this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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If it's not been posted already...
https://theintercept.com/2024/09/10/polls-arms-embargo-israel-weapons-gaza/
Banning sales of arms to Israel would not only attract a huge proportion of otherwise reluctant leftists, but might even steal votes from Trump as a small but not insignificant number of voters have been fooled by his 'started no wars' con. The idea that doing so would lose some key demographic is clearly not supported by the data.
But the Democratic strategists are not idiots. They must know this. So one of two things is the case; the polling is wrong, or the Democrats have absolutely no desire to move leftward on this and are willing to risk a Trump win to hold out on their position.
We can rule out the first because if the Democrats had better poll data they'd share it. Nothing to lose by doing so.
So we're left with the second.
Odd then that the online vitriol is delivered not to the Democrats for cynically risking a Trump victory, but to leftists for being opposed to genocide.
They wouldn't lose significant voters, theyd lose a bunch of donations...
It doesn't cost a billion plus to beat donald trump, but the more money there is, the bigger everyone's slice is and the bigger the bonuses for personally bringing more money is.
The DNC isn't being run to get Dems in office, it's a fucking grift where sometimes we do get a Dem in office.
Just never one who's political policy matches Dem voters.
Look at current DNC leadership, it's not people that know how to win elections, it's just whoever can bring in the most donations.
The result is ridiculously expensive and incompetent campaigns. The solution is clearing house at the DNC.
True. And a cushy consulting job, or a few thousand in bonuses seems like an understandable inventive, if a misanthropic one.
But for those who do the footwork supporting such a system, I just cannot see why. What have the Democrats done to deserve such blind obedience? Is being not-Trump just that impressive these days?
Today? Yes. Come inauguration day? Absolutely fucking not. If Kamala wins I'll talk shit, write letters, donate to causes, protest, and cause trouble from the first day she's in office until the end of primary season 4 years from now. Then I'm back on the train.
Unless we can get rid of FPTP. Then I'm talking shit every day all fucking day long while happily voting for a candidate who agrees with me most instead of the one I disagree with the least.
Why?
Most people in America want to end sales of arms to Israel, don't want to be complicit in genocide.
And Harris is abusing her power by ignoring that to satisfy a few wealthy donors by threatening you all with Trump if you don't let her do what she wants.
The only way to stop abuse of power is to stand up to it. If you let her (or her replacements) just frighten you into submission with bogeymen you might as well give up any hope of progress.
Edit: this started out as a single word question. The diatribe came after my reply.
It's a reasonable question. Because I don't think she'll go far enough. And if she goes further than I think she will, I'll push her to go further left than that. I'm not nearly as far left as a lot of folks on Lemmy. I probably fall into Social Democrat on a good day. But that puts me further left than most US politics and pretty much all the politics in my home state.
I'm a pragmatist when it comes to elections. She's good enough to where I don't think she'll sponsor hunting parties for LGBTQ+ folks but I don't think she'll be trying very fucking hard to get universal healthcare or working with states to try to get rid of FPTP.
Unless your question is why I won't do it after primary season. That's because we don't fight in front of the kids. I'm going to support the furthest left feasible candidate because, again, pragmatic. I'll shut my fucking mouth, back the least fascist, and start trying to affect change again the second I can without shitting on that candidate during election season. Plus I like to take a break between election day and inauguration day because it's all so mentally exhausting and I'll be drinking more than usual for the holidays.
Sorry, I thought you were here asking a reasonable question with my other reply. If I had known you were like this I wouldn't have bothered. Is that why you replied with a single word then edited it instead of spewing your tripe initially?
If "Israel should finish the job" Trump tickles your butthole, just say so.
Yep. So when you thought I was going to play the part of the meek little student at their teacher's knee you were happy to respond, but as soon as it was clear I might actually disagree... Instantly I must be a Trump supporter, because literally the only option you can think of that isn't agreeing with you entirely is 'Trump'.
It's pathetic.
No, you fucking numpty. I thought you were genuinely curious. Understanding someone's motivations doesn't require you to be a good little student, it just requires you to be curious. People ask questions in good faith every day. You weren't curious. Then you were duplicitous about it and try to use gotcha tactics. You made sure to ask then edit after I replied so that it looked like I was engaging with a fucking moron instead of a good faith commenter.
Those are the tactics of the right. Even if you don't support Trump out loud your actions absolutely do. Go ahead and block me because any time I notice you engaging with my comments I'll go ahead and call you a duplicitous fucknugget. That's more engagement than you deserve, but I'll give you that much, you duplicitous fucknugget.
...
They always move to the middle in every election chasing "independent" votes that they never get. I see no evidence from history that they "arent idiots".
This is absolutely correct. I'm sure the 40% of voters who want to keep sending weapons to Israel aren't even Harris voters. So clearly the Democratic party is only doing it for the love of genocide and it seems obvious that after they finish the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon they'll shift their focus to genocide of Palestinians and other arabs living in America. This is completely unacceptable to me which is why I voted for Trump.
I thought about voting for a third party but I live in a swing state and want to minimize the chances of Koncentration Kamp Kamala from getting elected so I directly supported Trump rather than indirectly.
