Political Memes

Its just confusing because I'm told I should have voted for Kamala because:

1. I need to think about more people than myself
2. Sometimes we need to pick a lesser evil for the practical benefit of more people
3. I need to make personal and ideological sacrifices for the greater good
4. I need to accept that hard choices have to be made and be willing to take real action even if it inconveniences me
5. I can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good

But from my perspective, that's exactly what I AM doing, in fact to an even greater extent, by not voting for Kamala. And when I bring this up, suddenly your rebuttal is that actually I should be picking.... What's best for me personally in the next couple of years?

I knew Trump winning would mean disaster for me, my family, my friends. But I felt like Kamala winning would just buy us a few more years of relative peace (at the continued expense of exploiting much of the rest of the world), only to then land us with the same ultimatum ,but with higher stakes, four years later. So I:

1. Thought about more people than myself, my friends, my family. I also thought about their kids, and people all over the world, and about millions of people who haven't even been born yet but one day will grow up under the same horrible America that we'll still have even if progressives manage to undo the last 20 years of crazy.
2. Picked a lesser evil (Trump now) over a greater evil (another century of stable American evil at home and abroad) for the practical benefit of more people (future people and young people)
3. Made personal sacrifices (I need to plan to leave the country) and ideological sacrifices (I don't like picking lesser evils! I wish I could only ever pick good things!)
4. Accepted hard choices (not voting for Kamala) and was willing to take real action (selling all my stuff, boycotting corporations, giving up a hundred comforts, and preparing to leave the country)
5. Didn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Of course not voting for Kamala would ideally not be so catastrophic. Ideally vote boycotting would have started decades ago. But oh well, we can't have things be perfect, so I guess starting the change now, messy and painful as it is for me today, will be good for future generations after me

So just to be clear, I don't hate you or anything, we're trying to achieve basically the same goal, we want the same thing. Our disagreement is just about what actions will most effectively bring it about. That's much better than the people who fundamentally want something different, so I want to be clear that I don't wish to characterize you as "essentially identical" to those actual enemy groups.

Anyways, from my understanding of the world, you voting for Kamala also disregards the effect on marginalized communities, its just marginalized communities of 2030-2080 and possibly onwards, rather than the communities of 2025-2030 which you are more directly affected by. That's the way I see it, at least. Its funny because really both the people who voted for Kamala and the people who don't are thinking to themselves: "this isn't how I really want things to go, but its a noble sacrifice to make for the greater good". I think the disagreement between the two groups truly comes down to complexities of which method will actually end up bringing about change. I leaned towards the choice I took, because when I look at the political history of this country since the 80s, it seems as though the Democrats have gone soft as representatives, which created that famous political ratchet effect.

I'm sorry, and I know this sounds like me just being lazy, but I truly do not believe putting in the leg work to change the party this way will matter. I know people who burnt literal years doing grassroots campaigning for truly progressive candidates and it went nowhere. I've been to more than a few of those types of events where everyone is trying to change the system the way it's supposed to be changed. But you know why those people never went any further? Because the party didn't need them to, because the party can get the votes they need AND have their donor cake too, because even many of the people in these grassroots campaigns will fall in line to vote for the normie candidate when the time comes and the Democrats know that. They know it because of the millions of dollars they spend to verify and ensure it for themselves.

So to me, since the "lift up opposing candidates" thing has been failing for 50 years, and the "blue no matter who" thing has been making things worse for 50 years, the only thing left to try is not voting. That's the one thing that might actually hit Democratic politicians where it hurts (their power/money). I know its not your strategy and you have every right to keep trying yours too, even though I think your strategy is part of the problem and you think the same about mine. I think the only way to come to a consensus is to debate why we expect one strategy to work better, and so far I feel like recent political history is clearly on my side. But I am interested in hearing counterarguments.

But everyone should understand that continually posting this Kamala shame stuff just makes people like me drastically less willing to hear those counterarguments, because it demonstrates how the people making them haven't even bothered to properly understand the nuance of our voting reasons, and instead prefer to strawman us as dumbly caring only about Middle Eastern genocides above all else.