You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

I feel like disappointment in Biden is baffling to me because he was always a disappointment. He was the asshole who got to ride to power on the coattails of a better man. He told bizarre and repeated lies (despite getting caught at it and his team telling him not to) about having a Welsh coal miner dad when he did not and he stole that story from actual Welsh people. I read a profile of him years back that pointed this out and told the story of the time he straight up ignored good advice from an expert not to plant a certain kind of tree too close together and flew a bunch of them out to plant, at night because he was just too fucking excited about it, and they all died. He’s not a smart man! He’s charismatic ish and lacks principles and as far as I can tell doesn’t really care about abortion rights or a lot of things we’d consider pretty critical to preserving freedom. I sincerely thought he couldn’t become President because there were so many obviously better candidates in the pool. I underestimated the sexism and antisemitism in American politics, and when he became the candidate in 2020 I gritted my teeth and voted for him because the alternative was a man who is not only an idiot but also profoundly dangerous. Trump is not ha-ha crazy, he’s Mussolini crazy. He is not dangerous because he’s stupid, although that doesn’t help; he’s dangerous because he does not care about anyone except himself under any circumstances and if that means he lets the far right push us straight into forced birth for white women and sterilization for women of color he’s going to do that. If that means conversion therapy for queers and death penalty for homosexual acts he’s going to do that. He has literally no limits. If he gets back into power, a whole lot of people are going to die, again. It’s not a hypothetical because it happened the first time and he’s only going to get worse.

I am not, never have been, and never will be a fan of Biden. To pretend that he and Trump are in any way equivalent is wrong at best and another goddamn Russian psy-op at worst. To pretend that a third party candidacy is viable in the US is to completely ignore every election of your lifetime and your parents’ lifetimes, and to further ignore the lesson of Ross Perot.

You cannot save Palestinians by not voting for Biden in November; the best you can do is chip away at his margin, and the worst you can do is see Trump elected so he can decide to do the worst possible thing in ever circumstance. Biden has Palestinian blood on his hands and watching this when we could have had Bernie or Elizabeth Warren instead is maddening. (I would have preferred Hillary to Trump, but I don’t think she’d be any different than Biden here. They’re both old-school politicians.)

I hate everything about this, and I hate that saying “maybe don’t put the man who literally said he would kill his political enemies in power” is seen as supporting genocide. It’s acknowledging reality. Joe Biden as a person can eat rocks for all I care. I was kind of hoping he’d die sooner in his term so we’d have time to get used to and then vote for President Harris. (Remember when the line was “she’s a cop, don’t vote for her”? Funny how there’s always a reason not to vote for a woman or a person of color or someone you just “don’t like” and can’t put a finger on why except she “seems angry.” Oh does she. How would she not? When Michelle fucking Obama, the picture of grace , STILL got called angry for having the nerve to be a Black woman with an opinion? When Hillary Clinton lost to a man with no political experience to her decades and who openly discussed sexually assaulting women? Would you have voted for President Harris? Or would you let Trump win again because you don’t LIKE her personally and she’s made decisions and statements you disagree with?)

Biden has both less power than his critics give him credit for and more power than his fans give him credit for. He needs to do more to pressure Israel and although it’s a delicate diplomatic situation I’d rather see us fuck up our diplomatic relationship with Israel than watch more Palestinians get murdered for things like “wanting to eat” and “existing.” The line has been crossed, and he doesn’t see it. Because he wasn’t the best person for the job. Because they didn’t get elected, because of sexism/antisemitism/racism. Hell, I have no idea what bootlicker Pete Buttegieg would have done here, but I’d have given him a try. But no. We got Biden and we’re stuck with this reality where you can be as leftist as you want and still have to look at the situation and decide whether you’re comfortable contributing to a Trump victory through inaction. I want socialism—I want every single person on Earth to have clean drinking water, enough safe food, shelter, medical care, and education—and I’m going to vote for Biden, pissy as it makes me, because the only actual alternative is so, so much worse, for me personally as both a woman and a queer, and for everyone in America and the rest of the world who Trump would find reasons to hurt. What do you think the man who openly and repeatedly praises dictators is going to do when those dictators massacre their own people? Yes, we need to care about this genocide now. We also need to care about all of the other people who are at real risk, both at home and abroad. Would a Trump government agree to fund military intervention in Haiti without insisting on it being a colonial exercise in power? Would a Trump government roll back the restrictions on discriminating against transgender patients in healthcare? How would Trump respond if Orban started dragging people into the streets and shooting them en masse? How would Trump respond if China finally went for it and invaded Taiwan? There are more lives at stake here than mine or yours or even those of the Palestinians, who have deserved better for literally decades and are being mass killed in ways that should result in immediate sanctions, a war crimes trial, and the execution of Netanyahu.

The world deserves better from you than complicity in a Trump victory.

Libs are like, "YOU CAN'T LET TRUMP WIN JUST BECAUSE BIDEN IS COMMITTING A GENOCIDE! THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR SINGLE-ISSUE VOTERS", when the fact is that people are already really fucking angry at him for funding two wars during a severe cost of living crisis. Biden's pet dog has already gotten Israel and the US embroiled in a steadily escalating conflict with Houthis and Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon, and now Netanyahu is trying to ethnically cleanse two million Gazans by pushing them out of the country into Egypt, one of the countries the US gives billions of aid money to make nice with Israel and help them trap the Palestinians. Egypt is already mad about this (although Idk what they expected lol) and if Israel creates a border conflict with them, Iran might press their advantage and then the whole region descend into an all-out war in which the US is embroiled. At which point oil prices will jump, the US economy get even worse, more tax money funnelled into TWO wars, one of which is due to the genocide.

