Especially self-imposed exile!

No, dear reader, the party is supporting an ally that we swore we'd protect from a variety of hostile nations who have sworn to wipe Israel off the map. Houthi rebels attacked inside of Israel in the past 24 hours. And this is not a left vs. right thing as much as it is a foreign policy issue that's being exploited by bad actors trying to divide the Left and unify the Right so they can get their authoritarian friends installed.

Again. Most Americans, especially those who vote reliably, are far more concerned about cost of living than whether or not we let more foreigners live here or whether or not we spank Israel for their misadventures in Palestine. You want to reduce oil production? And do what? Russia's oil production was curtailed severely after its invasion of Ukraine and that resulted in a massive surge of energy costs world wide. You need to cut oil consumption if you want to cut oil production, and we've already seen that voters in the USA are willing to punish any party that cuts production for political purposes if it harms them at home. This poster's idea of cutting oil production will get Republicans elected, which will harm everything this it says it supports. That's my point in all of this.

Interesting questions to think about:

• This poster and its ilk are constantly talking about Palestine and how evil Israel is, but never how they plan on making it so that Israel isn't run roughshod over by its neighbours. Why is that?
• Why don't they hold Hamas as accountable for this as Israel? I mean, Hamas WAS the aggressor and technically this is a defensive war by Israel...
• This poster and its ilk focus so heavily on Palestine. What about Ukraine, who is also being brutally invaded and subject to atrocities?
• Republicans have said that they plan on empowering Israel to wipe out Hamas, whatever it takes, and allow Israel to subjugate Palestine, no matter what the locals want.
• Republicans have said that they are going to withdraw military support to Ukraine. This will allow Ukraine to be steamrolled by Russia in short order. Do these people who advocate voting third party or staying home think that Ukraine doesn't deserve to exist?
• And above all, how does this poster and its ilk justify getting Democrats thrown out of office through non-voting or third-party voting when we know that the Republicans have a plan for everyone, that includes stopping all left-wing voters from ever voting again.

More like little bully kids who get shown up then run to teacher and twist words to get the kid who showed them up in trouble.

It was a quite transparent attempt by this poster to try to get my words silenced by the Mods while it spews this ongoing nonsense unchallenged. I will make this accusation: the posters in this particular faction take great offence to having their posts challenged. They get all offended and shit when people point out that their posts are full of logical fallacies, dishonest tactics, and attacks that are thinly vailed, skirting the lines of the Rules, and even occasionally exceeding the rules, testing the limits. They hate it when you point out that yes, there is an active effort to split our vote so the Republicans win and shit on everything these people claim to support, and they are supporting that effort, no matter whether or not they're willing, paid, or just duped. Just see this exchange for a perfect example.

I suspect 'right' to this poster means anything left of the Buddha. Really big words for someone who can't get even a quarter of the country to own any left-wing labels. ;)

I'll have to give the poster credit for trying to bait me, but I really don't have to answer that. I said what I said, reader. Follow the links and look at this poster's posts (all of them), and make your own conclusions.

What this poster doesn't get is: when the country is divided 50.4 to 49.6, that 1% coming off the Left becomes suddenly VERY meaningful in a FPTP system like the USA. Doubly so when our antiquated electoral system means ties go to the 49.6 party due to gerrymandering. TRIPLY so when the result of that 49.6% controlling our country is Project 2025 and Fascist jackboots on the necks of disadvantaged people here. Keep in mind that there are very real efforts by dishonest actors to puh these memes to further divide the Left and ensure that the Authoritarian jackboots come out. While I won't (and indeed can't thanks to Mods tying our hands behind our backs about this effort with rule 3) say that for sure, this post or this poster is part of that effort, I will let the hyperlink above speak for itself and remind you that yes, it is happening.

Here's another thing this poster misses in its rant.

Dick Cheney and George Will are not on board our party for our policy. Both have made it clear that there are major policy disagreements between them and the Democratic Party, but they have said that the other party is so dangerous, they felt it necessary to both vote for AND endorse our party. They've said so much in almost so many words!

