages to be Trump. They're advocating for it because we have literally seen what this does already with Trump himself. We have gone so far backwards thanks to him and the administration around him, and clawing back progress is going to take decades itself. Hell, he was still able to do damage even after leaving the White House. Can you really fault people for not wanting to risk that again just to make a statement with a low chance of actually influencing anything?

I hate this. I fucking wish there were better options. But we have to work with what we have, and what we have right now is SHIT. Hopefully we'll get better options approaching the election. Hopefully pushes for change right now will do something. All we can do is our best, whatever that is. Keep pushing, keep yelling at the people in office, keep making it clear that even if we can't truly control who's in office, we can still put some kind of pressure on them.

this is literally the entire sum of democrat theory and praxis its literally mind numbing like i feel like lead poisoning has to be a part of this

[yournewapartment]

In all seriousness, what do you think voting 3rd party this election will do? Is it really worth trying when only the 2 idiots actually matter? Will it be just as useless as voting for Spongebob? Should I just not vote at all?

Please DO NOT vote third party this election!

I’m all for voting third party, but this is not the election for that. This is the election to get out there and get excited for Joe Biden. He’s not perfect. He’s not progressive in the way that I want him to be. He’s a straight white male when, frankly, we deserve better. But in this current political climate, there is no way in hell a third party candidate will win. As you’ve acknowledged, America is stuck in a two party cycle for the foreseeable future. I remember a coworker of mine trying to tell me that “I was the problem” for not voting for Jill Stein in 2016, a fucking pivotal year in the fucking history of our democracy. I love Jill Stein, but she didn’t stand a sliver of a chance, and he knew it! And he voted for her anyway to “stick it to the man”.

Unfortunately, voting third party will become synonymous with throwing your vote away this election, much as it was this past election. It’s terrible, but it’s true. You’re not cheating the system or sticking it to the man. You’re wasting your voice. I’m sorry that your voice only has the two options, but that’s the corner we’ve backed ourselves into. We’ve gotta get out before we can make any permanent changes.

Let’s revolutionize after we get a Democrat back in the White House. Let’s demand change at a greater level after we’re back to some semblance of normalcy. Now is the time to vote for Joe Biden. If you can’t get excited for him, get excited for Kamala at the very least. She’s smart and motivated and makes the democratic ticket better in so many different ways. I hope she holds Biden to the standard he needs to be held to. I hope she makes us proud, but I have faith that she will bring out his progressive side.

Trump is pure evil and deranged and America will not survive another four years of him! 210 thousand people have already died due to his negligence. If you’ve watched any of the debates you must have seen his determination to make a mockery of everyone and everything that is not himself or his family. He’s a sociopath! He doesn’t care about you or me or even Malaria his own wife! She’s awful too, btw.... He is pathetic and a literal sociopath and everyone who stands with him is an enabling, spineless shitstain of a person. Period the end!

Please vote Biden. Do it for America. Just... please.

[docbe]

I do think it sucks to blame ppl who are like "I don’t like either of this options and I don’t like that the system will only allow two bad options" when like. People who unapologetically support trump are turning out in such great numbers. Like if someone refuses to pick between two sexual predators you can’t call that a morally poor decision

That depends on how you frame a “moral” decision in this situation. The problem here is the perspective that’s painted by stan culture, by cancel culture–that to support someone is to support the things they’ve done in the past, and is also the means to the end in itself. But that’s not what the presidency, or any office of government, is–you’re not supporting a politician, you’re supporting their advocacy of you and the results that can be attained from their representation

I’m not going after Trump supporters right now because like, I imagine anyone who follows me by now realizes that I am not a big fan, and even if they don’t, I imagine most of my followers are themselves liberal bc why would you follow me otherwise haha so just bashing Trump followers would be like…pointless. It would be an echo chamber. It wouldn’t do anything. It would feel good, and we’d all pat ourselves on the back, and there would be nothing to act on and no introspection and no step forward. And I’m not “blaming” people for having trouble with the fact that it might be a shitty decision–I get that! But discussions like this do need to happen within communities of ppl–we aren’t a hive mind, we don’t have to just band together for the sake of making sure everyone feels good. We have to deal with the reality and what could result from our own individual actions

So here’s the situation: on one hand, picking between two accused sexual predators for the highest office in the country obviously sucks. On the other hand, this isn’t an opt-out–either the blue candidate or the red candidate is gonna get it, and we know who the red candidate is. Does that system suck? Absolutely. Is that still the reality? Yes. And I don’t know if you can call it a morally good decision to allow someone into power who committed all of the shitty, evil things we said he was going to do last time, and who would absolutely shift and grab power in whatever way he can, and who has a cult of personality that would follow blindly and allow it to happen. The consequence of a decision is also important in weighing morality, and I think the impact from another Trump presidency on the lives of many people who need healthcare, who aren’t being treated like human beings bc of what they look like or where they come from, far outweighs the personal bad feelings someone might have from being reminded that there is no way to avoid that from happening unless the other candidate wins

Again, no political office in the US is a “congrats for being a good person.” We don’t vote people into office just because we like them. They aren’t celebrities. And while it sucks that someone shitty might get the presidency, the reality is that good guys like Bernie Sanders will still be trying to do work in Congress, and if we have another red president and a stacked house/senate, he won’t be able to do anything. In this situation, a dem president would at least allow the people you want on your side to do the work they need to do; it would allow for a Supreme Court nominee who would protect your hard-fought liberties from being squashed again; it would prevent the sort of bullshit Trump had implemented against poor people, immigrants, lgbtqia+ people, etc. 

So like, I’m not saying it’s not a shitty decision, and I’m not faulting people for being morally conflicted about it. But it has consequences, and those consequences may change people’s lives for better or worse, and I think the greater moral decision here is whether or not it is noble to allow someone who would love to build a dictatorship to remain in power just because our heads are too stuck in the way it should be that we can’t react to how it actually is. Passivity is not the right answer here. Even if you hate the choices for president, still show up to the polls, and at least vote for all the other options in your favor to give ppl like Bernie a fighting chance, wherever they are on the ticket

[dokidokivisual]

Gochiusa BLOOM episode 9 impressions

Previously: 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1

That’s right, the long-awaited review of episode 9 is finally here! I haven’t managed to finish it last week and kind of lost motivation since almost nobody reads these anyway, but there we go. Not sure what I’m going to do with the remaining episodes at this point, maybe I’ll combine 10 and 11 together? 

The episode starts with a flashback from Chiya and Sharo’s childhood which shows the origin of Anko’s crown. The scene is “shot” in widescreen aspect ratio, a technique that I don’t remember being used before in Gochiusa anime, such as during the previous Chiya/Sharo flashback in Season 2 Episode 9.

I’d like to bring the attention to the opening shot of flowers, which are periwinkles (Vinca major). As you might know, Japanese media often uses the flower language, or hanakotoba which assigns specific meanings to various flowers. The meanings of greater periwinkle are “pleasant memories” and “childhood friends”, which seems to apply rather well here. In fact, if you see a shot of flowers in an anime, there’s a very high chance they have a relevant meaning in hanakotoba.

Of course I couldn’t help but look up chamomile as well, and its meaning seems to be “patience in the face of adversity”...

It seems that Chiya has now lost the crown, but it’s honestly surprising how it stayed on Anko all this time considering he has been carried away by crows and dropped from the sky more than once. Also, I feel like revealing the crown is lost so early in the episode deprives the viewers from being able to spot it on their own, just by seeing crownless Anko in various scenes (as has been done in the manga chapter).

In Chiya’s class there’s an election for picking the candidate from the class for the student council president position. The only two people competing are Chiya and the class president (who doesn’t have a name and referred to only as Iincho). In a surprising turn of events, Chiya gets 16 votes versus 14 votes for the prez (refer to the tally mark chart in episode 3 review), which means there are at least 30 people in the class.

Imagine losing a popularity poll to Chiya. The prez is a tragic character...

Cocoa volunteers to be Chiya’s “producer”, but Chiya calls her “First Lady” which totally means she wants to marry her. By the way, it was Cocoa who nominated Chiya for the election, which I don’t think is mentioned in the anime. In general, this particular chapter has been rearranged rather heavily for the adaptation with things happening in a completely different order, so it’s quite interesting to compare the two versions.

For example, when we see Chiya coming up with the names of various student committees, it seems like a completely natural and Chiya thing to do. It’s hard to believe that in the manga, it is Sharo who comes up with the idea of renaming all the committees. In fact this particular Chiya/Sharo tête-à-tête is not in the manga at all. However it’s an important scene to establish Sharo’s feelings towards Chiya’s presidential ambitions and she doesn’t seem too happy about them, in fact she doesn’t even congratulate Chiya.

