Things that make you go HMMM……

The people you call “Moderate Republicans” - the ones that you say Harris is ‘reaching out to’ - I consider to be fascistic.

And I call bullshit on this entire line of reasoning. Everyone right of you is not Fascist, and calling everyone who is right of you a Fascist is a really shitty thing to do to people, and is a good part of why this country is so paralysed.

lmao, Clinton lost because she arrogantly believed she didn’t need to address progressive concerns, just like Harris is doing now.

Bullshit equating Clinton with Harris but par for the course for these people.

I happen to be tired of the liberal bullshit being spewed here, personally.

Well, here’s this poster’s problem in a nutshell. If we don’t give these particular type of posters EXACTLY what they want, they’re gonna lump us in with the Christofascists that are currently taking over the GOP.

If you find .world’s politics intolerable, you should really try spending time in an instance that hasn’t gone as far out of their way to avoid leftist perspectives.

Why would I subject myself to such a bullshit factory. Little echo-chambers where nonsense like “Kamala Harris is a Fascist that murders Palestinian babies” is the same kind of bullshit factory that produces nonsense like “Kamala Harris is a Far-Leftist that murders and fucks babies for her Master, Satan,” just on the Left instead of the right.

And no. I don’t find .world’s politics intolerable. If I did, I wouldn’t be here. I find the brigade from .ml and other instances, coming here to push their bullshit that Harris is a secret Fascist who is just going to implement Project 2025 for Trump, to be intolerable, as much as the shitheads from the other side that pop in to say Harris is going to sell us off to the Mexicans and the Muslims, while being a baby-eating, baby-fucking Satan worshipper that plans global domination from the basement of a pizza parlour that doesn’t have a basement…

I’d suggest this poster and its fellow spreaders of left-wing conspiracy theory bullshit might fuck off back to a “Leftist” instance of Lemmy and circlejerk with each other about how EVIL the Democratic Party is and how UNLEFT it is, but that would be mean and censoring their opinion as another purveyor of this kind of bullshit I’m calling out here put it. So, instead, I’ll just call out the bullshit as I can, and call this stupidity that Harris is a secret Fascist as exactly what it is…stupid bullshit.

You actually remind me of another user here that was repeatedly banned for constantly accusing other users of being russian (sic) trolls…

Well, this is the Internet, but I’ll say I’ve only had comments banned. That’s why I am not engaging with this … person directly, because if I said what I want to say to this person, it would get removed, and I might get banned. I’d also point out that if you keep acting like “russian” trolls, you’ll keep getting called Russian trolls, just not by me, because we’re not allowed to do that here, DESPITE the fact that there was a troll operation discovered and exposed doing the exact same things that are being done here, today. That’s my only beef with the mods. But since I can’t call a spade a spade, I’ll just keep debunking the bullshit being pushed by… people I disagree with (see, I didn’t call 'em Russian Trolls, mods! I are good catboy!) This isn’t a fight we can give up because Russia DEFINITELY wants Trump running the show here regardless of the motivations of a given poster.

It might be time to log off and touch some grass, bud.

For a member of a faction who really screams loudly about being censored by other factions on the Left side of the spectrum here in the USA, this poster really likes to try to censor those other factions.

That’s OK. I’m touched that this poster is concerned about my health. I had a nice relaxing bike ride, that included lots of grassy areas. My health’s good. But I think I’ll stick around and keep pushing against this frankly offensive bullshit being pushed that Harris is somehow Fascist. I don’t care if this particular poster is motivated by a paycheque from Putin, one from Trump (but I repeat myself), one from Stein (but I repeat myself), or because it’s a True Believer ™, this bullshit serves Putin’s and Trump’s purpose, so I’m not gonna stop calling it out. I hope that doesn’t inconvenience this poster too much! :)

My pronouns are very publicly displayed in my displayname, you can fuck off with your intentional dehumanization. It seems like you’re going out of your way to not accuse me of illegitimacy directly, but you sure as hell seem content to imply I’m a russian asset, a bot, or both. While I appreciate your intentional avoidance of accusing me of those things to my face (not for a lack of clearly wishing you could without getting moderated), I’d appreciate it even more if you could resist the urge to speak to me/about me in the third person and refer to me as ‘it’.

