Here’s the problem. The Democrats think it’s OK to murder Palestinians, but also think trans people should have rights. The Republicans think it’s OK to murder both Palestinians and trans people.
It’s not much of a dilemma, because of course I can’t vote for Republicans, but I can support part of the Democratic position, so I’ve got to vote Democratic party all the way down the line. It would make me much happier, though, if we could see some opposition to Israel’s genocidal actions.
I was surprised to see this evidence that anti-trans rhetoric is a key part of the Republican strategy.
They’ve spent almost $30 million on an ad that says Harris is providing humane social support to trans people in prison, which they think is deplorable, but I think is a point in her favor. Their second biggest focus is on immigration — they’re against it, I’m for it.
Their entire platform is built on hatred for non-white, non-straight people. Again, this is a crappy dilemma, because of course I’m pro-Democrat then.
Except that I wish voting for Harris didn’t also make me feel like I’m giving tacit approval to genocide.
I have the same feelings. I will be voting for genocide stained shit weasels. And voting against fascist, nazi, overtly, explicitly bigoted shit weasels.
And the genocide stained shit weasels have implicit fascist and bigotry issues because we are a shit weasel nation.
Note: the repugnantcant spending has nothing for healthcare. They are sponsors of the fraud of medicare corporate ‘disadvantage’ and putting women’s health at risk and completely in the hands of rtwing ahole politicians and xtian terrorists.
As I’ve said (endlessly) there I’ve been friends with and worked with many decent Jews and Muslims. But, harris has signaled she is going to continue biden’s billions in funding the zionist Israeli genocide of people in gaza, lebanon, syria, etc.
I am registered as a democrat. I will vote against tRUMP.
I am angered at the stupidity, violence and deceit on the part of the corporate democrap machine. It is almost as corrupt as the corporate repugnantcant machine. I like Tim Walz. We’ve supported Bernie and the squad because they show honesty and compassion.
Moses mofo johnson and the elongated muskrat, along with too many others, are dangers to society
All the lies, deceit, threats and violence just further prove to me that society is mostly a failed experiment.
(well, that was cathartic for me)
One more item,
PZ wrote: ‘They’ve spent almost $30 million on an ad’
I reply: One of the biggest problems with our system of elections is that billionaires and special interest hate groups spend millions to try to buy elections. And, the drooling masses are guided by that. THIS IS OBSCENE.
There should be no influence money in elections. There are ways to stop this, but the corporate billionaires that own this miserable country wouldn’t allow it.
This is a recurring frustration for me. “Oh, I can’t vote for Harris because I’d be condoning genocide.” Except: you don’t have a choice! Any action you take via electoral politics is going to condone genocide, because the US position on Israel is baked in at levels which simply can’t be touched by electoral politics. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are going to continue the system that is in place when it comes to Israel.
And, as a citizen, whether you vote or not, you’re complicit! Yes, it sucks! It sucks, but what are you going to do about it? Not voting isn’t going to change the calculus, and in fact, makes the calculus worse for you: if you’re not going to vote because of this one issue, or you’re going to vote on a non-hope third party, or worse, you’re going to vote Republican- why should they court you? You’ve just basically told the establishment that you can be safely ignored.
And, at the end of the day, you can be safely ignored because you’re not doing anything worth paying attention to you. Because again: you can’t fix these kinds of problems via electoral politics. You need an organized labor movement that makes it difficult or impossible for the logistical support to continue. This means that disinvestment protests are a good start- and then targeted actions that disrupt the war machine are the next. Sitting around and whinging about “both sides are bad” accomplishes nothing but stroking your own ego.
Or, to put it another way: the Democrats are a cancer that must be eradicated from the body politic. But the Republicans are a sucking chest wound. They’re both going to kill us (and a lot of other people), but one of them is doing it on a much faster timeline and needs to be addressed first.
We can all still point out Israel has a concentration camp, and Trump wants them too.
The way I see it, the Democrats are sad about it and will maybe consider putting in a speed bump or two on the road to genocide. The Republicans are happy about it and will put in an 8-lane expressway.
When I disagree with both candidates on an issue, the question becomes “Who would I rather try to persuade?” Or even “Who would I rather protest against?” From this viewpoint, the choice is clear: only one candidate has threatened to use the armed forces against protesters, and he happens to be the same candidate who is repulsive on every other issue.
