I’m assuming the third track being entirely disconnected and therefore not a real option is intentional.
Either way, accurate
Fun fact. You don’t get the bottom track without demanding it. You end up on the middle track if you negotiate on human rights.
Yup. You also get the middle track when you show up to the 2020 primaries and think to yourself “I’m gonna vote for a geriatric procorporate establishment white man. This is the best decision for me and everyone else will have to accept it because the alternative is Trump.”
Amusing to see commenters who think Biden primary voters are reading forums on Lemmy and are still venting their grudges 4 years later… 🤣
Where do you suppose all the people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries congregate?
Definitely not on one of the most marginal, leftleaning comment boards that is lemmy
Liberal yes, left leaning? Doubtful.
Lemmy was literally developed by communists and it feels like every other person here is a socialist.
I think I’ve only ever seen a few people on here call themselves liberals, and that was in the confused American version of the term, I’ve seen liberal used as an insult infinitely more.
Supporting Biden or Ukraine or Israel also does not immediately equal Liberalism, and I have no clue why yall have been treating it like it does.
Yes, liberals will not call themselves liberals. Much like NIMBYS would never call themselves NIMBYS. Especially ones trying to convince leftists to vote for a procorporate genocide supporting trash of a candidate.
deleted by creator
The only way Biden will stop genociding Gazans is if there are electoral consequences for him, and you’re asking us to not give him any electoral consequences.
The R path needs to replace the trolley with a ton of cars, and then run everyone over (including the US).
Why doesn’t do the more popular and morally right thing to do and simply stop shipping weapons to Isreal?
Simplistic philosophy for simplistic minds.
It’s not a trolley problem, and even if it were the consequences of greenlighting democratic support for genocide are not fully represented appropriately in this image.
Image fully representing the consequences of any voters in the US deciding to “greenlight genocide”:
It’s funny you say the philosophy is simple when strategic voting requires multiple layers of analysis and voting for bubblegum ice cream just amounts to what feels good. You can’t bring yourself to accept the reality of the situation, so you pretend like the problem is easy to solve if you just ignore it. That’s truly simple minded. Pathetic projection on your part.
It’s not strategic if the outcome of either option in the binary you present is fascism. You’re not “saving” anyone on either of the tracks in the narrow political world you paint.
You’re reducing things to a single issue and have the gall to say my political world is narrow. You’re unreal.
Literally. How do people like this exist
It is a trolley problem for leftwing voters.
We all know what happens if the Republicans get in - they do what they want, and what they want is fervent, unquestioning support of Israel, and to continue trampling on the rights of millions of minorities.
That’s where the Trolley goes if the leftwing can’t agree on what it wants to do.
While I agree that you’re right in stating that the long-term consequences of allowing democrats to get away with this aren’t properly laid out, what’s the alternative exactly?
You could argue to vote an independent, but if everybody disagrees on which independent to vote for, then you fragment the leftwing and the Republicans get a free lunch.
You could argue to refuse to vote to teach the democrat party a lesson, which sounds nice, but every lost vote against the Republicans only helps bring them closer to victory.
If you’ve got another idea, then by all means go ahead, but those are the two I hear over and over again.
Except communicating to Democratic leadership that this is acceptable moves us to the right, not to the left. I think it’s time we all admit at least that we’re past pretending Democrats are going to reform themselves without any meaningful pressure, no?
How far to the right do we let the DNC use fear to push us before being “left” only in relation to the extreme right doesn’t cut it? If genocide is not where you draw the line what the fuck will be?
Again, I agree with what you’re saying in principle, but how do you propose to draw that line now?
Both realistic outcomes of the election involve the US government continuing to support this genocide in one way or another - that’s why OP’s meme is drawn out like it is, because people arguing your exact viewpoint seem to think there’s some magical third track everybody else has missed that sidetracks this issue entirely.
Everybody loses this election no matter what happens, but I guarantee you the loss will be worse with the Republicans in the driving seat.
Again, I agree with what you’re saying in principle, but how do you propose to draw that line now?
