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 😊.
4 years ago, Democrats said the border wall was stupid and bad. They said that Republicans were racist for claiming all Mexicans were drug dealers and criminals. Today, Harris is saying she’s gonna build the border wall, be tough on migrants, and has basically adopted Trump’s policies on immigration.
There is no indication that the Democrats will not be just as bad as the Republicans on Israel in 4 years.
To address your second point “not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump”; why isn’t the opposite true? “Not voting for Trump is a vote for Harris”, follows the same logic, so refusing to vote or voting independent should be net neutral, no?
This election should be a slam dunk victory for Harris. The data shows that adopting leftist progressive policies is popular. Biden dropping out resulted in $4 million in small donor fundraising. Picking Walz resulted in another $2 million. People got really excited when it looked like the Democratic party was making leftist progressive movement.
Since then, the Dems have been aggressively moving towards the center. More lethal military, inciting panic about the border, ignoring Palestine. This has resulted in an extremely tight race as people are no longer excited to vote for Harris.
I want Harris to win. Moving leftward politically will attract more voters. Taking a firm stance on stopping the Israeli government’s genocide is a leftist progressive policy. The bag is right there, she just needs to grab it.
The opposite of „not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump“ isn’t true because of the electoral college, which heavily skews towards rural states with not many voters, which are often conservative.
You need roughly 4 Californian votes to match 1 Wyoming vote. That’s why Republicans seldom win the popular vote and still manage to win elections.
So if left leaning people don’t vote (or vote third party), the negative effect for Harris is amplified in comparison to conservatives.
The electoral college ensures the vote in California has nothing to do with the one in Wyoming.
You still haven’t provided any proof that the net result of third party or not voting favors republicans though. It could just as easily still be neutral, or favor democrats.
It’s not rocket science. The person I responded to said they want Harris to win. Thus they are a potential Harris voter. When they don’t vote, Harris loses a potential vote, not Trump.
Depending on where they live, this gets amplified by the systemic disadvantage of left-leaning states in the electoral college.
Classic progressive defeatist mantra: you’re not left enough so fuck you. Bring on the fascist.
You’re missing some context - “not voting [instead of] for Harris is a vote for Trump”. If the dilemma is between not voting and voting Harris, choosing not to vote subtracts a vote from Harris.
Of course Harris got a boost in donations after she became the candidate - she appealed the the people who thought Biden was too conservative. That doesn’t mean conservative democrats are an insignificant demographic, they simply already donated earlier. The move towards the center is meant to not drive them away into not voting [instead of voting for Harris]. Obviously there will be some progressives and some conservatives who will decide to not vote [instead of voting for Harris], the goal is to move to the point where these margins from both sides will be minimal.
You simply cannot count votes you never had.