Sooooo… because you can’t be bothered to understand how things work. You voted for someone that suggests that Israel “finish the job.”
That sure showed those pesky libs!
You’re about as bad-faith as it gets. You’re MAGA, through and through. Drop the act that it has anything to do with genocide.
"Koncentration Kamp Kamala"
Listen to yourself. You're beyond delusional. Seek help.
A lot of my relatives died in concentration camps. Why the hell are you trivializing them?
I could no more vote Trump 'tactically' than I could Harris. I think one ought vote according to one's concience. The whole notion of tactical voting makes a mockery of democracy, if no one could be persuaded to vote tactically there'd be significantly less 'electioneering'. More like the Nordic model, with way more parties catering to a broader range of political views.
You only have to look at the current Democrat campaign, they barely need a policy at all, they're running almost entirely on being not-Trump.
Ignores all the policy announcements Kamala made, complains that there aren't any policies.
But yes, actually, being not Trump is an excellent reason to vote for Kamala, because there are only two possible outcomes of this election, and one of them is a wannabe dictator, KKK-supporting, idiot putin stooge, racist, hate-filled, selfish, duplicitous, personally disloyal, insurrectionist, unamerican, country betraying, diaper-wearing emotional crybaby thrower of money at the already super-rich, and frankly I'm tired of people pretending that he doesn't desperately need keeping out of the White House.
And there's the problem with all these responses in a nutshell. Shortsightedness.
Yes, there's only two possible outcomes to this election, and yes Kamala is the better candidate by miles. But your voting actions don't only affect this election, they affect all future elections. They're the background against which all political strategy is determined.
If you just bend over every time you're threatened with four years of some fuckwit in office, then you've committed to a political system where your opinion on policy ceases to be relevant. All that's required for a complete autocracy is for one party to be a unbearable fascist and then the other party doesn't even have to consider what the electorate actually think because they're the not-fascists, and that's all that's needed.
And this isn't even slippery-slope. It's happening right now. The not-fascists are actually complicit in war crimes and are still getting your vote . How much worse will it be in four year's time after they've had it proven to work? Why would they ever listen to the electorate on anything ever again?
Yes, there are just two outcomes. If Trump wins, the Democrats will again move to the right to occupy what passes for the centre ground in American politics. Kamala is one of the most pro worker candidates they've had in my lifetime. If they lose against the most incompetently bad president the country had in my lifetime with the most left candidate they've had in decades, they will pivot back to the "centre".
So if they loose because leftists don't like their policies enough to vote for them, they'll pivot right? What would be the logic behind such a decision?
There's thousands of leftist votes available, all they have to do to access them is produce a more left-wing agenda (like, say, not being complicit in war crimes).
But you're suggesting in response to this loss (as a result of not denouncing war crimes) they'll not, you know, denounce war crimes next time, but rather shift even more into the ground that's in direct competition with their only opponent and try to win die hard Republicans who'd vote a Big Mac into government if it wore a MAGA cap?
Can you explain what you think their rationale would be for such a move?
They'll lose because some fatally online "leftists" can't bring themselves to vote democrat no matter how bad the alternative is and they'll pivot right because they have some hope of winning over centrists, and the right wing politicians are the ones who are winning and the supposedly left wing ones get 1% of the popular vote and zero members into the electoral college. It's America after all.
What makes you think that?
I've already, in a different thread, posted the latest polls showing the majority of Americans want to stop arms sales to Israel. The data suggests stopping arms sales would win a huge number of votes, but it isn't Democrat policy.
If the Democrats are likely to shift policy to seek votes, then why haven't they shifted to banning arms sales to Israel?
Absent of further data, it doesn't look at all like Democrat policy follows available votes. It looks more like Democrat policy follows the wishes of their wealthy donors, so unless they tack to the right, I can't see why Democrat policy will.
If you want to make a case that Democrat policy chases votes, you'll have to explain why they're not chasing the obvious anti-genocide vote?
Sigh. They'd see the republicans win and move right because it's the right who won. Stupid? Yes. Damaging? Yes. Can you or I change it? No.
It's so illogical of you to suggest that losing to the right will shift them left. That's not how it works. It's not how it ever works. It's not even how it works in countries that have more balanced political systems.
And victory for an incredibly delusionally far right wing president isn't the left wrong victory you seem to think it would be.
Stop pretending that if the Democrats lose just one more time, America will suddenly turn communist. It won't. The route left comes through moving left, not lurching to the right again.
If you read the whole post rather than just the bit of it you think you've got a condescending answer to, we might have a more productive conversation.
The question was if your claim is that the Democrats have a policy of shifting in the direction of more votes, then why do they not shift in the direction of opposing arms sales to Israel?
Your assumption that the Democrats move policy in the direction of more votes (the one you think it's so "stupid" to not know), is directly contradicted by the evidence that the majority of the country are anti-war and they are not shifting in that direction.
Just repeating blind platitudes you read in The Atlantic is not an argument. You have to actually attempt to respond to what your interlocutor is saying.
I didn't say it was stupid to not know that the Democrats pivot right when they need to gain more votes, I said that it's stupid and damaging that they do so.