Next we have another anime-original scene where Chiya goes to accessories store (from episode 6) to find a replacement for Anko’s crown. It should be pointed out that the design of the crown itself is not completely arbitrary. It features a moon crescent, which symbolizes night (the last character 夜 of Chiya’s name) but is also associated with Arabic world. The closest thing to Anko’s crown I could find is this heraldic crown of the King of Egypt. Anyway, this is also a reference to Chiya’s name, namely it being derived from Japanese name for 1001/Arabian Nights 千夜一夜物語 (Sen’ya Ichiya Monogatari).

Meanwhile Rize is trying to change image to be more like a college student, notices Chiya and asks to make her an adult (phrasing?). As a result, we get an appearance from Rize’s alter-ego Rose for the first time since season 1 episode 9.

The interesting thing about Rose is that despite being featured in only a small number of chapters, she gets a mention in Rize’s character blurb in Manga Time Kirara MAX until this day. It literally takes like a third of her character description!

Anyway, this scene is just a prelude for the adaptation of chapter 2 of volume 7 which is named after a Rize character song  鏡合わせのアンビバレット. In the song, Rize tries on outfits in front of a mirror and tries to convince herself that it’s still her. The illustration for this chapter also shows Rose as a mirror image of Rize.

We see Sharo looking through a bookstore window, which I think also appears in the following episode, and this is a foreshadowing that she works here too. The bookstore is named “Dreamy Books” which is seen later in the scene.

Chiya and “Rose” appear and at first Sharo doesn’t recognize Rize, and only does after Rize points a finger gun at her. Well, it’s not like there is anyone else in this town having purple hair or anything.

By the way you might notice that compared to the last episode the characters are dressed much more warmly, which reflects the fact that it’s already December. Looking back at the scene in episode 8 where Rize and Chimame cross the bridge at night, it’s quite shocking how lightly they’ve been dressed there.

Chino and Cocoa come by, and recognize Rize as Rose. It’s lampshaded that the last time they’ve seen Rose was more than a year ago, so it’s quite impressive that they still remember her, as well as her promise to visit Rabbit House (in s1e9 she only visits Ama Usa An). Rize thinks it’s a good chance to “infiltrate” Rabbit House to see what the others think of her when she’s gone.

Rize’s infiltration goes relatively smoothly until Maya and Megu barge in and immediately recognize her. Chiya manages to get them to play along in time, however Megu makes up a ridiculous backstory painting Rose as a ballet kempo practitioner who fights an evil organization.

Aoyama Blue Mountain also backs up Rose’s existence, by mentioning that she is in her literature club and also does food reviews. She gives Rize a cheat sheet which seems to parody the tendency of food reviews to describe food as “melting in your mouth” (for example wagyu beef).

Later Rize ends up having a conversation with Chino where she reveals that Rize’s been taking more days off than usual and it gets lonely without her. She has also started lazing about in the sun, just like Cocoa does, which wouldn’t have happened if Rize has been around upholding the discipline. In the anime Rize doesn’t really react to this, but in the manga she seems a bit disappointed in Chino.

This scene is a callback to the very first episode of the show, where Rize pretends she can’t easily carry these bags of coffee beans, because they’re too heavy for a “normal girl” according to Cocoa. Soon after, Rize’s cover is blown after she reacts to an intruder who is just Takahiro.

It turns out that Cocoa has already recognized it’s Rize. One thing that Cocoa and Rize have in common is that they change hairstyles a lot compared to the other characters, so it makes sense that Cocoa would not be fooled by a simple hairstyle change... or would she? Shortly after Cocoa has a realization that Rose has always been Rize, which makes her feel really stupid... until she finds that Chino is still completely in the dark about everything. Maybe Chino has propagnosia, or inability to recognize faces? Anyway, Rize is quite supportive about it and asks Chino if she’s ok if she does image change in the future.

But there’s still one more twist in this chapter, since Cocoa’s sister Mocha makes an appearance! Considering she appears in the opening, this season hasn’t really done anything with her yet. But it turns out it’s just Cocoa in a wig (why does she even have a Mocha wig???), nevertheless she successfully fools Rize and Chino for a second. Maybe the last episode of the season will have real Mocha (I’m assuming she won’t be in the Christmas arc).

And we’re back to the student council election storyline. The “sandwich” composition where one story “wraps” another seems to be used a lot this season. In this case the stories have almost zero relation to each other so I don’t know why the episode had to be structured like this.

Chiya’s election poster (aside from Cocoa’s scribbles) follows a traditional Japanese election poster design, featuring a closeup photo of a politician, her name and a slogan (which implores you to vote like a shiratama dumpling for some reason). I feel like a poster like this prioritizes the looks of a politician over their policies or whatever, but maybe there’s some sort of election law that these posters have to follow.

Cocoa and Chino also wrote letters of endorsement for Chiya, although Cocoa’s was mostly written by Aoyama and was basically a food review. Chino not only made Chiya almost explode from praise, but also presented a verbal takedown of Cocoa on the fly. Later, Chiya makes a passionate speech trying to emulate Rize, but maybe Chino should’ve written that too.

Next I’d like to point your attention to the name of the dish that Chiya made to celebrate the occasion:

Aki no sora (in the autumn sky) Todoroku oto wa (a thundering sound is) Omedetai (auspicious)

If you count the syllables, you’ll find that it is actually a haiku. and it even includes a kigo (season word, “autumn in this case”). The final line is a pun, as tai indicates the presence of taiyaki (a bean paste filled cake shaped like a bream fish) in the dish.

Another anime-original scene appears to flesh out the episode’s “moral” and show how Ama Usa is where Chiya really shines. A bunch of old ladies (who seem like they starred in a Kirara manga a long time ago) enter the teahouse to celebrate the birth of a 5th grandchild for one of them. Cocoa also helps Chiya, donning the Ama Usa uniform once again. 

Chiya sprinkles gold dust on her dish, doing her best “salt bae” expression. Pure gold is inert and as such can be safely eaten. In Japan, gold leaf is even added to tea, which might explain why Chiya has it.

As everyone is about to go home, Chiya’s grandma appears through a rarely-opened sliding window and offers some manju as a treat. In the anime this is how Sharo eventually discovers the lost Chiya’s crown, which her grandma uses as a hairpin (the hairpin functionality explains how this crown doesn’t fall off Anko). Surprisingly she doesn’t appear at all in the manga chapter, and Sharo just randomly finds the crown “outside”.

By the way, the text on the manju box says “congratulations on winning the election”, which might’ve been a bit premature.

Sharo goes to return the crown back to Chiya, and Chiya repeats Cocoa’s reaction from part A, which sounds like breakup song lyrics. This dialogue wasn’t in the manga in either scene and I think it was included to somehow tie the two parts together, and make the inability to notice something obvious that was around you the whole time the unifying concept of the episode.

For Chiya the crown was the symbol of ambition, and her dream to become the director of Ama Usa An and conquer the world. Sharo has a lot of drive to work multiple jobs, but doesn’t seem to have a goal she aspires to. When she finally gets an opportunity to move up the ranks, by becoming a student council president, she declines it. Living side by side with Chiya forever (zutto issho) seems to be the extent of her ambitions. Sharo feels betrayed by Chiya being ready to “leave” her and spend more time with student council than at her own restaurant.

After the ED we see the conclusion of this conflict. Sharo sees the preparations for celebrating the winner of the election, and begrudgingly congratulates Chiya. We see Cocoa, Rize and Chino helping out, but Sharo wasn’t even invited...

But it turns out class prez was the winner, after Chiya has declined the nomination. She probably had all the posters and speeches at the ready just in case, and didn’t have to prepare at all. In the manga, this is also where she returns Sharo’s uniform that she borrowed back in episode 4.

Meanwhile Chiya and Sharo have a talk and agree that it was the best for them to decline their nominations and they should stick with what they have. Not sure if that applies to Sharo though, she wasn’t really shown to be “shining” but more like “barely getting by”. There was also another reason in the manga for Chiya to agree it was the right choice: Chiya’s classmates totally trashed her menu names, which means they probably wouldn’t like her committee names either. Most of the classmates dialogue was cut out in the anime though.

So that was episode 9 and all that’s left for this season is a 2-episode Christmas arc and the season finale. Hope you enjoyed this review and until next time!

[onetruesirius]

If Harris gets in, we have a shot, just a shot, at bugging these assholes enough to stop.