People might not care about Muslims living thousands of miles away, but they have some very strong opinions about putting food on the table. At this point there's a pretty significant shift in the Black community towards Trump because Biden has INCREASED funding for police, is supporting Cop City that someone DIED protesting, and hasn't made a dent in mass incarceration (the marijuana pardon was fucking hilarious in a depraved way). The right has also been weaponizing Black people's resentment against Latino "illegal aliens" and Biden's "concessions" towards them, when actually his immigration policies have barely been less draconian than Trump's all this time. The reason he's making those concessions is that he has to look more progressive than him, except he's also been slowly escalating ICE crackdowns, keeping kids in cages and building a border wall. So the Latin voters are entirely fed up with him too.

So far, he's lost the Muslim vote, the Latin vote, the Black vote, the youth vote (people of ages 18 to 35 are the most outraged at the genocide in Gaza), and they're hemorrhaging the working class votes. These are the extremely angry and betrayed people the liberals are currently working overtime screaming at about Trump "bringing the death of democracy", like democracy means anything to them compared to losing jobs, money, visas, family members, health (Biden's first and ongoing genocide is disabled people due to his COVID policies), social infrastructure and money.

Y'all said Blue Not Matter Who and elected a career racist and known incompetent who supported segregation, was an architect of mass incarceration, got Clarence Thomas elected to the Supreme Court and spewed rhetoric against Arabs so genocidal that motherfucking Menachem Begin was like "....bro." And you got exactly what you paid for. If Trump gets on the ticket next year he's going to win, and no amount of screaming at people online is going to change that. So I suggest you start organising now. The age of trying to create a revolution at the ballot box is over.

Withholding your vote might feel powerful. It might feel like the only action you can take in a system that is designed to work against you.

But not everyone has the privilege to choose to abstain. A lot of people have had their vote stolen from them.

And not voting doesn't influence anyone. Our election system doesn't care how many people participate in it. Republicans will go to the polls come rain, shine, or snow. They will vote red. If every Democrat abstained from voting, Trump would win and that would be that.

I just can't see how that's a good outcome. I can't justify throwing away my vote when many don't have the right to choose.

If you want things like election reform, you HAVE to keep Democrats in power right now, because Republicans are 100% against election reform. Our broken system helps them win. In many cases, it's the ONLY reason they win. We the people cannot vote on laws if they don't end up on the ballot, and Republicans will never let things like ranked-choice voting get on a ballot if they are in power. Congress will never pass term limits with Republicans in power. We will never have enough votes for a constitutional amendment to remove the electoral college with Republicans in power.

People are dying right now - yes. But MORE people will die at a faster rate if Trump and the Republicans are in power.

Please, please think about that. Biden is harm-reduction. He is not the perfect candidate, but he has genuinely done a lot of good for marginalized people. His administration has helped us! He's not a do-nothing president. Anyone telling you that is lying to you.

You are literally going to get people killed by pushing them to vote third party. People voting third party is why Trump won in 2016, which allowed him to stack the Supreme Court with conservative garbage which is going to negatively affect us for DECADES to come (already has, since it led to the repeal of Roe v. Wade which has LITERALLY killed people). I'm baffled, because you've done so much good work on this website (like I still go back and regularly reread your posts on whiteness etc because they're so informative), but advocating for voting third party going into one of the most important elections in recent memory is actively harmful.

Like have you heard of Project 2025? In case you haven't it's literally like a 1000 page manifesto for the Republican party to reshape the federal government to essentially let the President become a dictator. It also expressly mentions plans to roll back rights for women, the LGBT community, and pretty much any other minority you can think of. I know things are bad now - not arguing that at all - but if Republicans win next year, things will get EXPONENTIALLY WORSE.

You can sit there and yell about Democrats being "just as bad" until you're blue in the face, but it's literally not true. The Democratic Party itself is obviously just another problematic institution and there are definitely Dems who showed their entire asses with supporting Israel, but like... Progressive Democrats do exist and while they're obviously not perfect, it's absolutely a step in the right direction. Not to mention Republicans literally need to cheat by gerrymandering and attacking voting rights for minorities in order to even get elected in a lot of places, whereas Democrats tend to win when more people are registered and actually show up to vote. They are not the same, and the harm they do is not the same.

Again, I have a lot of respect for the work you do, especially with your recent posts on the Palestinian genocide. But I vehemently disagree with your stance on voting third party in this upcoming election. Ideally I would love if we could vote third party and actually have multiple options that more accurately represent us as a population, but our current system is a two party one and unfortunately we literally do have to vote for the lesser of two evils, because one option sucks but preserves what little democracy we have (and gives us a chance of making it better) and one will literally bring genocide against trans people. I would personally rather not see that happen.

How can you say this and mention the Palestinian genocide in the same ask.

Democrats are getting people killed. In fact they're committing one of The worst crime against humanity possible and then only thing you're worried about is that things might get worse for gay people if a Republicans wins.

I'm the biggest queer I know. I'm native. I'm brown. I'm almost definitely on a watch list. And listen to me and understand the depth of my words when I say: my people have been oppressed the way Project2025 outlines.

And maybe you personally cared or helped us protest that. But most people didn't. In fact I can't remember the last time the US supported native rights at all.

But now that YOURE under threat I'm supposed to risk my life because the queer community can't be bothered to stop discoursing about neopronouns long enough to actual give an shit about saving the community?

Y'all got a lot of damn nerve, let me tell you.

Go bark up some other tree cuz this is not the one.

Also I'm not pushing anyone to vote 3rd party. I'm laying out facts. Facts are a Gallup poll says 63% of people would vote 3rd party. Facts are my Tumblr poll says that number is STILL at least 45% on the hellsite.

And since people are interested in voting 3rd party they should know their options. The people who say "I would vote 3rd party but they don't have support" also deserve to see the articles that said 63% of people would join them.