A vote is the expression of a preference as to the choices one has, not a statement of absolute approval. And that’s an easy choice. The Palestinians will get a much better deal out of Harris than they would out of Trump.
Even a cursory glance at history shows that our ruination as a society has been in the works for many centuries. It’s scarier now because first, well, here we all are, and second, our scientists and engineers have finally worked out the means to make it reality. This pipe dream of love and altruism for all is simply not in our genetic makeup and never has been. We’re a sophisticated version of the Precambrian predator that spent its days out-competing others of its kind in the hunt for things to treat as worm food. Welcome back to the jungle, everybody.
First, I share your frustration with Democrats’ vacillation regarding Israel’s genocidal war of conquest in the West Bank and Gaza. But let’s be realistic here: Israel’s Likudnik leaders have made it clear that they’re going to wage this war with or without America’s acquiescence. I’m not sure pulling out all military and financial support from Israel will save that many lives, or make Israelis less determined to grab more land. They’re in conquest mode, have been for years, and possibly couldn’t stop even if they wanted to.
Second, I’m hearing that Biden, and probably Harris, while publicly paying lip service to Israel, are quietly considering him less than a loyal dependable ally. A good bit less. I’d love to hear both of them say so publicly, but I can understand why they’d avoid doing so, at least until after the election.
Third, and most important, however bad or complicit in genocide you think Biden has been, a re-elected Trump would be far worse — both because he’s a flaming racist leading a party of flaming racists who WANT Israel to kill as many heathen savages as possible; and because he’s a petty, stupid, small-minded grifter, who was never able to comprehend anything bigger than his own immediate gain, who would, in all likelihood, be totally okay with any campaign of extermination if he or any of his princelings could get a Gaza-coast casino/resort or some such as part of the deal. (Jared Kooshner has already spoken plainly about such a prospect.)
Whatever issues you care about most, it is vitally important to have a sane, functioning adult in the White House making the big decisions; even if we don’t end up agreeing with all of them. (And it’s not like the non-functioning-adult would ever have given us a better decision on anything.)
There’s an important distinction missing from this. While much of the Democratic coalition is “OK” with killing Palestinians, much of it isn’t, and it’s that tension that forces Netanyahu and his allies to exercise some restraint. Republicans, on the other hand, are pretty much in agreement that the IDF should “finish the job,” by which they mean the total extermination of the Palestinian people, and they’re eager to provide Netanyahu with the means to do just that.
Now, I know our dimwitted trolls will cry that there’s no difference between the two parties’ positions, but the fact is that the combined, unrestrained might of the Israeli and US military turned against Palestinians would mean the death of pretty much everyone in Gaza and the West Bank. Within a couple of months, all who would remain would be those Palestinians living outside of those areas. Those Palestinians living in the US would quickly find themselves branded “the enemy within,” to be hunted down by the military or paramilitray death squads along with the rest of us “vermin.”
So, yes, the Democratic position on Israel’s on-going genocide is awful, but the Republican position is much, much worse. And yes, it’s true that Republicans also intend to exterminate gender-non-conforming people, too.
I share PZ’s dilemma almost exactly. The last time I considered, even briefly, voting for a Republican was about four years ago in a Republican primary. (There’s what seems to me to be a cogent argument that, in a heavily gerrymandered place like Missouri, the only election that actually matters is the favored party’s primary.) I actually looked at all the candidates’ websites at least; but I couldn’t tell them apart. They were all guns for Jesus, Critical Race Theory, and “protecting girls’ sports”. This year, Critical Race Theory has been replaced by “the immigration problem”.
I share Raging Bee’s hope (end of second paragraph @10) that, if Harris wins (by no means guaranteed), the narrative around Israel could change somewhat after the election. (There’s also the possibility that Harris dislikes Biden’s kowtowing to Israel, but as the sitting Vice President, can’t really disagree with him in public and possibly screw up an ongoing negotiation. I don’t consider that likely, though. More likely is that Netanyahoo won’t budge until he sees the outcome of the election.)