We buy ourselves a bit more time to even be listened to at all, to pressure the dickheads in power to stop bombing Gaza, to make our dissatisfaction more-than-known, but felt, at every layer of governance.

We have to get the Dems into office and THEN we crucify them at every single turn until they fucking stop sending bombs. We have to get people into office who will maybe have a 10% chance of listening to us, and THEN we get to scream at them for 4 years. If the people in office won't listen to us at all, there are no more chips in the game.

And before you even fucking think it, get "violent revolution" out of your mouth. The Second Coming of Christ Karl Marx isn't happening, I don't care what Fred from work said. There is no shining garden on the other side of an apocalypse—there is only day after day after day after day. There is only taking care of each other, there is only doing what we can, every single day.

ONE of these ghoulish fucks has a CHANCE of being able to be bargained with. The other does not.

We will not be listened to whatsoever under Trump. Trump has said, on record, he wants Netanyahu to "finish the job". Fuck's sake—what do we even think that means here??? He is going to accelerate the flow of weapons to Israel, and he is not going to listen to anyone if they tell him to stop, he will not listen to protests even the tiniest little bit this time, and we have to acknowledge that reality.

I've heard a lot of "no lesser evil when it comes to genocide" lately, encouraging people to split the democratic vote and get Trump into office, just like Nixon and Reagan. My frustration with these individuals is both unceasing and empathetic, because I do get it.

I understand. I do, deeply. The desire to sit down and cross my arms over my chest and withhold my vote and play chicken with the Republicans and teach the Dems a lesson runs deep in my soul as well. I swore on my life that I wouldn't vote for Biden and I was sticking to my guns about that, because fuck it, what he's thrown himself into wholeheartedly should be enough to get him tried at the Hague. Kamala has time to change her mind, even if it's after the election. I resent what's happening, I hate that my government is bankrolling the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. I'd would stop it if I could. I would ease it if I could. That also means I would do whatever I could to prevent it from intensifying further, even if it stings my pride and offends my sensibilities.

With the things that Trump is more or less promising to do to Gaza? I would never be able to forgive myself if I did nothing to stop him, and he got into office. My inaction would be complicity in the intensified violence at home and abroad. There were candidates in the past that we COULD play chicken with to make the Dems quake in their boots. That is not the 2024 cycle. Trump is not a man to play chicken with—he is in a cement mixer and you are not going to win against a cement mixer.

If there was actually a 3rd party candidate who was opposed to the genocide entirely, and who I thought could actually win in the General Election, I would vote for them in a heartbeat.

But I don't have that right now.

A viable 3rd party candidate this late in the game is a pipe dream, and there are no dreams here, no wishful thinking, there is only what is—what is right in front of me. The list of things I would change and the list of things I dislike will always be at least a mile long and I can't act on any of it in any meaningful way right now. There is no grand scheme, there is no Revolution coming to save me. There is only day after day after day after agonizing day. There is no "I don't want-", there is only what I DO want. Tempering that, there is only what I can actually GET, reasonably. I can't get everything I want right now, which sucks because I want world peace. I want my friends to stop being in danger when they go back to their ancestral lands, to stop having their family killed, to stop being at risk of violence right here in their own country for the way they look... and that's not happening right now. All I can do for now, is pressure my representatives and make sure that me not getting my way isn't going to cause me to hurt other people in my frustration and hurt my cause. As a person living here, exercising civic rights, I'm already a part of this. I'm already conplicit. I can't afford pipe dreams, I have to give my friends a chance to be listened to.

It would be an unimaginable luxury for me to simply sit down and cross my arms over my chest to pout because I'm not god-emperor of everything, and in so doing allow even more harm to come into the world, just so I can have a slightly-cleaner conscience while everyone suffers.

I will be very begrudgingly and very resentfully placing my vote behind Kamala Harris with both my whole chest AND a promise to keep fucking shit up until she listens to the voice of the people.

For fucks sake don’t vote 3rd party.

I would LOVE to not have a 2 party system. It’s a cancer on our country and we need to take action to dismantle it, but just pretending like the bad thing already doesn’t exist anymore and making decisions based on that is a TERRIBLE idea. It won’t change shit and it’ll just prevent us from making actual headway. Trump will win if Kamala doesn’t, that’s the system we live in, the notion that that 200 year old monster of a problem is gonna change in 100 days is absolutely absurd. So let’s just establish that before going any further.

I see people all the time saying to vote 3rd party because “Kamala is just as bad as Trump, democrats just wanna LOOK progressive.” (And before that it was Biden but you get my gist.) because of Biden’s deplorable refusal to stop arming Israel. Respectfully, no tf she’s not, even by just a hair. Kamala isn’t the one with a laundry list of straight up legal atrocities she’s publicly planning to commit if she wins. Being genuinely scared of project 2025 and worrying about ourselves because of that isn’t proof that someone calling for a free Palestine is performative. Genuinely, GENUINELY, what the hell do you think is gonna happen to Palestine if Trump wins? Letting our own country possibly be set back several steps and many of our own citizens’ lives be destroyed to “take a stand” for Palestine when it won’t do shit to help them is just as performative. Actually it’s infinitely MORE performative.

[rainwolfheart]

in case you need any more: reasons to vote for joe biden, from a non-american

the american political system is corrupt and nonsensical from an outside perspective, too. but any chance at improving it has to come from the left, and the only way to push the pendulum that way for the short-term is by electing democrats. sorry.

it's been said many times, but you're not just voting for the president. you're voting for the vice president, for the cabinet, for the supreme court, and (i may be wrong on this one) for people who represent your state/region (senators? congresspeople? both?)

i know you're maybe sad about the democrats not choosing bernie or warren or whoever. but if you want them to continue having an influence on politics, biden is the one who might give them a cabinet position or make them in charge of a committee, etc, and will actually listen to the advice of experts and the people around him. do you think trump will extend that olive branch?

even if biden is all talk and no action, a democratic government will at least prevent the republicans from doing more bad shit and break the spirit of the right and stop everyone from having to see and listen to the current cheeto in chief

whether you realize it or not, american politics have a huge impact on the rest of the world. in the last four years there's been a massive shift in the canadian right, directly influenced by trump. defeating trump and the republicans with even a slightly more left-wing candidate will be a massive blow to the far right in the usa and elsewhere, and may cause schisms and more turnover that makes it more difficult to elect them in the future.

let me say it more clearly: because of trump's election in 2016, canada almost ended up with a right-wing government, too. my province has one right now and it's awful. the results of the 2020 election WILL impact politics in other countries. this isn't just about you.

i know it's hard and it can be painful to bring yourself to vote for someone you think is a terrible human being. nobody is asking you to be a fan of him. they're just asking you to choose the lesser of two evils. there is no third path in this scenario. start the revolution after election day.

you guys get stickers for voting and we don't and that's not fair. get a sticker for me.

[gallagherwitt]

Why I'm voting for Biden and hope you will too...

Let me preface this by saying that I totally understand the reasons people don't want to vote for Biden. I'm not thrilled with him as a candidate either. Of all the options we had, he was my least favorite by a mile. (And yes, I support investigating allegations of sexual assault no matter what.) You don't need to explain to me why you're not voting for him -- I get it.

I also understand why people are frustrated by centrism over progressivism. How frustrated people are that we're getting more of the same when we desperately need and want change. I loathe picking the lesser of two evils in every election. You don't need to explain that to me either.

I get it. I do. I'm tired of it. I'm exhausted by it. I don't like being pushed to vote for a candidate I don't want. Never have, never will.  I want to actually be excited about a candidate and optimistic that things will change when they're in office.

But I will vote for Biden because the stakes are extraordinarily high this time.

To put it succinctly, electing Biden won't bring the changes I want, but allowing Trump to get reelected will mean four years of allowing things to get so much worse, the changes I want will be vastly overshadowed by even greater problems.

The damage Trump has, in one not-yet-complete term, done to our country, to our government, to our standing in the world, to our environment, to our economy -- all of that will already take generations to undo. We can't handle four more years, especially without Trump concerning himself with being reelected. We definitely can't weather another crisis like coronavirus under his "leadership."

I want universal healthcare. Trump's administration is aggressively working to undermine the ACA and give insurance companies more power to cover fewer people.

I want a robust and well-funded public education system. DeVos is destroying what we already have, piece by piece.

I want us to move toward green energy and reduced carbon emissions. Trump is actively repealing our existing environmental regulations.

