For Harris supporters who oppose 3rd parties: 2 questions.
(1) How will you get the US to stop funding Israeli genocide?;
and,
(2), what are the chances of your proposal(s) succeeding before, say, 2075?
I don’t oppose third parties, but will answer anyways
(1) How will you get the US to stop funding Israeli genocide?;
We already have the Leahy Laws for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy_Law
So it’s just a matter of drawing up support after the election is over to push to get this properly enforced. I’m optimistic that a final ruling from the ICJ on this case in favor of South Africa would help shift public opinion in the US on this matter as well - making the push easier, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa%27s_genocide_case_against_Israel
(2), what are the chances of your proposal(s) succeeding before, say, 2075?
I don’t like betting on court cases or the odds of future public opinion swaying. That said, I remain optimistic.
I am also hopeful for a plan B here - https://www.vox.com/2020/1/14/21063591/modest-proposal-to-save-american-democracy-pack-the-union-harvard-law-review - which would make it practical for third parties to win the Presidency in the future, making it easier to push for less moderate policy agendas.
For third party voters in the US: What do you think is the effective difference between voting for a third party and throwing your ballot directly into a garbage bin?
Vote for mt guy or else your wasted your vote 🤡
In my state, getting at least 2% of the vote for either Governor or President in a general election keeps the Party on the ballot for the next election.
Without hitting that 2% threshold, the party loses its official status and has to go back to petitioning status, which means resources are tied up both canvassing for tens of thousands of signatures and fighting in courts to get reinstated. So it’s a perpetual ground game and prevents the party from taking off.
The Libertarian Party has remained above that threshold for about a decade now, the only third party to do so consistently, and that’s pretty scary.
What if you live in a non-swing state?
If 5 million Californians who voted for Biden instead voted for 3rd party, that state would probably still go blue.
The popular vote has some weight. Not enough to award Presidency, but it can be used in arguments for eliminating the electoral college, implement RCV, and other improvements. Narrowing the popular vote gap makes it harder to make these arguments.
The down vote count is proof this is the demographics that pretends they are the side that cares about human rights and the death of innocent civilians but in reality it is all theatrics and sanctimony. They haven’t moved a finger to fight against the injustice or protest against their own governments. but when those who truly care and can’t in any circumstances vote for both parties involved in genocide. they clutch their pearls and lecture them about how the party that is actually involved in genocide is the right answer against another party who will be just as involved in genocide. because brown people’s death is meeeh .
they clutch their pearls and lecture them about how the party that is actually involved in genocide is the right answer against another party who will be just as involved in genocide
More likely the downvotes are because you are both sides-ing the issue. You are correct that the current administration is complicit (as is the Republican congress that overwhelmingly votes to fund Israel, but never seems to be brought up), but implying both sides are the same is disingenuous at best and malicious at worst.
Kamala at least pretends to care about a ceasefire, whereas Trump thinks Biden is holding back Netanyahu . Trump’s admin also boasts about waterfront property in Gaza. During his term, Trump also took steps to dwindle Palestine such as moving the embassy to Jerusalem. And that’s without bringing in the rest of the risks Trump poses.
I’m not typing this for you. I expect your reply will be something about how complicit the current administration is while completely ignoring about 80% of the issue. I’m typing this for everyone else.
you’re demonstrating at least one logical fallacy - the false dichotomy that our only choices are “vote for genocide” or “vote against genocide”. this grossly misrepresents the situation. and I’m pretty sure you know what you’re doing.
if you want to change things, do it from the ground up not the top down. vote for the “little” positions, the local elections. they’ve put us in this position with these small roles and gerrymandering. fix the illness, not the symptoms.
If a pro-genocide Republican, a pro-Genocide Democrat, and anti-genocide 3rd party candidate runs, who should a voter vote for?
Ooooo! Can I play?