I’ll paraphrase a deplorable human being who happened to say something correct/relevant:
“You can’t go to war with the army you want, you have to go to war with the army you have”
There is only 1 way to vote: Democratic Party for their largely sane policies, but some of which I find repugnant (and their ability to actually get things done, at times, is like herding cats) – and maybe can be persuaded away from supporting Israel blindly- versus the current MAGA GOP/ American Nazi Party who would likely encourage an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, but in addition leans towards a cornucopia of deplorable positions/plans for this country’s future, a desire to grow a plutocratic oligarch class, a disdain for human rights (and blatant racism that considers anyone who isn’t a male CIS-HET WASP (or WASPish) as something less than human–and who is currently led by a demagogue/ wannabe dictator with a metaphorical axe to grind and a literal list of enemies from which he seeks ‘retribution’. Hold your nose and vote for Harris
A number of others have been speculating that a good chunk ow why there’s so much money going into dunking on trans issues in this election is a result of Musk actively joining the Trump Team, because trans issues are a very personal grudge with him as a result of his reaction to his daughter, and he’s willing to throw lots of money at petty revenge for the way he’s been called out on this by said daughter.
Musk’s thin-skinned reactions to criticism fit right in with Trump. (See how, even before he bought Twitter, he spent months accusing the British caver assisting the Tham Luang rescue operation in 2018 of sexual tourism and paedophilia because said diver had the temerity to tell Musk what he could do with his untested and probably unworkable submarine. Accusations based on literally no more excuse than ‘why else would somebody like him be in Thailand?’)
I feel the same way as P.G. of course I will be voting for Kamala and Democrats, but as the lesser evil, This election is making me sick; I fear that the Orange Monster will win. But there seem to be so many stupid bigots in this country out for blood, no matter how it goes the suffering of the people of Gaza and other places will go on. I too will hold my nose and vote for Harris, and I hope many others will too.
I’ve written about this as well, and have similar feelings to PZ, though mine are perhaps less harsh on the Dems. They are definitely not doing what I would do, but also I am entirely unelectable.
It is objectively true that the Biden admin is the first to even attempt to hold back Israel’s attacks on civilian populations in even the smallest degree. And while I strongly dislike that they’re doing this only in the smallest degree, the fact that they’re doing it at all is a sea change (Thanks, Shakespeare!) in US policy.
That tells me that there’s room to push the next administration even farther toward peace, farther towards opposition to war crimes targeting civilian populations. (I’m under no illusions that they’ll actually stand up to Israel if Israel commits war crimes against armed Hamas fighters, but they might be willing to hold back crimes against civilians just a bit.)
We won’t get there anytime soon. It’s sick that that’s true, but I strongly believe it’s true. But Trump actively encouraged settlements in the Occupied Territories and would do nothing to hold Israel back in the current conflict.
I don’t agree with Biden’s policy, but I can still note that Biden’s policy is already better than what Trump’s would be, and I’m not exactly sure what Harris’ policy would be, but she’s making the right noises if you want to hear that she might go farther than Biden in restraining Israel. Again, not far enough, but farther than the US has ever gone.
For me, this dangerous, fucked up war is a reason to vote for Harris, not something to ignore on the way to voting for Harris.
…even before [#QElon] bought Twitter, he spent months accusing the British caver assisting the Tham Luang rescue operation in 2018 of sexual tourism and paedophilia because said diver had the temerity to tell Musk what he could do with his untested and probably unworkable submarine.
It’s even worse than that: Tham Luang said no to #QElon’s sub for the purely practical reason that it would not fit inside the cave where the kids were trapped — and I’m pretty sure Luang had said so at the time. Which makes #QElon’s “OK pedo” response even less excusable than it would otherwise have been. #QElon had made a perfectly reasonable offer to help with a rescue, the guy in charge had said “thanks but that won’t work here,” and #QElon could have just said “okay, call me if I can be of any help” and looked like a decent adult…but he wasn’t grown-up enough to even try to look grown-up.
For me, this dangerous, fucked up war is a reason to vote for Harris, not something to ignore on the way to voting for Harris.
Exactly — it’s one of the biggest reasons why a petty little crybaby who’s been in the pockets of foreign plutocrats for years is the LAST person we need in the White House.
I wish the US would adopt the Australian vote. Preferential voting means we can have more than two choices, more varied platforms, and no fear of “splitting the vote”.