Will Biden improve healthcare, education, or environmental protections? Doubtful. But right now, our choice is between someone who will maintain the abysmal status quo and someone who will aggressively and unapologetically make things objectively - and maybe irreversibly - worse. Trump has demonstrated time and again that the only thing he can consistently be relied upon to do is the wrong thing.

So no, I'm not excited about Biden. I don't like Biden. When this is all over, I am 100% onboard with burning the Democratic party to the ground and rebuilding something progressive.

But right now, regardless of my feelings on the issue, there will be two nominees on the ballot: Biden and Trump.

Everyone keeps saying this will be a repeat of previous elections where a "meh" centrist lost, but the stakes weren't nearly as high in those elections. People weren't nearly as aware of and involved in politics because things weren't such an unmitigated disaster. The opponents weren't nearly as unapologetic in their willingness to destroy our country's institutions, pick fights with other nations, etc. They at least TRIED to sound like they cared about doing right by this country.

"Biden will lose! There's no way he can win!" That, my friends, is what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy. Biden can win IF WE VOTE FOR HIM.

You don't have to like it. You don't have to be even a little bit happy about it. You don't have to believe in a two-party system, in primaries, in anything that went into selecting the nominee. I agree with you!

But the fact is, at the end of the day, we have two options.

We can elect an adult who has a fighting chance of being reasonable, accepting oversight, engaging in negotiations, demonstrating a shred of empathy, and at the very least behaving like an adult.

Or we can have 4 more years of disaster at the hands of Trump, and I've studied history for too long to believe our country will be recognizable after that, assuming it survives at all. Trump has all the hallmarks of someone who wants to be a dictator, and he's eroding the checks and balances fast enough that he might get what he wants.

That is why I will, despite not being happy about it, vote for Biden, and I hope you will too.

[alexsmitposts]

Blind Faith, Subterfuge and not “Real Issues” will decide US Presidential Elections Voter behaviour is not really so complicated. I once even took a course in it; about all that I can remember is that the “incumbent and name recognition is all that really matters” in getting re-elected, especially for a US President. Regardless of who is the pick for vice president, or whether or not Joe Biden is a Republican at heart with a bad case of both venality and dementia and Trump cannot make truthful statements, the November election is therefore kind of a “toss up”—at least at first impression. Trump is larger than life, whether or not that is a good thing. This worked in his favour last time round, as the outsider candidate against the tainted Hillary Clinton, pillar of the political establishment, the sort who gives representing a relatively left-leaning party a bad name. But this time the US is not electing a new president, it is holding what is effectively a referendum on the incumbent. In 2016 the primary motivation was voting either FOR Trump or FOR Hillary. This time a significant portion of the population will be voting AGAINST Trump, just because it’s him, and his main task will be get these people to stay at home, rather than vote for Biden, even if they have to hold their noses to do so. But with so many Republicans having a problem with Trump, and Democrats having a problem with Sloppy Joe Biden, there will be less interest in engaging WITH, rather than AGAINST, either candidate. If voters act on hate alone, Biden will walk it. But the long campaigning season will probably end with a weary populace ignoring the real issues and voting on the basis of blind faith – that regardless of things like issues and facts, someone, somehow, is going to make their lives better before the whole political system collapses around them. Schoolyard Bully I am dumbfounded at how Trump can blatantly and unapologetically pander to Christians and they eat it up!!! He is reported to have made a statement that if the states don’t open the churches this weekend there will be consequences!!! Trump has many supporters in the South, where they are keen on States´Rights. But Facebook and other social media sites are repeating his nonsense, and throwing their endorsement to Trump. Maybe the man is the genius he says he is after all. He is definitely playing them – what can Facebook do, censor Trump or claim that such statements go against community standards? He has been a genius at one thing for his entire life – getting his own way, and just for the hell of it, regardless of what is right or well-advised. Like the rich kid who learns how to twist his parents in knots, Trump is godlike in his ability to manipulate. He will use any trick in the book, and make up some new ones. This may end up being what the election is actually about. The more Trump lies and cheats and gets away with it, the more the disadvantaged and the crooked, who have fallen by the wayside when playing by the rules, will think he offers hope. The rest of America will then decide whether that is really the world they want to live in for the next four years, in the midst of a succession of crises they often have wilfully unreal ideas about to begin with. As one new American, before the new immigration rules set in, shared, “Trump is not that evil; I don’t think he is Godlike. He is just a compulsive dude with a character. He is simple but knows how to bargain for profits. Why everyone is after him, it’s funny; I have never seen Americans liking their president ever, as they like Trump.” Us against them Versus them against Us Of course this means Trump won’t campaign by the rules either. Other people made those rules, the same people many Americans blame for taking away their jobs and being soft on their enemies. Trump will do whatever he has to do, whatever the cost, ignoring little things like the Constitution, Rule of Law and facts.His latest stunt is to question whether Biden’s VP running mate is qualified to stand for the office, based on her parent’s origins. That is really catering to his base, as he knows only too well that she is in no way disqualified for the office, but many people wish she was. Barack Obama was subject to so much rumour about his own origins that he actually displayed his birth certificate (saying Honolulu, Hawaii, 4th August 1961, i.e. after it had become part of the US) at a press conference. These allegations were never based on fact, but allowed some voters to dress up prejudice as hoped-for fact. Trump joined these allegations, saw they worked, and has been finding new ways to make prejudice seem justified ever since. Constitutional law experts say Harris’ parents are beside the point. The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to all people born in the US, and Article II Section 1 of the Constitution says that to be eligible for the vice presidency and presidency a candidate must be natural-born US citizen, at least 35, and a resident of the United States for a minimum of 14 years. But the Constitution embodies the establishment, and Trump doesn’t consider himself part of it. Many of his supporters feel betrayed by it, their needs and values having been relegated to secondary status, or worse, because they and their friends were never asked to write the Constitution. Trump has lied to his base like he has lied to everyone else. He does it every day, shamelessly. Remember building a wall and making Mexico pay for it, incarcerating Hillary, paying off the debt and stopping wars, let alone the more recent ones about COVID-19 response. But what is escaping critical attention is that the current man in the White House represents the character and morals of the masses of people who make up the country. They won’t admit openly to being everything America pretends it isn’t, which is why Trump is being hammered in the polls, but they will be voting in mass for his re-election. Their core values are the same: family, Church, flag and job security, as if these are the answer to everything in themselves, no actual performance or policy is needed. The vast majority of these voters must feel that they are now being taken care of—for most that means less government, affordable education and healthcare. If Trump makes an about-turn, such as introducing Medicare for all at a price, he will be hoeing in high cotton as the presidential election nears. Blind faith in the system versus blind faith in anything other than the system may not be the best choice to have, as countries which have had revolutions understand. But both sides are gambling that this is how the voters will see it, and that they will choose their faith over the other, and then prosecute it for four years with the same religious fervour so that reality doesn’t come and bite too hard. Bubbling under the Radar Trump may support a small state, but he did a clever move extending Federal Unemployment benefits by executive order, albeit not to the previous level of 600 dollars per week on top of any State benefit. He realised that he had no time to waste, especially in the wake of the economic havoc of COVID-19. Congress went on recess so as not to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, as they knew there was going to be too much pork included in any legislation they would attempt to pass. This could be interpreted as meaning they were outsmarted by Donald Trump, and only one such victory will embolden his supporters to believe there will be many more, which they will interpret as victories for them. Trump’s base of support has closed ranks even more over his monument policy, which makes it a crime to tear down historic monuments. One cannot trash history just because times have changed. I may not like your monument, but let’s talk about it. When the first Democratic debates were held Joe Biden was not most people’s first choice, but I wondered if he had the best chance, since he was old and white and had been VP under Obama. This claim to fame would help him gain the black vote en masse, or so he thought. But this has become a moot issue since Biden scolded black leaders, claiming they would not be black if they voted for Trump. That did not go over well with a voter group which as a whole finds Trump a lowlife, but does not expect to be lectured by a senile “old honky”.Blacks also realised long ago that if they have an equally strong voice within both parties they are more likely to be heard, not taken for granted by the one they support and then ignored, because electorally not worth the effort, by the other. If Biden doesn’t get that, how many other voter groups will he risk alienating between now and November? Biden is the sort of Democrat blacks once deserted his party for being full of – a scion of white privilege, darling of War on Crime (meaning war on blacks, as is Harris), closet racist and blind servant of Wall Street and the Military-Industrial Complex. Maybe this is the real reason he is supposedly polling ahead of Trump in key Electoral College States, even Ohio. However, those with not-so-short memories will remember that the last round of polls before the 2016 election gave Hillary Clinton a commanding lead, and the DNC and mainstream media were so confident of her success they had already printed up the front pages of the newspapers announcing her victory. What makes the pollsters so confident that they will not be even more wrong this time? Trump bashing Biden’s policies and the Democratic National Committee’s platform may soon take all the wind out of Biden’s sails, precisely because it is so easy to bash Trump that it has less effect on the voters. Trump’s policy of America First is also proving consistent, and this is the one campaign promise few people expected him to keep. This does put Trump in the small category of politicians who actually keep their promises, however ironic that is. The return of no point As for the election, only God knows what will happen.It is perfectly possible that the Deep State controls the voting machines by now and the mail-in ballots too!Democrats in Florida are still protesting about the voting machines used there when George W. Bush beat Al Gore by a tiny margin. As James Baker pointed out at the time, they tested the machines before the election and had no complaints. So either there was nothing wrong with the machines, or the count was distorted by those machines. I know which one my money is on. What people are not willing to wake up and accept is that America needs another system, not the two party system, aswhich now supposedly exists. It is an illusion that Republican and Democrat are the only choices, when members of these two parties stay in Congress for decades and little if anything changes. In 1905 Mark Twain wrote his War Prayer, a short story or prose poem described as “a scathing indictment of war, particularly of blind patriotic and religious fervour as motivations for war.” In the days of the Vietnam War, when both war and politics had meaning, this was seen as sarcasm. Now it is a commentary on what the US political system has become, because people are incapable of engaging with real issues because they do not wish to know the truth about their country.

