Summary
In an emotional monologue, John Oliver urged undecided and reluctant voters to support Kamala Harris, emphasizing her policies on Medicare, reproductive rights, and poverty reduction.
Addressing frustrations over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, he acknowledged the struggle for many voters yet cited voices like Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, who supports Harris despite reservations.
Oliver warned of the lasting consequences of a second Trump term, including potential Supreme Court shifts.
Oliver said voting for Harris would mean the world could laugh at this past week’s photo of an orange, gaping-mouthed Trump in a fluorescent vest and allow Americans to carry on with life without worrying about what he might do next.
There needs to be a proper primary system. This choosing the candidate months in advance of the convention by some sort of fiat, no discussion of policies that candidate endorses, then having an eleven month campaign is fucking ridiculous.
If nominees have to get up, espouse their willingness or not to commit genocide in the name of middle east oil interests, and then maybe pay a price for that by not being nominated, might have brought all this to a different end. The DNC’s certainty that they know what’s right for the people that support the Democrats is the reason Trump even got a first term, let alone why this race is a nailbiter.
Their fucking arrogance and complete lack of awareness outside the oligarchic bubble they inhabit needs to have some consequences if Harris doesn’t pull their pickles out of the garbage disposal and then perhaps lay back on the brown-child-murder-endorsement thing.
Passions are too high right now; say the same thing after Harris wins and maybe people will hear you. It’s like how everyone was on board with freedoms lost during the Bush-era (after 9/11). Years later we wonder wtf happened.
So wait till it’s too late and be blamed for being against the obvious issues and path of pain we are on? As if our statements and warnings are what made them true instead of a desperate plea from clearer exterior perspectives?
Cause that makes it seem inevitable and that the oracle Cassandra is not a fluke but a constant of humanity to have the prophetic ignored and hurt for it.
I thought it was touching where he discussed his worries about using his last opportunity to speak before the election, and that he could be left wondering if there was something else that he could have said to change the outcome if it ends up going bad. I imagine there has to be a good bit of pressure when you have such a large platform.
For a show that points out so many wrongs with our country, it’s easy to look at things negatively. But for now, at least, we are able to point out those wrongs and still have a hope we can do something about them. Not even 5 years a citizen, I imagine it could be scary as well that if a re-elected Trump goes for a type of “media reform,” Oliver is likely going to be high on the list of people to be looked at.
I hope tomorrow goes well for America. I’ve been disappointed the last few elections that the comedians have been more critical than the mainstream journalists, but right now, I’m glad we’ve had them if nothing else, motivating us to still be our best.
Ukraine went and elected one of those TV comedians, and, while imperfect, he’s been a pretty inspiring leader over the past few years.
I had him in my mind writing my original comment. I don’t know much about him before the war, but he seems to be doing admirable if anyone had concerns at his election.
It’s fun to turn back the clock and read old news:
“I will never let you down,” Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.
Russia says it wants him to show “sound judgement”, “honesty” and “pragmatism” so that relations can improve. Russia backs separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Mr Poroshenko, who admitted defeat after the first exit polls were published, has said he will not be leaving politics.
He told voters that Mr Zelensky, 41, was too inexperienced to stand up to Russia effectively.
Mr Zelensky starred in the long-running satirical drama Servant of the People in which his character accidentally becomes Ukraine’s president.
He plays a teacher who is elected after his expletive-laden rant about corruption goes viral on social media.
He ran under a political party with the same name as his show.
With no previous political experience, Mr Zelensky’s campaign focused on his difference to the other candidates rather than on any concrete policy ideas.
NPR: Comedian Wins Ukrainian Presidency In Landslide 22 APR 2019
“What’s amazing is that despite Zelenskiy being a household name, people don’t really know what he stands for,” NPR’s Moscow correspondent Lucian Kim told Morning Edition. “During the election campaign, he was very vague about his positions, and in that way he really became a blank slate for people to project whatever they wanted on him.” The fact that voters chose Zelenskiy shows how desperate people are, Kim said.
But Ukraine’s outgoing president cautioned that the Kremlin is celebrating the election of an inexperienced candidate. Russia believes that “Ukraine could be quickly returned to Russia’s orbit of influence,” Poroshenko said on Twitter.
