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Is the argument here that people vote based on what the prior party was up to, while completely ignoring whether the new party will do less or more of the same action?
Because that's really depressing if it's true.
Most of the Americans I've spoken with who acknowledge voting for Trump said they did so either because they were against abortion or because the were against the great replacement. My sample is small though and may not be significant but there is a similar pattern in my country.
You’re like the black knight from Monty python.
Edit: I welcome the pushback on this post. The message I meant to convey is that of two evils. Yelling at the losing candidate does nothing for Gaza. It alienates even people who care (but I’m not perfect). I apologize for the divisive nature of my post.
can this topic be negotiatable? like migrants and abortion, one party supports it, one party againsts it, let people choose which party to vote for
There are even voting systems which are perfectly representative (as a popular vote would be) and ensure all states get a voice (the goal of the electoral college).
Say, a bicameral system.
One chamber allocating each state a fixed number of voices, ensuring each state has a voice,
and a second chamber with mixed-member-proportional voting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU), which allows perfectly proportional majorities in this chamber while giving each district a representative (in the process also fixing gerrymandering).
In fact, it was actually this system, designed by the US, that the allied countries chose for Germany after World War II.
> In fact, it was actually this system, designed by the US, that the allied countries chose for Germany after World War II.
is there any other way to get this system besides a WW III?
That's another issue with the US system. If you've got only two choices, and one option is straight up "tear it all down", then the entire rest of the political spectrum has to be represented by the democratic party.
The only candidates in recent years that wanted to improve the situation were Obama, Romney, Bernie and now Walz.
I'd say register democrat, become active on the local level, and vote in primaries.
Meanwhile, while Palestinians are eating cats, we are free to refer to Monty Python all we like.
Just don't mention the war.
Biden provided the bombs and the diplomatic cover that allowed Israel to decimate Gaza's population, permanently damaging entire generations, reducing the most densely populated areas on Earth to smoking rubble, and explicitly supported Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing plans. He basically alley-ooped this scenario to Trump.
> You’re like the black knight from Monty python.
Sheer projection.
Democrats lost because they supported genocide [0], [1]. They tried to court Republican women instead of their own base, trotting out people like Dick fucking Cheney [2] (after removing any mention of stopping torturing people from their platform).
When over 30% of Biden 2020 voters told pollsters they felt so strongly about an arms embargo that it could affect their vote, and Harris responded by saying she would keep sending bombs "no matter what", she lost. The win could have been a landslide, and Dems chose to tell their base to eat shit instead.
0 - https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/postelection-polling
1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/opinion/kamala-harris-you...
2 - https://www.yahoo.com/news/dick-cheney-groundbreaking-endors...
Democrats were powerless to stop the genocide. Gaza voters weakened them further.
Nonsense. As can be plainly seen in the posted links, far fewer Democrat votes would have been lost by support for an arms embargo.
What would have been lost was the support of many Democrat funders - fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers, Zionist billionaires, and a vast swathe of complicit corporate media. As in, the people perverting the party against the interests of their base.
> Democrats were powerless to stop the genocide.
Again, utter nonsense. Democrats voted against ceasefire four times at the UN; and made a mockery of domestic and international law by providing billions in arms to a regime that was likely to commit genocide.
And so it needs to be said: lack of money for Harris' campaign was not the issue. She outspent Trump, ffs.
> Gaza voters weakened them further.
That was a choice! Gaza voters would have strengthened them, if they had simply decided to stop arming a genocidal apartheid regime. That's what the polls I posted showed beyond doubt; and Dem elites knew all this months before the election.
This could have cost many seats in congress.
I acknowledge you might be completely right, but they were never gonna get the campaign and all of D congress to that position in the first place in a high stakes election.
If true, that would be just one of many reasons why they don't deserve our support.
The Democrats have repeatedly proven to be unable and unwilling to give anything more than token support to the existential crises of our time; be it forever wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, free speech, surveillance, torture, climate change, housing, healthcare, justice reform, election reform, etc etc.
By your logic above, all that would be justified.
Don't you get tired of being shepherded? Isn't the last 200 years of lesser evil voting [0] wearing kinda thin?
0 - https://pleasuretoburn.substack.fcom/p/lesser-evils-are-the-... - "Beginning in 1824, people made the “lesser evil” arguments in every single presidential election year I reviewed"
I think lesser evils are present in every election. By your logic, total surrender is the only outcome.
I appreciate you engaging, but agree to disagree I guess.
No, there are usually viable, non-genocidal third options - as there was in this election.
> By your logic, total surrender is the only outcome.
That's the very logical flaw which has you thinking that stumping for a genocide accomplice was 'the only option'. You're so close.
This was IMHO the main reason 7.10. attacks happened as they happened, when they happened. But it requires watching the news continuously, understanding the world and cultures a bit and connecting those (very) few dots. In nation trained hard on short dopamine kicks from junk fun of reality shows and outcries.
