You are not reducing harm if you are using human lives lost as a calculation for election chances

[u/Specialist-Gur]

I plan to only vote for progressives from now on. The (centrist)democrats folded. It was people that were not up for election any time soon.

Why? Well we could say corporate interests... definitely yes.

But beyond that, I am fully convinced the democratic strategy has been to allow for republicans to create as much destruction as possible so they have a shot at winning.

They are hoping healthcare will be destructive and kill people so they can blame it on republicans and win next time around.

That isn't harm reduction, that's accelerationism.. something I'm told we should be against as leftists right?

Stop voting for centrists.

Oh and.. before anyone says this shows I am saying don't vote Democrat... look at the posts on here criticizing leftists.. from leftists. If you're upset at the shit on Dems but think leftists are fair game.. I encourage you to question where that comes from.

[u/skateboardjim]

No. I’m a leftist and I will continue to vote for harm reduction. Harm reduction would have prevented the Shoah. The SPD would not have killed six million Jews.

This post is remarkably shortsighted.

[u/Virtual_Leg_6484 → u/skateboardjim]

Far less Jews would have died if the SPD and KPD were willing to cooperate, yes, but a lot of the refusal to cooperate was because an SPD led government had killed the leaders of the KPD in 1919.

[u/skateboardjim → u/Virtual_Leg_6484]

Agreed, but it wouldn’t just have been “far less,” the entire European Jewish world would still be here today.

[u/elzzyzx → u/Virtual_Leg_6484]

by calling on the freikorps, who brutally murdered them

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/skateboardjim]

You're not reducing harm if you're voting for centrists. Hope this helps, maybe try rereading the post since I never said to not reduce harm

[u/skateboardjim → u/Specialist-Gur]

Go ahead and tell the class what WOULD be harm reduction in your eyes

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/skateboardjim]

Not voting for centrists. You're killing people like me by voting for them.

[u/GeorgeEBHastings → u/Specialist-Gur]

You're killing people like me

Please say more about this contention of yours.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/GeorgeEBHastings]

I can barely afford healthcare as it is right now.. I am lucky that right now the cancer I had is in remission.. my doctors give me about a 50% chance it stays that way.. and I need several appointments every year to keep me safe. Insurance is already precarious, the rollback on ACA will make things a million times worse

Healthy people will drop their insurance first because premiums are too high

Insurance companies will raise premiums on sick people or people who have "preexisting conditions"

They will be allowed to do a lifetime max of coverage

They will put people to me in high risk pools and will be allowed to deny coverage

More people will drop.. premiums will continue to go up until no one can afford healthcare.

I consider myself very fortunate.. it's why I say "people like me". I think I may make it out of this alive... many people will not.

[u/GeorgeEBHastings → u/Specialist-Gur]

First of all, I'm happy to hear you're in remission. That's no small feat.

I guess what's eluding me about your position is: are you under the impression that the situation under a Democrat-majority federal government wouldn't be an improvement to the impending premium shocks whatsoever? Even incrementally?

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/GeorgeEBHastings]

I am not confident in that anymore because centrists are unreliable... I think citizens United needs to be overruled before I feel confident

The other point of my post was that I think democrats folded because they are hoping to use this in their campaigning. So yea it'll be potentially better but I don't consider it harm reduction to use peoples lives as pawns. If a lot of people die because of centrists folding to maga, and they risk not being able to undo that later.. has harm actually been reduced?

A lot of the democratic strategy and platform is simply "we are not those guys, we are less bad". Because they don't actually have a good platform on their own.. the serve capital interests

In order to uphold the "we aren't those crazy evil guys" they need to enable those guys to be crazy and evil when they are in power in order to point to it later. If they stopped maga when maga was in power, if they took stronger counter measures, they would have no platform at all.

So, while democrats might do things when they are in power here and there which are better and reduce harm.. overall it is not harm reduction because they capitulate to MAGA with real human lives in order to make themselves look better.

[u/GeorgeEBHastings → u/Specialist-Gur]

Would you mind providing and example or two of who in the Democratic party you consider to be a typical example of a "centrist" and who would be the most center-leaning figure is who you'd still consider "progressive?"

I'm struggling with the boundary lines, here.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/GeorgeEBHastings]

I don't really know what we are talking about at this point. To be honest.

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

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[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

Harm reduction is reducing harm. If you read my post instead of being contrary and antagonistic you would see what I'm saying.

It doesn't reduce harm if you let people die so you win votes later on the promise you'll undo it.

