@Tengrain @shoq i get the point re institutional slowness. also the other week i had lunch with a friend who is grieving the loss of a loved one killed in Palestine. he certainly isn’t gonna vote for Trump, but he bitterly curses Biden & swears he will never vote for him.

the sheer number of people being killed there (dozens within single families) means there are a lot of people in that boat, and a lot of people who care about those grieving people as well.

one can appeal to lesser evils or strategic consideration, but grief isn’t generally the most rational or calculating state of mind.

it’s realistic to compare the awfulness of trump to the less-awfulness of Biden; but imo it’s also realistic to assess the many levels of catastrophe here; and the abject grief behind a certain amount of Biden abstention.

imagine losing multiple loved ones within days, who might very well still be alive if it weren’t for the Biden administration; and then being told to hold your nose and vote for him. maybe a hard sell.

anyway, not a very novel insight, but it’s a thought that’s been haunting me since that lunch.

@shoq @Tengrain i’m unwilling to ignore the fact that trump is unusually dangerous; i oppose him and will be casting a Biden vote. i also think it doesn’t help us to ignore or downplay the particularity of this moment. sure there’s always bad things happening in the world, but there isn’t always the deadliest conflict for (just for instance) journalists in 30 years, enabled by the progressive candidate. i’m not sure flattening it is useful.

we can call ppl who’ve lost (multiple) loved ones in recent months un-nuanced or tell them they’re enabling bad politics, or “voting for Trump” (instead of the lesser evil guy who provided the weapons to slaughter their loved ones in an open air prison); i just don’t think it will be persuasive, and it seems likely to scan as callous to the ppl around them too.

i’m not a purist. i litter my vote on lesser evil shitheads all the time. i also think Biden has a real problem here.