Electoral pressure is literally the only lever we have to push Biden to do better. There’s no other way. Biden’s team is making a bet that we aren’t serious and that they can just use Trump to hold us hostage in the party.
So! No ceasefire, no votes. If this war is still going on by November, and Netanyahu has been saying it will, I will not vote for Biden.
It’s so easy to earn our votes! Why is Biden sabotaging his own campaign?
Electoral pressure is literally the only lever we have to push Biden to do better. There’s no other way.
This is correct, barring revolution.
Biden’s team is making a bet that we aren’t serious and that they can just use Trump to hold us hostage in the party.
You are incorrect. Biden’s team, under the direction of the Democrat party, have taken away your lever because they don’t want to win. The Democrats have said this, publicly. They said back in 2016 that they would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie. The Democrat party is happy to lose, always.
To say that they don’t want to win is to imply a secret conspiracy to lose, but that’s not what we see. With Hillary, they didn’t conspire to make Hillary lose. They really did want her to win! They didn’t want Bernie to win because he wasn’t a Democrat. Winning with Bernie would have fundamentally changed their shitty party, they didn’t want that. That’s just lose/lose for them.
If this analogy applies, if they would rather lose the election than stop doing genocide, then death to America. I won’t give a shit about who wins, hopefully whoever wins destroys this shithole.
To say that they don’t want to win is to imply a secret conspiracy to lose, but that’s not what we see
It’s EXACTLY what we see. 40 years of campaigning on Roe v Wade as law, zero moves to make it happen. Spending their own fundraising on Republican opponents. Espousing positions that people want but never actually following through. Compromising before negotiating. Democrats make their money from Wall St, just like Republicans do, so they have to lie about wanting to win for progressives to vote for them, but they don’t actually want to win because then they’ll be exposed. When they have a majority, it’s always a small majority and there’s always one to three Democrats that adopt the “spoiler” role, either switching sides, going independent, pretending to be a Blue Dog, or lying about the will of their own constituents being opposed to Democrat positions.
With Hillary, they didn’t conspire to make Hillary lose.
They conspired to lose the election. Not to make Hillary lose, but to choose the person who polled terribly, to choose the positions that wouldn’t mobilize the voters, etc.
They didn’t want Bernie to win because he wasn’t a Democrat
No True Scotsman fallacy coupled with a completely ahistorical view. Bernie has been a major part of the party for a very long time. The man is an imperialist through and through. He’s very useful to them as a Democrat, specifically, he’s useful to attract progressive voters and they can always throw an election by the way they manage him. Very few people in the party are like that. Hillary is like that for them too, though less progressive and more violent. But all they have to do is treat Hillary badly and alienate a huge amount of voters.
Winning with Bernie would have fundamentally changed their shitty party
No it wouldn’t have. Because general voters don’t elect party leadership, and the president doesn’t suddenly become the head of the party. The party would have been fine ideologically. Their problem was that Bernie would hurt their donors.
If this analogy applies, if they would rather lose the election than stop doing genocide, then death to America. I won’t give a shit about who wins, hopefully whoever wins destroys this shithole.
They would rather lose than stop doing the genocide. The country is built on genocide - non-stop genocide. Just go look up how many people the USA killed in each military action after WW2. Then go look at how many indigenous people they killed here. Then try to find the numbers for how many slaves they killed. Just for comparison, the very tiny island of Haiti was replacing around 50,000 slaves (because they were being worked to death) annually. During the Haitian revolt, hundreds were gassed by the French in the bottom of slave ships. And that’s just the KILLING. Then you’ve got the erasure of language, child separation policies, which you know about now but literally follow an unbroken line all the back to before the founding of the country, because separating kids from their parents is how you kill an entire social culture, forced sterilization of 1/3 of Puerto Rico and of indigenous and Black people was happening through the 1970s. Both parties are aware. They participated. They think it’s fine. They think it’s correct. They fucking paid the slave owners for property losses but refuse to pay reparations to those enslaved or their descendants.
The USA is a genocidal settler colony that asserted its own leadership, live a cancer that broke free from its host and now lives independently. All the politicians are engaged, fully or partially, in ongoing centuries of genocide.
No True Scotsman fallacy coupled with a completely a historical view. Bernie has been a major part of the party for a very long time. The man is an imperialist through and through. He’s very useful to them as a Democrat, specifically, he’s useful to attract progressive voters and they can always throw an election by the way they manage him. Very few people in the party are like that. Hillary is like that for them too, though less progressive and more violent. But all they have to do is treat Hillary badly and alienate a huge amount of voters.
This is like accusing an Welshman of being a Scotsman. He literally isn’t a Democrat. That’s his whole brand and his function to the party.
He is a major part of the party and certainly a useful idiot, but because he literally isn’t a Democrat isn’t allowed to be an important part of the party. His job is to be a sheepdog and shepherd us back into the polls for Democrats, he isn’t supposed to actually lead the party.
Also… are you implying they treated Hillary badly and caused her to lose on purpose? That’s a pretty wild accusation lol
No it wouldn’t have. Because general voters don’t elect party leadership, and the president doesn’t suddenly become the head of the party. The party would have been fine ideologically. Their problem was that Bernie would hurt their donors.
That’s a contradiction. If the party was fine ideologically then Bernie couldn’t hurt donors because that runs counter to their ideology.
Bernie would certainly hurt their donors, and that itself would fundamentally change the party because it would change who the financial backers of the party are - but you’re also ignoring how Trump very clearly changed the Republican party (yes, I know Republicans were always fascists, but they were cryptofascists before they stopped hiding behind dogwhistles). The very demographic base of the party changed because of who the president was, and now those “”“respectable”“” Republicans that Democrats love so much are on the outside of the party’s base. Bernie, if he had been allowed to win, would have changed the voter base and the financial base. They’d rather lose than have that.