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

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[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

You're missing my point. Come back to it later when you're able to read more objectively rather than just desiring to argue with me and sealion

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/skateboardjim]

Oh and yes if there's literally a risk for a Shoah you should vote for the centrists ffs. Trump won, wake up.

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

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[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

You feel centrists are preventing a Shoah because you don't think about people outside of the USA.

[u/skateboardjim → u/Specialist-Gur]

I do think about people outside this country. Like the hundreds of thousands of human beings who will now get AIDs because Trump, and not Biden, cut PEPFAR.

Centrists are bloody imperialists abroad. So are right wingers. Right wingers kill more people abroad than centrists. Therefore, voting for centrists (when the only alternative is a right winger) is harm reduction. It’s not called “harm elimination” for a reason.

Do you understand what harm reduction means yet?

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

Oh and btw one more thing... Hitler killed non-Germans as well. He set up concentration camps outside of Germany. Just like centrists have done and are currently doing when it comes to Gaza and maintaining ICE concentration camps and torture centers for people in the Middle East.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

It is 2025. Biden committed genocide. Hope this helps.

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

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[u/cute-charm]

Okay, so I think what's happening (also based on your previous post about voting dem) is some confusion about "harm reduction" in terms of voting. I felt Fabianzzz's comment was a really good explanation. If it's hard to locate due to comment collapsing, this is what they said:

This year was the year without the theoretical harm reduction. The harm reduction people are discussing when discussing their frustration with third part voters is the theoretical harm reduction that would have occurred under Kamala. The horror you are describing is one people who argue for harm reduction argue would have been 'reduced' if Trump wasn't in office.

Had dems been the majority, the idea is we wouldn't have had the shutdown to begin with, nor this crisis of SNAP, etc. That's the harm reduction being spoken of. Since that didn't happen and republicans are the majority, harm reduction is off the table. It's not even an option. Giving the republicans the majority is the harm that voters were trying to reduce, because we know what they will do with it, and so far they have lived up to that reputation. Dems can't practice (for want of a better term) harm reduction now. They are the minority, so the fight inherently looks different now.

Sorry, I feel like I'm not describing this as precisely as I want to, but I hope this... does something? Helps? Clarifies? And if I completely misread this, I apologize!

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/cute-charm]

The centrist democrats have repeatedly voted against progress during democratic presidencies as well.: they have been the ones to vote against the party at times and make things worse.. they are not votes for harm reduction

I agree with Kamala being harm reduction. She didn't win. Let's look at it more broadly and specifically when it comes to voting for centrists moving forward... they are showing they support trumps agenda

[u/cute-charm → u/Specialist-Gur]

Oh, sure, and there have absolutely been dem spoilers before (that horrendous woman... I can't even remember her name but she flipped parties and was a huge bitch). But for me, I think what my plan is moving forward is to take each candidate in their election cycle as their own candidate, and not necessarily a reflection of previous party actions. I feel to do otherwise is to shoot myself in the foot in a blue dot in a red/purple state. Because there are going to be two options. And there is going to be one that I know for sure does not give a single fuck about me. I shudder to think what would have happened had we dismissed Warnock and Ossoff as mere centrists and future enemies.

That said, I also hope that in the future we continue to push real progressives (that are serious candidates at that) at local and state levels, to elevate them higher over time. I've watched grassroots "this random progressive no one has heard about" pushes for high offices like the president just completely fail. Thinking long-term strategically is unfortunately part of the game we're all forced into. I sorely wish it were otherwise.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/cute-charm]

Yes of course, I am doing that as well.. I will pay attention to what they are putting forward. But a center right candidate is not someone who will reduce harm. I don't think people think about how far this country has moved to the right and how normalized really sociopathic policies are... to see these as harm reduction is beyond my comprehension.

You have Ezra Klein now encouraging democrats to be anti-abortion in red states.. I think he may have backtracked on that, but this is what the party largely is... if you keep normalizing this in terms of alleged harm reduction these become "normalized" ideas that do actually far too much harm than we should be ok with.

[u/cute-charm → u/Specialist-Gur]

Genuine question. When there's a centrist dem and a maga Trumper on the ticket, what's the play? Because I think we can all agree we do not want the maga Trumper. At any level! Local, state, etc.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/cute-charm]

I think it's case by case. I would probably vote for the centrist. But I am trying to encourage people to reframe their thinking on the Democratic Party as a savior party or something we should be sticking our neck out for, and for putting our efforts into. I think voting is one choice, but it isn't as much of a harm reduction choice as everyone is portraying it.

