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I’d also like to point out that a President Harris would preserve the IRA and much of the regulatory actions Biden has put forward to remake America’s energy and transportation systems, getting the nation ever closer to its GHG reduction goals. If Trump returns, he’ll probably make use of the $1 billion in oil exec favors and undo those regulations. The results on the ground are obvious and terrifying (see https://www.carbonbrief.org/us-election-2024-how-kamala-harris-and-donald-trump-differ-starkly-on-energy-and-climate/) before you factor in identity politics. (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/09/emissions-gaza-israel-hamas-war-climate-change)

Trump will also likely stop enforcing antirust laws via criminal investigations, per his mixed record (see https://awards.concurrences.com/IMG/pdf/us_antitrust_enforcement_in_trump.pdf?73916/5a2a97ddc9b410ba386ec8d19088665f10b3a18dfbda4f269bccea1ef2d50a3e), while Harris might try to grasp the structural drivers of inflation, regardless of whether or (hopefully) not she dismisses Lina Khan and Jon Kanter (and Gary Gensler, and Jen Abruzzo, and Kat Tai, and so on). She’s also open to signing the PRO Act that would guarantee card check for all workers. (https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1847454686753763436)

Will Trump handle the housing crisis? His deportation promises say yes, and badly. Harris at least bothered to put out a new spending plan for $40 billion in housing supply R&D (see https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/Business/2024/1029/trump-harris-housing-plan)

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We cannot be distracted from our main mission—preventing the convicted felon from ever getting near power again. Thanks to the Generals and other staff members who held him in check the first time. They are telling us he is UNFIT. Vote 💙

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The signs are all there, while maybe yes they might do not what we expect them to. However, the guardrails are gone - they already have companies bowing to them and caving to their pressure. Trump cares about one thing and it’s who will get on their knees to kiss his ring. Everyone around him have his ear and will tell him where they want it to go as long as he is the fall guy.

Trump is nothing but a pawn, the pawn that opens the door for our country to be replaced. Replaced with a Christian Nationalist agenda, if there is anything us white people love to do more than take other cultures and religions - making them our own. They love the control the rich have in Saudi Arabia and want to do the same here. They already told us Trump is expendable after the election.

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I figure vance will drop kick trump to the curb within the first six months. He’ll choose mike johnson as VP - or don jr if forced to placate trump. All nightmare scenarios.

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It is going to be a nerve wracking time. Until the election is called then we enter in an even more uncertain couple months until the inauguration.

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This is exactly what needs to be said.

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There’s just no thinking about it! The United States government IS COMPLICIT in GENOCIDE! There’s no denying it!

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No one here is denying this. (I don’t think so anyway - I haven’t read all the comments yet so could be wrong.) That complicity falls on Biden and all the politicians, Dems included, who take money from the Pro-Israel PAC (can’t think of the acronym).

The main thing here is Harris can be worked with. Biden proved he doesn’t give a rats ass about genocide and he will forever be tainted with that utter lack of character, morality and basic human decency. He’s fully earned the nickname Genocide Joe.

We have the chance to work with and change Harris’s direction on this. That’s everything right now.

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I just had this discussion in an email thread with some really smart people who are being really fucking stupid by sitting this one out. I tried!!

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Maybe forward this to them? It’s so well written and thought out it maybe could make a difference. My experience is that it doesn’t help to argue with people but ask them if they might possibly keep their mind open and think further about it especially with so much more coming to light about the huge amount of trauma Trump is planning for the U.S. and the world alongside his violent sadistic retribution impulses and the fact that all the guard rails that were there before will be gone. Have them think about, whatever their complaints. a man with such an immature, damaged, senile psyche with the sole power to l aunch a nuclear attack at will?

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Thank you so much for writing this. I’m very glad it was published in The Guardian.

