• RION [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    If a sufficient portion of the voting population made clear they would not support her based on those policies she would have to change her policies if she wanted to win.

    Like isn’t that fairly evident and just how elections work? I don’t see how libs don’t get that.

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      I made the ill-advised decision of getting into a discussion on r/politics under a remark that “if you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to complain” with the comment “and what does the complaining accomplish?”

      The responses I got were:

      1. Complaints signaled dissatisfaction with the person they won, which will persuade voters in the next election (we were completely stymied on “what if the person I voted for won and I am not happy with them?” It was all about 2016).
      2. Complaints can result in pressure like Biden stepping down and now we have the chance to vote for someone Totally New (pointing out that it seems like the reason Biden stepped down was because polling showed people weren’t going to vote for him resulted in the interlocutor throwing up his hands and saying “Fine, vote for the fascist”)

      People seem completely stuck in 2016. It’s all about “Hillary would’ve won if more people would’ve voted” and “voting is the only way to interact with the system in a way that achieves political change.” The Biden administration might as well have not happened outside of the IRA (pointing out that the IRA sucked does not help)

      Idk why I bothered, I guess I’m still trying to process the apparent euphoria going on in lib spaces and trying to figure out how shallow and easily punctured it is.

      • frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        People seem completely stuck in 2016.

        Honestly, I’ve embraced elitism regarding these kinds of people. If they’re terminally stuck in 2016 but also don’t realize that Hillary won by 3 million and the populace was actually screwed by the Electoral College, then they’re a waste of time to try and educate; plan to come back around when their personal world is actually falling about their ears.

        • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          plan to come back around when their personal world is actually falling about their ears

          I’d really prefer that things don’t get that bad, but it sure seems like that’s where we’re headed

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    I think this might be an American Civic Religion thing where America is so monolithic, and so grounded at the center of their reality, that they can’t imagine a world where America doesn’t exist or even a world where America can meaningfully change. America is the core of the natural order so trying to fight it is like trying to fight the ocean. They can only conceptualize resistance and rebellion as a russian plot, never an organic political action.

    We are dealing with fanatics blind to the world as it exists.

    • heggs_bayer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      I think this might be an American Civic Religion thing where America is so monolithic, and so grounded at the center of their reality, that they can’t imagine a world where America doesn’t exist or even a world where America can meaningfully change. America is the core of the natural order so trying to fight it is like trying to fight the ocean.

      Burger leaders when someone asks if a different state of affairs is possible: “Does the sun rise in the west?”

  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    The politicians work for the public not the other way. No one has any obligation to vote for Trump or Kamala and telling people to vote Kamala no matter what won’t change that.

    Its not like the genocide is happening under Trump, it’s happening under a Democratic President.

    And making comparison between something necessary for the country to function (income tax) to something that is a waste of resources (the MIC) is ridiculous.

    • heggs_bayer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      I’m sure we agree on what I’m about to say and I think what you’re saying is meant to guide libs who haven’t woken up yet, so my comment is directed at lurking libs and not you.

      The politicians work for the public not the other way.

      Not in bourgeois democracy.

      And making comparison between something necessary for the country to function (income tax) to something that is a waste of resources (the MIC) is ridiculous.

      The Great Satan is a global empire that maintains its international dominance by murdering all who dare to oppose it, making the world safe for bourgeois parasites (I repeat myself). Viewed in that lense, the MIC is as essential to the country as income tax, possibly even moreso.

      Death to Amerikkka!

    • kozy138@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      And making comparison between something necessary for the country to function (income tax) to something that is a waste of resources (the MIC) is ridiculous.

      I don’t think it’s that ridiculous. In order for any country state to exist and maintain power, they need some sort of military force to defend what they claim is their border.

      Also, the state of Israel has been attacking and terrorizing Palestinians since it’s introduction post WW2. And just like the USA, it only exists because it had/has a powerful military.

      That and genocide of course.

      • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        Yea, the military should be as small as possible while maintaing national security. US MIC is more about transferring public wealth (and resources) to the top 1% and less about protecting US borders or even US interests abroad.

        Tax is requirement for any state, building weapons for MIC profits to be sent to some “foreign” (whether Israel can even be considered foreign to the US idk) country isn’t.

        If US wants to claim its “aid” to Israel is for US national interests and not MIC interests, then it must get rid of the private sector from the defense industry. It doesn’t mean US wouldn’t support Israel’s genocide, just that MIC won’t profit.

      • heggs_bayer [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        Crazy how defending our borders involves demolishing countries in every corner of the globe. It’s almost as if there’s an ulterior motive that has nothing to do with protecting our citizens. thonk

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      It’s like everyone collectively realized this year that American elections are exercises in picking the bourgeois faction most closely aligns with your policy goals, bearing in mind that they have way more in common with each other than they do with you, retroactively justified it to themselves, and now refuse to explain or elaborate on that justification.

    • Hexamerous [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      Of course it matters!

      Okej it’s like this: 99% of the policy positions are identical to Hitler. That’s just how it is, don’t worry about it. It will make sens at the end.

      If you vote Republican that last percentage also goes to Hitlerite policy positions. It’s sort of a “auto policy mode” if you will.

      However, if you vote for democrats you get to (sort of) decide what happens to the last 1%. With one caveat: that during special election cycles, when it’s really important that they win the elections, that remaining 1% is directly controlled by the party to make emergency policies to gain votes.

      Don’t worry tho, you will get it back the next election cycle.

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      look, it’s very simple, in a democracy, politicians decide what issues we’re allowed to vote on based on the names on their bank statement, and then the voters go fuck themselves. and if fascists get more powerful, it’s the voters’ fault.

    • tocopherol [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 month ago

      If there is no vote against genocide, the only ethical choice is to not vote, which is still counted. I want to see this be the lowest turnout election in history, to show clearly how many people refuse to participate in this sham.

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    Every single person who says this should be told “Then the logical conclusion is insurrection to topple the government that dictates that genocide is an inescapable political reality. Anything short of that and you don’t give a shit.”

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 month ago

        Contra is great response material because she displays such a pathetic brow-beating routine. She makes a video vote-shaming her straw-leftist alter ego, droning about “harm reduction” while ignoring all arguments for voting third party, claims that we can “push Biden left” without really explaining how such a thing can be done, and then, after he wins, never makes a video about pushing Biden left or ever explaining how it can be done. Just a pure Democratic shill pulling the football like Lucy.

        • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 month ago

          I find it funny how apparently her character of an anarchist always calling for revolution is supposed to be a parody or something, and she was surprised people liked the character so much.

  • GoodGuyWithACat [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    This is exactly how average Nazis felt. Not the officers or concentration camp officers (well maybe some of them), but the regular folks who accepted the evils of their government because it was “just the way it is.” And they were still Nazis and share some of the responsibility.

  • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    So the candidate doesn’t support the issues I care about, on the handful of positions they’re semi-decent on they’re not willing to do what it takes vis a vis the courts and/or the filibuster in order to make them happen. What am I supposed to be voting based on? Vibes?

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    1 month ago

    And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss. People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind—it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.

    — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (1950)