Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday
Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.
Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.
Yeah, from my viewpoint Tlaib and the “uncommitted” campaign are taking the actual steps to try to fix this liability. The voters that need to be convinced just aren’t in a position where one more white politician with no credibility tells them they have to. Not voting is the strategically wrong choice, but voters just aren’t that objective, and frankly most probably aren’t even hearing any of these arguments.
They need to actually change the reality of our support for a genocidal war, not tell people that reality is irrelevant.
Yeah because as a voter we should put principles above everything else and base our decision on single issues… Isn’t that similar to what the MAGA crowd is doing?
Sure, the principles are very different. But the outcome is the same: Hurt yourself by ignoring the complexity of a political system and voting against your best interest because you mainly listen to your emotions… I don’t get it!
You haven’t engaged with a single word from my comment, just repeated the same old “vote” spiel. Your mantra doesn’t work. Voters are emotional and tune out people who don’t offer anything more to respond to their personal anger than “but it could be worse”. You simply aren’t going to track down all the disaffected voters and berate them into voting how you think they should objectively vote.
Tlaib and the uncommitted campaign are trying to convince Biden this is a problem that needs addressing. Material change is what can reach the masses, not lectures to political junkies on how the genocide could be worse or how not-voting will get you genocide AND other bad things rather than just genocide.
Maybe I just expect better from people on the left. But you’re right… Why should they be different?
But still. If one cares about one topic so much that they would not vote for someone because of it. Then why would they not go the extra mile and think about what the consequences of their decision will be with regard to that topic? And I don’t think that you have to be a political junkie to have such thoughts. It’s no rocket science at all.
You’re totally right that material change is needed. I just doubt that there’s so much Biden can do until next year. Even if such decisions were made right now, it would take a while until the effects would be felt. And if changes are not enshrined in law, they’ll be gone soon. But there’s no perspective to achieve that as long as you don’t control house, senate and presidency.
Nothing will change if the sane people dont hold on to their principles though. If you’re only voting democrat cause of the big D then you’re also just like the crazed maga people. Politicians should learn what their base cares about and do something, but they probably wont. That doesnt mean we should lower our standards solely because biden isnt trump. The country isnt going to self implode if he does win again, or maybe it will. That might not be such a bad thing.
I’m not voting Democrat because of the big D. I’m voting Democrat because I’m going to be tangibly hurt by a Trump administration, along with millions of other people. Must be great to think an implosion will be a fun ride or not such a bad thing for you.
I wasn’t advocating for voting democrat solely because of Trump. I was advocating for carefully weighing the consequences of ones decision in elections.
I’m sorry but to me this is just borderline naive and it completely ignores all societal and political realities. The US has a 2 party system. It’s shitty but right now that’s exactly what it is.
That means: All the things that some voter wants can only be represented by either one, or the other election platform or ideology. But even if you had a system that allowed for 5 or 6 parties to coexist in parliament… What do you think: How many compromises would you have to make to allow yourself to vote for one of them? I’ll guarantee you that you will always have to accept a lot of discrepancies between your ideals and the ideas a party wants to realize. Because that party must appeal to many voters if it wants to have a perspective to govern, i.e. implementing their ideas.
And that is why there is no such thing as “what their base wants”. The base of any political party will be diverse in their interests. To claim that the democratic base has ending the genocide in Gaza as their top priority is just wrong. It might be a sizable chunk of young voters but of course they can tip the scales in a close race.
But there’s another thing that I find naive here. And I see it in so many comments of the loud “anti genocide joe” faction: And that is the part “and do something” in your quote above. Why do some people think that the president of the US is so almighty that he could just snap his fingers and boom, the genocide is gone. He can’t make these decisions alone. He’s part of a system of checks and balances for very good reasons. And the political reality is that there exist many, many competing interests in politics, there are binding contracts, there are diplomatic ties, etc. etc. To conclude: It’s practically impossible for Biden to stop the genocide right now. So if anyone insists that one should not vote for him because he hasn’t used his divine powers for ending the genocide yet… For me it’s just dumb. It makes no fucking sense at all.