They deserve to know that 3rd parties currently hold a not insignificant amount percentage of support from the two main parties. 20% of votes. When 33% is an even split are good odds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, blue Fascists, but this country is in fact still a democracy and just because you Want people to vote blue doesn't mean they have to and you feeling they're the best doesn't make you right!

Other people aren't "wrong" for not wanting your conservative Jurassic party in power anymore.

They can vote how they want.

And if you see a poll that says 63% of people would rather NOT vote for either major party and your first thought is not: wow 63% is enough to elect someone we want, I'll support that.

And instead you go: how can I force them to vote for my party instead.

Then please understand it is not THEM splitting the vote. Biden will get MAYBE 40% votes. You gonna force 63% of the country to vote for someone they don't even want?

There's a name for that yeah?

How'd it work out in 2016 when y'all "forced" us to vote for Hillary by putting her on the ballot? She lost and she wasn't even actively commiting a genocide.

But you think Biden will not only earn votes from that 63% but he'll also win the election. Against trump. Which less blatantly shitty democrats have struggled to contend with?

Democrats are legitimately delusional.

Your problem is you see Democrats as being better than Republicans. While the rest of us see less and less of a difference every year. And you can only say you're "better" if you're different enough.

See this is what happens when you vote for the "lesser evil." Eventually that evil balances back out and you're left with the truth that your two main options are just evil.

Now the only people actually different enough to make that argument are third parties.

Coincidentally, that's what people are drawn to right now.

I know, go figure. It's almost like it makes sense to lose support when you consistently prop up shitty candidates nobody asked for every 4 years.

We do not have a two party system and you know that, that's why you sent this ask.

Cuz you're stressed dems might lose. Cuz you KNOW people have other options.

Good. Cuz they will lose if Biden is the democrat's nominee and Claudia de la Cruz stays in the race, which she will since she's running with PSL not democrats. So there's no competition. Her party is organized and chosen her and a VP already, she's guaranteed every one of their votes because her party works like a union does.

It's a wrap.

Biden can't use his "lesser evil" script with Claudia De La Cruz on the ballot actively challenging his genocide and imperialism.

Vote Claudia De La Cruz cuz you are a scooping water out of the Titanic trying to get 63% of Americans to think voting for a Genocidal warmonger is what's best for any of us, let alone the planet. And we didn't want him BEFORE he did any of this.

I'm not clear as to whether or not the 14th Amendment barring an insurrectionist from holding certain powerful offices needs that individual to first to be proven guilty of being an insurrectionist in court. We all know Trump is absolutely an insurrectionist, but do we technically need that guilty verdict first?

I mean, I'm not a constitutional lawyer so I can't give you a 100% for sure answer, but I think the problem here isn't nuances of law or interpretation so much as basic courage: are courts or judges actually going to come to literally the only conclusion that can factually and legally be drawn (that the evil orange is a fucking traitor who should rot in prison for the rest of his life and never be allowed near public office again) or are they going to chicken out of it by admitting that he's an insurrectionist but something something the statute doesn't apply to him?

That's why the CO Supreme Court ruling (and as a native Coloradoan, HELL YEAH GUYS HELL YEAH!) is so important. Yes, I'm sure SCOTUS will do their worst to it, though the COSCOTUS judges craftily tailored their ruling to a states' rights opinion written by Gorsuch, who will now have to go diametrically against his own previous jurisprudence to find in Trump's favor. Yes, Republicans only like states' rights when the states are doing what they want, and the rest of the time it has to be stamped out, but even though Trump has been formally indicted for insurrection in regard to January 6, this is the first time that a court has conclusively found that as a result, it would be illegal for him to appear on the ballot due to the 14th Amendment. Which. Yeah. It is incredibly fucking obvious that this is the case. As I said, the issue isn't whether the statute applies, as it clearly does, but if the legal system is going to actually do the right thing and correctly apply it to Trump. While he wasn't going to win CO in 2024 anyway, what I really hope is that states like Pennsylvania or Michigan, where it would be HUGE to boot him off the ballot, follow suit. Ideally with a slightly different model of legal theory, so it can't be invalidated by whatever nonsense SCOTUS comes up with in regard to the Colorado ruling, but yeah.

The original judge's ruling in the case was a mess because they were clearly trying to have it both ways and avoid taking a stand: yes, Trump is clearly a traitor, but they didn't want to be the one that said he couldn't appear on the ballot as a result. But now that COSCOTUS has found that a) Trump engaged in legally defined insurrection and b) that therefore disqualifies him from standing for elected office as a matter of straightforward application of the 14th Amendment, let's hope that gives other judges in these suits across the country nerve to follow suit. Because this is not a candy-ass or trivial statement:

That's as about as strongly worded a statement as you can get in a case like this, and it's been made by a state-level supreme court. It likely will not survive SCOTUS, but they might also try to find a way to split the difference (especially as Jack Smith has asked them for an expedited ruling on the absolute immunity question and they might have to pick one or the other in terms of helping Trump out) and come up with some vague weasel word opinion. So. We'll see. The issue is not that it applies to Trump, but that he's heretofore been handled with kid gloves and gotten the benefit of the doubt and preferential treatment at every turn. This is not that, and God, do we ever need more of it.

Genuinely curious, because I've seen some people say that one should vote biden because if you vote for trump or desantis their stance on the ongoing genocide and other matters would actually be worse than what we're contending with, and I have no true frame of reference: do you think that's actually true or a likely possibility?

I'm of the opinion that it really doesn't matter who we vote for anyways, the outcomes will still be the same. Biden is enabling 4 different genocides/ethnic cleansing (Palestine, Congo, Armenia, Sudan) and honestly, I don't see how it can get any worse.

