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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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If the "online lefties" were so powerful a block perhaps Dem's leadership should have courted their vote. If they were so minor a block that "online lefties" should be ignored then you're targeting the wrong people.
But you know this already, I told you before the election that way to win the "no genocide" vote isn't to try convince them to vote "yes genocide". It's to try convince the leaders to stop supporting genocide.
This post is the same punching down shit you were doing before the election.
Yep. And if both the moral abstainers and the third party protest voters all would have voted for Kamala, we would still have Trump as President because the numbers of those people are so small.
Y’all are blaming the people who care the most, when you should be blaming the billionaires.
Non voting has been the largest group for several cycles now.
That’s why I differentiated moral abstainers from apathetics who aren’t going to vote no matter what.
I'm becoming more apathetic. You're choosing between two evils. The lesser evil lives in the realm of myth these days.
Become a socialist instead, and work to remove systemic evil entirely.
you say, in your couch, while people are being deported because of YOU.
you, and many of your buddies have done a full 360 and went full Nazi.
Ok bud, time to take a nap.
that's a stretch. Trump will deport people who disagree with him about fucking kids so you should be driving a stake through his heart by now instead of some random person you decided to hate because democrats are fascists too.
The margins are close and we need to be able to reach people. Local, state, and federal elections.
collapsed inline media
Because for a large number of people, they effectively do not live in a democracy. We've known for a long time that the opinions of the poorest 90% of the US population are completely irrelevant to national politics. Millions don't vote because they rationally realize that their votes are meaningless.
You really think trans people are punching down at you for wanting to evade their own genocide?
You'll find trans people in the post. What are THEY saying.
I don't know how to get comment links, else I would do the work for you.
But to answer your question. I don't think Pug is punching at me at all, I'm not American. I also don't think trans people are punching at me much either, I've read their comments.
It appears you misunderstood my comment. Punching down was referring to people not in power to change the dem platform. Punchin up was referring to people in power to change the dem platform. Which way is Pug punching in this post?
How do you think the Dem platform changes
PROTIP: It's not by voters abstaining
I answered the question posed to me. In order to make this a DIscourse and not the morally superior MONOlogue it always seems to be please answer mine.
I couldn't get through to you last time. Perhaps we can have a more productive discussion this time.
In the vain of good faith though: how is centrist democrat policy changed? A mega donor asks Kamala to support fracking and she does.
First, the Dem platform in 2024 was still the most left platform in my lifetime. Is that damnation by faint praise? ... yeah. But we also work with what we've got, and acknowledging that the Dems have become more left since the Clinton years, and even since the Obama years, is an important note to make.
Second, Harris was, unfortunately, always an opportunist ghoul. A lot of fuckery led up to her nomination, most of it the fault of Joe Biden running despite decreasing medical fitness for office (while accusations of dementia were passed around, the simple, natural slowing of the mind with age is more likely - and not really less damning, considering a president must be at the top of their fucking game considering they're the top official of an entire nation of hundreds of millions of people) and then dropping out (the correct choice, but again, only necessary because of the unwise decision to run again in the first place, while an incumbent).
Third, the way you change centrist Dem policy is by showing up to primaries, nominating progressive candidates and then getting them elected in the general. The DNC is made up of former and current party officials, not randos picked from the Country Club. They are there because they've demonstrated an ability to get elected and re-elected at some point in their careers - they are there because we, the voters, put them there. And while you can talk a lot about how moderates and conservative Dems shape the narrative, ultimately, the fault is on us, the voters, or at least the ones voting for centrist ghouls every fucking primary, for not kicking their wretched asses out.
You want Dem policy to change? So do fucking I. Elect, and convince others to elect, progressives in the primaries, and then back them to hilt in the general regardless of whether there's a sudden change of heart regarding the 'purity' of the candidate by some of your radical circles. We need to move the country left, and "It's not left enough!" may be a legitimate concern, but not when the alternative is "So let's move it right".
When Republicans are elected every fucking general election, the message overwhelmingly given to the Dems is either "Go right" or "Fuck, the country isn't ready for more progressive policy", depending on whether they're (respectively) centrist ghouls or left-leaning.
