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If you voted for Trump, you voted for all he stands for. ALL OF IT. Stop crying and trying save face. Own your shit.
I voted dem and am anti Trump, but can I ask if you feel the same way about Dems? If I voted for Harris and she continued to provide aid to Israel to bomb Gaza, did I technically vote for that?
This comes of as very "just asking questions", and I'm aware of that, but I hope you will take it as a good faith question because it is.
As a person that voted for Harris. Yes. And we should be putting pressure on her to condition any aid to Israel.
Meanwhile, with trump, we're too busy trying to keep all of our water reserves for crops from being dumped, and trying to keep US residents from being sent to extra-national slave torture prisons without due process to even think about having time to mount meaningful protests for what is happening in Gaza.
How you feel about people who abstained?
They risked everything, and then played to lose. I blame them equally to trump supporters, if not a bit more since they clearly aren't a bunch of brain damaged adult-age children like trump supporters are.
I guess the question at that point is, if you think Harris voters would be responsible for genocide, and nonvoters are responsible potentially even more than Trump voters, than there is no winning option. If you want to say democracy has become a lose/lose, fine, but I think it's important we're conscious of the fact we're saying that. I don't think everyone is responsible for the worst actions the people they voted for take in their capacity as public officials. I think it's worthwhile to note that and give people grace in that regard. Because otherwise we end up deciding between voting for genocide, or not voting and still carrying blame for genocide, and people make the decision to just not directly vote for it.
I'm not saying Harris lost because of Gaza, but given the choice of being considered responsible for genocide because I voted for it or because I didn't vote for it, I'd rather not vote for it. I want to note that I voted Harris, but I know people who abstained and it's hard to reach them if we (the left) continue to claim that they'd be responsible for genocide either way.
Consider this. Israel and Palestine are gonna fight. They're in an impossible situation. There are only 2 ways they move forward. One is that they agree not to retaliate when struck, and to handle aggression internally and swiftly. The second is that one of them ceases to exist. No US presidential candidate was going to make one of those things happen.*
So... the resolution of Israel/Palestine genocide wasn't on the table for the US presidential election in 2024, in the same way that the issue of Chinese treatment of Uyghurs wasn't on the table, or the UK rejoining th EU, or Mexican drug cartels foregoing violence. People who voted 3rd party, or didn't vote risked all the fascist stuff trump has done in the last 6 months, and all the shit he's going to do in the next 3.5 years, in an attempt to wash their hands of an issue that wasn't up to them to decide in the first place. So they took a large risk on everything for the extremely slim possiblity of at best gaining absolutley nothing, and now they go around crowing like they made the right decision. To me, it's like someone watching a burning bus , and as people are trying to rescue victims, they say "well at least I didn't decide to leave people behind on the bus, unlike those jerks" and the gesturing wildly at singed good samaritans who tragically weren't able to get everyone out of the blaze.
But if you're stating harris voters are still responsible for genocide then you're saying the Good Samaritan should be blamed too. If the Good Samaritan is tried for not doing enough and found guilty and so is the bystander, then people are encouraged to be the bystander because at least then they didn't choose to get burned up in addition to being held responsible for something. If you want people to help you have to have Good Samaritan laws. If you want people to vote Harris you have to give dem voters grace when the candidate does something they disagree with and they call it out. You can't just tell Harris voters "you voted for this" when Gaza is bombed while also telling trump supporters and nonvoters the same thing. At some point you leave people with no moral opinions so they check out or stop caring about your concept of morality since it cannot be lived up to.
Sure, the good samaritan had to leave someone to die in the fire because they can fucking carry everyone. Life is full of hard choices, and most of the time you have to pick the least bad option. Deal with it.
My point is that it's not helpful to tell Good Samaritans they're responsible for the people they couldn't help. We don't generally do that as a society. So if you think it was a given that people in Gaza were going to get hurt either way, blaming Harris voters for genocide on her term would also not be helpful (unless they're saying they're pro genocide). If you want people to vote for harm reduction, you can't blame them when the candidate fails to do everything right, especially if they were vocally against that specific policy.
The point is that the "blame" doesn't matter, it was all something the byststander decided to lean into to justify their decision not to help. Yes, the good samaritan had to decide to leave someone behind. They made a decision, someone who could have lived died because of it. The samaritan has to live with that for the rest of their life.