According to The New York Times, many voters said they had supported Zelenskiy “not so much because they thought he was a good candidate but because they wanted to punish Mr. Poroshenko for deflating the hopes raised by Ukraine’s 2014 revolution and for doing little to combat corruption.”
The Washington Post notes that Zelenskiy is just the latest comedian to win public office in elections around the world. In Guatemala, the former comic actor Jimmy Morales won the presidency on an anti-corruption platform with the slogan, “Not corrupt, not a thief.” In Iceland, comedian Jón Gnarr ran for mayor as a joke candidate and won, serving one term before he stepped down in 2014. And in the U.S., Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken became a senator from Minnesota.
Maybe laughter and self-reflection is what the world needs right now. The comedians seem to be picking things up when everyone else is dropping the ball.
Comedian just means empathetic person with enough sadness about the topic to make it funny to make it easier to talk about.
It’s why conservative comedians don’t often work cause their comedy is not aimed at being relatable but about how much it pisses someone else off.
Great.Fucking.Speech.
I expect sales of that shirt to go through the roof now.
maybe he should tell kamala how important it is and to do everything possible to gain voters.
https://psychology-spot.com/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/?origin=serp_auto
Doing anything else other than voting for Harris in this regard is firmly in the stupid category. Trump would be worse in this regard. You are not only hurting yourself but others as well.
Stupid people really don’t like being called stupid, and in my experience, will be stupid harder just to show you… Something!
Lost cause anyway then. Fuck them.
fun fact: we’re more likely to fuck you for not behaving like decent human beings. 🤷 you live here too. next time learn to think less politically and more doing whats morally correct. its far easier and the outcomes tend to be better.
If doing what’s morally correct is what you were doing, you wouldn’t have to take offense at my comment. Stupid ass reply.
i didn’t take offense. I just find you pathetic. 🤷
i live in a solidy blue state and voting third party so my vote could never support trump in any way thanks to the same electoral college that’s helping trump to win; i’m using the system against itself as you should too whenever you have the chance.
i’m also sure that my ancestors would agree with me that being party to re-legitimizing genocide as acceptable political collateral damage and at the hands of the same system & people that genocided them out of existence in this country is a bad idea.
What are you trying to accomplish by posting this stuff? What are you actually accomplishing by posting this stuff?
experience has taught me that you can’t change people’s minds on anything and i don’t think you can accomplish anything in this system unless you have enough money or sufficient collectivism to affect change.
i’m old enough and am member to enough vulnerable minority groups to have experienced a few forms of enshitification and i’m sharing my experience because i can see it happening to both the lemmyverse and this country; if there’s anything that can be accomplished by my efforts it would be the this.
My my, the display of privilege and ignorance. Especially predictable from an ML domain.
Then you should find someone in a swing state to vote swap with to get Harris a vote where it matters and keep Trump out.
i saw that and i’m wondering how i can leverage it; it’s a FANTASTIC idea!
“Trump couldn’t possibly win anyway, so I’m going to make a protest vote.”
Why does that sound so familiar?
because people will forever fail to see the reasons why we’re forced to vote in this manner if they continue to collectively make no attempt to look past their indoctrination.
Wise words. Hopefully you read them.
Wanna guess the number of people that thought that same thing in 2016?
wanna guess how much democrats learned from it in 2016?
That the far left vote is fickle and that it’s better to try to cater to Dick and Liz Chaney and hope for the solid neoconservative vote instead??
Yeah, abstain from voting harder. Let’s see where that gets ya. If you want to pull the party left, the. Prove to the party that there is a left they can pull to.
i live in a solidly blue state and voting third party. doing so guarantees that i could never help trump thanks to the same electoral college that gives trump a chance at winning; i’m using the system against itself and you should too whenever you have the chance.
also republicans take direct action to work around issues that prevent their base from winning and democrats would benefit by taking similar actions; but don’t since leftists platforms drive away campaign donors so it’s a self made rock and a hard place for democrats.
Oh, so are you pushing for a Senator or a Representative who can more seriously push the party left?
Is accepting someone’s support with literally nothing in trade really “catering to” though?