Let’s say that you have a pro-genocide Republican, a pro-genocide Democrat, and an anti-genocide 3rd party candidate, but the anti-genocide candidate also wants to give all school children machine guns and grenades, and require cars to intentionally run down pedestrians?
Or or or let’s say that the anti-genocide candidate’s campaign is so bad that her own party is telling her drop out? .
also wants to give all school children machine guns and grenades, and require cars to intentionally run down pedestrians?
Huh?
Or or or let’s say that the anti-genocide candidate’s campaign is so bad that her own party is telling her drop out? .
As intelligent and informed as we all know Europeans are compared to us dumb-fuck North Americans, could the average European explain to us the role of the Electoral College in American politics; and that if 5 million Californians who voted for Biden, instead voted for Stein, West, Oliver, or that tankie, Del la Cruz, the state would probably still go blue in 90 hours?
But…but…but…that’s not a magic bullet with instant gratification! We expect it to work like Amazon where we just order the thing we want and get it the next day.
Here it is put simply for all who struggle with this decision, vote for the guy who has said he is going to do bad things if he gets elected again, or choose the lady who has a proven record of trying to help people who need help. It’s a pretty easy decision.
Trump lies a lot, including about the bad things he says he’s going to do.
Perhaps if the leader of Hamas, with the leader of Qatar, invited Trump to a great military parade in Qatar in his honor, with 1000s of American flags waving, a band playing Hail to the Chief near the red carpet rolled to the jet plane, Palestinian girls singing God Bless America to him, some Palestinian girl presenting him a huge bouquet of flowers, and some Palestinian doing a flawless and great rendition of Ave Maria, he might attend, and with it it might have greater consequences in the Middle East than Harris impotently wagging her finger at Netanyahu.
it might have greater consequences in the Middle East than Harris impotently wagging her finger at Netanyahu.
Or, you know, the fact that Trump would tell Israel to rev up the genocide would absolutely “have greater consequences in the Middle East than Harris impotently wagging her finger at Netanyahu.”
There is objectively no way that a Harris presidency would be worse for the Middle East than trump. Any suggestions otherwise are deluded and not based on reality.
It amazes me some of the arguments that come from the supposed anti-genocide crowd.
I can almost hear Trump now:
“Those children, those sweet Palestinian children, when they sang ‘God Bless America,’ oh my God, it was such a sweet version, and then that girl, what was her name? FAT-eh-mah, Fa-TEEM-mah, I don’t know, I think it was FAT-eh-imah, but it doesn’t matter, when she brought me those flowers and told me, 'Mister President, you are the greatest leader America ever had, the greatest leader in the world, could you stop the Zionists—whoever ‘Zionists’ are I don’t know what a ‘Zionist’ is, I think it’s some alien race in Star Trek—‘from bombing my family, I know you can, because you are very powerful man, you are the most powerful man in the world, you can do anything,’ I was so touch, so touched, so I phoned Bibi, and I said, ‘Bibi, could you stop the bombing for a few days’, and he said he would, but you know people, he didn’t, so I cut his funding. I cut his funding, and he was mad, or maybe upset, not mad, but upset, because Bibi and I are such friends, I never had a friend as close as Bibi, but when you have friends, sometimes you have to be strong, so I said, ‘Bibi, i’m going to cut you off for a while, because that sweet Palestinian girl, that girl who gave me flowers, said that some in her family were accidentally killed. I’m not blaming those soldiers, but sometimes, you have to think before you do stuff, and I think cutting them off for a while would help.’ He was mad, oh yes, Bibi was very mad at me, he even said some angry words, foul words, he was so loud, I was worried he was going to get a heart attack or something, I never heard anyone be so mad, but sometimes you have to do things.”
Answer your own questions!
(1) How will you get the US to stop funding Israeli genocide if the genocide harder guy wins?;
and,
(2), what are the chances of your proposal(s) succeeding before, say, 2075?
Harris supporters have a better chance over 3rd party supporters by multiple magnitudes.