Helping this matter would be ranked-choice voting. If there are any measures in your area, please, support them - there's been limited success in this country for ranked-choice as interest in the idea has increased - including the Dem primary that saw Mamdani (MAY HIS ENEMIES BE DESTROYED) nominated. It will help many on the fence in primaries make a more progressive choice by reducing the fear of right-wing candidates eking out over moderate candidates.
Ok, again, I mostly agree. Except Dems did go right this election. They had Republicans advocating for them. They lost. The most damning thing an election campaign can experience is losing. Dems may learn from that courting republican votes lose them elections. Their bank accounts will suggest they do the same thing again.
Secondly, I don't see the "no genocide" vote being a left Vs right issue. There's plenty of genocides to go around lefties like myself can "no true Scotsman" but history is riddled with genocides.
I don't know how much I can tell you this, or how I can get it through to you. Blame the Leaders. We don't blame Steve from the factory floor for Boeing's doors falling off.
We know how people actually play the "ultimatum game" and it isn't how game theory says they should. You have to give them enough for them to accept your offer. Offering a penny out of £100 makes them reject your offer even though you'd both be the better for it. That's the world we live in.
Other than on trans issues, which they became suddenly very quiet about, and much more muted language on police brutality, which polls, unfortunately, turned largely against even from African-Americans after 2020 (copaganda runs strong in this fucking country), Dems largely did not move right from 2020 - the 2024 party platform includes stronger positions on climate change, environmental issues, and wealth redistribution.
Now, courting the right by trying to go for the whole "Country over party" aesthetic was absolutely idiotic and alienating - but it was largely not coupled with major policy changes.
In the US, the right-wing is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian genocide, and centrists are overwhelmingly neutral on the matter of Palestinian genocide due to the massive and effective propaganda campaigns run by Israel and Israeli proxies to portray it as some, deep, complex issue and the IDF as "The most moral army in the world" (blech).
The no-Gaza-genocide vote was overwhelmingly left-wing. Or, rather, liberal and left. The point is that it was not evenly distributed across the political spectrum on the justification that genocide is generally viewed as bad; it was overwhelmingly concentrated on the more left leaning end of the spectrum on the justification that right-wing and centrist types tend to be sympathetic to Israel or hostile to Palestine.
Steve isn't voting for safety and QA reductions in this scenario, though. We live (or lived) in a democracy, however flawed it may have been. We, the voters, were voting for safety and QA reductions.
The leaders are absolutely to blame. Every individual member of the DNC bears significantly more blame than any individual voter.
But that still doesn't absolve voters of responsibility.
When the Nazis invaded Poland, the chief culprits were the ones giving the orders and making the plans - but the rank-and-file soldiers were also still guilty - and so were those who had quietly went along with the Nazi regime because opposing the Nazis was too much trouble.
That there are different levels of guilt does not absolve the least guilty of still being guilty.
"Dems need to give more than an ultimatum" and "When push comes to shove, you have to make the less-bad choice" are not mutually exclusive options. At the infinite encouragement of purity politics, only an exact match with the voter's desires would be 'earning' their vote - all else would be, legitimately, an 'ultimatum' forcing the voter to choose between compromise or giving up entirely. While "They disagree with one issue of mine, I can't vote!" is a extreme example (though, unfortunately, one that does crop up), the principle that disagreement with the less-bad option should be grounds for rejection when the opposition is something as serious as literal fucking Nazis should be emphasized to be insufficient in scale of offense to be a moral reaction.
The abstainers were offered 10$ out of a million - a legitimate travesty and ghoulish behavior from the Dem party - and the abstainers chose to murder minorities instead - a much worse travesty. It's not even something as 'mild' as "We both fail to gain" - my life may very well be forfeit these coming years - and the issue that many of these voters abstained on - Gaza - is set to become, and the opposition openly campaigned on making, significant worse and more murderous. And that's an... already gruesome scenario. That's not even getting into all the other factors that we will be suffering from under a Nazi regime.
