As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.

Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.

I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.

Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.

Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.

Edit 2: This blew up, it’s a little overwhelming right now but I do intent on replying to everybody that took the time to comment. Just need to get in the right headspace.

  • un_aristocrate@jlai.lu
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    4 days ago

    European here, stuck in the middle of all this.

    Please vote Harris.

    The winner of this ellection will be the president of all americans, not just of its supporters.

    an election is just a nudge in one direction. real change takes many electoral cycles or a revolution.

    If you want to do a revolution please do that on your own time or think long term electoral strategy.

    Dont be stupid, be usefull. Even if it hurts.

  • GarbageShootAlt2@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    Why in the world would you make this thread? Almost every single day for at least the last month (and still often beforehand) there have been threads where the liberals and the leftists aggressively talk in circles on this issue. The odds of you hearing anything new are incredibly low, and you might as well just go back to .ml’s c/news threads for the same material.

    I just can’t keep having people yell the same nonsense at me over and over. If you’re really badly in need of leftist takes, I’ll DM you on request, but I don’t really want to talk about it publicly anymore except in more convincingly leftist spaces than .ml has been rendered by its federation.

  • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    Because it’s a far right party. Trump happens to be more far right, but that doesn’t change that fact. I’m not voting for far right, neoliberal, genocidal freaks.

    At how many genocides do you draw the line? If the democrats committed a second one along with the Palestinian genocide they are committing right now? You’d again say trump would be worse, vote for Harris. If they committed three? Four? No matter what they do, Trump would do worse, so again you’d tell us to vote for Harris.

    I draw the line at a genocide and at everything this neoliberal party stands for. I am not giving that party my approval because it is going in the exact opposite direction of what I stand for. At some point, the lesser evil is too evil.

  • gramophone_mind@lemmy.ml
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    4 days ago

    To push her to change her stance… you only own your vote. That’s the only leverage. She is the reason they aren’t voting for her.

  • rocci@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    In my situation, I’m in a solid blue state so I’m voting for a third party to push the country to the left.

        • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Yes and your vote does absolutely nothing in “pushing” the country left. Who taught you that? Please do better research as the future of your country depends on it.

          • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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            5 days ago

            Sometimes being principled in your vote is a good first step towards doing something politically meaningful. Many liberals are chained to the idea that their vote is their political being. And then they go vote for genociders!

            That first step of pulling at their chains can lead to further political education.

            • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              I would say you have to be the stupidest person on earth to vote 3rd party but I know that Magidiots exist.

              You do nothing but enable genocide by voting 3rd party. A Democrat loss in November GUARANTEES the genocide continues. The Republican Party is the party of Israel and they would bend over backwards to give them whatever is necessary to bring back Jesus Christ

              • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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                4 days ago

                I would say you have to be the stupidest person on earth to vote 3rd party but I know that Magidiots exist.

                Yep just big dum-dums that won’t support your genocider candidate. If only they were smart like you and supported 98% Hitler!

                You do nothing but enable genocide by voting 3rd party. A Democrat loss in November GUARANTEES the genocide continues.

                You know Dems are doing the genocide, right? And at the point where they have the most to fear from supporting it, they aren’t even pandering.

                You’re the baddies, bud.

                The Republican Party is the party of Israel and they would bend over backwards to give them whatever is necessary to bring back Jesus Christ

                The Democratic Party is also the party of Israel.

                It’s impressive that you’re calling people names while writing polemic that obviously applies to “your team”.

                • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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                  4 days ago

                  I am not a Democrat. At this point I’m closer to Independent because both parties have gone off the rails over that last decade. However I understand the importance of this election and I understand how our system works. Voting 3rd party does nothing but pull votes from Democrats. It happens EVERY election. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but voting third party doesn’t give you the moral high ground. It just makes you an idiot because not only will your candidate not be elected but more often than not you enable Republicans to win elections based on how our voting system works.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      So playing the first round of Russian Roulette for no real benefit.

      Congrats I guess.

        • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          they put a lot of thought into our system; the electoral college was intentional and it’s doing it’s job very well.

          it’s meant as a firewall to guard against poor people from getting sufficient political representation. our ruling class uses it today to keep this country conservative.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      5 days ago

      This kinda makes sense, I guess that means not a swing state (I’m not American).

      Do you have to be in a heavy blue state to do this without fear that if enough people do this it will swing red?

      • rocci@lemmy.ml
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        5 days ago

        Yeah it’s a strategy that would work in any heavy red or blue state, because there’s an absolute zero percent chance the dems lose my state.

      • KammicRelief@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Yes, exactly. If you live in a solid blue or red state, your vote is a drop in the bucket, so it won’t matter if you vote third party. But in swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania… in 2016, the number of votes won by Jill Stein was slightly greater than the difference between Trump/Clinton. Ouch! Was it worth it? Did it move the country left?

        • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          the strategy definitely wasn’t worth it, but we’re doing it again anyways.

        • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          The country did move left under Trump and has moved right under Biden. While your logic on Stein’s influence is flawed, if your goal was to shift the population left you’re basically making an argument for voting for Trump in swing states.

          • azulavoir@sh.itjust.works
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            5 days ago

            While it sometimes feels like this, it’s because the vocal minorities on the side not associated with the current president are always the loudest political figures.

            • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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              No, it is because liberals were agitated under Trump and were told to care about women, black people, abortion rights, etc, and mobilize to spaces where they could be recruited for political education. Under Biden, they feel a sense of normalcy and have returned to supporting the equally violent status quo.

  • coolusername@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    are you seriously going to vote for genocide? wtf? i hope you are a CIA/Israeli bot and not a real person

  • Drusas@fedia.io
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    5 days ago

    They believe that taking a moral stand against the Democrats, who are supporting Israeli genocide, is worth it even if that means that Trump, who even more fervently supports Israeli genocide, becomes president.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    The U.S. also has a huge defense industry that has made people ridiculously rich at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. Those billionaires are heavily invested in the defense industry, so it’s not in their interests that wars end at all.

    This is that “military-industrial complex” that former President Eisenhower warned us about so many years ago. His concern was that the U.S. would become bogged down in an endless series of “forever wars” that do nothing but transfer wealth to the already-wealthy.

    Keeping that military industrial complex well-fed is the reason why so many politicians have such a boner for war. Not only to keep their wealthy sponsors happy, but to keep tax money and jobs flowing to their states, which just happen to manufacture war materiel.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
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    5 days ago

    There are many contributing factors. Part of it is russian and american oligarchs spending heaps of cash to amplify any and every message that could help trump win.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    5 days ago

    The vote should be for someone who can get enough electoral college votes to win in the first place, and from there the one who is more likely to listen to public pressure, as well as the same for any congressional seats on the ballot. And probably not vote for the one who is threatening to send the military after those who disagree with them.

    • Quail4789@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      The vote should be for someone who can get enough electoral college votes to win in the first place

      I like how Americans casually mention we’re not a democracy and everyone’s just okay with that.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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        4 days ago

        Hardly okay with it. Some Americans don’t even know how things work to begin with, so ignorance is worse than knowing things are broken but what we have at the moment. Just because I acknowledge that’s the current election system doesn’t mean I don’t think we could do a lot better. That is its own topic with a lot of hills to climb, but some states have started.

        And it’s a representative democracy with various flaws, one being not the proper number of constituents per representative, and far too much influence from other places that override the public’s opinions. Another separate debate.

      • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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        5 days ago

        For a vote, yes. I can’t even imagine what Trump would do with the situation given another chance. Some may say the same thing as the US has always done, which is one of the problems that will need to be addressed regardless of who wins, but Trump also likes dictators, so support would probably be bumped up even more for Netanyahu.

          • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            5 days ago

            They aren’t supporting Israel because they care about the Israeli or Jewish people. They’re supporting Israel because they love blowing up brown people, with an unhealthy dollop of trying to bring about the apocalypse