If the democrats want our votes, they have to not arm genocide. Not voting for them until they stop arming a genocide is a perfectly clear way of staking that position.
The problem is that this way of thinking is backwards and ineffective. I don’t give a shit about rewarding Democrats with my vote; I care about securing the most favorable conditions I can. When both popular options are bad, that means picking the less bad one, even if it’s only slightly less bad; even if it’s exactly as bad by one metric, and only better on other metrics. Our votes aren’t to give them some achievement trophy, they’re to determine who will be making policy decisions.
Further, it isn’t really an effective way to force them to change. People who didn’t vote for them didn’t fill out a questionnaire to communicate why they didn’t vote for them. The only way they get that information is if it’s given to them somehow.
They have information about what will happen if they break with Israel: AIPAC will dump tons of money into opposing them. Not only will they lose the Zionist portion of their voter base, but wealthy Zionists will inundate them with attack ads to jeopardize other portions of their base.
They’re going to do calculations, based on the actual communicated data they have, to weigh the number of voters they’d lose vs. the number of voters they’d gain by withdrawing support for Israel. The data against withdrawing support for Israel is highly organized, heavily funded, and very clearly communicated. However widespread you think the movement to withdraw support is, it’s less organized, less funded, and less clearly communicated. From the perspective of DNC leadership, the calculations are clear.
If you want them to change, you need clear, organized data to show them what the change needs to be and how many people support it. You need tens of millions of signatures on a clearly worded petition. Otherwise, you’re essentially just a loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment.
I disagree with your ethical framing (to my personal moral compass, I’m less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide), but setting that aside, I guess this loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment have had an effect. The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
They know. The calculations are clearly against supporting a genocide…which should be a no brainer no matter how organized or funded the genocidiers are.
less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide
You seem to be a strict deontologist. I do not subscribe to that worldview. I find it childish and self-centered, both ineffective and rarely consistent. But putting that aside, “legitimacy” is irrelevant. It will continue with or without your personal blessing. It’s moralistic posturing with no material effect.
The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
I don’t think that’s what it says at all. I think it may have said that it resulted in a raw loss of votes, I do not think that it reflected a net loss of votes. I think their data implies they would have lost more votes in changing positions than they would have gained. Like it or not, the propaganda is strong, and there are more low-information voters than high-information ones. Go against Israel, and you go against AIPAC. Go against AIPAC, and you’re in for a world of hurt on the political field. You’re not just losing active Zionists, you’re losing fence-sitters who are not immune to waves of attack ads.
Obviously not supporting a genocide is a no-brainer, but the majority of voters have no brain to speak of. You can’t beat organized and well-funded propaganda with the silent treatment.
Hamid Bendaas, a spokesperson for the IMEU Policy Project, said that during the meeting “the DNC shared with us that their own data also found that policy was, in their words, a ‘net-negative’ in the 2024 election.” Two other senior aides at the pro-Palestinian organization also said the DNC had drawn that conclusion.
What do you mean, you don’t think that’s what it says? Have you seen it? I’d love to get a copy if you’re leaking it! Do you just mean you imagine it wouldn’t say that?
I’m not a strict deontologist; I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole. The democrats and the republicans actually have power. They are the moral agent here.
In a trolley problem (since you seem like someone who might be familiar), voters are just watching from afar and wishing for the people at the switch to make one choice or the other. And that’s fine. But don’t give me shit for not wasting my time wishing.
I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole.
You are very much not. Again with the “legitimizing”. There is no “legitimacy” metric in elections. Power doesn’t scale with vote count. All that matters is which side beats the other. If only one person “legitimizes” the system, and everyone else refuses to vote, the winner still has all the powers of the president. The outcome is exactly the same as if every single voter chose them.
They don’t get fewer powers for winning with only one vote, they don’t get any extra powers by winning by 100 million votes. The concept of “legitimizing” the system is a fiction that exists only in the mind of deontologists.
In the trolley problem, voters are voting on whether to pull the lever. If enough people vote to pull the lever, the lever is pulled. It’s even more clear cut than the trolley problem, because Gaza is on both tracks. You don’t even save them by not pulling the switch, you just let everyone else on that track die too. There’s no reason not to pull the switch, there is no dilemma. Inaction is objectively the wrong choice.
My goodness you’re sweet! I think you have an extremely charitable faith in your government.
