Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?
US support for Israel goes back decades. America has been in bed with all sorts of dictators commiting heinous crimes and still is. Not to forget the illegal invasion of Iraq with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties or the long list of US war crimes revealed by WikiLeaks and largely indiscriminate drone strikes across the globe. Most of these seemed to elicit much harsher condemnation overseas while the US public appeared generally uninterested. So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn’t even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?
There’s a segment of liberals that view any victimized or oppressed group as morally superior regardless of context.
Michigan specifically has a very high population of Muslim/middle eastern descent.
It’s not that sudden, there’s been growing criticism and calling Israel an apartheid state for years. The recent escalation in hostilities just made it more newsworthy.
OK but republicans demanded help to Israel to help Ukraine, until they changed it up.
So it seems that although Biden may be bad, the only alternative is worse.
No, the president gets our votes automatically because he’s got the job already and can beat the mean fascist man without tying! All we have to do is verbally abuse anyone criticizing Biden and we’ll surely have him as president again and there’ll be no problems come 2028 or anything!
Downvote them all you want, it’s a very poignant point that’s left at the wayside of defeating Trump right now. Joe wins in ‘24? The threat of a second Trump presidency is deferred, but he has fundamentally transformed American politics regardless
“Deferred” like he’s likely to be back in 2028. Extremely unlikely he will be eligible by then, and even more unlikely he’ll even be able to mentally/physically fit enough to campaign. He’s already falling to pieces.
Yep. Everyone who says this conversation isn’t appropriate right now conveniently ignores the fact that they’ve refused to have these kinds of conversations for the past four years.
Biden needs to stop sending weapons to Israel.
Biden needs to promise to veto any attempts to block a rail strike in his next term.
Biden needs to revert his push for federal workers to return to office.
Biden needs to call off Yellen and Powell on their war against American workers.
He’s a shit candidate for anybody who isn’t retired or nearing retirement.
I’m starting to believe the worse guy isn’t much worse after all. I wanted Biden to win because of promised immigration reform. He promised to halt the expansion of the wall. Give a pathway to all the people under DACA suffering in eternal immigration limbo.
What does he do instead? Continues the Trump administration’s policies of using COVID loopholes to deny people at the border seeking asylum. Then he expands construction of the wall he promised to halt, and meanwhile does a couple photoshoots at the border with CBP officers.
Of course, absolutely squat was said about DACA or the millions of people who were filled with hope in 2020 after Biden won. Now we know the hope was a scam. It was all an illusion. A mirage.
My main reason I don’t want Trump is because he is racist and xenophobic against Latin Americans. But if Biden is following in his footsteps virtually exactly…
Why should I give a shit who becomes president? I don’t like Trump but there’s no way I’m voting for Biden. I want him to lose. I want the Democrats to realize they can’t just do this forever. I want them to change their strategy. If I vote for Biden and he wins, they learn nothing. They will continue lying and being hypocrites forever.
If Trump wins, you may never get a chance to vote for another president.
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath, to even try to compare the 2 on the level of evil they are capable of, is extremely naive. Also Trump is a traitor who is willing to sell out American interests to Putin.
You may be disappointed with Biden, but there is zero doubt he is the lesser of 2 evils by far. Especially if you are not a billionaire.
If Trump wins, you may never get a chance to vote for another president.
what is the difference between not being able to vote and being forced into voting for one candidate you hate?
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath, to even try to compare the 2 on the level of evil they are capable of, is extremely naive
i think you are the one being naive. trump cannot be the eternal boogeyman that justifies giving the democrats a blank check to do whatever they want. they are both equally shit. trump’s a xenophobic racist who was aspirations to be another mussolini, biden actively supports genocide and does not give a single fuck about the people who put him in power.
there is no lesser evil here. just two different types of evil
You’re right. Getting beat with a bat isn’t really that different from getting punched in the gut. Thank you for all your incredible logic. I really needed it.
Progressives in a nutshell. They will be upset with the status quo no matter what.
Even if Bernie was nominated and elected, progressives would have turned on him within a year, because he wouldn’t have been able to get policy passed without major concessions, which would then alienate the progressive base for not being perfect.
They will be upset with the status quo no matter what.
I’d love to hear about a time when the status quo was such that progressives shouldn’t have been upset. Everything progressives and leftists care about is trending in the wrong direction and moderates are just like “you wouldn’t be happy with anything”.
You are correct. People expect big sweeping changes and are upset when it doesn’t. What people need to realise is that it’s like a rudder on a giant ship. If you keep voting left then you slowly move left. Which also means any time the right wins we stay on course or move further right.