Dick Cheney

In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.

As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

George Will

The restoration of normal politics will require two things: The removal of Donald Trump — that Krakatau of volcanic, incoherent, fact-free bombast — from public life. And the rekindling of an irrepressible conflict.

It is between progressivism, of which Kamala Harris is full to overflowing, and actual conservatism, about which Trump is contemptuous.

Cheney is circumspect about it, but if you read eep enough, you can see he's not voting for Harris, but against Trump. Meanwhile, George Will makes it clear -- he's NOT a friend of Kamala Harris or Progressivism. He's just anti-Trump and wants Trump out of his political sphere.

No. The party of cancelling Student Loan Debt is not right-wing by Trump measures, and that's not why GOP Alums are moving to the Dems. The only reason they're endorsing us is they, like me, believe that the GQP as it currently stands is an existential threat to the USA.

I play the game by the rules the Mods have established. It is a fact that Russia is stoking divisions and interfering with our election in order to get the Authoritarian Trump party elected so they may get to the business of crushing democracies in their orbit without Western interference. And they have a variety of tools with which to do it. Nothing this poster says changes that fact. If the poster feels called out by me pointing out that there are Russian influence operations, as well as Chinese and Iranian operations, well, all I can tell the poster is sucks to be him. Maybe reconsider his tone and goal here, in this election where outside bad-faith actors are trying to get us to install an Authoritarian Dictator for their own Authoritarian Dictators' goals?

This poster uses an interesting analogy, but still misses the point. Let me spell it out clearly for you, dear reader.

Let's start off with the scenario. No. You're not picking which hotdog you're going to eat. You're at a picnic dinner, and the organisers have suggested that everyone has a voice in what's to eat. But they have made a rule! For economies of scale, you aren't going to get your own personal choice of food. They're not going to let you request a gourmet hotdog with all the fixings while everyone else orders regular hotdogs. Everyone's going to get the same food to eat, but a majority vote will decide what is eaten by everyone! So, let's start with a variation of my favourite example, but use the above scenario. There are 100 people and they are deciding what the main meal for the picnic will be.

You, of course, have the power to say "I want a gourmet hotdog with all the toppings," but they note that your writein is different than "hotdogs on buns." So, imagine your picnic has 51 people who want some variation on hotdogs, and 49 people who want some variations on Hamburgers. And a dude dressed up as a green banana starts screaming "we should order exactly what we want!" and convinces you and one other person to vote for your speciality hotdog dish. Meanwhile, a dude with a really badly combed over orange toupee tells the other side "hey, the hotdog lovers are gonna split their vote. I know you all want different types of hamburgers, but if we all vote for one type of hamburger, we got this!"

Result? You vote for gourmet hotdog, the green banana guy votes for hotdog with sliced bananas, and a third guy votes for just the hotdog itself, no bun, and 48 other people vote hotdogs with mayo and mustard. All 49 of the hamburger guys, led by orange toupee man, vote for hamburgers. The final vote is 49 Hamburgers, 48 Hotdogs, and one each of three different hotdog variations. And because Green Banana Man convinced you to stand up for your rights to order exactly what you want rather than voting strategically, the 51 people who were the majority are forced to eat hamburgers because thems the rules.

We're doing the exact same thing when we vote in the USA (unless you live in Maine or Alaska -- more on them later). Your vote for Jill Stein or Cornel West or whoever can result in your 100 person picnic getting Donald Trump, and won't move the needle if any more than 1 person wants something else (yes, you'd literally have to get 50 people to vote gourmet hotdog if you want to beat the 49 hamburger voters, just like you'd have to convince literally the entire Democratic caucus to unite behind you to beat Trump with Stein). Thus, if you want to actually avoid Donald Trump and the Republican Party making policy the next 4 years, you either have to convince us Stein is better than Trump (they're doing a lousy job of an uphill task given Stein's embracing of conspiracy theories and her pro-Russian stances, btw), or you have to vote tactically in the election, just like you have to swallow your desire for gourmet hotdogs and just pick the hotdog option like the 48 other voters, and convince at least the other person besides Green Banana Man in your 'hotdogs but' coalition to join in to avoid hamburgers.