Obviously if you think voters get to determine outcomes then not voting seems completely absurd! I have power I’m not using! But the reality is that the people absolutely do not have power. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” by Gilens and Page is a good starting point. Its conclusion is that there is no correlation at all between public opinion and policy. On the other hand the correlation between the economic elite’s policy preferences and the policies adopted shows up on the graph as a nice, neat upward-slanting line at 45 degrees, with a 70 percent correlation between strong elite support and policy adoption. Later studies have continued to back up this finding. It doesn’t make the press much, of course, because no one with power benefits from this getting talked about.
You are imagining the voters are a person with a lever that’s red on one side and blue on the other, with all the corresponding policy on the two tracks. I think the trolley problem analogy I described is closer to useful. There are two with power arguing over how to handle the lever (or maybe even…at the risk of complicating the trolley problem even further, levers!), and voters are far away, wishing or shouting their support for one or other of those people with power. When the democrat or republican wins, they’ll pull the levers to enact the policies they see fit to.
And yes, voting absolutely legitimizes the system, why do you think they always cite turnout statistics? What do you mean there is no legitimacy metric in elections? It’s absolutely untrue that all that matters is which side beats the other. If a population boycotts an election, that’s an expression of power and absolutely delegitimizes the results. That’s an extreme example, but it applies all the way up. The United States wants to pretend to be a democracy; it has to pretend that its people get a say in how things are done. Participating in that system absolutely legitimizes that narrative. I’m not saying you should never do it, just because it’s a lie. If the democrats changed course on palestine I’d be banging on doors for them, trying to get as many people to vote as possible, even though I know it’s a lie that they are doing it for any reason other than to help in their struggle with the other bourgeois party. That little grain of legitimacy from your little vote is not a lot, but it’s something. And frankly, if your vote isn’t going to matter anyway because you don’t live in a swing state, that grain of legitimacy is the only thing you can contribute.
If a population boycotts an election, that’s an expression of power and absolutely delegitimizes the results.
This is your central flaw. It doesn’t. The winner still gets sworn in, they still choose their cabinet, they still enact their policies. Life goes on without your input.
That also happens when a banana republic has an election with over 100% turnout lol The fact that a dictatorship holds elections and then does stuff doesn’t make it a democracy.
The problem is that this way of thinking is backwards and ineffective. I don’t give a shit about rewarding Democrats with my vote; I care about securing the most favorable conditions I can. When both popular options are bad, that means picking the less bad one, even if it’s only slightly less bad; even if it’s exactly as bad by one metric, and only better on other metrics. Our votes aren’t to give them some achievement trophy, they’re to determine who will be making policy decisions.
Further, it isn’t really an effective way to force them to change. People who didn’t vote for them didn’t fill out a questionnaire to communicate why they didn’t vote for them. The only way they get that information is if it’s given to them somehow.
They have information about what will happen if they break with Israel: AIPAC will dump tons of money into opposing them. Not only will they lose the Zionist portion of their voter base, but wealthy Zionists will inundate them with attack ads to jeopardize other portions of their base.
They’re going to do calculations, based on the actual communicated data they have, to weigh the number of voters they’d lose vs. the number of voters they’d gain by withdrawing support for Israel. The data against withdrawing support for Israel is highly organized, heavily funded, and very clearly communicated. However widespread you think the movement to withdraw support is, it’s less organized, less funded, and less clearly communicated. From the perspective of DNC leadership, the calculations are clear.
If you want them to change, you need clear, organized data to show them what the change needs to be and how many people support it. You need tens of millions of signatures on a clearly worded petition. Otherwise, you’re essentially just a loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment.
I disagree with your ethical framing (to my personal moral compass, I’m less culpable in the ongoing genocide if I didn’t legitimize the people arming it by voting for them, even if the other party would have also armed the genocide), but setting that aside, I guess this loose collection of anonymous strangers giving them the silent treatment have had an effect. The democrats’ postmortem apparently says that arming genocide resulted in a net loss of votes for them.
They know. The calculations are clearly against supporting a genocide…which should be a no brainer no matter how organized or funded the genocidiers are.
You seem to be a strict deontologist. I do not subscribe to that worldview. I find it childish and self-centered, both ineffective and rarely consistent. But putting that aside, “legitimacy” is irrelevant. It will continue with or without your personal blessing. It’s moralistic posturing with no material effect.
