this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I'll be nice and assume you're just stupid instead of actively trying to support the Zionist cause by letting their biggest supporter back into office.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Biden also supports Israel.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You ignore the other option in current criticisms of Biden. No, I don't want Trump to win, but it sure would be nice if Biden listened to criticism and stopped his current, weak "I told Netanyahu, 'Stop this, bub, or I'm going to get really cross with you. Now, listen here, I mean it this time!'" enablement of the genocide Israel is carrying out. He's apparently able to listen voters on stuff like not banning menthol cigarettes for fear of alienating black voters due to black smokers predominantly smoking menthols, yet when younger and more left-wing voters ask "Could you please stop fast-tracking Israel's ability to commit genocide so I can vote for you with a clean conscience?" the response is apparently, "Lol, get fucked."

If Biden loses, this will be entirely on him. He can cave to pressure from a fraction of the African American population that smokes over something that will actively help kill them, but is seemingly committed to ignoring young voters across demographic groups to enable something that systematically murders innocent people, makes the US complicit in crimes against humanity and offers literally no tangible benefit to the US, but could get him some more of that sweet AIPAC money.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I just love how "leftists" accuse others of not taking fascism seriously enough and then post shit like this when the opportunity to put up actually presents itself.

When Fascists Vote, Not Voting is Collaboration.

That's not a platitude, that's basic math, and it's true even under a not absolutely fucked FPTP system like what we're stuck with right now, let alone with it.

When fascism is on the ballot, you vote against it or you are a collaborator. End of story. No debate.

If you need more convincing than just being informed that the other candidate is a fascist running on a platform of doing fascism, you are a collaborator.

If ten people are at a table and a Nazi can sit down at that table unchallenged, there are eleven Nazis at that table.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

When fascism is on the ballot, you vote against it or you are a collaborator. End of story. No debate.

I'm voting against it. To be clear, that means a vote for Biden.

Biden should stop supporting genocide, and you should stop pretending that opposition to genocide is support for Trump.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Look, in past elections we didn't have to wonder if not voting for a candidate would have lasting implications for the future of this country and the freedom of the world. This election does. I think what has happened, and is continuing to happen, to those in Gaza is gut wrenching. As a father of a 4-year-old, I would be mentally eviscerated if I lost him. I would probably go from "father" to "extremist" in that instance, too.

It's hard for me to vote for Biden knowing his support for the state of Israel. I also know I want to be able to vote in the future. I want women to have bodily autonomy. I want marginalized groups to exist and not have their very existence removed from the vernacular. I want the government to remain an agnostic-ish state. I want our allies to stay allies (except for maybe the state of Israel) and our enemies to stay enemies.

I can also admit to not knowing everything about the geopolitical landscape to know just how much sway Biden may have in his support for the state of Israel. We like to think the president is a king and can snap his fingers to make his will THE will (see all the people thinking Biden can control gas prices, for instance), but that just isn't so.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 months ago

Look, in past elections we didn’t have to wonder if not voting for a candidate would have lasting implications for the future of this country and the freedom of the world. This election does.

I already said I'm voting for Biden. I don't need to be lectured into doing something I already said I'm gonna do.

I can also admit to not knowing everything about the geopolitical landscape to know just how much sway Biden may have in his support for the state of Israel. We like to think the president is a king and can snap his fingers to make his will THE will (see all the people thinking Biden can control gas prices, for instance), but that just isn’t so.

Biden circumvented congress to provide weapons that he knew would be used for genocide.

If withdrawing his support won't do anything, we aided a genocide for no reason other than Biden really fucking wanted to. If it will do something, his continued support makes the genocide possible. I do not buy any argument in favor of continuing support for genocide, because there is no good reason for genocide.

Expecting me to buy the "he isn't a king" line when he acted by himself without congress in order to sell Netanyahu weapons when he didn't have to is insulting.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

If Biden loses, this will be entirely on him.

It's funny how little people believe in democracy whilst simultaneously claiming that their vote is too important to cast for an immoral cause.

If Biden loses, it is on all of us. If Trump wins, it is on all of us. If Biden wins, likewise, it is on all of us.

That's the cost of living in a somewhat-democratic fucking society. As much as some would love to have a king or a fuhrer or some friendly neighborhood oligarchs they could knuckle under and point to and say, "God help me, it wasn't me, it was all them!", it's not fucking there yet. And anyone with an ounce of fucking morality in them will fight to prevent it.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

So Biden literally has no agency to change one stance that is overwhelmingly unpopular with young voters, many of whom are threatening not to vote for him over this issue? Exactly, this is entirely on Biden. You can make all the excuses you want, for anyone whose eyes aren't painted on, it's obvious what's going on.

