Edit: I’m changing my stance on how common this is after a few hours looking at top election posts and comments across boards. The abuse definitely exists, but in most places it WASN’T at the top. While “vote bullying” happens, I was wrong about how much support it gets. I’m happy to be wrong and glad to see that people usually are pretty decent about presenting their arguments. I still think OP’s article shows how people should be convinced.
I get what you are saying and half-agree. Where I respectfully disagree is that people have always been this reasonable. By writing “this is how it’s done correctly, with respect and logic” I’m juxtaposing Sen. Sander’s approach vs. “vote with us or else you’re -insert insult here-” posts, comments, and memes. I’ve seen tons of some attempts to dehumanize or discredit critics of Biden/Harris/Dems on Lemmy and other platforms. You are right that some most have always tried to be empathetic and civil.
I also agree high-profile endorsements matter. That bugs me a little bit because I think arguments should succeed or fail on their own merits and not reputation. But I know I’m a consciously “have no heroes” person because I believe everyone is fallible. I definitely have people I respect a lot, but no one that I’ll agree with all the time.
Eh. It started respectful, but dealing with the same tired “never genocide” canvassing of every single election thread gets old. And the people making those arguments know exactly what they’re doing.
Do you expect the opposition to fall over themselves to be respectful and accommodating while the other is not playing by the same rules?
Does that remind you of something the Dems were very heavily criticized for doing in the recent past?
I expect libs to be respectful and accommodating to the left… And come out swinging against the right… What irritates me is when the libs take the left for granted and continuously move right on issues to try and scrape more shit off Trump’s boots
I do not respect the self identified “leftists” that do nothing but make demands and then move the goalposts.
You expect libs to be respectful, yet give no respect yourself.
Check you privilege. Your single issue voting is throwing minorities and women under the bus.
I do not respect that.
Generally speaking, people AREN’T saying “vote with us or else you’re a piece of shit” to anyone who is (good faith) complaining about Biden’s horrendous record on genocide and Kamala being unlikely to be much better. We almost always point out "Yeah… it sucks. But do you think trump will be any better? and get responses along the lines of “WELL I WON’T VOTE FOR GENOCIDE!! THAT IS MY LINE!!!”
It has nothing to do with the way the message was said and pretending otherwise is an active insult to everyone who gives a shit.
The only reason this MIGHT make a dent is because it is Bernie Sanders. The guy who opened a lot of people’s minds to the reality that there is something better than late stage capitalism and beltway liberals.
Edit: I’m adjusting my stance because while I can find abuse in many threads most of the time it WASN’T in the top comments. Seeing what actually makes it to the top proves I was wrong and I won’t cherry-pick comments further down to argue I’m “right”. “Vote bullying” exists so I’m not deleting, but when I looked for other examples I found that most of the time upvotes are for reasonable folks.
I’ll give one high-ish profile example that illustrates what I’m talking about: /c/politicalmemes has nearly 6k users, which is fairly big for Lemmy. In the last 6 months, the #3 top post with 1.91k upvotes is about how not voting because you feel there’s no good choice means Republicans win and not seeing that means “you have a problem”. The top comment in that post is about how people saying Biden isn’t doing enough are propagandists. The #3 top comment literally tells dissenters to “do a lot more shutting the fuck up”.
As I’ve said from the beginning: it’s not universal, but it shows up regularly enough to make me appreciate Bernie’s approach.
The meme sub. Where people intentionally try to make jokes and antagonize each other?
people AREN’T saying “vote with us or else you’re a piece of shit”
Lemmy is doing precisely this, in this very thread, and has been doing this in literally every thread where this comes up since 2023. The issue that needs to be addressed is whether or not “Trump worse” is working as a strategy. What Bernie is saying here isn’t new, and maybe he’s saying it better, or its better coming from him than other surrogates. ymmv. I would argue you’ve already captured all the votes you can get using this approach. Now what about the votes you aren’t getting with the argument “Trump worse”?
I think without a pivot on this Harris is leaving the easiest 1-3% of voters to get on the table. And they’ve been there since the last day of the convention, where Harris conveniently showed Arab-americans the exit rather than the podium. Its a small group, but its more than sufficient to be a deal breaker in this election. You can’t force them to go for Harris, and no amount of telling them they have to has changed their minds.
Going forwards, how do you get these voters to vote for Harris?
I am an AAPI. I already know no candidate gives a shit about me. Hell, it says something when frigging Yang seemed palatable for like… five minutes. And with the way geopolitics is shaking up? If you thought the anti-asian hate was bad during the lockdown parts of COVID, just wait until we are in a cold war gone lukewarm against china like we are with russia.
And that is why a lot of AAPI folk kind of go right wing. They, like their parents, decide it is easier to try to ingratiate themselves wit hteh white supremacists than to show solidarity. But the rest of us? We rapidly learn that there IS no solidarity with us because we are “model minorities” and get told to shut the fuck up when more important minorities are being discriminated against.
But also? That isn’t the only issue. There are AAPI women and AAPI lgbtq+ folk and so forth. And thus, you actually look at the issues and vote in your interests even if neither party really gives a shit. Because you have more than one issue (and, even that, one party is still a lot less shitty)
So if “Well… neither is great but one is a whole lot worse in these very concrete ways” isn’t working?
You get a celebrity influencer to say it. Like Sanders.