Even if Bernie was nominated and elected, progressives would have turned on him within a year, because he wouldn’t have been able to get policy passed without major concessions, which would then alienate the progressive base for not being perfect.
The American left is furious at Biden for the same reason we’re angry at pretty much any President’s foreign policy. We’ve opposed most of the interventions and support for dictators that presidents in the latter half of the twentieth century up to today have engaged in. But we have never been the majority, and haven’t had the power to stop them. It’s important to remember that about a third of the US is composed or pretty reasonable, pro-peace social democrats. The problem is that another third are “moderates” that are okay with empire as long as we pretend we’re being nice, and the last third are maniacal religious fascists.
Mainly just due to the recency and severity of the conflict in Gaza, and the fact that it’s an election year. Americans never cared when Israeli soldiers routinely dehumanized, murdered, and raped Palestinians in small numbers here and there, but the widespread media coverage of the conflict in Palestine has helped shape public opinion to recognize the incredibly disproportionate response on the part of Israel to the Oct. 7 attacks.
Biden is reaffirming the US’s long-held stance on Israel, but it is a stance that is becoming less popular with many who disagree with what Israel is doing. Michigan in particular has a high population of Muslims who turned out in large numbers to oppose Biden, which is why this managed to become newsworthy.
I would also wager a good chunk of this narrative (certainly not all or even the majority, but a good chunk) is likely promoted by Republican-aligned groups who are using this momentum to discourage people on the fence from voting for Biden in the general to help secure a Trump win. Notably a lot of news coverage I’ve seen lately featured people confirming their plan to vote for Trump, rather than vote for no one, because of Biden’s stance on Israel.
Trump himself is remaining relatively tight-lipped about his stance on Israel during this election cycle, despite being a vocal ally of Netanyahu during his previous term, to try to keep the dialog focused on Biden. But it is expected he will continue support for Israel, or even escalate it, due to his previous amicable relationship with Israel and based on how much his voter base likes to dehumanize Muslims (blocking all Muslims from entering the US was an early campaign promise of his in 2016).
It’s the only time moderate Democrats actually have to listen to progressives, leftists and anyone who isn’t a moderate. The discussions dying down after the elections isn’t by our choice, it’s just that the moderates stop engaging once they have what they need from us.
So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn’t even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?
Because the US is by all means an active party. The US is selling Israel weapons (including weapons Biden has been bypassing Congress to sell), defending them on the international stage and literally sent them aircraft carriers to prevent anyone in the region from taking action. People have been found guilty in the Numenberg trials for less and people aren’t liking the man who’s supposed to represent them doing these things.
Keeping others in the region from “taking action” is a good thing. The top priority in all of this for the US has been keeping it from escalating to a region wide conflict.
It also makes sense for America to not cut Israel off completely. If we did that, Netanyaho would turn to Russia who would love to have Israel in their orbit. Any leverage we have with Israel is dependent on aid and support.
Most of the big ticket weapons we sell them are guidance systems for precision guided bombs. They have plenty of dumb bombs, and would just use more of those, killing even more civilians.
Do I think the Biden administration is handling the situation well? No, I think we could be putting on a lot more pressure before risking Russia’s involvement with Israel. I just don’t think the situation is as simple as many people make it out to be.
Keeping others in the region from “taking action” is a good thing. The top priority in all of this for the US has been keeping it from escalating to a region wide conflict.
And who cares about the US’s top priority? The top priority for everyone should be to stop Israel’s genocide, not keep a facade of “peace” (read: US supremacy) in the region.
Who cares about a possible WW3? What do you think happens if Iran gets involved? Suddenly Gaza is a tiny sliver of a much bigger tragedy. Yeah, that’s a real scenario - even a likely one without the US presence.
If stopping Israel in Gaza should be everyone’s top priority, that implies that a US invasion of Israel is on the table. Are you down for that, or are there maybe some other things that are priorities?
The US has leverage to pressure Israel to modify their response. I believe we are tragically underutilizing that leverage. I don’t believe it would make that much of a difference though. I also believe that there are even more serious consequences possible if US / Israeli relations fall apart.
It’s possible for someone to care just as much about the people of Gaza as you do, but disagree about what courses of action are available.
Who cares about a possible WW3? What do you think happens if Iran gets involved?
It’s only WWIII because Israel is capable of dragging the US into it. Otherwise it’s just a regional war, and honestly if that’s what it takes to get one of the largest factors in regional instability in the middle East to behave themselves it’s worth it.
If stopping Israel in Gaza should be everyone’s top priority, that implies that a US invasion of Israel is on the table. Are you down for that, or are there maybe some other things that are priorities?
