I never said anything like no one should vote for them period. I absolutely understand the impulse to vote for the democrats even in a solid blue state. I aint judging. I don’t like being told I’m bad because I won’t vote for someone who will fund a genocide.
And hey for downballot races I’m with you, there are some stellar options out there. There are some really cool people running for state and local offices.
Dear god if this conversation hasn’t been nuanced, I don’t know what is lol. Though I don’t think “I won’t vote for candidates that will arm a genocide” is an especially nuanced position. Frankly it’s wild that it’s even a contentious position.
I’ll tell you how it’s not on individual voters: individual voters don’t get to decide what the party platform is. The party does. It’s on the party. Their platform determines what they’ll (hopefully) do, but also whether people will vote for them.
By this logic, we shouldn’t blame Ford for the Pinto (dating myself). How could it not be on the individual customers? Customers purchase (they’re the ones that give Ford power!). Ford can do anything it wants with regard to the design of the Pinto, but it can’t buy the cars from itself. Ford can’t be responsible for each customer’s purchase, because it’s their choice to buy or not buy a Pinto. The responsibly necessarily lies with the purchasers, so if they fuck up so horribly that they blow up in a defective car, it’s very appropriate to blame them.
…er…anyway, no; car companies shouldn’t make dangerous cars, and political parties shouldn’t support genocide. They can choose to do or not do those things, and that’s their choice, not the choice of the individuals who have to deal with them.
I’ll tell you how it’s not on individual voters: individual voters don’t get to decide what the party platform is. The party does. It’s on the party.
And the party is made up of . . . . . c’mon . . . . the party is made up of . . . ??
Of the voters, right. Yes. Voters have a voice in the party platform. It’s not even all that byzantine to do - you show up at the meetings basically. That’s how new (or old) ideas get in.
Now, party politics, yeah that’s a thing in ANY organization whether it’s the DNC, WalMart, or the boys at the bar. So those of you who are big into the “Democrats should do everything I think immediately because i think it” yeah that . . doesn’t work. Working with others doesn’t come naturally to a lot of the Lemmy left I notice. Compromise and letting people have wins and such like that aren’t really accepted, or possibly understood.
By this logic, we shouldn’t blame Ford for the Pinto (dating myself).
So if Ford had a mechanism to let consumers say what they wanted in a car, yes, the consumers would be able to say they don’t want cars to explode on impact. But Ford doesn’t, do they. Ford car buyers don’t have a direct voice. So the analogy fails. Not to mention the whole exploding thing was seriously covered up for years and years as opposed to being published openly and then voted on, which makes it even worse as an analogy.
You’re very sweet, man. I really hope you keep at it and make the world a better place. If you want to call the ghouls running the democratic party voters (I’m sure they vote too), be my guest, but they’re not “the voters,” they don’t represent the voters, and they don’t listen to the voters. The voters don’t control the platform…they don’t even have a meaningful voice on the platform. No matter how many people show up to the meetings saying “we should not arm genocide,” the platform will not change. You will be asked to leave, and if you don’t leave you’ll be arrested. And if, by the grace of god, you take over a caucus, the DNC can and will simply ignore you.
I’m all for compromise and letting people have wins and doing politics. But not around genocide. We don’t compromise on that. It’s not “because I think it” it’s because of the tens of thousands of dead palestinians rotting in shallow graves with american bullets and shrapnel riddling their bodies.
People have approximately no impact on policy. You may be familiar with the Gillens & Page (2014) paper. It’s obviously a little long in the tooth at this point, but I don’t see any reason to imagine it’s less true now. Customers probably have more impact on the design of a car, because focus groups are actually trying to get info to make you buy the car rather than not buy the car. However politicians don’t care whether you vote or not, it’s just that if you vote they need you to prefer them just a little.
And the particular analogy here is between the Ford Pinto blowing up and the parties arming the genocide of palestinians. So no, we don’t have a mechanism to say whether we want that to be the policy, just like consumers don’t get to decide if the Pinto being dangerous is a design choice or not. I’m not sure how the coverup is relevant to the analogy. The point is that the customers/voters don’t have power to change the car/policy…so stop blaming them.
