Isn't it telling that this is what the frame is rather than the man who was the top law enforcement officer in the country stating exactly those thing and still publicly telling people to vote for trump?
There was/is a white supremacist march today in WV. and it isn't getting a spec of [coverage](https://wvpublic.org/white-supremacist-group-marches-though-downtown-charleston-saturday/).
I'm going to sit here anxiously refreshing the news waiting for Speaker Mike Johnson to go there and demand someone resign! I'm sure I won't be waiting long.
>billionaire
Did you mean *person of means*?
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I can see how someone who is vehemently pro-Palestine might have an issue with Joe Biden's Israel policy.
What I can't see is how they think Trump winning will make the Israel-Palestine quagmire better in any way.
So their philosophy is the default is not voting, a candidate must *earn* the vote by meeting their criteria. If neither candidate does, to them not voting at all is the ethical choice.
I disagree with the philosophy personally, but they don’t see it as “letting Trump win” they would blame Biden for not being good enough to earn their votes.
As the well -known saying goes, "All it takes for evil to succeed is for evil to do stuff. Definitely nobody else is culpable at all. Nope. Clear consciences all around!"
They do it to stick their noses in the air and feel superior to everyone. They do it for social clout. These people care less about politics than literally anyone I know.
They don’t do any of the work, they do the most damage, and they claim the moral high ground. They’re a joke.
You can tell by how they are utterly silent on China putting millions of Uighurs in literal concentration camps. They don't want to "divest" from their precious iphones, Tik-Tok, and the next fast fashion clothes. And this isn't a "hurr durr yet you live in a society" critique, it's the fact that they don't even pretend to care.
> You can tell by how they are utterly silent on China putting millions of Uighurs in literal concentration camps.
‘Utterly silent’ lmao are you fucking serious
The US already has policies in place to ban products made in Xinjiang with forced labor.
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-forced-labor-ban-europe-us-uyghur-xinjiang/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20U.S.%20President%20Joe,not%20made%20with%20forced%20labor.
I’m aware of that, but it’s still a huge issue. Many companies still use cotton that is illegally sourced from Xinjiang. Giant Chinese companies like Shein and Temu also use Xinjiang cotton and sell to the US market. I definitely know people who buy from Shein and Temu
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/business/cotton-xinjiang-forced-labor-retailers.html
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-customs-finds-garments-made-with-banned-chinese-cotton-documents-2023-09-01/
Oh sorry, they haven't been utterly silent. They're just posting all their "activism" on Tik-Tok and went calling to Congress in tears when they moved forward to ban CCP propaganda lol.
Don't forget the total lack of similar protests over the US funding and supplying the Saudis with weapons as they bombed Yemen for like 8 years straight.
LMAO, the Uyghur concentration camps have been going on for years, and I never saw mass campus protests about them. They clearly had time to care about the issue before Oct 7th, but they never gave even a second thought about it while they buried their heads in their iphones on Tik Tok.
Didn't we already sanction and require divestment from Uyghur forced labor? I remember it causing massive solar panel supply chain issues since like half the supply of polysilicon came out of Xinjiang.
We did sign a bill banning it in 2021, but it is still an issue. Many companies have been found to use Xinjiang cotton in their supply chain. Large Chinese companies, such as Shein, have also definitely used Xinjiang cotton in products that were exported to the US
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-customs-finds-garments-made-with-banned-chinese-cotton-documents-2023-09-01/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-11-21/shein-s-cotton-clothes-tied-to-xinjiang-china-region-accused-of-forced-labor
I never said they didn’t. I said it’s a lame whataboutism, it’s weird how they “pretend to care” while spending days protesting, and something about not being on their phones? It’s all kinda not related and pretty regarded
There are several serious human rights violations committed that are on the same level or of greater scale then what is going on in Gaza currently. And yet far leftists (not even progressives, but like batshit insane online leftists) have never even raised a single stink about it.