There will never be a perfect time to draw the line, because the DNC will always play chicken with its own base as long as that continues to get them elected, they will always be putting us in that position of choosing between their fascist lite pick and the gop’s fascist. The only weapon we have that they care about is our ability to deny them power. They don’t care about protests, they don’t care about articles and letters, debate or polls or anything, as we see none of that changes their behaviour. They care about money and access to power.
So, the solution is to starve them until they realize the party simply can’t sustain itself on non-existent maga swing voters. It can’t leech enough “moderate” conservatives to survive. They need to be brought to the understanding that their route to power is not to be Alt Republican, it’s to be progressive and anti-fascist.
People can say the DNC won’t care and it will never work that way, but we’ve seen a real example from history that starving parties works. When Republican support was waning in the 1950s and 60s, the Republicans went out hunting for a new demographic to sustain them. That’s what the Southern Strategy was. Granted they were going in the opposite direction, but the Democrats can be put in the same position and since the GOP already occupies all the white racist territory, Dems have very few other places to hide from Millenials and GenZ.
And in the meantime those groups need to keep voting and keep fighting to get progressives in every position they can. They just need to be disciplined about not backing corporate candidates, they need to be unelectable.
And yes, I understand this would likely mean some really shitty years, but that’s the cost to make Democrats understand they need their base.
One, that is a very long way of saying the idea you’re bringing to the table is don’t vote - and I’ve already said what I think about that.
And yes, I understand this would likely mean some really shitty years, but that’s the cost to make Democrats understand they need their base.
Two, that’s a bit of an understatement considering just one highlight of Trump’s last presidency was rigging the SCOTUS towards being openly corrupt and against the people for literally decades to come.
You clearly didn’t read it then, we’re done here.
And in the meantime those groups need to keep voting and keep fighting to get progressives in every position they can. They just need to be disciplined about not backing corporate candidates, they need to be unelectable.
Yeah, I did see that section, but given that a “corporate” candidate is already the democrat nominee, that also amounts to not voting in this election - or voting for independents, which I have also made my opinion known on - so there was no point in talking about that.
Voting or not voting by itself will not move democrats to the left. That can only be achieved by organizing. In the meantime, keeping republicans out of power is worthwhile.
I’m with you on what the meme is trying to say, but the bottom track needs to be shown looping around to the Republican track and running over everyone.
Because that’s where the third track leads.
Doesn’t matter where the track leads if the trolley can’t get to it. It could lead to rainbows and sunshine, but that isn’t where the trolley is headed because there is no possibility that someone other than Trump or Biden is elected president. A few cry babies voting third party won’t get some third person elected. A vote for the third track is a vote for a track that will not be ridden.
It could be a little model trolley track going in a loop with no trolley on it.
Yep, not voting is unironically pretty much the same as voting for the party you least want in charge.
Because you’re making it that much more likely.
Don’t throw away a right that your ancestors fought for, as it may result in future generations no longer having that right.
Well, mathematically it’s only half as bad.
-1 lesser evil +1 greater evil
Vs.
-1 lesser evil +0 greater evil
Your math is wrong. You wouldn’t be cancelling out the greater evil with the vote for the lesser evil, so its actually twice as bad (or 4x what you were thinking).
0 lesser evil +1 greater evil
Exactly.
There is unfortunately no option to wind up with a non-evil result, your only options are greater evil result or lesser evil result.
By voting 3rd party you didn’t reduce the chance of greater evil result, AND you didn’t increase the chance of lesser evil result.
Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.
[…]
The former Berlin businessman I referred to earlier told me that he blamed his own group, people with the time and the money and the opportunity to know better, for what happened to Germany. “We ignored Hitler,” he said. “We considered him an unimportant fellow, not quite a gentleman, not of our own class. We considered it just a little bit vulgar to bother with him, to bother with politics at all.”
They thought of the government as “They.” The only possible route to a clear conscience in politics is to accept political responsibility, either as an active member of the party in power or as an equally active member of the loyal opposition.