They often make the argument that things will happen *here* that is dangerous but speaking as someone who has lived in a very Red state my entire life, it has never been safe or welcoming for me to begin with, along with others who have similar identities to me. Not to mention that bad things have already happened here under Biden, with the Abortion ban, book bans, and ban on critical race theory being taught in schools.

Trump is not great, like I don't want him to win either. He was the person who moved the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and it was seen as a political slap to the face to Palestinians (click). Don't get me wrong they're both piles of shit. But I refuse to elect people into office that let such flagrantly terrible things happen in the world. These people have no oversight in their actions, are free to do what they want, and no manner of "democratic" intervention will stop them from doing the things they want, especially when they're afraid of losing funding for going against major lobbying organizations like CUFI and AIPAC.

This isn't the first time Biden ignored Palestinians in this term. Remember in 2021 with the settlements in Shiekh Jarrah? He didn't say a word condemning Israel for their forced displacement and their bombardment of Gaza (click). Sure the Abraham Accords sucked and that was brokered by Trump, but Biden could have undone that. He didn't. He just re-approved aid to Palestinians (which, who cares when they're under occupation? No amount of aid will help them attain liberation). Palestinians don't want aid — they want America to stop funding the Zionist Entity.

Everyone in Palestine already knows that the Israel's biggest supporter, America, is also their biggest funder. If they just stopped funding, everything would be cut in half. There is no way the Zionist entity would be able to sustain itself. Even now, their economy is failing because they relied on Palestinians for much of their cheap labor. They cannot support themselves without USAmerica's direct intervention.

I am of the opinion that we should organize to change the way our government operates or else things like these will keep happening. It does not help anyone but the ultrarich and the people in power. Things like Cop City and the genocide in Congo and Sudan and Armenia only happen because the US has a vested monetary interest in oppressing them. This will not change between presidents. Biden will just be quieter about it.

I don't know how to organize stuff like this, or where to go to organize, but if we keep playing in the system they laid out where they always win, then there's no way anything can change.

Why you NEED to vote!!

This is so serious. Do not withhold your vote. It's not going to send the message you think it is.

It never will. It will not be the 'devastating blow' or 'learning lesson' to the Democratic party as a whole- they won't learn a thing by you withholding your vote. It won't help Palestine- if anything it will make you complicit in whatever further harm comes to Palestinians when your "protest" results in Trump/the Republican Party winning the election, because they've already stated that they will back Israel no matter what.

Know what sends a better message than not voting? Voting for the other candidate, or voting "Uncommitted," in the primary.

So many of you are forgetting about the Primary!!

Currently there are two other notable* Democratic candidates (Dean Phillips & Marianne Williamson) and four notable* Third Party candidates (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Chase Oliver, Jill Stein, & Cornel West). People have also been writing in Claudia De La Cruz. *In this context, notable means that a candidate appears on enough ballots to stand a chance to win a majority of the Electoral College, as according to Ballotpedia.

And let me tell you, even though only a few Democratic primaries have passed as of the writing of this post, their results already seem to be having the desired effect, because Biden started pushing harder for a ceasefire right after he lost 13% of the vote in the Michigan Primary to "Uncommitted."

Of course it's not perfect, but if 13% in one state could have even that much sway, imagine what could be accomplished on Super Tuesday* if everyone went out and did the same in their states? That's what could actually stand a chance at getting the Biden administration (and rest of the Democratic party) to scramble towards doing what we want. Withholding your vote won't do shit, I'm sorry. They only notice/care where the cast votes go- not votes that are absent. And unfun fact, Trump was elected by only about 25% of eligible voters. We got Trump because so many people (43%) DIDN'T vote in 2016. This is why turnout is such a big deal- your vote absolutely does matter. *Super Tuesday [March 5th] is the day where several [15] US states hold their primary election.

Need another reason? There are 468 seats up for election. All 435 seats in the House, and 33 seats in the Senate. That is huge.

Currently Republicans hold majority in the House. This is a chance to change that- to flip seats! We have the chance to tip the scales further away from fascism instead of further toward it- But we can only do that if people get out and VOTE. Vote in the primary to choose your candidate, and then vote again in November to try and secure a blue majority and actually get shit done.

Do not withhold your vote!

Withholding your vote isn't a rebellion, it's silencing your own voice. It's complicity in whatever bad thing happens when the bad people win. It's an active sabotage of the things you supposedly want.

And to those who think "Oh who cares if things get worse for us! People in Palestine are already suffering in unimaginably worse ways!" I need you to reflect, and realize that trying to punish yourself because you feel guilty that you're not suffering with them will not help them. It's not "solidarity." It's not heroic. I'm having trouble finding the right words, but to think it comes anywhere close is a slap in the face to those actually suffering. If anything it will only make their situation even worse if Trump wins. Again, the Republican party has already stated it's intentions to back Israel no matter what.

You need to make sure that your actions aren't just you trying to assuage your own guilt because you feel bad that you can't help more. And you need to make sure that you aren't holding these guilty feelings over the actual needs of Palestinians and that you're not speaking over them in your "activism."

I'll say again, Do not withhold your vote. Do not silence your voice.

We have a chance to make this better, but we can only do it if we all do the work- and voting is the bare minimum of said work.

So make sure to get out and vote in your primary!

@anachrolady

Since my replies seem to be giving me some trouble, let's talk about this article you sent me.

See, while this writer did a great job of repeating the same tired arguments we were all taught in middle school history, he doesn't actually give any evidence for them.

"Undemocratic? Absolutely. That’s the point."

I LOVE when people just...admit this.