I refuse to give much, if any, weight to party labels — both parties, and especially the behind-the-scenes gatekeepers who “prescreen” who can even get onto a primary ballot (let alone the general election). This time, there’s a clear lesser evil, and it’s not inherited wealth and a history of overt civil rights violations while in office. <sarcasm> When even Cthulhu turns down the Vice Presidential slot because “the top of the ticket is too extreme,” there’s something very wrong. </sarcasm>
For those with long memories and more awareness of the world than the average
victimgraduate of American secondary education, this election should very much remind you of the Chilean constitutional referendum in 1980 and “retention” referendum in 1988. Not even those who intended to vote for the incumbent (at least outside of Santiago) liked him, but “Better the devil we know”…It’s also really important to remember that in a representative democracy, we elect people — not policies, nor unwavering-my-mind-is-made-up-don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts commitment to particular policies. Character matters — especially evident willingness to listen to new (or at least new to them) facts and reasoning, even when that change went against a voter’s preferences.
@19 Strongly agreed. Political radicalisation is much diminished here in Australia because we have preference voting. For instance, the QAnon loonies have perfectly “good” third parties like One Nation that let them voice their moronic concerns, so the centre-right LNP doesn’t have to pander to them explicitly in the way the Republicans do.
Today, an IDF soldier admitted that the IDF is using Palestinian civilians as human shields in Gaza. CNN very carefully reported this as “a violation of international law” vs, say, actually calling it a war crime.
Democratic politicians, at least, are concerned about the optics of the situation, even if they don’t care about the actual plight of the Palestinians or Lebanese. Republican politicians fantasize about a (possibly nuclear) war with Iran.
Moral calculus to the rescue:
The “Kamala Harris is not Trump” position far outweighs any issues one has with the positions of VP Harris and the Democratic party.
As a neighbour to your north I’m getting tired of being jerked around by the deranged US political system every 4 years with smaller shit shows every 2 years so stop fucking about and get rid of this guy.
I must agree with Crip Dyke here, in particular this bit:
This isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. Winning it and fixing all the fucked-up shit will require years of hard work, and a two-pronged approach. Prong one, as was already mentioned, is labor organizing and protests. Guess which political party is friendlier to unions?
And prong two is taking over the Democratic Party from within. The bad guys showed us exactly how to do it. In a white-rage response to Obama being elected, they staged the “Tea Party” takeover of Congress by troglodytic social conservatives coated with a thin veneer of economic populism within two years; got the übertroglodyte Trump elected in eight; and by the 16-year mark had utterly transformed the Republican Party into, essentially, the Nazi Party Mk. II.
That such a radical transformation of a party by grassroots takeover was possible on this timescale means it is equally possible to turn the Democratic Party into peacenik socialists by 2040. But not just by moaning and kvetching about Biden’s policies. It will take activism at the local party politics level, sustained for years, just as it did for them.
BB:
If one is gonna take over a party so as to change it (from within!), whyever does it matter which party is taken over from within?
Actually, the claim is that the bad guys have shown exactly how to do it, from which it follows that it has already been done.
That would be the Republican party that’s historically amenable to being taken over from within, no?
Given the claim that one party has a history of being taken over, why would one choose the party without such a history to take over?
(BTW, “taking over from within” is the very definition of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_column )
Maybe the Democratic party is not the same as the historically-susceptible Republican party?
(I gotta snicker when I hear ‘peacenik socialists’ in the context of the USA)
What’s really needed is for my generation (when I hear “Hey, Boomer!” at the store, I have to turn to see if they’re talking to me), and older, to get off the ballot. Not “shut up” — it’s not just a First Amendment thing, it’s impossible to imagine — but take our raised-on-the-cold-war-and-oil-crisis-and-Americanized-“hyperinflation” mentality out of the decisionmaking realm, because the two generations before us never let us learn how to make our own decisions without disasters. Then hope to hell that those not eligible for Social Security retirement benefits yet do better — they really, really can’t do worse.
Not so: Reagan did so in 1982.
I’ve seen this said repeatedly, but it doesn’t really make sense. To get a party to “court you”, you need to make them uncertain whether you’ll vote for them. Making clear either that you will never vote for them, or that you will always do so, allows them to ignore you.
KG @ 28
Yes, for a protest vote to be visible you must at least vote for some alternative candidate, even one that has no chance of winning. Otherwise your protest woll be invisible.
When Klansman David Duke was running for office against a conventional politician known to be corrupt, people campagned against him with the slogan “vote for the crook, not the kook”.
Making you an unreliable voter just means the parties go for the reliable ones, IE right-wing voters. The overton window has only ever wandered to the right in the last fourty years. Time to rethink your voting strategy because Bush and Trump have done an enormous amount of damage to the US and the wider world and it’s harder to enforce paradigm shifts if the alternatives are “status quo” and “dark abyss of hell” because then you can’t really afford to be picky.