This is all a ridiculous hypothetical, of course, because Democrats would rather lose than let Bernie win. But that’s it! They didn’t want Hillary to lose, they really wanted her to win - but they wanted her to win with her unpopular platform that caused them to lose. Her platform wasn’t intended to lose, though, and they didn’t give her an unpopular platform to make her lose. You’re really putting the cart before the horse here.
They would rather lose than stop doing the genocide.
It certainly looks that way, but that doesn’t mean they want to lose for its own sake. I’m not sure what you’re even arguing here.
It sounds like you’re saying that Biden supports the Zionist’s genocide literally because he wants to lose. As if this is a wedge issue that Democrats inflicted on themselves intentionally because they don’t want to be in power anymore.
It sounds like you’re saying that Biden supports the Zionist’s genocide literally because he wants to lose. As if this is a wedge issue that Democrats inflicted on themselves intentionally because they don’t want to be in power anymore.
No no, I’m saying the genocide is more important than winning. And if he has to lose in order for the genocide to continue under Trump, then they want to lose.
I see what you’re saying now, but I think they want to win and also continue supporting genocide at the same time. They’re actually ideologues that really believe they can have their cake and eat it too. They don’t actually want to lose and will be very surprised when it happens.
In order for them to actually be planning to lose it would require a lot of people to secretly agree to lose. I don’t think that’s happening. I think those people are delusionally confident and actually really believe they’re going to win. Maybe I’m underestimating their intelligence lol
Nah, you’re too credulous. The parties collaborate. Winning and losing is just part of the game. The small people care. The leaders golf together, vacation together, etc. They collaborate in the management of empire. No one actually cares who wins and loses. If they cared, they would behave differently.
What you’re talking about is exemplified by Bush v Gore, when the Supreme Court decided the election it was Gore that happily conceded because he and Bush were just having a friendly competition. That was before the empire began its decline, what used to be collaboration between friendly rivals is turning into infighting. The partisanship we see is actually a side effect of deeper troubles.
While I have serious issues with Biden on Israel, he really has no ability to force a ceasefire. (Short of sending US troops in to enforce it, and that would be a terrible idea.).
Biden could pull all US support for Israel, but that would create a power vacuum that China or (more likely) Russia would gladly fill. It still wouldn’t end the genocide, but it would put a wedge between Iran and the Palestinians. (Iran is their only powerful ally.)
Biden’s rhetoric needs to change, and we need Israel to feel some real heat for their actions, but the US doesn’t have Israel on a leash.
While I have serious issues with Biden on Israel, he really has no ability to force a ceasefire. (Short of sending US troops in to enforce it, and that would be a terrible idea.).
Did you forget about the UN Security Council votes? The ones the US ruined?
No, that is one of the serious issues, but I also know that UN security council votes would make no difference whatsoever.
How do you know that? It’s probably the best chance we have, surely?
Resolutions against further settlement were completely ignored. Ultimately, UN resolutions rely on a willingness to use military force if necessary. There is no interest in that, and there shouldn’t be. That would certainly spread the conflict.
There actually was a successful vote on humanitarian aid, and that aid is being largely blocked by Israel.
It seems like the problem is with UN security council resolutions not being enforced, so why make it look like America is the issue? Why not give it the best chance? Hell If you cared about the well being of your fellow human beings (controversial I know) wouldn’t you be approving resolutions and then fighting to get them implemented? If they ignore it you can fucking sanction them. Use it to justify stopping arms sales and aid.
America cannot escape their responsibility for this, IMO. If they’d voted for a cease fire and Israel had ignored it, it would be Israel’s fault. The way it stands America shares the blame, whether they like it or not.
As I mentioned, the best chance for the US to influence Israel is for it to not take an adversarial role. It’s like negotiating with a hostage taker. (I hate oversimplified analogies in foreign policy, but this one works really well). A hostage negotiator tries to sympathize with the hostage taker because it’s the best way to get the hostages out safely. America has tried to thread the needle between putting pressure on Israel and remaining supportive. It hasn’t had much success, but it’s the best course open to us.
I am not of the opinion that moral considerations don’t belong in foreign policy, but moral judgements like assigning “blame” can be antithetical to achieving moral ends. The second you label a foreign government as “genocidal” you lose all ability to influence them with anything but military force.
I actually agree with you that America gets a lot of the blame for what is happening but, most of the fault comes from things before October 7. I also fault Biden for a lot of that, and I think he has been far too over the top in supporting Israel publicly. What I think they are getting bad press for is the broad strategy of trying to restrain Israel while maintaining the relationship.
Thanks, I appreciate the thoughtful explanation.
I get that this may be the best way to approach it in most cases, but what happens when it doesn’t work? As you said it hasn’t been successful. In a hostage negotiation, if any attempts had been fruitless, they would send in a team to rescue hostages by force. Not let the negotiator keep fumbling while people were being killed.
What I think they are getting bad press for is the broad strategy of trying to restrain Israel while maintaining the relationship.
Yeah I agree and imo this is deserved. Why is the relationship so important that it justifies undermining your own stated set of morals in such a public and humiliating way? I do not get it.
This happened recently through public statements:
Biden: two state solution is the only way
Bibi: nope
Biden: don’t worry we can make it work
Bibi: no we can’t, he’s wrong
So why exactly do you want to be friends with this asshole again? It’s like America is in an abusive relationship and nobody can convince them to leave
removed by mod
Anyone who starts a sentence with “you people” has likely got some morality issues of their own.
Foreign policy has to account for all the consequences of any decision, including counter moves. As a “friend of Israel” the US has some influence (less and less it would seem). From the outside we would have none whatsoever.
