This feels like a trauma response, haha. I’m right there with you.

If anything it telegraphs uncertainty with the PA joke.

At best, one candidate doesn’t do enough to oppose genocide, while the other candidate offers their full throated support, advising that Isreal “just finish the job”. We’re not looking for a perfect candidate, we’re looking for the best candidate. And there is absolutely a candidate with a better track record of compassion, and a likelier chance of fighting the fire rather than fueling it in exchange for political favors.

You’re using some pretty high flying rhetoric for someone who isn’t citing any specifics. Which “horrible shit” are you most concerned with? The 20 billion dollar settlement she won for people with foreclosed homes? The 1.1 billion dollar settlement she won for defrauded students and veterans? The tie breaking votes she cast in the Senate, more than anyone in history, that helped pass among other things the 1.9 trillion dollar covid 19 stimulus, and the inflation reduction act, which generated 115 billion in tech investments and generated an estimated 95 thousand new jobs? Her explicit opposition to the death penalty? Her work against hate crimes? Her defense of the LGBTQ community? She is capable, intelligent, and proven.

Really, nothing at all qualifies her? Not her 6 years as an attorney general? Or her 4 years as a senator? Her 3 years as vice president? She’s better educated, has a better resume, doesn’t have 30 something felonies, and isn’t 78 years old. We already tried Trump as president once and America survived by the skin of our teeth. And he has not improved as a candidate in any way in the intervening 4 years.

Say you need a life saving operation. Your choices are: a skilled surgeon who is suspected to have cheated on their spouse, George Clooney from the hit TV show ER, or a mediocre at best veterinarian. This is essentially the state of things. A qualified person, a fictional character, and a person who is tangentially qualified at best.

The country needs a life saving operation. Harris is extremely qualified candidate who at worst carries some of the murky ethical baggage of any career politician. Trump is not only unqualified, but uniquely contraindicated (vindictive, foreign debts, exceedingly old, litany of bonafide legal issues, unrepentant rapist). And Stein is at best a politician shaped object, who is perhaps qualified enough to be a pundit or a podcast host.

For the safety of people of color, for women, for the environment, for the rule of law, for diplomacy, for the economy, there is only one pragmatic choice, and that choice is Harris.

Exactly. I have no doubt Harris will win the popular vote. Unfortunately that’s not necessarily good enough to win. And even if she wins, Trump supporters are absolutely not interested in a civilized society.

Trump would just accuse Kamala of raping an even younger, even darker skinned child and his base would clap their hand and coo and drool and continue to babble on.

I’m waiting with bated breath for this to be picked up by a more neutral source so I can boost the shit out of this without being dismissible.

For the sake of argument, let’s just say sure, both sides gerrymander just as egregiously (which frankly, they do not.) This would makes it a wash balancing out pros and cons of either choice as it relates specifically to the 2024 presidential race. Which leads us back to the world of pragmatism. Which candidate is liklier to encourage greater voter turnout and representation if elected? Probably not the guy who represents the party that is removing scores of names from voters rolls. Probably not the guy who opposes mail in ballots. Of the two options, which candidate would benefit more from voter suppression? Probably the guy who won the election for just the fifth time in our countries history while simultaneously losing the popular vote in 2016. Probably the guy who called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to pressure them to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn the state’s election results from the 2020 presidential election. Of the two candidates in the 2024 presidential race, only one of them stands to benefit by more votes being cast and counted in subsequent elections. Therefore Harris is once again, the likeliest hope for improvement.

If you wish to find out, I recommend voting for the candidate that is most interested in preserving the democratic process, rather than the one who idolizes dictators, doesn’t support the peaceful transfer of power, and who’s party is held together by gerrymandering. Furthermore , if you wish to improve our democracy I recommend the ticket discussing ranked choice voting, and who are interested in eliminating the electoral college.

The fact that one is the worst does in fact mean that the other one is better by definition. We aren’t voting to fix western civilization in one fell swoop, we’re voting for the 2024 united states president. The pragmatic choice is the best available candidate, which is probably the one who doesn’t discuss shooting people on 5th avenue, or grabbing women by their genetials, or mock reporters with disabilities, or make reference to “shit hole countries”, or salute the dictator of North Korea, or get convicted of 34 felonies, or say that Israel should just “finish the job”, or who isn’t 78 years old. Call me crazy.

Here’s a thought experiment. Between the two likeliest candidates, who would you rather assemble some ikea furniture with, Trump or Harris? Who would you rather go on a road trip with? Who would you rather be stranded at sea with? You can keep escalating these scenarios until the stakes get higher and higher. At some point it should dawn on you that Trump cannot fend for himself. He is unpleasant to work with. And that he is untrustworthy as a teammate. On a fundamental level he is the worst person of the two. Handing him the keys to the country is suicidal.

Maximum. It would be like book burning, but with people.

Historically I still “lose” these types of arguments as my willfully ignorant interlocutor spams potential strawman and ad hominem “arguments” until they feel sufficiently convinced that my pesky facts and I are safe to ignore.

In my experience there are very few people worth arguing with, as there are very few people willing to argue in good faith. Most people see arguing as a battle to be won or lost rather than a mechanism by which to vet assumptions. How can you expect to argue with a person who is unable to argue with themselves?

Well, we’ve tried convicting him with felonies and playing actual tape of him describing rape, which he is guilty of, and no one seemed particularly swayed. So, facts and evidence seem to be out. If it takes a more abstract, personal approach to break the spell he holds half the voters in the country under, then so be it.

I have read your comment and have nothing else to add. Please forget having read this comment.

This reply to this comment is extraneous. Please continue reading this reply until the end of this sentence.

Can someone further compress this down so my illiterate ass can parse it more easily?

I’m just mad that they post even when they don’t have any contribution whatsoever.