For example:

That’s why America is not a democracy. We’re a constitutional republic. The Electoral College is part of that

This is just straight up not true. Even ignoring the little rhetorical game of "not a democracy, a republic" (which is like saying a square isn't a rectangle) the EC is not the reason we are a republic. We're a republic because we elect representatives, rather than taking a general election vote on legislation directly. The EC has nothing to do with that.

The Electoral College has other advantages. It asserts that all the states matter, big and small. States are political entities whose elected officials are by definition closer and more accountable to the people they serve...This means states must at some level compete with one another to improve the lives of their residents

This offers neither evidence nor even REASONING for why the Electoral College would mean that states have to be receptive to their citizens quality of life or freedoms. It's literally a non-sequitur.

The Electoral College also makes sure that presidential candidates don’t spend all their time in the most populated areas of the country.

This one is a popular claim, but is also just straight up ignores reality. YES, the EC means that candidates don't just campaign in the states with the largest populations. Instead it means that they only campaign in SWING STATES. Two thirds of the presidential and vice-presidential post-convention campaign events were conducted in just four states in 2012 (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa).

Why this is somehow better, no one has bothered to explain.

ethnically concentrated regions of countries all across the globe have seen brutal violence and outright war because their political interests were ignored by far-away majorities who ruled over them. The electoral college helps mitigate that risk by incentivizing presidential candidates to pay attention to all parts of the country.

Not only is "the EC is the reason we don't have civil war" a WILD CLAIM (we DID have a civil war WHILE WE HAD THE EC) it's also built on the assumption that the EC promotes candidates going to all parts of the country. It doesn't.

If you want the presidency, Democrats, win it fair and square.

And this is what I mean when I say the EC encourages people to treat elections like they are a sporting game, or some kind of Risk style board game.

The idea that the *same style of election* we use for EVERYTHING ELSE - govenors, senators, congressmen, mayors, city council, Railroad commisoner- is somehow CHEATING if we were to apply it to the presidency is absolutely mind boggling.

The EC and its points and it's flat red vs blue maps has made people imagine that states are political monoliths. That either you are a Red state or a Blue state and it's a game to see how much of the map you can control and how many points you can get.

This is how the country actually votes. No state is won by larger than a 70% margin. No county or city is 100%.

California had more Trump votes (6 million) than Texas (5.8 million.) Texas had more Biden votes (5.259 million) than New York (5.244 billion). But yall have let those solid red v blue maps rot your brain, and you haven't checked a single claim that supposedly justifies this ass-backwards system.

Do better.

https://www.tumblr.com/burnitalldowndarling/744870483940524032/whats-been-particularly-vile-to-me-is-this-group

#alladis#the left started to die when the white people took over#obama derangement syndrome hit them just as hard#they've just displaced their bigotry in more convoluted ways Really? How so? /genuine

Short on time so not a lot of links or theory, but I think a major example of what I'm talking about is the white leftist dismissal of "identity politics." What they mean by idpol is marginalized people taking pride in their identities or talking about bigotry, which white leftists typically frame as a distraction from more important issues. Thing is, the "more important" issues tend to be those of primary importance to white men, such as UBI or copyleft -- but it's not idpol when they do it. Another example is the embrace of class-centered (also called "class first" and "class reductionist") leftism. Addressing class disparities and economic justice does help marginalized groups as well, but do remember that the people who stand to gain the most from class uplift are those who were already well-off -- as white cis people tend to be, in America, thanks to historical and systemic bigotry. The rising tide floats all boats, but those who already had speed boats in the water are still going to do better than the folks surviving on inflatable rafts.

Identity-centric politics such as anti-racism have always addressed class and economic justice issues, but had the added benefit of centering the most vulnerable groups. The idea was that if you address the needs of/reduce harm to those groups first, everyone still benefits, but you save more lives. In their rejection of idpol, the American left now often ignores harm reduction, denigrates incremental improvements that benefit marginalized groups, and weakens the whole coalition by permitting established power hierarchies and bigotries to run rampant. See the "dirtbag left". See also Bernie Sanders' own 2016 campaign staff revolting because he failed to address racism, racial and gendered pay disparities, and sexual assault. How's he going to build a progressive national coalition when he can't even get his own house in order, progressively?

And I blame white leftists, along with white conservatives, for Trump's election in 2016. These are the people who kept pushing third-party voting, "boycotting" voting, and accelerationist nonsense like the idea that letting Trump get elected would hasten The Glorious Revolution -- never mind if it killed a few poor or brown people along the way. These are people who attacked and dismissed marginalized people online (especially Black and queer women) whenever they pointed out the dangers of a Trump win. They were absolutely vile in their sexism toward Hillary Clinton and anyone who supported her. In a lot of cases these were "leftist" influencers and such who embraced Gamergate and other harassment campaigns, and used the techniques of same against their fellow leftists -- and surprise, surprise, several years later a whole lot of the most prominent ones have come out as fascists. They got right-wing radicalized during the 2000s and 2010s same as white conservatives, in other words; they're just as racist, just as gender essentialist, just as anti-semitic and classist and so on. They just like UBI too. And they're better at using therapy-speak or communist-speak to hide their bigotry.

Tl;dr, while there are plenty of white leftists who are doing the work and doing it right, the most prominent face of leftism for the last 10 years has been the dirtbags, the brocialists, the accelerationists, etc -- people who IMO make the left weaker, and who are frequently dangerous to the very same vulnerable groups that the left should be centering. And way too many of them have become very wealthy from doing so, at which point a lot of them stop being progressive. Almost as if they were only ever in it to advance themselves, in the first place.

hi ! I wanna start this off by saying this is in now way meant to be mean or come off as me calling you a bad person for what you’ve said, but I noticed that on one of your recent posts you encouraged people to vote blue for the upcoming us presidential elections and that Biden is better than the alternative (that being trump). And while I completely understand where you are coming from (I am American as well) I want to tell you that we do have other options ! In the 2024 elections Claudia De la Cruz is running for president with Karina Garcia as her vice. I highly encourage you to look into them (read here or search up her name) because they are genuinely fighting for us and the causes we stand for. Yes, Biden does seem better than trump, but he is actively funding a genocide and does not have our best interests in mind ! His presidency has done nothing to help marginalized groups and I must encourage you to look into the choices we have because we do have them ! And it may seem like by not voting for Biden we are letting trump win because no third party has ever won, if we work together and spread the word about the options we have we Can make it happen ! It doesn’t have to be hopeless. Please consider what I’ve said and have a lovely day.