Here’s a possibility that undecided voters, especially veterans, may not have considered. The first month of trump’s last administration I received a letter saying my veteran’s disability compensation would be cut by 50% starting the next month. Why? “Because we’ve determined it’s too high for the disabilities listed”. Those disabilities include permanent injuries from a bad parachute landing in too high winds - spine injuries & a TBI, internal organs that had to be removed from an assault, permanent internal hardware due to two horrific assaults, one MST related and the other “just a regular assault” as the letter said. I can’t grow a new spleen or fix the aphasias the TBI left me with (they aren’t the same type as Bruce Willis has), I can’t just choose to not have severe C-PTSD from the assaults and I can’t remove the brain aneurysm clip, 3 artificial joints & other internal hardware. (My ten years in was a bit rough on me.) Yet, trump’s letter said I didn’t need the compensation I was awarded. Enough veteran’s groups fought back immediately that the plan was dropped.

It won’t be next time. I think it’s Chapter 14 in Project 2025 that details what they’ll do to veterans - our compensation, our healthcare, all of it. Read it. Believe what they’re saying.

After our compensation is cut or taken away completely and we lose our homes because we can’t pay the rent or mortgage we’ll be homeless. Read the chapter on what they’re going to do to homeless people. Here’s a hint - put them into camps. What will happen to your family? Your belongings? Your pets?

One of my children is disabled and lives on their SSI. trump & vance promise to take that away as well as Medicaid. Where will all those who live on SSI go? Camps.

Not well built camps that offer full medical care, educational opportunities and vocational rehab. Fuck that. They’ll be tent cities in the harshest environments and they’ll spend the absolute bare minimum on food, clothes and shelter. The rest will go into their pockets.

It happened the first time around. Many Mission Act surgeries were canceled. Why? “You can live with it” was the answer I got when my two already authorized, already scheduled surgeries were canceled. Under wilkie, trump’s confederacy loving Secretary of the VA, there was a 2 Billion, yes, Billion!, contract given to a trump crony for …. making appointments for veterans. Wtf?! Veterans call in & make their own appointments. When this was brought to light wilkie said “Oops, guess that slipped through the cracks, we’ll do better”. Yeah, right. Where’s the money? Where’d it go? Who knows, it wasn’t investigated further.

I can give more examples. This is what will happen again. Only far worse.

Please read the chapter on veterans in Project 2025. Read the chapter on how they’ll decimate Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and SSI.

How many of us will die from lack of proper healthcare? How many of us will end up in their camps and die there from lack of adequate food and shelter, from losing everything we hold dear?

Please think of these things - all laid out in black & white and spoken of in recorded speeches - before you vote.

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People are perhaps getting confused because they are putting themselves into the story mord than they should. It's a side effect of American individualism.

American see ourselves as powerful, as part of the story, as important, as having agency--as individuals. We are not very good at seeing ourselves as part of history, as part of a larger culture, as very minor spectators in a much bigger system or as currently powerless to do much about that system.

The good part of our focusing on our power is it can prime us to care about our responsibility to protect people, and to act in ways that sometimes bear fruit in aiding them. The bad part is when we try to dodge responsibility or make ourselves the main character.

These illusions about voting are narcissistic in that way. Nobody can slough off their participation in the American empire by voting or not voting a certain way. Voting isn't even relevant for that, as this fcking thing has been ongoing for generations. It's a category mistake to make the election about that--we might as well make our mayoral election about that (some people do, but that is foolish). We are inside the system whatever we do. We didn't make it happen. We cannot stop the genocide by not voting for democrats. OBVIOUSLY. Our responsibility is not the past liability but the kind where we have to try to fix what we can fix--voting against Kamala Harris doesn't do anything to stop Israel now.

I don't want to inflict Trump on everyone for a futile gesture, just to make myself feel better. It won't change anything nor will it succeed in making me not responsible for what happens. It seems pointless to ignore every other harm I could prevent merely to be able to say to myself I am not responsible for this harm I am not even preventing. There's no 'message' possible if he wins except that Americans that want fascism are the passionate ones and everyone else is half-hearted.

Is the deafening 'hooray for uncontrolled capitalist fascism!' message that will be blasted across the world on the day Trump wins going to help the oppressed and destroy militarism and imperialism eventually? Sorry--but NO.

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I heard that Jill Stein is doing much better in the polls than even Trump!

