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Thanks to everyone who answered; I can tell from the replies that it was a difficult question.
My answer is: yes, but only under the very narrow conditions that I thought that the candidate's other, probably terrible, policies on choice or marriage equality or policing or trans rights or immigration enforcement or other human rights issues could not be realized.
This is high risk, I don't know how well I could ever ensure that, so in real life it would be very, very rare. But, I'd consider it.
@evan if they are against any genocide then it's much easier since that includes here.
@bipolaron Any American politician who was willing to acknowledge the series of genocides that are foundational to our country, and was publicly committed to truth and reconciliation and restorative justice, as well as preventing future crimes, would be a great addition to our federal government.
@evan I thought about this quite a bit. I'd much rather vote for an unlikely-to-win candidate who aligns with me on all my values—if someone identifies with the Republican party in this day and age, they are aligning themselves to fascism, so any support for ending the genocide would be opportunistic at best, and undercut by everything else they've signed onto.
I get where you landed but for myself I decided it would not work.
@willhopkins yeah, personally, I'd rather vote for a 3rd-party candidate who aligned with more of my point of view and was also anti-genocide.
@evan Um. Then what do you call 10/7?
@scottag I think you're objecting to the use of the word "genocide"? The UN Human Rights Council, ICC, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Médecins sans Frontières, and Oxfam have all called the situation in Gaza a genocide. I am comfortable using the term.
@scottag If you're literally asking what I, Evan Prodromou, would call the October 7th attacks, I think the ICC used pretty accurate terms in its warrants for Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh: war crimes, crimes against humanity, mass killings, hostage taking, rape and other acts of sexual violence. If I had to make it short, I'd say the "the October 7th attacks" or the "the October 7th massacre".
@scottag I think there are groups like the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress who have used terms like "genocidal aims" or implied genocidal intent, but I don't know if anyone has called the Oct 7 attacks a genocide. That doesn't make them more acceptable or less horrific, though.
@evan tbh the poll doesn’t actually make any sense so I don’t really see any value in it. The reality would be so different from our reality. You brought up Amash but of course he hardly represented the GOP position and nothing close to a presidential candidate.
@cam I also mentioned Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Marjorie Taylor Green.
The issue was a major point of contention at the Turning Point USA conference.
@cam you don't have to answer any question you don't have the capacity for, though. It's a big Fediverse and there are lots of other things to do with your time.
@evan All Democrats in my state but I would happily vote for Thomas Massie.
@evan No because they’re still LGBTQ+ hating, billionaire loving, “tread on me harder” hypocrites.
I'm not against voting for Republicans but also opposing the genocide would not be enough in itself. If I thought anybody could achieve a long-term solution to give the Palestinians equal rights and peace, that might be enough to sway me despite disagreeing on lots of other issues. IDK.
@wjmaggos thanks for such a good answer!
@evan I wouldn't vote for a Republican if it was one of the demands in the note from my mother's kidnappers.
@evan I've never voted for a Presidential candidate in the USA affiliated with a major party.
Not once since 1992 when they finally allowed me to vote here.
I have believed since the 1980s that both of the major parties have failed us and I refuse to support them.
From my perspective, I do not really live in a Republic at all as my views are never represented because the parties ceased being coalitions in the 1960s.
@evan In the US today, There's no such thing as a Republican elected official at the Federal level who will oppose the Gaza genocide, if Trump supports it. Any Republicans who might have taken a principled stand have long since left the party.
@lauerhahn it doesn't matter; it's a hypothetical question.
However, there are several right wing figures who oppose the genocide, including Marjorie Taylor Green, recently resigned Representative.
@evan Marjorie Taylor Green is not a current sitting representative. (Also she's a Christian nationalist who is overtly Islamophobic and anti-Semitic. I don't trust her to support Palestinian people in any way.)
@lauerhahn fixed, thanks!
I think you've linked genocide opposition to other good personal qualities, which isn't necessarily the case. Bad people can oppose a genocide.
@evan @lauerhahn Bit no current National Republican politician can go against Trump, and Trump wants Gaze to become a beach resort or some such, so not Republican can be trusted to take any action on Gaza.
At this point in time I would think that a moral Democrat not concerned about Gaza is likely still to do more to protect Gaza than the Republican who must cater to MAGA and Trump.
@gam3 @lauerhahn has denying the premise of the question helped you avoid the difficult choice of actually answering it? You seem to have settled into your priors, instead of making a tough decision.