I mean a threat of invasion would work wonders so I wouldn’t object to it (would ironically be one of the most peaceful ways to end this whole mess). But we don’t even need to go there.
No? War would be worth it if it got us out of Israel committing crimes against humanity every other day. At some point peace becomes not worth it and we’ve passed that point a long time ago.
Guess you missed the huge anti Iraq war protests in the early 2000s. And the fact that we’ve been making Internet jokes about that and George Bush junior since forever.
Part is the fact that the Americans most likely to be upset by the violence in Gaza are the same that are likely to vote for him. And he’s being largely unreceptive to their criticism. In any other election, that would mean his base would probably just let his opponent win. There’s an obvious problem with that this time.
Basically, Biden is forcing the nation’s left wing to pick between showing their disdain for genocide overseas and stopping fascism to at home. It’s not a fair choice and people are bitter about it.
They’re choosing between the party that will not try to implement fascism while supporting Israel and the party that will try while also supporting Israel. Why would anyone think that the fucking Republicans won’t support Israel?
I’m tired of being screamed at by moderates that I have to vote for their garbage candidate they picked in the primaries. It’s obvious at this point they expect me to endlessly compromise while they give up nothing.
People usually call me “radical” or “anarchist” or “socialist”. This is the first time someone has called me “moderate”. What’s next, “liberal” 😩
I’m also not American, so it’s not “my” candidate.
I’m a German who watches with absolute terror the fascist rhetoric Trump uses, and my mind boggles that some of you are even thinking about not doing everything necessary to stop that.
It also assumes that you view the democrats as a credible counter to rising fascism… They’re currently trying to pass a fascist border bill, and literally using our military to aid in an ongoing genocide.
I don’t think there’s a choice to be made and I will not be voting for either.
If you are set on not voting in the presidential election, I would like to encourage you to still vote (if you didn’t already intend to) and just not vote on that question on the ballot, for two reaons:
Local ballot measures and politicians are still quite relevant and your vote is still fairly impactful there relative to the federal election (depending on your state) and
it sends a significantly stronger message to both parties that they are putting forward garbage candidates to vote and just abstain from the one question. Not voting is easy to mislabel as voter suppression by the opposition or any number of other misleading causes when voting, just not for Biden or trump is much more clear what you are mad about.
Our local elections only happen on off years to suppress turnout, and it’s overwhelmingly dominated by landlords and NIMBYs, trust me I’m involved, but that shit is absolutely calcified.
Basically, Biden is forcing the nation’s left wing to pick between showing their disdain for genocide overseas and stopping fascism to at home. It’s not a fair choice and people are bitter about it.
In the early 2000’s we weren’t as connected as we are now and people relied a lot more on cable/network news.
But also, and this is really important to understand, the civilian casualties from the Iraq war were over much larger areas, populations, and time. In the same time frame the rate of casualties was far lower. Coalition forces also did their best to avoid civilian casualties by not targeting hospitals, not kettling civilians, and certainly not doing a concerted bombing campaign with large bombs into highly populated areas.
A lot of what’s happening with the rate of civilian casualties is because the IDF has thrown all of those protections out the window. They’re specifically destroying the food, water, and medical infrastructure of Gaza. When people inevitably try to evacuate they can only do so further into Gaza. The IDF doesn’t allow them to evacuate through their lines into cleared areas. This means people can never actually get away from the fighting. Those are all large scale war crimes designed to increase the number of civilian casualties. But they aren’t removing troops credibly accused of war crimes from the area either. In fact they’ve shown no willingness to prosecute tactical level warcrimes such as shooting clearly marked journalists in a quiet area in broad daylight.
Just today the report landed on NPR radio that the IDF opened fire into a crowd waiting for food aid. The IDF is of course claiming the crowd was threatening. But we’ve known how to securely disperse food aid for decades. Those soldiers may very well have been threatened, but their officers set that situation up. Also of note is just how fast this gets out to the world in the era of social media.
And we haven’t even talked about the immense amount of war weariness in the US.
There were marches like, every other weekend about the invasion of Iraq even before the news came out that we were there over a lie. But Bush was president and it was like, “aww… look at the hippies… they think they’re helping… lol!”
Raddatz observed of the 5-year-old Iraq war, “Two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting, and they’re looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.”
And Cheney’s response: “So?”
It was honestly hard to protest when Obama was in office because there were so many frothing racists about that any public protests against the actions of the president would be joined by literal KKK members. But we wrote letters… oh boy did we ever write letters. Letter writing parties, phone banking about writing letters, sending out mailers with contact info for all of the local reps and higher ups to send letters to, including pre stamped envelopes and form letters to add your name to.