"Blame" might not matter to you, but in my experience it matters to some people. They do not want to be responsible for genocide and will rather have not voted for it, even if it was going to happen anyway. I am not attempting to police your personal feelings or morality or sense of responsibility, I'm just trying to offer some alternative perspective so that we can all work together to build a bigger tent. I think blaming people for everything their politicians do is counterproductive to harm reduction. If you don't, you can proceed as you were. I just don't think that it contributes to a better outcome and wanted to ensure someone pointed that out. Leftism has always been about building a broad coalition, and has had people with all kinds of approaches to political change. I just hope that your opinion is able to fit somewhere into the broader cause and not push people away.
If their opinion didn’t matter to them then it doesn’t matter to me. They forfeit their voice, it means nothing regardless of how they feel about it. If you do nothing then you are nothing, if you decide that you don’t matter then I’m apt to agree.
It is not a good faith question.
Many people took your words to heart and sat out, voted third party, or, worst of all, voted Shitgibbon. Now, not only are we funding Israel to bomb Gaza, we're planning on starting World War 3 with Iran. Stupid is as stupid does, and this is the biggest tent of stupid in the world.
I understand your frustration, but lower down in this thread you can see someone thinks that voting for Kamala makes you guilty of genocide AND not voting makes you worse than a trump voter. THAT is the issue. Not my question. The left is telling itself there is no good choice. I'm just asking if this person is someone that thinks that or not.
Maybe you don't know anyone who abstained, but I do, they are organizers and very involved. If they run into rhetoric saying "voting for Kamala makes you complicit" AND "not voting makes you complicit" they figure they're complicit either way so might as well not cast a vote for complicity. I'm not saying it's sensible, and I voted Harris, but we need to be able to separate voters from the worst parts of the politicians they voted for and give people some grace. I don't know the people in the article, but if Harris was elected and leftists that voted for her said "this isn't what we voted for" if she continued to support genocide, would these people still be in the comments saying "THIS IS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR!!" I just think it's important to understand that voters can disagree with individual policies and the left was told Kamala was "secretly wanting to be pro Palestine" so if people just got on board things would get better. If they voted for her and that didn't come true would people call the leftists idiotic for believing she would act differently? I just think we need to understand people as individuals and comments like the one above me can lead to good conversations about how we hold individual voters on both sides accountable while building a strong base.
Hm, I understand what you mean. Dems, yes, I’d feel the same way. This is the reason a vote shouldn’t be looked at as something you just choose to use when you feel like it. It’s a serious decision with very serious consequences. And it is also the reason a lot of people abstained. The choice was just disgusting, a lose-lose situation. So at the very least, when you use your vote, stand by it. Don’t come out crying when it starts to make you look bad in front of your friends. This Andrew guy, when he voted for who he did, already looked bad just by voting for Trump. So why did he vote? Because like many influencers and comedians who thought it was the cool thing to do at the time tested their influence and won. And now he’s sick of his guy making life worse and says he didn’t vote for it? Obviously because it’s making him look worse? No, he did vote for it. And it’s on him if he was ignorant at the time. So for anybody who did vote and is standing by their vote, mad respect, but that doesn’t make you a good person either. Just my two cents, I hope that made sense.
It did make sense and I can appreciate and respect a coherent world view. It seems like some other people took my comment negatively, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your viewpoint. I have also previously expressed at least some respect for people who were negatively affected but still hold fast to their trumpism. In my opinion they at least walk the walk after talking the talk. Other people have responded saying that I'm basically respecting people that are brainwashed and in a cult, but I agree with you somewhat that at least they didn't shy away from the consequences of their actions and that's commendable.
I think it's kind of terrible to put people in a lose/lose position that they had only an insignificant amount of control over being in in the first place. No one got to decide on Harris, and I think telling people that voting Harris and not voting Harris both enable genocide doesn't help the cause. If that is your firm belief and you're unable to conceal that because you think it's important that people know, then more power to you, I just feel like it doesn't really help. People will prefer to not vote for genocide than vote for it when if know its inevitable they'll be considered responsible. But I do have to respect you for being consistent in your beliefs, even if consistency might not be the most beneficial or expedient thing.
Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to genuinely respond. I hope next time there's a better option for us all.