I don’t think it’s a waste of time. Even if I can’t convince him specifically, there are other people reading these posts. If someone came to this thread who was less sure, and I can change their mind, that’s good enough for me.

If I were the victim of genocide, I wouldn’t be a voter at all, because I’d be dead. However, that’s kind of irrelevant - are you the victim of genocide? I’m assuming not, if you’re voting in the US election. Even if you’re Palestinian, your people are the victim of genocide, but unless you’re in Palestine, you aren’t.

That said, if you are Palestinian, I feel for you, I honestly do, and it would explain your view somewhat.

I think we can both agree that there’s only two outcomes that’re possible in this election: Trump wins, or Harris wins. (If you don’t agree, I’d be happy to hear your third outcome.) If you truly believe there’s no difference between the two of them, you need to do some research on the topic, because there are a lot of differences, even if they don’t pertain to this issue specifically.

If, between the two of them, you hope Harris wins, a 3rd party vote is voting against your interests. If you hope Trump wins between the two of them, a 3rd party vote is still voting against your interests, because you’re effectively taking a vote away from your preferred candidate among the two who could possibly win.

Edit to respond to your edit:

The outcome is the Democrats stop committing Genocide or they don’t get votes. “But Trump” isn’t even an argument.

Unless you’re out there protesting, or writing letters, or making phone calls, or in some way letting them know that their policy is costing them your vote, it’s a useless gesture. Posting on Lemmy isn’t going to change any politician’s minds. It’s not even going to change anyone’s mind here, in all likelihood. If you actually want to make a difference, you need to make your voice heard by the people whose minds you’re actually trying to change.

You don’t seem to have read or followed any of the logic here. Why’s that?

Someone who would otherwise vote for Harris voting 3rd party would help Trump win. Pretty simple. Not sure what’s so hard to understand about that. And Trump would be just as bad on Gaza, worst likely, and worse on every other issue facing the country as well. Not sure how many times we have to say it.

If a massive number of voters would vote third party that would be great. But based on every presidential election ever that’s just wishful thinking. The reality is a vote for a third party is one less vote for the best chance to defeat Trump.

The reality here is we aren’t going to win with a non genocide candidate. The best we can do is go with the masses and vote the least bad candidate in.