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Summary
In an emotional monologue, John Oliver urged undecided and reluctant voters to support Kamala Harris, emphasizing her policies on Medicare, reproductive rights, and poverty reduction.
Addressing frustrations over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, he acknowledged the struggle for many voters yet cited voices like Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, who supports Harris despite reservations.
Oliver warned of the lasting consequences of a second Trump term, including potential Supreme Court shifts.
Oliver said voting for Harris would mean the world could laugh at this past week’s photo of an orange, gaping-mouthed Trump in a fluorescent vest and allow Americans to carry on with life without worrying about what he might do next.
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Imperfection should not make the undecided voters give up on democracy, how can we have progressive policy when the people who want it don’t vote?
Exactly.
We cannot afford to fall victim to the Nirvana fallacy.
We must work within the system to change the system or we risk being excluded entirely.
Nirvana fallacy, also know as “perfect solution fallacy” is suggesting that no solution is better than an imperfect solution. If I can’t have nirvana, I don’t want anything.
I see it all the time in online arguments. “Oh, you advocate for housing the homeless? Well then why do you have empty rooms in your house? Just fill it with homeless people.” this is an example of the fallacy. It suggests that my solution, “house the homeless” should be discarded because it is not a perfect solution, which would be filling my house up with strangers. The goal is to make me say, “oh, I’m not willing to do that, so we should do nothing instead.”
I don’t think that’s an example. People housing others in their own homes isn’t an example of the perfect solution to homelessness. I don’t know if we have a name for that fallacy but it’s kind of a “put your money where your mouth is” fallacy. If you aren’t willing to give up a lot for the solution, you must not really believe it is a problem/solution.
People being against the ACA because it isn’t single payer health care is an example of the perfect solution fallacy. Or people being against a $15 minimum wage because it really should be $25 now.
It’s a bad faith argument and a strawman. They don’t actually think it’s reasonable for anyone to do that or think the other person is suggesting that. They are setting a person up as a hypocrite despite that obviously being an insufficient and inefficient solution to the housing crisis.
It’s also a false equivalence. The government helping to house people is absolutely not the same as private individuals sharing their homes.
a “put your money where your mouth is” fallacy
Is this a “fallacy” or is it an “angle”? Probably it is little more than straw-man attack, because you know even homeless people need actual homes not just places to crash, and it is also a form of ad hominem attack that typically targets progressive/social change demands (do you really hear that often the opposite, like “if you hate homeless people that much, why don’t you support gassing them?”). I don’t know if people call those fallacies these days, I tend to see them as tactical conversational attacks. A fallacy is sth you can easily fool yourself with.
see them as tactical conversational attacks
Well, fallacies originally were not meant to fool yourself, but to win argument by any means. So you are describing a fallacy, even if it’s not called that
Fallacy means sth in the effect of “cognitive illusion” as in “logical fallacy”, not a rhetorical strategy. The difference is the intent of the speaker. A rhetorical strategy can be deceptive, or tactically motivated, a logical fallacy is more like a form of apparent naivete and common paradoxes. When there is intent to deceive and/or win at all costs, there is “prevarication” or “sophistry” instead of “fallacy”.
You’re right, I mixed up sophistry and fallacy. Better check next time
it does have some qualities of Nirvana fallacy in that it implies my support for a policy is inadequate unless I provide a perfect, personal solution. but thanks for your response.
It suggests that my solution, “house the homeless” should be discarded because it is not a perfect solution, which would be filling my house up with strangers. The goal is to make me say, “oh, I’m not willing to do that, so we should do nothing instead.”
This may be a mixture of a bunch of different arguments. There is the anti-Nimby argument which calls out Nimbys who want an end to homelessness but vote against the construction of housing for them in their neighbourhoods. “Why don’t you house homeless people in your house?” is a much more extreme, unreasonable, and therefore less efficacious version of that idea.
There is also the more general argument (from the right) that government shouldn’t be in the business of housing the homeless. The above line then proceeds by saying that your unwillingness to invite homeless people into your house is an indication that your solution to the problem is to get other people to solve the problem for you. This may also incorporate the anti-Nimby line by further claiming that what you really want is an “out of sight, out of mind” solution to homelessness.
we risk being excluded entirely
I misread “being executed entirely”.
Oh. Wait.
In the paraphrased words of an old white dude
Don’t judge her against the Almighty, judge her against the alternative.