[eldritchamy]

The 2025 Project is an open, publicly admitted plan to turn the country into a militarized christofascist police stat run by a full on dictator. The people responsible for that plan laid out their intentions very explicitly more than a year ago, and it's laid out carefully enough that it's basically fully constitutionally legal, which means the practicality of fighting it from a minority position is going to be extremely difficult.

And if KOSA passes, that authoritarian 'purge-the-filth-destroying-America' regime will have a list of names and addresses. Every single person I care about will be on it.

I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing 'most important election in our lifetime' about every single election, but the right has gotten so extreme that yes, the stakes really are higher every single time. The 2025 Project isn't built on new ideas. But the entire conservative apparatus being bold enough to admit it publicly? That's new. And it's TERRIFYING that they're comfortable enough to not hide it.

The Supreme Court already has a very difficult conservative majority set in place by Trump's first term. Roe v. Wade was overturned as a direct result of this, by justices who lied under oath when they swore during their confirmation hearings that it was settled law.

If he's allowed the chance to appoint 1-2 more?

There's not a single progressive piece of legislation in the entire 20th century that's off the table for them. They've already marked some of their targets.

It's literally the difference between a world where we're arguing over a Green New Deal, and one where we're at risk of losing every consumer protection set in place by the FIRST New Deal.

The system we have absolutely sucks.

BUT YOU DON'T GET THE SYSTEM YOU WANT BY REFUSING TO PARTICIPATE IN THE BAD ONE YOU HAVE NOW.

OUR ELECTORAL PROCESS DOES NOT OPERATE ON A 'NONE OF THE ABOVE' SYSTEM.

THERE WILL NEVER BE AN ELECTION HELD IN THE US THAT ENDS IN 'NOBODY WINS, TRY AGAIN WITH BETTER CANDIDATES'.

One of two people will be the winner of the 2024 election. It will either be the incumbent Joe Biden, who has bad PR and bad foreign policy but has made a number of very important boring domestic policy procedural changes behind the scenes that have materially improved the quality of life of many people.

Or it will be the leading candidate from the Republican party. A party that is running on a publicly admitted plan to establish full christofascist domination over all aspects of life in America.

There is no third option.

Elections are the only GUARANTEED WAY for you to have a say in any aspect of public life in which the government is forced to listen to your opinion. Why would you EVER give that up?

Idealism is for organizing. It's for networking who your allies are and working on cooperative, practical, real-world actions you can take to materially improve the lives of people. And you can express SOME of that idealism during Primary season, when you have some influence over the formation of your party's political agenda and platform it runs and operates on for the next 2-4 years.

The general election is for HARM REDUCTION. You take the least bad option you possibly can, and then you spend the time AFTER that election applying public pressure to get the best possible outcomes you can, and shape the direction things move so you can get a more favorable choice next time. IN ORDER TO DO THIS, you need someone who is RECEPTIVE TO YOUR FEEDBACK. You need the person closest to your political goals to be the one listening.

Voting ISN'T enough. But it is the mandatory minimum. Nothing good comes of moving aside while the greater of two evils takes over.

There's no 'revolution' coming to save us. It would be very, VERY bad for us if one actually did happen. The Republican party has a gameplan for their next attempted coup.

Do you have a plan to survive it?

Are you confident that all of your allies will? Or are we all just collateral damage for your moral high ground?

If you can't get off your ass and do the easiest possible civic action, any moral high ground you claim from your purity politics is worthless. To me, and to every other vulnerable, marginalized person whose life is on the line.

Yes, it sucks that Biden is the best choice we have.

But if you won't choose the option where we live to fight another day, what good are your politics at all?

What good is the activism and leftism you claim to stand for when all it's standing on is the bodies of the people you didn't protect?

How's the air up there on your high horse? Can you breathe through the smoke of all this scorched earth?

You must not STOP at voting. But you must START with it.

https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/743255237060689920/the-thing-that-confuses-me-about-the-dont-vote

The “don’t vote” left’s point is basically that, if Biden gets a second term, it’ll basically signal that “They’ll vote for us as long as we’re not Republicans, why don’t we do some REAL fucked up shit, if we can get away with it?” It takes the power out of the people’s hands and places it firmly in the party’s.

I can’t completely disagree with that, my caveat is that there’s no real alternative system or party in place, because top-down change is ineffective; a third party president has to contend with a two party congress.

Except no. This whole "Biden just wants to do as much fucked up shit as possible while not being a Republican, and if you give him a second term he'll do more fucked up shit deliberately to spite you" mindset is only possible as an interpretation if you a) deliberately and comprehensively ignore everything he has done to date, and b) you approach the situation with the maximum bad faith possible. Not to mention, the ultimate outcome of this Big Important Teaching Biden A Lesson is that Trump gets back into power and makes everything orders of magnitude worse, because he does in fact want to deliberately do evil shit to everyone and says so at every opportunity. There is not some magical happy alternative that springs into existence by not voting. If you choose this as a year to Teach Biden A Lesson, you are enabling Trump. Trump will be much, much worse. If you don't care about that, I still do not care what your Great Ideology is. You are not helping anyone and you are directly and irreversibly hurting everyone.

I made a post a few days ago wherein I mentioned that I want to assess Biden fairly, taking into account both strengths and weaknesses, but the rampant bad-faith, lying, misreading, misrepresentation, and open sabotage of him (especially by the online left; the GOP sometimes only wishes they were as good at turning Biden's voter pool against him) makes it really difficult to do that. My frustration with those people makes me just want to go "BIDEN IS GREAT THE END." I know he is a flawed old man (though by literally every account of a career spent in public service, he really does care about making the world a better place and any remotely good faith reading of his accomplishments thus far can see that). It is also very likely that he goes MORE left in a second term because he won't have to face the electorate again, he has always gone more left when pushed before, and he's not actually the scheming genocidal mastermind that leftist social media paints him as. Shocking, I know.

I know there are things in the world we don't like and don't want and want to stop, and therefore we blame our own president for not making it stop. But I have zero, no, none, absolutely none whatsoever sympathy for this pseudo-populist "WE NEED TO TEACH BIDEN A LESSON BY ELECTING TRUMP AGAIN, I AM VERY MORAL MUCH ACTIVIST" mindset. There's this funny thing about America wherein it is still (for now) a democracy. If Biden wins a second term, he can't run again. I would take literally anything these people said more seriously if they focused on developing their dream progressive successor for 2028 (and also figured out how to get that person elected and in a place to make real change) rather than cynically sabotaging Biden in the most consequential election year, again, of our lifetimes. If you don't like him now, find a way to make his successor a better option. Throwing a toddler tantrum and handing the country back to a senile, deranged, fascist, revenge-riddled, theocratic Trump HELPS. NOBODY. I still don't know how many times I'm going to have to say that, but yeah.

[qqueenofhades]

Okay, y'all. Time to do this one more time. Let the fact that there are so many of these posts right now reinforce the point. Many of you already know this, and I see and love you, but for anyone still ~undecided about their choice, should they be an American citizen of voting age on November 3, 2020:

Time to not be. It was time a long, long while ago, but I am going to have to say it again.

Primary season is over. The endless fine-tooth combing of candidates' policies and positions is over. We are all deeply well aware that the candidates on the Democratic ticket, being human beings and establishment politicians, are flawed. "BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS POSITION FROM 19/ 20-WHENEVER AS JUSTIFICATION FOR WHY IT'S TERRIBLE TO VOTE FOR -- "

No. Stop. Just stop. Stop threatening to hold the rest of us hostage, in the middle of a pandemic, the Great Depression, and racial inequality and protests on a scale not seen from the 1960s, because you did not get Barbie Dream Candidate. That is the behavior of terrorists and toddlers. If your supposedly enlightened morally pure ideology does not involve any action to mitigate the harm that is directly in front of you, it isn't worth a shit as an ideology actually devoted to helping people. If your approach to politics is to shout about how Pure your ideas are on twitter and tear down anyone working within a system of flawed choices to do the good that they can: you're not helping, and frankly, your constant threats to withhold your suffrage as a punishment to us aren't convincing the rest of us that we really need to listen to you or that you have anyone's best interests at heart. The Online Left TM is as much a vacuous, self-reinforcing noise chamber as the Online Right TM, and can sometimes tend to be even more dangerous.

I was saying this in 2016. A lot of us were saying this in 2016. I am just about to turn 32 years old and have been voting in federal elections for almost 15 years. For what it's worth.

This is not an ordinary election. This is not a contest between two flawed candidates who respect the system and want to work to enact their policies in the ordinary way. One is a flawed 90s era Democrat who nonetheless has already been pushed CONSIDERABLY left in his policies and platforms since the end of the primaries (and his existing platform would already make him the most left president elected, even more than Obama). The other is a fascist dictator who has openly spoken about refusing to accept the election results, his desire to abolish term limits and serve for life, and complete the pillaging of any remaining fragile American public funds for him and his cult of cronies. He does not respect the system. He does not want to do anything for anyone that is not himself. 160,000 and counting needless deaths of American citizens have already happened. Will keep happening.

This is the last time Trump has to face voters. This is the last chance the country has to repudiate his entire poisonous ideology and its marching Nazi minions. IF he steps aside, which is already far from guaranteed, he can ride off into the sunset as a vindicated two term president and probably be rehabilitated like George W. Bush was within a few years of leaving office. American political memory is very short. It will happen. Again, if he even leaves.

RBG is 87 and has cancer again. She will NOT survive another four years. Stephen Breyer is 81. Their seats could both come up in the next four years. The Supreme Court could be a right wing rubber stamp for whatever time we all have left before climate change and coronavirus kill us all.

"But if people just thought for themselves and did their homework and didn't vote the party line like sheep, we could support a third party/write in -- " Stop. Just stop. Attend a ninth grade civics class and learn about how politics work in America. Yes, the two-party system sucks. Yes, the Electoral College is a hot steaming pile of absolute bullshit. Magical unicorn fairy dust fantasies WILL NOT change that.

Do not vote for Kanye (who has pretty much openly admitted he is trying to play spoiler to Biden on behalf of his buddy Trump). Do not vote for godforsaken fucking Gary Johnson or Jill Stein who appear on ballots just to give sanctimonious leftists the illusion of virtue-signaling. If you want any chance of fixing the mess that 2020 has left America and the world in, you need to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The end.

Biden is a flawed old man who was our last choice, sure. He is also a distinguished public servant who has already been in the White House for eight years under Obama and thus we KNOW what to expect. He is an empathetic man who connects with people's personal tragedy and picked as his running mate a younger Black/biracial woman who directly confronted and called him out on past behavior. While the pundit class was simpering and whining about how it was Disrespectful and how could he consider her, Biden did so, and that speaks well to me of the fact that he is willing to learn, to take criticism, and not just accept it from a former Black female rival, but make her his second in command and the potential first female president of the United States.

Can you EVER picture Trump doing that? Not in eight thousand million years.

As for Kamala, we are all aware of her previous checkered history as a prosecutor (and even then, she did plenty of good things as well!). Since joining the Senate, however, she has consistently become one of its most progressive members. She is the co-sponsor of an economic aid package designed to give every American $2,000/month, backdated to March (the start of the coronavirus pandemic) and continuing at least a few months after its end. A Biden-Harris White House could make that happen. Especially if they are put into office with a Democratic House and Senate (for the love of God, Kentucky, kill Mitch McConnell with fire). That is just one example.

Harris's nomination is obviously historic. And Biden didn't choose another Biden (or another Tim Kaine, the blandest white man imaginable). He chose another Obama: a younger rising star of an immigrant background, a person of color, a former lawyer and someone who represents the diversity of the country that the white supremacists and the Cheeto in Chief have tried to paint as its worst and most degenerate evil.

A vote for Biden and Harris means getting rid not just of Trump, but Mike Pence, Vladimir Putin, Jared Kushner, Betsy Devos, the Trump crony destroying the Postal Service, the rampant coronavirus misinformation and bullshit, the destruction of Social Security and Medicare, the spread of Nazi propaganda from the President's twitter account, the likely two Supreme Court picks that would be as bad as Brett Kavanaugh or worse... on and on. Biden and Harris would be elected by progressive voters and thus answerable to them in 2022 midterms and 2024 general. They can both be, and already have been, pushed further left. They are reasonable and competent adults who have demonstrated experience and compassion. I KNOW about their flaws and past actions I don't agree with. But I'm frankly done with any more counterproductive straw man bitching about This One Bad Thing They Did and how it makes it a terribad awful choice to vote for them. Open your eyes. Look at the alternative. LOOK AT WHAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED AND THE FACT THAT THIS IS NOT EVEN AS BAD AS IT COULD STILL GET.

Check your registration or register at vote.gov.

DO NOT LOOK AT POLLS AND DECIDE "EH BIDEN IS CLEARLY GOING TO WIN, I DON'T NEED TO VOTE." THAT IS HOW WE LOST LAST TIME.

Unseating incumbents is HARD. It is even harder when the other side has openly laid out their plan to cheat in great detail, and there is nothing really stopping them from doing it. The only thing, in fact, is massive, unfalsifiable results on an undeniable scale.

So:

Vote.

Vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Thanks a lot.

[relationshipsandpolitics]

An easy way to know whether your preferred media outlet is absolute shit or not is their handling of this whole Soleimani assassination story.  When the Trump administration announced the assassination was because there was an imminent threat against the United States, if your preferred media outlet didn’t immediately come out with a headline that read: “Trump says attack imminent, 99% chance that’s bullshit.,” then they are a shit media outlet.

It’s laughable to watch and read how the news has covered this “crisis.”  As though there was any chance Trump was telling the truth at any point between deciding to kill Soleimani and now.  Yet the media constantly either takes him at his word or frames the narrative as “likely true, but could have been handled better.  It’s only weeks later when you start reading more stories about how the whole thing was bullshit.  Trump at this moment is claiming there were four embassies being targeted, which not even his own Defense Secretary seems aware of. And yet the media argues this doesn’t show that Trump lied, just that he is *gasp* not communicating! No, he lied.  

There was never an imminent threat.  Trump just needed a “wag the Dog” situation to distract from impeachment.  This shit isn’t hard.  After the calamity that was the media handling of the Iraq War run up, you’d thin the media would learn.  But alas, they love war and never do their job in reporting about it.  So they buy the lie, or at least make sure to heavily couch any skepticism.  Perhaps the facts are not entirely accurate, but we all agree Soleimani was a bad guy who deserved to die, right America?

The media can’t bring themselves to call Trump a liar, to presume anything out of his mouth is a lie, despite the millions of times he lies straight to our faces. I don’t understand how a reporter has not yet asked Mike Pompeo why we should trust anything coming out of his mouth given the fact his boss lies constantly.  The media merely parrots the lies, providing a megaphone for this misinformation the administration deliberately spreads. Because the media loves war.  They love the ratings it brings.  They love the shots of soldiers tearfully kissing their kids goodbye to fly on a Delta flight to a country that never did anything to them.  The love talking about how evil a guy Soleimani was for killing troops, conveniently omitting the fact that we’re the ones who sent them to invade Arab lands in the first place. 

By the way, of course Soleimani is evil.  He’s a powerful man.You don’t achieve power without being at least a little evil. He’s just a larger evil, whereas someone like Samuel L. Jackson is just a little evil for shilling for a bank. 