If Harris wins, the Democrats will learn that they can ignore progressives with relative impunity, and focus on what really matters—maintaining their power and positions;
and with the American people’s (and other peoples’) deference to incumbents, she will either win again in 2028, or fail so badly through incompetence that the GOP wins.
If she wins again in 2028, it will probably be the same-old-same-old as it was in Obama’s 2nd term (e.g. the rise of Islamic State, occupation of parts of Ukraine by Russia, reputed slave auctions in Libya), or Clinton’s 2nd (e. g. bombing Belgrade because he’s not man enough to own up to to his extra-marital affairs).
If Trump wins, the genocide will indeed be worse, though I doubt much worse.
He will end 2028 as an 82 year-old ending his 2nd term.
With decreased vigor, and continued rallies, his underlings will be quite busy with back-stabbing each other, and we might see both Houses go Democrat in 2026—a few months after his 80th birthday.
Presumably J.D. Vance will be the heir apparent, though far less loved than, say, Papa Bush.
Let’s hope his Democrat rival in 2028 is up to it, but if wt:thon isn’t, it will be thons and the party’s fault.
If Orange man wins the swings states, even though in each of those states, the votes for Democrats and 3rd party candidates combined significantly, perhaps greatly, exceeded votes for him, and if Californians stop being such 'fraidy cats and gave, say 15% to 3rd party candidates, resulting in yet again another overwhelming victory for the Democrat US Presidential candidate in California, the bigwigs in the DNC will realize that progressives will be ignored at the party’s peril.
My plan is to vote for Harris then try to get people to protest the genocide en masse on Inauguration day. I’d also like to help promote the NPVIC
Your voting system is broken. You can present yourself as a hero who is fighting against the system, but all you are doing is letting someone who will commit more atrocities into power.
Elect Harris. Protest peacefully. Put pressure on her that way.
How much of a margin do you want Harris to have over Trump in California? Should it be like Biden’s and exceed 5 million votes, when even an excess of 1 million votes—or even 100 000 votes—would give her as many Californian Electors?
How will anyone get Trump to stop funding Israel and ramp up US support?
What are the chances it would ever happen before Gaza is part of Israel after the Palestinian people are functionally erased after Ben & Dons bloodbath for votes and money?
This is an infinitely harder task than using citizen power to pressure Harris. So if you expect answers to your questions, I feel these need answering too.
The US is a broken democracy. But unfortunately right now the only way to salvage anything and even get a chance of reforming it ever, you have to vote for Harris. It’s sad and the rest of the world would be laughing at you if it weren’t this serious for all of us. Please get Harris in and then suggest a move to a more pluralistic, modern democracy after. The other candidates will not matter in the current system. All you do is helping whoever wins.
(1) How will you get the US to stop funding Israel
Bullshit.
The bonds between Usa and Israel are so much tighter than this current conflict.
They are also independent from such minor nuisances like a current election.
Do you regard elections as nuisances?
In general? Yes, of course.
This one in particular? It is kinda risky, because one of the candidates has promised to end democracy. So this one has some kind of additional excitement.
But still it has no power of the kind that would be neccessary (in theory) to break the relationship between these two countries.
You vote for the conditions of your protests. If Harris is elected, you have somebody much more likely to cave to sustained public pressure to withdraw support from Israel and who is less likely to violently crackdown on protests. If Harris gets elected, that’s when you ramp up pressure on the issue with sustained protests. It’s idiotic that Biden/Harris are still maintaining that support for Israel in the first place, but I suspect there’s some realpolitik bullshit and Biden’s traditional outlook on American foreign policy behind that support and maybe there’s a substantive shift after the election.
If Trump is elected, you’re creating easily a dozen or more other issues for yourself to deal with, on top of Israel and you risk fracturing any potential protests you try to do for the Palestinians. You’ll have an establishment that’s more aligned with Israel, who won’t cave to public pressure, and who will likely use increasingly heavy-handed tactics against protesters.