Now, there ARE exceptions to this rule. If your picnic decides that you can rank the choices, you can write in 'Gourmet Hotdog with all the trimmings' as your first choice, then pick hotdog as your second choice, and your pick for gourmet hotdog won't get you hamburger. But remember, voting for President is not so simple. For local and State races, please do exactly that. We need more alternatives, for sure. But POTUS requires 270 EVs -- should you get Maine to throw in an EV for Green or West or whoever for POTUS, you might be the person who gets a 269/268/1 split thrown to the House where Trump gets picked.

Oh yeah, and I agree with just_another_person, too. It's not a big deal if you get hamburgers instead of hotdogs at the picnic as most of us will eat either or, but...what would knowing that the hamburgers are poisoned would do to your choice? Especially if the hamburger eaters were so pro-hamburger they'd still vote for eating it knowing it would kill them? Suddenly, voting 'whatever is most likely to prevent us from eating hamburger at the picnic' becomes far more important than getting exactly what you want. Even if you get diarrhea off the hotdogs!

What this poster and others like it miss, dear reader, is the truth being shown them. It must be nice to not have any concerns that might be harmed by harming the opposition to the Leopards Eat Your Face party, despite so many other people being harmed by the Leopards Eat Your Face party. We can't know which faction this particular poster belongs to, but we should keep in mind that there are three major factions that are pushing the 'don't vote for the guys who will save you from the Leopards Eat Your Face party':

• The faction that honestly doesn't believe that harming the Democrats will get us Trump and somehow their choice for the Green party or whatever will actually win.
• The faction that embraces letting Republicans run the show because somehow, in their stupid, convoluted brains, it'll break the Duopoly of power between Team Blue and Team Pepe without resulting in a single-party dictatorship and eventually Greens will win.
• The faction that actually supports Republicans and Authoritarianism and are looking to use the fact that we must fall in love to vote for a candidate to split our vote so Republicans win and they get the single-party Authoritarian dictatorship they want, and can get to the business of grinding Democrats, Socialists, Left-Libertarians, Greens, and other left-of-centre ideology followers under their authoritarian jackboot-heels.

We can't know what faction THIS poster belongs to, and even if we did and could convincingly prove so, Rule 3 would prevent us from calling out members of the third faction anyway, but keep in mind that there ARE people out there who want to make you throw your vote away so America can be conquered by Russian- and Chinese-style Authoritarianism.

I don't live and don't vote in the USA

Sure, here on the Internet where the Men are Men, the Women are Men, the Children are FBI Agents, SURE you're not a deranged trumper shitting on the lady who your side tried to coopt a few weeks ago, and nobody, and I mean nobody knows I'm a cat.

I don't trust you and you shitting on Swift is doing you no favours. If you don't like Swift, you move on. That you didn't and continue to attack anyone who questions your silliness suggests that you're more than non-appreciative of her as a singer. Hell, I don't like her as a singer. But I'm not going to act like a bitchy MAGA idiot by shitting on her music on a thread about how she is making bitchy MAGA idiots lose their shit by endorsing the other person. :)

Objectively, the woman has almost 300 million total followers, and has driven almost a half million new signups in TWO DAYS with her post clarifying she's not supporting Team Red. Objectively, she has a net worth that pisses off quite a few liberals because we tend to think having billions of dollars is millions of people living in abject poverty. Objectively she is a part of American popular culture. Objectively, she has eleven singles ranked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Objectively, she has 232 charted titles on the Hot 100 as of February of this year, ranking her as the most accomplished woman and in the top ten of ALL singers, world-wide. By all objective measures, this woman is a really damn good singer.

Your opinions of her are your own, which is subjective. The numbers I cited above, taken from Billboard are very objective numbers based on how often songs are bought and streamed. While it's very subjective for individual viewers (and I agree, she's not my cup of tea either!), the objective fact is that Swift speaks to a lot of people, and your personal disdain for her doesn't change that fact one stinkin' bit.

