Kamala Harris Refused to Meet With Uncommitted About Gaza — and Uncommitted Refused to Endorse Her
Kamala Harris Refused to Meet With Uncommitted About Gaza — and Uncommitted Refused to Endorse Her
Not to be pedantic, but wouldn't making an endorsement make them no longer "Uncommitted"? Yes, Harris could and should be better on the genocide happening in Gaza, but "Uncommitted voters still uncommitted after not meeting with candidate" also isn't much of a story.
It's a pretty massive story considering that the uncommitted movement, which did the most to unseat Biden, wasn't given a voice at the convention.
If not for uncommitted, Democrats would have lost this long ago.
So to not come to the table, Harris waves the right to disavow knowing the consequences of ignoring the only movement in the US not interested the genocide of the Palestinian people (to be clear, the Democrats are an objectively pro genocide party, with minority elements of dissent).
So it's Harris's votes to lose. Its not like they are going to Trump, but it's an easy 0.5-1.5% of the electorate that she's leaving on the table.
This is just the same vibe-based reasoning but with sprinkles.
Firstly, was Biden unseated because of uncommitted? Or was he unseated because Democrat donors saw his poor performance during the debate and withdrew their support? Just because uncommitted exists, does not mean that they were effective.
Secondly, surely there's a non-zero number of people who support arming Israel. I freely admit that I haven't been following this conflict, but it doesn't seem much of an assumption to say that some votes would be lost if Kamala withdrew support for Israel. Would she lose more votes than she would gain? That certainly seems like a possibility.
Thirdly, withholding your vote, and convincing others to withhold theirs, is precisely what Russian and Chinese bot-farms want you to do. Well done.
There is no such thing as an "uncommitted voter" anymore. There are just voters who won't say they are committed because they are talking to someone they want something from. Come November, everyone will vote exactly as they would vote today, barring some extreme political tomfoolery, and honestly, even then, it probably won't change.
The only leverage you have as a voter is to not commit too early. Show that youre willing to support kamala no matter what, and she wont move an inch on her policies. But if polls show her starting o lag behind, regardless of how people will actually vote when push comes to shove, the maybe, just maybe, shell make some concessions, like not supporting genocide. All of these "never trump, blue no matter who, kamala girlboss power" voters are just throwing away the only chance you have to actually maybe sway things in a better direction.
Handing away that leverage is what was delivering Trump the election on a platter prior to removing Biden as candidate.
It was precisely the same argument they were making about Biden then, that there were not other options other than to blindly support Biden. That's it was get behind Biden or else.
They were wrong.
They were wildly, incomprehensiblely wrong. OPs, and all of blue magas calculus is so wildly wrong it shouldn't be dutifully ignored. Where it to be listened to, this election would have been over long ago im favor of Trump.
I'm actually not committed.
Its a weird way to feel but actually I'm not. I keep thinking I might just skip on voting on the president but then vote the rest of the way down ballot.
I dunno it truly seems to not matter and everyone says only local and smaller government roles matter so... I might just vote that way. I haven't decided yet. I don't feel great about Harris. I like Waltz though.
But hey now you can say you heard from one.
No point meeting them because what they want, the complete defunding of Israel, is a political impossibility.
They aren't going to listen to the reasons it's a political impossibility, so there's no point talking to them.
And here I thought they just wanted Israel to stop their genocide of Palestinians
Shit, I bet if they'd negotiated in good faith people would've been happy for them to just stop butchering the children. I'd personally be happy if they spares one child live for every one they choose to murder - but I'm just a bit more reasonable than most, I guess
@ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
You wanna stop believing everything a political party claims now?
To answer your question, no, I don't believe everything a political party says.
I had to go back to the post from 22 days ago to figure out who you even were. I recommended you read that comment section again, because our conversation was not the most memorable comment chain there. I had a conversation with an openly racist troll. I figured it had to be that user again, but your username and user icon didn't look right.