—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government
It’s funny that both democrats and third party voters will look at your comment and think you’re on their side.
Similarly, MLK saw “the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice” as the biggest impediment to civil rights.
The bottom line is that being secure enough in your position in society to think you don’t have to engage in politics, or that you can afford to vote your principles instead of tactically, is itself a form of privilege. Those sorts of privileged people think themselves neutral or uninvolved or maybe (in the case of professed leftists refusing to vote Dem as a protest) on their own third side, but the reality is that they are the right-wing authoritarians’ greatest ally every single time.
Lol imagine thinking “moderate white” doesn’t perfectly describe the majority of people walking into the 2020 primaries and voting for Joe Biden.
You’re not wrong about the primary, but you are wrong to conflate the primary with the general election when it’s the latter that we’re talking about here.
Lol so I’m “radical” in the primaries when I don’t vote for Biden but I’m “moderate” in the general when I don’t vote for Biden?
That’s not how labels work sir.
The POTUS, from the party most opposed to civil rights act, is who signed it into law, very much so a white moderate more devoted to order. So, I’m gonna take a stance and say MLK was wrong about that one if that was his take before he died.
That’s not how it went, though. It’s, in fact, the opposite of how it went. Hitler had relatively little popular support, but full support of the industrial elite. It’s blaming the people for the crimes of the elite. “They abdicated their franchise” no, fuckface, half of them voted communist. “We ignored Hitler” no, fuckface, you put him in power because you thought he’d be malleable.
I’m not surprised Heinlein bought it, though. And I’m not surprised people here are buying it.
Well, I didn’t intend on voting for Trump but, fine, you’ve convinced me.
Yes, you of course weren’t already going to do that. 🙄
Hey, as long as you vote. Everyone should vote.
Isn’t that what happens here, if he walks over to the third track instead of staying by the switch?
Oh, maybe. I assumed it was two different people, but yeah, that makes sense.
Like so?
Also, let’s have 'im on the track too.
“Oh, no, I’m not in any of those groups on the track, so I can safely not vote and have a clear conscience as it crushes everyone!”
Then they came for me…
What a sad misunderstanding of a quote literally describing state enforced genocide. I mean, this is how it starts. Both sides would kill Palestinians. Can’t do anything about it I guess. Oh well, best not put my foot down and take a principled stand here.
Who’s next?
You think that Republicans wouldn’t support genocide against anyone they consider to be their enemy?
I think that accepting that some groups, like Palestinians, will just be oppressed no matter what is what leads to things like the Holocaust. Saying you can’t afford to take a stand on your principles today and draw a line in the sand, but maybe you will tomorrow leads to the situation Martin Niemoller found himself in. It may be too late already, and making a stand won’t make a difference, but it’s never too early.
And what happens when a significant chunk of the electorate does that? I bet all those poor Palestinians will really feel good about Israel being given the green light to bomb them harder because a bunch of people protested and got a dementia riddled fascist elected.
These posts are just virtue signalling, because there’s never any forethought of what happens after the election to the people being discussed. You can speak from a place of privilege and moralize about the choice you’re making, but you’re pushing the same tactics that the republicans and alt-right push: don’t vote democrat.
I don’t like that I have to vote for Biden, but I actually want to minimize the harm being done to people, not just talk about it on the internet. Crazy concept.
These don’t-vote-for-Biden weirdos don’t understand that it’s wrong to use the idea of a minority to push your political interests in a way that hurts that minority.
If a significant portion of the electorate did that, Biden would be on the phone this minute applying all possible pressure to stop what is happening. Instead they are playing chicken with your vote. Children died today and every day for the past 8 months because a political party is betting that you’ll vote for them anyways.
Again, the original issue I raised is that it’s cruel to quote a man lamenting the fact that he and others like him didn’t do enough soon enough to stop the Holocaust. That same behavior is happening right now. But it’s fine. We just have to accept it. A few losses for the greater good. I’d bet you don’t have any Palestinian friends, but if you do, please let them know I’m the one who’s privileged and see what they say.