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I am sorry, but I am not voting for either Harris or Trump and both are repulsive to me, and many Americans believe this as well! First of all, get over it, she will never win in Michigan-I know there are a few million Arab American votes there, and they won't vote for her at all! They saved Biden the last time, but look how he betrayed the Arab American Community in Michigan? By the way, how in the world are we supposed to drag our bodies across 180K dead Palestinians to vote for Kamala? Please tell me. Let's go back to Nazi Germany. Would you vote for Adolph Hitler? Kamala is complicit in both the genocide and the famine. Don't fool yourself, voting for her will be a mark on your Karma.

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Harris is vice president and not in a position to undermine Biden's policy, whatever it is. If she were running as a candidate outside the administration she could be openly critical. She would not want to end up POTUS and have Walz undercut her positions. That's what the opposite party is for. In this case, neither Trump nor his party are speaking out against the genocide that's happening and that will ultimately make Israel a pariah on the planet. The ultimate villain is Netanyahu and his right wing allies in Israel's government.

It's also worth noting that Israel is our main source of intel in that part of the world and supplier of certain types of sophisticated war materiel we need for our own security.

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"Many Americans believe this as well..." yeah, no. Many Americans ain't falling for Putin Puppet Jill Stein for the umpteenth time, nor are they falling for UNFIT RUMP 2.0, nor do we ignore Netanyahu's War Crimes ignoring all diplomacy, choosing escalation via Rump's transactional shenanigans with Bibi from Mar-A-Lago.

Be all up the High Horse on a One Issue voter pedestal all you want. Gaza IS NOT A TOP ISSUE AT ALL! Plus, in order to help ANY solution for Palestine & Isreal we need FIT LEADERS like Kamala - not Rump - to get something done. And we SANE, UNSELFISH, REALITY BASED Big Tent Voting Coalition built up from 9 years to 3 months, from all genders/ages 18 to 100 that understand the stakes and the job, we are not letting you self-important, GOLDILOCKS, LOONY FAR LEFTIES fuck this election up with cynicism or outright Idiocracy like 2016.

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Actually 65% of Americans want a Ceasefire now!

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There is not one hope for a ceasefire if trump wins. And 51-plus % of people want women’s healthcare rights restored.

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Karma? Karma don’t feed the bulldog.

Thinking through things as practically as possible - as Waj has done here - is how you make change. You put the person who can be worked with in office and then get busy doing that. Your actions to help bring about positive change is what will affect your karma. If you truly believe in karma I’d be interested in what happens to yours if you don’t vote at all or vote for a person who has no hope of winning.

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Disagree. Israel is annexing northern Gaza. Right now.

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Brilliant. I'm going to share this. Thank you, Wajahat !

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Are there shades of genocide? The denial of platform to those who support Palestinians is telling as to what the campaign stands for

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Then why vote for them?

If they already showed us nothing will stop them from supporting and even be part of the genocide, why would they change IF they win because of our vote?

Fuck them. Let them lose.

I live in 50/50 congressional district. I am making sure every single one who cares about Gaza will vote for a republican AHole just to pay democrats back for everything they’ve done to our families who are dying every single day. I alone lost family members, children, women and young men who has nothing to do with hamas. They were killed so savagely, some of them had their heads separated from their buddies.

We have horror stories to tell, but the so called centrist, moderate, leftist democrats only cares about certain “kind of” people.

Fuck the democrats. Hope to god they lose.

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And there you have it, why people vote for the stochastic terrorists. They are terrorists themselves — the kind who want to inflict pain.

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Democrats threw this election away with their lies, bloodthirst and warmongering. It’s not my fault when Kamala loses. Maybe her and Biden shouldn’t have sucked Netanyahus dick so hard or sabotaged peace talks in Ukraine or hemmoraghed our tax dollars to Israel.

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How much worse. Killing children killing babies. Starving them. Herding them to their deaths. Please how the Fu@K could Trump make it a worse hell for the Palestinian and other folks in the near by surround. Give me a few worse scenarios.

Call it your *trick or treat* oped

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