Can someone explain how this argument is valid? I don't think it's sound, and I think we've reached consensus on that, but even the claim that Democrats would cause a slower genocide is questionable. Unconditional support for Israel is unconditional. There's no faster genocide under Trump, there's no ceasefire deal under Kamala L3Harris. Those are both lies.
100% this. Its absolutely no different than when they were telling people to vote for Biden because he was "clearly the candidate more qualified to end the violence" even as they approved more weapons and shut down any dissent. The premise that the democrats represent a position that is in anyway distinguishable from the republicans on the issue of Gaza is especially hilarious to me because it is practically democratic voters regurgitating and accepting republican talking points even as the democratic party itself denies it.
One could potentially argue that Trump's rhetoric of "finishing the job" means that he would do something to accelerate things by directly committing troops/planes/whatever. But we don't know exactly what would happen, so even then voting for slower genocide is more like voting for some unknown probability X that the genocide will be slower. Everyone in Kamala's corner is parsing her statements according to what they assume will be true and then projecting that into the future with 100% confidence.
See, that's the exact thing I mean though, is there any reason to believe that if Netanyahu asked Kamala for whatever it is that Trump would give Israel, she'd say no? You'd have to really give her the benefit of the doubt, and she's already bragging about how much she's supported "Israel" in the past, so why shouldn't we assume that when she says unconditional it means unconditional?
It's probably not worth engaging on a logical level because the people making that argument never reach it. From my perspective, it looks like the argument is a product of retrofitting an existing justification (Kamala is the harm reduction candidate) onto a specific issue (Palestinian genocide) and getting an incoherent result (Palestine will be genocided less). What motivates someone to put that incoherent result out into the world rather than, like, considering it, is probably a product of the shallow thinking social media encourages, an unwillingness to engage with the idea that we don't truly have political agency in the US, and a feeling that there are no other options.
In my less charitable moods I've viewed the argument as an attempted sop where the person advancing the argument does not actually care but does know that if they say as much they'll come across as a monster. So instead they do the bare minimum to retain what they view as the moral high ground in the extremely restricted landscape of the two major parties. Pointing to even higher ground outside that landscape can then be attacked as virtue signaling (anyone can tell that it's unreachable; this is the highest attainable spot) or trickery (anything that looks more complicated than this very simple reasoning must be some form of subterfuge, so I can continue to appear the most reasonable if I just keep hammering on "less genocide"). Absence of pushback from anyone with too much power to be dismissed as a troll or a curmudgeon allows the idea to enter the discourse, at which point other people pick it up and reinforce it.
But it's such a self-evidently weak claim that I can't do anymore than spit ball. It's an argument defeated easily even on its home turf of utilitarianism; any attempts to do that, though, just sends them back to the "Trump is worse" binary.
the person advancing the argument does not actually care
THAT is it right there. They don't really care about other people. To so many people this is a brand or cultural signifier more than any sort of coherent ideology.
It's exactly how I imagine German citizens acted in 1935
Can someone explain how this argument is valid? I don't think it's sound, and I think we've reached consensus on that, but even the claim that Democrats would cause a slower genocide is questionable. Unconditional support for Israel is unconditional. There's no faster genocide under Trump, there's no ceasefire deal under Kamala L3Harris. Those are both lies.
100% this. Its absolutely no different than when they were telling people to vote for Biden because he was "clearly the candidate more qualified to end the violence" even as they approved more weapons and shut down any dissent. The premise that the democrats represent a position that is in anyway distinguishable from the republicans on the issue of Gaza is especially hilarious to me because it is practically democratic voters regurgitating and accepting republican talking points even as the democratic party itself denies it.
One could potentially argue that Trump's rhetoric of "finishing the job" means that he would do something to accelerate things by directly committing troops/planes/whatever. But we don't know exactly what would happen, so even then voting for slower genocide is more like voting for some unknown probability X that the genocide will be slower. Everyone in Kamala's corner is parsing her statements according to what they assume will be true and then projecting that into the future with 100% confidence.
See, that's the exact thing I mean though, is there any reason to believe that if Netanyahu asked Kamala for whatever it is that Trump would give Israel, she'd say no? You'd have to really give her the benefit of the doubt, and she's already bragging about how much she's supported "Israel" in the past, so why shouldn't we assume that when she says unconditional it means unconditional?
It's probably not worth engaging on a logical level because the people making that argument never reach it. From my perspective, it looks like the argument is a product of retrofitting an existing justification (Kamala is the harm reduction candidate) onto a specific issue (Palestinian genocide) and getting an incoherent result (Palestine will be genocided less). What motivates someone to put that incoherent result out into the world rather than, like, considering it, is probably a product of the shallow thinking social media encourages, an unwillingness to engage with the idea that we don't truly have political agency in the US, and a feeling that there are no other options.
In my less charitable moods I've viewed the argument as an attempted sop where the person advancing the argument does not actually care but does know that if they say as much they'll come across as a monster. So instead they do the bare minimum to retain what they view as the moral high ground in the extremely restricted landscape of the two major parties. Pointing to even higher ground outside that landscape can then be attacked as virtue signaling (anyone can tell that it's unreachable; this is the highest attainable spot) or trickery (anything that looks more complicated than this very simple reasoning must be some form of subterfuge, so I can continue to appear the most reasonable if I just keep hammering on "less genocide"). Absence of pushback from anyone with too much power to be dismissed as a troll or a curmudgeon allows the idea to enter the discourse, at which point other people pick it up and reinforce it.
But it's such a self-evidently weak claim that I can't do anymore than spit ball. It's an argument defeated easily even on its home turf of utilitarianism; any attempts to do that, though, just sends them back to the "Trump is worse" binary.
GOOD post
THAT is it right there. They don't really care about other people. To so many people this is a brand or cultural signifier more than any sort of coherent ideology.
It's exactly how I imagine German citizens acted in 1935