I mean the “trade” is just the implicit alignment of platform, really. Kamala offers stances that are not entirely disagreeable to moderate Republicans who feel more alienated by the neofascist shift the GOP has taken now.
I wish Kamala was further to the left in general, but I can’t confidently say she’d gain more leftist votes than she’d lose centrist votes.
Obviously not nearly enough, since you’re literally repeating the same mistake.
there’s a meme from a protest sign floating around asking why it’s easier to accept that hundreds of millions of people lazy rather than accepting that it’s a few 100 people creating the problem.
similarly, harris is one person and her changing her strategy will have a bigger impact than millions of people changing theirs to suit hers before the election and she doesn’t even have to mean it:
she could literally just pay lip service the day of the election where it can do the least amount of damage when it comes to moderate voters and that would gain the support of people like me; but she won’t
She has to take current strategy, because people like you are not voting, so in order to win she has to rely on votes of people that you don’t agree with.
Either Trump will win, or Harris will win. Choose one to help.
Clearly, obviously, Harris stands a better chance of helping Palestinians than does Trump.
harris being better is a low bar and i can’t support the same system & people that genocided my ancestors out of existence in this country; especially after claiming to abhor it for decades once the trail of tears footnote/paragraph became standard in american history books.
i don’t want to be a party to re-legitimizing genocide as acceptable political collateral damage, so i’m voting third party in a solidly blue state and doing so ensures that my vote could never support trump in any way thanks to the same electoral college that gives trump a chance of winning; i’m using the system against itself and i hope others do the same.
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Respectfully, what you wrote doesn’t change the binary choice at play:
Trump or Harris will become President no matter what you do.
You could at least help my daughter, my mother, my sister by ensuring the one who supports women’s rights gets elected? Who supports LGBTQ+? Who supports climate change initiatives? That’s even pretending Harris is equally bad on Gaza or that things couldn’t obviously get worse for Palestinians.
Don’t be silly, those things don’t matter because reasons. But the genocide which we can’t directly control in any way? That is the only thing that truly matters.
They matter, they’re also protected by numerous laters in various states. trump won’t change that and I have an easier time taking up efforts here to counter anything he does do than I do for those in gaza.
The only person that is at fault is harris for failing to listen to voice of her base; I suppose people like you as well. since apparently emailing and telling harris and your reps to cut it out was too difficult for many of you.
What’s funny is their action here means they’re condoning genocide in Ukraine.
Leninists 100% unironically do. Though I’m sure they’ll try to convince you that it’s not a genocide somehow. Despite supporting it.
You could at least help my daughter, my mother, my sister by ensuring the one who supports women’s rights gets elected? Who supports LGBTQ+? Who supports climate change initiatives? That’s even pretending Harris is equally bad on Gaza or that things couldn’t obviously get worse for Palestinians.
every single one of my identities is targeted by project 2025 and i’m not afraid of it because i benefit from the experience of surviving the aids/hiv crisis in the 1980’s. like it is in gaza right now; my government also did little more than make public displays of support while they idly let people die by the thousands back then and that experience has taught me how to recognize that they’re doing it again. (it’s easy to recognize it this time around since it’s literally being done by mostly the same people).
mutual aid was the only thing that helped anyone back then and we’ll be going back to doing it again once we enact the few remaining parts of project 2025 that we haven’t yet enacted since 1981. your daughter, your mother, your sister, my mother & my husband will not be (and was not) helped by anything trump or harris or any genocider does unless it’s by accident and putting faith in them isn’t going to help matters since they’re clearly hellbent of repeating history.
I’m glad you’re willing to throw that all away, but you’re also throwing it away for my family, too… So thanks, I guess…?
And for what? To get Trump elected? You do understand mathematically you’re supporting Trump’s chances, correct?
Let’s also not forget that if Harris is complicit in genocide in Gaza, then you’re not voting for Harris means you condone and are complicit on Russia’s genocide in Ukraine.