As for blame. I agree that all involved share blame. And you, what culpabilty do you accept? (I've tried to word this civilly, it just doesn't read as anything other than hostile, it isn't meant as such, take the following as the bad orator that I am). Someone deriding purity politics wouldn't suggest they're pure in the situation. (Again, not intending to be a dick... I just can't figure out a better way, seems like something to put into an llm and get it reworded... I dunno)
I'm suggesting the culpabilty you accept (I suggested at the time and now) was getting angry at the vegans, constantly hate posting against them instead of pushing leadership to plan with, for, or around them. In effect, I'm pointing out you punched down, not up. The vegans have less power than the animal rights group leaders, if you can't make the leaders close the puppy farms, at least make them stop supporting puppy farms.
You can't force voters to take blame for something they don't want to (look what a bear of a time I'm having with you). Certainly not with memes. It takes an involved, and I hope like this one, empathetic conversation to do that. That's just people... They don't play the ultimatum game the way the game theorists said they should, that's just people. some people have hard lines and genocide isn't an unreasonable one, that's just people.
No worries, no offense taken. Like I said - I definitely hold that I made the least bad decision I could, but also that making that decision also saddles me with blame for effectively every cruelty Harris would have perpetuated. If Harris was elected, I would have had to have owned up to some amount of responsibility for all of her ghoulist, centrist, bootlicking actions and inaction. That would weigh heavier on me, except that Trump had the unique quality of being worse in literally every way - something I would not have said even as recently as 2012, despite Romney being a vulture capitalist neotheocratic ghoul.
If given a choice between breaking a man's fingers, or breaking all of his fingers - with abstaining being accepting whatever the group decides - it would be immoral of me to abstain or opt to break all of his fingers, just like it would be immoral of me to ignore that the decision itself is deeply fucked, and just like it would be ridiculous for me to claim no responsibility once his finger was broken.
I voted for Biden in 2020. I am responsible, in some small way, for all the fucked things that Biden did and perpetuated, including his support of Israel and its genocide. I don't get to absolve myself of that just because it was the "least bad choice" - it WAS the least bad choice, and I don't think voting for Biden was morally optional - but it also doesn't fucking absolve me from my support, however strategic it may have been. When the US supported the Soviet Union, which was committing its own set of genocides, massacres, and imperialism, in WW2, we bear responsibility for that - but it was also the right decision, or at least the least bad one, since the alternative was letting the literal fucking Nazis win.
We all collect guilt by our actions, and most actions bear some amount of responsibility for shitty things, at least on the societal scale. The two things we must do is pick the least bad, and accept responsibility for what we have chosen - or accept responsibility for our inaction.
Okay, but this runs into several issues.
First, this presumes that I have sway with the leadership - leadership is a smaller group to convince, but very often also, because of that, a more restricted group to convince. If I send a meme to Pelosi, do you think it will get through to her?
Second, the leadership may not share the same values I do. I might agree with the more radical view of the vegans, but the leadership might not care except insofar as it helps them fundraise and raise their own profiles. With that in mind, what will me arguing with the leadership result in? We operate from different axioms, different values. The vegans, supposedly, share some of my values - the leadership, it's less likely. To route this back to the actual situation, the ghouls in the DNC who fucking caused this are not going to be convinced of the sudden quality of leftism by argument - the only thing they understand is benefit to themselves and their allies. And that means rally voters to operate strategically either to show them that left policy has significant support or overthrowing them entirely - in both cases, primaries, and then leading progressive primary candidates to success in the general - being the most 'conventional' form of both routes of action.
In both cases, abstaining from voting in a country where a third of the electorate regularly abstains from voting anyone, and on a wide variety of issues and reasons sends no message of worth to the leadership. "Please stop supporting puppy farms" is the line many of us progressives peddled to the DNC, and what we got was Harris taking an ambiguous, rather than openly pro-Zionist, line on Israel-Palestine. And for that... she was punished by the electorate in favor of the pro-Zionist candidate. When we go knocking to the leadership again, asking "Please be less ghoulish", do you think they'll listen again with that electoral lesson having been handed out? Not without serious changes in Dem leadership and the actions and expressed opinions OF THE ELECTORATE ITSELF, the people I'm talking to
This is why while I regard third party voters as similarly culpable to protest nonvoters, but less dumb - if they had actually rallied any significant numbers to third parties, we'd still be suffering under a fucking fascist regime, but at least it would show serious political opposition to the ongoing state of things. As it stands, they managed jack fucking shit - even less success than in the 2016, when things were less certain and dire.