This does not strike me as an especially novel political dilemma. When was the last time someone in America COULD vote for a mainstream political party that both didn’t promote genocide and was opposed to discrimination against vulnerable minorities? My guess would be the 1930s, when America still had sizeable Socialist and Communist parties, and even PZ isn’t old enough to remember that. For the entire lifetime of all Americans under 90 it’s been war in Korea, war in Vietnam, supporting coups in Central and South America, war in Iraq, war in Afghanistan, war in Syria, and supporting the slow Israeli genocide against the Palestinians (not so slow in the last twelve months, of course). Neither of the two big political parties has been opposed to any of these in more than a tokenistic way. .
Mehdi Hasan puts things extremely well here – Trump was the most “anti-Palestinian President in US History.” Zeteo, 5 mins 39 secs. he might;’ve added that if Trump gets in again he’ll be even far worse this time too.
Watched the recent Adam Conover vid on, “Why are all our politicians so old?”, and he and his guest have interesting points. Aside from the just plain broken, “winner take all”, system we ended up with, in which even if some percentage of the US wanted something else we have no proportional representation, which would give some seats to those minorities, they point out that one major issue is literally one of Kamala’s selling points – every damn one of them, or at least nearly every single one of them that isn’t Walz or Trump, was a rich lawyer, who got rich over decades, nearly 100% of them as prosecutors of one sort or another, and all of whom got their money to start into politics via getting free money from other lawyers who they knew, who where also rich.
So, obviously, part of the issue is the one we already all know about – money in politics, but, even if we somehow fixed that one we would still have 95% pro-cop, prosecutors, who are over 60, and trying to become the next conservative, or semi-conservative Rethuglican or Democrat. No one else gets to play, because there is no other avenue, at this point, and in some respects never has been (i.e., the winner take all problem), to power. So, its hardly a surprise that even the ones that might have, at one time, been in touch with the will of the people are now utterly clueless about real problems, what needs to really be done to fix many of them, or why some positions they hold are just as stupid, no matter which “party” they belong to. They almost all freaking lawyers, and the main difference is whether they are mostly honest ones (Democrats, and pre-MAGA Republicans), or ambulance chasers and the sort that would claim Trump did nothing wrong with a straight face (MAGA).
Coming from someone north of the border I’m entirely confused how anyone that doesn’t support Trump is anything less than fully committed to voting for Harris. If Trump wins it will be because too many people stayed home. But taking the Palestinian protest vote as an example – if Trump gets in he will happily support Israel in extirpating Palestinians from Gaza and the west bank. Every non-vote (for Harris) makes this more likely. Staying home is equivalent to saying you’re fine with this. Everyone knows how committed the Trump base is – the only way to beat it is to get the vote out for Harris. You don’t have to like it, but it’s reality.
I really think you’re all fucked down there…. it’s looking pretty bad.
canadiansteve @35: I’d say we’re pretty fucked up here, with Peewee Polyev likely to be our next PM.
Unlike the US though we have the possibility that Poilievre could end up with a minority government. And I suspect if he doesn’t get a majority the knives will be out for him.
timgueguen @37: Unless the polls change drastically, the CPC is on course for a massive majority at the next election. I really, really hope the polls do change; maybe if the Liberals start hammering at the near certainty that PP would axe the Dental Care and Pharmacare bills.
@38: I feel like the Libs could also get some mileage out of “Why won’t PP get a security clearance, like all the adults in the room? What’s he hiding?” (I mean, even the Greens leader, with all of two MPs, has one).
Is reading along with comment section
Crip Dyke sez
the fact that they’re doing it at all is a sea change
… waitaminnit wut?
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
:)
Predictions:
In the event of a Harris win, she will follow through on the “I’m going to put Republicans in my cabinet” promise, and she will continue to fund Israel, protect Israel from repercussions, and (as has recently been confirmed by the media) continue to put US troops to work actively helping Israel on the ground as Biden has done, making the genocide one which is directly performed by the US while lying about it to the public, to make sure the US eventually pays as high a price as possible. There will eventually be a major regional war, which will spiral out of control, as a result of Israel’s unprovoked attacks on Lebanon and Iran (and, eventually, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait — the Israeli government has been talking about “Greater Israel”, which includes some or all the land from all of those nations, for a long time now and it’s clear that they’re serious and don’t give a damn what the consequences will be; American backers of Israel are more irresponsible than any of you seem to admit or even realize). As with the Obama administration, no left-leaning campaign promises will be fulfilled in any meaningful way.
