This Election Year Sucks

It may be too late to share this post, but better late than never, especially as the United States draws closer to Election Day. This will be more rambly than my previous essay, but this is important stuff. Now I finally understand why the 2016 election sucked. More importantly, now I understand why the United States is so rotten to the core. I’m fucking pissed off about this, dude. Here we are with two presidential candidates who are either outright evil or not as evil but still evil.

"The lesser evil of today is more evil than the greater evil of yesterday."

This quote from Citizen CoKane on TikTok perfectly describes our shifting political climate in the United States. People have mentioned the Overton window in the video’s comments, but I think a notable illustration that the video mentioned in its tags is the ratchet effect. It perfectly sums up the priorities of the United States government and how the two-party system is a part of the same machine.

I used to think that Democrats were doing everything in their power to prevent the Republicans from making things worse, but it wasn’t until a year ago that I realized this wasn’t true. Democrats are, at best, cruising through their political tenure without making substantial changes that benefit the general populace. But at worst, Democrats are actively making contributions or endorsements that are just as right-leaning as the Republicans. And people are eating this shit up without a second thought!

I came into Joe Biden’s presidential term thinking that he was just going to coast through it without enacting any meaningful policy that everyone would care about. I’m still seeing people of color being targeted by the police, average citizens living paycheck to paycheck, and the US military utilizing weapons of war and imperialist dominion over other countries. None of these things have changed for the better.

Instead, what singlehandedly ruined Biden’s presidency was when his administration allowed the US military to continue arming Isreal so they could endlessly bomb Gaza until it’s flattened to dust and debris. Weapon manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman are given full allowance to keep building bombs for Isreal. It’s war profiteering for the wrong reasons! Isreal's horrific conquest has been left unchallenged for one year now. One. Year. This is unprecedented. It is downright unacceptable that Isreal is getting away with this in broad daylight without impunity. They are destroying what’s left of Palestine by indiscriminately murdering men, women, and children. To support a country that uses weapons of war to destroy civilians and civilian infrastructure is to make you complicit in war crimes. Of course, it’s easy for me to say knowing all of this, but why is it so damn hard for United States officials and its supporters to say the same? Why are Democrats and Republicans mostly staying silent?

The United States government is complicit in war crime activity despite the fact there are hundreds of videos shared online that expose Isreal’s genocidal activity. Palestinians are sharing photos/videos of destroyed buildings, live footage of bomb strikes, people struggling with starvation, and bloody images of their injured friends & family. Isrealis, on the other hand, are gleefully sharing videos of soldiers destroying civilian infrastructure, or Zionists publicly mocking Arabs. We are seeing a genocide unfold in real-time through social media and Western powers like the United States are actively choosing to ignore the mounting evidence surrounding the conflict as if it were George W. Bush’s age of “war on terror.” Tons of people online are calling out the US government for its willful ignorance. This includes university students across the country who were organizing sit-ins and occupations on school grounds, even at the university I graduated from. One notable act of protest at Columbia University involved students renaming a school hall to Hind’s Hall, based on a 6-year-old who died in the Palestinean genocide. Even Macklemore made a protest song about it! Twice!!

Am I saying things will be any better under Donald Trump? Of course not! The dude’s a fucking conman, but he would still condemn Hamas and let Isreal do their thing. So this means that the points I'm making will paint both sides of the two-party system as morally corrupt because they have more in common with each other than you might think. And this includes their stances on Isreal.

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Isreal and Palestine

Gaza has been under heavy bombardment since early October 2023, directly after the Palestinean military group Hamas attacked Isreali civilians at a music concert. Many say that Isreal is acting out of retaliation towards Hamas, but most of the people they're targeting are civilians. Nowadays, Isreal has started bombing select areas beyond Gaza, such as Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria. This tells me that Isreal is just bombing any country within their reach at an overwhelming volume because death and destruction are all they know. This is their primary method of communication. Why is the United States supporting Isreal by giving them bombs and weapons??

_{Claudia De la Cruz gets it.}

Gaza wasn’t any better before October 2023 either: Isreal was already treating Gaza like an open-air prison by controlling every aspect of their lives, including their water and food supply. Next to nobody paid attention to Palestineans being trapped in Gaza until last year because it wasn’t as big of a deal back then.

