In a careful Thursday statement, the “Uncommitted” movement decried the Republican presidential nominee and third parties who could help him win while expressing frustration with Democrats.
The “Uncommitted” movement seeking a change in the Democratic Party’s approach to the war in Gaza on Thursday announced it is not ready to support Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — while urging voters not to back Republican nominee Donald Trump or third-party candidates who could help Trump win the November election.
The “Uncommitted” group “opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” the statement continues. Additionally, the group is “not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.”
I can get behind this. Sure, we can criticise Team Blue for slow-dragging their feet on protecting Palestinians. Never said we couldn't. That said, there's clear consequences to a Trump victory. The Uncommitted have made it clear they grasp this and ask you to vote for Harris, even if they can't endorse Harris. Staying home, voting third party, or heaven forbid, voting Trump will just make things in the Middle East FAR worse.
“Voting is just a way to pick the person that will be sitting across from me at the negotiation table next year”, is one of the ways to think about it.
Harris‘ policy on Israel is ambiguous, weak and too-little-too-late. But you’ll get further trying to influence her administration than Trump 2.0.
The ambiguity is ironically a good sign. That she isn't outright committed to the status quo. But rather not willing to signal her actual position. If she came out strongly against Israel and for Palestine. Unfortunately that would be a large hindrance to her candidacy in the current climate.
It's a shame that those illegally occupying Palestine have such influence over our government. Especially after their terrorist attacks of the last few days. Not to mention the decades long slow genocide that's only accelerated in the last year.
Let's be honest. Without biden/trump it would be a non issue. Trump would smother out all reporting on the subject replacing it with trauma to the American people.
Well, your thought experiment actually just agrees with the uncommitted, since if they don't want to negotiate now that they want your vote, what hope you have after you lost that leverage?
For real, that’s all I’ve been saying whenever people start come in and start bashing on Harris and pushing false equivalence. Like, yeah, Biden is super bad on his policy towards Israel and Gaza; I HOPE Harris will be better; I KNOW Trump will be worse.
That’s it. That’s the whole dynamic. That’s the only two choices we have as members of the American electorate.
I was about to ask this - because if they aren't endorsing Harris but also asking folks not to vote for the GOP or third parties, then who should we vote for? Surely they're not saying stay at home and don't vote, right? (That was the only possibility that seemed not covered by the post's description.)
So another way to look at it is - (if one ignores the way they mince words and instead just looks at the practical effect then) they are in fact endorsing Harris, but in a muted fashion to express their displeasure over Harris's stance on Gaza.
He's moving at light ing speed (for his age) to support Israel's genocide in anyway he can, including going around congress illegally to avoid a delay of just a few days.
I just hate how all the blame is put on voters, it's literally Kamala and her campaign teams job to get votes, and despite how much they hate the thought, that means giving Dem voters what Dem voters want.
And they don't want to be citizens of pretty much the only country still supporting the genocide by sending munitions. Especially when it's a violation of the Legacy Lehey law and bare minimum we should be demanding Israel track the use of US supplied munitions.
Like. You're completely underselling the damage Biden and other party leaders are causing...
And then claiming you can't understand why people don't like him or the party's stance.
Why dont you spend your time and effort trying to stop a genocide instead of telling people they have to support a genocide?
Your way even if we win. Still a genocide.
If we demand Kamala and party leadership stop breaking US and international law, and they actually listen
Kamala could moonwalk into the oval office and Israel wouldn't be able to continue their genocide.
What's so hard about picking the best path?
We can stop trump and genocide or just stop trump.
I mean if I understand you correctly you're saying bascially the same thing as OP - can hold Biden/Harris feet to the fire while working to re-elect Kamala and defeat Trump.
Sure, we can criticise Team Blue for slow-dragging their feet on protecting Palestinians.
Incredibly generous way to put it. They are providing the weapons that maim and kill the innocent children. I criticise them for the blood on their hands
That it's the advocacy group trying to hold Biden and Harris accountable for the continuation of the atrocities in Palestine saying this should make it clear. The actual people on the ground may feel strongly about Palestinian civil rights, they know where their bread is buttered and that the other realistic alternative in this election is "Orange Hitler", to use another poster's euphemism, is just plain horrible.
And his advisor on, and ambassador to, Israel literally wrote a book promoting a one state solution where he said that the US has a Biblical obligation to help Israel win. His ultimate plan is to set up an apartheid state where Palestinians do not have the same rights as Israelis.
At least we're not getting the 'vote third party' spiel. I'll never hold a person's opinions on the Dems against them. I just don't want anything done or suggested that will help Trump and his merry band of assholes.
I think everyone who is being intellectually honest knows full well that Trump would be worse. The problem seems to be that the Democratic party has decided it can take the votes of the left wing of its party for granted. If the left is not willing to actually follow through and withhold their votes, then the Democrats know that they never have to appease them.
It's really a lose-lose situation until the Harris campaign shows some moral courage or takes seriously the possibility of losing votes over this issue.
