It’s not “doing nothing” it’s demonstrating that their “viable” candidate is not an acceptable candidate. You’re demonstrating that the people reject them and that we have the power to prevent their victory, putting pressure on them to earn the votes of the people, necessitating changes to be made and concessions given if they wish to stay in power.

Unless they can convince all of you folks to abandon your blocs and “vote blue no matter who”. Then they have free license to do whatever they want, and to let the other side continue being the bogey man that gets you to the polls, because without you your bloc is too weak to affect their victory.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; by saying you are too weak to effect change and arguing as much instead of demonstrating in solidarity with other objectors that genocide is a policy that will guarantee defeat for the Democrats now and in the foreseeable future, because the other side is unacceptable (which implies that your side to you, even if genocidal, is acceptable, because of the comforts you believe they are promising over the other side), then you yourself are participating in the thing that is making you too weak to effect change and in the process throwing those people who are subject to the genocide under the bus in service of your own comfort.

Not really. It just means onlyfans pays more than Spotify… which seems obvious to me??? A direct subscription to an artist vs only a few cents per play… yeah, no brainer, the artist is going to make less money in the latter deal.

Kawasaki did toy pianos does that count

All of that text and you didn’t address a single thing that I said.

You don’t need to explain your line of thinking to me. I’ve been beaten over the head with it. I used to have the same line of thinking. It does not hold up to reasoned criticism and it simply is not possible to defend at this moment without minimizing genocide. Try it. Try having this conversation with someone that is watching their loved ones be murdered indiscriminately by our tax dollars. Go tell them how your chosen social issue is more important than Palestinian lives, that it justifies supporting with your vote and tax dollars a country that is bombing and starving living human beings, who are mostly children, and see if you feel so righteous at the end of it.

The Democrats do not care about any of your issues. They care about winning, and they care about fundraising. When their fundraising is actively threatened by your issues, the only way to get them to move on anything is to threaten their ability to win elections. Look: Biden just fucking did it, a legitimate threat to cut off aid (still only a threat but it’s a start), and I guarantee you it would not have happened if this election was smooth sailing for Kamala. No thanks to you and all of you screeching about the end of the world if Trump wins.

Both of your cups are poisoned, so call their bluff. Refuse to drink the poison and demand an option without poison. The cups did not just materialize there as immutable objects, they were put there by politicians that need us more than we need them and have the power to change what goes in the cup. Do not for a second let them deceive you into thinking otherwise.

If they see they cannot win without you, they will move mountains to come meet you. Lesser evil voting does not allow for that exchange to happen. In fact it actively undermines it. That is how we got here, that is how we keep ratcheting to the right. Not any of your bullshit about unelected judges.

Ah gotcha. Didn’t know any better and assumed you were JAQing off trying to make a point.

I also find Claudia De La Cruz compelling but she would be a write-in candidate in my state as she’s not on the ballot here.

Hey, if you’re that curious, here’s an idea. Throw some darts at a map and drop the addresses into onyourballot.vote411.org. It’ll spit out a list of all the local and federal races and what candidates are on the ballot for them in that particular district.

Not Jill Stein, if that’s what you’re asking. Looking like Cornel West but I haven’t fully reviewed my options. Might also write someone in. It’s less about the particular candidate and more about the message I’m sending.

This except the raft has a bunch of holes in it, is covered in blood, and by setting foot in it you are implicitly giving your consent to fund a genocide on the other side of the world, and then the raft sinks anyways in the last panel.

edit: Bright side, the water may not actually be that deep. At least it’s certainly not as deep as the peoples’ whom you would have sacrificed by getting on the raft. That’s just what people tell you, but they also told you the raft would be perfectly seaworthy in its battered state.

The right already has everything they need for “damning the whole country” with or without Trump - Roe V. Wade being overturned, all this trans panic bullshit, immigration suddenly being everyone’s uncle’s top issue, utter climate inaction, etc. - it’s all happening under Biden’s administration. What makes you think the Democrats are suddenly going to turn heel and do something about it? If they had any interest in doing anything about it, why wouldn’t they be running on that? If we can’t move them on the highest crime against humanity - genocide - by threatening their power in choosing not to support their campaign, what makes you think you’ll be able to move them on anything else by protesting in ways that they can easily ignore and let their opposition stamp down with police response and media circus, just as long as you come back to vote for them in 4 years?

What makes you think your protests won’t just end up like BLM, with the media smearing you and cops descending upon you with military vehicles, riot shields, and rubber bullets as soon as the protests become disruptive; as democrats stand by and grand stand out of one side of their mouth while out of the other they are refusing to defend you and going so far in the opposite direction of answering your demands that they put the very kind of person you’re protesting against - a cop in this case - up for the highest offices in the land?