“All men were created equal”
IS SLAVE STATE
always jave been coming for us.
As someone who for the first time did not vote in 2016. I started voting in the Bush era. I fully agree, no action leads to fascism apparently. Don’t do what I did because I was pissed that Bernie was cheated out of the nomination. Vote or Trump will be back in office.
the bottom track needs to be shown looping around to the Republican track
Okay, but the guy at the controls needs to be the swing vote on the SCOTUS.
I’m guessing the joke is that third party voters ignore the trolley about to go down one of two paths, instead deciding to stand next to a short piece of track connected to nothing with no trolley on it, so they can pretend the imminent disaster happening on the other track isn’t real
And there’s also a contingent of people on the trolley who are trying to get it to slow down, working their asses off to improve long term actual outcomes in the real world, whether related or not to the little lever, and the guy standing next to the empty disconnected track is claiming to be one of them and saying you must be against them and how dare you, you person-running-over-enabling monster, if you say anything against his strategy.
Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance, instead of making us speculate on it.
Roe v Wade sends their regards.
This
the decision that Blue did absolutely nothing to protect even though they knew full well Red would kill it any chance they got?
“Terrible things that Republicans do is actually Democrats’ fault” is a fun level of victim blaming
Is it the “only Democrats have agency” thing? Democrats are responsible for their choices but Republicans, they’re just like a fire that burns man it doesn’t know what it’s doing.
- the victims are the American people, not whichever politician you’re waving your team flag for
- the aggressors are the politicians too busy pocketing their corporate bribes to pay attention to their constituents
-
“polls into the 21st century showed that a plurality and a majority opposed overruling Roe” (Wikipedia)
-
Is the guy with the bowtie supposed to be the people on here calling everone “lib” or the people on here calling everone “tankie”?
I could say the same thing of the self proclaimed progressives saying the dems should have done something in the total 4 years since then they’ve had trifecta control, not even including the filibuster.
You knew the redcaps would kill it first chance they got, why did you let them get the chance by not voting against them?
What was so much more important to you than women’s health that not even the open and active threat to it was enough to motivate you to the herculean task of standing in a line and pushing some buttons?
You asswipes are always on about how you’re the only ones who take fascism seriously in this country, and then whenever you’re given the chance to show it by doing the basic minimum to keep them out of power you balk and make demands like it’s suddenly a distant nightmare instead of the life threatening reality of the people you karen at to get the party’s manager for you.
Big Bridal Shower at the Gay Bar Energy.
So deep.
Modern Leftism: Standing off to the side and doing nothing while watching a trolley plow through a crowd of people and then laying down judgment on the people that are actually doing something to save as many people as possible.
Can you tell me which pro-Palestinian advocacy groups informed your opinion? Clearly you follow many people who are doing the work, so I’d love to learn more.
The Palestinian movement is fundamentally compromised. After October 7, it was imperative that as many Palestinians as possible denounce Hamas to make it clear that Hamas doesn’t represent them.
Unfortunately this didn’t happen. Sure a few people here and there said a few words against what Hamas did. But it’s not the consensus among pro-Palestinian groups that what Hamas did was wrong.
This means that Hamas is currently inseparable from the Palestinian movement. Which means the Palestinian movement is not a non-violent resistance movement. At almost every protest you can see people cosplaying as Hamas. There are some even saying October 7 was justified. It is a violent movement which tolerates genocide, as long as it’s their side doing the genocide.
The Palestinian movement simply doesn’t have the moral high ground. It’s now mostly about rationalizing why the genocide that occurred on October 7 was justified by claiming Israel is committing genocide and using “both sides” style logic. If both sides were actually committing genocide then a rational person wouldn’t support either side. But we see pro Palestinian groups rationalizing the genocide Hamas committed which makes their false claims of Israel committing genocide a moot point. Even if Israel were committing genocide it doesn’t make the nature of the present day Palestinian movement any better because Hamas committed genocide and Palestinians are unwilling to abandon Hamas.
