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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by Kwakigra@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org
 

I voted for Biden in 2020. This was despite the fact that he is one of the main architects of modern American slavery through his crime bill which made the US the nation with the highest proportion of its own citizens imprisoned by far, who are quite literally slaves according to our constitution. This was despite him participating in the lies which caused us to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis in our pursuit of blowing up Halliburton’s stock value and taking control of large parts of the oil trade. This was despite his support of the neoliberal consensus which has lead to the deterioration of the economic, social, and physical health of the average American while the wealthiest’s share of the economy continues to grow meaninglessly. In fact, it was relatively easy for me to vote for Biden because the person he was running against was Trump who demonstrated worse tendencies on all of the above (while actually softening some prison laws, still fostered the increased social acceptability of acting according to blatant racism so I can’t even give him credit here) and more. According to my utilitarian principles, the evil choice I made was morally superior to the evil choice I did not make. Recent events have me re-considering this motivation.

To be clear, my opinion of Trump has not changed. Under Trump, I am sure I will be more likely to lose my loved ones or even my own life, although I am personally less at risk than his main targets. I am also sure that his influence would at least maintain if not increase the atrocities committed by the Likud-lead Isreali government with whom he has a strong relationship. Christian Nationalism is extraordinarily dangerous and if some of their desires are pushed through there’s really no telling the extent of future horrors we may have to deal with. If Project 2025 has a certain degree of success we may consider any pretense of democracy to be nullified. If I were only considering the immediate consequences of my decision, I would still support Genocide Joe.

I phrased that last sentence like that intentionally and it is the inspiration for this essay. The lesser of two evils in this case is now facilitating a genocide and I think that’s significant. In 2020 I didn’t think I had a red line which would cause me to allow a greater evil, and within the last few months I’m coming to find that I do have a red line I have to consider in and of itself and that line is genocide.

This is what I find particularly frustrating when I try to engage this topic in good faith, even among Biden supporters who are lucid about recognizing what is clearly happening before their eyes with their implicit support. Yes, they tell me, there is a lot they don’t like about Biden but he is the better choice. There is some equivalence implied here. Biden is guilty of a lot of things like union busting, failure to support a public option despite promises, the continuation of many unfair border policies, and oh yeah genocide too. I really want to emphasize that we are talking about the categorization and systematic elimination of a group of people from their homes which could not be happening as it is now happening without the economic and political support of the Biden administration. This is now among the issues we are telling Democrats we are ok with or not ok with via the use of the only political currency left to us being our votes.

“Vote Blue No Matter Who” is a phrase that made me sick the first time I heard it and I have only grown to detest it more, especially since I acted according to it it through my actions in 2020. Recently I realized that this is less of a call to action and more of a threat. More explicitly, this phrase can be understood as “Vote for our candidate or the Republicans will fuck you up.” We better pay up or they can’t be responsible for what happens to us. Like other organizations who make threats like this, by paying up we are supporting them in what they do even if it’s under duress. As long as their heavy, the Republican party, is out there fucking people up the Democrats have license do anything as long as it’s not as bad. The DNC made a hard right-wing shift with Clinton and have been moving right since then, just not as far as the Republicans have. This is where damage control has gotten us. Democrats have pushed through so many boundaries and now we’re at genocide. Now the promise is, “You better support our genocide, or the Republicans will make it worse and fuck you up too.”

What is going to happen if we tell the Democrats that even though they are facilitating a genocide, we’re still going to pay up? What is the message the DNC will read from that? What precedent is going to be set? Are we going to be safer now that genocide will be seen as something we can compromise on? Do we really believe that Trump is the worst threat they can make, or that the lesser of two evils couldn’t eventually be worse than Trump? Do we really think by making this compromise here, on top of all the compromises we’ve made over the last few decades, that after this time everything will suddenly change and we can start talking about making average peoples’ lives better for once?

I can’t responsibly ask these questions without recognizing that the threat is very real. I am not an accelerationist and I do not desire the further deterioration of our society in hopes of a positive outcome through violent revolution. I do not want to have to risk imprisonment and death to resist government persecution. I recognize that a breakdown of democracy and subsequent shift to political violence would only advantage those most equipped for and skilled in the use of violence, whose society of nails would be governed by hammers.

It seems to me that failing to support the Democrats this cycle puts us at greater immediate risk of the above, and that is shocking enough to bring most reasonable people under control. The thing is though, I think that by leaving genocide on the table for anyone across the Overton window of elected officials to consider as a socially acceptable tool is a far greater risk in the long term.

I think that by making genocide just another issue of managing how much we can tolerate among the two sides, making it something that is tolerable under some circumstances, or especially encouraging the thinking that the charge of genocide is conditional on the political expediency of it victims, we are ultimately normalizing the general idea that genocide is an acceptable tool for elected officials across our “political spectrum” of right wing and big tent(right wing, centrist, some left wing) to support or even employ in the worst case as long as they call it something else regardless of international law. If this is ok, what is the next boundary the Democrats will push? I want to stop digging the hole we’re in now, suffer the consequences, and deal with Democrats who at least understand they will not get elected if they facilitate genocide. Honestly I’d like one day to not have to make the least evil choice and have the opportunity to support something after the DNC primary, and it doesn’t seem like damage control is leading us in that direction at all but away from it.

In practical immediate terms, Trump is hated outside of his base and has demonstrated that his endorsement is poison to politicians who are not himself more often than not. He is dangerous, but inspires so much more opposition to himself and his ideas than any other candidate I can think of. I even think that Trump’s genocide is going to be received very differently than Biden’s genocide since Trump will be far less tactful and far more honest about his motivations. The worst case scenario is possible under Trump and I don’t think it’s ok to dismiss that, but it is by no means a guarantee that Trump is the one to lead average Americans into fascism. It is a fucking frightening risk allowing a greater evil through inaction, but I think it’s the actual least bad option this time.

