“Jill Stein is a useful idiot for Russia. After parroting Kremlin talking points and being propped up by bad actors in 2016 she’s at it again,” DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni said in a statement to The Bulwark. “Jill Stein won’t become president, but her spoiler candidacy—that both the GOP and Putin have previously shown interest in—can help decide who wins. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
The only reason Jill Stein has a chance to spoil this election is because we’ve got a large and rabid minority of voters who actually like what Trump is serving. If Trump were down 10 points in the Swing State polls, Jill Stein’s 1% wouldn’t matter. If Harris had 270 EVs worth of locked in states, Stein could take double digit vote counts in places like Oklahoma and California and still be a non-factor. But in this closely divided of an election, with the political system the USA has, your purity crusade will result in possibly the last election you ever get to vote in, and at minimum, 4 years of policy that will utterly destroy every priority you have.
And that means Harris must campaign to those voters and affirm their most wildly fascist opinions about minorities and immigrants?
What kills me is that I would be happy to discuss the ways in which MAGA actually does pose a danger to the republic, if not for the fact that Liberals will use it as a point of comparison for just how fascist of a candidate they themselves would still be willing to vote for, as if the act of voting is some twisted real-life game of “would you rather”.
According to this article, there are somewhere around 3.6 million Jews nation-wide who vote for Democrats. In 2016, only 1.4 million people nation-wide voted for Jill Stein. If you only turned off half the Jewish vote while capturing every Stein voter there is, you’d still have a net negative, and I’m absolutely sure AIPAC would go apeshit over this (and they support Republicans too), and Stein voters would just find another reason they couldn’t possibly vote for the Democrats.
A majority of americans support halting arms shipments to Israel. Harris would lose a lot fewer votes than you’re suggesting (especially while Trump is currently torpedoing his own campaign with antisemetic ramblings and accosiating himself with known neo-nazis), and would gain more than the Green votes you’re suggesting (because a lot of people will simply stay home rather than vote green because they feel completely disenfranchised by both parties). But setting the electoral math aside for a second: eligibility odds aren’t a valid defense of being complicit in the most public international genocide in recent memory.
So, if you are really dumb enough to think a protest vote is a good idea, know that your meaningless protest will cost LGBTQ and minorities and non-Christians and women HERE in this country dearly, while doing absolutely nothing to help the Palestinians
The democrats are already ceding ground to anti-LGBTQ and minority movements. Harris is already running on anti-immigrant and anti-asylum policy, she is already turning away from protecting LGBTQ rights in red states across the country, she is already fanning the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment. In pursuit of defeating a loud and obnoxious fascist, Liberals are actively affirming those fascist fears while abandoning minority and working class protections. They are proudly advertising themselves as the more pleasant fascists, the steady hand that will provide order to those who are afraid that immigrants are bringing drugs and weapons across the boarder to kill their children.
No, I do not believe that any of the groups you mentioned would be ‘safe’ with Harris in the white house, and I don’t think those fascist fears and violence will suddenly go away if we lightly affirm their legitimacy.
And that means Harris must campaign to those voters and affirm their most wildly fascist opinions about minorities and immigrants?
This poster wants you to believe that what Harris is doing to cater to the middle makes her equivalent to Trump. It does not. She’s trying to bring everyone to the table, and believes that not screaming to the high hills how Left she is is the best way to make Trump fail again in 2024. I do think she should go more like “Hey, Moderate Republicans. Thanks for your vote. Please, stay during this election, but after the Election is over, go back and fix your party. We’re not going to become Republican Lite over here for you. You need to fix your party so America can have two choices again,” but I won’t hold it against her if she doesn’t do that. I certainly don’t buy the notion that Harris is catering to Fascists, though…
What kills me is that I would be happy to discuss the ways in which MAGA actually does pose a danger to the republic, if not for the fact that Liberals will use it as a point of comparison for just how fascist of a candidate they themselves would still be willing to vote for, as if the act of voting is some twisted real-life game of “would you rather”.
This poster could go far by discussing how much MAGA poses a danger to the republic. Hell, it could also promise to hold Democrats accountable, by threatening primary opponents and reminding Dems that the only reason it voted Democrat this election was how dangerous MAGA is, but it doesn’t seem this poster wants to talk about that at all…
The democrats are already ceding ground to anti-LGBTQ and minority movements. Harris is already running on anti-immigrant and anti-asylum policy, she is already turning away from protecting LGBTQ rights in red states across the country, she is already fanning the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment. In pursuit of defeating a loud and obnoxious fascist, Liberals are actively affirming those fascist fears while abandoning minority and working class protections. They are proudly advertising themselves as the more pleasant fascists, the steady hand that will provide order to those who are afraid that immigrants are bringing drugs and weapons across the boarder to kill their children.