I'm not saying to vote for Biden, if a better blue option is available then go for it but if the old man gets to the final polls you have to vote for him. Independents do NOT win. Yes yes I heard people saying George Washington did. He was our first president, we didn't HAVE a full blue red split back then we didn't have a full government yet and they bickered and fought about that too.

You CANNOT put your hopes in a third party because they DO NOT WIN. But have hope! Please please be realistic- if your third party person doesn't get onto the final ballot, writing in your choice is going to be detrimental and let Republicans win. If they're not on that final electoral ballot you have an obligation to vote blue. Once you stop and you write in stuff, you end up splitting progressive votes. Republicans don't do that. They're coordinated. EVERY TIME.

Please don't split the progressive votes. If you want that other person on the ballot you have to work for that, sure, go ahead! But don't write it in on the final vote if that person doesn't get onto the ballot.

here's my scattered, ranty, kind of shitty take on “vote blue no matter who”: i have been painfully aware of how fucked up our country is since Trayvon Martin was killed and the country just came together and said it was fine and deserved even.

We were the same age, he was a month older than me and they justified that boy's death through the media for doing mundane shit any of my friends would've been doing too.

And i have seen year after year, death after death, this country let's people get murdered by police or people who want to play police and they get away with it almost every time.

Most of white America doesn't give a single fuck about this issue because it doesn't affect them, they would prefer if we didn't have to see or talk about it at all because talking about race (or anything outside the “norm” for white people) at all is uncomfortable.

Now as shitty as he was, the silver lining I saw in Trump is that white people were no longer able to escape how evil this country can be. Like hey!! When the state sees YOU as undesirable TOO it really has a way of bringing people together - in resistance, solidarity, support etc. Trump was a trash ass president, but as A Country we were FINALLY having some real, honest open discussions about the way this shit works and what better options could look like - even tried implementing some changes so we're less reliant on cops in some places. Ironically, it's when leadership is at its worst that we choose to move forward collectively.

But then in the run-up to the presidential election all the vote blue no matter who liberals, the back to brunch liberals, all of them hounded anybody with even the slightest skepticism or dislike of our candidates and even now make it impossible to have any critical conversation without coming in like “do u want trump/ron/[whatever republican that applies] to win?? we HAVE to vote it's our ONLY choice the world is going to END”

THIS IS HOW IT IS LITERALLY EVERY ELECTION, IF THE STAKES ARE REGULARLY THIS HIGH SOMETHING IS FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN HERE.

Vote blue no matter who and back to brunch liberals have fucking brain worms and are the most useless helpless political group. I remember them saying we HAVE to get Joe Biden in then pull him to the left, just this one time bro just this one vote bro I promise. All of the solidarity we've had and all the support we've shown won't instantly vanish the second we're safe we promise we won't leave you behind again just one more vote bro-

maybe go to hell?? maybe we should fucking LOSE and have fear and suffering inflicted on us to make that solidarity an actual, real persistent thing that transcends presidencies. My shitty take is sometimes it IS helpful to have horrific leadership so the privileged class can see how it feels to be ANYONE ELSE for a change. And you would hope they fucking learn something but all the back to brunch liberals are hijacking posts speaking frankly about israel's ongoing genocide and the US's complicity in it, and making the conversation about having to vote for Biden or whatever Democrat anyways.

We don't even have elections coming up right now!! Read the fucking room!! Biden is greenlighting genocide and so are a bunch of other politicians on both sides of the aisle, but back to brunch liberals can't be bothered with ANYTHING. Any sort of valid criticism at all is shut down with "well, choices suck but you HAVE to vote” actually in my heart I think you have to suffer until we get some better fucking choices and you actually help advocate for them, instead of being this useless recurring presence that only shows up to shut down conversation instead of wanting to actually fix anything.

look I don’t live in America but as that country continues to claim to be the power of the fucking world and likes to try to effect it as such I’ve been following y’all’s politics closer than my own country’s since 2016. Perhaps not smart, or strategic, or selfless or whatever, but instinctively that’s where my focus has been. Insistently. Non stop. For fucking 6 years now.

So if you can listen to this outsider’s perspective...

Joe Biden fucking sucks, the Dems fucking suck, that’s all incredibly clear. We all know it. They’re shit. They’re a disappointment, they’re weak cowards, and they clearly, like all the dems before them, give more of a shit about winning the next election than actually making an influential difference, and yes, sometimes you do need to prioritise one over the other.

Anyway that’s my long-winded way of getting to the point which is you still have to fucking vote, and you still have to FUCKING VOTE DEMS. THEY SUCK. I KNOW. I FUCKING KNOW.

But everyone who doesn’t vote for the democratic party is an advantage to the republicans. Your third party isn’t gonna fucking win in this two party system. They’re not. You can be on your high horse about it and vote for someone you feel is better than the Dems, but they’re a third party. They’re not going to win.

And you can choose not to vote at all, because everyone is shit, and they ARE, but what the fuck are you doing to help there. You’re leaving it to everyone else to try and win what has truly become a fucking war. You’re foisting the responsibility off yourself and onto everyone else. That’s not gonna help.