Todd is absolutely right, though. It's a very Salty Rightie thing to do to come in an attack a woman with some serious musical awards and accomplishments and say just because he didn't like her, she's no good. Anyone pulling this crap right now really looks defeated, humiliated, and just plain utterly SAD, a sad sack of a bitter and scorned rightie angry that a pretty girl rejected their Emprah and endorsed the other side.

Indeed, and note that Harris didn't even attempt to go after his voters. The target is the middle and the squishy left, a reminder of what the stakes are in this election. She made it clear he was a petulant child, only caring about himself and the things important to him, and invited voters who want someone who doesn't just care about themselves to come out and vote for her.

Hopefully it's effective, because Trump has Project 2025 ready to go, despite his lies saying he knows nothing about it.

We're working on it here in Colorado, but the two entrenched parties are fighting us tooth and nail. and don't forget, Alaska has a measure on the ballot to repeal that this election.

I have given up talking to these people. I really can't with Rule 3 because I do not believe they deserve any form of civility, and since I can't call them out directly, I'll ignore them while destroying their points.

The targets of my takedowns of the 'Imma Vote Jill Stein!111one!1one!!''s articles are the undecided and wavering voters who REALLY aren't sold on Harris/Walz, but really don't like Donald Trump. That's where the 'a vote for anyone but Harris/Walz just makes it easier for Donald Trump to steal the election' line comes in. The 'lost the plot/bad faith actor/naive poster' people can't be convinced, but we don't have to, fortunately.

My thoughts as well. Trump did himself no favours with undecideds and independents with his inane rambling rants. For the most part, Harris just seemed content to use her time to press him and let him make a fool out of himself, with only a couple of instances popping up when she seemed to want to interject but couldn't.

Dear reader,

I am writing to you today to remind you of how Russia intends on manipulating the election. Russia's not the only one, but Russia's got a vested interest in influencing our election.

Come next January, one of two people will take the Oath of Office. One of them is a neoliberal squishy centre-left politician with a history of saying anything to get elected, but taking the moderate approach. The other...is an Authoritarian shithead with a band of utter and complete assholes behind him that plan on grinding anyone and everyone that disagrees with them by any degree under a jackboot heel. And the Russians have a clear choice in this.

They want the guy who will let them take over Ukraine without interfering.

They like the guy that has the same opinions on gays and transgendered people that they do -- something to be crushed and oppressed.

They want the guy who will tear down our alliances with other countries over money.

They want us to become isolated and withdraw from world affairs.

And they are willing to do anything necessary to make that happen.

And they have been caught in the act making that guy more likely to win.

The article lists 5 key ways by which they influence our elections. The one I want to focus the most on is the third one. "Adding fuel to the fire." Here, we see their goal of amplifying our divisions. They definitely target the Right for this, making Conservatives beyond angry about LGBTQ issues, but they go beyond that to target divisions on the Left. One key way they do this is by convincing left-wing voters that their candidates aren't 'pure' enough and thus they should stay home. And they do this by creating fake news outlets and leveraging mouthpieces here in the USA.

So, consider this when you see the 13th article in a day by a divisive personality here pushing the meme that you should vote third party or stay home because the Democrat isn't liberal enough for them. While I will not, and indeed cannot directly call out any of these personalities as being part of the Russian Disinformation Operation due to the Civility Rule (and the fact that they may just be True Believers (tm) in really stupid ideas), I can with certainty say that the Russians are trying to manipulate you out of your vote. Consider that as you read each of the articles these people are posting.

Wow. Thanks for doing all my work for me. Keep talking.

express the status quo reasoning prevalent among you.

🤣

I hear ya. Yeah, I do agree with 'you shouldn't make a political opinion based on what a celebrity does,' but the reality is that people might waiver until they hear someone they like and trust (like a celebrity) makes a decision. Sad fact of life in this popularity contest we call a political system. ;)