Exactly. We know how bad Trump is, but Biden in his disastrous “hug Netanyahu” policy went out of his way to not just ignore pro-Palestinian voices but actively insult them. He said “I have zero trust of Palestinians” and publicly supported the invasion of Al Shifa hospital despite the ridiculous and debunked claim that there was a 3 story underground Hamas base beneath it. He overrode his advisors and removed pro-Palestine language in all his October and November speeches. He met with Israeli victims but never met a single Palestinian one and even had his tour bus detour around towns in Michigan that had too many Arab-Americans. He claimed he was looking for peace but vetoed ceasefire attempts and bashed Palestinians in general. (He later privately told people he meant to bash Hamas and shouldn’t have use the words interchangeably, but never apologized).
It’s one thing to hold your nose and vote for Biden, but it’s quite another to vote for him when he’s so unapologetically anti-Palestinian. And his attempt to get Arab-Americans to vote for him when he helped kill their relatives is to ignore them and say “Trump would be worse.” That’s not a winning strategy and he wants to claim he both needs our votes to win but also that we aren’t politically relevant.
I hope Biden retires in shame and that Harris does better. She already had been meeting with Palestinian-American families when Biden refused to be seen with one.
"If the left is not willing to actually follow through and withhold their votes"
Wthholding your vote only helps Trump. Candidates know they have to appease the folks with money. We're fighting the wrong bad guy - focus on reversing Citizens United.
Seems like the rest of the international community is moving on this whether or not the US leadership approves of it.
Barking up the "Who will you vote for?" tree, when neither American candidate for President has expressed an interest in ending the holocaust in Gaza or prosecuting the litany of war crimes in surrounding Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan, seems pointless.
If anything "Vote for Kamala because hey remember that genocide we're financing via Israel?" seems like its going to scare away more voters than it attracts.
Nobody is claiming that and you’re attacking a strawman.
The problem is we don’t want to reward politicians for their bad behavior “because Trump is worse” or get blood on our own hands by voting for someone who will continue the same deadly failed policies. Have you ever heard of the Trolley Problem? It’s not as straightforward as you think.
The article is about the group publicly saying it is important to vote with the intention of keeping Donald out even while they cannot endorse Harris. Maybe you should join them?
This trolley problem has a large number of the same people across two tracks, but one of the tracks has a large number of additional people that the other track bypasses. It is not a complicated trolley problem to solve.
The Trolley Problem is all about how there's frequently no good options in a scenario. People are gonna die whether or not you make a decision, and you'd be right to walk away from that lever if there were equal amounts of death on each track. But there frequently are not equal situations. Six people versus one person. A kid versus an old man. 7 Nuns versus 10 Lawyers. The person you love the most in the world versus the person you hate the most in the world.
Sure, you have to be discerning and look for any tracks that don't have something tied to them. That's why I mention that self-driving cars, thanks to their sensors, don't have to hit the bus full of school children or the SUV full of nuns -- they've seen the bus and the SUV and the idiot merging into traffic and the idiot on their phone and everything else due to their 27 different cameras and their LADAR and RADAR and so on, and to the advanced AI computer that can pay attention to all those sensors at once, and have calculated a path to escape to the track that doesn't have anyone being killed in the phony concocted examples of why AI cars are bad.
But in regards to the Presidency, there literally is a Trolley Problem here, and it IS as straight forward as you say it isn't. Come January of next year, one of two people will take the Oath of Office.
Kamala Harris, who you say is a genocidal maniac who will enable the mass murder and enslavement of Gaza by the Israelis...
Donald Trump, who himself has said is a genocidal maniac who will not only enable but accelerate the mass murder and enslavement of Gaza by the Israelis, and who plans on bringing that treatment right back to home for LGBTQ+, minorities, non-Christians, and women.
Jill Stein, Cornel West, Chase Oliver (seriously, I had to go look this guy up!), and whoever else promises you they can fix a Broken Washington won't be elected to that office. Period. End of line. All they'll accomplish is taking votes away from the major party candidate closest aligned to your positions, and ensure the other guy gets into office. The track of no genocide is an illusion, a mirage that fades the moment you look at it too hard. I know. It sucks. We all want more options for people to represent us. But those are the rules, and have been the rules for literally this country's entire existence. It sucks, but denying reality won't help. Come January, one of two people will take the oath of office: a Republican and a Democrat, just like it has been for the past 150 years, and even before, albeit with Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist or Democratic-Republican vs. Whig.
I'm going to vote for the person who will do the least harm to those I care about. I'm going to push and push hard for everyone else to join me in voting for her. I'm going to constantly call out this 'but third party!' stuff. Because for everything you have accused Harris of allowing, Trump will not only do that, but a dozen other hateful things.
Having said that there is no hope for Gazans from US since both the parties are bought and paid for by the Israelis.
American political parties are not in charge of Israel. Believe it or not, Israel has their own elections and elects their own parties.
Maybe it's not that both parties are paid off, but that stopping a still-young and flawed democracy from being swallowed up by a far right religious dictatorship sworn to kill every Jew in the middle east in the name of a new Islamic Caliphate, is an issue with resounding bipartisan support.