Nobody cared because Obama was so popular that there wasn’t really a question of his reelection. Biden is not that popular, the rare opportunity to use a major issue as leverage to threaten a reelection campaign, even if the result of his loss would be dire is why there is so much news about public opinion on Israel/Palestine.
In actuality, everyone knew W was full of shit. No one remotely informed believed for a second that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 as well as the only WMDs Saddam had were the nerve gas ones Reagan gave them to kill Iranians with. Only the media hadn’t worked that out instantly. Your myopic revisionism is very telling.
Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?
He proactively circumvented congress to sell Netanyahu weapons that he knew would be used for genocide.
Democrats can always find a lame procedural excuse when there’s something they ran on but don’t want to do, but when it’s something they want to do like enable genocide (and oh lordy do they ever), procedure and decorum evaporate in a puff of hypocrisy and convenience.
Yeah, the US has done some gross shit. But Genocide is pretty bad as bad shit goes. The sheer number of deaths is extreme. Not to mention theyre mostly non combatants.
Even for the US this is evil
Because the genocide in Gaza is currently at an all time high? Israel is actively in the process of invading them, supported and defended fully by the US to the detriment of the international community?
America isn’t currently arming death squads in South America or where right now at the moment or you’d be hearing about that instead.
It’s like asking why are Americans talking so much more about trans rights lately when they’ve always been bad.
Oh they all moved to Central America and the Philippines. It’s okay though they only kill criminals. They aren’t fueling our asylum crisis in the slightest.
You’re being downvoted, but it’s true. At this point, everyone knows the dynamics of voting in a 2 party FPTP system. Anyone legitimately trying to deter people from voting for Biden at this point in time are actively pursuing a course of action that will lead to a Trump presidency. Other than clandestine Trump supporters, bots make the most sense.
To anyone else who just really really really hates the genocide in Gaza: Trump will take the money being given to Ukraine and instead give it to Israel. Under Trump, more Gazans will die.
Putin spent a billion dollars on his propaganda machine abroad in this election cycle, which was discovered recently, and we still remember how much of his propaganda machine consists of social media bots.
Potential narrative or sentiment shift driven by bots in the wake of the upcoming election?
There’s definitely a lot of sentiment against him for what he’s done in regards to this of course but it’s seemed to have accelerated in an unnatural fashion.
“Everyone I disagree with is a bot and it is only I, the one with the correct opinions, who is a thinking human being who is also immune to propaganda”
Yeah, genocide sure is manufactured outage. I’m sure you’re one of those people who think you would’ve stood up to the nazis. In reality you stan the democrat party, which insists we work with republicans and which also loves funding genocide.
You don’t give a shit about democracy, you’re just a diehard democrat fanatic. From the assumption that democrats stand for democracy (they really don’t, they serve their rich donors first and foremost) to the smug arrogance of thinking everyone is an idiot except for you, you’re a walking democrat stereotype. I’ve cared about Palestine for decades and I can certainly point it out on a map, but neither of these are requirements for basic compassion for human beings going through a genocide. Meanwhile your enlightened self would be screaming bloody murder if this exact same thing was happening under a republican president because you don’t actually care about the humans involved, you just want to score political points.
You wasted your time combing through my posting history to prove nothing. I don’t broadcast all my feelings on any particular outlet all the time. Anyway, keep voting for the one “good” party (that still supports genocide) until the end of time while screaming that democracy is at stake.
I didn’t say don’t vote and I never tell people to not vote. I vote democrat straight down the ballot every election, might as well vote since it’s the bare minimum, but I’m not stupid enough to think that will actually change anything. Try responding to my words instead of arguing with a caricature you’ve made up in your head.
Anyway, you missed the point I was making. If you’re forced to vote for only one party, then you can’t call it a democracy, can you?
I wasn’t on Lemmy for the 2021 bombing campaign. Trying to look at people’s comment history on a new platform to see if they cared about it in the past is hilarious.
Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?
US support for Israel goes back decades. America has been in bed with all sorts of dictators commiting heinous crimes and still is. Not to forget the illegal invasion of Iraq with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties or the long list of US war crimes revealed by WikiLeaks and largely indiscriminate drone strikes across the globe. Most of these seemed to elicit much harsher condemnation overseas while the US public appeared generally uninterested. So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn’t even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?
I would also add that social media showing real-time atrocities happening has also played a role.
OK but republicans demanded help to Israel to help Ukraine, until they changed it up.
So it seems that although Biden may be bad, the only alternative is worse.
If you’re being punched in the gut, it’s not reassuring that the other option is going to use a bat instead.