Third, getting the leadership to plan around radical leftists is the last thing I fucking want, man. They already try to ignore leftists as much as possible. I want leftists to be acknowledged, and while that requires bullying the fuckwits in the DNC, it also requires leftists taking serious and STRATEGIC action to show their strength.
Fourth, part of this is that I don't want this comm, where I hang out, to be a place for people to peddle that kind of Nazi-enabling shite. We can't always change the world, but sometimes we can change our communities, in small ways. I doubt any member of the DNC is on here, but there are a nonzero number of American voters.
At the same time, you're looking at this as a matter of individual persuasion, where I'm making the argument explicitly from the point of view of cultural norms. Establishing that is it normal, or even, as many in this very thread have argued, laudable to abstain from voting on purity politics terms, even in the face of literal fucking Nazis, encourages people to do so or accepting the thought as natural and normal; establishing the opposite, that it is unacceptable, discourages people in the community from doing so or accepting the thought as natural or normal.
It's not about giving someone an epiphany. It's about creating community cultures that reject the normalization of these things - just like creating community cultures that reject racism being important to reducing racism, even if few, if any, outright racists will ever be convinced.
I'll try reply to all these points in the other thread, but later it's 00:05.
No worries! I enjoyed the conversation even if you don't find the time or energy! I appreciate your willingness to make a discussion out of it, despite my sometimes foul-mouthed and aggressive posture, lmao.
Just real quick. If someone were to say:
Would that be "fine"? Heavy quote-unquote there. Not that you agree, they should have voted blue, I get that.
In essence, is this primarily an accountability thing? Another commentator in this post was complaining that everyone is blaming everyone else, and well... "yeah, did you read the post?"
But, it got me thinking. We've both said a lot, but as I kept coming back to "I blame leadership for everything, always", you kept coming to "obviously, but don't the (non)voters have some culpabilty too?" And well yeah
The blame game as I see it is: R leadership > D leadership > 3rd party Leadership > R Voters > | The debated order of dem voters for supporting supporters of genocide (weasel wordy "supporting genocide" feels more hostile than I'm intending), 3rd party voters for not supporting R's main rivals, and non-voters for not showing D leadership their vote is attainable but for the correct platform.
Perhaps 'R voters' go before 'D leadership', I've been pretty consistent that I blame those with lots power over those with little bits of power, not really the crux of the argument to follow so I'll concede it if you want to push back.
There's so many on the left of the pipe to be blaming, by the time at at the pipe I'm at "really negligible" amounts of blame. Perhaps, it's because we all agree that R/D leadership et al are all cunts, there's nothing to debate. But the order on the right is prime mudslinging territory as we're mostly all in there, non-US Citizens excluded. I'd prefer the 'are R voters more to blame than D leadership' debate though, if we must have one.
I thought 'is this a US individualism thing?', not that the UK isn't individualistic, just the US is famously extremely so. But, there's plenty of US peeps blaming D leadership for all their woes. Also, you've explained to me why you blame the individual voters. So it was definitely an arrogant over generalisation on my part.
I dunno the 'why' of the divide. Like, I think I've got the 'what'. Everyone agrees genocide is bad, that's not the 'what' of the divide, though people present it as the thing. Everyone (here at least) agrees trans rights are human rights, gay rights are human rights, concentration camps are bad.... All of these are agreed upon. It's just the 'blame'. Who gets it, and how much... I don't think that it is agreeable. Worse, I don't think it's productive, I called it 'divisive' I think. I think I stand by that.
Perhaps, I'm way off and it is the priorities: republicans are the greatest threat to the country. Genocide is bad, like unsupportingly bad. What do you care about more ~~discuss~~ fight. But the blame thing keeps coming back around and around. Even my parent comment of punch up not down was "you're blaming the wrong people" or at least "you're emphasising blame on the wrong people."
It's tricky. Even then understanding the conflict may not get us closer to a resolution. In a "I don't agree, I can't agree but I understand and respect your decision."