Alternatively: don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
By moderating our online discussion boards to better weed out posts, comments, replies, etc. from foreign interference and domestic Astroturfing that present themselves as far-left in order to convince people that perfect should be the enemy of better. I swear, nobody comes to the conclusion “Esteemed prosecutor Kamala Harris isn’t as bad as convicted felon Donald Trump, but she still has flaws and isn’t worthy of my vote in a competition for the most influential job in the world that will certainly come down to one of the two of them” on their own. That idea has to be planted by someone arguing in bad faith, and repeated in many forms for someone to begin to believe it.
Some of us are old enough to have heard the lies decade after decades about preserving democracy while watching it get tossed out the door. Talking about progressive policy is all they’ve ever done then blame someone else when they end up doing nothing.
The delusion that you have to work within the system to change the system is pure fantasy because the system is operating as designed. And those in power will do everything they can to ensure it continues this way.
The delusion that you have to work within the system to change the system is pure fantasy because the system is operating as designed.
I find this point amusing because the people who don’t vote out of protest usually don’t do anything else either. They just sit back and let whatever happens, happen.
I know exactly one person who doesn’t vote but does phone canvasing (in primaries mostly) and writes his representatives often. Last I checked even he is voting this election. I’ve always described him as the most black pilled leftist I know and even he is voting Harris.
Not voting is an act of renouncing your voice and your rights. It’s not a protest. It’s at best complicity with the status quo, and at worst going to support a candidate that will be far far worse for the issues you are “protesting”. You don’t get to complain when you don’t vote. All you get to do is sit down, shut up, and continue your inaction.
Individual politicians and political parties routinely use count a vote as approval. In that way, if no other, voting does serve to support the existing system.
But, even if you believe there must be revolution and the current system CANNOT be reformed, voting is still harm reduction, unless revolution will happen before the results of the election can influence the system.
Individual politicians and political parties routinely use count a vote as approval. In that way, if no other, voting does serve to support the existing system.
I don’t think that tracks.
The highest turnout in any US election since 1908 was 62% in 2020, and at no point has a party won an election and been like ‘look at all the people who didn’t vote, I guess we don’t have a mandate to govern’
Parties win elections and govern in power with less than 50% of voters backing them all the time, it’s literally the standard. A low turnout will not change the way any party acts once in power.
I never claimed they would use non-voting as a signal for anything, only that they count votes as agreement, not mere tolerance.
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Why would that anecdote be fake? Nothing about that is hard to believe, there were likely thousands of Floridians in 2000 that had that exact experience. It’s literally why Bush “won.”
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Just found this post, seems likely to be the same thing: https://lemmy.world/post/21602581
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So then why did we get further environmental destruction and more war on terror under Obama? Why was Hillary Clinton, a notorious war hawk set to succeed Obama instead of someone with genuinely progressive positions?
The US has a fascist far right and a far right with gay rights party up for election. And the far right with gay rights party has become more reactionary on issues like immigration and also in many places violently cracked down on peaceful anti-racist protests. It is currently violently cracking down on anti-genocide protests. Maybe there is a chance to reform that party. But this requires a mass uprising against the entrenched party elite. The party elite that has used the fascist far right as a boogeyman threat to not question their power. A threat that they rather accept bringing into power than to provide non-genocide, non-racist, non-exploitative policies.
Everything I don’t understand is fascism and genocide.
Hysterical and immature.
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In that way, if no other, voting does serve to support the existing system.
The amount and percentage of non-voter signals to most politicians that people tacitly approve of the entire system. After all, if they disapproved of something about it, they would’ve at least bothered to show up and vote, right?
There’s no better “the status quo is fine” indicator than not even giving enough of a shit to show up at the polls (or in some cases return a slip of paper through the mail).
In what world is refusing to participate in a system you see as irreparably broken considered condoning its existence?
For the record, I voted for the lesser fascist because a complete redo of our system will be slightly harder under the rule of greater fascists.
In what world is refusing to participate in a system you see as irreparably broken considered condoning its existence?
In a world where refusal to participate is indistinguishable from being too lazy, complacent, or satisfied to participate, and that is the one we live in.
Do you think politicians are going to go check why you didn’t vote? It’s basically as if you don’t exist to them.
Edit: I find it hilarious that when people disagree with my argument here, they downvote this post to signal that. Why do that? If I’m wrong, I can just look through everyone’s viewing history to see all of the people who didn’t vote on the post at all instead. 😆
When someone that would normally vote blue goes third party, they are giving their vote to trump. That is practically Jill Stein’s while entire purpose.
Would you be happy for a republican to renounce their vote in protest?
that is why I tend to submit an invalid vote. I vote for exactly none of them.
calm down, I’m not in the US
Na, I like to stand up and shout my inaction and why.