Edit: Bernie Sanders says the choice is clear; to vote for Harris despite Gaza.
i live in a solidly blue state and i’m voting third party. i could never help trump even if i wanted to because of the same electoral college that’s helping him win; i’m using the system against itself, as you should do every chance you get.
my ancestors where genocided out of existence in this country so i’m 100% sure that they would agree with me that being party to the same system & people that have a history of repeatedly using genocide as acceptable political collateral damage is a bad idea and anything good that comes from it is an accident.
I hear this a lot but:
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I’d argue that driving up the support for Harris in the popular vote is critical. If Trump wins Electorally, it’s still rhetorically important to stifle the notion of a mandate by not letting him get 50%.
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Blue states have fallen in the past or can shift purple if the line isn’t held.
That said, I’m glad you’re not in a swing state at least.
Reminder that it was Biden who just recently issued a forceful formal apology to the indigenous people of America. GOP didn’t it. Trump mocked it by having a rally on their sacred grounds no less.
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So you’re ignorant to what you’re doing? Are you just acting like a lost kid or do you not realize trump winning will push the world closer to ww3. Stop bitching, honestly you are contributing to a real threat of the end of the world. Hold harris accountable after we defeat the nazis. The good guys shouldnt fight each other before the main threat is gone. Anyone who continues too isnt really a good person. You can die on your hill all you want, but dont drag others onto it.
man you really like tokens. bernie doesn’t speak for everyone. hes a great man, and hes 100% correct harris is a better option. but hes not a blungeon you can use to beat people with. she won’t get votes from individuals like myself until she commits to stopping a genocide. if she loses thats her fault.
she has known what she has needed to do for at least 6 months. every single one of you absolutely know what she needs to commit to publicly to secure those votes.
you’re just unwilling to do it. either because you support what israel is doing or your too panic stricken to pressure harris to do the right thing because you don’t know how many voters are for what israel is doing; but you know exactly who you can target if she stays the course and loses. you’re disgusting and craven individuals.
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My prediction is that your account, along with many others will magically go silent on these topics come next week.
i think you’re right; but not in the time frame of your prediction.
i’ve had to move from one social media platform onto another since the 1990’s (before it was called social media) and it did so because of enshitification. the defederation-happy instances like .world are using their leverage to mold lemmy into a diet reddit and the lemmyverse will become enshitified because of it.
when that happens, my account will go silent, as you predicted, and you’ll be free to enjoy your echo chamber while supporting the enshitification of both the lemmyverse and the american empire.
I was going to bury this lower in the thread but I think this deserves a top line reply.
she could literally just pay lip service the day of the election where it can do the least amount of damage when it comes to moderate voters and that would gain the support of people like me; but she won’t
So let’s make this perfectly clear for everyone else: this person would sacrifice the rights of women/people of color/lgbtq+ people, accelerate genocide in Gaza/Ukraine/elsewhere, and completely doom any action on climate change… because they want lip service on an issue they don’t actually care about. Wonder why that is?
No, kamala is willing to sacrifice those rights to commit a genocide. trump will impact almost none of those things without support from congress or full of military dictatorship. get your facts straight. no one did this but the DNC and kamala.
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Kamala Harris is not committing a genocide. If you don’t vote against Trump, and he wins, don’t think any of us will forget what side you’re on.
yes, she is. she has known about and abetted a genocide for the last year and has committed to allowing it to continue. you are also culpable since its clear at this point she won’t change course. congrats.
oh no, you won’t forget I didn’t support a genocide? oh dear. i’m horrified. maybe you should direct your anger at yourself first for not pressuring harris as I’ve been doing, and then harris next for being a monster who has been aiding and supporting a genocide for a year.
.ml moment
Man I’m so happy we can all agree we can ignore this class of people cause of their place of origin. It makes it so much easier to instantly be right.
Wait were you born on a website?
You are belittling and disregarding anything a group of people say because of an identifiable tag.
You tell me what that looks like.
Respond to their statement not on their appearance. I don’t get why people think this is productive discourse. It’s lazy segregation.
Ignoring .ml is easier than facing the reality that democrats are doing everything they can to throw the freeest election in world history.
Can you expand on what you mean by “the freest election in world history”? Are you saying there has been no voter suppression and disenfranchisement?
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You’re acting like having an account on a particular instance is an immutable part of your identity that you are born with. It takes less than a minute and zero money to stop associating with idiots and concern trolls.
