A desperate plea from a former pastor who knows what's coming

From a former pastor who knows what the insiders talk about: a warning we would be foolish to ignore.

  •  some_guy   ( @some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
    4•2 days ago

    To third-party voters: I fully believe in votes of conscience and there will be plenty of time for you to create an alternative to the system we currently have in place—but now isn’t that time. A protest vote now isn’t a protest, it’s reckless and wasteful and it will cost you any future opportunity you’re hoping for. You will lose the voice you have.

    [emphasis mine]

    •  Facebones   ( @Facebones@reddthat.com ) 
      6•2 days ago

      If my choices are “the end,” “the end slightly delayed because we’ve no interest in preventing it,” or “worse than the first guys because I didn’t worship the duopoly” I’ve already lost my voice, havent I?

      Democrats have shut off all paths to move them left, including having it ruled in court that the DNC can do whatever they want. Democrats spend more energy attacking leftists than they ever do Republicans.

      If leftists are such a critical threat to Democrats they probably should have courted those voters instead of the cycle of telling them to eat shit for 3 years then spending a year blaming them for dem losses. 🤷‍♂️

    •  TheOubliette   ( @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ) 
      4•2 days ago

      If you are voting for genocide with “lesser evil” logic then you have already lost any voice worth having.

      There is a reason these cowards can’t even describe the basic facts with explicit terms. They know what it means to say, “vote for a gemocider” so they hem and has and play with euphemisms.

      But you don’t need to be convinced by these shills. You can do better than support genocide.

      •  averyminya   ( @averyminya@beehaw.org ) 
        3•2 days ago

        Can’t vote Democrat because support of Israel. That means you also can’t support Republicans, because they support the full extent of the genocide even more with Trump telling Israel to finish the job. And that means you can’t support (most) 3rd party candidates, because the Green Party is primarily funded by Republican donors, and the candidates themselves have investments that go against everything the Green Party is supposed to stand for.

        Where does that leave us? You say it’s hemming and hawing with euphemisms. Right now, all candidates lead down the same foreign affairs path. Not all candidates lead down the same road on policies regarding education, corporate regulations, federal health regulations. All things that were decimated under Trump’s presidency. Not to mention, the sheer amount of hate crime that conservatives feel more comfortable doing with Republican presidents in office, leading to people of color and queer politicians stepping down from fear of their livelihood.

        But I guess Trump saying he wants to deport protestors and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, on top of everything else his administration did to the U.S. is completely reasonable.

        •  TheOubliette   ( @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ) 
          3•2 days ago

          Can’t vote Democrat because support of Israel. That means you also can’t support Republicans, because they support the full extent of the genocide even more with Trump telling Israel to finish the job.

          Yes you should work against both major genocidal capitalist parties. To do otherwise is to facilitate the primary forces of oppression and mass death on the planet. They, particularly the Democrats, will tell you they are here to reduce harm while they starve entire countries. They just want public support and consent and believe, often correctly, that this can be purchased solely with PR firms.

          And that means you can’t support (most) 3rd party candidates, because the Green Party is primarily funded by Republican donors, and the candidates themselves have investments that go against everything the Green Party is supposed to stand for.

          Voting Green at least opposes the normalization of genocide among liberals. Y’all are going to pretend you were against it in a few years just like you did with the war on Iraq. Rather than try to save face, just be on the right side when it actually matters instead.

          Also the greens are not the only third party and you can also leave the line blank. Furthermore, you can decide, ever minute of every day, to shut that mouth and stop typing those keys to normalize and justify support for genocide.

          Where does that leave us? You say it’s hemming and hawing with euphemisms.

          It is hemming and hawing with euphemisms and vagaries. None of you will sat, “yes I will vote for those doing genocide”. You get close to it, but usually bail because you know what you are doing is wrong but wish to project the usual righteous smugness that being slightly to the right of Reagan, i.e. a Democratic voter, provides. Most won’t say the word genocide at all. IRL they go quiet. It shatters this illusion of being the good guys, and personal moralizing and identity is the primary aspect of Democrat ideology nowadays.

          Right now, all candidates lead down the same foreign affairs path.

          This is obviously untrue.

          Not all candidates lead down the same road on policies regarding education, corporate regulations, federal health regulations.

          Yes I am aware of the tried and true lesser evil sheepdogging. It does not excuse supporting genocide.

          All things that were decimated under Trump’s presidency.