Young voters turned out in record numbers in the last election, and they favored Biden by far, helping him win. But sure, Biden can turn his back on these voters, he did win by such a comfortable margin last time that he has no reason to be worried. He has nothing to gain by doubling down on his stance on Israel, and everything to lose.

I've seen so many excuses for why voters should feel they personally failed democracy if they don't vote for Biden over his support for genocide, but not a single one of you have offered a reason why Biden should hold course on his Israeli policy, rather than correcting now, while he still has time. Again, there is zero benefit to the US for him to hold his current position.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I'll just go comment in the forum where Biden hangs out because that's totally a thing /s

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

So Biden literally has no agency to change one stance that is overwhelmingly unpopular with young voters, many of whom are threatening not to vote for him over this issue?

When an equal or greater number of voters believe he's doing the right thing, or needs to do more for Israel, and young voters are notoriously unreliable? In terms of political calculus, this is not a clear-cut strategic decision.

I’ve seen so many excuses for why voters should feel they personally failed democracy if they don’t vote for Biden over his support for genocide, but not a single one of you have offered a reason why Biden should hold course on his Israeli policy, rather than correcting now, while he still has time. Again, there is zero benefit to the US for him to hold his current position.

He's in a lose-lose situation. Either way he loses votes, unless the anti-Israel sentiment accelerates even more. My opinion is that in a lose-lose situation, you should take the moral loss and not the immoral one - so I'm entirely in favor of cutting Israel off.

But if Biden doesn't change his position on Israel, despite voicing some responsiveness to current protests, he's still better, and yes, including for the Palestinian people, than Donald Trump. And realistically speaking, it's one of those two old fucks that's going to be president.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (2 children)

No, don't worry, just like how the right-wing winning in the US will TOTALLY lead to the left-wing suddenly organizing and taking power, enabling genocide will actually STOP it.

God, the brilliance of this modern form of accelerationism, it's just... frightening, isn't it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

It's the Civ Ghandi manoeuvre: Vote for the right wing until the value wraps around and you win!

The side effect is sadly that you are the first to fire nukes, but that's a fair price.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

"First Hitler, Then Our Turn!"

Famous rallying slogan of the Weimar Communist Party

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Famous just not real, it comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H%C3%B6ltermann from the SPD. I think it got misattributed in english because Americans didn't know the difference between social democrats and communists.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

While said by Holtermann (though in a different sense - saying that after Hitler, the SPD will have to clean up; rather than saying Hitler will radicalize the working classes by his grotesque behavior), it was more prominent as a KPD slogan in opposition to a united front with 'social fascists' (the SPD).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If anybody could find anything at all written in the 1930s saying it's a KPD slogan, and not just people decades later calling it "well known" with no source and only in English with no explanation what it was in German, that would be really cool.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

"Warum versagten die Marxisten", published 1934, mentions it as "Nach Hitler Kommen Wir"

The pro-Nazi periodical "Deutschlands Erneuerung" also mentions it as a slogan of the KPD in 1933.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've found both of those before, the second one quotes it as "Herr Holtermann proudly predicted" so that doesn't work.

The first one based on Google Books is an unattributed chapter title, and searching doesn't find any German words for slogan or motto in it. And Rudolf Olden is prominent enough that I think someone would have cited it by now if he had a KPD attribution in there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

"Find me someone who attributes it to the KPD in a contemporary document."

[finds you a contemporary document]

"Well, he doesn't academically cite his sources or literally call it a motto!"

Yeah, that's about what I expected.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Relax I'm not fucking with you I'm actually interested in this. There are a lot of contemporary documents, there are a bunch of 1933 SPD newspapers with "Nach Hitler kommen wir!" on the front page, the problem is finding anything that isn't quoting Holtermann.

Why did the Marxists fail is the closest I've found, because he doesn't explicitly say who he's quoting. You can read this anthology version of it which unfortunately edits out the actual quote, but Olden is very critical of the SPD for acting like there was an electoral or legal solution to Nazis instead of planning for a civil war, so I really think he's quoting Holtermann.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Oh right because the fascist whose party’s project 2025 proposal secures him as king and destroys democracy isn’t Hitler, the other guy because Israel. Meanwhile, Donny spent most of his propping up and outwardly supporting Bibi telling the world he’s the real friend of Israel. You complain about Zionism but support Fascism so what are you actually trying to accomplish?