This poster is demanding I show respect, here on the internet, where the Men are Men, the Women are Women, and the Children are FBI agents, while it and its ilk treat the rest of us like children at best and shit at worst. This poster bitches about the fact that I don’t see fit to refer to it as a person. Well, I’ve been told in no uncertain terms I can’t call these posters out as the way I want to, so this is the best they’re going to get. If they got their druthers, I’d only be able to refer to them in the most glowing of terms, enforced by mods picked by them to stifle my dissent to their bullshit that Dems are in any way endorsing Fascism, and that the answer is to let an actual Fascist in by voting third party. I’ll be damned if I give them any more respect than referring to them in this disconnected sense. And that they’re leveraging a tool designed to let people be who they want to be gender-wise makes it worse.

This poster splits hairs trying to claim that it didn’t call Democrats Fascist when it most clearly did:

• point of comparison for just how fascist of a candidate they themselves would still be willing to vote for
• But setting the electoral math aside for a second: eligibility odds aren’t a valid defense of being complicit in the most public international genocide in recent memory.
• The democrats are already ceding ground to anti-LGBTQ and minority movements.

I’m fucking DONE with this bullshit. I’m not going to let these claims stand unchallenged.

And I’m not going to just simply give up pointing out the stupidity expressed in these posters’ positions either.

A majority of americans (sic) support halting arms shipments to Israel.

…except it didn’t. It said 52% +/- 3.5%, based on a survey of 1000 people, support halting arms shipments to Israel until attacks on Gaza stop. That is within the margin of error, and could be as low at 49%. And a whole 21%, again +/- 3.5%, aren’t sure if we should halt weapons shipments to Gaza and 27%, again +/- 3.5%, suggest we should maintain support for Israel. What happens if Iran or Syria or the rest of the Middle East jump Israel’s case while we’re withholding weapons? Note that the article ALSO doesn’t address demographics in this 1000 person poll. If you poll 1000 people of Arabic decent, I’m sure you’ll get a different result than if you poll 1000 Jews or 1000 Christians or 1000 Republicans. The poll itself makes clear Republicans have a much more militant view on this!

Since my point was that we’d only need to turn off 50% of Jews to lose far more votes than we gain from this poster and its ilk, it dishonestly blows this bullshit in our face, ignoring my point altogether, and then gets all offended and shit over pronouns. I stand by what I said. There are no heroes over in Gaza, just villains and victims. And how many of these people saying they want to stop arms shipments are part of the ‘vote blue no matter who’, given the OTHER guy who has any chance of winning has said he’s going to ship MORE guns and bombs to Israel! Meanwhile, closer to home…

Oh right. This poster has a line for that too.

If you’re only concern is winning a single election against a loud and obnoxious fascist bafoon (sic), go ahead and turn a blind-eye to the rhetoric the democrats are using in order to appease those “”“”“moderate”“”“” voters.

1. More bullshit accusing Dems of catering to Fascists
2. YES, I am more concerned about winning a single election against a loud and obnoxious fascist buffoon who has a clearly spelled out plan on how exactly he’s going to ‘make it so you don’t have to vote again’. If you’re fucking concerned about what happens next, maybe get Jill Stein to start working the day after the election to stand up RCV and other voting initiatives and work to get Third Parties elected in large enough numbers so that future possible Third Party candidates for POTUS have some allies in Congress, maybe? That’s what I’m going to tell this…poster.

You kind of need to worry about your own home before you start worrying about the homes across the street, unfortunately. Doubly so when the choice is between a woman who may not be doing enough to placate all the posters coming out of the woodwork shitting on the Democrats and only passively mentioning how horrible the Republicans are, and the Republicans who are gonna do everything these people and the CONFIRMED bots from Russia say the Dems are gonna do, dialled up to 11, not only to the people these people are ‘concerned’ about, and a whole bunch of extra people, right here.

