Asklemmy

Losing the election is the only kind of accountability Harris and the Democrats are likely to face for their part in the genocide. Otherwise, what incentive is there for either party to ever oppose it? What message would Americans be sending to the world that we would keep in office someone who's been actively supporting a genocide?

They already lived through 4 years of Trump and have decided it is worth doing it again instead of letting the party most currently responsible for said genocide to win.

Point being that Harris has outright refused to meet any sort of demands on Israel. There was no reduction in arms nor any restrictions placed on Israel, and Harris fully intends to continue that policy.

If she loses, it means that she failed to meet her constituents demands, which means they'd have to actually meet them in the next election to win.

Also because I have a hard time seeing how anyone who lost entire family trees would listen to "uM AkShuLly TrUmP woUld bE 9999x WorSe, wE jUst NeEd tO ProTest aFTER tHe ELeCTion" as if we didn't just full send billions of dollars in munitions and weapons to Israel.

In my situation, I'm in a solid blue state so I'm voting for a third party to push the country to the left.

To push her to change her stance... you only own your vote. That's the only leverage. She is the reason they aren't voting for her.

it's like people forget that trump was already president before. the Israel/Palestine conflict is not new. i'm pretty sure every US president since Israel was founded has supported Israel in every form the conflict has taken. there's more gas on the fire now, but it's not like trump wasn't stoking the flames when he was president last time, and it's weird to think he wouldn't actually contine the bipartisan US policy of providing material aid to Israel, regardless of what fucked up shit they do.

both candidates will support genocide, so at that point you can either not vote, and just let the chips fall where they may, vote for a third party candidate who won't support genocide (because they won't get elected), or choose between the two genocidal options based on other factors, and try and minimize the damage in other arenas.

Your vote is your consent.

Imagine for a minute that your perfect political candidate was running. The only catch is that if they win they are promising to personally execute your family in front of you. The other guy is gonna kill your family too so everyone tells you to stop being such a single issue voter and vote for the lesser evil.

Do you still vote for them? Or do you refuse to participate in the execution of your family?

Electoral College with First Past The Post electors. Hundreds of millions of american votes are dumpstered for the presidential election. So a significant portion of protest voters in deep red OR deep blue states aren't impacting the outcome. Only swing states decide the outcome and even then it is only a few districts within those states. And so the electoral outcome for the presidency gets reduced to the most salient wedge issues in those communities.

It just so happens some things are not so localized an issue. So the idea (or one of them) is to demonstrate whether there is a meaningful voting bloc to be had here that deserves to be listened to, or can continue to be ignored.

I think something that contributes to people talking past each other here is a difference in belief in how necessary/desirable revolution/overthrow of the U.S government is. Like many of the people who I've talked to online, who advocate not voting and are also highly engaged, believe in revolution as the necessary alternative. Which does make sense. It's hard to believe that the system is fundamentally genocidal and not worth working within (by voting for the lesser evil) without also believing that the solution is to overthrow that system.

And in that case, we're discussing the wrong thing. Like the question isn't whether you should vote or not . it's whether the system is worth preserving (and of course what do you do to change it. How much violence in a revolution is necessary/acceptable). Like if you believe it is worth preserving, then clearly you should vote. And if you believe it isn't, there's stronger case for not voting and instead working on a revolution.

Does anyone here believe that revolution isn't necessary and also that voting for the lesser isn't necessary?

The opposite is more plausible to me: believing in the necessity of revolution while also voting

Personally I believe that revolution or its attempt is unlikely to effective and voting+activism is more effective, and also requires agreement from fewer people in order to progress on its goals. Tragically, this likely means that thousands more people will be murdered, but I don't know what can actually be effective at stopping that.

US Elections are decided when they do redistricting and manipulate the voting districts to ensure the results they want and isn't a real democracy. The US is run by oligarchs who run their enterprise corporations and the power is concentrated there, not in the government.