EVEN WORSE YET, we’re seeing modern-day colonization unfold over the past 70 years. Proponents of the Palestinean movement will regularly refer to the Nakba (an Arabic word for “catastrophe”) around 1948 when Zionists forcibly moved themselves into Palestine and expelled its indigenous residents. Over the years, Isreal started to slowly take over the land until it was reduced to nothing but the Gaza Strip. Isreali Zionists to this day fully believe that there should be no room for Arabs and are pushing towards a white-supremacist ethnostate on what was originally Palestinean land. Why are we letting this happen? We have the chance to stop colonialism in its tracks and instead, the powers that be are actively supporting Isreal’s colonial regime. Enough time has passed for Al Jazeera to publish a documentary on Gaza that illustrates the terror that Palestineans face every day (which I HIGHLY recommend you watch).

_{The gradual takeover of Palestine between the Nakba and 2008.}

Proponents of the Isreali regime will label any criticism as “anti-semitism,” which makes no sense because it’s Isreal, and the Zionists that inhabit it, that are inflicting destruction on a group of people they deem inferior. The Jewish community and its supporters have touted the phrase “Never again” when referring to the Jewish genocide during World War II, but it doesn't make sense when they're using it to oppose critique on Isreal. Well, guess what? It’s happening “again,” only this time Jewish Zionists assumed the position of the Nazis and are taking out their racist hatred of Arabs. So if anyone is still touting the “never again” phrase while also supporting Isreal, then that would make you a performative tool. Also, it's not the Jewish people that are problematic—I’ve seen multiple accounts of Jews opposing Isreal’s actions—it’s Zionists that are the problem.

It’s ironic how a part of a minority class that was genocided in World War II went on to become the oppressors themselves—but the parallels between Nazis and Zionists are uncanny. There are numerous reports of Zionists ridiculing Palestineans, whether indirectly (through songs or comedy sketch videos on TikTok) or directly (kicking Palestineans out of their homes or violently beating them up). The music concert held outside of the Gaza border on October 7th, 2023—the one that Hamas attacked—had caught the Palestinean militant group by surprise. The article I linked by The Electronic Intifada even draws this comparison:

Held in a location less than four miles away from the massive open-air prison camp that is the Gaza Strip, Supernova was put on by an event management company calling itself the “Tribe of Nova.”

Its defenders have condemned the Palestinian fighters for attacking a “peace festival,” while the event’s critics have decried it as akin to German civilians dancing outside the gates of Auschwitz during the Nazi Holocaust.

Often referred to as the “Nova music festival” by Western media, the event on its official webpage actually named itself the “Supernova Sukkot Gathering.” A recent film about the event showed that it was more akin to the illegal raves often organized in secret locations in many Western countries…

[Except] Supernova was not illegal and was coordinated with the local Israeli police force (which was armed and present in advance to guard the event). But for reasons that are not entirely clear, the rave’s location was not announced until 6 October…

This (rather than any confusion about the days of the event or extension of the time, as is sometimes erroneously said online) explains why Hamas had no clue about the presence of the rave in the fields between Gaza and the biggest military base in the area – the regional headquarters at Re’im.

_{— Asa Winstanley, The Electronic Intifada}

This event is often the source of all criticism towards Hamas. “Hamas attacked a civilian concert, so they deserve punishment” is the best summation one can make of this. Sure, it’s not right for Hamas to kill Isreali civilians, but that also does not give Isreal an excuse to kill Palestinian civilians at a much larger scale. It’s an overt double standard that people are actively ignoring, especially the US government and its proponents. While Americans would try to condemn both Isreal and Hamas Palestineans, often without reading too far into what’s really at the heart of the conflict, Isreal takes this to a whole new conspiratorial level. Even though the Isreali military is indiscriminately bombing buildings and shooting civilians, they often make the justification that Hamas operatives are hiding out among them, despite having no evidence to back it up. One of the most egregious contradictions I have seen came from Isreali soldiers trying to convince the public that a fucking hospital calendar was a secret terrorist roster. Isreal is not trying to be stupid, they’re trying to rewrite history and brainwash anyone outside of the conflict. It’s too calculated to be mistaken for stupidity or ignorance.

Isreal is antithetical to humanity as a whole because the Isreali military is not only attacking Palestineans but also journalists, foreign aid workers, UN peacekeepers, ANYONE! They will kill anyone in Gaza without batting an eye. It’s so deliberate that it could not be mistaken for any other half-assed excuse. Isreal is not a country, they’re a rogue apartheid state that took over Indigenous land and is unironically persuading you that their country Is Real, but it’s not. They live on stolen land. This “country” deserves so little respect from me that I have resorted to intentionally misspelling their name throughout this essay, maybe except for one sentence, which is this: Fuck Israel. Isreal, as a government, should be dismantled and leave their Zionist citizens high and dry so they can reflect on themselves.

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Meanwhile, in the USA

I think what made it difficult for me to come to oppose the US government’s actions was that they’re doing a damn good job of obfuscating the truth, even when the truth is in plain sight. Moreover, Isreal is doing an even better job of hiding the truth through violence and aggression, whether they’re killing Palestinian journalists and prohibiting Western journalists from reporting within Gaza, to now ALSO banning American medical workers for the same reasons because of the findings they reported.

I saw hints and pieces of Isreal’s regime when I deleted my DeviantArt account, mostly because the site was pivoting towards generative AI content, but it was also because I found that DA’s current parent company is an Isreali-based website builder. I chose not to speak up about this observation when I left DA, and I wish I didn’t do that. On the other hand, back in late 2022, there was no watershed moment to refer to like the George Floyd protests in 2020. Unfortunately, these eruptions of collective action are the only things that’ll make people pay attention, mostly because Western countries like the United States are really good at keeping their citizens in the dark through supportive corporations like news stations. A good example of this can be seen in headlines using passive voice or by prioritizing Isreal over Palestine.

_{A lot of news reports from Western news media look like this.}

Perhaps that worked during the early “war on terror” era when the US military mostly fought in the Middle East. Perhaps that worked when the US military fought in Vietnam and Korea. But now? The fact that Isreal is indiscriminately bombing Gaza with US-made weapons, all while the Palestineans that inhabit Gaza are endlessly sharing photos and videos of the unspeakable horrors they face, makes it extremely hard to trust what the US government’s saying. There’s a good reason why people call it “the first live-streamed genocide” and if you choose to ignore or dismiss everything the Palestineans are sharing, then you’re being willfully ignorant. Stop that and wake the fuck up.

And that’s what makes this year’s election so messy. I was already not planning on voting for Biden because he is responsible for lending support to Isreal, but what really pisses me off is that when he dropped out of the Presidential election and Kamala Harris took his place, she was also willing to support Isreal too! You can’t both-sides the Isreal/Palestine situation by saying Isreal “has a right to defend itself” while also expressing remorse for Gaza. She had one chance to stand apart from Biden and she fucking blew it!

To be fair, she was vice president under Biden, so I would assume that they’re both on the same page. For her presidential run this year, Kamala Harris makes a lot of big promises to reform the United States in multiple ways, but her words matter very little to me if she’s giving her unwavering support to a rogue state like Isreal. It’s contradictory. However, I shouldn’t be surprised because she kind of did the same thing when she previously served as California’s attorney general despite her promises to reshape law enforcement:

When Harris later became California’s attorney general, she fought to continue the death penalty, opposed investigating police shootings, opposed statewide standards for regulating police body cameras, and remained neutral on an initiative that was approved by voters in which certain low-level felonies would be reduced to misdemeanors.