This whole situation is why I have so little faith in the media covering the election fairly. I guarantee at some point soon they start going all in once again on how expensive Medicare for All will be, while never once questioning Trump on how he is going to pay for his Space Force and $2 trillion in military spending. The media is going to fuck everything up, just like they currently are fucking up their coverage of Trump.  Because as much as they say they hate him and what he stands for, the media’s interest will always align more closely with war and profit than peace and economic justice. 

So it once again falls to us, the voting public, to be the moral voice in this country. We need to finally decide if we will vote for death through bombs and tax cuts, or actual peace and justice.  Which candidate do you truly believe will end the endless war machine?  Which candidate will actually take away power from corporations?  Don’t vote for who you think will win.  Vote for the candidate  who lives your values.

[phroyd]

In what follows, I will be assuming that you are a person who wants to see Bernie Sanders elected President of the United States. If this is not something you want, this discussion will be of little value.

The task itself is clear and has two parts: At the Democratic convention in July of 2020, Bernie Sanders needs to be the nominated as the party’s candidate for president. Then, on November 3, 2020, Bernie Sanders needs to receive 270 electoral votes.

Personally, I think Part II will be easier than Part I, because in Part II Bernie Sanders has the luxury of running against a cartoon of an evil billionaire. This will “play to his strengths.” I think watching a debate between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump will be an immensely satisfying experience, and that the people of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin will be moved by Bernie’s comprehensive agenda for dealing with their day-to-day problems. I believe they will reject Donald Trump, because Donald Trump offers nothing but bigotry and bluster, and no one really likes or trusts him the way they like and trust Bernie.

How, then, do we make sure that he gets the Democratic nomination, and how do we do it without him having to destroy his body in the process by working himself to death?

First, let’s recognize: If you support Bernie, and really want to overthrow Trump, you have a job to do. The next year is going to be a busy one, and the next few months will be the busiest of all. Your job is to get as many people as possible to vote for Bernie Sanders, because the more you do on that front, the less of his finite energy he has to spend shouting himself hoarse at rallies in a cornfield outside Des Moines in the middle of January. Bernie should not need to be personally lobbying every voter in Iowa, because that’s what his supporters are for. That’s what you and I are for.

To understand the nature of the job ahead, it is helpful to keep in mind the distinction between mobilizing and organizing (see this interview with Jane McAlevey for more). Mobilizing is when you turn out those who already believe in a cause (all the antiwar people go to a protest). Organizing is when you go out and build the cause, converting people who did not already believe in it. So, what labor organizers do is: They find all the people at the workplace who do not believe in the union, or who are even vehemently against it, and they do the very slow and difficult work of bringing them on board, through long, empathetic conversations and by building relationships.

Think, then, of the entire universe of people you know who will be (or could be) eligible to vote in the 2020 Democratic primary. How many of them are you certain will vote for Bernie Sanders? The job ahead is to shift as many people from the “Don’t know” or “No” column on your sheet to the “Yes” column. (You can even make an actual list of this universe of people. And it should be the entire universe—coworkers, friends, second cousins, a person you met at a car show once but haven’t spoken to in four years.)

Now, what lies ahead involves both mobilizing and organizing. For the people who are already Bernie Sanders supporters, the job is to: (1) Make sure they are registered to vote and satisfy the eligibility requirements and (2) Make sure they actually do vote. Every time you successfully convince someone to support Bernie Sanders, you then have to switch from persuasion/organizing to activation/mobilizing. Supporting him in their brain means nothing without action. They might as well not support him at all. You’ve wasted your time unless they register to vote and actually do vote.

The success of Bernie Sanders is going to require a “nonvoter revolution.” His appeal is, in large part, not to party loyalists, but to the 70+ percent of people who did not vote in the primaries last time (and the nearly 40 percent of people who did not vote in the general election). These are the types of disillusioned voters my colleague Malaika Jabali has written about so well in “The Color of Economic Anxiety,” people who quite rightly and rationally do not see much point in voting and feel betrayed by politicians who make grand promises and deliver nothing.

Part of your job, then, is to convince jaded nonvoters that Bernie’s candidacy is worth believing in, and then getting them to actually cast a ballot. For nonvoters, this is especially urgent, because many states disenfranchise people by setting absurdly early registration deadlines for voting in primaries. If someone is unregistered, or registered as a Republican, you need to get them signed up now.

Here it’s important to discuss what it means to “get” someone to vote for Bernie Sanders. It does not mean being an obnoxious evangelist who never shuts up about Bernie. In fact, one of the most important aspects of the Sanders campaign is that it isn’t about Bernie, it’s about ordinary people and their problems. A main part of persuasion is going to involve being an empathetic listener rather than a preacher. This is supposed to be the campaign that listens, the one that actually cares what people think. Notice that the most effective Bernie ads barely feature Bernie at all: They feature people talking about their struggles, the kind of people Bernie’s presidency is going to help.

Long, difficult conversations. That’s what will be involved a lot of the time. You have to try to show another person why you feel so strongly that a Sanders presidency is important, and to have them come to share your perspective, but doing so will involve making sure you understand theirs as well. I think it is very important here not to be an uncritical adulator of Bernie Sanders. Frankly, there are votes he has made that I think are indefensible, and I find him frequently frustrating and in constant need of pressure from activists. I believe in his candidacy because I think he is the only person with anything close to a set of solutions to the problems people face today.

Know the issues, know the plans, try to figure out how to articulate why you feel so strongly the way you do. Those people in the video: Why is it that they trust Bernie so much? What is it that they see in him and in his campaign? What is it that Erica Garner saw in Bernie? (She, too, gave herself a heart attack as she fought tirelessly for justice.) What was it that felt so beautiful about the “America” ad? I think it had something to do with the uncommon and genuine respect that Bernie Sanders has for ordinary working people and the bitter contempt he has for those who dare to speak in the name of those people while betraying their interests.

Nobody should be written off immediately. It frequently turns out that the people who seem most resistant to persuasion, if you find the right “in road,” will eventually become some of the strongest supporters, if you give them a good reason. Political conversions happen every day, even of the most extreme kinds. (Take, for instance, that young white supremacist who slowly unlearned his hatred after spending time around anti-racists in college.) Of course, you need to prioritize your limited time. There are three categories of people:

People who like Bernie already and support him. — They need to be convinced to actually vote, and you need to make sure they are eligible. Then they, too, need to start working on doing exactly what you’re doing. Convince them to get active and to get others active. (It’s not a pyramid scheme, but it does take the shape of a pyramid, hah.)

People who are indifferent or don’t care about politics. — Why don’t they care about politics? What do they feel it’s not offering them? What would they want out of a president? You will do a lot more listening than talking, at least at first. (In fact, you may want to keep in mind Noam Chomsky’s point that you should be cautious about the entire idea of “persuading” people, because what you really want is for them to figure things out for themselves.)

People who dislike or despise Bernie. — Former Clinton people. Republicans. Etc. These will be far tougher conversations. But you can have them. Try very hard not to get upset. Be patient. Present your perspective rather than arguing. I think there is some truth to the fact that many Sanders supporters have been too hostile online. We need to see every person as a potential Sanders voter, and as such be careful not to needlessly antagonize them. Look at the case of Peter Daou. A die-hard Hillary supporter in 2016, one of Bernie’s fiercest critics, he has now come around. If this can happen to Peter Daou, then we do not know who else it could happen to. So don’t make fun of people and get them defensive and hostile. Set an example. Listen the way Bernie Sanders does when confronted by people who disagree. Bernie has made a commitment to listening to Trump voters and trying patiently to bring them around to a democratic socialist perspective. He goes on FOX and Joe Rogan, and he does well. (Look at the comments section on the Rogan video, people who disliked him come to see him as reasonable and honest.) Think strategically about everything: Is the way I am talking to this person increasing or decreasing the chance they will vote for Bernie Sanders? That is the question for the next few months. Bernie’s army of supporters must be disciplined and effective. No needless flame wars, no pointless hostility. We have a positive vision and we need others to share in it.

What I have been talking about so far is stuff you can do even if you can’t afford to donate $27, or can’t go knocking on doors or putting in signs or do phone banking. It is something you can do in day to day interactions with people around you. But of course, if you do have time and money, there is more. Get your ass off Twitter and get on a bus to Iowa or South Carolina. Sign up to volunteer wherever you are already. Put in a regular monthly donation. Get that sticker onto your car and that shirt onto your torso. The clock is ticking. There are novel ways that people can pitch in—that incredible ad contrasting media perspectives with “real America’s” perspectives? It was made by a fan, not the campaign. That fan made a choice: to use his time and skills and creativity to make something inspiring and effective.

