What a fascinating standard.

I’m curious, does this mean that you would consider China to be absolved of responsibility for arming Pol Pot, who used their weapons to murder millions of innocent people, on the basis that they never expressly told him to do it, and “merely” kept arming him while it was clear that that was what he was doing? Because I’m pretty sure that kind of apologia would catch you a ban even in the tankiest of tankie spaces, and rightly so. But switch out China and Pol Pot for the US and Netanyahu, and dronies consider not taking that position to be “misinformation.”

Why are americans so fuckin dumb? Instead of pointing their fingers at millions of trump voters, they are pointing it at people with empathy for having anti-genocider stance.

It’s because of do-gooder derogotation, and generally not caring about winning or learning from mistakes so long as they can save face and protect their egos.

Do-gooder derogation is a phenomenon where a person’s morally motivated behavior leads to them being perceived negatively by others.

One possible reason for do-gooder derogation is ‘anticipated moral reproach’. This describes a threat to one’s moral standing and to their sense of self-worth.

Research suggests that since people are highly sensitive to any criticism or challenge to their morals, they are more likely to put down the source of this ‘threat’.

What restrictions?

Democrats were never holding them back from expanding, they literally expanded the war into Lebanon under Biden. The only check they ever had are the people on the ground fighting.

I mean, ideally they ought to address the economic issues, but that’s a nonstarter because of their donors’ interests. They’re abandoning the stuff that they’re actually somewhat decent on to make the areas where they suck the focus of their messaging.

Right, I don’t deny that Harris was less evil on other issues, but I do not subscribe to the ideology of lesser-evilism. Just because one side is more evil doesn’t mean that the other side is worth supporting when they’re both irredeemably evil genocidal psychopaths who deserve eternal torture in the deepest circle of hell. Lesser-evilism doesn’t make sense from either a moral or strategic standpoint.

There’s a social experiment that’s been studied where the researchers give two people $100 to split, but the first person makes one offer on how to split it, and if the second person doesn’t agree, then neither of them get anything. If lesser-evilism was correct, then what would happen is that the first person would offer a $99-$1 split and the second person would accept, because $1 is a lesser evil than $0. But that’s not what actually happens. The reality is that most people have a certain minimum threshold, somewhere around $70-$30, and below that they’ll tell the other person to get fucked.

This is not really an irrational behavior, though it may appear so in the context of the experiment. For example, if the experiment were repeated multiple times with the same participants, than accepting the $1 means that you will only ever be offered $1 in future negotiations because you’ve shown you’ll accept it.

In reality, I’m pretty sure that lesser-evilists understand this concept on some level. It’s just that either their minimum threshold does not preclude the genocide of foreigners in far away countries, or they convince themselves that the democrats aren’t actually as bad about that as they are. But for me, I do recognize that Harris is a complete monster, and I also place value on Palestinian lives, so I said no to the $99-$1 offer and now I have $0 which I fully anticipated and have no regrets over. Maybe next time they’ll come back with a reasonable offer that doesn’t include genocide.

she’s someone we could have talked to and could have felt the pressure of her voters.

No, she absolutely isn’t.

Politicians are never more receptive to voters’ concerns than just before an election. Once they have people’s votes, they tend to shift further in the direction of interests groups and the establishment. Like, for example, on the campaign trail, Obama promised to end mass surveillance and protect whistleblowers, but once he was in office, he did the opposite. Harris on the campaign trail, after the widespread campus protests, was the most pro-Palestine she would ever be, which is to say not even the slightest bit and completely unconditionally supportive of material aid to Israel.

It used to be that politicians would promise to do good things on the campaign trail, and then usually not follow through. But now they don’t even have to promise anything, because people will just project whatever views and values they hold onto whichever candidate they like regardless of anything they say or do.

Harris and Biden are unconditionally supportive of everything Israel does. Short of direct involvement of the US military, it’s not really possible for Trump to be meaningfully worse than that.

Hm, I wonder if any of the “anti-genocide” assholes ever stopped to think about Rashida, and whether she would have wanted Democrats to sit out this election or vote Green.