@evan As an American voter, I don't foresee a future where I will ever vote for someone running under a GOP banner ever again.
@evan I would vote for neither.
@burnoutqueen what did you reply to the poll? "No"?
@evan No but I would think about it.
@evan i wish the US was like the rest of the developed world.
it looks like, in the rest of the world, that representatives occasionally (or often) stray from their "party" to vote on the issues that matter to them or their constituents
in the US, this is political suicide and you don't get to keep your vote, so it's incredibly rare
@raineer are you joking? Most parliamentary democracies have very strict party-line voting.
@evan Responding because I want to see the results.
@evan This scenario asserts that there is a Republican that supports Palestine without an evil ulterior motive.
This Republican does not exist.
@rlounsbury no, I don't think it asserts that they don't have an ulterior motive.
@evan Given the temperature of US politics and the behavior of Republican politicians at large. I don't believe that can be true anymore.
@rlounsbury you don't believe what can be true anymore?
@evan That a Republican candidate won't have ulterior motives when campaigning.
We've already seen a candidate register Democrat to try and win a seat under the radar.
@rlounsbury you seem really hung up on motivations. Let me ask you a more specific question: would you vote for a Republican who opposes the Gaza genocide insincerely and for the wrong reasons over a Democrat who does not oppose it at all?
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I don't really vote along party lines. I have voted more Democratic in the last several years, but that has more to do with whether or not they support Trump. Anyone who supports Trump, I will automatically vote for the other person.
So, that would have to do with other issues as well.
@danjones000 it sounds like you vote entirely along party lines, then.
@evan
"over" suggests that if I didn't vote for the Republican, I would vote for the Democrat. Republicans that are right on a few issues are still not to be trusted and Democrats who support genocide are also not to be trusted. So, my vote would be for neither.
@thezerobit I think your answer is "no" or "no, but"
@evan problem with that.
No reputincan truly does. Some of them could- entirely hypothetical, might I add - say so, on the grounds of liberthurian non-intervention, but they would still vote lockstep with tRumpo.
At this point I vote only for non-partisan local offices, state and ballot measures.
@evan Assuming we're talking about the primaries, here. I would forego the opportunity to select (D) candidates to vote for an (R) candidate that publicly denounces Gaza genocide over their (R) leadership-favored opposition. In the general election, it is very unlikely there will ever be an anti-genocide (R) that is not matched by an anti-genocide (D), given how (D) candidates determine campaign strategy.
@evan I'd have to get over my disbelief, first. Is there such a Republican in any upcoming election? Were there any in the previous election?
@swelljoe it's a hypothetical question, but there exist prominent right-wing figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Marjorie Taylor Green who have used the word "genocide" and expressed strong opposition to US support for the war. I think Thomas Massie opposes support for Israel in a more libertarian America-first mode.
If you're still not convinced this scenario is within the bounds of possibility, feel free to skip the question.
@evan @swelljoe Ten years ago, this might have been within the bounds of possibility. Today it is not (except if you allow for the case where the Republican is outright lying & will reverse their position on a dime.)
Any Republican elected with a shred of morality or human decency already left the party years ago.
@lauerhahn @swelljoe I've just given a list of public right-wing figures who vocally oppose the genocide. Whether or not they have a shred of decency is beside the point. Bad people can share the same policy agenda as you and I, maybe for very bad reasons.
@lauerhahn @swelljoe if Republicans were otherwise good people, this would be a much easier question.
@evan I generally don't vote by party anymore (and don't know why someone would). Both parties here are pretty "wonky", to be nice about it :)
@evan That depends on so many things. But to the extent I would vote for a Republican who aligned more with my values than the Democrat they opposed, this is one of the issues I would consider. Not the only one—if it was, I might have voted for Trump, the “anti-war” candidate.
@evan I'd suspect that the Republican was opposing the Gaza genocide because he's genuinely antisemitic. Republicans don't care about Palestinians. Never have, never will.
@angiebaby that's not entirely true. Justin Amash was the second Palestinian American elected to Congress. He was a Republican; he's now an independent. He opposes unconditional military aid for Israel.
There were a few pre-Trump Republicans who encouraged better support for the Palestinian cause, like Paul Findlay, Pete McCloskey, and Lincoln Chafee, to their political detriment.
@angiebaby I mistakenly said Justin Amash was the first Palestinian American in Congress; Wikipedia gives that honour to John E. Sununu (R), whose family are Orthodox Christian Arabs and Greeks from Jerusalem and Beirut. TIL!