As with the Biden administration, she will move further and further right the longer she’s in office. This will happen even if (as seems unlikely) the Democrats get 60 seats in the Senate and a majority in the House. In fact, the stronger their position becomes, the more Harris will continue her calls for bipartisanship (see: putting Republicans in her cabinet). Large chunks of Project 2025 will be enacted entirely voluntarily as a gift for the Republicans in exchange for vanishingly small quid pro quos on policy (see: the Obama administration), most likely ones which the Democratic base is mostly actually against, like support for Israel or further federal funding for police, or maybe the hot war with China which Hillary Clinton’s State Department started pushing for back under Obama and which Biden has quietly embraced as a policy goal.
Oh, and Harris will continue her anti-trans policies from her pre-VP career, which trans activists from California have been trying to warn us about since 2020. There are already multiple Democratic Congressional candidates who are openly anti-trans, and she will insist that she has to placate them (to say nothing of the Republicans); she will sign every piece of anti-trans legislation that passes Congress without even the slightest pause, and start laying the groundwork to making homosexuality illegal too because she has always been a Republican at heart, just like Biden. You will all have compromised your morals and gotten absolutely nothing in exchange, even if she wins. And that’s entirely predictable — you can’t even get her to give up an actual genocide at a time when she needs your votes; after she is in office she will look right through you. We’ll continue expanding fossil fuel extraction (as we have under Biden), funding homicidal cops (as we have under Biden), and ignoring medical science on epidemics (as we have under Biden), and of course we won’t get a living minimum wage or increased taxes on billionaires, because those are unreasonable. Ending the world by destroying the ecology through war (the Israeli genocide produces more CO2 than most countries do) and coal and oil, on the other hand? That’s reasonable, so of course she’ll continue with them like Biden and Obama did.
(Of course, it’s also true that you won’t admit that. That’s pretty obvious; it’s what Democrats have done for decades now when their leaders have turned out to be traitors who sold the public down the river before the election even took place. If you weren’t in denial you’d be a mob putting the Democratic Party leadership’s heads on pikes, and that’s been true since the 1990s.)
Such a lack of nous!
They will have gotten to avoid having Trump as #47.
Point being that your (O so predictable) screed utterly ignores the alternative.
(Vicarious logic indeed)
I thought I heard a cockroach scuttling somewhere. Turns out comrade Vikarionovich is peeking out from under his bridge to unload his rectal effluvium and will as always quickly hide from the light again.
Here’s another newer video by Mehdi Hasan this time with Palestinian-American political analyst Omar Baddar posted 11 hours ago – What a Trump Presidency Would Look Like for Palestinians
@36 Rob Grigjanis Pee Pee is pretty bad by Canadian standards, but he’s no Trump, and he will be somewhat constrained by the senate and courts, unlike Trump. Still, as the US pulls right we are unfortunately pulled along with it. I’m pretty disappointed that our country will almost certainly see a majority Con government, but I am pretty sure the damage can be minimized.
@41 The Vicar (via Freethoughtblogs) : Isee your predictions, I wish you;’d give some answrs and be mor ewillingt oactually repsond and engage instead of doing drive by trolling here..
What out of morbid curioisty and no doubt very remote hope of getting any actual answers would you predict from a Trump regime if he gets a second term here?
Because those are the twoi choices Amercians actually have.
PS. I hope we get the chance to see whether or not your predictions for Kamala’s administration are correct.
The alternative would be vastly more horrendous, kill a lot more people, cause incalculably more human suffering and misery and do who knows how very much more damage to our shared pale blue dot of a home.
Clarity fix first sentence above comment : I see your predictions, Vicar, I wish you’d give some answers and be more willing to actually respond and engage instead of doing drive by trolling here..
StevoR to Vicar (singular):
<snicker>
Well, there’s this one: .
(The end is nigh!)
Even by the Vicar’s terrible average standards, that is just bonkers. Kamala Derangement Syndrome, obviously.
Elon Musk is another reason to vote for Kamala. You need to keep these techno feudalists away from governance.
It’s kinda perfunctory by now, these ever-feebler Wormtongue-type appeals.