Also their statement has already been sufficiently responded to, unless you think there’s more to be added?
And you are acting like a basic act of signing up for a site let’s you stereotype people without consequence. It takes only you to not only use that identity piece to immediately treat people differently.
And sure. Other people had a conversation. I’m just asking, what you added? Them not being like you doesn’t make your response any different or more necessary.
How nice it must be to go through life blaming everyone else for your own stupidity and bad decisions
ignorance truly is bliss and i envy you for it.
How much more stupid can one person be? I too would envy those with any semblance of intelligence if I was you.
i envy the intelligent who have the capacity to share their views without resorting to childish behavior; like your insults.
We all know that she needs to do. They have the power.
Instead we’re going to end up like the 2016 elections when there were these “Bernie or bust” voters that basically gave away the election to Donald Trump instead of voting for Hillary.
Except this time it’ll be over Israel and their genocide.
What’s even stupider is Trump would more than likely be worse in this regard.
There’s no need for “more than likely” in that sentence.
I was one of those Bernie guys but I learned my lesson after 2016, I voted for sleepy Joe and I already voted for Kamala.
So not only she didnt completely refuse to listen to them, she also repeated lies to their faces, brought Israeli family on the stage to speak about how they feel and refuse electoral Palestinian to speak. And now let Clinton say that Palestinian,” the people of the land”, have no right to exist.
How hard it is to say something along the line:
- we will ensure children and women are protected
- we will send x amount of aid of food and medicine
- we will never support war crime
How hard it is to meet with Muslium or Arab or Palestinian, snd say something to make them trust her?
And then there are the other things that i found fucked up.
Screaming women rights and then letting Clinton, a known predator to endorse and speak in her event.
How hard it is to meet with Muslium or Arab or Palestinian, snd say something to make them trust her?
I don’ t get this. Why promise something you are sure you can’t commit to? Why desire for a politician to lie to you?? Politicians are already dragged for false promises on things they’ve actually tried (but failed) to accomplish. But you want them to whisper sweet nothings in your ear about an incredibly politically-complex issue…for what? I don’t want her to say it unless she means to do it.
I understand your point. But if you’re American, will you vote for Harris? Or give away your vote to Trump?
i’m expecting another 2016 too and; just like now; people were telling her campaign that rejecting your most fervent supporters to court voters who equate kamala’s relative flawlessness with trump’s ineptitude doesn’t get you votes.
the one silver lining in this upcoming cloud is that they’re using all of my identities to virtue signal as it pertains to project 2025 and; if kamala loses; that will become a failed political wedge strategy and help ensure that it will never be employed again.
when we enact the few remaining parts of project 2025 that we haven’t done yet since 1981; mutual aid is going to matter in a similar way that i experienced it during the aid/hiv crisis the last time our gov’t did little except make a public show of support while idly sitting by and letting thousands of people die and i hope that the future’s younger vulnerability minorities aren’t so easily manipulated by those same people who cashed in on ensuring that they’re minorities.
that rejecting your most fervent supporters
Is this also you?
i left the democrat fold after dadt & doma and the ensuing decades have proved to me that it was the right decision
Pick a lane dude.
Is this also you?
i left the democratic fold when they did dadt & doma.
Pick a lane dude.
i can’t tell if you’re willfully redirecting.
It’s obviously just not a priority and blaming voters is both lazy and wrong. The Democratic party has shown itself to be a structurally racist institution where subservience to lobbyists is prioritized over victory.
No one asked for any kind of hyberbole from Harris. We simply wanted some kind of a signal that she would be willing to enforce US law (you know, as a prosecutor and as the component of our federal government whose literal job it is to do so) around the use of US arms. We asked for a few minutes on a stages so that we could make the case for why Muslim and Arab voters should stay committed to the Democratic party, and were denied. We could even be afforded lip service by this party, some cheap lies to hold us over, so here we are
There has been nothing gained by this Democratic parties pro-genocide position. But those who are truly to blame for it’s maintenance are here. It’s the apologists, who blame voters for not accepting the onerous positions in the limited times we get access to political power, who blame those among us who dare try and wield it. Those who defended Harris’s position, and argued that you, the voter should be moved to a more moral wrong, rather than the candidate: they own the genocide of the Palestinian people now. Because they demanded we give up our one chance where we have access to power, Election Day, to accept little and less from a broken political system that capitalizes and your willingness to be disappointed.
