A couple of days ago on Bluesky I announced my decision to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Wednesday the 16th, the first day in-person voting was allowed. I knew with mathematical certainty that somebody would respond with a comment about genocide. And sure enough:
Voting for Kamala Harris?
Get fucked, liberal. Enjoy your genocide.
Obviously, Kamala Harris hasn’t done nearly enough to halt the genocide of Palestinians. That’s just a fact. Why she hasn’t done more is worth examining, but her motives don’t much matter to the people in Gaza and the West Bank. It’s absolutely valid if that makes you reluctant to vote for her. It’s valid if it prevents you from voting for her.
But to interpret a vote for Harris as support for genocide is bullshit. Yet, we’re inundated with smarmy ‘enjoy your genocide‘ comments by smug assholes whose illusions of moral superiority allows them to justify putting their personal ideology before the lives of actual people. To suggest that voting for Harris not only makes us complicit with evil, but that we take delight in it is monstrous. Worse, it’s stupid.
The thing is, there are lots of other issues that also deserve our attention. I mean, the fate of representative democracy in the US is on the line. So are women’s rights,. And LGBT rights (especially trans rights). Voter’s rights. There’s the issue of Ukraine and Russian aggression. There’s housing and tax policy, and climate change, and the labor movement, and energy policy, and food safety, and and and.
Voting for a third party candidate (or refusing to vote at all) isn’t going to do dick to help Palestinians—or anybody else. There isn’t a single issue—social, political, economic, environmental—that would improve if Trump gets re-elected. There isn’t any likelihood of the lives of marginalized groups being improved if Trump returns to the White House. Moral grandstanding is selfish when others are at risk.
So yes, I voted for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz yesterday. To me, it was the obvious choice. To me, it was the only moral choice, the only choice that might actually help people.
EDITORIAL NOTE: One of the best things about Bluesky is the blocking mechanics. If a person accuses you of enjoying genocide, you can simply block them…and hey, bingo, they disappear. You don’t see them, they can’t see you, and the green grass grows all around, all around.
gregfallis.com 
Excellent post!! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!! I already filled my ballot I feel quite as you do. The Gaza situation is something that I care about. I think it needs to stop. Yet, I decided, that to be able to address the Gaza issue, we have plenty, major issues here at home that at need to be taken care of before going ‘outside’!!
I do hope that when elected, she can separate herself from Biden’s stand on this issue!! Good one!! :-)
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If Harris (assuming she’s elected) doesn’t change her policies toward Israel, the IDF, and the Palestinians, we need to let her know we’ll be looking for a new candidate to support in 2028.
But right now, she’s absolutely our best choice. In my opinion, of course.
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In total agreement!! I was voting blue anyway …. but what irks me is that Gaza issue!!
Have a great day!! :-)
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I’m so sick of idiots trying to reduce complex concurrent problems to one black and white answer. It’s happening everywhere, hence the rise of the Right. They promise extreme but simple solutions to massive problems and then can’t deliver diddly-squat other than misery and often death.
But fools don’t like to have to think so if they can deliver a nasty jab, sometimes dressed as wit, they think they are being clever. Fuck Israel for what it’s doing, because not only has it caged hundreds if thousands of civilians and slowly slaughtered them, starved them and driven them mad with exhaustion and fear, they are destabilising the rest of the world at the same time.
Kamala is still VP, so she has to tow Biden’s line in her day job. But once President she would have her own say in the matter. But she has to get there first and this is getting badly in the way. People never seem able to see the bigger domestic picture let alone the bigger global picture. There is so much at stake here. Europe for one! American democracy. The people have been distracted (so easy) and no one is noticing the ever closer growing alliance between Russia, China and N. Korea! If that’s not an axis of evil that needs to be quashed I have no idea what is.
I’m just so disappointed in people all the time. Give me animals anyway.
Thank you for doing the right thing Greg. I never thought you would do anything else.
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Yeah, the whole push about Harris and Palestine really feels like some weird desperate attempt to find SOMETHING wrong with her.
Do these people think Trump would do literally anything different in Gaza? Or even if he would, is that worth trading Ukraine, and various domestic groups for?
Do they think that beating this drum will somehow get enough people to go vote for Jill Stein to actually get her elected?
I mean, its fine they want to make people aware of the issue, but its always framed in this angry single issue context.
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Yeah, Jill Stein exists as a POTUS candidate only to give cover to people who refuse to accept reality and their personal responsibility for voting.
I agree that the current two-party system in the US is totally fucked up. But in order to create a viable third party (or fourth or fifth parties), you have to start at the bottom–at the local level. Get people elected to local offices–school boards, city planning commissions. Then move up to the state legislature. You can’t build a new political party from the top down.
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Sue, I think Harris understands that Netanyahu needs this assault on Palestinians to remain in power, and to dodge any condemnation from the International Criminal Court for war crimes. I think she understands that instead of ending any threat to the security of Israel, the horrific assault on Gaza has created a new generation dedicated to punishing Israel. It’s actually extended the threat to Israel.
A stable two-state solution is the only possible solution if there’s ever going to be any hope of peace in the Middle East.
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People who make voting about a single issue are just simpletons with zero grasp of how a complex world works. It boggles my mind. What is their intention – to wait until the PERFECT candidate comes along? There’s a lifetime of wasted democratic power.
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I totally understand people want to vote their conscience. Hell, I think they SHOULD vote their conscience. I just think their conscience should include the people who’ll suffer if a worse candidate is elected. Putting your personal conscience before the suffering of others is pretty selfish.
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Well said! Like you, I voted for Harris and I have no qualms. The Israel/Gaza situation is complex and has no simple solution, contrary to what many believe, or claim to believe. But no single person sitting in the Oval Office can solve the problem alone … not Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris … and certainly not Felon Trump, who has no idea what the issues even are. Perhaps he’d get bored with it and play music for an hour or so, eh?
What that person on Bluesky said to you is unnecessarily rude, crude, and shows his own ignorance. I’m glad you were able to block him!
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Even the best social media (and I think right now Bluesky IS the best) will have some tension and passionate disagreement. I’m okay with that.
I’m even okay with the fact that somebody CAN accuse me of enjoying genocide…just so long as I have the ability to block and ignore that person. Free speech is important. But free speech doesn’t require me to listen.
I do believe, though, that after Harris gets elected we need to press her to change the US policy of enabling the genocide of Palestinians, especially in Gaza.
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