Saying they won’t vote for Biden is the only leverage they have to exercise to prompt policy changes. “Uncommitted” scoring big in Michigan was effectively the first time Biden even started to pay attention to anti-genocide voters. Again, the goal is to make Biden change his stance so that he wins the election. Threatening his election is the leverage, not the end goal.
Yes, but it only works so much as that leverage exists. When the alternative is Trump, that leverage isn’t gonna be realistically useable come November — and there are definitely folks who don’t just say they won’t vote for Biden over this issue (which is imo good, since that’s the whole point of a democracy). I just worry that this strategy actually does extend to the general election and make even more people suffer even more… IMO, focus should be on bottom up — specifically the legislative branch, where there’s quite a few especially in the House where a primary campaign could do well and force the issue at hand.
The ones that will suffer most under Trump are the ones threatening to get him elected. The Dems know this. If anything, that’s leverage Biden has and is using, unfortunately.
Against people that want to see the people of Palestine not be constantly bombed into oblivion. Trump’s US will be significantly worse for women and minorities, so most people in those groups will end up better off under Biden because at the very least the Democratic Party aren’t literally white supremacist fascists. Those that don’t vote for Biden will largely be doing so as a protest vote or through apathy, which is significant (especially when you can see the size of the uncommitted vote, which is quite significant, and I hope grows), but also self-defeating — so it makes sense for the Democrats to pander to the type of person that would vote for Nikki Haley (which unfortunately somehow has a demographic much bigger than the left) instead, since they wouldn’t necessarily be endangered as harshly by Trump and so need incentives to vote for Biden.
At the end of the day though we just have to see whether current strategy works out come election day, I feel. Or if/when, God willing, a peace is attained.
That voters are a single unit that will in the end have to choose between Trump and Biden is a false assumption, because people aren’t objective robots and the representatives you see online or leading campaigns are just the tip of the iceberg. Many Muslim voters aren’t going to stay home because they don’t think there’s a difference between Trump and Biden, they’ll stay home because they’re mad as hell and maybe voting wasn’t that essential to them in the first place. The people speaking out, and the political junkies online, are probably all going to end up voting for Biden (at least in states where voting for president matters), but they’re in tune with and representing sentiment for voters within their communities that aren’t reachable by a cold argument about relative value.
The Democratic party can’t berate voters into supporting them, they need to actually do things that make them believe in them. There are too many out there for whom politics is a vibes thing and who will never have a direct conversation with a political advocate to tell them about strategic voting for lesser evils. Biden could lose because of Gaza, but that’s not because some politically active people organized a opposition campaign. The voters he’s losing are being lost because he’s adamantly rejecting the position of the majority of his party while genocide and starving children are playing on the nightly news. That doesn’t go away if all these advocates just pretend it’s not happening. They’re putting a spotlight on the danger, not causing it.
Saying they won’t vote for Biden is the only leverage they have to exercise to prompt policy changes. “Uncommitted” scoring big in Michigan was effectively the first time Biden even started to pay attention to anti-genocide voters. Again, the goal is to make Biden change his stance so that he wins the election. Threatening his election is the leverage, not the end goal.
Yes, but it only works so much as that leverage exists. When the alternative is Trump, that leverage isn’t gonna be realistically useable come November — and there are definitely folks who don’t just say they won’t vote for Biden over this issue (which is imo good, since that’s the whole point of a democracy). I just worry that this strategy actually does extend to the general election and make even more people suffer even more… IMO, focus should be on bottom up — specifically the legislative branch, where there’s quite a few especially in the House where a primary campaign could do well and force the issue at hand.
Trump is an enormous amount of leverage. Biden basically has to adapt if he cares about stopping Trump.
The ones that will suffer most under Trump are the ones threatening to get him elected. The Dems know this. If anything, that’s leverage Biden has and is using, unfortunately.
Leverage against who?
Against people that want to see the people of Palestine not be constantly bombed into oblivion. Trump’s US will be significantly worse for women and minorities, so most people in those groups will end up better off under Biden because at the very least the Democratic Party aren’t literally white supremacist fascists. Those that don’t vote for Biden will largely be doing so as a protest vote or through apathy, which is significant (especially when you can see the size of the uncommitted vote, which is quite significant, and I hope grows), but also self-defeating — so it makes sense for the Democrats to pander to the type of person that would vote for Nikki Haley (which unfortunately somehow has a demographic much bigger than the left) instead, since they wouldn’t necessarily be endangered as harshly by Trump and so need incentives to vote for Biden.
There is no evidence of anyone crossing between parties.
At the end of the day though we just have to see whether current strategy works out come election day, I feel. Or if/when, God willing, a peace is attained.
That voters are a single unit that will in the end have to choose between Trump and Biden is a false assumption, because people aren’t objective robots and the representatives you see online or leading campaigns are just the tip of the iceberg. Many Muslim voters aren’t going to stay home because they don’t think there’s a difference between Trump and Biden, they’ll stay home because they’re mad as hell and maybe voting wasn’t that essential to them in the first place. The people speaking out, and the political junkies online, are probably all going to end up voting for Biden (at least in states where voting for president matters), but they’re in tune with and representing sentiment for voters within their communities that aren’t reachable by a cold argument about relative value.
The Democratic party can’t berate voters into supporting them, they need to actually do things that make them believe in them. There are too many out there for whom politics is a vibes thing and who will never have a direct conversation with a political advocate to tell them about strategic voting for lesser evils. Biden could lose because of Gaza, but that’s not because some politically active people organized a opposition campaign. The voters he’s losing are being lost because he’s adamantly rejecting the position of the majority of his party while genocide and starving children are playing on the nightly news. That doesn’t go away if all these advocates just pretend it’s not happening. They’re putting a spotlight on the danger, not causing it.