I’m open to being challenged on or discuss anything I’ve said here in good faith. I’m also open to rage-induced teardowns of the ideas I’ve proposed here as long as those teardowns are against my ideas and not against me as a person or others who are sympathetic to these ideas. I understand that this is an extremely charged topic and would like to encourage honest conversation as long as it doesn’t bleed into abuse which won't help anyone.

Edit: Whew, that was some important discussion. I hope it was clear that my intention was to clarify my thinking and explore different perspectives on my argument rather than me judging others for coming to different conclusions or trying to convince everyone I am sure I am absolutely correct. Importantly, I realized this entire argument is secondary. What is important now is direct action. Depending on the degree of success we have with disrupting this sick order, this whole conversation could become moot and that is my strongest desire. See y'all on the street.

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[–] renard_roux@beehaw.org 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Are you not confusing "some politics I don't agree with are being represented" with "none of the politics I agree with are being represented"? Granted, I don't know what your politics are, but you're clearly not a trump fan. I'm having a difficult time imagining a political leaning that has zero overlap with Bidens politics.

I'm having a hard time with this whole thread. Yes, it's a shitty choice, but that doesn't make it any less the only choice. It's not like a trump victory "nudges the country further towards a fascist state". He, and his followers, have made it quite clear that the immediate goal is full-on fascism.

If wouldn't be terribly surprised if this was a spoiler campaign, honestly, but even in the more likely event that it isn't, the results are nearly indistinguishable. It does a great job of ~~sewing~~ sowing doubt and spreading fatalism/doomerism. Does anyone seriously think we're comparing apples to apples here?

  • Biden is not fantastic. Agreed.

  • The glaring psychopathy of the right makes it easier for the Democrats to also shift right. Looks like it.

  • Biden is bad, so the alternative can be ignored. Uhm, what?

  • Withholding my vote for Biden will teach the Democrats a lesson, and it's not like I'm voting for trump or anything. You're going to get us all killed.

I think the implication above is that the person with the most votes wins; by not adding your vote to pile A, there are fewer votes for pile B to beat.

Again, it's not a great set of options, but how can anyone who is even remotely sane consider furthering the risk of trump winning to prove a point? If he wins, will there even be any more elections? Who are you proving the point to?

It's been 4 years since trump left office. 4 measly years. How such large swathes of the country seem to have collectively forgotten how utterly insane, deadly, and brazenly corrupt that whole shit-show was is completely beyond me.

None of the American presidents are great. Not one of them. Every single one of them has blood on their hands. None of this is new. At least people are waking up now, even if it's too late. There's a great shift towards unions. Attempts at making healthcare less horrible. An actual debate about student loans. About minimum wage. About housing. Will it all be fixed under the Democrats? Unlikely. Will it all be actively and aggressively fought by trump and the fascist right he represents? Guaranteed.

Want to make a difference? Fight it all with every fiber if your being. Join movements, unionize, support better candidates. Helping trump does not help anyone, and all but guarantees that the already rickety societal framework that lets you even have a dissenting opinion will be torn down in the blink of an eye.

Foil the fascist autocrat first. Then spend the next 4 years making your point clear to the democrats. Find better ways to try to steer the country away from its race to the right. There are many good suggestions on this thread as to how. None of them are "don't vote for Biden".

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago

Are you not confusing “some politics I don’t agree with are being represented” with “none of the politics I agree with are being represented”?

I think you are confusing individual beliefs on particular subjects with "politics". No, Biden does not support my political beliefs. The most fundamental positions he holds (pro-government, pro-capitalism, pro-imperialism, pro-American-exceptionalism, pro-settler-colonialism) are anathema to my fundamental beliefs. Literally any person out there (Trump included) will hold some stance you agree with. If you have accepted the idea that our responsibility as voters is just to line up a list of individual pros and cons of specific stances to determine our votes, and that the actual political beliefs of the candidates are not up for consideration, then you've already accepted that you don't have any real influence over politics. You're picking the person, not the politics.

It’s not like a trump victory “nudges the country further towards a fascist state”. He, and his followers, have made it quite clear that the immediate goal is full-on fascism.

And yet no one in the Democratic Party- or certainly in the White House- is acting like this is true. If Trump is actually planning a coup or an authoritarian takeover, Biden should be removing him through other means, as protecting the US from threats (foreign and domestic) is part of his job. You can't vote your way out of a coup. Instead, we as individual voters are being set up as the patsies for the fascist takeover, when we can't turn the functional duopoly we have into a functional single-party state (by only ever voting for one party), and Republicans inevitably get into power again at some point.

Then spend the next 4 years making your point clear to the democrats.

How do you think we just spent the last 4? Or the 4 before that, after the DNC put Trump in office? Why is it that the next 4 are going to be the ones that matter?

Why are you assuming that next election will not also see the imperative levied at us to "foil the fascist autocrat"? DeSantis or Ramaswamy could both easily have that levied against them as well.

Find better ways to try to steer the country away from its race to the right.

You and several others seem to be operating under the mistaken assumption that my not voting for a president means that I don't engage in other political activities.

None of them are “don’t vote for Biden”.

My argument was never that not voting for Biden steers us away from the Right. My argument is that voting for him also does not. In fact, voting for him is steering us further Rightward. That's the whole goddamn problem.

Voting for him means voting for someone who advocates for more police, more racist border control policies, more bombs for genociders.

"But he forgave a nominal amount of student loans tho!"