Perhaps it's too fraught:
I don't think a vegan would ever consider me, an omnivore with many leather products, to be on the same 'team' as them. Though I think both they and I care about animal welfare, they don't think I care about animal welfare at all. The meat industry is inherently cruel. The nuance of levels of cruelty merely serves my own conscience. The animals still suffer for my enjoyment.
That wasn't quick at all. Sorry to unload on you. Actual reply tomorrow, well today. But that's where I'm at.
voting for Democrats doesn't prevent fascism
I'm a trans person. Do not use my people's name to justify genocide. All the trans people I know were extremely wary of supporting Harris. Palestinians are an unpopular minority group, just like trans people are. If corporate Democrats are willing to throw Palestinians onto the pyre, they would be willing to do so for trans people as well. This was obvious to every trans person I know who was politically active. And now, as anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have predicted, corporate Dems like Newsom are throwing trans people onto the pyre right on schedule.
Again, those willing to let one minority group burn are extremely likely to do so to another group. That's the whole fucking point of the "first they came for..." poem.
God, if I hear this mathematically illiterate argument one more fucking time, I'm going to fucking blow.
Elections in the US are won and lost on 1 or 2 percentage points.
Tell me this - if leftists make up, say, 3% of the Dem vote, and anti-leftists make up 10% of the Dem vote, is it viable to court leftists at the expense of losing anti-leftists?
If leftists are willing to let literal fucking Nazis win because they haven't been courted, instead of putting the groundwork in to change the demographic leanings of the Dem party, they can go fuck themselves, because that makes them fucking Nazi enablers, and not much better than the Nazis themselves.
Dems were willing to let Nazis in. Dems wern't willing to deal with the Nazis when they had the chance. Now Dems are willing to vote with the nazis. Punch UP not DOWN. We blame leadership in all things except politics it seems.
The leadership of the Dem party is absolutely guilty, and most people here, on Lemmy, recognize that.
The problem is that voters (and, especially, non voters) are also guilty, and many on Lemmy refuse to recognize that.
Man, in a just world, probably almost every high-ranking member of the DNC would deserve a noose. But we also fight with the tools we have, and we elected the tools (ha) in the DNC. Have a problem with those tools? I do too. Let's get rid of them next primary (please, for fuck's sake, please). But when it's them or the literal Nazis, you gotta go with the tools.
Idiotic tools who do the bare minimum are preferable to literal Nazi genocide, man.
I mostly agree. Fight with the tools you have but this now, as I told you back then, isn't the tool you're looking for. Sowing devision keeps us divided.
On this occasion the 'no genocide' people happen to be right. Imagine an animal rights group that constantly and perpetually hate-posted about vegans.
Punching DOWN isn't the correct tool. Punching UP might be.
But is it sowing division to point out that dividing the vote is, itself, divisive, and has very real and serious consequences?
Is it not divisive to encourage and normalize non-voting even when faced with literal Nazis running because of insufficient policy on the part of the only serious opposition candidate?
Imagine an animal rights group who campaigned against a ballot initiative to stop puppy farms - because it didn't also stop factory farms, ultimately failing by a measly 1% of the vote? Would it not be realistic and reasonable for people in that animal rights group to be pissed that puppy farms were perpetuated, at no gain to any animals, because a section of the animal rights group wanted a more radical option - a legitimate desire, but one which led to actions which worsened the situation instead of helping it?
Not really. In this analogy I know this group exists and plan for, with, or around them. If vegans found an activist group that better aligned with their goals why would I be surprised or upset they went to that one?
None of this is surprising, or at least it shouldn't be. We know how people actually behave.
Furthermore in this analogy the animal rights group isn't campaigning to stop puppy farms, they're campaigning for puppy farms. Of course people that care about animal rights didn't support them.
If that activist group then campaigns against the "imperfect" initiative, sinking it by 1% point, why wouldn't you be upset at them? "It's just politics, it's just their point of view" isn't a particularly left outlook, it's... well, very 'moderate suburban liberal'. Politics are often a matter of life and death - in the most literal sense. Being upset is pretty low on the totem poll for intensity-of-reaction with that in mind.