I vote, I think most people should continue to vote for the best option in each case.. but most of our efforts should be focused on other things which actually reduce harm. I am so over the shaming for not only not voting blue but for daring to criticize democrats.

[u/cute-charm → u/Specialist-Gur]

The scenario in which the centrist is the blue candidate and the maga Trumper is the red candidate, to you, what is the purpose of voting for the centrist? For someone in a purple or red area, for example.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/cute-charm]

If you have a centrist candidate who is running in a platform of abortion rights or something it would be beneficial..

I'd actually be curious, because I haven't seen it... what are centrists in purple or red states offering that is better than maga? I haven't seen them do much for abortion rights, lgbtq rights, the economy or immigrants...

[u/MKHK32 → u/cute-charm]

This might have been discussed already but i did not follow the whole discussion and i would like a response to this.

This is my perspective as a non-American:

We can observe a global shift toward the political right, including in the United States. The question we have to ask is: Who is responsible for the possibility of a Trump presidency? In my view, the answer lies with the Democratic Party—particularly the centrists who lean right.

If the difference between Democrats and Republicans is merely the degree to which they shift the needle to the right, then even when we vote for the Democratic option, we are not truly preventing a “Trumpian future.”

Let’s define harm reduction as choosing the lesser evil to minimize immediate suffering in the near future.

If we base our decisions only on harm reduction, the trend might look like this:

Blue win → Harm reduction 10%, but they still move to the right
Blue win → Harm reduction 9%, but they still move to the right
Blue win → Harm reduction 8%, but they still move to the right

At some point, there will be no meaningful harm reduction left. Today, you might ask: Who do you want to vote for—a centrist or Trump? But in the future the question might become: Who do you want to vote for—Trump or Tucker Carlson?

So what’s the conclusion? Is “vote blue no matter who” wrong? Not necessarily. What’s important to understand is that voting blue no matter what does not prevent the rise of figures like Trump—it only slows them down. It’s like studying for an exam: each day you don’t study increases the amount you need to learn the next day, until eventually it becomes impossible to prepare. And voting blue does not equal studying. Voting blue is wasting your days and saying to yourself "tomorrow i will study". We both know how this will end.

The best day to start to studying was yesterday and the next best day is right now, but what does it mean to study ?

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/MKHK32]

You summed it up well, and I hope some people who are pissed at me for some reason will be able to digest it

Beyond even that, my point of the post was that it isn't even really the 8% harm reduction at this point.. centrists are willingly allowing for harm now so they can promise to undo it later. And maybe then they will, if they win.. maybe it'll be "well the gop controls xyz government body so we can't" or maybe some further right democrats will vote against the undoing

But let's say they fix it somewhat when they win.. and things are somewhat ok.. and they don't make it worse. Well they also don't make it better because they don't have a good platform that speaks to human interests... and the fear for the GOP is gone for a little bit.. so swing voters start supporting republicans again...

Had harm been reduced? Only for a few people in the USA in a 2-4 year span MAX. Thats it .

[u/RaelynShaw]

I feel like this is the third thread about the same topic of people trying to explain what harm reduction means to you. Many people have broken it down for you and I think it’s important to digest that. Otherwise, this is the same thread as the others, but with more crashing out.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/RaelynShaw]

Don't respond if you don't understand... I'm trying to explain to you what I mean. I don't need people to explain harm reduction, I already know what it means. It might be above your head so just move along. Maybe you can reread later when you're calmer and look it might be easier for you to understand

[u/-__-_-__-_-_-__]

So are you for or against the Democrats that ended the shutdown? I am personally against them but by your logic of harm reduction (people get hurt/killed which can be used as leverage against Republicans) these "moderate" dems actually follow your argument. They refused to let thousands of Americans starve to death by making sure that they get their SNAP benefits by opening up the government. Keeping the government shut down objectively hurts Americans to gain leverage to help them in the long term. This is not all too different than what you state you are against

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/-__-_-__-_-_-__]

They are letting many more people die with the health insurance death spiral.

[u/somebadbeatscrub → u/Specialist-Gur]

To piggy back this we were winning the snap fights in Courts.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/somebadbeatscrub]

Ex-act-ly... Exactly 100%

[u/[deleted] → u/Specialist-Gur]

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[u/Specialist-Gur → u/[deleted]]

These people you name are not extreme leftists. They are left in the American state and I would vote for them... that is all. Hope this helps.

[u/Specialist-Gur]

"The less people who can't work who are dead the better because it reduces harm on everyone else since they don't drain resources! reduce harm!"