Vote. The fucking. Dems. Because they are shitty and useless, but the Republicans are evil, and will go out of their way to hurt everyone who isn’t them. Anyone who is queer, poor, has a uterus, a darker skin colour, a different belief. The republicans are the ones voting to make teaching about sexuality illegal, voting to make letting your kid be trans illegal, voting to make it illegal to have an abortion. The dems are fucking shit but they don’t go looking for those results, they don’t go trying to spread fear and hate and actively damage the lives of everyone they don’t agree with.

You HAVE to vote and you HAVE to vote Dems or you will be actively allowing the country to fall back into the hands of Donald Trump and the ghouls that have risen up in his image. You will be making it easier for the fucking demons that make up the republican party to get away with everything they want, and that means hurting everyone else.

Vote for the goddamn democratic party if you have any kind of hope at all left that your country won’t fall into complete ruin.

Who TF am I supposed to vote for this year. I fucking hate America rn. I absolutely don’t condone what Biden is doing. But if I don’t vote Trump wins and he’s worse. He’s literally threatening to deport people speaking up against the genocide going on in Gaza (not that he can but that’s a scary prospect MAGA supporters are all around me who will spew his narrative). I genuinely need advice this election. Do I just not vote? Am I helping doom us to Trump by not voting? I’m a Democrat but I don’t condone what’s going on now it’s disgusting. I’m honestly leaning towards not voting but everyone around me is saying that’s a bad thing. Does any other candidate have a chance aside from those two?

I cannot tell you who to vote for but I can help you maybe figure it out for yourself.

First, not voting for someone is not a vote for someone else--do not let people tell you that. As a basic gesture you can, however seriously you mean it, threaten to withhold your vote from Biden. Tell his campaign people. Tell doorknockers. Say it at stops on his campaign trail. "I will not vote for Biden if he doesn't ____." You can lie. You can wholeheartedly plan to vote for him regardless, but putting some fear into his team can be helpful. The same tactic can work on any groups you might be part of. "I would love to vote for him but I can't in good conscious do it if he won't ___." Any group that dismisses you outright does not have your interests at heart. Convince them to take action too, or recognize that aggressive backlash for valid concerns are not the circle you want to entrust with your livelihood.

It's hard to tell what the 2024 election will come down to because we haven't even had a primary. Bernie Sanders seemingly came out of nowhere when it already seemed like a done deal that it would be Clinton as the sole Dem option. And boy did the DNC work to make sure she was--despite public support for another option.

Someone else may be a viable candidate to throw support behind as an alternative to Biden. Trump's legal situation muddies the waters on his eligibility, and a number of extreme right-wing fanatics think he's not fascist enough and have their eyes on DeSantis, possibly fracturing the Republican vote. It is entirely too early to tell how the general election will shake out.

Some things that are certain, however: 1. your vote is your choice and idiots guilting you while refusing to address actual concerns is not reason to vote for someone you don't want to. 2. however the presidential election shakes out, what will be much more influential on your future is local elections. An emboldened state can resist certain executive decisions to begin with, and local policy will always have a much more immediate effect on a person than national policy will.

It would be nice if, in the wake of a Trump or (insert republican candidate) win, democrats would ever recognize their own shortcomings and reconsider policy choices rather than doubling down that it's the American people who are wrong, but I'm not certain the message would be received. Then again, I am not a democrat, so appeals to the DNC are not high on my priority list.

Vote for Biden, don't vote for Biden, vote someone who has a chance to win, taking a stand and voting for someone who won't, don't vote on a president at all--this is up to you. It's not my decision and it's not anyone else's to make for you either. Make a statement with your choice if you can, but ultimately do what feels right.

Nikki Haley spent the dying days of her presidential campaign reminding anyone who’d listen that Donald Trump is unhinged and unfit. But when she ended her candidacy last week after Super Tuesday, she suggested it was possible Trump could still win her endorsement.

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him,” she said. “And I hope he does that. At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.”

Of course, it’s impossible that Trump, who regularly called Haley “birdbrain,” will make anything resembling a positive moral choice. He does not build willing coalitions. He only attempts to dominate through violence and intimidation. We know this about him because our birth certificates are not dated “Yesterday.”

But if Haley is overly optimistic about Trump, perhaps it’s because she uncritically consumes mainstream media, which seemingly can’t help but default to covering Trump as if he’s a normal candidate — even after his attempted coup and multiple criminal indictments.

Yes, major news outlets, including the New York Times, are now more likely to acknowledge that Trump outright lies than simply makes “false” statements, but the press still resists definitively calling him out for the terrible and dangerous person he is. Because their baseline assumption is that Trump is erratic and malevolent, it’s not generally regarded as big news when Trump does awful things, such as mocking Biden’s speech impediment during a speech over the weekend. (Watch the footage below, though it should be mentioned that the NYT published an article noting that Trump mocked Biden’s stutter.)

Implicit in the media’s ongoing coverage of Trump is the idea that he might suddenly stop behaving like Donald Trump. Case in point was an absurd article Axios ran last week from national politics reporter Sophia Cai with the headline, “Top Trump advisers try to steer him off personal drama.” The top of the article is bad enough, as it presents Trump’s unhinged vendettas like a “Sex and the City” brunch scene, but the low point is Cai’s suggestion that Trump is “toning down” his rhetoric as he attempts to woo college-educated voters.

On what was once Twitter, the caption above Axios’s article read, “Looking to November, Trump tempers his claims about the 2020 election — a little.” (An earlier version of the tweet that didn’t hedge as much and was widely criticized was deleted — see it at top of the post.) Cai wrote, “In some recent speeches, Trump has used different terms in describing his typical complaint that the 2020 election he lost was ‘stolen’ — saying, ‘We were interrupted,’ or ‘something very bad happened.’”

