The cops are angry that Trump pardoned the Jan. 6 rioters as he promised he would.

Now Hispanic groups are angry that Trump is moving ahead with deportations without consulting them as he always intended not to.

What is next? Will women who voted for Trump be angry as they are reduced to second-class status as Trump has always done?

I mean, did everyone think Trump was kidding, that he was really NOT going to govern as a fascist?

Trump is to the U.S. what BREXIT was to the U.K.

I can't speak for others but that's really the opposite of what I'm saying. I think it's fine to vote for the lesser evil. Well - it's understandable.

It's the condemning those who cannot stomach voting for genocide which galls me.

@Dave_Goldsmith @gpilz @Thebratdragon

I could say by the way, as well, that the scope of my certainty is very narrow. I am pretty sure that conservatism and the innate selfishness which is intrinsic to it, are as close to definitionally 'evil' as that word allows. Genocide: definitely bad. Profit over environment - bad

Otherwise though, the various shades of 'let's really try to make the world a better place'? I try to pick my way carefully though them. Self doubt rules tho

@Dave_Goldsmith @gpilz @Thebratdragon

no person has any rights, legal, ethical or moral to chastise another for not supporting genocide. No matter what they think.

Yeah - I think so. I get that in the UK folks wanted the Tories out and in the US wanted to stop Trump.

But that does not = a moral imperative to vote for either Starmer or Kamala, even tho in practice they might be better than the alternative. I wait to see in Keir's case.

@lucybeahere @Dave_Goldsmith @gpilz

Not sure I would agree with your assessment of conservatism. Burkian conservatism or what I would call classical conservatism is not the closest thing to evil I can imagine like the way fascism is. Remember: Burke was an abolitionist. But what passes for conservatism in the US has effectively morphed into fascism.

The Dems are still a Liberal party while the Reps have abandoned Conservatism-- their ideology broke on the wheel of demographics, IMHO.

the condemnation of conservatism in such stark terms comes from the way it makes others’ suffering small. I’ve never met any conservative who didn’t blink and look away when faced with uncomfortable suffering - and that seems to be intrinsic to a conservative view of the world.

which is weird when you consider Republicans were originally the liberals and the radicals.

Magnetic poles reverse too.

true, although in america they did not reverse, they are now just right wing conservatives (dems) and even whiter wing conservatives (reps), with an odd handful of radicals outliers.

Reagan - was he a fascist? He was definitely conservative but hard to call him a fascist. And yet he did profoundly evil things - routinely

Again, so unfortunate that so many can’t comprehend that things can indeed get worse for the Palestinians. In an ideal world we would not be faced with such awful choices. But here we are.
https://gazette.com/news/us-world/white-house-makes-2-000-pound-bombs-available-to-israel-undoing-bidens-pause/article_9755474b-330c-53b3-be12-22d07c4cd8a9.html

I don't think this is about the inability to comprehend that there are gradations of evil in the world. I think this is at least in part the moral decision that some people take that they simply will not vote for ANY evil.

In other words sometimes the choices are so onerous they are impossible to make. If someone were to say "take this gun and kill one of your two children and if you don't kill one of them we will kill both", what would YOU do?

I already made the terrible choice, as endless people have done before me when voting (or choosing not to). Someone is going to get elected, and whether we vote or not, we are responsible for that result. I don’t know of a president that doesn’t have blood on his hands, that was a “pure” choice. Bc even the blessed Jimmy Carter had that burden to bear, ie funding and arming Indonesia and the genocide of East Timor.

all fine - but the bit I am seriously objecting to is Dems saying that your position (you have to vote for someone; not voting is still voting in fact) means you have to vote Dem and that not voting Dem is morally wrong.

And yet people want to get in my face about morality and tell me that voting for either party is wrong, so I’m going to keep showing them things like this, which was another lovely bit from yesterday. Voting does matter.
https://journa.host/@w7voa/113892118067024186

Not voting is always wrong. In this example, not voting for Democrats is selfish beyond words. Enjoy your emperor.

To quote Caitlin Johnston - "The only real solution to the trolley problem is to find and kill the prick who keeps tying people to trolley tracks and making people choose which ones die."

#caitlinjohnstone

Indeed. Like most Americans who refuse to choose between the lesser of two evils.

No Kobayashi Maru

I agree with you; Carter & E. Timor is a good example of your principal of imperfect leadership.

Where we differ is your contention that voting or not voting makes you equally responsible for the actions of the leader of your country, especially in the U.S. when the popular vote winner loses the election.

I don't beleive for a moment that the people who refused to vote in sham Russian elections, for example, are as responsible as Putin's supporters.

Russian elections truly are a sham. No one else can be elected except Putin. Here, we had a choice. Voting and not voting actually did affect the result. Which is why many people are so passionate about it, and why there is voter suppression and election interference. If it didn’t matter, no one would bother. Democracy is so valued that people attempt to run for office in
Russia, even knowing they can’t win and it will likely get them killed.

Yes here we have a choice. Usually it is a choice between two pro-capitalist, anti-environmentalists. I guess you think voting for the lesser of two evils is essential. I tend not to think that way and evidentally the majority of eligable voters agree with me. I think our elections are closer to Russian and Iranian on the "sham spectrum" than are the elections in true multi-party democracies like in Western Europe.

The majority of voters decided to vote. Because as we are already seeing, voting matters. It is not nearly as free and fair as it should be, but it’s not a sham. That’s why people are still voting, and putting up various ballot initiatives that also prove voting matters. States that have decriminalized marijuana and abortion, for a couple examples. Voting in the local elections as well. It’s so important. I can see why many get discouraged, but it all matters.

I believe the majority of eligible voters chose once again NOT to vote in 2024.

Yes, voting matters, just as your response or lack of response to ALL forms of coercion matters.

You think its wrong to abstain from voting because you think voting for the lesser evil is essential. Other people think acquiescing to any evil is immoral. I understand both perspectives and I don't tell people they are wrong either way they chose.

> The majority of voters decided to vote.

Trump picked up ¾ million more votes than what he had in 2020. Kamala lost ~10—11 million votes that previously went to Biden in 2020. Taking this math into account, 9+ million decided not to vote (which surprised me b/c voter reg surged when Kamala announced she was running).

The conversation here is fixated on Palestine. But it seems to be widely accepted that voters #1 issue was the economy. Kamala lost votes because people were not convinced that she would improve the price of eggs and oil (or whatever) over Biden.

Dems are lazy as fuck voters. But I am surprised that the threat of a Trump POTUS was not in itself intense motivation to vote. But it turns out selfishness prevailed and the *perception* that Trump would be better for jobs and inflation (the very same reason Hitler got elected… the nazi party was seen as being better for jobs).

@Dave_Goldsmith