As the title states I am confused on this matter. The way I see it, the USA has a two party system and in the next few weeks they’re either going to have Trump or Harris as president, come inauguration day. With this in mind doesn’t it make sense to vote for the person least likely to escalate the situation even more.

Giving your vote to an independent or worse not voting at all, just gives more of a chance for Trump to win the election and then who knows what crazy stuff he will allow, or encourage, Israel to get away with.

I really don’t get the logic. As sure nobody wants to vote for a party allowing these heinous crimes to be committed, but given you’re getting one of them shouldn’t you be voting for the one that will be the least horrible of the two.

Please don’t come at me with pro-Israeli rhetoric as this isn’t the post for that, I’m asking about why people would make such choices and I’m not up for debate on the Middle East, on this post, you can DM me for that.

Edit: Bedtime here now so will respond to incoming comments in the morning, love starting the day with an inbox full 😊.

Edit 2: This blew up, it’s a little overwhelming right now but I do intent on replying to everybody that took the time to comment. Just need to get in the right headspace.

    • Skua@kbin.earth
      97·
      28 days ago

      What will Trump escalate it to? Double genocide?

      Genuinely, have you read any of the man’s comments? He is criticising the Biden administration for being too harsh on Israel. To quote him: ““From the start, Harris has worked to tie Israel’s hand behind its back, demanding an immediate ceasefire, always demanding ceasefire”. However bad things currently are, Trump’s openly-stated position on that horrific situation is that Israel needs to go in harder.

        • Skua@kbin.earth
          87·
          28 days ago

          Do you usually treat what Trump says as gospel?

          In so far as it being a reflection of his intentions when otherwise entirely plausible? Yeah, sure. This isn’t him drawing on a hurricane map with a pen.

          “Genocide but sad” vs “Genocide and happy”, I’m not choosing Genocide period.

          Fifty thousand dead Palestinians is fifty thousand too many - or however many the real number is by now - but there are two million Palestinians in Gaza, and three million in the West Bank. Despite how bad it already is, this can still get so, so much worse.

          Your claim to not choose genocide is, in fact, a choice to let the rest of the country decide without your input. If Harris’ lukewarm opposition saves literally any Palestinian lives whatsoever relative to the alternative, that’s worth more than someone feeling smug about not voting. I don’t know about you, but I think that the most ethical choice, if you are voting solely on the matter of Palestine, is whichever option is materially best for actual Palestinians even if that option is still horrible

          you’re engaging in hypotheticals on it getting worse based off Trump’s words

          Are you suggesting it is not reasonable to judge a politician based on the things they say?

          But don’t worry, because I’m also judging him on his actions when he was president last time. Like pardoning American war criminals, massively increasing the amount of drone strikes conducted, assassinating an Iranian general, recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, attempting to extort Ukraine for his own political gains, and actively backing the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen. And as a reminder, even the Biden administration dropped support for that last one. He’s as belligerent as any American president and no hypotheticals are needed to demonstrate that. So when he says he wants Israel to do more in Gaza? Yeah I consider that a genuine and meaningful threat to the millions of Palestinians that haven’t been killed yet, and I will absolutely take Harris’ nothing response over that.

          So on what basis do you think that Trump is the preferable option?

          • coolusername
            10·
            27 days ago

            50k is not a true figure, it’s confirmed deaths. most are stuck in rubble and israel destroys all of their heavy machinery they have no way to dig up the bodies. and no, Harris nor Biden are holding Israel back. what a joke. I hope you’re a paid poster and not a real person because that’s a real dumb opinion. I don’t care if you read it in MSM and for some reason believe it. It was such a blatant attempt at damage control. If you’re a real person I recommend you get your news from sources such as the grayzone, mintpressnews, mondoweiss, the electronic intifada, etc

            • Skua@kbin.earth
              11·
              27 days ago

              I know 50k is the confirmed number, that’s why I specifically made an aside about the real number

              I’m not even saying Biden or Harris are holding Israel back. I’m saying Trump has openly stated that he wants to push Israel even further than it is already going.

              Considering you apparently didn’t read what I actually wrote and instead chose to insult me over something you made up, I’m hardly about to take your news recommendations. I’m even less inclined to do so when the first one is the Grayzone.

              • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
                3·
                27 days ago

                Hi i am a different person and just read thru your convo there. I wanna chime in and ask you a genuine question that hopefully you will think over.

                If right now as we speak Israel is being given unlimited material support for their genocide and actively killing as many Palestinians as they materially can (They only have so much bomb dropping capacity) No matter what Trump might say in what way do you think he would make it worse? Like what actual material steps would he take to kill more Palestinians? Because short of just nuking the Gaza strip over and over again(They wont do this since they want to take the land and Israel is too close anyway would be radiation issues) i struggle to see how he could. Especially considering the articles coming out recently about how the US is running out of surplus equipment to send Ukraine and Israel.

                • Skua@kbin.earth
                  1·
                  27 days ago

                  I think that despite the appalling amount of equipment already being sent to Israel, a country with the resources of America can absolutely send a fucktonne more if it chooses to. Or it could start actively bombing in its own right, like it did in Yemen.

                  • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
                    2·
                    27 days ago

                    Also if they start bombing on their own (maybe they already do we dont know. They do lie about these things) What does it really change? Different flag on the plane? Israelis use American equipment anyway and the pilots are probably American anyway since its an American Colony.

                  • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
                    1·
                    27 days ago

                    But the goal is already kill every palestinian and they are 100% behind that goal, and sending so many bombs that the defense department is expressing concerns about it effecting US readiness for other conflicts. So materially they are already approaching their limit to how many Palestinians they can kill in a given time frame. And even if they werent you cant really kill more than 100% of the Palestinians anyway.

                    Plus you could argue that it being a democrat doing it makes it easier for them to pull this off. Trump would be a lot less effective at international diplomacy in general and a big part of what America is doing for Israel is stopping other nations from intervening.

                • Skua@kbin.earth
                  11·
                  27 days ago

                  If Kamala isn’t stopping the genocide or even holding Israel back, how will Trump be worse? What could Trump possibly do that’s worse than genocide?

                  America absolutely has the capacity to supply far more equipment than it already is, and it has a track record of engaging in bombing campaigns in its own right in similar situations. Like in Yemen, under Trump. I do not want America to start bombing Palestine directly as well

                  “Finish the job” vs “finish the job faster”, either way the same result, genocide.

                  If they get to finish the job. The less quickly they can finish it, the more of a chance there is of Israeli and/or international public support turning against it enough to actually change it. The American election is not going to do that by itself because both realistic candidates are pro-Israel, so there is no point in making decisions that only work if they completely stop the genocide by voting or not voting.

                  You clearly also think that there is a chance of it being stopped since that’s your foundation for saying faster genocide is preferable. I don’t think your logic holds there, because I don’t see why a faster one would be likely to fail faster. On that basis, slower means fewer dead Palestinians.

                  It comes off as someone who doesn’t actually care about the issue and just wants to get their talking points out about why genocidal Trump is bad and genocidal Democrats are good.

                  Literally every point I made was explicitly rooted in what I believe will result in the fewest Palestinian deaths.

                  They most likely insulted you because they read what you wrote, the same reason I didn’t respond initially.

                  I accused them of not reading because they started off by trying to nitpick me by restating the exact same thing I pointed out literally in the same sentence.