If the Uncommited Movement won't endorse Harris then they are making a mistake. There's still time for them to change their mind. What the Uncommitted Movement cited seemed to be ethical concerns. Moral reasoning cannot help us against fascism and genocide. We need to think in terms of utility. It is useful to endorse Harris because in a two party system either Harris or Trump will be elected. And Harris is the candidate that will do the least harm to the Palestinians. Where as Trump will allow Israel to complete its genocide.
Withholding votes and endorsements isn't a meaningful way to create change in our democracy. We need to push the Overton window to the left. We do this by both voting for the most viable progressive and/or socialist option in elections and advocating for progressive and/or socialist causes between elections. Allowing fascists to takeover our democracy and kill us in death camps to avoid personal ethical quandaries does nothing to further a progressive and/or socialist agenda.
Also, to be clear, we need a socialist agenda, but a lot of progressives probably haven't realized that yet. Regardless, a progressive majority would still be preferable over the current neoliberal majority. Any legitimate progressive movement is going to realize they will need to redistribute the owner class' wealth. Every reform a progressive enacts will be undermined by the wealthy who are incentivized to overturn our democracy to enrich themselves.
I'm not a Democrat. I have no interest in going to bat for the Democrats. I was referencing an article that had an interview with the Uncommited Movement's preferred speaker and speech. I'm going to advocate for strategies that I think are most the useful for achieving goals such as majority rule democracy, socialism, ending Israel's genocide, etc. So while Biden was the nominee I advocated voting for him. Now that Kamala is the nominee I advocate voting for her.
edit: Also, to be even more clear, Kamala is a neoliberal, but she is the closest we can get to a progressive this election.
That's smart, meeting with potential voters who still haven't pledged their vote yet is definitely a waste of time.
Fact remains, not voting is basically is half a vote for Trump, and Trump is going to be MUCH worse for the citizens of Gaza.
What is Biden doing which reduces harm?
He reduces harm by not doing whatever trump would be doing if he were elected last election.
He could be doing more to try and reduce harm or at least least to promote harm, but trump would have made it so much worse.
Just remember, trump could have been elected in 2020 and been in office the last few years instead while this was all going on. Does anyone think Palestine would be in a better position if that were the case?
Oh look, another totally real account (awesome name by the way. Makes it easy).
26 billion in harm
reduction.But it's fine, he's a Democrat. You are not legally allowed to criticize democrats.
You seem unaware of how bad the situation already is. I encourage you to search for news and reports from inside gaza. The fact that it could get worst highlight that they are already making deals and supporting an evil government. The only way it can get any better is if someone other than red and blue get in power.
Nobody other than red or blue is getting in power for the next 20 years or so at least. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you and the people you're voting to protect can be helped by your vote.
If it can't get any worse than you mine as well cross it out from your voting criteria. I assure you that come January either Trump or Harris is going to be president. Mine as well prioritize other issues such as Ukraine. Ukraine can and will get worse under Trump.
I’ve been following this for years and have worked for non-profit media watchdogs that publish underreported stories about this conflict.
I’m just in the camp of people who thinks it’s entirely possible for this to get even worse, and Trump is very cozy with Bibi.
Voting for Harris is voting for Harris. Voting for Trump is voting for Trump. Voting third party is voting for Trump. Not voting is voting for Trump. Eating spaghetti is voting for Trump. Why won't you just vote blue!?
Jesus, another one who doesn't know how to track cause and effect. There sure are a lot of you lil guys, hey! Like Tribbles, but not as cute.
Okay.
Let’s pretend you have 2 people that decide to not vote for candidate A or candidate B.
If candidate A has 50 votes and bad polices for Gaza, and candidate B has 51 votes and even worse policies for Gaza, then by sitting out, those two people have effectively allowed the worse option to win.
It’s just basic arithmetic.
What people mean when thwy say those things is: voting for anyone except Harris increases Trump's chances of winning compared to a Harris vote. This is trivially true.