Neither of them is going to save gaza, and neither of them is going to save us either. One of them is just more annoying than the other and I personally am going to need a much more compelling reason to vote Democrat than that. By voting third party I am showing them that I am engaged in politics and my vote is on the table but only if they come and meet me where I am, as I have hit a wall in what I’m willing to support. They will either get the message and adopt more popular policy - realizing that the right will never trade Republicans for Republicans-lite and they need the left to win - or they will keep disengaging their base from their party and have a much harder time winning elections. That’s their choice to make, not ours.

Ban kids making up dumbshit challenges and attempting them?

Because for every loud voice you read on lemmy there’s 1000 boomers and nut jobs that either a) don’t use the Internet regularly b) don’t leave Facebook or c) hide away in right wing circlejerk sites like truth social and 4chan. A and B just being old, and none of them being people that can handle having their views challenged, which is definitely going to happen in a space like this.

That’s certainly a possibility, but I’m no psychiatrist. If the coffee started before the antidepressants then I would say it’s worth a try at the very least.

For me it’s less depression and more intense anxiety that can lead to depression. People look at me like I’m crazy when I bring it up though so maybe it’s just me.

The hack for this is to get cold brew (more caffeinated and tastes good cold) and sip it slowly throughout the day alongside water.

This is how I avoid a crash when I do drink coffee. The negative side effects of caffeine make me want to end it all though so I tend to avoid drinking it with any regularity these days.

They also need to move truck headlights lower to the ground. There’s absolutely no need for them to be eye level.

What news from England and Germany? The k thing (pronouncing the H in Hamas with a harsh hissing sound common in both Hebrew and Arabic but completely absent in English and other western languages) has been around at least since Oct. 7, probably much longer before that. It’s a dog whistle. At best, it’s in the spirit of mocking their language.

I would certainly not say that adding extra torment by forcing people to work as a profit incentive for capitalists would make said death camp any less abhorrent.

The k makes it sound more islamic and triggers western audience’s latent islamophobia

Do you not see that this dynamic just as much allows complete inaction on climate change as it allows the democratic candidates to arm Israel as they commit genocide? You’re using that word, “more”, as if you have any choice than continuing the status quo (complete environmental destruction) or worse in some miniscule way complete environmental destruction.

Again. How do you expect your elected representative to care about passing real, thoughtful, progressive policy on climate change if the only thing they have to do to earn your vote is make sure their opponent doesn’t lose the shovel being used to dig your grave?

Palestine is just the most present and distinct issue which should be an easy slam dunk to show that Democrats care at all about winning voters over or slowing down our recent regression; the undecided movement being a clearly defined group of voters that can be convinced to vote Democrat this election without a clear group of votes that would be lost as a consequence of meeting their asks.

Even pretending the genocide is a non-issue, Trump should be the easiest man in history to beat in an election. Everybody hates the guy, everyone just wants rid of him, and issue-by-issue he manages to take the most unpopular, easily debunked stances that for some reason the Democrats keep conceding narratives to without putting up a fight. But he motivates his voters.

Whether or not you agree with the undecideds, you should be rooting for them. The first rule of negotiation is to be willing to walk away, but the one before that is to bring something to the table worth negotiating for. By not engaging, Kamala is clearly demonstrating to us that; even with everything that group has brought to the table; there is not anything that, to her, is worth negotiating for. What can you bring then? That is not democracy. That’s a lose-lose situation and you can’t fault the voters for being disillusioned by it.

If you (you being a member of voters at large) will go along with genocide so easily, completely turning a blind eye, what incentive is there for either party to present an alternative?

How do you expect to walk your party over to your side if your vote for them is guaranteed, and you ask absolutely nothing of them, as long as the other party is worse, which is all but guaranteed for the foreseeable future?

It’s already the worst case scenario. You either support genocide or you don’t. Your constant shouting “but it’ll get worse though!1!!” isn’t really pertinent to the conversation when we are already looking at complete annihilation of Gaza and the Palestinians that live there.

What democracy is there to be saved if we are already at the point of “vote for us or else” with Trump and project 2025 being held like a gun to our heads? All of the progress being made towards that eventuality; losses in bodily autonomy and voting access being only a couple examples; not showing any signs of slowing down even under a democratic administration?

A vote should be won, not coerced. Simple as. Not even asking for an alternative makes you complicit in the fact that there is none.

The stock photo sites are watermarking AI-generated images now?

If that’s what you want to believe then I will not be the one to stop you :)