I read this lib "how to" about Gaza - How To Speak To Voters Who Say They Can't Support Biden Because Of Gaza. The substack is co-run by George Takei and he's built himself into a super-popular lib brand. I wanted to know what he was promoting.

Most of it was exactly what I expected. But a surprising word stuck in my craw - "dealbreaker". As if there can be a "deal" made on morality. And - of course - the "deal" is we must change 100% and see things the lib way while they don't change an iota. Quite a deal!

Most of us know someone on the left who is dug in against voting for Joe Biden because of U.S. policy toward Israel and Gaza. For them, the continued support of Israel and the flow of weapons is a dealbreaker, and they say they can’t support a president for reelection who would back a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians.

  • alexandra_kollontai [she/her]
    ·
    8 months ago

    This election is about Gaza, yes. But it’s also about many other things:

    • Reproductive freedom and a right to abortion that was stripped away from millions of women overnight;

    While who was president?

    Can Trump can take away federal reproductive rights any harder? I don't think so. They're already gone.

    Compassion and full equality for the LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans youth in need of gender-affirming medicine;

    As a member of at least 4 letters of LGBTQ+, I don't need "compassion", I need fucking action, which has not been forthcoming in the current Biden presidency.

    • Threats to democracy

    Don't be ridiculous.

    • An economy that focuses on the needs of the people at the bottom and the middle, not those at the very top;

    That's communism, not liberalism.

    Liberals will shake their head at any policy or candidate that actually addresses these things.

    • ReadFanon [any, any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      As a member of at least 4 letters of LGBTQ+, I don't need "compassion", I need fucking action, which has not been forthcoming in the current Biden presidency.

      My new favourite angle for debating the Vote Blue No Matter Who types is to bait them into describing how Biden cannot address any of the issues that matter to you, especially if you can get them to do so in detail, by asking them what Biden has actually done. If necessary summarise their arguments when appropriate to get them to agree that Biden cannot do anything.

      Then once the conversation has reached its natural conclusion and you have given them enough signals that they think they've managed to convert you, tell them that you've decided that you cannot vote for Biden in good conscience because they've just convinced you that Biden is completely incapable of achieving anything.

      Puts them in a real double-bind because either they have to argue that Biden could actually do something but he just doesn't care to or that he wants to do things but he can't, but either side of that argument is going to lose your vote.

      The synthesis of those contradictions is either arguing for you being more realistic in your politics, at which point the easy response is that if the political reality is handing over your vote in the knowledge that there will be no changes for the better then that is in itself defeatism or a kind of political nihilism, or to say that things will get worse under Trump, at which point you have them because it's hard to imagine being more personally at odds with someone whose politics is "There are worse things than genocide".

      • NewLeaf
        ·
        8 months ago

        smuglord "that's not how politics works, honey. Presidents have no power and can't do anything. But if trump gets in, it's game over for democracy somehow"

        • Egon
          ·
          4 months ago

          deleted by creator

        • ReadFanon [any, any]
          ·
          8 months ago

          Lmao I didn't even realise that this was the problem of evil despite being familiar with the concept. Good catch!