“All you get to do is sit down, shut up, and continue your inaction.”
So how is that any different from what the centrists will be doing? Seems like the same outcome for the peasants either way, especially if you dont live in a swing or red state.
I thought it was touching where he discussed his worries about using his last opportunity to speak before the election, and that he could be left wondering if there was something else that he could have said to change the outcome if it ends up going bad. I imagine there has to be a good bit of pressure when you have such a large platform.
For a show that points out so many wrongs with our country, it’s easy to look at things negatively. But for now, at least, we are able to point out those wrongs and still have a hope we can do something about them. Not even 5 years a citizen, I imagine it could be scary as well that if a re-elected Trump goes for a type of “media reform,” Oliver is likely going to be high on the list of people to be looked at.
I hope tomorrow goes well for America. I’ve been disappointed the last few elections that the comedians have been more critical than the mainstream journalists, but right now, I’m glad we’ve had them if nothing else, motivating us to still be our best.
Ukraine went and elected one of those TV comedians, and, while imperfect, he’s been a pretty inspiring leader over the past few years.
I had him in my mind writing my original comment. I don’t know much about him before the war, but he seems to be doing admirable if anyone had concerns at his election.
It’s fun to turn back the clock and read old news:
“I will never let you down,” Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.
Russia says it wants him to show “sound judgement”, “honesty” and “pragmatism” so that relations can improve. Russia backs separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Mr Poroshenko, who admitted defeat after the first exit polls were published, has said he will not be leaving politics.
He told voters that Mr Zelensky, 41, was too inexperienced to stand up to Russia effectively.
Mr Zelensky starred in the long-running satirical drama Servant of the People in which his character accidentally becomes Ukraine’s president.
He plays a teacher who is elected after his expletive-laden rant about corruption goes viral on social media.
He ran under a political party with the same name as his show.
With no previous political experience, Mr Zelensky’s campaign focused on his difference to the other candidates rather than on any concrete policy ideas.
NPR: Comedian Wins Ukrainian Presidency In Landslide 22 APR 2019
“What’s amazing is that despite Zelenskiy being a household name, people don’t really know what he stands for,” NPR’s Moscow correspondent Lucian Kim told Morning Edition. “During the election campaign, he was very vague about his positions, and in that way he really became a blank slate for people to project whatever they wanted on him.” The fact that voters chose Zelenskiy shows how desperate people are, Kim said.
But Ukraine’s outgoing president cautioned that the Kremlin is celebrating the election of an inexperienced candidate. Russia believes that “Ukraine could be quickly returned to Russia’s orbit of influence,” Poroshenko said on Twitter.
According to The New York Times, many voters said they had supported Zelenskiy “not so much because they thought he was a good candidate but because they wanted to punish Mr. Poroshenko for deflating the hopes raised by Ukraine’s 2014 revolution and for doing little to combat corruption.”
The Washington Post notes that Zelenskiy is just the latest comedian to win public office in elections around the world. In Guatemala, the former comic actor Jimmy Morales won the presidency on an anti-corruption platform with the slogan, “Not corrupt, not a thief.” In Iceland, comedian Jón Gnarr ran for mayor as a joke candidate and won, serving one term before he stepped down in 2014. And in the U.S., Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken became a senator from Minnesota.
Maybe laughter and self-reflection is what the world needs right now. The comedians seem to be picking things up when everyone else is dropping the ball.
Comedian just means empathetic person with enough sadness about the topic to make it funny to make it easier to talk about.
It’s why conservative comedians don’t often work cause their comedy is not aimed at being relatable but about how much it pisses someone else off.
Living in the US as a person who grew up in Western Europe must be most masochistic way of life possible.
The best way to live in the US is to work at an European company and be send out long term to the US branch, you get European paychecks with the European taxing system and have European health insurance. You can receive your pay to a bank that allows global withdrawal with a miniscule currency transfer fee, for everything else you can use a Visa or MasterCard. Sure, this only works for a couple of months to a couple of years max, but you don’t have to deal with so much US bullshit and when shit is about to hit the fan, the company is going to pull you out anyway.
you get European paychecks with the European taxing system
You lost me there, sorry. That’s the worst way to live in the US.
Software engineers in the US make like 5x what they do in most of Europe. For that money you can get pretty good health insurance too.
If you’re working for an European salary in the US, what’s the point even.