But it's also logical. Sadly, there isn't a secret leftist majority just waiting in the wings for that one extra well worded announcement from Harris so they can vote in droves and give the Democrats a supermajority up and down the ticket.
Unfortunately, it's America, and elections are won or lost in the song states, so it'll be decided by a bunch of "centrists" in Pennsylvania who can't decide which is better, loony right wing Republican policies or more moderate Democrats. If it's too "communist", they're scared of it, but if you can give it some good ol' American branding like "Help for Heroes", you can get away with it.
These are the centrist votes the Democrats need to win, but if they can win without them, they can afford to be more left wing.
The centrist's both sidesism is as reality denying as your own, but the bad news for you is that there are a lot more of them than of leftists, so the Democrats are only safe from centrist influence of the left wing folk show up and vote for the less right wing option. Your refusal to compromise is exactly how you make it senseless for the Democrats to chase your votes. You were never going to vote for anything short of communism, so you were never going to participate in choosing the president so your opinions cannot ever matter to the Democrats. This is, unless you're prepared to vote for them sometimes, you know, when the choice is particularly stark and the country stands on the brink of fascism.
Nice story, but none of it is true.
I've already provided the data proving that there is a massive pool of voters ready to vote Democrat if they renounce genocide, but further to that data, here is more data specifically about the swing state Michigan which is a key state of the exact type you describe. The 'uncommitted' campaign specifically promises thousands of votes specifically on an anti-genocide ticket and the potentially election-deciding Arab-American demographic have dropped in Democrat support specifically on this issue.
https://www.aaiusa.org/library/press-release-new-poll-arab-american-voters-evenly-divided-in-race-for-white-house
Your argument is just post hoc storytelling to provide a reasonable sounding justification for the position you've nailed your flag to, but it's wrong. You've provided no data to support it and the data that is available shows the opposite.
Edit: forgot the 'uncommitted' link https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68427304
You seem to think that I think the Democrats should both sides the Israeli conflict. I don't. They should absolutely stop propping up Netanyahu's evil campaign and tell Israel it can have military support from the USA again only when it withdraws from Gaza and Lebanon.
Where we disagree is the effect on American politics of leftists abstaining from choosing the president by not voting or voting third party. The more leftists that the republicans' online pals can convince to exclude themselves from the electorate through voter purity arguments, the more right wing victories they get and the further to the right the Overton window is pushed.
That's my understating too. What I'm arguing with these statistics is against your view that the Democrats will change policy (to the right) to chase votes.
I'm presenting evidence to the contrary. Democrats do not change policy to chase votes. If they did, they would be chasing the anti-genocide vote. It's easy to capture and it's even probably required by international law.
They clearly do not set policy to chase votes.
They set policy to satisfy their donors, then they just expect votes.
The only way to end that is to make it clear they cannot "expect votes, they must earn them.
And yes, I'm well aware of the costs of making that statement, 4 years of hell. But if we let fear intimidate us, we never achieve anything. No one suggested we shouldn't fight the Nazis because 4 years of war would be nasty. We did it because it was the right thing to do.
Democrats pivot to previously successful electoral strategies, namely those of the republicans. Sad, but true.
No. The Democrat approval rating among Arab-Americans used to be 74%. It's now 14%.
They have actively moved away from electoral strategies which have worked in the past. They've done so because their wealthy donors told them to. Against the bulk of the electorate, against previously supportive demographics, against key groups in swing states...
The Democrats are taking the very risk you're accusing us of taking (risking losing to Trump). They're doing so because they think they can just expect your vote. The way to stop them is to make it clear they cannot.
And elect Trump. Showing them that fielding one of the most worker friendly candidates they have in my lifetime was a mistake and they should go back to centrists because they only win in the swing States when they do.
If you can't vote Democrat when the alternative is a fascist who is proposing today to use the military against left wingers and promised his supporters that if they voted him on it would be the last election, you'll never vote Democrat and Harris would be entirely correct strategically to ignore your demands because there's always some compelling reason to disagree with political parties that can win power in America what with the electorate being so rabidly right wing generally.
In the trolley dilemma you would let the trolley run over 100 people in your voter purity to not support the death of the 10 on the other track. Inaction can be the worse evil.
You can tell me it's horrible and unfair and shouldn't be like this but the trolley is coming. Neither you nor I can stop it. No more than Kamala can single handedly bring about a ceasefire in Gaza in a fortnight.
So the plan is to just completely igmore the evidence and repeat the same baseless and unsupported claim. You might as well be reading prophesies from the bible. I don't think you personally have anything to fear from a Trump presidency, it sounds like you and he would get on just fine.
Bollocks.
But by all I've read so far, you'll ignore this evidence too in favour of your blind faith. It's like talking to a Scientologist. Pointless.
Oh and this...
... is a disgrace.
They work for us. They chase our vote. That's how democracy works. We don't owe them a vote.
I suggest maybe you stop blaming your fellow man, and defending those in power, and start blaming those in power and defending your fellow man.
True. You should be ashamed of yourselves. This vote matters. Stop pretending it's a game. Trump would be a disaster internationally and for American workers.