Erik Uden 🥥🌴🍑 (@[email protected])

Joe Biden has deported more people than Donald Trump [[1](https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/02/11/trump-biden-immigration-border-compared/)], funded the police more than Trump [[2](https://democrats.org/news/president-biden-expands-funding-after-republicans-voted-against-funding-for-the-police/)], and has now helped to kill more Palestinians than Trump [[3](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/14/us-president-biden-sued-for-complicity-in-israels-genocide-in-gaza)]. If you cannot allow criticism towards this person because you believe critiquing them is the same as endorsing the opponent, then you are participating in the very cult behavior you should be criticizing. # Yes, Trump would be worse, way worse... ...but it's horrible to compare Trump's *potential* genocide to Biden's currently real and ongoing genocide. Voting Democrat is *harm reduction*, portraying it overall as anything else is, *in my privileged opinion*, incorrect. In many individual examples I can, however, see how you come to view the Democrats not just as the lesser evil, but even positively. Many vulnerable groups such as queer (*especially trans*) people are helped by a Democratic government, even maintaining the right to abortion is, visibly, helped by Democrats. There are examples in which voting the Democratic Party betters the lives of certain groups. Yet that change doesn't come sustainably and the tides may as well turn. If the Democratic Party is willing to throw one group of people under the bus for winning Republican voters, who is to say they won't do the same with your group? If you don't give human rights to everyone, it's not a right anymore, it's being treated human as a privilege. When it comes to foreign policy, unions, most social services, the treatment of the poor, healthcare, border policy, it's mostly the same between the two parties. Trump is merely the [death of the euphemism](https://youtu.be/0dBJIkp7qIg). A queer person won't vote for a party that doesn't support queer rights, so what should someone of another marginalized group *not* supported by the Democrats do? Additionally, don't forget that **it was the Democratic party that supported and funded Donald Trump's primary election in 2015** [[4](https://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/)] as they always back the most far right candidate [[5](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/07/democrats-spend-millions-on-republican-primaries/)] in order to even make a distinction between the two parties visible. What I'm trying to say is that you, as a democratic voter, cannot blame someone for supporting an alternative party, nor claim that supporting that third party is horrible merely because it may “allow for a Republican victory.” If it was in the Democrat's interest to change the election system or electoral college to allow for something other than effectively a two party system, then they would've done so. I won't ride a high horse and claim it's morally wrong to support the Democrats, **I don't think that.** I do believe, however, that many people are disillusioned in voting for Democrats but know **voting for Republicans only makes things worse.** If not allowing a Republican victory was in the Democrat's interest, then they would **adapt the party's stance to social, non-war/non-genocide, non-deportation, anticapitalist, pro-Housing, and pro-Healthcare for all positions**. They don't, so ***what choice is there*** for people from marginalized groups other than voting for a third party? Can you tell them it's only morally right to vote for a party that **worsens their living conditions** or **wishes to have them erased?** A representative democracy exists so people can voice their opinions through voting in the representation they favor — if you critique them because the USA's democratic system fails to represent them, hence they should vote for one of the two representations that are possible, but aim to kill them or worsen their lives, then you are critiquing an individual for the faultiness of the system. *And last but not least,* any person should still be called out for “boycotting the election”, **not voting is ridiculous** which is perfectly [explained by Jay Foreman here](https://youtu.be/_gbDAvK42yA). ***Participate in every election while you can***. :voteblue: :dsa: