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.
“I would never hurt a patient. This guy who’s choking to death needs a tracheotomy, but what am I to do? Stab him in the throat? That’ll be bad for him.”
Walks away, humming proudly to himself about the purity of his ethics.
Edit: Typo
This is a terrible analogy. I get that it conveys your feelings about it, but that’s it.
For a better analogy:
A badguy tells you to kill someone else, or they’ll kill you and your family, and also probably someone else too. Your choice, I assume, would be the utilitarian one- to kill someone else. This is the so-called “logical” answer to the trolley problem folks love to bring up with this topic, because less deaths = good, and the ‘someone else’ was probably gonna die either way.
The field of philosophy that discusses these questions, however, is vast, and there is no one correct answer. You and I happen to have different opinions on ethics.
I would argue that refusing to kill someone doesn’t make you responsible for the badguy’s actions. I also wouldn’t argue that people who kill the stranger are bad people- they just made what they thought was the best decision. I just disagree that that’s the best decision, and can’t justify doing the same myself.
You folks, however, seem to beat around the bush about it to avoid admitting what you did. You decided that the continued genocide of Palestinians was worth it to keep Trump out of office. That’s valid- that was the only choice you felt you had. You don’t need to rationalize it away.
It’s disrespectful to both me and yourself to not be upfront with yourself about that.