Not being surprised that some people are self-defeating and being upset that people are self-defeating and that other, ostensible allies are defending them for being self-defeating and encouraging them to continue being so are two different things.
I'm not surprised, for example, that bootlickers vote for Trump, or that there are millions of bootlickers in this fucking country. But I am upset about it. I'm not surprised that there are a significant minority of leftists who prefer purity politics to averting and reducing genocide. But I am upset - and I don't think that normalizing it in the communities I frequent is something that I should stand by and be quiet about.
Campaigning for regulation of puppy farms, let's say, since the Dems were quite clearly not anti-Israel, but had clearly shifted to a less pro-Israel position, especially after Biden dropped out.
In that view - when faced between making puppy farms less horrific or letting them continue as usual - or even making them worse - why should I not be upset that an ostensibly anti animal suffering group opted to let suffering continue or intensify instead of stopping it out of some bizarre sense of purity.
Again the anger is misplaced.
Why would you, a hypothetical animal rights activist, blame vegans and not the animal rights group for being shit.
"It's just politics" is literally the argument of vote blue no matter who:that's just what you have to do in politics. Sure they're imperfect, technically true but not how I'd describe someone pro genocide, but you gotta vote for them.
"Don't look at me, I'm pure, I voted democrat in the general" Purity politics is a meaningless term, vegans aren't purity politicking (politicing sp?)any more or less than you are, they have a moral outlook and they act on it same as you. Voting republican is abhorrent, voting dem is self defeating (I hope we agree voting pro-genocide is self defeating to an anti-genocise outlook) so what's a sucker left to do? Not vote, vote something else, bring out the guillotines... It's all a bit shit, and to get angry at them for it is ludicrous.
Dem leadership made the vote what it was. Dem leadership ignored how people actually play the "ultimatum game". Dem leadership is who you should be hate posting about.
I, an omnivore, don't get annoyed at vegans posting about how cruel the meat industry is, because they're right. I do get annoyed at how cruel the meat industry is as I'm supporting them though. I punch up at those in power, not down.
Why would I not blame both? The animal rights group for not putting forward a radical enough solution, and the vegans in question for perpetuating animal suffering out of some bizarre sense of spiritualist purity.
No, the argument of "Vote Blue no matter who" is that the Republicans have degenerated into an openly fascist party and it is necessary to oppose them for the health and safety of minority groups.
If your choice is a shit sandwich or getting your head pulped by a steamroller, choose the sandwich.
Fuck man, where do you get that idea? I've openly stated before that by voting for Harris, the burden of accepting insufficient opposition to Palestinian genocide, at minimum, is on my soul. The issue is that had I chose to NOT vote for Harris, the burden of accepting indifference to the intensification of the Palestinian genocide would have been on me.
I'm not pure. I made the least-bad decision. It's all we fucking can do in this life.
Bruh, purity politics is a term which means preferring a deonotological or virtue ethics approach to voting over a utilitarian one - ie saying that some internal sense of values is preferable to the actual lives of human beings in voting, an action which is, itself, a strategic choice, not a fucking love letter.
You can say "They just morally disagree with you!" and that's true in a sense - but Trump voters also just 'morally disagree with me', and I'm no less pissed at them for that.
Vote Dem, then work on bringing out the guillotines. That's what Harm Reduction means.
Voting Dem takes, at most, two days a year, depending on how often you have municipal elections. You have 363 days a year for other organizing - and if you live in a state with unfucked polling places, or even better, mail-in ballots, it doesn't even take a whole day.
"Stop the immediately promised genocide and the worsening of literally every issue I give a shit about AND damaging leftist organizing" is worth two days a year, I think.
It's all a bit shit. Every option we have in life is a bit shit. Even if the leftists got their way, even if this was a left country (God, if only), we would STILL be dealing with shit options, and we would STILL be obligated to work towards the LESS shit of them. And getting angry at people who voted - or sat on their asses - for fascists to send me to a death camp is a pretty mild reaction, all things considered.
Bruh, everyone on Lemmy already fucking hates the DNC. Except for the kicks I'd get out of photoshopping Pelosi's head into a guillotine, it wouldn't do much. Reminding people that the less vile option is mandatory when going up against literal Nazis has a chance of shifting or maintaining the narrative, currently contentious, that purity-politics voting is not kosher.