It’s no longer on Harris, dear apologists. This is your genocide now.
Living in the US as a person who grew up in Western Europe must be most masochistic way of life possible.
Not really. A lot of people have this personal accountability mentality which supposes we all need to man up and deal with our own problems or suffer in silence. Which is all hypocritical and hardly ever do you find the people who espouse these views live up to them. Be it the self made millionaire trust fund baby who got a job at dad’s dealership after dropping out when he burned through all his college funds. The drowning in debt college grad who doesn’t work in the field they majored in because there wasn’t any attractive jobs. The self made man who came up from nothing but now is completely burnt out or swindling people to amass a fortune.
You show me an American who claims they don’t take hand outs and work harder then any one else could manage; and I’ll show you a self centered prick that got lucky once and sits on their ass the rest of the day consuming conservative media.
That’s my major point, though. By and large Americans are lazy self serving jerks who couldn’t stop consuming if they were only selling turds. They like to binge after they binge and no amount of alcohol or weed is enough to make them contented.
No we aren’t masochists. We are children who want loud orange man to make it so we can have more F150’s and we get to play beer pong every single day.
Wtf is this even? How does this address what the other commenter said? Did you just reply to a top comment for visibility?
At the end of that word salad he says something regarding masochism, so I think he actually meant to reply, but his reading comprehension left him hanging so he didn’t catch OP was talking about John Oliver (being the Western European living in the US).
(That, or they are just the fevered ramblings of a syphilitic brain. either way, your ‘wtf is this even’ applies)
Let me know if there is something I can explain to you.
Sorry, I commented when it was like 6 points and top of new but whatever.
I think the first 35 seconds of his “Election 2024: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)” clip are a very strong argument against the Citizens United v. FEC ruling. Same for voting for judges, including marketing at RealCapitalismTM levels in politics is not good, because eventually it will be worth it for sooooo many corporate entities to just pump large portions of the GDP into politics. Nothing can compare with that, so corporations are favored to win, because marketing works. Fatigue is just one of the symptoms that go across the isle, i’m sure.
Trump 2024.
You’re gonna have to try harder if you want to ragebait
This place is such a circlejerk that if I support anyone who isn’t a dem, people think I’m joking. Do you know how funny that is?
Yawn. Boring.
On skibidi?
Anyway, you got a personality or anything cool like that?
I don’t know. I like cars and planes. Does that count?
Is it upsetting to read about your friends and heroes losing in world war 2?
I see you stuck around. Figure out the website yet?
Yes, I did. It’s just like Reddit, so there wasn’t much to learn. I also learnt about Lemmy Explorer, so that’s great.
Awesome, feel free to ask if you need help with anything.
I suggest watching the entire video from GA State Rep. Ruwa Romman that is embedded in the article. Not so much for her reasoning about why she is voting for Harris, but for her comments of how to accomplish things politically in this country, how it works, how to actually move the country forward bit by bit. It’s hard and takes work and time but it can definitely be done, and her thoughts about the Green party, how it doesn’t do those things and thus never accomplishes anything.
crying on cue has its uses
You act like he wasnt scared. Hes a reporter who has openly went against trump, he could be killed so yeah those are real tears.
And if youre okay with that then fuck you. No one should fear their own president becauce of criticism. I voted for trump in 2016 and i sure regret it.
hes been an actor long enough to project any emotion he deems necessary. so his tears are automatically suspect to me. i dont expect you or anyone else to understand or believe that . so fuck you back heh
Heh
You’re a fucking child. He was being sincere. You no longer matter, but to everyone else, i urge you to watch the video and make up your own mind.
Imagine becoming a citizen only for the US to be destroyed by a shitbag reality tv cunt a few years later. Let’s not let that happen.
The thing is that shouldn’t be an option.
It shouldn’t be but it is, and it’s terrifying.
It being an option is gated behind voter turnout.