Not really. A lot of people have this personal accountability mentality which supposes we all need to man up and deal with our own problems or suffer in silence. Which is all hypocritical and hardly ever do you find the people who espouse these views live up to them. Be it the self made millionaire trust fund baby who got a job at dad’s dealership after dropping out when he burned through all his college funds. The drowning in debt college grad who doesn’t work in the field they majored in because there wasn’t any attractive jobs. The self made man who came up from nothing but now is completely burnt out or swindling people to amass a fortune.
You show me an American who claims they don’t take hand outs and work harder then any one else could manage; and I’ll show you a self centered prick that got lucky once and sits on their ass the rest of the day consuming conservative media.
That’s my major point, though. By and large Americans are lazy self serving jerks who couldn’t stop consuming if they were only selling turds. They like to binge after they binge and no amount of alcohol or weed is enough to make them contented.
No we aren’t masochists. We are children who want loud orange man to make it so we can have more F150’s and we get to play beer pong every single day.
Wtf is this even? How does this address what the other commenter said? Did you just reply to a top comment for visibility?
At the end of that word salad he says something regarding masochism, so I think he actually meant to reply, but his reading comprehension left him hanging so he didn’t catch OP was talking about John Oliver (being the Western European living in the US).
(That, or they are just the fevered ramblings of a syphilitic brain. either way, your ‘wtf is this even’ applies)
Sorry, I commented when it was like 6 points and top of new but whatever.
Let me know if there is something I can explain to you.
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Frederick Douglas on voting at a time when both Parties had shafted Reconstruction.
I am so ready for this election to be over
“Forever elections” are the new normal, imo.
I fucking hate it too :(
If only Citizens United v. FEC could be overturned, because it’s so very obviously terrible😅
Don’t worry, once Democrats win 2024 MAGA will just give up forever and stop trying to implement American fascism.
We won’t be trapped in a cycle that can only end with the death of the boomers and Gen X or a civil war for the next two decades.
Unfortunately the alt-right disease isn’t limited to some arbitrary birth date brackets. It spreads to younger people all the time. You can’t just wait it out, you have to fight it, and keep fighting it.
This is true but it does seem more limited. If it was just millennials and zoomers voting in this election the Republican party would lose its power to threaten democracy on a legal ground tomorrow.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/319068/party-identification-in-the-united-states-by-generation/
Of course, if that “something else” is all Libertarians it might create the cyberpunk dystopia but what’s the difference between that and the current Republican takeover by the tech billionaires anyways?
Cyberpunk dystopia at least has a good aesthetic…
yep, and Israel will reliquish their hold on both parties, because thats the right thing to do, and they are the most moral country in the world… And we’ll eliminate the electoral college and make sure our politicians can no longer take bribes, especially from foreign governments. Also, we’ll jump in with both feet on climate change.
But if it means that I don’t have to give a shit about what Donald Trump says or does ever again…
TBF, maybe that is it, as stupid as it sounds…maybe we have to maintain this shitty status quo and only prevent sliding down an unrecoverable hill until the boomers die. The next gen mostly gives me hope. I don’t like them and their damn skinbidi toilets, but, for the most part, they are less tolerant of 80’s sales tactics and are more likely to doubt and then learn, instead of fallingnfot every dumb thing.
I suggest watching the entire video from GA State Rep. Ruwa Romman that is embedded in the article. Not so much for her reasoning about why she is voting for Harris, but for her comments of how to accomplish things politically in this country, how it works, how to actually move the country forward bit by bit. It’s hard and takes work and time but it can definitely be done, and her thoughts about the Green party, how it doesn’t do those things and thus never accomplishes anything.
Oliver said voting for Harris would mean the world could laugh at this past week’s photo of an orange, gaping-mouthed Trump in a fluorescent vest and allow Americans to carry on with life without worrying about what he might do next.
This sounds like my dad. He’s kinda a Republican, but doesn’t like Trump, and asserted that Trump would just go away after the last election.
Trump and Trumpism are not going away. If Harris wins, even by a lot, it’s only going to validate his follower’s fears, if it doesn’t start an all-out conflict.
Well, I dont think Trump can survive another loss politically. He basically only survived because he moaned about election fraud and refused to accept the results.
Truth is that, the older he gets, the less likely he’ll be able to run and the less convincing his “charisma” will be. I think we already see this in effect today to some degree.
Putting aside all other anxiety, I’m fascinated to see if Republicans will finally flee his sinking ship as he fades to history. A lot of them only support him for survival… They’re all spineless in the end.
He’s already said he won’t run again. He probably physically can’t.
