Activists from around the country told The Intercept that they will advocate for an anti-war agenda at the convention in August and withhold their vote in November unless an adequate candidate steps up, listing policy priorities such as support for a permanent ceasefire and standing up to the pro-Israel lobby as it intervenes in Democratic primaries. Even as the Biden campaign insists that he will not step aside, many Democrats appear to be lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative candidate, with some Democratic governors being floated as well.
“My number one criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza,” said Saad Farooq, an uncommitted voter in Massachusetts. Farooq said it was unlikely that the Democratic National Committee would select any candidate who took a stance against Israel’s ongoing war, and that he would support Green Party candidate Jill Stein if she were to appear on the ballot in Massachusetts.
Will Dawson, an uncommitted voter in Washington, D.C., named several factors that could get him to switch his vote from the Green Party’s Stein to another politician. First on his list is a promise to call for an immediate ceasefire and fighting the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Congress.
“This candidate would also ideally work toward pulling further away from the Israeli colonial project over time, with the goal being repealing our absurd financial support, ending the foreign interest agency of AIPAC, and pushing for a nation-wide boycott a la [South Africa] during their apartheid,” Dawson wrote.
The candidate would also have to push to reform the Supreme Court, he added. “The candidate would have to promise to both push for justice impeachment, and expand the courts,” Dawson said.“If a replacement candidate met both of these requirements, I would absolutely consider switching my vote from Jill Stein. Hell, I might even knock doors/canvass for them!”
I recall Democrats not getting on board with gay marriage equality until after polling showed it to be more popular than banning gay marriage.
And we didn’t abolish slavery for 89 years after declaring independence. We can absolutely agree change is usually painfully, unnecessarily, terribly slow but it does happen, requiring time, work, and sacrifice
our lives are worse than four, eight, twelve, sixteen, or however many four years you want to go back our lives get worse every election no matter who wins
Is what I was replying to and it’s objectively false.
An important caveat is that positive societal change is absolutely not inevitable, generations have fought to improve the injustices of their times and we must carry on their legacy lest we allow their sacrifices to be in vain
I getcha.
Yeah, the necessity of our current times seems to be following that 80-year generational cycle…
What’s sad to me is how all of this has seemed inevitable since at least as far back as the DNC boosting Trump and conspiring against Bernie in 2016. I couldn’t have guessed the form it’d take, but I knew that our Von Hindenburg Moment was on the way since the '08 crash got followed up by the astroturfed Tea Party pulling Republicans to the right while Occupy Wall Street went nowhere at all.
What’s scary is that I still can’t see even a vague outline of the future past 2025. I wouldn’t even bet we’re having elections in 2028, much less what Trump will do with the new criminal immunity for presidential acts and a supreme court majority in his back pocket.
Nobody’s coming to save us, so it’s up to us to save each other.
I getcha.
Yeah, the necessity of our current times seems to be following that 80-year generational cycle…
What’s sad to me is how all of this has seemed inevitable since at least as far back as the DNC boosting Trump and conspiring against Bernie in 2016. I couldn’t have guessed the form it’d take, but I knew that our Von Hindenburg Moment was on the way since the '08 crash got followed up by the astroturfed Tea Party pulling Republicans to the right while Occupy Wall Street went nowhere at all.
What’s scary is that I still can’t see even a vague outline of the future past 2025. I wouldn’t even bet we’re having elections in 2028, much less what Trump will do with the new criminal immunity for presidential acts and a supreme court majority in his back pocket.
Nobody’s coming to save us, so it’s up to us to save each other.
I.E.; not actually leading the charge for human rights, following along only when not doing so would have hurt their standing, and taking credit for reluctant half-measures implemented through the courts (and overturned just as easily by current courts) rather than having put in the effort to amend the bill of rights or at least to pass a federal law while they had the chance.
