If you have to vote between a candidate who wants to build 5 concentration camps and another candidate who wants to build one
So you support China in their liberation of Tibet from feudal serfdom? You support the Soviet Union destroying Nazism despite the excesses made in the gulag years? Or do you only extend this courtesy to capitalist imperialist regimes?
Obviously not. I don’t support building concentration camps in general, and China is a bad example since there’s no opposing party in Chinq. Admittedly, the example I gave was a bit on the extreme side. Regardless, I still disagree that if both sides are bad then they automatically are equalivent and thus voting is pointless as the meme seems to imply.
If Harris had won the 2024 election, do you honestly think she would be mass deporting immigrants without a trial, starting a trade war with China, attempt to cut funding for FEMA, etc? Sure, I’ll give you that she would have been content with the genocide in Gaza and would have been propping up the capitalist status quo. However, is that truly equilvent to what Trump has done in just his first year of his second term?
China is a bad example since there’s no opposing party in Chinq.
The historical example they were giving is of China invading and annexing Tibet, wherein the vast majority of the population was brutally enslaved and a small class of theocrats lived on top of a huge and ever-expanding mountain of corpses, upon which they sexually abused and murdered countless serfs besides the ones being tortured and killed by the basic mechanisms of the system under which they lived.
So the “opposing party” in this context is the other side of the war, the western-backed theocrats who wanted to perpetuate their slave state.
For the sake of not completely spamming your inbox, I’ll just reply to a few more things within this comment if that’s alright:
Huh, I actually didn’t know that, point taken. I didn’t know China had elections in general
It’s only maybe half-true to say China internally has opposing parties. There are other parties and many of them are dedicated entirely to pulling the government onto a different path from the current one, but those parties also are constitutionally barred from controlling high offices.
However, China does have elections and those elections are meaningful, because you don’t need separate parties to have meaningful elections. You believe that primaries are meaningful, right? In many places (e.g. NYC), they are much more meaningful than the general. Intra-party elections are meaningful in the same way and for the same reason that primaries are, because there are still differences within a party, even more so in a country where there is only one full party and party membership is massive and pretty accessible.
I think it’s perfectly fair to criticize various aspects about Chinese democracy, but neoliberals characterize it in a hopelessly slanted way.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the senate controlled by the right? Wasn’t it them that pushed for mass deportations?
You are wrong, deportations picked up immediately and were high for his entire Presidency, especially his first term. Dems lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
Obama is significantly liable for those loses too, because he immediately revealed that he was a complete fucking liar and didn’t want to actually pursue a progressive agenda. Even if this scapegoating were true, I’d still blame Obama because he had every opportunity to keep control of Congress but didn’t, and then it’s not like he actually opposed mass deportations.
I suppose you do have a point though, Harris wouldn’t need to be the only one who wins to make an actual difference, even if she would have just upheld the status quo that led to the rise in fascism. Still would have preferred that over what Trump is doing atm
I would never vote for Trump and would strongly discourage others from doing so, but there’s a meaningful sense in which his winning is less bad. Bear with me for a second: If Trump loses, he’s not actually the anti-christ who is thwarted, banished to hell, and then the Unique Threat to Our Democracy is gone. There will be more reactionary leaders who are as bad and worse who will immediately take his place. Holding him off from reclaiming office for one more term on a platform of adopting his old policies is not the victory some people depict it as.
What we need if we are taking Trump-like threats seriously is not to bail water, but to smash the Republican Party to atoms and scatter it to the wind. The Democrats can never do this, and over and over again insist that the thing to do is to adopt further and further right positions, to the point that you had Kamala commending the idea of the border wall construction project, merely saying it was mismanaged but she believed we should do something like it. That’s not hard-nosed pragmatism, that’s throwing red meat to reactionaries and supporting the cult of xenophobia to try to be Republican-lite, or more accurately to compete with 2024 Trump by becoming 2016 Trump (in terms of actual policy).
Kamala winning would have been catastrophic, not because she would have implemented worse policies than Trump, but because it would be a complete defeat of even berniecrat left-opposition in favor of a race to the bottom with Republicans of who can be more bigoted, as they get worse and then Democrats move to take up their old positions. The canonical answer in American politics would be even more cemented as “We need to get Republicans to vote for us by being racist,” and freaks like Ezra Klein who say we need anti-abortion Democrats.
If this is what the Democratic Party is, then they need to be destroyed just as much as the Republicans, because all they do is redirect “resistance” to becoming Republican on a slightly slower timetable. We need an actual left opposition to destroy reaction and the Democrats would rather lose to Trump than be that opposition, so we should be allowing them to take us hostage like we could ever give into enough demands from them that they will release us.
Sadly, western genocide will happen REGARDLESS of who I vote for, yeah. So, what do you propose I do about it other than protest and likely get arrested by ICE in a couple years for it? Attempt to sail aid to the people in Gaza and die along with them? I suppose it would preferable than live in a fascist America, but I have people who need me alive as of now.
I suggest you don’t engage in lesser evilism with the west if you’re not willing to do with with geopolitics. Or if you’re willing to do it, then supoort China in the international geopolitics.
If Harris had won the 2024 election, do you honestly think she would be mass deporting immigrants without a trial, starting a trade war with China, attempt to cut funding for FEMA, etc?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the senate controlled by the right? Wasn’t it them that pushed for mass deportations?
