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Liz Cooledge Jenkins's avatar

I appreciate your voice. It matters.

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Andrew Michael's avatar

I have a particular frustration with the moralizing of the (vulgar) act of voting at this point. If white evangelicals voted for Harris en masse, would they be giving a stamp of approval to the administration's facilitation of genocide? Would it enable and promote a party that had Bill Clinton speak at the DNC, stump, and play a major role in the campaign? The narrative arch is out of touch with the comprehensive landscape of our moment.

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Blake Chastain's avatar

Are you making a moral argument or not? Your own examples are both moral and not comprehensive. Trump will also support the facilitation of genocide. Trump has been convicted of sexual abuse. Is it morally permissible to vote for Trump because voting is a "vulgar" act and he is a vulgar person?

There's no need to make a moral argument, because white evangelicals have no moral standing. The arch has reached its end because they have shown consistently what they value with their votes.

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Andrew Michael's avatar

I don't believe voting for a democrat means you are guilty of supporting genocide or sexual assault. You have a decision to make between two candidates.

I believe that the reasons you are giving for white evangelicals lacking a moral standard, if applied to the groups that comprise the alternative coalition in this election, would render all of those groups amoral as well.

I also believe that the moralizing posture is inherently hypocritical and reinforces a dialectic that is weaponized by one of the two elite, rent-seeking political parties to justify a host of atrocities. Therefore, I don't think it is a good idea to lean into it.

Moreover, in an age where the average American is more alienated and atomized as ever, buying into that type of politics-as-identity-as-moral-standing, comprehensive judgment of neighbor only serves to further alienate people from one another in needless and harmful ways. It doesn't produce the goals that presumably you'd want to achieve, either.

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