It’s little consolation for Palestinians, but it can always get much worse.
So Palestinian-Americans, even those in non-swing states—including California, where I’d almost bet my $200 to anyone’s $20 that that state will go to Harris—should just shut up about Harris being pro-genocide for the next 90 or so hours (as they should have shut up about it for the past few months), and suck it up and vote for and the Democrats, including Harris, and in turn, reasonably assured that she, and other Democrats, from centrists to progressives, will nonetheless surprise us after 5 November and do a 180, or near 180, against Israel.
Had Gore been elected in 2000, we might not have gotten Iraq or even a 911, but neither would we probably have had an Obama, for better or worse.
IIUC, much of Carter’s retirement was building houses, giving interviews, writing books, and occasionally hanging out with current and ex- Presidents.
IIUC, much of Clinton’s retirement was working on his foundations, giving thumbs up to his wife’s career, and Lewinsky looking better over the next 25 or so years.
Obama has now volunteered to help save Harris’s campaign because she apparently can’t hack it without his or Cheney’s support, particularly with the current senile President saying stupid things and with the almost-as-old Bill Clinton doing almost as badly.
The truce in Korea was made a year or so after Eisenhower was elected.
IIUC, Nixon went to China, signed the first SALT treaty with the USSR, and ended American participation in Vietnam with the SVA actually holding off the NVA and VCs for about 2 years.
Under his Democrat successor, Israel signed a peace deal with a dictatorship, Afghanistan was invaded, Iran turned Islamic and hostages were held for months.
The Reagan/Bush Presidency ended with the end of the USSR and Warsaw Pact.
Under Clinton, Belgrade was bombed partially because people focused too much on his sexually exploiting his power imbalance with an intern.
Yes, Bush’s idiot son created disaster in Afghanistan and Iraq, but disasters continued under Obama, his presidency concluding with the Russian occupation of Crimea, Russia meddling in Donbas with Neo-Nazis serving as America’s proxies, the rise of Islamic State, temporary change in Egypt, and reportedly slave auctions in Libya.
For all his rhetoric, Trump’s Presidency was perhaps the most pacific Republican Presidency since Hoover—over 90 years ago.
Biden is elected with a lot of mail-in ballots (a great way for men to control the votes of their wives and girlfriends) and 16 months later, more of Ukraine is invaded. Genocide occurs under his watch, and instead of retiring gracefully as he perhaps should have 9 to 21 months ago, and give Harris a head start, we have a President calling about half of America garbage and this happening in Michigan: Harris Campaign THROWS OUT Muslim Leader From Rally.
Do you think Liz Cheney or her father, Darth Vader, will oppose the genocide?
Would you welcome an endorsement of Harris by Dubya Bush?
but I suspect there’s some realpolitik bullshit and Biden’s traditional outlook on American foreign policy behind that support and maybe there’s a substantive shift after the election.
I’m sure similar was said in late 1976.
The 1992 election coincided with Fleetwood Mac (cued). (“Don’t. Stop. Thinking about Tomorrow. Don’t Stop. It’ll soon be here [… oooooo, don’t you look back.]”)
Ah, those were the days: the fall of the Berlin Wall and that stupid war in Iraq about 2 years past.
2008: “Yes we can.”
“A vote for Stein [or West or Oliver] is a vote for Trump.”
Sorry, you realpolitik-types need to do better.
So downvote me, like many others are, because I think a vote for Harris is a vote for Trump-lite.
Palestinian supporters are free to keep bringing the issue up and I think they should keep building momentum around it. It’s certainly relevant as the genocide is ongoing, nobody said they should “just shut up about it”, BUT given the current situation in American politics right now, it’s fighting for attention with everything else going on. At best, it’s noise that people can easily tune out because Americans are FLOODED with political messaging right now. At worst, some on the Left may even be somewhat dismissive because it’s assumed to be a disingenuous argument being made by bad-faith actors to divide the Left’s vote.
