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.
You’re completely missing the point of the trolley problem:
Do you take an action that causes a direct harm, even if it’s in service to reducing harm?
It’s a valid moral stance to decide you will not personally perform a harmful action. That’s not walking away from the trolley, that’s refusing to throw the switch.
Your framing of the situation is false. Voting for Harris is throwing the switch and dooming Palestinians. Voting third party/not voting is not throwing the switch: you are not condoning the system that runs people over, you are not taking an action that directly harms people.
To be clear, throwong the switch is also a valid moral stance.
Personally, I believe voting for Harris prolongs our faulty political system. I voted for Kerry, then Obama (first willingly, then let myself be guilted into it). The Democrats have only gotten worse with time, and I won’t vote for a party that represents me less with time instead of more.
Walking away from the switch is making a choice. You’re exactly as complicit in the result as if you had flipped the switch.
When someone constructs a catch-22, the answer isn’t to play their game, it’s to build a new one, leave, or at the very least refuse to accept their false options. Genocide is not inevitable, no matter how many US democrats and republicans tell you that it is.
But this isn’t a mental exercise, this is real life. The choice and all of its consequences are still happening regardless of your choice to disengage. They aren’t “false options”, they’re printed on the ballot. The only way to reject the premise here is actual spontaneous massive revolution, and if you’re suggesting that as an alternative to voting, well, I don’t imagine you’re of voting age anyway.
They aren’t “false options”, they’re printed on the ballot.
I printed two options on my ballot. Give your consent for one of these options!
- Kill Palestinian civilians
- Kill Palestinian civilians
Printing them on there makes it real.
The only way to reject the premise here is actual spontaneous massive revolution, and if you’re suggesting that as an alternative to voting, well, I don’t imagine you’re of voting age anyway.
Standard liberal smugness, decrying the backbreaking efforts and blood spent by hundreds of millions of mostly poor peasants who fought and succeeded in ridding themselves of the scourge of colonialism.
Right, I’m “decrying” successful revolutions because I don’t believe that your armchair activism is going to start any actual movement capable of disturbing the status quo.
There’s no action that’s acceptable to you that you wouldn’t label “armchair activism”, other than voting for your genocide candidate. Just be honest with yourself and admit that.
There are plenty. But I do think it’s performative as hell to withhold your vote within a couple months of a major election. There is no momentum for anything that could possibly disrupt the status quo in Palestine before the election, and letting Trump win isn’t going to make that any easier afterward. Unless you’re an actual accelerationist, in which case I’m glad you can so confidently accept the likely millions of excess deaths that will cause.