I don’t think that’s what it says at all. I think it may have said that it resulted in a raw loss of votes, I do not think that it reflected a net loss of votes. I think their data implies they would have lost more votes in changing positions than they would have gained. Like it or not, the propaganda is strong, and there are more low-information voters than high-information ones. Go against Israel, and you go against AIPAC. Go against AIPAC, and you’re in for a world of hurt on the political field. You’re not just losing active Zionists, you’re losing fence-sitters who are not immune to waves of attack ads.
Obviously not supporting a genocide is a no-brainer, but the majority of voters have no brain to speak of. You can’t beat organized and well-funded propaganda with the silent treatment.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/22/dnc-2024-autopsy-harris-gaza
What do you mean, you don’t think that’s what it says? Have you seen it? I’d love to get a copy if you’re leaking it! Do you just mean you imagine it wouldn’t say that?
I’m not a strict deontologist; I’d say I’m closer to a strict utilitarian lol My vote doesn’t mean anything except legitimizing the people I vote for and the system as a whole. The democrats and the republicans actually have power. They are the moral agent here.
In a trolley problem (since you seem like someone who might be familiar), voters are just watching from afar and wishing for the people at the switch to make one choice or the other. And that’s fine. But don’t give me shit for not wasting my time wishing.
You are very much not. Again with the “legitimizing”. There is no “legitimacy” metric in elections. Power doesn’t scale with vote count. All that matters is which side beats the other. If only one person “legitimizes” the system, and everyone else refuses to vote, the winner still has all the powers of the president. The outcome is exactly the same as if every single voter chose them.
They don’t get fewer powers for winning with only one vote, they don’t get any extra powers by winning by 100 million votes. The concept of “legitimizing” the system is a fiction that exists only in the mind of deontologists.
In the trolley problem, voters are voting on whether to pull the lever. If enough people vote to pull the lever, the lever is pulled. It’s even more clear cut than the trolley problem, because Gaza is on both tracks. You don’t even save them by not pulling the switch, you just let everyone else on that track die too. There’s no reason not to pull the switch, there is no dilemma. Inaction is objectively the wrong choice.
My goodness you’re sweet! I think you have an extremely charitable faith in your government.
Obviously if you think voters get to determine outcomes then not voting seems completely absurd! I have power I’m not using! But the reality is that the people absolutely do not have power. “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” by Gilens and Page is a good starting point. Its conclusion is that there is no correlation at all between public opinion and policy. On the other hand the correlation between the economic elite’s policy preferences and the policies adopted shows up on the graph as a nice, neat upward-slanting line at 45 degrees, with a 70 percent correlation between strong elite support and policy adoption. Later studies have continued to back up this finding. It doesn’t make the press much, of course, because no one with power benefits from this getting talked about.
You are imagining the voters are a person with a lever that’s red on one side and blue on the other, with all the corresponding policy on the two tracks. I think the trolley problem analogy I described is closer to useful. There are two with power arguing over how to handle the lever (or maybe even…at the risk of complicating the trolley problem even further, levers!), and voters are far away, wishing or shouting their support for one or other of those people with power. When the democrat or republican wins, they’ll pull the levers to enact the policies they see fit to.
And yes, voting absolutely legitimizes the system, why do you think they always cite turnout statistics? What do you mean there is no legitimacy metric in elections? It’s absolutely untrue that all that matters is which side beats the other. If a population boycotts an election, that’s an expression of power and absolutely delegitimizes the results. That’s an extreme example, but it applies all the way up. The United States wants to pretend to be a democracy; it has to pretend that its people get a say in how things are done. Participating in that system absolutely legitimizes that narrative. I’m not saying you should never do it, just because it’s a lie. If the democrats changed course on palestine I’d be banging on doors for them, trying to get as many people to vote as possible, even though I know it’s a lie that they are doing it for any reason other than to help in their struggle with the other bourgeois party. That little grain of legitimacy from your little vote is not a lot, but it’s something. And frankly, if your vote isn’t going to matter anyway because you don’t live in a swing state, that grain of legitimacy is the only thing you can contribute.
This is your central flaw. It doesn’t. The winner still gets sworn in, they still choose their cabinet, they still enact their policies. Life goes on without your input.
That also happens when a banana republic has an election with over 100% turnout lol The fact that a dictatorship holds elections and then does stuff doesn’t make it a democracy.
What does that have to do with my point?