Anyway, the Ford case doesn’t help you see what I mean? Sure it’s an analogy, there are always all kinds of ways analogies don’t work, but the point is that I’m using it to point at a way it does work.
The voters don’t control the platform…they don’t even have a meaningful voice on the platform. No matter how many people show up to the meetings saying “we should not arm genocide,” the platform will not change. You will be asked to leave, and if you don’t leave you’ll be arrested. And if, by the grace of god, you take over a caucus, the DNC can and will simply ignore you.
Does it take too long? Yes. Is it ruled by 300 people who have jockeyed for years to be one of the leaders, yes. Like all human endeavor it is flawed. But it doesn’t exist without the people who make up the party.
We need to get money out of politics, kill the Slaver’s College, re-democratize voting, kill FPTP and a ton of other things. But those things won’t happen through a third party, or the republicans. They can happen through the Democrats if only we’d all agree for one goddamn day. Which is the point of the meme.
I don’t mind the sources, it’s got a sprinkling of schadenfreude!
Is that forward motion? Looks more like walking in a circle to me, and like the focus is absolutely not on the suffering of other human beings. Like…bandying about how much we reference god or not while we fund the extermination of palestinians.
If they win without changing, why would they change? The Democrats have shown us over and over that if they win, they take it for granted. When they win they think “well I guess I could scooch a little further right.” Look I’m not saying they gotta guillotine the leadership (though that would be welcome and might in reality be required for my much more reasonable line in the sand), i’m just not going to vote for them until they stop arming a genocide.
That’s a thing. And yes, if you don’t recall, the whole god bless the united states is a reaganism that infected all discourse and mutated into brylcreem and flag pins so specifically dropping it from the platform after spectacularly failing to do it as we wanted in 2012 is progress.
I’d love to be more than a single issue voter, but yeah I think that issue is completely overriding. I guess i’m a single-issue vote-withholder. And again, I’m not judging anyone who thinks otherwise, or are single-issue voters for the environment or whatever. I just object to being told I’m the problem when I’m not the one arming a genocide.
e: on reflection I’m not really sure that’s right, though, in that if the republicans cut aid to nothing and the democrats cut aid to a thousand dollars, I wouldn’t go vote for the republicans. It’s not that it can’t be overridden inherently or something…its about the scale. The scale is what makes it so overriding.
Well the opposite happened so - I mean republicans cut more than funding, they closed up the entire agency, leaving millions of people around the world without food and medicine, and the Democrats would have continued sending food and medicine. That’s scale.
And just to reiterate the genocide didn’t stop, and trump has sold the Palestinians down the river for thirty pieces if silver and a statue of himself plus the naming rights. So how did that even help? There’s no way Harris would have even come close to that. Much less start a War for our buddy Bibi and let Pooty-poot continue his own genocide.
It just makes zero sense to not try and make it better. Letting trump win - even for the ethical reasons stated - is worse.
Sorry, to be clear, in my edit I meant if both sides cut US military aid to Israel, not aid in general. And yeah cutting off USAID is horrifying. I don’t think the scale is the same as the genocide in palestine (it’s a lot less money, and I think that money spent buying bombs is probably more effective at killing than money buying aid is at saving lives, but I may be wrong about that), but no doubt that’s one major difference. There are lots of differences, and I don’t deny they matter. I just deny they matter as much as the agreement between the parties to help israel exterminate Palestinians.
I’m also not convinced Harris wouldn’t have us invading Iran all the same; she was extremely hawkish on Iran. Just go look at what she was saying in 2024.
I also don’t see any reason to think Palestinians would have been better off under Harris. Biden gave way more to Israel than Trump has (again, granted, he had more time to do so…i just don’t see any reason to think it would ever go down). Maybe bibi and putin “feel empowered,” and we’re just gonna vibes that into assuming it’s actually worse? IDK vibes don’t make guns go bang, bullets do, and it’s the bullets that I think are the same.
And as for how it helped; it hasn’t yet. If the democrats announce that they’re changing course on Palestine, then win, then follow through I’ll feel like it’s made all the difference in the world. I’m not holding my breath, but that’s how it’ll help. As I said, i don’ think voting for the democrats wouldn’t have helped either, so I’d rather try for the option that has a chance.