It’s not a political problem though, he’s all but god to so many people. Honestly I don’t know what’s gonna happen to a void he leaves behind when he passes away.
My impossible hope is that it destroys the Republican party so the Democrats are the conservatives and a new progressive party emerges.
2028 will likely be a Republican rout, at least.
I get your fear, but my optimistic side thinks that trump is special in his ability to self promote to gullible fools. And while the reality denial of trumpism will never completely go away, Republicans will return to some sense of normalcy after he loses his grip.
I don’t believe so. Trump has only further enabled them and taught them that what they say has no bearing on votes received.
The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWZAbKU-JzE
Imagine becoming a citizen only for the US to be destroyed by a shitbag reality tv cunt a few years later. Let’s not let that happen.
The thing is that shouldn’t be an option.
It shouldn’t be but it is, and it’s terrifying.
It being an option is gated behind voter turnout.
I submitted my paperwork as soon as it was clear Trump had lost the last election, and I naturalized the following summer (with no record of that man on my official documents). I live here, this is my home, this is where my chosen family are, this is where I have created my best memories and plotted my best future life. I love speaking to friendly neighbors, being part of a rich and vibrant community of all different flavors and colors of Americans and guests. This will all be destroyed if the orange fart wins. A Trump America is not the fun happy safe place, it will break up these communities, create hate, purposely divide the people that represent this country just for the sole fucking purpose of a few people gaining power, control, and money.
C’mon you lazy people. I already voted by mail almost two weeks ago or three. Do that next time if you’re going to be lazy like me. But now go out there and face the consequences of your inaction…bad weather, MAGA idiots, fake electors…fake date if you are prepared to vote Jan 6th or some other date, etc.
Go now! Vote or we’re going to have Trump as president again and he’s gonna be crazier than before.
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But if I vote today, I get a deal at Krispy Kreme!
(I voted two weeks ago too, but we have to do it in-person here.)
I have friends who will not vote for trump for obvious reasons but not for kamala as well, because they don’t vote for a cop!!! Sad stuff
Are they forgoing voting in down-ballot races as well? Undervoting is a thing, and most electoral shifts start at the local level.
They will vote a random candidate besides the aforementioned 2. Pathetic
so they’ll be voting down ballot. excellent good for them. you should encourage this. its not their fault kamala is a horrible candidate. spend more time trying to fix kamala to the point they’ll vote for her. it’ll be easier on you.
Another interesting question is if they vote for one of their local DA or sheriff candidates or just obtain.
I never vote for soil and water commissioner! They never have a good answer to what happened to Sandy Loam!
Have you tried to explain to them that prosecutors are not cops? Maybe showed them the intro to Law & Order?
I think the first 35 seconds of his “Election 2024: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)” clip are a very strong argument against the Citizens United v. FEC ruling. Same for voting for judges, including marketing at RealCapitalismTM levels in politics is not good, because eventually it will be worth it for sooooo many corporate entities to just pump large portions of the GDP into politics. Nothing can compare with that, so corporations are favored to win, because marketing works. Fatigue is just one of the symptoms that go across the isle, i’m sure.
Great.Fucking.Speech.
I expect sales of that shirt to go through the roof now.
There needs to be a proper primary system. This choosing the candidate months in advance of the convention by some sort of fiat, no discussion of policies that candidate endorses, then having an eleven month campaign is fucking ridiculous.
If nominees have to get up, espouse their willingness or not to commit genocide in the name of middle east oil interests, and then maybe pay a price for that by not being nominated, might have brought all this to a different end. The DNC’s certainty that they know what’s right for the people that support the Democrats is the reason Trump even got a first term, let alone why this race is a nailbiter.
Their fucking arrogance and complete lack of awareness outside the oligarchic bubble they inhabit needs to have some consequences if Harris doesn’t pull their pickles out of the garbage disposal and then perhaps lay back on the brown-child-murder-endorsement thing.
Passions are too high right now; say the same thing after Harris wins and maybe people will hear you. It’s like how everyone was on board with freedoms lost during the Bush-era (after 9/11). Years later we wonder wtf happened.
So wait till it’s too late and be blamed for being against the obvious issues and path of pain we are on? As if our statements and warnings are what made them true instead of a desperate plea from clearer exterior perspectives?
Cause that makes it seem inevitable and that the oracle Cassandra is not a fluke but a constant of humanity to have the prophetic ignored and hurt for it.
It’s already too late, what with it being the first Tuesday in November.
Now that Harris lost, it seems like people are agreeing with you.
Huh, imagine that.