But why clear the way for the worse guy to get to you?
Ya, Trump bad and all, but maybe it’s Biden who should do more to get the anti-genocide vote. Isn’t getting votes part of his job?
No, the president gets our votes automatically because he’s got the job already and can beat the mean fascist man without tying! All we have to do is verbally abuse anyone criticizing Biden and we’ll surely have him as president again and there’ll be no problems come 2028 or anything!
Downvote them all you want, it’s a very poignant point that’s left at the wayside of defeating Trump right now. Joe wins in ‘24? The threat of a second Trump presidency is deferred, but he has fundamentally transformed American politics regardless
“Deferred” like he’s likely to be back in 2028. Extremely unlikely he will be eligible by then, and even more unlikely he’ll even be able to mentally/physically fit enough to campaign. He’s already falling to pieces.
Glad someone else is talking about this, fascism is not going away.
Yep. Everyone who says this conversation isn’t appropriate right now conveniently ignores the fact that they’ve refused to have these kinds of conversations for the past four years.
He’s a shit candidate for anybody who isn’t retired or nearing retirement.
I’m starting to believe the worse guy isn’t much worse after all. I wanted Biden to win because of promised immigration reform. He promised to halt the expansion of the wall. Give a pathway to all the people under DACA suffering in eternal immigration limbo.
What does he do instead? Continues the Trump administration’s policies of using COVID loopholes to deny people at the border seeking asylum. Then he expands construction of the wall he promised to halt, and meanwhile does a couple photoshoots at the border with CBP officers.
Of course, absolutely squat was said about DACA or the millions of people who were filled with hope in 2020 after Biden won. Now we know the hope was a scam. It was all an illusion. A mirage.
My main reason I don’t want Trump is because he is racist and xenophobic against Latin Americans. But if Biden is following in his footsteps virtually exactly…
Why should I give a shit who becomes president? I don’t like Trump but there’s no way I’m voting for Biden. I want him to lose. I want the Democrats to realize they can’t just do this forever. I want them to change their strategy. If I vote for Biden and he wins, they learn nothing. They will continue lying and being hypocrites forever.
If Trump wins, you may never get a chance to vote for another president.
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath, to even try to compare the 2 on the level of evil they are capable of, is extremely naive. Also Trump is a traitor who is willing to sell out American interests to Putin.
You may be disappointed with Biden, but there is zero doubt he is the lesser of 2 evils by far. Especially if you are not a billionaire.
what is the difference between not being able to vote and being forced into voting for one candidate you hate?
i think you are the one being naive. trump cannot be the eternal boogeyman that justifies giving the democrats a blank check to do whatever they want. they are both equally shit. trump’s a xenophobic racist who was aspirations to be another mussolini, biden actively supports genocide and does not give a single fuck about the people who put him in power.
there is no lesser evil here. just two different types of evil
You’re right. Getting beat with a bat isn’t really that different from getting punched in the gut. Thank you for all your incredible logic. I really needed it.
Progressives in a nutshell. They will be upset with the status quo no matter what.
Even if Bernie was nominated and elected, progressives would have turned on him within a year, because he wouldn’t have been able to get policy passed without major concessions, which would then alienate the progressive base for not being perfect.
“If you don’t like our hellscape status quo then you’re just looking for perfection” - out of touch democrat stans
So you support genocide, but you’re mad that progressives don’t?
Really? You believe that’s a good talking point?
Wow.
I’d love to hear about a time when the status quo was such that progressives shouldn’t have been upset. Everything progressives and leftists care about is trending in the wrong direction and moderates are just like “you wouldn’t be happy with anything”.
Prove it.
You are correct. People expect big sweeping changes and are upset when it doesn’t. What people need to realise is that it’s like a rudder on a giant ship. If you keep voting left then you slowly move left. Which also means any time the right wins we stay on course or move further right.
People need to take a long term view.
We aren’t slowly moving left.
Yes because only 4 years ago you voted in a right wing candidate. “I keep turning left then turning right, why aren’t I going left?!?!”
Until you actually look at the rudder and realize it’s not connected to the electoral system at all.
I’m gonna borrow this, very succinct.
The American left is furious at Biden for the same reason we’re angry at pretty much any President’s foreign policy. We’ve opposed most of the interventions and support for dictators that presidents in the latter half of the twentieth century up to today have engaged in. But we have never been the majority, and haven’t had the power to stop them. It’s important to remember that about a third of the US is composed or pretty reasonable, pro-peace social democrats. The problem is that another third are “moderates” that are okay with empire as long as we pretend we’re being nice, and the last third are maniacal religious fascists.
I think the fascists almost at 3/7ths.
Mainly just due to the recency and severity of the conflict in Gaza, and the fact that it’s an election year. Americans never cared when Israeli soldiers routinely dehumanized, murdered, and raped Palestinians in small numbers here and there, but the widespread media coverage of the conflict in Palestine has helped shape public opinion to recognize the incredibly disproportionate response on the part of Israel to the Oct. 7 attacks.
Biden is reaffirming the US’s long-held stance on Israel, but it is a stance that is becoming less popular with many who disagree with what Israel is doing. Michigan in particular has a high population of Muslims who turned out in large numbers to oppose Biden, which is why this managed to become newsworthy.
I would also wager a good chunk of this narrative (certainly not all or even the majority, but a good chunk) is likely promoted by Republican-aligned groups who are using this momentum to discourage people on the fence from voting for Biden in the general to help secure a Trump win. Notably a lot of news coverage I’ve seen lately featured people confirming their plan to vote for Trump, rather than vote for no one, because of Biden’s stance on Israel.
Trump himself is remaining relatively tight-lipped about his stance on Israel during this election cycle, despite being a vocal ally of Netanyahu during his previous term, to try to keep the dialog focused on Biden. But it is expected he will continue support for Israel, or even escalate it, due to his previous amicable relationship with Israel and based on how much his voter base likes to dehumanize Muslims (blocking all Muslims from entering the US was an early campaign promise of his in 2016).
No. We cared. It’s just really hard to get anyone to look at the issue when the standard media line was, lol brown people terrorists.
Progressives who pay attention to international politics have been yelling from the rooftops about Israel’s Apartheid tactics for at least 2 decades.
It’s the only time moderate Democrats actually have to listen to progressives, leftists and anyone who isn’t a moderate. The discussions dying down after the elections isn’t by our choice, it’s just that the moderates stop engaging once they have what they need from us.
If only. No matter how much we shout, the only people that end up elected are moderates. But what is the alternative?
Personally I will be voting 3rd party or write in. Moderates can’t keep expecting me to vote for their trash candidates.
Just out of curiosity, since we know a third party candidate will never win, are you indifferent to the results of the election otherwise?
If my opinion on Biden’s policies isn’t relevant enough to warrant change then my opinion on who wins is just as irrelevant. It can’t be both ways.
Because the US is by all means an active party. The US is selling Israel weapons (including weapons Biden has been bypassing Congress to sell), defending them on the international stage and literally sent them aircraft carriers to prevent anyone in the region from taking action. People have been found guilty in the Numenberg trials for less and people aren’t liking the man who’s supposed to represent them doing these things.
Keeping others in the region from “taking action” is a good thing. The top priority in all of this for the US has been keeping it from escalating to a region wide conflict.
It also makes sense for America to not cut Israel off completely. If we did that, Netanyaho would turn to Russia who would love to have Israel in their orbit. Any leverage we have with Israel is dependent on aid and support.
Most of the big ticket weapons we sell them are guidance systems for precision guided bombs. They have plenty of dumb bombs, and would just use more of those, killing even more civilians.
Do I think the Biden administration is handling the situation well? No, I think we could be putting on a lot more pressure before risking Russia’s involvement with Israel. I just don’t think the situation is as simple as many people make it out to be.
And who cares about the US’s top priority? The top priority for everyone should be to stop Israel’s genocide, not keep a facade of “peace” (read: US supremacy) in the region.
Who cares about a possible WW3? What do you think happens if Iran gets involved? Suddenly Gaza is a tiny sliver of a much bigger tragedy. Yeah, that’s a real scenario - even a likely one without the US presence.
If stopping Israel in Gaza should be everyone’s top priority, that implies that a US invasion of Israel is on the table. Are you down for that, or are there maybe some other things that are priorities?
The US has leverage to pressure Israel to modify their response. I believe we are tragically underutilizing that leverage. I don’t believe it would make that much of a difference though. I also believe that there are even more serious consequences possible if US / Israeli relations fall apart.
It’s possible for someone to care just as much about the people of Gaza as you do, but disagree about what courses of action are available.
It’s only WWIII because Israel is capable of dragging the US into it. Otherwise it’s just a regional war, and honestly if that’s what it takes to get one of the largest factors in regional instability in the middle East to behave themselves it’s worth it.
I mean a threat of invasion would work wonders so I wouldn’t object to it (would ironically be one of the most peaceful ways to end this whole mess). But we don’t even need to go there.
I could respond, but I think your comment is pretty much self defeating. “War would be so worth it if it proved Israel sucks.”
No? War would be worth it if it got us out of Israel committing crimes against humanity every other day. At some point peace becomes not worth it and we’ve passed that point a long time ago.