I’m just done with the nonsense being spewed on Lemmy by people who seem to be all to eager to do the same kind of ‘blow up every molehill into a mountain’ that confirmed Russian Troll Farms did with Clinton in 2016 and end us up with another 4 years of Trump. At least in 2016, Hillary DID have that stench of Third-Way Corrupt Democrat and we didn’t know what Trump would do versus what he said, but it’s 2024, people. We know Trump is going to do what he says he’s going to do, and Harris is light-years better than Clinton.

PS: I find it amusing that what was a claim that Lemmy lets stand Russian propaganda got turned around into an endorsement of Reddit. And this poster wonders why I don’t consider it worthy of directly endorsing. I may not be allowed here on Lemmy to directly say any given poster is a Russian Propagandist, Bot, or Useful Idiot, but Lemmy can’t stop me from having those thoughts and choosing how I’m going to interact with these people. Maybe if this poster wants me to treat it was respect, this poster can start treating us with respect and stop accusing us of being blind to Fascism.

And that means Harris must campaign to those voters and affirm their most wildly fascist opinions about minorities and immigrants?

This poster wants you to believe that what Harris is doing to cater to the middle makes her equivalent to Trump. It does not. She’s trying to bring everyone to the table, and believes that not screaming to the high hills how Left she is is the best way to make Trump fail again in 2024. I do think she should go more like “Hey, Moderate Republicans. Thanks for your vote. Please, stay during this election, but after the Election is over, go back and fix your party. We’re not going to become Republican Lite over here for you. You need to fix your party so America can have two choices again,” but I won’t hold it against her if she doesn’t do that. I certainly don’t buy the notion that Harris is catering to Fascists, though…

What kills me is that I would be happy to discuss the ways in which MAGA actually does pose a danger to the republic, if not for the fact that Liberals will use it as a point of comparison for just how fascist of a candidate they themselves would still be willing to vote for, as if the act of voting is some twisted real-life game of “would you rather”.

This poster could go far by discussing how much MAGA poses a danger to the republic. Hell, it could also promise to hold Democrats accountable, by threatening primary opponents and reminding Dems that the only reason it voted Democrat this election was how dangerous MAGA is, but it doesn’t seem this poster wants to talk about that at all…

The democrats are already ceding ground to anti-LGBTQ and minority movements. Harris is already running on anti-immigrant and anti-asylum policy, she is already turning away from protecting LGBTQ rights in red states across the country, she is already fanning the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment. In pursuit of defeating a loud and obnoxious fascist, Liberals are actively affirming those fascist fears while abandoning minority and working class protections. They are proudly advertising themselves as the more pleasant fascists, the steady hand that will provide order to those who are afraid that immigrants are bringing drugs and weapons across the boarder to kill their children.

I can’t have a conversation with anyone who spouts this level of bullshit. Attention: Mods. I am specifically calling the above paragraph as bullshit, not the poster, so please don’t ban me under Rule 3. I won’t address what I think the poster is because of course, Rule 3 only allows me to call ideas and subjects of articles {expletive}, and while I do think some pointed expletives aimed at this poster and others is more than warranted, I’ll stick with pointing out the flaws in this poster’s reasoning.

This above paragraph is utter and complete bullshit. It is so far opposed to reality that I just can’t have a discussion with this poster if it believes this nonsense. This both-siders-bullshit is exactly the kind of Russian Propaganda that was peddled in 2016 to convince people to throw their votes to third parties. This included the IRA spreading propaganda to convince African Americans not to vote, creating 10 Youtube Channels, multiple Facebook channels, 571 videos, and more than 1.2 million followers in their attack on Black voters. I brought all the receipts for this, just check the hyperlinks above.

If this poster truly believes this, there’s no common ground for discussion here. Dear reader, keep in mind that this poster was preceded by posters just like it in 2016 confirmed to be IRA agents, who pushed very similar bullshit about Hillary Clinton that this poster and others like it are pushing today. If you don’t want to read the link, here’s some key numbers: 1017 videos posted over 17 channels, 3840 twitter accounts with 72 MILLION engagements across 1.4 million people, and 44 fake news Twitter accounts with 660k followers between them, peddling disinformation.