I can’t have a conversation with anyone who spouts this level of bullshit. Attention: Mods. I am specifically calling the above paragraph as bullshit, not the poster, so please don’t ban me under Rule 3. I won’t address what I think the poster is because of course, Rule 3 only allows me to call ideas and subjects of articles {expletive}, and while I do think some pointed expletives aimed at this poster and others is more than warranted, I’ll stick with pointing out the flaws in this poster’s reasoning.
This above paragraph is utter and complete bullshit. It is so far opposed to reality that I just can’t have a discussion with this poster if it believes this nonsense. This both-siders-bullshit is exactly the kind of Russian Propaganda that was peddled in 2016 to convince people to throw their votes to third parties. This included the IRA spreading propaganda to convince African Americans not to vote, creating 10 Youtube Channels, multiple Facebook channels, 571 videos, and more than 1.2 million followers in their attack on Black voters. I brought all the receipts for this, just check the hyperlinks above.
If this poster truly believes this, there’s no common ground for discussion here. Dear reader, keep in mind that this poster was preceded by posters just like it in 2016 confirmed to be IRA agents, who pushed very similar bullshit about Hillary Clinton that this poster and others like it are pushing today. If you don’t want to read the link, here’s some key numbers: 1017 videos posted over 17 channels, 3840 twitter accounts with 72 MILLION engagements across 1.4 million people, and 44 fake news Twitter accounts with 660k followers between them, peddling disinformation.
If you think this poster is on the right course, you’re as lost as it is, and you’re doing Putin’s dirty work for him. We can and do criticize Team Blue here, but there’s a difference between saying Dems aren’t liberal enough for some of our tastes and saying Dems are just as Fascist as the Republicans. I call that bullshit out here, and invite you to reconsider if you buy this bullshit or not.
PS: I’m glad to see that it seems like /r/politics on Reddit and most other forums on the Internet, save for the fever swamp of conspiracy theories, aren’t being filled with bullshit like this. I guess the moderators of most mainstream forums see this bullshit as Russian Propaganda and shut it down. So maybe I’m overestimating how much impact this bullshit has. Still, I want it to have ZERO impact, so a-countering I go. As much as the mods here will let me go, at least.
It is so far opposed to reality that I just can’t have a discussion with this poster if it believes this nonsense.
My pronouns are very publicly displayed in my displayname, you can fuck off with your intentional dehumanization. It seems like you’re going out of your way to not accuse me of illegitimacy directly, but you sure as hell seem content to imply I’m a russian asset, a bot, or both. While I appreciate your intentional avoidance of accusing me of those things to my face (not for a lack of clearly wishing you could without getting moderated), I’d appreciate it even more if you could resist the urge to speak to me/about me in the third person and refer to me as ‘it’.
If you think this poster is on the right course, you’re as lost as it is, and you’re doing Putin’s dirty work for him. We can and do criticize Team Blue here, but there’s a difference between saying Dems aren’t liberal enough for some of our tastes and saying Dems are just as Fascist as the Republicans. I call that bullshit out here, and invite you to reconsider if you buy this bullshit or not.
There’s a lot of accusations in this response, and I’m not willing to sift through them all individually, but I think I can easily address this one.
I’m not accusing the democrats of being ‘the same’ or ‘as bad’ as republicans. I’m not even accusing them of being fascist generally. What I am accusing them of is entertaining the fascistic and xenophobic fears of fascists in order to appease them. Of course this is a campaign strategy to beat Trump - that is not my objection. My point is that Trump is simply a symptom of a far deeper fascistic impulse that is growing within the American electorate, and affirming those anxieties (while abandoning any defense of minorities actively under threat, including Trans and Muslim Americans in order to ‘not alienate’ ““moderate”” voters (i feel gross even writing that in double scarequotes)) only fans those flames of fascism.
If you’re only concern is winning a single election against a loud and obnoxious fascist bafoon, go ahead and turn a blind-eye to the rhetoric the democrats are using in order to appease those “”“”“moderate”“”“” voters. But if you’re at all concerned about the growing fascist movement in the US, you would be wise to acknowledge concerning trend of democrats ceding political and rhetorical ground to the right. Legitimizing fascist fears and welcoming them into the democratic party isn’t going to help drive them away, and only a fool would think so.
PS: I’m glad to see that it seems like /r/politics on Reddit and most other forums on the Internet
Huh, what a strange place/moment to drop an advertisement for reddit. If you’re not a fan of federated social media, then you are more than welcome to fuck off back to Reddit.
edit: is this the reddit you think is so much better moderated and free from bots lol?
My pronouns are very publicly displayed in my displayname, you can fuck off with your intentional dehumanization. It seems like you’re going out of your way to not accuse me of illegitimacy directly, but you sure as hell seem content to imply I’m a russian asset, a bot, or both. While I appreciate your intentional avoidance of accusing me of those things to my face (not for a lack of clearly wishing you could without getting moderated), I’d appreciate it even more if you could resist the urge to speak to me/about me in the third person and refer to me as ‘it’.