I have friends who will not vote for trump for obvious reasons but not for kamala as well, because they don’t vote for a cop!!! Sad stuff
Have you tried to explain to them that prosecutors are not cops? Maybe showed them the intro to Law & Order?
Are they forgoing voting in down-ballot races as well? Undervoting is a thing, and most electoral shifts start at the local level.
They will vote a random candidate besides the aforementioned 2. Pathetic
so they’ll be voting down ballot. excellent good for them. you should encourage this. its not their fault kamala is a horrible candidate. spend more time trying to fix kamala to the point they’ll vote for her. it’ll be easier on you.
Another interesting question is if they vote for one of their local DA or sheriff candidates or just obtain.
I am so ready for this election to be over
“Forever elections” are the new normal, imo.
I fucking hate it too :(
If only Citizens United v. FEC could be overturned, because it’s so very obviously terrible😅
Don’t worry, once Democrats win 2024 MAGA will just give up forever and stop trying to implement American fascism.
We won’t be trapped in a cycle that can only end with the death of the boomers and Gen X or a civil war for the next two decades.
Unfortunately the alt-right disease isn’t limited to some arbitrary birth date brackets. It spreads to younger people all the time. You can’t just wait it out, you have to fight it, and keep fighting it.
This is true but it does seem more limited. If it was just millennials and zoomers voting in this election the Republican party would lose its power to threaten democracy on a legal ground tomorrow.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/319068/party-identification-in-the-united-states-by-generation/
Of course, if that “something else” is all Libertarians it might create the cyberpunk dystopia but what’s the difference between that and the current Republican takeover by the tech billionaires anyways?
Cyberpunk dystopia at least has a good aesthetic…
yep, and Israel will reliquish their hold on both parties, because thats the right thing to do, and they are the most moral country in the world… And we’ll eliminate the electoral college and make sure our politicians can no longer take bribes, especially from foreign governments. Also, we’ll jump in with both feet on climate change.
Imperfection should not make the undecided voters give up on democracy, how can we have progressive policy when the people who want it don’t vote?
In the paraphrased words of an old white dude
Don’t judge her against the Almighty, judge her against the alternative.
Alternatively: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Some of us are old enough to have heard the lies decade after decades about preserving democracy while watching it get tossed out the door. Talking about progressive policy is all they’ve ever done then blame someone else when they end up doing nothing.
The delusion that you have to work within the system to change the system is pure fantasy because the system is operating as designed. And those in power will do everything they can to ensure it continues this way.
The delusion that you have to work within the system to change the system is pure fantasy because the system is operating as designed.
I find this point amusing because the people who don’t vote out of protest usually don’t do anything else either. They just sit back and let whatever happens, happen.
By moderating our online discussion boards to better weed out posts, comments, replies, etc. from foreign interference and domestic Astroturfing that present themselves as far-left in order to convince people that perfect should be the enemy of better. I swear, nobody comes to the conclusion “Esteemed prosecutor Kamala Harris isn’t as bad as convicted felon Donald Trump, but she still has flaws and isn’t worthy of my vote in a competition for the most influential job in the world that will certainly come down to one of the two of them” on their own. That idea has to be planted by someone arguing in bad faith, and repeated in many forms for someone to begin to believe it.
Exactly.
We cannot afford to fall victim to the Nirvana fallacy.
We must work within the system to change the system or we risk being excluded entirely.
we risk being excluded entirely
I misread “being executed entirely”.
Oh. Wait.
Nirvana fallacy, also know as “perfect solution fallacy” is suggesting that no solution is better than an imperfect solution. If I can’t have nirvana, I don’t want anything.
I see it all the time in online arguments. “Oh, you advocate for housing the homeless? Well then why do you have empty rooms in your house? Just fill it with homeless people.” this is an example of the fallacy. It suggests that my solution, “house the homeless” should be discarded because it is not a perfect solution, which would be filling my house up with strangers. The goal is to make me say, “oh, I’m not willing to do that, so we should do nothing instead.”
I don’t think that’s an example. People housing others in their own homes isn’t an example of the perfect solution to homelessness. I don’t know if we have a name for that fallacy but it’s kind of a “put your money where your mouth is” fallacy. If you aren’t willing to give up a lot for the solution, you must not really believe it is a problem/solution.
