You’re talking to people that want to continue rationalizing their tacit, frequently racist support for genocide, and their easiest out has always been to say, “but Trump is worse”. They have never done the introspection required to look at their own personal role as a political being beyond what they’re told to do by the Democratic Party and their donors: slacktivist vote shaming, always presuming the high ground for themselves (even while tolerating genocide!), and doing as little as possible on the ground outside of minor exercises in false catharsis like a cop-escorted, permitted march or an ignored letter writing campaign.
When challenged on this by people on the left that do read and do self-reflect, these are the folks that responded in bad faith, even when the context is genocide, because they have made politics into an extension of their egos rather than a project to which to subordinate yourself and devote real work to.
Whining about .ml is their way of pretending to be vindicated every time Trump does something bad, as they cannot actually argue against what the people in .ml say, they must rely on inventions and emotional implications.
In short, many on .ml vocally opposed supporting genociding Democrats. None that I’m aware of expected Trump to be better. At best, a roll of the dice.
Edit:
Sorry, folks. I failed to consider that this is the home instance of the people being target by this comment.
Just to be clear, I’m not a big .ml fan, I’m just an anarchist who’s never seen this particular gripe of mine worded so nicely.
Absolutely, yes. Paying taxes in the US is supporting evil. Buying an iPhone is supporting evil. Eating meat is supporting evil. Voting for Biden would have been supporting evil. Voting for Harris, I’m a little less sure about, but I feel like even saying that is going to get me accused of some kind of rationalizing.
But yes, someone can say that they want to buy an Android instead of an iPhone, because of whatever reasons, without someone else having an absolute meltdown and accusing them of supporting abusive mining in the Congo, making excuses for functional or actual slavery in China, and so on. But for some reason when it is geopolitical, saying that you’re going to vote for X candidate for reasons of creating less suffering in the world somehow gets transmuted into this “blatant support” for that candidate and everything they do, or denial of their numerous crimes, or implying that you’re okay with suffering in the world, that to me has nothing to do with why I would make that decision.
I might be one of the rare folks who are consistent about this actually lol, because I have the same reaction about all of the examples you gave. I just don’t say anything unless I feel attacked for my position/behavior (evading taxes, buying exclusively second hand electronics, being vegan, voting 3rd party, etc).
I think people should just be honest with themselves and others about what they’re doing. Paying taxes, buying a brand new iPhone, eating animal products, etc, is tacit support for evil. With taxes, it’s much more clear cut, because you can say “I’d rather indirectly, and under coercion, fund a little bit of atrocities than make my life harder and risk imprisonment.” and that’s okay- everybody does that. Trying to rationalize a way out of it just makes it sound worse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_You,_Mr._Rosewater
It’s a criminally underrated book by Kurt Vonngeut about what would happen if someone in American society actually started experiencing compassion, and caring about what the impacts of their decisions were on living humans in the world, and how “difficult” it would make things from the point of view of all the systems and people they have to interact with.
😢