This poster is demanding I show respect, here on the internet, where the Men are Men, the Women are Women, and the Children are FBI agents, while it and its ilk treat the rest of us like children at best and shit at worst. This poster bitches about the fact that I don’t see fit to refer to it as a person. Well, I’ve been told in no uncertain terms I can’t call these posters out as the way I want to, so this is the best they’re going to get. If they got their druthers, I’d only be able to refer to them in the most glowing of terms, enforced by mods picked by them to stifle my dissent to their bullshit that Dems are in any way endorsing Fascism, and that the answer is to let an actual Fascist in by voting third party. I’ll be damned if I give them any more respect than referring to them in this disconnected sense. And that they’re leveraging a tool designed to let people be who they want to be gender-wise makes it worse.
This poster splits hairs trying to claim that it didn’t call Democrats Fascist when it most clearly did:
- point of comparison for just how fascist of a candidate they themselves would still be willing to vote for
- But setting the electoral math aside for a second: eligibility odds aren’t a valid defense of being complicit in the most public international genocide in recent memory.
- The democrats are already ceding ground to anti-LGBTQ and minority movements.
I’m fucking DONE with this bullshit. I’m not going to let these claims stand unchallenged.
And I’m not going to just simply give up pointing out the stupidity expressed in these posters’ positions either.
A majority of americans (sic) support halting arms shipments to Israel.
…except it didn’t. It said 52% +/- 3.5%, based on a survey of 1000 people, support halting arms shipments to Israel until attacks on Gaza stop. That is within the margin of error, and could be as low at 49%. And a whole 21%, again +/- 3.5%, aren’t sure if we should halt weapons shipments to Gaza and 27%, again +/- 3.5%, suggest we should maintain support for Israel. What happens if Iran or Syria or the rest of the Middle East jump Israel’s case while we’re withholding weapons? Note that the article ALSO doesn’t address demographics in this 1000 person poll. If you poll 1000 people of Arabic decent, I’m sure you’ll get a different result than if you poll 1000 Jews or 1000 Christians or 1000 Republicans. The poll itself makes clear Republicans have a much more militant view on this!
Since my point was that we’d only need to turn off 50% of Jews to lose far more votes than we gain from this poster and its ilk, it dishonestly blows this bullshit in our face, ignoring my point altogether, and then gets all offended and shit over pronouns. I stand by what I said. There are no heroes over in Gaza, just villains and victims. And how many of these people saying they want to stop arms shipments are part of the ‘vote blue no matter who’, given the OTHER guy who has any chance of winning has said he’s going to ship MORE guns and bombs to Israel! Meanwhile, closer to home…
Oh right. This poster has a line for that too.
If you’re only concern is winning a single election against a loud and obnoxious fascist bafoon (sic), go ahead and turn a blind-eye to the rhetoric the democrats are using in order to appease those “”“”“moderate”“”“” voters.
- More bullshit accusing Dems of catering to Fascists
- YES, I am more concerned about winning a single election against a loud and obnoxious fascist buffoon who has a clearly spelled out plan on how exactly he’s going to ‘make it so you don’t have to vote again’. If you’re fucking concerned about what happens next, maybe get Jill Stein to start working the day after the election to stand up RCV and other voting initiatives and work to get Third Parties elected in large enough numbers so that future possible Third Party candidates for POTUS have some allies in Congress, maybe? That’s what I’m going to tell this…poster.
You kind of need to worry about your own home before you start worrying about the homes across the street, unfortunately. Doubly so when the choice is between a woman who may not be doing enough to placate all the posters coming out of the woodwork shitting on the Democrats and only passively mentioning how horrible the Republicans are, and the Republicans who are gonna do everything these people and the CONFIRMED bots from Russia say the Dems are gonna do, dialled up to 11, not only to the people these people are ‘concerned’ about, and a whole bunch of extra people, right here.
I’m just done with the nonsense being spewed on Lemmy by people who seem to be all to eager to do the same kind of ‘blow up every molehill into a mountain’ that confirmed Russian Troll Farms did with Clinton in 2016 and end us up with another 4 years of Trump. At least in 2016, Hillary DID have that stench of Third-Way Corrupt Democrat and we didn’t know what Trump would do versus what he said, but it’s 2024, people. We know Trump is going to do what he says he’s going to do, and Harris is light-years better than Clinton.
PS: I find it amusing that what was a claim that Lemmy lets stand Russian propaganda got turned around into an endorsement of Reddit. And this poster wonders why I don’t consider it worthy of directly endorsing. I may not be allowed here on Lemmy to directly say any given poster is a Russian Propagandist, Bot, or Useful Idiot, but Lemmy can’t stop me from having those thoughts and choosing how I’m going to interact with these people. Maybe if this poster wants me to treat it was respect, this poster can start treating us with respect and stop accusing us of being blind to Fascism.