If you think this poster is on the right course, you’re as lost as it is, and you’re doing Putin’s dirty work for him. We can and do criticize Team Blue here, but there’s a difference between saying Dems aren’t liberal enough for some of our tastes and saying Dems are just as Fascist as the Republicans. I call that bullshit out here, and invite you to reconsider if you buy this bullshit or not.

PS: I’m glad to see that it seems like /r/politics on Reddit and most other forums on the Internet, save for the fever swamp of conspiracy theories, aren’t being filled with bullshit like this. I guess the moderators of most mainstream forums see this bullshit as Russian Propaganda and shut it down. So maybe I’m overestimating how much impact this bullshit has. Still, I want it to have ZERO impact, so a-countering I go. As much as the mods here will let me go, at least.

The only reason Jill Stein has a chance to spoil this election is because we’ve got a large and rabid minority of voters who actually like what Trump is serving. If Trump were down 10 points in the Swing State polls, Jill Stein’s 1% wouldn’t matter. If Harris had 270 EVs worth of locked in states, Stein could take double digit vote counts in places like Oklahoma and California and still be a non-factor. But in this closely divided of an election, with the political system the USA has, your purity crusade will result in possibly the last election you ever get to vote in, and at minimum, 4 years of policy that will utterly destroy every priority you have.

And do you really think cutting support for Israel will gain more votes for Harris than it loses from people who happen to think Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself? Here’s a hint. It won’t. First, we are certain you’ll just find some other reason not to vote for Harris, and second, it’ll piss off moderate and conservative Jews and run them straight into the Republican’s arms. According to this article, there are somewhere around 3.6 million Jews nation-wide who vote for Democrats. In 2016, only 1.4 million people nation-wide voted for Jill Stein. If you only turned off half the Jewish vote while capturing every Stein voter there is, you’d still have a net negative, and I’m absolutely sure AIPAC would go apeshit over this (and they support Republicans too), and Stein voters would just find another reason they couldn’t possibly vote for the Democrats.

So, if you are really dumb enough to think a protest vote is a good idea, know that your meaningless protest will cost LGBTQ and minorities and non-Christians and women HERE in this country dearly, while doing absolutely nothing to help the Palestinians. It’ll also fuck the Ukrainians over, and maybe even the Taiwanese, as I can see the Shitgibbon leaving them to China’s tender mercies. Muslim voters who back Stein over Harris will own-goal themselves as they’ll be the first to be attacked by Project 2025 and Trumps Mass Deportation/“Remigration” plans. LGBTQ, Minority, and women Third Party voters will also bring their doom, while White, Male, and passable-as-Christian Third Party voters will benefit from their privilege but best get down to being Good Americans because the Trump Goon Squads will be set loose looking for Leftist rabble to round up.

Again. This is not how this works.

Stein isn’t taking Trump voters. She’s a Left-Wing distraction candidate. In some systems, like RCV or Proportional Representation, her candidacy wouldn’t hurt the Dem as long as voters were thoughtful with their votes. But in FPTP, which we have here, she’s definitely a threat. We’re bitterly divided here, to the tune of close to 51% wanting lefties and 49% wanting righties. All she needs to do to throw this election to the Right is poach 3% plus whatever Right-Wing third party candidates there are. Since the Right is unifying behind the Shitgibbon, it’s real easy for her to spoil the election and get all 51% who want progressive and/or liberal policies to get conservative policies instead. This is even worse when you realise Conservatives have gone Fascist.

This. We need to turn out in such numbers that they’ll have to be blatantly fucking transparent and have to expand their bullshit into purple and blue states .

It’s worse than that. And understanding this is key to understanding why voting third party will never work in the USA without reforming our electoral system.

Suppose tomorrow, a genie grants one of these posters’ wishes and suddenly it’s Stein with 48.0% of the vote in critical swing states, and Harris and other candidates on the Left sit on 3% of the vote, while Trump has 51% of the vote. Suddenly, it’s Harris who’s the spoiler and we end up with Trump because 10k voters thought Jill was too cosy-cosy with Russia.