I never said anything like no one should vote for them period. I absolutely understand the impulse to vote for the democrats even in a solid blue state. I aint judging. I don’t like being told I’m bad because I won’t vote for someone who will fund a genocide.
And hey for downballot races I’m with you, there are some stellar options out there. There are some really cool people running for state and local offices.
Dear god if this conversation hasn’t been nuanced, I don’t know what is lol. Though I don’t think “I won’t vote for candidates that will arm a genocide” is an especially nuanced position. Frankly it’s wild that it’s even a contentious position.
I’ll tell you how it’s not on individual voters: individual voters don’t get to decide what the party platform is. The party does. It’s on the party. Their platform determines what they’ll (hopefully) do, but also whether people will vote for them.
By this logic, we shouldn’t blame Ford for the Pinto (dating myself). How could it not be on the individual customers? Customers purchase (they’re the ones that give Ford power!). Ford can do anything it wants with regard to the design of the Pinto, but it can’t buy the cars from itself. Ford can’t be responsible for each customer’s purchase, because it’s their choice to buy or not buy a Pinto. The responsibly necessarily lies with the purchasers, so if they fuck up so horribly that they blow up in a defective car, it’s very appropriate to blame them.
…er…anyway, no; car companies shouldn’t make dangerous cars, and political parties shouldn’t support genocide. They can choose to do or not do those things, and that’s their choice, not the choice of the individuals who have to deal with them.
And the party is made up of . . . . . c’mon . . . . the party is made up of . . . ??
Of the voters, right. Yes. Voters have a voice in the party platform. It’s not even all that byzantine to do - you show up at the meetings basically. That’s how new (or old) ideas get in.
Now, party politics, yeah that’s a thing in ANY organization whether it’s the DNC, WalMart, or the boys at the bar. So those of you who are big into the “Democrats should do everything I think immediately because i think it” yeah that . . doesn’t work. Working with others doesn’t come naturally to a lot of the Lemmy left I notice. Compromise and letting people have wins and such like that aren’t really accepted, or possibly understood.
So if Ford had a mechanism to let consumers say what they wanted in a car, yes, the consumers would be able to say they don’t want cars to explode on impact. But Ford doesn’t, do they. Ford car buyers don’t have a direct voice. So the analogy fails. Not to mention the whole exploding thing was seriously covered up for years and years as opposed to being published openly and then voted on, which makes it even worse as an analogy.
You’re very sweet, man. I really hope you keep at it and make the world a better place. If you want to call the ghouls running the democratic party voters (I’m sure they vote too), be my guest, but they’re not “the voters,” they don’t represent the voters, and they don’t listen to the voters. The voters don’t control the platform…they don’t even have a meaningful voice on the platform. No matter how many people show up to the meetings saying “we should not arm genocide,” the platform will not change. You will be asked to leave, and if you don’t leave you’ll be arrested. And if, by the grace of god, you take over a caucus, the DNC can and will simply ignore you.
I’m all for compromise and letting people have wins and doing politics. But not around genocide. We don’t compromise on that. It’s not “because I think it” it’s because of the tens of thousands of dead palestinians rotting in shallow graves with american bullets and shrapnel riddling their bodies.
People have approximately no impact on policy. You may be familiar with the Gillens & Page (2014) paper. It’s obviously a little long in the tooth at this point, but I don’t see any reason to imagine it’s less true now. Customers probably have more impact on the design of a car, because focus groups are actually trying to get info to make you buy the car rather than not buy the car. However politicians don’t care whether you vote or not, it’s just that if you vote they need you to prefer them just a little.
And the particular analogy here is between the Ford Pinto blowing up and the parties arming the genocide of palestinians. So no, we don’t have a mechanism to say whether we want that to be the policy, just like consumers don’t get to decide if the Pinto being dangerous is a design choice or not. I’m not sure how the coverup is relevant to the analogy. The point is that the customers/voters don’t have power to change the car/policy…so stop blaming them.
Anyway, the Ford case doesn’t help you see what I mean? Sure it’s an analogy, there are always all kinds of ways analogies don’t work, but the point is that I’m using it to point at a way it does work.
