Voting for someone who says “I will arm a genocide” means you’ve voluntarily helped that person to do that.

I don’t think paying taxes under duress to a government that arms a genocide is comparable.

Do I understand you as saying “you could go to jail rather than pay taxes, therefore you’re a hypocrite for not voting for someone who says ‘I will arm a genocide’?”

So it’s meaningless to say Russia’s a legitimate democracy and putin is the legitimate democratically elected leader? Batista was in Cuba too, I guess…he held elections. The July 26 movement (and others) boycotted them because they were just dumb…they shoulda just voted harder! They just didn’t understand that democratic legitimacy doesn’t matter. Maybe they should have circulated a petition to stop the slavery and torture and stuff.

I don’t know what the material effect of the lack of faith in the electoral system caused by these parties getting less and less interested in pretending the US is a democracy will be…but it’s not inside my head, man. The rest of the world (and history) are paying attention. Other countries are (and should be) distancing themselves from the United States.

That’s not a mechanism that overturns the result. There’s nothing in the Constitution that says …

It’s as though you think Almighty God handed down the Constitution of the United States as immutable laws of the universe. As though the only thing that matters is which flavor of asshole is sitting on the throne.

The constitution only lays out the rules of the game, but if the game is bullshit, the game is bullshit. Should we change the rules of the game? Should we keep playing the game? What do I do when the rules of the game are not fair? What do I do when if the rules are fair but another player is pointing a gun at me? Questions like this cannot be answered by the rules of the game.

In response to my point that voter turnout legitimizes democracy, you point out that elections lead to winners who go ahead and govern, regardless of turnout…and that means the results are legitimate. Which is wrong.

If you think democracy (rule by the people) means anything, then whether the system gets input from people or not clearly matters. Only fascists think that power is the only legitimacy. So, despite their “elections,” and despite the fact that the winners go on to govern, if the population does not turn up to vote, elections are not democratic. Whether that’s because the people have no faith in the system, or because of state repression doesn’t really matter…the people cannot be said to be ruling that state. Showing up to vote legitimizes the system, and not showing up delegitimizes it.

The CIA-backed opposition parties in countries the US doesn’t like call for boycotts. Opposition parties to CIA-backed leaders of banana republics call for boycotts. If it’s not a thing…why do you think they’re all doing that?

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.

It looks really lovely! I have a feeling you’re going to get a little joy from that every time you use it!

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.

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.

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.

I mean…if the democrats change their position and stop arming the genocide, then yes, it will have helped.

You say trump made it worse…I don’t see how; genocide is genocide…it was happening under Biden and it would have continued under Harris.

I didn’t make anything worse. The fascists did. Can you explain this ethical Rube Goldberg machine?

I mean…actually though; their postmortem says they lost net votes due to arming the genocide.

Because you don’t pay taxes voluntarily? You pay taxes under duress. If you don’t they put you in prison.

Because the democrats might just want to win enough to stop arming a genocide. If we…I don’t know…anti genocide holdouts or whatever…don’t vote, then we can give the democrats something they want. If we vote blue no matter who, why would the democrats change?

The people with power are also in a struggle with each other, democrats and republicans are one of the main embodiments of that struggle. The democrats might decide that they’re willing to deign to stop arming a genocide if it helps them beat the republicans.

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.

There wasn’t one, and ain’t that a bitch? Isn’t that suspicious? Isn’t that a problem?

The answer is that (I know this might seem totally insane to you) the people with power are not the voters. The people with power decide if we get fascism at home or genocide abroad. And they’re the ones to blame when we do. They have agency and culpability.

I’m sick of this ridiculous ethical Rube Goldberg machine, which none of you can explain, that blames me for that.

I don’t blame you for picking the lesser of two evils…what do I care? Just shut the hell up and stop punching left.

It’s horrifying. I didn’t support it, and our lack of support is making one party rethink their support for it. Your acquiescence to it did fuck all for Palestinians.

You have done a lot of work to justify your voting to continue arming the genocide of Palestinians. And hey, if you find that convincing, have at it.

And you’re jumping through some real conceptual hoops to blame me for what Donald trump does lol I didn’t vote for him. You did vote for Harris.

Like I said, I’m a lawyer. I’m used to weird mental gymnastics. I only mention my bachelors in case your mental gymnastics require a doctorate in philosophy to understand or what? Like…walk me through how you get to my moral culpability for the actions of Donald trump, as someone who didn’t vote for him. Explain that to an idiot like me.

I mean…i’m sure you agree with this: if the democrats want to win, they should not be making choices that cost them votes. Their post-mortem on 2024 tells them that continuing their pro-genocide position cost them votes (according to axios anyway, who I guess got a peek at it somehow. the democrats have decided they are not going to publish it.).

That’s real pressure for them to change. Not voting for the democrats created that pressure. They now know that abandoning israel will lead to a net-increase in their votes.

And yeah, I would hope that when looking down the barrel of more domestic fascism, knowing that it will matter from a purely Machiavellian perspective, the democrats will stop arming a genocide.

Like…I get how scared everyone is. I have family members who are undocumented immigrants in the US. It is terrifying. My neice might get shipped off to some el-salvadorian torture prison. Life would have been better for them if Harris had won. But I don’t regret refusing to vote for Harris because (a) I reject the claim that I have some ethical culpability for what the the fascists do (that’s just some ontological fuckery that I can’t straighten out in my mind, even with the benefit of a philosophy undergrad and years more of school and work figuring out all kinds of tax-law fuckery), and (b) people taking this position has created measurable pressure on the democrats to change. I guess there’s also the sneaky (c) my vote would not have counted anyway because I’m not from a swing state.

Brunch is lovely.

But I’m using brunch as a metaphor for “living a comfortable life and not worrying about the suffering inflicted with your tax dollars.”

I think “throwing the election” is overstating it. Harris lost votes because she decided to continue arming a genocide. The democrats know that…if they didn’t know it before (doubt), they do now. Their position cost them votes. That’s what their post-mortem says, according to Axios anyway. So if they don’t change course, they’re choosing to have fewer votes. They really really should not risk choosing to have fewer votes.

And all the democrats had to do to avoid it was not arm a genocide? Which they shouldn’t have done anyway? Failing to see how this is my fault.

Sorry if we got in the way of your plan to throw palestinians in the woodchipper and go back to brunch. Congrats on your moral inferiority?

Oh interesting, I hadn’t thought of that.