Post #29050

2025-12-04 05:46 UTC

Take genocide for example, which seems to be the theme of the thread: we didn’t get the choice of no genocide, our only options were more vs less. Those are shitty options, but if we have that wiggle room, it’s worth voting for less in order to prevent more. Damage mitigation. Still genocide, still shitty options, but tangibly distinct options. Whether it would have been a “lesser” genocide is unfalsifiable. We’ll never really know. But I don’t have the faith in it that you have. I’m not sure what a more competent genocidal administration would have done. Consider what many US Palestinians did: threaten to withhold their votes if Harris didn’t say there was at least some daylight between herself and Biden regarding Gazans. And she wouldn’t even do that much. That’s how you use the vote, if you use it at all. You use it as leverage. If the Democrats know you’ll “vote Blue no matter who” or “vote Blue no matter what,” then they’ll ignore you altogether, because you’re already in their pocket. You’ve made yourself irrelevant.

Replies (1)

@Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 2025-12-04 06:03

Whether it would have been a “lesser” genocide is unfalsifiable. We’ll never really know. But I don’t have the faith in it that you have. I’m not sure what a more competent genocidal administration would have done. Correct. But I’m confident the Harris administration wouldn’t have taking the swan-dive that Trump’s did. Same with all the other evils he’s committed outside the scope of genocide: bad under Harris, worse under Trump. Given what we know about the two, that assumption seems pretty reasonable. If you disagree, well like you said, that comes to which candidate we have less faith in. For me, Trump is the obvious rock-bottom worst outcome, but I can’t compare to an administration that never happened, so speculate as you will. Consider what many US Palestinians did: threaten to withhold their votes if Harris didn’t say there was at least some daylight between herself and Biden regarding Gazans. And she wouldn’t even do that much. But that’s how you use the vote, if you use it at all. You use it as leverage. If the Democrats know you’ll “vote Blue no matter who” or “vote Blue no matter what,” then they’ll ignore you altogether, because you’re already in their pocket. You’ve made yourself irrelevant. Half correct. Withholding votes won’t get their attention - we’ve seen that play out again and again. Democrats would rather lose than change. If you want their attention and real change, you’ll need to do things other than vote.

Open ##29096