Oh, you know what else it could be, has a lot of bipartisan support? Not stabbing our allies in the back, just on principle.
Huh, maybe not everything you find revulsive is a Jewish conspiracy to control on the world.
I'm honestly doubtful Trump would make any additional difference considering Biden didn't do anything to reduce Israel's insanity. He'd still have to let congress pass the big stuff, and Biden approved every single smaller sale bar holding up one shipment temporarily.
Everyone keeps saying "yeah but Trump would be worse for Gaza" just because he did the whole embassy thing, but this really looks as if it's maxed out.
Even from a purely utilitarian perspective assuming this is true, I'd rather take my final stand and be wiped out than to be continuously subjected to essentially warcrime torture for the remainder of my life.
Harris already made it clear that her policy with Israel won't change. Her campaign decided that the amount of votes in this group do not matter (which I completely disagree with), which is why she barred them from talking at the DNC, despite the fact that they were offering to endorse her. She went all in on the AIPAC funding and lobby though.
This is basically their last desperate call to get the DNC to change their minds (probably won't happen), so I guess I'll see you all in r------- red Michigan this year.
Everyone keeps saying “yeah but Trump would be worse for Gaza” just because he did the whole embassy thing, but this really looks as if it’s maxed out.
It's a lot more than that. Trump also gave a Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, to Miriam Adelson, a billionaire heiress who is actually more extremist even than Netanyahu. She openly opposes Palestinian statehood, wants Israel to annex the West Bank, and wrote an op-ed saying critics of Israel are "our enemies" and "dead to us". She gave Trump money, so she owns him. The US can do a lot more than send a few weapons to Israel, and this rabid extremist billionaire will ask Trump for everything she can get. And he will do what she says.
Unsurprising. While people opposed to any criticism of the democrats' self defeating and inhumane policy on this issue like to pretend it's all a pro Trump psy op, it's actually more of a DON'T SUPPORT GENOCIDE YOU EVIL FUCKS type of thing.
But for the dems it's fine because the electoral college has the whole country by the balls I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who are you going to vote for dumb dumb? Orange hitler? Spoiler candidates? Lol didn't think so, send the bombs boyos
What makes you say that? Is there something I'm missing?
The Uncommitted group “opposes a Donald Trump presidency, whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing,” the statement continues. Additionally, the group is “not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key swing states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country’s broken electoral college system.”
I agree with them. Including about this:
Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her
Although I would say obviously people should still vote for her because the political system is broken.
I was responding to this "news" because it is what many of us have been saying the whole time, only to be met with accusations that this must mean we think trump is better. Obviously he would be much worse for this and everything else. But that doesn't excuse the dems position.
Completely feckless. Effectively an endorsement of Harris despite getting absolutely nothing in return. The people who want the genocide to continue (like Harris) were just proven to be strategically correct in writing off this movement because they knew they could and they'd just come crawling back to the lesser evil. What's worse is that this spinelessness discredits any future movements or protests on the issue.
Somehow telling people to vote for Harris is "not an endorsement," because liberals think you can do the exact same action and it's meaningfully different if you feel kinda bad while doing it.
What exactly is your ideal outcome? They successfully prevent Harris from being elected, Trump gets in, funds the construction of the Israeli version of Auschwitz, and the Palestinians getting thrown into gas chambers will think "at least the Americans voted on principle"?
My ideal outcome is that Harris caves and stops the Israeli version of Auschwitz which is already happening. Failing that, my ideal outcome would be that the protesters establish a credible threat going forward that supporting genocide will result in tangible political consequences. Establishing such a threat is far more important is far more important than any one election, especially when both people are pro-genocide.
The moment you commit yourself to the ideology of lesser-evilism, you have sacrificed every ounce of bargaining power you might have wielded. The concerns of reliable voters don't factor into any politician's calculus. I can't figure out whether liberals just have terrible instincts regarding wielding power, or if it's just that they don't care to wield it because they're satisfied with the status quo.
Everyone, don't bother. I have made every reasonable argument against this silly narrative that I could think of since it began and not a single time has any one of these folks gone, "Yeah, Trump/GOP has promised worse" or anything remotely similar. You will receive one of a couple canned responses, which I'll paraphrase below:
"So you support the genocide?!"
"You BlueMAGA are all the same. You support the genocide?!"
"If you don't support the genocide you will vote third party!"
They will not listen to things like how you don't support the genocide, don't support war, know things like genocides are horrible, any explanation about how it will get worse, or anything similar.
i got banned for a rather unfortunate string of comments regarding IP, though i will say, it was my fault.
IP people are in my experience entirely single issues voters. They do not care about anything else, and cannot be made to care about anything else. It's pretty par for the course as far as issues voters go.
liberals think you can do the exact same action and it’s meaningfully different if you feel kinda bad while doing it.
They will not listen to things like how you don’t support the genocide, don’t support war, know things like genocides are horrible, any explanation about how it will get worse, or anything similar.
Literally the exact thing I just described. If your actions are indistinguishable from someone who supports genocide, then nobody gives a shit what's going on inside your head regarding it, least of all politicians.