I have specific issues with Stein that would definitely have me far less sure of my vote, but I’d still take her over Project 2025 and DJT. I’d still be calling as hard against voting third party as I am in this universe where it’s the Greenie and not the Democrat that would spoil the election.

None of what this poster said countered a thing of what I said, and all its personal attack did was concede the debate.

Because Russia has a long history of propping up third party distractors, especially those who are friendly to Russia’s causes, and another of their tools, useful idiots and bought-and-paid for bad actors (note: Mods, not accusing THIS poster of this, but you can’t disagree such people exist and operate here on Lemmy and on other forums across the Internet) spread bullshit across the web to convince people that the Shitgibbon with his plans to directly enable his fellow authoritarian shithead to exterminate and/or subjugate the Palestinians AND his plans to let Russia do the same RE: Ukraine AND his plans to bring that same subjugation/extermination to LGBTQ+, non-Christian, minority, female, and non-Conservative populations HERE IN THE USA is somehow better than letting Team Biden/Harris have 4 more years.

You don’t like me calling that out? Well, you can fuck right off because I’m not going to stop.

This particular poster seems to think I didn’t read the article, and if I had, I couldn’t possibly disagree with it.

My takeaways and disagreements:

• They say RFK Jr. wanted to ignite discussions on the political duopoly. (Then why did RFK Jr. withdraw and endorse Trump?)
• They claim to speak for independent Coloradans. (I am registered as an independent in Colorado. Who are they to speak for me?)
• They think Third Parties are the solution to our problems. (I do agree here and will be voting for Colorado’s RCV option this November, and will vote for third party candidates for city, county, state, and federal offices, with Dems ranked appropriately, if that passes. POTUS, however, is still ratfucked by the Founders and their EC, so I’ll be voting Lesser Evil there)
• This is despite wide variations in what they believe in. (Third parties don’t agree on much!)
• Some of them endorsed Trump

“If you really understand Bobby (Kennedy Jr.) and what’s going on, you have to suck it up,” Maxsenti said. “Vote for Trump and hope and pray, as we do, that Trump is truly a changed individual — and, now, that he’s learned his lessons from his first opportunity.” (You really don’t think this is enough all on its own to earn a downvote on the article?)

This poster throws big words, likely without understanding them, and definitely incorrectly. The article was all over the place, but mostly confirmed what I already believed. There is a huge faction in the Third Party movement who wants Trump elected. Third party views are mostly single-issue magical thinking type views, unaware of how elections actually work in the US. They agree on very little with each other, let alone with the Major Parties, and they expect us to trust us with the decision making. And entertaining them, right now, will result in greater harm than listening to Andrew Yang who capped the whole thing off with “we’re with Harris”.

There isn’t cognitive dissonance here when I interact with these posters, dear reader. There is a desire to point out that they are wrong, that their choices are dangerous, that you shouldn’t listen to them, and that you should cast your vote for Kamala Harris, no matter where you are, how red or blue your district is, how much you disagree with Biden’s decisions over the past four years, or even if you think there’s a genocide being enacted in Israel, because frankly, either she or Trump wins, and everything you might accuse the Biden/Harris Admin of doing will be done in spades by a future Trump admin, not just to Palestinians, but to Ukrainians, Taiwanese, Muslims, Mexicans, and a whole host of American groups such as LGBTQ+, minorities, non-Christians of all sects, and women. Maybe go read a primer of Project 2025 (I won’t subject you to the whole almost thousand-page document) and give some serious thoughts as to why these people are trying to get you to throw your vote away on a Third Party Candidate with Trump on the election?

The Trolley Problem is all about how there’s frequently no good options in a scenario. People are gonna die whether or not you make a decision, and you’d be right to walk away from that lever if there were equal amounts of death on each track. But there frequently are not equal situations. Six people versus one person. A kid versus an old man. 7 Nuns versus 10 Lawyers. The person you love the most in the world versus the person you hate the most in the world.

