Gazza M hes a dangerous anti-vax lunatic, which i think is mostly why hes been shunned by dems. he was going to pull way more votes from trump than from harris, so i think him staying on the ballot in battleground states would have def hurt trump way more

    Big Willie Only way choosing to not vote will somehow work out with any result other than with one of the two in charge is if enough people choose not to vote that it forces electoral reform.

    As you've pointed out, the unravelling of the political class is happening across Europe and arguably across the world with a few exceptions so electoral reform is a nice to have but not likely to lead to a dramatic difference in outcomes all else being equal.

      Qwiss I feel what you're saying, but even you must see how naive/impractical your stance is. If you follow it to the next logical step which is you don't vote for either, guess what? Genocide still happens. And so whether you're American or not, genocide is happening on your watch. And since you, sitting over there, pontificating are not doing anything about it, or can't do anything about it, you're similarly responsible.

        mdgoonah41 I would like more people to withhold their vote from the democrats until it becomes too costly for them to keep supporting Israel. If you follow the "blue no matter who" line they'll never change. If an ongoing genocide can't motivate people to take a stand I'm not sure anything will.

        Gazza M can't hate people for voting their interests.

        Republicans vote in their interests too. Tories vote in their interests. That excuse only goes so far.

              Qwiss this is a big misunderstanding of American empire and global militarism. America is not going to stop supporting Israel. And Americans have a very different view of the world from people outside. There are so many facets of American life that deeply tied to empire including the role of military, propaganda, and Israel plays an important role in Middle Eastern positioning. So neither party will abandon Israel.
              Withholding votes for this purpose will be a marginal exercise that could only benefit republicans.

                  Claudius No one is expecting the US to cut ties with Israel or to threaten them militarily but if Reagan was able to call Menachem Begin and stop bombing in Beirut in 82 then Biden/Harris can do the same now. Thats not a big ask.

                    Qwiss okay, i follow this, but the problem is that if dems are a 3/10 on the sympathy scale for palestinians/muslims, republicans are a -10 out of 10. trump will make the crisis in the middle east 10 times worse. he loves netanyahu and will let him do whatever he wants. most congressional republicans are in lock step with trump on israel, them accumulating more power is not going to help gaza or the palestinians at all

                    there is a pretty big gap between how biden feels about israel/palestine and how harris feels, imo. from what ive read, shes been pushing behind the scenes to try and get biden to move faster and push harder on israel and get the cease fire agreed to. some of that is opportunism because it will help her campaign, no doubt, but biden is a lot closer to the right on israel than most of the democratic party

                        mdgoonah41

                        You can bet that Netanyahu will be praying Trump and the Republicans get in, and that tells you all you need to know.

                        Biden has been awful on this issue, incredibly weak, and I could semi-understand if someone felt like a protest vote was necessary. Harris at least offers some hope of taking a tougher stance just by being someone different. Unfortunately that’s all we have right now, and Palestinians don’t really have the luxury of waiting 5+ years to see what impact (likely nothing positive), a protest vote will have on their fortunes.

                          Trump doesn't like Netanyahu personally. Thats well documented but he'll still give Israel his full throated support. Just like Biden does now, apparently also dislikes Bibi. And Kamala will be the exact same as genocide Joe.

                          no US president likes him because he constantly throws it in their face that all he has to do is make a call to AIPAC and both sides of congress will be voting unanimously to condemn you.

                          mdgoonah41
                          This man is worth billions, yet here we are. His greed innovation knows no bounds.

                            i think trump's wealth is mostly a ponzi scheme. the trump family is basically the bluths from arrested development

                            I love it how Trump always says "people are calling it...." when we all know that "people" just means him and his closest lickspittles

                            Real billionaires don’t spend their time selling stuff like this. He’s like all those guys on YouTube selling millionaire seminars.

                            Claudius On that note, I was at a Massive Attack gig on Sunday night. One of the features of their live show for the last 20 years is to give you information you wouldn't necessarily get from the mainstream media (who are too busy telling you about Katie Price latest indiscretion, or whatever).

                            During Safe From Harm they flashed up a stat -a $ figure of US aid to Israel since 1948. I think it got to something like 90 million and the figure became so overwhelming it was hard to keep track of so I looked away for a second or two. I went back to it seconds later and it kept running and running and running... I couldn't even comprehend what the the total was by the time the counter stopped but, having had a look online, it's around 318 billion dollars.

                            That's an insane amount of money given to a a country who have been terrorising Palestinians for, well, forever now.

                                RocktheCasbah I’m still so proud of South Africa for standing up against these criminals at the ICC. I just wish a few more powerful countries were similarly against them.

                                  8 days later

                                  deprogramming this Cult might take a generation

                                  • est replied to this.