Guess you missed the huge anti Iraq war protests in the early 2000s. And the fact that we’ve been making Internet jokes about that and George Bush junior since forever.
Not remotely similar situations. Well done.
Part is the fact that the Americans most likely to be upset by the violence in Gaza are the same that are likely to vote for him. And he’s being largely unreceptive to their criticism. In any other election, that would mean his base would probably just let his opponent win. There’s an obvious problem with that this time.
Basically, Biden is forcing the nation’s left wing to pick between showing their disdain for genocide overseas and stopping fascism to at home. It’s not a fair choice and people are bitter about it.
They’re choosing between the party that will not try to implement fascism while supporting Israel and the party that will try while also supporting Israel. Why would anyone think that the fucking Republicans won’t support Israel?
At this point it’s just a big red button.
I’m tired of being screamed at by moderates that I have to vote for their garbage candidate they picked in the primaries. It’s obvious at this point they expect me to endlessly compromise while they give up nothing.
People usually call me “radical” or “anarchist” or “socialist”. This is the first time someone has called me “moderate”. What’s next, “liberal” 😩
I’m also not American, so it’s not “my” candidate.
I’m a German who watches with absolute terror the fascist rhetoric Trump uses, and my mind boggles that some of you are even thinking about not doing everything necessary to stop that.
Because their goal, unbeknownst to some of them, is to get Pootie’s chosen puppet back in power.
What complete self defeating bullshit you’ve discovered.
It also assumes that you view the democrats as a credible counter to rising fascism… They’re currently trying to pass a fascist border bill, and literally using our military to aid in an ongoing genocide.
I don’t think there’s a choice to be made and I will not be voting for either.
If you are set on not voting in the presidential election, I would like to encourage you to still vote (if you didn’t already intend to) and just not vote on that question on the ballot, for two reaons:
Local ballot measures and politicians are still quite relevant and your vote is still fairly impactful there relative to the federal election (depending on your state) and
it sends a significantly stronger message to both parties that they are putting forward garbage candidates to vote and just abstain from the one question. Not voting is easy to mislabel as voter suppression by the opposition or any number of other misleading causes when voting, just not for Biden or trump is much more clear what you are mad about.
Our local elections only happen on off years to suppress turnout, and it’s overwhelmingly dominated by landlords and NIMBYs, trust me I’m involved, but that shit is absolutely calcified.
My goodness you history is filled with full throated support for any and all division propaganda.
People could just vote null.
In the early 2000’s we weren’t as connected as we are now and people relied a lot more on cable/network news.
But also, and this is really important to understand, the civilian casualties from the Iraq war were over much larger areas, populations, and time. In the same time frame the rate of casualties was far lower. Coalition forces also did their best to avoid civilian casualties by not targeting hospitals, not kettling civilians, and certainly not doing a concerted bombing campaign with large bombs into highly populated areas.
A lot of what’s happening with the rate of civilian casualties is because the IDF has thrown all of those protections out the window. They’re specifically destroying the food, water, and medical infrastructure of Gaza. When people inevitably try to evacuate they can only do so further into Gaza. The IDF doesn’t allow them to evacuate through their lines into cleared areas. This means people can never actually get away from the fighting. Those are all large scale war crimes designed to increase the number of civilian casualties. But they aren’t removing troops credibly accused of war crimes from the area either. In fact they’ve shown no willingness to prosecute tactical level warcrimes such as shooting clearly marked journalists in a quiet area in broad daylight.
Just today the report landed on NPR radio that the IDF opened fire into a crowd waiting for food aid. The IDF is of course claiming the crowd was threatening. But we’ve known how to securely disperse food aid for decades. Those soldiers may very well have been threatened, but their officers set that situation up. Also of note is just how fast this gets out to the world in the era of social media.
And we haven’t even talked about the immense amount of war weariness in the US.
There were marches like, every other weekend about the invasion of Iraq even before the news came out that we were there over a lie. But Bush was president and it was like, “aww… look at the hippies… they think they’re helping… lol!”
It was honestly hard to protest when Obama was in office because there were so many frothing racists about that any public protests against the actions of the president would be joined by literal KKK members. But we wrote letters… oh boy did we ever write letters. Letter writing parties, phone banking about writing letters, sending out mailers with contact info for all of the local reps and higher ups to send letters to, including pre stamped envelopes and form letters to add your name to.
Nobody cared because Obama was so popular that there wasn’t really a question of his reelection. Biden is not that popular, the rare opportunity to use a major issue as leverage to threaten a reelection campaign, even if the result of his loss would be dire is why there is so much news about public opinion on Israel/Palestine.
