I am a Palestinian American in Pennsylvania, a contested state. I plan to write in “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary on 23 April and in November, I will vote for a third-party candidate.
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For many, myself included, a vote for Biden is simply impermissible – the extent of the moral calamity is so great as to render a vote for Biden a vote for complicity.
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As the president of the Center City mosque in Philadelphia, Mohammed Shariff, said to me: “My vote is the purest form of expression and speech.” President Biden ignores our voices at his own peril, and ours.
The downvotes are because “both sides are the same” is an extremely common talking point by right wing trolls/astroturfers.
Conservatives recognized a long time ago that republicans will vote. They aren’t worried about disenfranchising conservative voters. Because conservatives will be willing to jump through hoops to keep voting. Voter ID laws, for instance, largely don’t affect conservative votes. If there’s one thing conservatives are really really good at, it’s presenting a unified front for their voters.
So when barriers to voting are put in place, they’re almost universally intended to disenfranchise liberal voters. This is true for both hard barriers - Codified legislation like voter ID laws - and also for soft barriers like a lack of time or motivation to vote. There is often a lot of liberal pushback against hard barriers, (because liberal lawmakers and activists recognize that it will unfairly disenfranchise liberal voters) so lots of time and effort has shifted towards making those soft barriers larger. This includes everything from “your vote doesn’t matter, so why bother” messaging, to “both sides are the same, so why bother” messaging.
Basically, the conservatives are going to vote conservative regardless. But the liberals might not vote liberal, or might not vote at all. So the “both sides” messaging has been leveraged by conservatives to dissuade liberal voters. The downvotes are a sort of over correction from liberals who have recognized this trend. Because sure, it could be someone who is genuinely disgusted by Biden’s actions and doesn’t feel right voting for him. But it could also very easily be a right wing troll. So many liberals have simply begun downvoting any kind of “both sides” messaging, because the default assumption is that the argument isn’t being made in good faith.
I definitely understand the dynamics of that, and how policy and morality make center left voters more fractious than the right, who vote on dogma. What I was trying to say, is that were I an American, I would very much struggle to give my vote to someone who is pretty clearly a part of the process of atrocity and genocide. It’s a cold decision to have to make. Do I choose an accessory to one of humanities worst crimes, or another who would also commit that crime, as well as presenting further risks of accelerating the path of America toward becoming Iran, but with a cross instead of a crescent.
I’m glad I’m not American, but I think I live way too close right now.