These are obvious euphemisms for Trump’s ongoing election lies, but Cai’s assertion isn’t even true. He told supporters at a North Carolina rally just days before the Axios article that “what happened at that last election is a disgrace, and we’re not going to let it happen again. Did you ever notice they go after the people that want to find out where the cheating was — and, by the way, 82 percent of the country understands that it was a rigged election, OK? You can’t have a country with that.” (Surprise! Trump’s “82 percent” claim is a lie.)

In fact, the very day after Axios’s piece dropped, Trump went on Truth Social and proclaimed, “the Election was RIGGED.”

Trump’s remarks at a Rome, Georgia, rally on Saturday were just as disturbing. He insisted that he’d won Georgia in 2020 and that the election was “rigged.” Those same lies painted targets on the backs of Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who won a defamation suit against Trump ally Rudy Giuliani. It’s clear that Trump won’t accept an election loss, and we can expect that he’ll incite more violence and harassment. It’s the height of irresponsibility for a major media outlet to suggest otherwise.

And it’s not just Axios. After Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary, NBC News ran an article headlined, “Fewer grievances, more policy: Trump aides and allies push for a post-South Carolina ‘pivot’.” If you’ve paid any attention to the words that come out of Trump’s mouth, you’d understand that Trump’s policy is personal grievance. He’s openly vowed to spend his second term persecuting his political enemies and anyone who dared tried to hold him accountable for his crimes.

Okay, I'm also a little on the confused train. I vote third party and independent in my local elections when their policies (as they often are) are better than the local democrats. I vote for some local democrats when they, as in my community they happen to be, black activists who organized the entire of the blm movement in my city and then moved to campaigning for city council and stuff. I participate in mutual aid, I use my free time to bake bread for, and then deliver the bread and naltrexone to unhoused encampments. I advocate for every school in my area to teach actual native history. I distribute land back and esims for gaza pamphlets all over my city. I volunteer at soup kitchens a couple times a month, ect. I "donate" monthly "rent" to the tribes on whos land i live. I am currently at the least protest voting uncommitted in my states primary.

But like, I do bump up against... I don't want to vote for Biden. But if Trump wins, he's states he's going to put his everything into not only the genocide in Palestine, but hella racist internal policies beyond what we already have, stripping voting rights, stripping any existing social safety nets, removing anit hate crime protections, ect

So like. Yes. I am thinking about how indigenous communities would be impacted, at least in the short term. Among many others.

My final vote isn't decided yet

Do you really think it will prevent harm to vulnerable people to risk another trump term?

Not trying to be an asshole, asking you bc I respect you

*scare quotes are to imply that I think that language is shallow and not useful but I don't know what else to say

Please don't block me I'm being completely sincere about being deeply empathetic to your anger and share in it, but also confused and scared about the right course of action and the reasoning behind it

My opinions stem from my own organizing and activism.

I think it's going over a lot of heads that the same way we organize for landback or BLM and leave zines around to have progress in dismantling those, we ALSO need to be organizing behind 3rd party candidates to dismantle the 2 party system.

Like how helpful would it be to Any of those causes if someone said that instead of organizing for landback or donating or helping houseless people you should just vote for Biden?

That'd be ridiculous. Biden doesn't have any intention of significantly helping with any of those things and he's no substitute for the activism that's being done or still needed right?

So why are we as organizers accepting this logic when it comes to one of the most powerful positions in the world?

Why are we settling and saying he's the "realistic" choice and accepting it when we Know there are other options and avenues because we've Already worked in them?

I don't understand this and if You could shed some light I would in All Honesty appreciate it.

It's ACTUALLY confusing as hell to me that people I respect and work with and see as peers and comrades think that harm reduction is the best way to vote. It's confusing that instead of advocating for other avenues and educating people about other options or working for 3rd party campaigns or leaving educational zines around throughout election cycles and campaigns..... They say they're just gonna vote for Biden.

Yeah Trump sucks. I'd never deny that. I'd never deny he's dangerous. I just Also don't see how Blue Fascism is different from Red Fascism. It's all fascism and idk why we think Blue Fascism is an acceptable trade off when we literally Do Not have to keep making this trade.

The fact so many of us regularly feel like we don't have a choice is a testament to democracy already being dead, you know? Idk what we're saying 'yeah but the other fascists could be worse so let's just keep our heads down' as leftists.

I'm gonna be very real here, my concern is the future of humanity at this point. Point blank. White supremacy is an evil ideology that has harmed every person it touches while also making sure they help perpetuate it. In the last 5 years I've watched Nazis come back, several genocides, climate change and the death of winter, and police kill a man trying to protect a forest. Our president is more concerned with his campaign than the people he's killing or the families he's exploiting to do it.

Someone is going to have to risk something in order to stop a machine this big from killing all of us. The earth my child is going to inherit is going to be unrecognizable to me. She'll be lucky if she's never a climate refugee, just as it's Only luck that she's here in the first place after the USA tried to kill off the native Americans.

My concern is Everyone. And I know it seems backwards as hell to risk something so awful, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices to have something better.

I'd give anything to save my daughter from the future she's currently on track to inherit. And that doesn't mean that I don't love her. It's a testament to how much worse I genuinely believe things will get if we continue down this path accepting anything As Long As It's Not As Awful As It Could Be.

We would lie down and Vote to have robot dogs surveil our neighborhoods for immigrants and drag queens at this point "as long as it's not trump" and doesn't that terrify you more than he does?

It terrifies me.

There's no way that's harm reduction when we are NOT being harmed that way right now. That's Increasing the harm. A harm guarantee that you were tricked you into signing under threat of something worse.