It’s largely a hate movement now. Hatred makes people feel strong, but in reality it just makes people stupid. It’s why these movements ultimately fail. Too blinded by hatred to to make rational decisions about what’s in the movement’s best interests. Do you think the movement becoming more antisemitic every day is going to make it successful? Do you think denying the antisemitism will convince anyone outside this group? Nope. Stupid things are being done in hatred by the Palestinian movement right now.
And that’s why the Palestinian movement will fail. Too much hatred making people act stupid. Even if there were a Palestinian state tomorrow it would be a failed state. Too much hatred and therefore too much stupidity to make things work.
I hope someday Palestinians can see what their hatred is doing to them. Then a Palestinian state could work. But I don’t have much hope that it will happen in this generation. It doesn’t matter if the hatred is justified or not. Hatred will always make people stupid and stupidity will always result in failure.
Please listen to the victims of the genocide.
You must be mistaking the blue conservatives for people that are left of center.
Modern leftism is bound by the electoral college.
Also First Past The Post voting
The electoral college indeed sucks. But it’s a moot point because leftists will never get off their high horses to actually vote not matter what the system is.
Or we’re just demanding the Democrats at the very least, the minimum really, don’t support a genocide. The bar is so low it’s in hell. If Biden can’t clear that it’s because he doesn’t want to.
Modern Leftism: I don’t want to have a senile, racist, rapist, right-wing, war criminal, genocidair as president that will continue building a border wall and arming and funding genocide.
Liberals: BUT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED HOW MUCH WORSE IT WOULD BE IF HE HAD AN ORANGE SPRAY TAN!!! TANKIE SCUM!!!
Guys, I don’t know what’s going on in the world and their wars. I just want a president who isn’t abhorently evil. Do we have to revolutionize to find that 3rd option orrr?
I’m certain ballots with good options are unavailable absent a revolution, but if we tried under present conditions we’d likely only get worse governance and maybe destabilize the global balance of power catastrophically.
Thank you! We may eventually have to but revolutions do not have certain outcomes and we face a second problem that in general will require a mechanism for global cooperation which is hard to do when the state with the military, cultural, and economic influence the US currently has plunges into chaos
Do we have to revolutionize to find that 3rd option
Pretty much. It’s against the interest of both parties to have more options because both are near-guaranteed to lose power if there were more options.
I assume your “abhorently evil” comment is based off support of the genocide in Palestine (which is a completely reasonable thing to describe as abhorently evil, I’m just being clear about my premise).
In which case, sorry, bad news, you can’t have that. Your options this time round are genocide supporter or genocide supporter. Somewhere down the line, years from now, the US electoral system may have been sufficiently reformed to make third parties viable. But this year that’s not going to happen.
So that decision is completely out of your hands. But here’s what you do get to decide; you can have an outright fascist, leading a party of outright fascists who have openly publicised their plans to turn your country into a fascist theocracy. Or you can have the guys who strengthened workers rights and went after major companies for union busting, hit Microsoft for $20 billion in back taxes, had the FBI raid a major landlord for illegal price hikes, brought antitrust lawsuits against Amazon and several other large tech firms, and secured billions in aid for Ukraine in their fight for their freedom. And that is literally just a tiny sampling of the good things that Biden’s government has done.
I don’t even see how that’s a choice. One of these two options is clearly and manifestly better than the other, no matter how disgusting it feels. A vote for Biden is not an endorsement of his position on Gaza. It is a tactical choice, nothing more. And if nothing else, its a tactical choice that will prevent the fascists from filling even more seats on the supreme court.
It sucks, but those are the only options. Sometimes life just be like that.
This guy gets it. I don’t see how this is so difficult to understand. Not voting is essentially skewing the vote towards the diaper-wearing Nazi-Clown you once already had for a president. Vote for the least evil party, it’s all you can do.
Then you all should have voted for someone better in the 2020 primaries.
I think the choice is really: Does America deserve the lesser evil?
But what if I am a bad faith actor that only pushes the “no moral choice” position because I want to ensure that the fascists take power? Better yet, what if my Russian paycheck demands it. Then what do I do?