We do know of a recent mob with pike-on-noggin type desires, no?
—
As for that blithe “you” there, well… Vicar pretends to being progressive, but can’t sustain the pretense.
(There’s a trope for that: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InformedAttribute )
it is not just the Middle East where war is going on and threatening to grow and spread to engulf us all. I can’t help but think that the timing of all of this shit is not happening completely coincidentally and yes the US election and it’s politics is part of it, there is no way around it. The only thing we see or hear to quote an Okie from the past “I only know what I read in the papers”.
what is said in press conferences and in announcements and speeches is not all there is. All the parties, the countries governments all the political factions all are doing their best to get all info they can about everyone else some are good at it some are not. They are politicians and are sure to be using what skills they have to understand the real position of all the players. I do not have any secret back channel to the real true course of history I can only watch from as it is some remove from the places of decision. It is as a precarious time as any time in my life. It is not just the wars that are going on now that we have to worry about in this election the MAGA economic ideas and the related emigrant issue threaten to wreck the US economy which would not be very helpful to the world economical relationships, the market depends on it all working in a predictable consistent way spreading wars and troubled economies mean disruptions. just look at the last disruption the world went through, we have yet to completely recovered from it
“no way to delay the trouble coming every day”
I kind of agree with the Vicar. Harris is a centrist, she will respond to pressure and drift rightwards if we let her, and we should expect only tepid improvements in policy if she is elected.
But Trump is a FUCKING FASCIST who will begin his office as an extremist far right dictator who will become increasingly totalitarian as his policies fail and as opposition grows.
I don’t expect much from the Democrats (but one can hope), but I know exactly what the Republicans will do. The choice is clear.
Democrats aren’t the heads-on-pikes party.
I think the emphasis on the trans stuff by the Republicans is just a last-ditch attempt to re-run their 2004 strategery, where they riled up all the christopaths over gay marriage; it worked for them, then, but now in Roevember I don’t think it will.
I think the increasingly batshit rhetoric coming out of the MAGAland is not a sign of strength, but one of weakness and desperation. Elections are fundamentally about only one thing: addition; adding people to your side. Who are they adding by promoting unhinged depravity like Tucker Carlson squeaking about Daddy Trump coming to spank us all because we’ve been bad little girls.
Seriously…who the actual fuck thinks this is something that will convince anyone not already voting for him to decide, “This Trump fellow deserves my vote! I like the cut of his girl-spanking jib!”
PZ @53 “we should expect only tepid improvements in policy if she is elected.”
‘tepid improvements are hella better than the full-on, full-throated encouragment of genocide we’d get from Trump’s Turd Reich.
rob griganis@38 I’m skeptical of Poilievre’s supposed 20 point lead, because the reliability of polling seems suspect these days. The Conservatives also have the problem that too much of their vote is overconcentrated in the West. In any case I’m not convinced that any large lead he has will hold up until the election. I suspect he’s also worried, ironically, that Trump will get elected and scare the crap out of some of the more lukewarm voters.
timgueguen @56: Hope you’re right. But a significant part of the electorate aren’t exactly deep thinkers. Over many years, I’ve seen people base their vote on “X has been in too long, time for a change”, without considering what that change would entail. I can understand people having had enough of Trudeau, but the alternative (and I wish the NDP were a possible one) is just disastrous.
Maybe not as disastrous as a Trump victory, but the Poilievre ads are full of dog whistles (Canadian “values”, the “woke obsession”, crap about immigration and crime. He’s been following the Trump playbook.
Poilievre set my alarm bells off during the Harper years, when he was one of the CPC’s attack dogs on news shows, defending their lies (about, among other things, the F-35). He’s a slimeball through and through.
Oilievre is dangerous. Not as dangerous as Trump; not yet. Mainly because Canada’s judiciary and other institutions are in better shape than the US’s were even before Trump’s term, let alone after. If he assumes power and holds it for long enough, though, that won’t keep.
Aside from claiming that “woke obsessions” “dishonor” our institutions and other such BS dogwhistles, he has been seen hobnobbing with Nazis, or at least Nazi-adjacent figures, most notably during the “trucker convoys” (= brownshirt intimidation campaign) a couple years back.
Plus, of course, the threat his policies would pose to the climate — it’s right there in his name.
Bernie Sanders on this issue “I disagree with Kamala’s position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?” Here is my answer: – and its a good one I think. Six minutes long.