Sure, you have to be discerning and look for any tracks that don’t have something tied to them. That’s why I mention that self-driving cars, thanks to their sensors, don’t have to hit the bus full of school children or the SUV full of nuns – they’ve seen the bus and the SUV and the idiot merging into traffic and the idiot on their phone and everything else due to their 27 different cameras and their LADAR and RADAR and so on, and to the advanced AI computer that can pay attention to all those sensors at once, and have calculated a path to escape to the track that doesn’t have anyone being killed in the phony concocted examples of why AI cars are bad.

But in regards to the Presidency, there literally is a Trolley Problem here, and it IS as straight forward as you say it isn’t. Come January of next year, one of two people will take the Oath of Office.

• Kamala Harris, who you say is a genocidal maniac who will enable the mass murder and enslavement of Gaza by the Israelis…
• Donald Trump, who himself has said is a genocidal maniac who will not only enable but accelerate the mass murder and enslavement of Gaza by the Israelis, and who plans on bringing that treatment right back to home for LGBTQ+, minorities, non-Christians, and women.

Jill Stein, Cornel West, Chase Oliver (seriously, I had to go look this guy up!), and whoever else promises you they can fix a Broken Washington won’t be elected to that office. Period. End of line. All they’ll accomplish is taking votes away from the major party candidate closest aligned to your positions, and ensure the other guy gets into office. The track of no genocide is an illusion, a mirage that fades the moment you look at it too hard. I know. It sucks. We all want more options for people to represent us. But those are the rules, and have been the rules for literally this country’s entire existence. It sucks, but denying reality won’t help. Come January, one of two people will take the oath of office: a Republican and a Democrat, just like it has been for the past 150 years, and even before, albeit with Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist or Democratic-Republican vs. Whig.

I’m going to vote for the person who will do the least harm to those I care about. I’m going to push and push hard for everyone else to join me in voting for her. I’m going to constantly call out this ‘but third party!’ stuff. Because for everything you have accused Harris of allowing, Trump will not only do that, but a dozen other hateful things.

No worries!

Overall, an engaging ad, and it speaks to me, a White (College Educated) Dude. My only criticism of the ad is it is too long. I hope they have a 30 second version!

The ads themselves don’t cost much. Really, it’s just a voiceover of scenes for every political ad. What costs money is getting it in front of voters’ eyes.

Lots of money trades hands during election season, and it’s all about getting ads in front of influence-able people and getting them to do the thing you want them to do (vote for me!!!).

I do have my criticisms about the ad. It spends too many seconds articulating the message “White dudes can easily vote for Harris/Walz and you should to save the US from Donald Trump.” It should be shorter, IMNSHO. But you’ll be surprised at how little money goes to the designers and actors for an ad, compared to the metric fuckton of money that gets put into the pockets of advertisers and media companies.

Sorry, can’t answer that question. I’ll be Rule 3’d if I did. :3

At least we’re not getting the ‘vote third party’ spiel. I’ll never hold a person’s opinions on the Dems against them. I just don’t want anything done or suggested that will help Trump and his merry band of assholes.

That it’s the advocacy group trying to hold Biden and Harris accountable for the continuation of the atrocities in Palestine saying this should make it clear. The actual people on the ground may feel strongly about Palestinian civil rights, they know where their bread is buttered and that the other realistic alternative in this election is “Orange Hitler”, to use another poster’s euphemism, is just plain horrible.

And the fun part is these aren’t my words. These are the words of the “Uncommitted” faction that wants to hold Democrats’ feet to the fire. They’re saying that at the moment, there’s bigger fish to fry – a MAGAt movement that would make everything Team Blue has done look like child’s play in comparison. So, Mr. Give Some Fucks isn’t just arguing with me. He’s arguing with the guys and gals actually advocating for Palestinians.

I can get behind this. Sure, we can criticise Team Blue for slow-dragging their feet on protecting Palestinians. Never said we couldn’t. That said, there’s clear consequences to a Trump victory. The Uncommitted have made it clear they grasp this and ask you to vote for Harris, even if they can’t endorse Harris. Staying home, voting third party, or heaven forbid, voting Trump will just make things in the Middle East FAR worse.