The “Uncommitted” movement seeking a change in the Democratic Party’s approach to the war in Gaza on Thursday announced it is not ready to support Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — while urging voters not to back Republican nominee Donald Trump or third-party candidates who could help Trump win the November election.
The “Uncommitted” group “opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” the statement continues. Additionally, the group is “not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.”
mid terms are a pretty common swing point for an unpopular candidate. Between the late term push for legislation to increase the chances of re-election, and the initial push after getting into office to appease the voter base, the midterms are the biggest impact in a governmental term. Plus further down ballot votes can harm the institution as well.
regardless, even ignoring this, if you don’t think this is going to help. It’s going to be a net positive over somebody like trump winning, so it’s basically what you’re left with here if this problem is so important to you.
no this is “you have to give them your vote, and only vote, in the hopes that you can push them later down the lines, to be more useful to your ideals. And considering that the other option is going to be worse, might as well try for this one”
protests over what? I haven’t heard about any, but i guess i also haven’t been paying much attention. Unless you mean the vote protest, in which case nobody cares. It’s not going to be a significant percent of the voter base anyway.
Oh, ok. So when mid terms come around, and Kamala’s done nothing I want, then you’ll be fine with me withholding my vote, right? Or are you going to be telling me the exact same thing you’re telling me now? If you’re genuinely alright with me withholding my vote during the midterms, what’s the difference between then and now?
How? What method do you expect me to use to push her? And why should I have any confidence in that method working when it’s not working during an election year, when she most needs people’s votes and support?
There was a major wave of campus protests this year over the genocide in Gaza, all over the country.
Again, you just want me to give them everything they want while asking nothing in return and you’re trying to pretend otherwise without offering any sort of coherent strategy. If that’s not what’s happening, walk me through what you expect me to do and when.
yeah no fucking go for it. Do whatever the fuck you want, you can even do it now if you feel like it. Especially if you’re protest voting for that specific issue, i think that would be a warranted mid term activity to partake it. I mean i might make fun of you for grenading the ability of the government to solve problems, but that’s something we’re both going to do anyway lmao. That parts free real estate.
The difference between then and now, is that voting now has the substantial potential to prevent trump from being elected which is obviously going to have very negative consequences in this case. Whereas not voting in the midterms, or even changing your vote in the mid terms is going to have a much less significant effect as it’s only really going to slow/lessen the ability for the federal government to create and push legislation, although probably specifically with the IP thing. Depends on how that goes.
the same way you’re doing it now, just then, signal discontent over certain policy. There’s no reason to have any confidence in anything, but in this case it’s just basic strategic leverage. If kamala losses, and trump wins, it wasn’t your fault, and you didn’t have anything to do with it. If kamala wins, and you don’t get the IP thing you wanted, then you at least didn’t get trump, and you had your part in that. And if kamala wins, and you do get the thing you want, then obviously you’re going to get most of everything that you wanted.
As opposed to the current line of thinking where you’re more likely to put trump into office, or if kamala wins, do nothing midterms because you’ve stopped caring by that point. Or maybe you would, but that would be up to chance more than anything.
We take the wins we can get, and we line ourselves up to get the best shots that we can, that’s the name of the game.
i know there have been a large number throughout the year, i’m curious about the last 3 or so specifically. Or have those pretty much died down. I know they were all over the place for a few months a while back though.
i mean you can view it like that, i guess, but ultimately that’s not really how it works, politics is mostly a take game for the civilian. We don’t really give them much, aside from tax dollars, but they give us legislation and policies that reflect our ideals. If your ideals don’t match at all you’ve either got a failure of ideals, or a failure of government, which one probably depends on which one is at a larger scale.
as for the last bit, see previous.
That analysis makes no sense on multiple levels. First of all, since I don’t live in a swing state, my downballot/midterm votes are far more important than my vote for president. Second, if my vote for president was so important, that would be all the more reason for me to use it as leverage. Third, the fundamental dynamics are the same for downballot races as the race for president, there is nothing unique about the presidential race that would mean I should treat it differently. If withholding a vote is an effective strategy downballot, then it is an effective strategy in the presidential race. And if the risk of Trump getting elected is too great to employ that strategy in the presidential race, then the risk of another Republican getting elected downballot should be a deterrent too. Lastly, there is virtually no chance that Kamala could be pressured to change her position during the midterms when she herself is not up for reelection.
The only way I can make any sense of your logic is if Trump is uniquely horrible compared to other Republicans, and I don’t really consider that to be the case.
Well, let’s see. For the past 20 years, my entire adult life, my ideals have been saying that we should stop slaughtering people in the middle east. In that time, the democrats ran Kerry, a hawk, Obama, a hawk, Clinton, a hawk, Biden, a hawk, and now Harris, a hawk. The result of that was nearly a million people dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, some more in other countries like Yemen, and now more and at a faster rate than ever in Palestine. And what exactly do they have to show for any of it in terms of making people’s lives better? I think it’s pretty clear which side the failure is on.