But what if vegans posting about how cruel the meat industry is campaigned against, and ultimately sank by a measly 1% of the vote, your initiative to reduce the cruelty of the meat industry?
Would that not be a reason to be upset? They had a chance to reduce suffering, and they chose to sink it - not for some alternative, but just because it was not pure enough. Why would that be good or acceptable to you? Would you not be upset that more animals would suffer needlessly and pointlessly for this? If you would not be upset, how much do you really care about the issue to begin with?
Why do you have to specifically vote Blue though? Is it just politics that it has to be blue. That's the political landscape.
You absolutely used your moral judgement and made the best possible choice you could. I don't disagree, I see how you saw it as the best possible choice. The situation was shit, you did the best you could to at least not support it getting worse.
Can you not see why someone would see not voting for genocide as the best possible choice they could make? Not that you agree with them, you don't, I get that. But for them, with their moral outlook the situation was shit and they did the best they could to at least not support it getting worse.
The meat industry is inherently cruel. Again, why would I be annoyed that I said I am an animal cruelty activist and someone pointed out I support an industry that's inherently cruel.
I could see it sparking a cognitive dissonance "but I'm not pro-animal cruelty" then I'd listen to 'em. They're right, acceptable levels of animal cruelty laws are just there to make me feel better. They're not really there for the animals.
Don't get me wrong, I'd still support more animal cruelty laws. I wouldn't stand in the way of a total ban on meat as I continued to buy it up to the day it's outlawed. I'm not blaming vegans for anything, I'm self reflecting.
The only reason it's "Vote Blue no matter who" is because right now, in America's FPTP system, the Dems are the only real alternative in most areas to the GOP. It's a pithy saying, not a political essay. The lesson is not "LOYALTY TO COMRADE BIDEN", but "Don't throw your vote away on a symbolic action; preventing fascism is more important than virtue signaling to no one, especially since ballots are secret"
The problem is that every view I can think of for 'not voting for genocide' is extremely flawed from either a logical or moral perspective. We live in a FPTP system with two parties/candidates with near-majority support. Practically speaking, one of them was always going to win when no dark horses emerged by, say, September. Realistically speaking, 'not voting for genocide' actually meant "Letting everyone else choose for me", and considering that "More genocide" was chosen, everyone who protest voted or abstained has to fucking reckon with the fact that they enabled the "More genocide" candidate, for no gain to anyone.
The only 'real' arguments against voting I've seen are likewise ridiculous - accelerationism or delegitimization of the results.
The issue with those is that accelerationism goes against everything we know about revolutions and building revolutionary apparati, while the argument of delegitimization of the results would require a massive boycott - and, as 'elections' in Iran have shown, still not accomplished much. Delegitimization of the results might have been more 'legitimate' a strategy if the two candidates were closer (ie one was not a literal fucking Nazi - maybe try this in 2012?), but considering that they decided that they preferred to try to make a symbolic victory against the system over preventing literal Nazis, I find it very hard to accept as any kind of moral or 'best' possible action. If you (generic you, not you personally) think symbolism is preferable to the literal lives of millions, you put too much value on symbolism.
But again, the question is not of you being angry that YOU'RE being called out. The question is being angry that the animal cruelty activists worked against the reduction of animal cruelty.
Man, people can call me a shitlib all day, if they voted for Harris, they've a right to their further-left opinions as far as I'm concerned. But don't tell me you're a very serious leftist who hates fascism and then refuse to try to prevent fascism - at minimal cost and effort to your own views.
But in this case, the vegans didn't support more animal cruelty laws. They prevented animal cruelty laws - not to put an alternative in place, but simply because they don't believe in reducing harm, no matter how many millions or even billions it effects. If they don't believe in reducing harm, what is their 'ideology', but a game or a sports team?
Most vegans might grouse, but would still vote for animal cruelty laws that REDUCE animal cruelty even if they don't ELIMINATE it for that very reason - that's precisely why so many animal cruelty laws have been proposed and passed - because vegans are willing to support harm reduction.
So why do these leftists we're talking about care less about people than vegans care about animals?