          Biden has done little to reset this and even normalized a pandemic while slashing benefits. That had a massive material detriment to the public, especially poor people who were forced back to work during a panddmic in less safe conditions just to prop up capital. Trump’s COVID pandering, while still capitalist and sociopathic, was objectively better for working people.

          Do you see what impact liberal normalization can have? Look at how you all went to sleep under Biden, even justifying these kinds of things. Palestinians, the immunocompromised, impoverished service workers, the hyperexploited undocumented immigrant labot underclass? Under the bus.

          Not allies at all.

          Not to mention, the sheer amount of hate crime that conservatives feel more comfortable doing with Republican presidents in office, leading to people of color and queer politicians stepping down from fear of their livelihood.

          Palestinians and advocates for Palestinians are routinely hounded out of their positions by Democratic Zionists. The state apparatuses they build criminalize solidarity activity and call Palestinians and their resistance organizations terrorists, repeating racist rhetoric. They have doubled down on massively ramping up the police rather than address root material causes of poverty and deprivation, choosing capitalist-friendly violence instead. Cops terrorize neighborhoods routinely, generally along racial lines.

          And then Democrats come along and say, “vote for a genocide or it will be even worse”. Listen to yourself. Your case is that of a mob boss. “Pay us for protection or something bad might happen”.

          But I guess Trump saying he wants to deport protestors and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, on top of everything else his administration did to the U.S. is completely reasonable.

          Please do your best to reply to what I actually say and not silly things that you invent.

          You should oppose genocide.

        •  spaceghoti   ( @spaceghoti@lemmy.one ) OP
          3•2 days ago

          Nevermind that. He said he wanted to call out the military on anyone who didn’t vote for him on live television. Why isn’t the NYT reporting on that?

          Oh, it’s just Trump!

          At this point, I’m fairly convinced that the people trying to argue that we shouldn’t support Democrats because of a single issue, no matter how important that issue, are Russian assets.

  •  TheOubliette   ( @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ) 
    4•2 days ago

    The author is a Dem shill that tries to whitewash the genocide in Gaza and the Biden-Harris administration’s role, even trying to pretend they are trying to stop it (JFC).

    You can skip it and just read Harris’ campaign page instead. Might as well get the PR from the source, no need to filter it through this grifter.

      •  TheOubliette   ( @TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ) 
        2•2 days ago

        I stated what my point was: if you want to read naked bad faith DNC talking points you should go to the source. The argument is that he is just rehashing those things.

        If you want to know some ways in which he is wrong, I pointed out negative things from other articles, like his bad faith apologetics for the Biden-Harris genocide. That does not make this article incorrect, but then again I didn’t say anything about this article aside from implying it’s unoriginality.

        Okay, so for ad hominem, in media, the author is always relevant.

        First, most are politically and media illiterate and cannot parse or criticize the article. Most just read a headline and draw a conclusion. Most of those who do start reading the article only read the first third or so. Knowing that someone is a dishonest hack is an important fact if you’re not critically engaging with media.

        Second, when it comes to media you are often asked to trust the veracity of an author’s claims based on their record or the record of the outlet, as some to all of their claims will be based on personal experience or otherwise unsourced. There is an implicit “reverse” ad hominem at work here, an unstated argument from authority, that we all accept to some degree or another, particularly if we are not taking the time to critically go through it with a fine-toothed comb or if we do not have any subject matter expertise. So of course knowing that the author is a dishonest or incompetent shill is important and is not itself a fallacious use of ad hominem.

        Finally, if you want my takeaways from this article, yes it is also wrong. It poses white evangelicals as an existential threat and then tells you the only thing you do is vote harder for Dems in November. He either does not truly believe this, as you need to do far more than that against an existential threat, or he does believe this and is demanding you do very little about it, so he apparently doesn’t really want to. At best, he is politically illuterare and you should ignore his advice, but as we both know, he is just a hack. The claim is self-defeating and incoherent. This is the thesis of the article and it is inherently flawed. The unstated elephant in the room, something he does not even mention because he is a partisan hack, is the ongoing genocide in Palestine and now Lebanon carried out by the people ge is telling you to vote for. This presents a different moral compulsion: that every person supporting genocide should be opposed and must lose. Of course he knows this, you all know this, it is why he avoided the topic and why you skipped over my mention if it.

        I recommend that you engage critically with media and that if you want garbage partisan slop to get it from the horse’s mouth. Then you will more correctly understand its meaning.