This is but 1 of hundreds of threads happening out there, daily. Sure, democrats f*cked up badly with all stuff mentioned all over here, no point saying it wasn't the case. But concept of long term complex consequences and the tenacity to keep that mental model in one's head is what most of his supporters simply lack. Those who have it and still voted for him... not sure what to say there, I guess he aligns with their core values and keeps delivering on spot and beyond.
What goes around, comes around, just that whole world suffers and few well connected aholes profit. I can't foresee a situation where US won't be in worse position in 4 years, if he even benevolently decides to step down, which is unlikely. China is profiting massively from his chaotic actions long term, that's for sure.
Personally, as European, clearly we're not friends anymore. Just as I wasn't buying any US products during his first tenure, my family won't be buying any US products for foreseeable future just like I don't buy puttin's gas.
I'm not saying that's not terrible, of course it is. But I'm pretty sure that if Israel wanted to commit genocide there would be a lot more.
However your claims here seem very one-sided. For example I've read about how Israel has been trying to provide aid to Gaza but most of the resources have been controlled by Hamas who have been constructing elaborate tunnel systems, militias and weapons rather than improving the lives of civilians.
From my understanding this has culminated into the attack that started the war, and I can understand that Israel can't just sit on their hands while Hamas prepares for another attack.
The civilians of Gaza deserve to be able to live their lives in peace, but I don't see how that can happen if Hamas isn't dealt with.
thank you, israel
Was it genocide of the Native Americans, since 'they survived'? Was it genocide in Australia when white europeans took the land from the prior caretakers?
The answer: yes of course it was. Genocide doesn't mean total eradication - it means, attempted total eradication. In Gaza today, the lifestyles of the Palestinian peoples have been completely eradicated, and it will be years before they recover.
I also think that if Hamas had the means they would have been happy to totally eradicate Israel, civilians and all, so I can't say I have much sympathy for them. The civilian deaths are tragic but given these numbers I think it's pretty clear that they are collateral damage from fighting Hamas, not a target in themselves.
Both parties are completely beholden to AIPAC it’s disgusting.
Is Hamas a terrorist group ? Yeah, by many definitions. But if you accept this, you also cannot not see how what Israel did in Gaza, and has been doing for years with Palestinian, is not genocide: Force displacement of vast amount of population, regularly blockading humanitarian aid, mass destruction of civilian infrastructure, mass imprisonment, often with little to no representation, mass killing of civilian (it is estimated, by many source, that roughly 45000 Palestinian died, of which at least ~80% where civilian) ... This is the textbook definition of genocide. If you accept the Shoah, the Armenian genocide, the genocide of the tutsis, ... You cannot logically not see this as a Palestinian genocide.
As for the U.S involvement, that's honestly not for me to say. I am not a us citizen.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_genocide_accusatio...
In what way is "what Israel has done for years" genocide, if we're not including the response to October 7th?
> mass killing of civilian (it is estimated, by many source, that roughly 45000 Palestinian died, of which at least ~80% where civilian) ...
Every civilian death is tragic. But if civilians aren't targeted, but are killed as part of other military actions, then it is the unfortunate and terrible reality of war. Unless you consider every war genocide, this doesn't show that it was a genocide. (I'm not sure your 80% number if anywhere near accurate, btw.)
> If you accept the Shoah, the Armenian genocide, the genocide of the tutsis, ... You cannot logically not see this as a Palestinian genocide.
Let's make clear the difference. In the Shoah (Holocaust), Jews were rounded up, sent to concentration camps, then killed by various means. They were not a hostile armed group, not in a territory that was controlled by militants, or anything like that. They were literally civilians that were rounded up and killed.
None of that applies in Gaza. Civilians are not rounded up and killed. They are killed as terrible, horrible collateral damage while attempting to kill militants. If the militants, who are their current government, were to put down their arms - the war would be over immediately.
Also - since the Holocaust, the Jewish population still hasn't recovered its numbers. The Gazan population has only increased. This isn't proof of anything (it can be an attempted genocide even with a low count of dead), but you're comparing ~30k civilian deaths to 6 million Jewish deaths in the Holocaust.
> Eh. Pretty much everyone called what happened in Gaza an attempt at genocide, including many Israeli scholar.
Many people have called it a genocide. Many people called it a genocide two days into the war, and some have been saying Israel is committing genocide for years, which makes you think it's something they think without Israel's actual actions since October 7th having any relevance to it.
But by no means "pretty much everyone" calls it a Genocide. What determines whether something is a genocide is not a show of hands of a select group of organizations.
If you care to educate yourself on this, here are some resources:
https://www.academia.edu/112967602/Bearing_Witness_to_the_Is... (paper by an Israeli academic with over a thousand sources)
https://x.com/AgnesCallamard/status/1871157783069929592 (A long list of links to declarations by human rights orgs, UN sources, ICJ submissions etc)
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240516-israel-committing... (from a coalition of prestigious universities)