People being against the ACA because it isn’t single payer health care is an example of the perfect solution fallacy. Or people being against a $15 minimum wage because it really should be $25 now.
It’s a bad faith argument and a strawman. They don’t actually think it’s reasonable for anyone to do that or think the other person is suggesting that. They are setting a person up as a hypocrite despite that obviously being an insufficient and inefficient solution to the housing crisis.
It’s also a false equivalence. The government helping to house people is absolutely not the same as private individuals sharing their homes.
a “put your money where your mouth is” fallacy
Is this a “fallacy” or is it an “angle”? Probably it is little more than straw-man attack, because you know even homeless people need actual homes not just places to crash, and it is also a form of ad hominem attack that typically targets progressive/social change demands (do you really hear that often the opposite, like “if you hate homeless people that much, why don’t you support gassing them?”). I don’t know if people call those fallacies these days, I tend to see them as tactical conversational attacks. A fallacy is sth you can easily fool yourself with.
see them as tactical conversational attacks
Well, fallacies originally were not meant to fool yourself, but to win argument by any means. So you are describing a fallacy, even if it’s not called that
Fallacy means sth in the effect of “cognitive illusion” as in “logical fallacy”, not a rhetorical strategy. The difference is the intent of the speaker. A rhetorical strategy can be deceptive, or tactically motivated, a logical fallacy is more like a form of apparent naivete and common paradoxes. When there is intent to deceive and/or win at all costs, there is “prevarication” or “sophistry” instead of “fallacy”.
You’re right, I mixed up sophistry and fallacy. Better check next time
it does have some qualities of Nirvana fallacy in that it implies my support for a policy is inadequate unless I provide a perfect, personal solution. but thanks for your response.
It suggests that my solution, “house the homeless” should be discarded because it is not a perfect solution, which would be filling my house up with strangers. The goal is to make me say, “oh, I’m not willing to do that, so we should do nothing instead.”
This may be a mixture of a bunch of different arguments. There is the anti-Nimby argument which calls out Nimbys who want an end to homelessness but vote against the construction of housing for them in their neighbourhoods. “Why don’t you house homeless people in your house?” is a much more extreme, unreasonable, and therefore less efficacious version of that idea.
There is also the more general argument (from the right) that government shouldn’t be in the business of housing the homeless. The above line then proceeds by saying that your unwillingness to invite homeless people into your house is an indication that your solution to the problem is to get other people to solve the problem for you. This may also incorporate the anti-Nimby line by further claiming that what you really want is an “out of sight, out of mind” solution to homelessness.
Oliver said voting for Harris would mean the world could laugh at this past week’s photo of an orange, gaping-mouthed Trump in a fluorescent vest and allow Americans to carry on with life without worrying about what he might do next.
This sounds like my dad. He’s kinda a Republican, but doesn’t like Trump, and asserted that Trump would just go away after the last election.
Trump and Trumpism are not going away. If Harris wins, even by a lot, it’s only going to validate his follower’s fears, if it doesn’t start an all-out conflict.
I get your fear, but my optimistic side thinks that trump is special in his ability to self promote to gullible fools. And while the reality denial of trumpism will never completely go away, Republicans will return to some sense of normalcy after he loses his grip.
I don’t believe so. Trump has only further enabled them and taught them that what they say has no bearing on votes received.
Well, I dont think Trump can survive another loss politically. He basically only survived because he moaned about election fraud and refused to accept the results.
Truth is that, the older he gets, the less likely he’ll be able to run and the less convincing his “charisma” will be. I think we already see this in effect today to some degree.
He’s already said he won’t run again. He probably physically can’t.
It’s not a political problem though, he’s all but god to so many people. Honestly I don’t know what’s gonna happen to a void he leaves behind when he passes away.
My impossible hope is that it destroys the Republican party so the Democrats are the conservatives and a new progressive party emerges.
Putting aside all other anxiety, I’m fascinated to see if Republicans will finally flee his sinking ship as he fades to history. A lot of them only support him for survival… They’re all spineless in the end.
Frederick Douglas on voting at a time when both Parties had shafted Reconstruction.