_{— Matthew Dolezal, Hampton Institute}

As an attorney general who self-proclaimed herself as a “top cop,” why should I trust her? Especially after learning that law enforcement in the United States is a sham? Even after witnessing cops beat, kill, and intimidate the general populace, ESPECIALLY black people and homeless people? Civil conditions never improved after the George Floyd protests in 2020. Biden didn’t fix anything substantial to me and the general populace. How should I expect results from Kamala Harris as president when I still fear the police and the capitalist systems that weigh me down? It’s easy for me to tune out Republican and Democratic politicians because they both have an incentive to support Isreal’s regime, whether it’s collecting contributions through an Isreali-lead political action campaign or by owning stocks in weapon manufacturers, this explains why politicians are mostly staying silent on the Palestinian genocide. You know, US politicians make a big talk about election interference from Russia when they’re all financially influenced by Isreal. Why is nobody talking about that?

_{Rashida Tlaib is (as of writing) the only Palestinian-American in the US Congress.}

However, every time I’ve seen activists, celebrities, or random individuals announce their endorsement for Kamala Harris, I can’t help but check myself out at the door on them, too. To me, the points that anyone makes for voting for Democrats are moot when those same leaders allowed a Palestinean genocide to unfold under a Democratic president. It sucks! I’ve unfollowed climate activists for this reason alone. You would think they would be reporting on the climate impact of war and bombardment, but so far, I think one of the only people who connected the dots is Greta Thunberg. I’m glad she gets it.

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Why this election sucks

This election is terrible because it’s a lose/lose situation. Either you get an outright fascist dirtbag who keeps spewing bullshit from his mouth, or you get a lesser evil version of that person that’s a little sneakier about her intentions. Either way, the Palestinean genocide continues, and both parties involved will have blood on their hands. Malcolm X, an influential figure in the civil rights movement, likens Republicans and Democrats to the wolf and fox in his speech God’s Judgement of White America:

The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox. The job of the Negro civil rights leader is to make the Negro forget that the wolf and the fox both belong to the (same) family. Both are canines; and no matter which one of them the Negro places his trust in, he never ends up in the White House, but always in the dog house.

_{— Malcolm X}

This is not the only time that Malcolm X drew this comparison, but it’s certainly a consistent one. Also, while this quotation was a valuable insight catered to black people by a black human rights leader, I think this is important to keep in mind for everyone since it still rings true today.

People have also pointed out this famous clip from The Simpsons that satirizes the two-party system. Homer uncovers both presidential candidates as monstrous space aliens, but they’re still in the running for president! Even when one bystander remarks, “Well I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate,” the alien responds, “Go ahead, throw your vote away!” and laughs in their face. No matter what, this situation resulted in an alien becoming president, who later enslaved humanity to build a giant death ray.

These examples go to show that both Democrats and Republicans work for the same team: Capitalism. They uphold profit, private property, and the wealthy over the general populace. War profiteering is but one of those interests that capitalists are vested in. We don’t need leaders who act like wolves and foxes, we need people who do not threaten or deceive us. We need candidates who actually value the interests of the people instead of making hollow promises. Why should we settle with a “lesser evil” when both major candidates are still evil? After all, the lesser evil of today is more evil than the greater evil of yesterday.

So now, this brings me to third-party candidates. I never liked the argument that voting for a third party is “throwing my vote away” because it railroads people back to the two-party system, which in my lifetime has NOT been working. It’s fucked, so something’s got to give. I can understand why, though: if conservatives are steadfast in voting for Republicans, but liberals withdraw their support from voting Democrats in favor of voting for third-party, then the results may skew in favor of the Republicans. It sucks to be in this situation, but to be honest, we probably wouldn’t get to this position if the Democrats kept tarnishing their image. Biden and Harris wavering their undying support for Isreal is just another example where they’re shooting themselves in the foot.

If you ask me, the best possible independent and third-party candidates appear to be Jill Stein and Claudia De la Cruz because they truly understand the needs of US citizens and are some of the only candidates who are rightfully & consistently condemning the US government’s support for Isreal. Now, I’m not gonna tell you that you should vote third-party, but I did want to make a case for why I am never voting for a Democrat or a Republican for president ever again. I’m tired of watching this political circus, so I want out. If there’s anything to take away here, I want you to remember that if you actively choose to vote for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, you’ll be stuck in this circus with me too, no matter who you choose between the two parties. Do you want to keep watching this stupid show, or do you want to tear down the circus tent?

Nothing changes until we break our electoral system out of this vicious capitalist cycle.

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