• PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 days ago

      But the moral prohibition on siding with any administration that endorses genocide will force a different flavor of the exact same logic that centrist liberalism has depended on for so long: hold your nose and align with the least worst thing. Only the least worst thing will no longer be the mild, ethics-agnostic emptiness of modern Western liberalism, nor will it be the multitude of barbaric authoritarians and their secret prisons. It will be communal solidarity, or else nothing, a walking away from all of this. Countless otherwise pragmatic people who would in any other circumstance choose liberalism by default will instead decide none of this is worth the damage to one’s soul. They will instead support no one, vote for no one, wash their hands of any ordering of the world that results in choices no better than this. And the obvious centrist refrain—But do you want the deranged right wing to win?—should, after even a moment of self-reflection, yield to a far more important question: How empty does your message have to be for a deranged right wing to even have a chance of winning? Of all the epitaphs that may one day be written on the gravestone of Western liberalism, the most damning is this: Faced off against a nihilistic, endlessly cruel manifestation of conservatism, and somehow managed to make it close.

      — Omar El-Akkad, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, correction mine

      • Natanael@infosec.pub
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        2 days ago

        That argument works when the difference is small.

        That argument doesn’t work when one option is a cataclysmic disaster

        But most importantly - when you look at what policies that Trump voters said they voted for, you could divide that into a fraction of voters voting for evil (plain stupid racists), and a large fraction voting for something positive which they had been told Trump would deliver - yet which he was objectively worse at. Most people voted Trump for the economy while told he was a great businessman, or for healthcare while told he’d make health insurance more affordable (but now he made it less), etc…

        Almost every positive impact in the last decades that his voters attributed to him was delivered by his opposition.

        This wasn’t an election lost to attrition. Your quote explains nothing about what happened.

        There was more votes than ever. It was lost to propaganda and people being idiots, not seeing through the fraud. Trump’s policies lost every poll when names were taken off. Everything he wanted to do kept being rejected. But the propaganda machine made people distrust the people who delivered all the things they said they were grateful for, and to trust the liar instead.

        • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 days ago

          Implying that a Harris/second Biden administration wouldn’t be a cataclysmic disaster

          Implying that any outcome where AmeriKKKa continues to exist and destroy our world wouldn’t be a cataclysmic disaster

          • Natanael@infosec.pub
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            2 days ago

            If you can not understand a difference in scale then your school years was a cataclysmic disaster

            • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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              2 days ago

              Maybe they went to an Arkansas school, or any other american one that teaches people to only support the terrible system.

              But hey! You voted right so you can be smug and its only fair you get to point your impotent rage at those who did not vote the way you did. And next time when the two parties are both somehow worse you can once again vote for the lesser evil!

    • mang0@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      Republican voters voted for this. Non-voters didn’t vote, hence the name. I can’t believe I have to tell you this. Even if there wasn’t a single non-voter, nothing would’ve changed. Try directing your douchebag attitude towards those who are actually responsible.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I agree that saying “non-voters voted for” anything is basically absurd, but people sitting on the couch rather than voting did affect the outcome of the 2024 election. A bit over three million fewer people voted in 2024 than 2020.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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          2 days ago

          Yes, the second and first most voted elections in your nations history. Clearly it is the small number of voters that are not supportive of the only two options at fault.

          Managed democracy is meant to be a joke, but the real joke is the attitude on display from americans that somehow still think they live in a democracy.

      • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Non voters voted for this by virtue of being too stupid to know how our system works. They deserve responsibility.

      • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Every non-voter was fine with this outcome because they couldn’t sack up and make the less bad choice. If you see a car coming towards a child in the road and do nothing you are still partly responsible if they get hit. They allowed it to happen through their inaction.

        • Zorque@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Responsibility for someone else’s vote?

          All the people making excuses for why their vote clearly didn’t matter so they were better off not voting obviously aren’t making excuses themselves. That would be silly!

      • someguy3@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Republicans by and large know what they voted for. Protest-non-voters need to be informed what they in fact voted for, as you demonstrate.

        Ah yes see you’re looking to assign responsiblity. Again, I am informing protest-non-voters what they voted for.

    • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      There’s been polling analysis that showed if you forced everyone to vote then Harris would have lost to Trump by an even bigger margin due to the unpopularity of the administration at the time. Nonvoters didn’t make a difference. Michigan was won by Trump by a bigger margin than all college students or Arabs or Muslims or any other minority group in the state.

      • someguy3@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I think you’re trying to assign blame. Again, I am informing non-protest-voters what they voted for.