There is another important thing you can do for Bernie Sanders: Work for candidates who are not Bernie Sanders. Remember: This movement is not about Bernie. It is about advancing a strong set of social democratic policies that will make this country and the world a better place. That cannot be done without having many more lefties in Congress and it state and municipal governments. There are all kinds of incredible candidates running at every level. Check out these lists for people in your area. I’ve recently met great candidates like Marguerite Green, a DSA member running for Agriculture Commissioner in Louisiana, and Rebecca Parson, running for Congress in Washington, who deserve your support. If Shahid Buttar can win in San Francisco, it will totally transform Democratic politics. These candidates will never be able to build the kind of giant grassroots fundraising apparatus that Bernie has, so you should not donate to Bernie without donating to candidates like these as well. These campaigns need you. They are very difficult uphill battles, working with very few resources. Your participation makes a giant difference. But they can win, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed us when she defeated a 10-term high-ranking incumbent who had millions more dollars. At the DSA convention, I met socialist candidates who had won all over the country, even in very hostile districts. It is possible.

Of course, if you have the time and energy yourself, you might consider running yourself. Even a seat on the local library board or school board can help. The left ideally needs a presence in every race, red states as well as blue. This is not the “Bernie Sanders campaign.” It is a rising movement of the American left that, with thought and effort, can create a genuine “political revolution.” A Bernie Sanders presidency is an important part of that, but it’s only the very beginning. The next year could reshape American politics completely, or it could end in the demoralizing reelection of Donald Trump. Which path it takes depends on what we choose to do right now.

Phroyd

[walks-the-ages]

and honestly, this might change in the future too, depending on various circumstances! But at this point, Jasmine Sherman has the most Ballot Access out of all the Pro-Palestine candidates I've seen (48) compared to Jill Stein (~23?) and Claudia De La Cruz (3)

-- and that's the thing Vote Blue No Matter Who-ers truly cannot grasp:

"Strategic Voting" does not involve you voting for the same Party you were going to vote for before except now you're rabidly defending the genocide they're committing because you're (somehow, against all lived reality) convinced you can "push them left after they get elected"

-- Strategic Voting is where you actually research all your different options and you pick the candidate who actually best represents your needs, and then sometimes that means picking between two different Parties based on who has the highest chance of winning.

The Green Party is probably one of the most well-known Third Parties out there, but the Unicorn Party, despite the unserious-sounding name, currently has 48 out of 50 states on their Ballet Access!

The only states that do not have them on are (at the time of this post) Georgia and Alaska; even if they're not on Georgia's Ballot officially in time for the election, Georgia allows write-ins and they can be voted for that way, while Alaska does not allow write-ins.

And again, something Vote Blue No Matter Who-ers can't seem to understand: "Splitting the Vote" isn't about trying to force people to vote for the genocidal blue party, it means we, the third party voters, need to organize and rally together as we get closer to the election and ballot access numbers become their final results, and we need to all rally behind the Third Party candidate who is Pro-Palestine (and everything else decent and moral) be they Unicorn, Green, or Socialist.

But, unlike genocidal Vote-Bluers, I know that you do not need to like, swear on your life that you will vote for x candidate at least 3 years in advance of the Election and you cannot possibly change your mind at any point, otherwise you're committing some unspeakably evil sin or whatever.

And a lot can happen in the next four months!

Things change, and you have to adapt to those changes!

Maybe Jill Stein will suddenly sweep and have ballot access in all 50 states and start making national headlines when people see a Doctor and a Diplomat who actually cares about the average working class and poor person on the planet, and rally behind her for her past political experience, while Trump and Harris are left to flounder with their (at the time of this post) 52% Disapproval ratings a piece.

(For context, Biden, who was forced to step down due to low-polling, has a 55% Disapproval rating.)

Maybe Clauda de la Cruz will come out as the underdog and go from 3 states with ballot access to all of them.

But, for now, as I'm making this post on July 28th 2024, right now Jasmine Sherman has 96% Ballot Access, while Jill Stein only has 42%-54%, and Claudia de la Cruz has just 6%.

We'll see how it is as we get closer to the election, and I'll try to post updates here as they happen.

But if you truly believe in positive change, in a Free Palestine, in a Free Sudan, in a Free Congo, in universal healthcare, and no one going hungry or without a home, it is time to stop voting for the candidates who talk the talk, but deliberately step backwards when its time to walk the walk; candidates who do lip-service to policies which would change millions of lives for the better, then abandon them as soon as they're in power.

It is time for the broken two-party system in America to be acknowledged by the masses as broken, and resolve to be repaired. If political parties refuse to represent the people, then they will not be representing anyone, because they will lose their power.

Its not the first time an American political party has dissolved due to lack of support and changing political climate, and it won't be the last;

The original parties were the Federalist vs the Democratic-Republicans, then the Jacksonian Democrats vs the Whigs, then the Anti-Slavery Republicans vs the Jim Crow Democrats, onto modern day Conservative Republicans vs Faux-Progressive Democrats....

Like, if the Party you're voting for is controlling you with fear to get your vote, and you hate having to vote for them and feel sick having to vote for them as they do these horrifying, horrible things...

... that Party is not representing you and you do not have to vote for them, despite what genocide-apologist liberals would have you believe, and that party does not deserve to maintain power at the expense of not only the people they're supposed to represent, but also at the literal lives of people all over the world.

The Democratic party is not only committing genocide as we speak, but they gave 49 seperate standing ovations to Modern Fucking Day Hitler when Benjamin Netanyahu came and gave a speech to a joint session of Congress, literally flying directly to American to avoid having to land in any country that might immediately arrest him as a War Criminal!

If the thought of voting for a Democrat this November makes you sick to your stomach with despair and guilt, but you're terrified of what the Republicans will do, both to you and to Palestinians, there is another way forward.

You do not need to co-sign a genocide to protect yourself and others.

Literal Palestinians have been campaigning since November for people to not vote for the Democrats who are bombing them and their loved ones; if you want to do right by Palestinians (and yourself!) you will listen, and you will not vote to keep people who are committing genocide in power.

If all they can do is speak pretty words and make pretty promises while they continue to send bombs to kill innocents with, you do not need to vote for them.

Voting for a candidate is something you should take pride in, not horror.

If you are terrified and horrified of what is happening in this country and around the world right now, just know its not a choice only between two evils.

You have more options, and they are here, and they are more amazing and hope-inspiring than you could dare to imagine after years of Democrats making false promises to gain support from their constituents* and then not only going back on them but going in the complete opposite direction on purpose:

*The Black Lives Matter Global Network (BLMGN) also launched a 'get out the vote' effort under #WhatMatters2020. Black voters proved instrumental in Biden’s victory in November.

Democrats have shown time and time again they will talk whatever talk they need to in order to get into office, but as soon as they're in power they drop those promises and renege on deals and go above Congress' head to secretly continue sending weapons to genocidal apartheid states without public oversight, or claim to boycott Netanyahu's speech only to have a direct, private meeting with him immediately afterwards.

You are under no obligation to vote for these genocidal monsters.

Change is coming. Change is here.

You have other options.

If you want to make the world a better place, it does indeed take many small steps, but voting for genocidaires in Blue Hats is not in any way shape or form the path towards justice.

Make sure you are registered to vote:

Then, take a look at your current options for Third Party Candidates:

https://jasminesherman.com/policies/

https://www.jillstein2024.com/platform

https://votesocialist2024.com/our-program

and start getting active in the community, in any way you can!

Local Facebook groups are abundant and a great way to get to know the people in your area! See if you've been missing out on great community opportunities, and see if you can start arranging your own!

Start or join a community garden.

Even if you don't have a lawn, if you can get a bucket with some holes in the bottom filled with dirt from the dollar store, you can grow your own food, as easily as keeping that core of seeds next time you chop up colored bell peppers or tomatoes or eggplant for dinner.

Volunteer at the local library or food bank.

Organize block parties.

Start a book club, and build some Free Little Libraries if you're handy with tools.

Turn your neighborhood into a community that works together and supports one-another!

[plain text: Turn your neighborhood into a community that works together and supports one-another!]

just to note: if you try to leave replies, tags, or comments on this post trying to argue with me about how we need to vote for people who are currently committing genocide because they're somehow less evil than their opposition? Don't. All you'll do is get blocked. I am tired of humoring your genocide denial with a response. Replies will be deleted and you will be blocked.

If I didn't mention it, I'll be voting for Jasmine Sherman (they/them) in November, Because they already have Ballot Access in 48 states , as opposed to Jill Stein who currently only has ~23 states with Ballot Access.