I suppose you do have a point though, Harris wouldn’t need to be the only one who wins to make an actual difference, even if she would have just upheld the status quo that led to the rise in fascism. Still would have preferred that over what Trump is doing atm
So you support China in their liberation of Tibet from feudal serfdom? You support the Soviet Union destroying Nazism despite the excesses made in the gulag years? Or do you only extend this courtesy to capitalist imperialist regimes?
Obviously not. I don’t support building concentration camps in general, and China is a bad example since there’s no opposing party in Chinq. Admittedly, the example I gave was a bit on the extreme side. Regardless, I still disagree that if both sides are bad then they automatically are equalivent and thus voting is pointless as the meme seems to imply.
If Harris had won the 2024 election, do you honestly think she would be mass deporting immigrants without a trial, starting a trade war with China, attempt to cut funding for FEMA, etc? Sure, I’ll give you that she would have been content with the genocide in Gaza and would have been propping up the capitalist status quo. However, is that truly equilvent to what Trump has done in just his first year of his second term?
The historical example they were giving is of China invading and annexing Tibet, wherein the vast majority of the population was brutally enslaved and a small class of theocrats lived on top of a huge and ever-expanding mountain of corpses, upon which they sexually abused and murdered countless serfs besides the ones being tortured and killed by the basic mechanisms of the system under which they lived.
So the “opposing party” in this context is the other side of the war, the western-backed theocrats who wanted to perpetuate their slave state.
For the sake of not completely spamming your inbox, I’ll just reply to a few more things within this comment if that’s alright:
It’s only maybe half-true to say China internally has opposing parties. There are other parties and many of them are dedicated entirely to pulling the government onto a different path from the current one, but those parties also are constitutionally barred from controlling high offices.
However, China does have elections and those elections are meaningful, because you don’t need separate parties to have meaningful elections. You believe that primaries are meaningful, right? In many places (e.g. NYC), they are much more meaningful than the general. Intra-party elections are meaningful in the same way and for the same reason that primaries are, because there are still differences within a party, even more so in a country where there is only one full party and party membership is massive and pretty accessible.
I think it’s perfectly fair to criticize various aspects about Chinese democracy, but neoliberals characterize it in a hopelessly slanted way.
You are wrong, deportations picked up immediately and were high for his entire Presidency, especially his first term. Dems lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.
Obama is significantly liable for those loses too, because he immediately revealed that he was a complete fucking liar and didn’t want to actually pursue a progressive agenda. Even if this scapegoating were true, I’d still blame Obama because he had every opportunity to keep control of Congress but didn’t, and then it’s not like he actually opposed mass deportations.
I would never vote for Trump and would strongly discourage others from doing so, but there’s a meaningful sense in which his winning is less bad. Bear with me for a second: If Trump loses, he’s not actually the anti-christ who is thwarted, banished to hell, and then the Unique Threat to Our Democracy is gone. There will be more reactionary leaders who are as bad and worse who will immediately take his place. Holding him off from reclaiming office for one more term on a platform of adopting his old policies is not the victory some people depict it as.
What we need if we are taking Trump-like threats seriously is not to bail water, but to smash the Republican Party to atoms and scatter it to the wind. The Democrats can never do this, and over and over again insist that the thing to do is to adopt further and further right positions, to the point that you had Kamala commending the idea of the border wall construction project, merely saying it was mismanaged but she believed we should do something like it. That’s not hard-nosed pragmatism, that’s throwing red meat to reactionaries and supporting the cult of xenophobia to try to be Republican-lite, or more accurately to compete with 2024 Trump by becoming 2016 Trump (in terms of actual policy).
Kamala winning would have been catastrophic, not because she would have implemented worse policies than Trump, but because it would be a complete defeat of even berniecrat left-opposition in favor of a race to the bottom with Republicans of who can be more bigoted, as they get worse and then Democrats move to take up their old positions. The canonical answer in American politics would be even more cemented as “We need to get Republicans to vote for us by being racist,” and freaks like Ezra Klein who say we need anti-abortion Democrats.
If this is what the Democratic Party is, then they need to be destroyed just as much as the Republicans, because all they do is redirect “resistance” to becoming Republican on a slightly slower timetable. We need an actual left opposition to destroy reaction and the Democrats would rather lose to Trump than be that opposition, so we should be allowing them to take us hostage like we could ever give into enough demands from them that they will release us.
Your willingness to only engage in lesser-evilism with western genocidal regimes is very telling.
I think that’s a very reductionist opinion that ignores @pirate2377@lemmy.zip trying to honestly interact with you.
Stop being a prick, it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Sadly, western genocide will happen REGARDLESS of who I vote for, yeah. So, what do you propose I do about it other than protest and likely get arrested by ICE in a couple years for it? Attempt to sail aid to the people in Gaza and die along with them? I suppose it would preferable than live in a fascist America, but I have people who need me alive as of now.
I suggest you don’t engage in lesser evilism with the west if you’re not willing to do with with geopolitics. Or if you’re willing to do it, then supoort China in the international geopolitics.
There are eight opposing parties in China
Huh, I actually didn’t know that, point taken. I didn’t know China had elections in general
No investigation, no right to speak.
Of course, look at her predecessor. Obama massively increased ICE, deportations, and did a pivot to asia.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the senate controlled by the right? Wasn’t it them that pushed for mass deportations?
I suppose you do have a point though, Harris wouldn’t need to be the only one who wins to make an actual difference, even if she would have just upheld the status quo that led to the rise in fascism. Still would have preferred that over what Trump is doing atm