In actuality, everyone knew W was full of shit. No one remotely informed believed for a second that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 as well as the only WMDs Saddam had were the nerve gas ones Reagan gave them to kill Iranians with. Only the media hadn’t worked that out instantly. Your myopic revisionism is very telling.
He proactively circumvented congress to sell Netanyahu weapons that he knew would be used for genocide.
Democrats can always find a lame procedural excuse when there’s something they ran on but don’t want to do, but when it’s something they want to do like enable genocide (and oh lordy do they ever), procedure and decorum evaporate in a puff of hypocrisy and convenience.
Yeah, the US has done some gross shit. But Genocide is pretty bad as bad shit goes. The sheer number of deaths is extreme. Not to mention theyre mostly non combatants. Even for the US this is evil
Because the genocide in Gaza is currently at an all time high? Israel is actively in the process of invading them, supported and defended fully by the US to the detriment of the international community?
America isn’t currently arming death squads in South America or where right now at the moment or you’d be hearing about that instead.
It’s like asking why are Americans talking so much more about trans rights lately when they’ve always been bad.
I need to know more about these South American death squads. Can you point me in the right direction?
Oh they all moved to Central America and the Philippines. It’s okay though they only kill criminals. They aren’t fueling our asylum crisis in the slightest.
Division propaganda taken under the influence of desiring cover for ageist bigotry.
It is 100% Russia’s divide and conquer strategy, the same one they used in 2016 to control the outcome of the presidential election.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/17/russias-weaponization-of-antisemitism/
Sounds like Biden should stop supplying weapons to Israel then.
propaganda and division bots mostly.
You’re being downvoted, but it’s true. At this point, everyone knows the dynamics of voting in a 2 party FPTP system. Anyone legitimately trying to deter people from voting for Biden at this point in time are actively pursuing a course of action that will lead to a Trump presidency. Other than clandestine Trump supporters, bots make the most sense.
To anyone else who just really really really hates the genocide in Gaza: Trump will take the money being given to Ukraine and instead give it to Israel. Under Trump, more Gazans will die.
Putin spent a billion dollars on his propaganda machine abroad in this election cycle, which was discovered recently, and we still remember how much of his propaganda machine consists of social media bots.
Potential narrative or sentiment shift driven by bots in the wake of the upcoming election?
There’s definitely a lot of sentiment against him for what he’s done in regards to this of course but it’s seemed to have accelerated in an unnatural fashion.
“Everyone I disagree with is a bot and it is only I, the one with the correct opinions, who is a thinking human being who is also immune to propaganda”
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Been a while since I encountered a dressed up “no u”. Thanks.
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I didn’t call you a bot and I didn’t say “the same thing you said applies to you”. Where’s the hypocrisy? You have a reading comprehension problem.
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Yeah, I was saying that was your attitude. I didn’t call anyone a bot. Please learn how to read.
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Yeah, genocide sure is manufactured outage. I’m sure you’re one of those people who think you would’ve stood up to the nazis. In reality you stan the democrat party, which insists we work with republicans and which also loves funding genocide.
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You don’t give a shit about democracy, you’re just a diehard democrat fanatic. From the assumption that democrats stand for democracy (they really don’t, they serve their rich donors first and foremost) to the smug arrogance of thinking everyone is an idiot except for you, you’re a walking democrat stereotype. I’ve cared about Palestine for decades and I can certainly point it out on a map, but neither of these are requirements for basic compassion for human beings going through a genocide. Meanwhile your enlightened self would be screaming bloody murder if this exact same thing was happening under a republican president because you don’t actually care about the humans involved, you just want to score political points.
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You wasted your time combing through my posting history to prove nothing. I don’t broadcast all my feelings on any particular outlet all the time. Anyway, keep voting for the one “good” party (that still supports genocide) until the end of time while screaming that democracy is at stake.
Ah, here we go. Finally we come to “don’t vote” part of the rhetoric.
I didn’t say don’t vote and I never tell people to not vote. I vote democrat straight down the ballot every election, might as well vote since it’s the bare minimum, but I’m not stupid enough to think that will actually change anything. Try responding to my words instead of arguing with a caricature you’ve made up in your head.
Anyway, you missed the point I was making. If you’re forced to vote for only one party, then you can’t call it a democracy, can you?
I wasn’t on Lemmy for the 2021 bombing campaign. Trying to look at people’s comment history on a new platform to see if they cared about it in the past is hilarious.
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Lmao. Yes referencing 2021 means I think this conflict started in October. God you’re desperate.
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No. God you just love assuming things don’t you.
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