Well I disagree, obviously, but it doesn’t mean there weren’t things like this: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/convention-floor-erupts-as-dems-restore-references-to-god-jerusalem-in-platform (apologies fir the source, it was the first one in my enshittified search results)
Which was obvious bullshit. But then look at 12 years later and https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/aug/14/democrats-have-officially-abandoned-god/ (apologies again for the source - ugh) and hey lookit that: forward motion.
Does it take too long? Yes. Is it ruled by 300 people who have jockeyed for years to be one of the leaders, yes. Like all human endeavor it is flawed. But it doesn’t exist without the people who make up the party.
We need to get money out of politics, kill the Slaver’s College, re-democratize voting, kill FPTP and a ton of other things. But those things won’t happen through a third party, or the republicans. They can happen through the Democrats if only we’d all agree for one goddamn day. Which is the point of the meme.
I don’t mind the sources, it’s got a sprinkling of schadenfreude!
Is that forward motion? Looks more like walking in a circle to me, and like the focus is absolutely not on the suffering of other human beings. Like…bandying about how much we reference god or not while we fund the extermination of palestinians.
If they win without changing, why would they change? The Democrats have shown us over and over that if they win, they take it for granted. When they win they think “well I guess I could scooch a little further right.” Look I’m not saying they gotta guillotine the leadership (though that would be welcome and might in reality be required for my much more reasonable line in the sand), i’m just not going to vote for them until they stop arming a genocide.
So you’re a single-issue voter?
That’s a thing. And yes, if you don’t recall, the whole god bless the united states is a reaganism that infected all discourse and mutated into brylcreem and flag pins so specifically dropping it from the platform after spectacularly failing to do it as we wanted in 2012 is progress.
I’d love to be more than a single issue voter, but yeah I think that issue is completely overriding. I guess i’m a single-issue vote-withholder. And again, I’m not judging anyone who thinks otherwise, or are single-issue voters for the environment or whatever. I just object to being told I’m the problem when I’m not the one arming a genocide.
e: on reflection I’m not really sure that’s right, though, in that if the republicans cut aid to nothing and the democrats cut aid to a thousand dollars, I wouldn’t go vote for the republicans. It’s not that it can’t be overridden inherently or something…its about the scale. The scale is what makes it so overriding.
Well the opposite happened so - I mean republicans cut more than funding, they closed up the entire agency, leaving millions of people around the world without food and medicine, and the Democrats would have continued sending food and medicine. That’s scale.
And just to reiterate the genocide didn’t stop, and trump has sold the Palestinians down the river for thirty pieces if silver and a statue of himself plus the naming rights. So how did that even help? There’s no way Harris would have even come close to that. Much less start a War for our buddy Bibi and let Pooty-poot continue his own genocide.
It just makes zero sense to not try and make it better. Letting trump win - even for the ethical reasons stated - is worse.
Sorry, to be clear, in my edit I meant if both sides cut US military aid to Israel, not aid in general. And yeah cutting off USAID is horrifying. I don’t think the scale is the same as the genocide in palestine (it’s a lot less money, and I think that money spent buying bombs is probably more effective at killing than money buying aid is at saving lives, but I may be wrong about that), but no doubt that’s one major difference. There are lots of differences, and I don’t deny they matter. I just deny they matter as much as the agreement between the parties to help israel exterminate Palestinians.
I’m also not convinced Harris wouldn’t have us invading Iran all the same; she was extremely hawkish on Iran. Just go look at what she was saying in 2024.
I also don’t see any reason to think Palestinians would have been better off under Harris. Biden gave way more to Israel than Trump has (again, granted, he had more time to do so…i just don’t see any reason to think it would ever go down). Maybe bibi and putin “feel empowered,” and we’re just gonna vibes that into assuming it’s actually worse? IDK vibes don’t make guns go bang, bullets do, and it’s the bullets that I think are the same.
And as for how it helped; it hasn’t yet. If the democrats announce that they’re changing course on Palestine, then win, then follow through I’ll feel like it’s made all the difference in the world. I’m not holding my breath, but that’s how it’ll help. As I said, i don’ think voting for the democrats wouldn’t have helped either, so I’d rather try for the option that has a chance.