I realize how heartless this all sounds when people are literally dying by American weapons, but that’s where we’re at. After the election, the dynamic changes and you have less infighting within the Left around protesting about Israel and trying to split the vote and a much better chance of organizing around the issue. Don’t shut up about it, keep the pressure up, but the better time to turn up the heat is after the election.
Ideally the ongoing schism in the Republican party continues and they return to some semblance of civility.
On top of that, ideally the party splits into two and alternate voting schemes start gaining traction in red states. There are a few blue counties experimenting with them, but I’ve seen none on the red side. There is no chance ranked voting gets to the state level until both sides agree to it.
Democrats want to maintain the status quo for as long as possible to get through the election cycle. Once they get the next 4 years secured and know what the house/Senate looks, like they’ll have their pick to proxy war in Israel or Ukraine. Or Korea. Or Taiwan. Maybe a wild card in the Horn of Africa.
return to some semblance of civility.
Surely not within the next few years.
I don’t support Harris, but I will vote for her because Trump winning will only make things worse. And accelerate the climate catastrophe, which will hurt everyone who lives here, animals and plants too.
As far as how I will get the US to stop funding Israel… I won’t. It’s a bigger problem then myself.
But, organizing outside of the election cycle is the way to do it. Protests, strikes, not paying our taxes. Those are the ways to change things.
A third party protest vote won’t change anything. It will just get your candidate and those who voted for them blamed for spoiling a two party election and putting Trump in office.
P.S. The framing of your question sucks btw. For reasons I pointed out above (I don’t support Harris, and I don’t propose that I can do anything personally to stop the genocide outside of organizing with others. And, if Trump is elected, the genocide will accelerate and likely spread to other middle eastern countries, and everyone will be suffering greatly by 2075 due to climate change).
I don’t think I’ve ever met a person like you’re speaking of, who is going to vote for a Democratic candidate but opposes third parties. They never oppose the existence of third parties and they often support third party candidates.
They just don’t vote for third party candidates in US presidential elections because that vote doesn’t do anything productive.
I’m all ears on what a third-party candidate who gets less than 5% of the popular vote will be able to do to stop the genocide by 2075.
5% gain cumulative gain per election x 10 elections (say 2032 to 2072) = 50%
And how does a 5% gain per election happen? When in USA history has there been comparable rate increase and how did that party accomplish it?
What great progress has occurred in the US without activism regardless of who occupies the White House?
The closest I could come up with, at least for now, is the wp:1856 United States presidential election, where that loser, John Frémont, from the newly formed Republican party, presumably split the Whig vote and ushered in the victory of that impotent cuck, the Democrat James Buchanan.
And now move to the next election, 1860, in which the third party once again disappeared. No term-over-term progress made. I see no evidence any current minor parties are faring any better.
I’m not saying to stop activism. I’m saying voting a third party candidate for US president is minimally effective activism. Putting resources into getting people to vote for third party presidential candidate is an inefficient use of those resources. The general public can see this, and it adds to the perception that third parties are disorganized and unserious. (In addition to the system being built to keep them out)
Those resources should be spent on down ballot candidates and other initiatives to drag the Democratic party in the direction of cutting funds to Israel. We’re seeing this now. A group of Palestine were almost invited to the DNC. The DNC chickened out, but the fact that it was even better considered never would have happened ten years ago. We have a steadily increasing number of Democratic senators and representatives who vocally oppose the genocide in Gaza. The anti-genocide position correlates to politician’s generation, which is only going to improve further as Biden and Pelosi’s generation gets out and there are more of AOC’s generation and younger. Installing anti-genocidal local officials like sheriffs, judges, city councils, and university regents means peaceful protests wouldn’t be shut down as frequently.
My down ballot will not be a straight Democratic ticket. But I’m sure as hell not giving Trump even a miniscule edge by throwing my vote for US president away on RFK Jr. or Stein.