Are you forgetting about all the registered Democrats who voted uncommitted in the 2024 primaries? Not everybody who hates Biden is a Russian troll bud.
Your argument is made every four years. The someday you talk about never seems to arrive. Which means the reasoning is missing something important.
We can have it for the low price of demanding it. Tell the Democrats you won’t vote for Biden if he doesn’t stop supporting the Israeli genocide.
You realize why the Ashley Biden rape showers with grandpa suddenly became nearly mainstream news and will suddenly go away if Biden does what he’s told?
If that’s how it is then we’ve already lost. People who would make up stories like that would rather take the mask off and destroy democracy then let us get in their way.
Oh, I didn’t say it was made up. That diary seems to be real.
Hey look, Americans handwaving their genocide
Oh look, a fascist who likes to pretend they aren’t.
Which pro-Palestinian groups do you listen to? What are the Palestinians saying that really strikes a chord with you?
You’ve posted like 30 comments here.
31
Just wondering why you’re so invested in telling people not to vote for biden.
I’m invested in telling Americans to listen to Palestinians.
Once again I’m reminded of how the Holocaust was allowed to happen. Keep posting your dumb memes while you excuse your beloved president for deepthroating a far-right foreign government committing genocide. “Never again” if it’s convenient.
You’re a moron. What you are proposing is not voting SPD in 1932/1933 Germany because they are too moderate for your liking. Lots of people did that and guess what - Hitler won and began dismantling the democratic system, killing political opponents and setting up the biggest industrial genocide machinery the world had ever seen.
Not voting Biden in the presidential election helps Trump.
So you admit that the problem is a moderate party half-assing elections because they think they can coast on not being “other guy”. Democrats help trump because they’d rather have fascism than threaten the bottom line of their rich donors. How do you think it got this bad in the first place? Did you think democrats were the bastion of progress?
The Democratic Party is largely conservative and reactionary. There are some progressive elements because progressives have nowhere else to go. The US election system is fucked and undemocratic. It needs to change.
Still, not voting for Democrats achieves absolutely nothing but costing them a vote they need against the literal fascists of the Republican Party.
Yeah, the problem is a moderate party half-assing elections because they think they can coast on not being “other guy”. The SDP help Hitler because they’d rather have fascism than threaten the bottom line of their rich donors. How do you think it got this bad in the first place? Did you think the SDP were the bastion of progress?
The old saying about not learning and being doomed to repeat history really is depressing when you see it happen in real time.
What lesson? That the rich and powerful will eventually make every society circle the drain and fighting it off just delays the inevitable?
Or is your intellectual take giving a free pass to the most powerful in society and saddling those with the least amount of power with the bulk of the responsibility?
Hitler didn’t win. He was appointed Chancellor by the big parties as a compromise and abused that power.
Specifically, he was appointed chancellor by the guy the SDP backed. How anyone can look at that and blame the KPD for running the only anti-Hitler candidate is baffling.
Hitler did not have a 50% majority but the NSDAP was the strongest party, giving them a lot of leverage. If his opposition had been more unified, he wouldn’t have had a chance at becoming chancellor.
Hitler was appointed by Hindenburg, who was pressured by conservatives and capitalists, also the NSDAP was the strongest political party in both elections of 1932.
Without the substantial support for the NSDAP initially, there would have been no reason to appoint Hitler. The idea was that Hitler and his NSDAP could create a strong and lasting conservative government, a plan that would not have been suggested without their electoral success. Therefore, the support for the NSDAP in 1932 was the key reason Hitler became Chancellor. Paul von Hindenburg distrusted and despised Adolf Hitler as an unqualified upstart but felt compelled to appoint him as Chancellor due to political pressure and the unstable situation.
Then it’s still not analogous because the Democrats and Republicans routinely go 50/50 in the US.
It’s easy to remember because it’s the same folks, Zionists helped lift boycotts and sanctions on the Nazis
Oh fuck this shit, rage-baiting motherfucker.
