Activists from around the country told The Intercept that they will advocate for an anti-war agenda at the convention in August and withhold their vote in November unless an adequate candidate steps up, listing policy priorities such as support for a permanent ceasefire and standing up to the pro-Israel lobby as it intervenes in Democratic primaries. Even as the Biden campaign insists that he will not step aside, many Democrats appear to be lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative candidate, with some Democratic governors being floated as well.

“My number one criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza,” said Saad Farooq, an uncommitted voter in Massachusetts. Farooq said it was unlikely that the Democratic National Committee would select any candidate who took a stance against Israel’s ongoing war, and that he would support Green Party candidate Jill Stein if she were to appear on the ballot in Massachusetts.

Will Dawson, an uncommitted voter in Washington, D.C., named several factors that could get him to switch his vote from the Green Party’s Stein to another politician. First on his list is a promise to call for an immediate ceasefire and fighting the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Congress.

“This candidate would also ideally work toward pulling further away from the Israeli colonial project over time, with the goal being repealing our absurd financial support, ending the foreign interest agency of AIPAC, and pushing for a nation-wide boycott a la [South Africa] during their apartheid,” Dawson wrote.

The candidate would also have to push to reform the Supreme Court, he added. “The candidate would have to promise to both push for justice impeachment, and expand the courts,” Dawson said.“If a replacement candidate met both of these requirements, I would absolutely consider switching my vote from Jill Stein. Hell, I might even knock doors/canvass for them!”

  • SkyNTP
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    4 days ago

    Gaza is not on the ballot. Democracy is. End of discussion.

    Gonna be a whole lot of Pikachu face on progressive faces.

    • IndustryStandard@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 days ago

      Those progressive votes might come in handy. But if Democrats don’t want to put it on the ballot they must be very confident in their victory.

      • knightly@pawb.social
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        3 days ago

        Of course they are. Threads like these are full of die-hard blue party voters who refuse to hear any criticism.

      • jumjummy@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Those “progressives” are either Republicans under a different flag, or complete morons who won’t vote Biden when the choice is Biden or Trump.

        Come November, if the choice is Biden or Trump, anyone not voting for Biden is helping Trump. Plain and simple.

    • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      The supreme court reform is also not on the ballot. Then what is?

      Republicans have their electorate getting the pages of project 2025 all sticky. What do democrats have? Another four years of kicking the can? Same promises as the last time but this time for real?

      • knightly@pawb.social
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        3 days ago

        Nah, the DNC went back to the 2016 playbook. It’s “His Turn” now and nothing is going to convince them otherwise. There aren’t even any promises, just the demand for our votes and the automatic assumption that anyone who isn’t a Biden stan is either a Trump stan or a Russian bot.

        • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Yes I can see why you’d think they haven’t talked about policies at all, not paying any attention at all to anything must make it seem like that.