I'm not required to want either.
"Either some Ukrainian soldiers die, or Putin takes over Ukraine, that's the reality"...
"Oh! So you want Ukrainian soldiers to die!"
Being prepared to risk something is not the same as actively promoting that thing. This is not up for debate, it's a basic fact.
you'll have to live with the consequences.
That's true of all decisions. You're advocating a single party autocracy. One whose opening policy is to support genocide. You'll have to live with the consequences of that decision too.
I want it to be whichever results from us attempting to preserve democracy.
Our nation has taken far, far bigger risks than 4 years of Trump to preserve democracy.
Determining something to be an acceptable risk is not the same as wanting it. Casualties are an acceptable risk of a just war. No one says people want soldiers to die.
I'm prepared to risk a Trump presidency to preserve some semblance of democracy and make it clear that genocide is never an acceptable option. That doesn't mean I want a Trump presidency any more than being prepared to risk soldier's lives during war means you want soldiers to die.
That's the same thing.
Your claim is that, come election time, we should always vote for the least worst party which has a chance of getting in. That's always the Democrats and always will be if we follow your system.
So the corollary of your system is that one party runs America for ever.
So why bother with elections at all?
And let's be clear here what you're advocating.
In the case that the Republicans are worse than the Democrats, people should vote Democrat and no other party.
The Republicans will always be worse than the Democrats.
Therefore, people should always vote Democrat in all cases and no other party.
That's exactly the Chinese totalitarian system. One party which you must vote for regardless of what you think of their policies.
Anyone who wants a different candidate in 2028 that supports their views needed to get really involved in 2020, at the latest.
They did.
Again, your blind faith that the system will work if only the people just tried harder is sycophantic at best, if not downright insulting.
And besides, you're the one imploring them to just vote without any regard to policy, so what exactly is "getting involved"?
Why would the Democrats listen to anything anyone says if they're guaranteed your vote come election day anyway?
What? A group of scientists can be pressured by government agencies to make a chemical sound safer than it is?
But, but, but... It's The Science™...
Thank goodness there was never anything shady going on at the NIH, or CDC during Covid, like them covering up funding for the lab that might have been responsible for the entire pandemic...
Thank goodness any question of The Science™ being influenced by government was tinfoil-hatwearing conspiracy theory, just at that specific moment.
The evidence is that if they don't vote for her then they're going to get Trump
Yes. That's right. And it's entirely Harris's fault. No one else's. She could change policy and earn their vote. She doesn't, and so hands the election to Trump.
Yet you're such a sycophant that instead of outrage at her, you're outraged at the voters whom you think somehow owe her a vote. You're outraged at the people practising democracy for not falling into line with the authoritarians trying to undermine it.
Harris will win more votes than she will lose if she changes policy on arms sales to Israel. That is what the evidence shows - overwhelming support for such a policy among previously Democrat voters and abstainers in key states.
Candidates changing policy to meet voter's expectations is exactly how democracy functions, even flawed ones like the US normally vaguely track voter preferences.
So if Harris changed policy she would not worsen her support, nor would she be doing anything other than her job.
The fact that she isn't will be the single fact responsible for a Trump win, if he wins. Nothing else. Every other person involved would have been acting accordingly, only the Harris team are out of line.
They are acting undemocratically, and probably illegally, backing a genocide. And you're defending them, and attacking the people supporting democracy and peace...
That group already endorsed her weeks ago
You mean with the statement...
Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/19/uncommitted-no-endorsement-harris-third-party-trump-00180002
Is that the one in which they endorsed her, the one ending "impossible for us to endorse her"?
I think that not really feeling it viscerally about it is part of the problem, yeah.
But my take, for what it's worh, is that ever since Covid people have just got a good feeling of righteousness by simply repeating the standard mainstream messaging. There was a very strong narrative that the mainstream was right and questioning it amounted to dangerous conspiracy theory (which, to be fair, it often did). So now a certain class of people (slightly left of centre, middle class urbanites) have this Pavlovian response to any questioning of the mainstream narrative, that they simply must repeat it because of that good feeling they got supporting it during Covid.
Unfortunately, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and a couple of coincidental conspiracy-bashings doesn't change the fact that the mainstream media are fundamentally bought and paid for by their corporate advertisers and CEOs of their hedge-fund owners on the board.
The American press's reporting on Gaza has been nothing short of actively complicit. And that's not even a rhetorical flourish, it's the view of no small number of international human rights lawyers.
This is beyond the pale. You must have checked off on all of your entitlements before you came to this realization. Because what you’re doing by “risking” genocide being normalised is potentially going to hurt a lot of people. Get over yourself and pay attention to what’s going here.
See how pointless conversation becomes if you just assume your interlocutor is mistaken without a case.
We might as well be in a school-yard yelling "no you are..."
If you think a Trump presidency risks more harm than normalising genocide and undermining democracy, then make the fucking case. This is a discussion forum. Discuss. What is your evidence, how have you weighed it, what critique can you offer of the case I've made... Give us something beyond childish bleating.