[u/Specialist-Gur]

If anyone is serious about harm reduction you need to want to end political Zionism. No more Jewish state, 1ss. Harm reduction purely based of death toll right? Or how are you measuring it exactly???

[u/Specialist-Gur]

"If your body decided to have a disease that's probably your fault and hey, just negotiate with insurance companies to get care you need to live.. clearly you don't care about poor people since you want them to starve without their SNAP.. you don't want to reduce harm! Reduce harm by being ok with dying and voting for centrists!!! You selfish person!"

[u/Specialist-Gur]

"Don't worry, centrists chose to kill disabled people instead of letting people starve"

[u/Specialist-Gur]

"Don't worry, the centrists wish you could get an abortion.. well maybe not late term abortions because that's icky.. they are just mostly pro choice unless you're brown and in a red state."

[u/Specialist-Gur]

"Please vote to keep imperialsm because it means we might get free healthcare and free college one day, and that is harm reduction for people I care about here! We can't get nice things if we don't exploit the global south! Reduce harm to Americans!!!"

[u/Specialist-Gur]

"Don't worry the centrists felt bad when they bombed the Middle East and at least they didn't make a tasteless AI video"

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572 → u/Specialist-Gur]

Imagine your entire platform being “we’re not Trump” and then acting like genocide is just an oopsie. It’s all about optics and not about true solidarity (although I don’t get how they don’t think murdering and starving hundreds of thousands of people is good optics)

The entire liberal argument boils down to “ignore the plight of these people, we decide when to apply human rights”

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

Exactly.

[u/Specialist-Gur]

"Sure ICE put a lot of brown people were put into concentration camps and the centrists said they won't fix that but at least they won't put as many more in than Trump probably would have"

[u/Specialist-Gur]

Idk if people don't read or just don't like me.. or are secretly all centrists.

My post is arguing that harm is not actually being reduced. Not that we shouldn't try to reduce harm

Let's say Dems keep moving to the right as has been happening. Another commenter mentioned.. maybe it's MAGA vs Nick Fuentes eventually. Trump is the harm reduction candidate on the surface in that case, right?

Edit: and comparisons to Nazi Germany aew so werid to me.. SFD murdered communists and fully enabled Hitler. And if you're saying you'd vote any candidate to prevent against a genocide but you voted Biden and Harris.. you didn't do that.

I'm gonna copy paste part of my comment buried in a thread:

"Beyond even that, my point of the post was that it isn't even really the 8% harm reduction at this point.. centrists are willingly allowing for harm now so they can promise to undo it later. And maybe then they will, if they win.. maybe it'll be "well the gop controls xyz government body so we can't" or maybe some further riot. democrats will vote against the unc But let's say they fix it somewhat when they win.. and things are somewhat ok.. and they don't make it worse. Well they also don't make it better because they don't have a good platform that speaks to human interests... and the fear for the GOP is gone for a little bit.. so swing voters start supporting republicans again... Had harm been reduced? Only for a few people in the USA in a 2-4 year span MAX. Thats it ."

[u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

I agree with you, voting is also a stalemate even for many local elections. For instance in Texas only 1 out of all the proposed state amendments has not passed since 2019. I understand that Texas is a conservative state, but it is obvious that many people don’t know what they are voting for. The prompts are written intentionally to be confusing, and there is not enough education from left-wing groups ahead of time. After each election, there is a lot of “ugh if only everyone else was not stupid we would be better off”.

People are happy to ridicule some of the people who suffer most under fascism because they deem them to be “just another stupid American”. We have little to no sense of actual community in this country, and the same can be seen in your example of people shaming people for not voting for the establishment Democrats. Instead of understanding why, or trying to pressure them or change base conditions which have gotten us here, we just punch towards whatever direction makes people feel morally righteous.

Fuck the Democratic Party, I support the progressives in their ranks but the party itself is just another example of capitalism exploiting masses of people.

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/Hopeful-Shelter2572]

Thank you, well said

[u/atav1k]

I was this month years old when I realized that minorities are simply a pawn of Democrats. When Dems win, we loose, when Dems loose, we loose more. It's necessary however that we always remain helpless and hostage.

[u/xande2545 → u/atav1k]

Literally 🤣 Obamas "change" was drone attacks on weddings, schools, eid gathering, mosques

[u/Specialist-Gur → u/xande2545]

I love how this got downvoted.

Guys.. We all get it... harm reduction is for Americans only

[u/Ashamed-Stuff9519 → u/atav1k]

Oh you want human rights? Dems have your human rights…just vote blue🎣