When you definitely know Tlaib’s positions lmao

Incredibly chauvinistic to use her as a talking point and put your own positions into her mouth without listening to anything she says.

There were two ways to vote for Trump. 1) Mark Trump on your ballot and turn it in, or 2) Not vote for Harris, not turn in a ballot at all.

In that case, Trump has won with an overwhelming majority in every election he’s ever run in, since nonvoters are like half the population and all of them count as voting for Trump.

Back here in reality, that’s not how it works.

Unless you’re referencing it as such

They very obviously are. How could you possibly read their comment otherwise?

I’m more than happy to support progressive democrats, and I voted democrat downballot. But “limiting the damage that Republicans do in the meantime,” while a valid goal, is not worth sacrificing efforts to replace the duopoly. Time is not on our side, and as conditions decline, it is inevitable that the Republicans will gain strength because Democrats are associated with the establishment and the failing system.

We should not “be doing our best to help the Republicans win.” That would mean voting Republican, which would make no sense whatsoever. What we should be doing is building up an alternative party. Had more people who stayed home come out to voice their support of a left wing third party, it would serve the dual purposes of affecting the narrative by making it harder to pretend the problem was the Democrats weren’t far enough right, while also paving the way for the replacement if they continue to stick their heads in the sand.

The idea that a third party could never be viable or replace an existing party is a self-fulfilling prophesy. But in my mind, it’s a simple fact that organizations either adapt or die, and so if the Democratic party cannot be made to adapt, it is doomed and the focus should be on preparing to take advantage of their eventual collapse. Yeah, it might be a longshot, but to me, “keep voting forever for people who are fundamentally incapable of listening to you,” is an even clearer dead end.

Oh, I didn’t say that. Not all irredeemably evil genocidal psychopaths who deserve eternal torture in the deepest circle of hell are exactly as bad.

Right back atcha.

Link or it didn’t happen.

In what way were we wrong? Did we ever claim Trump would be good on Gaza?

How’s your conscience now??? Still feeling good about your decision?

Yes.

Trump is an irredeemably evil genocidal psychopath who deserves eternal torture in the deepest circle of hell. That fact does not make me wish that I had voted for a different irredeemably evil genocidal psychopath who deserves eternal torture in the deepest circle of hell. The fact that Trump is horrible was never in dispute.

The Palestinians had a chance under Harris.

No, they didn’t.

This is why I don’t understand the attitude that the way to progress is to keep punishing the Democrats until they figure it out on their own. The ones who haven’t figured it out, which is most of them, aren’t going to figure it out, any more than Google is going to realize that ruining search was a bad idea and they need to start making products people like again. It’s just not in their DNA to think that way.

If the Democrats are fundamentally unable to respond or adapt to what people want, then they are doomed to fail and become irrelevant, and the only way forward is by abandoning them and building a different party. I would prefer it if they just learned their lesson, or if they could just be reasoned with at all, but if not then I don’t see a reason to bother with them in the first place.

Getting my predictions in now: the 2028 Democratic nominee will be running on a platform of making the extermination of trans people 10% more efficient, people will say that you have to vote for them because at least they don’t also want to exterminate gay people, the Republicans will flip New Jersey, and the DNC will conclude that they should’ve run on exterminating the gays too.

These people have completely lost the plot. Being progressive on social issues is the only thing they have to offer, because they can’t be progressive on economic issues because of their donors. If you’re not going to adopt an economic platform that would actually address people’s needs, and you’re also abandoning us queer “freaks,” then what are you even going to run on? Fucking NAFTA? What, are you running a campaign to try to get elected president or to try to get appointed a mod on r/neoliberal?

I’d ask how people with such terrible political instincts are even relevant to making these decisions, but I already know the answer is money.

1981 Nikaragua

Those evil Soviet imperialists, supporting a popular anti-colonial movement that brought literacy, healthcare, and land reform, against a corrupt dictator and capitalist death squads! Don’t they know that fighting colonialism and lifting people out of poverty is imperialism?