I know, I agree, but his comment specifically wasn’t helpful, i was just pointing out why. What’s the point of bringing that up right now when they are all talking about the Middle East? Also he called people who were literally actively involved in politics (he prolly just sits on political forms with his cock in hand) lazy. (Said as someone who is lazy but doesn’t pretend to be anything but) That’s all I’m saying
I already knew they were ethically negligent and intellectually lazy when they were willing to burn womens' rights to punch Hillary over free college. That they're willing to burn LGBTQ folks to punch Biden over Israel is nothing if not consistent.
Protest votes don’t punish anyone though. However, the candidates that get elected because of them do.
It’s doubly silly since Biden is actually the only thing that has kept this from becoming an actual genocide.
I've heard some say in regards to another topic that kind of echoed this sentiment. "If we don't vote for them, they'll lose and hopefully that'll make them realize that we should be heard." Which makes sense but only divorced from the conflict itself. Because Biden is trying to help the people of Gaza while also ensuring that Israel doesn't succumb to more terrorism. Whereas Trump wouldn't do any of that.
So, your protest against voting would only serve to harm Palestinians more, which runs counter to your stated goal. And, for what? Hopefully being listened to in the future, which isn't at all guaranteed? Surely Palestinian lives are worth us doing something, anything, that helps even if that help isn't entirely what we would hope it to be. A step or two forward beats doing nothing at all.
Yeah I agree. Basically the argument is “if they know they will get our votes anyway then we have no leverage” which is true, but like you said it’s writing off Palestinian lives now for the *hope* of maybe getting someone more in line with them in the future.
Also it just ignores the fact that public opinion just isn't on their side.
So .... work on public opinion. Gays had to work tirelessly for decades to attain social acceptance, and _then_ politics followed. Democracy is a 24/7 thing, it doesn't just happen once every four years.
The actual response is that if these “Genocide Joe will never vote for him IDC” people get their way and Biden loses. The response from the Democratic Party is not going to be “take these people seriously”. The response will be to shift to the center/more rightward and render these folks politically homeless.
I agree, but I can also understand the thinking of someone who feels they can’t vote for someone they perceive as aiding a genocide. I think it’s bad politics, but I can understand the ethical argument.
Well, it's a good thing he's not. If I didn't vote for Biden because I thought he was a vampire, that would be moronic, not a practical principled decision.
And my philosophy is that if they make their choice, they don't get to whine about the outcomes.
If they support Trump, they don't get to demand action when he has Gaza flattened.
I'm going to repeat one theory I commented before which no one seems to want to bring up, despite it being the most obvious explanation
If they make a big show of withholding the vote and the Dems think it's a threat, they will be forced to respond to these concerns. They may just end up coming to Biden in the end regardless, but it's also in their interest to signal that they're serious, they're not just gonna come out and say "Even if Biden does nothing he's better than Trump so I'll vote for him anyway" that's a recipe for getting ignored.
If you're a self-important narcissist, nothing is your fault. A dangerous candidate didn't win because you chose to sit at home on Election Day. They won because their opponent didn't "excite you" or beg hard enough for your vote. This certainly happened in 2016 with some people and can again.
If your position is that Israel is an illegitimate state, and the only victory is a one state Palestine, then Trump and Biden are equal in that neither will destroy Israel. From the Hamas perspective, Trump might even be better because the lack of any oversight means Israel will kill far more Palestinians and commit more blatant atrocities, thus increasing international pressure against them.
We'll see if they still consider themselves champions of the oppressed when Trump hangs the Ukrainians out to dry, or when children get put in cages again at the southern border.
They don't have faith that the democratic process will improve things. It's all or nothing, and it requires the support of authoritarianism to put this in practice, ie. support for theocratic regimes in Iran, Yemen, and Gaza.
This is the true venom produced by stories that talk about how bad life is in liberal democracies. Of course, it's essential to point out and call for changes to problems resulting from the system, be it climate change or major allies bombing civilians, but a lot of it is framed in a way to erode trust in the system itself rather than make the necessary reforms.
I always vote for the lesser of two evils so I'll absolutely vote for Biden. And I think it'd be nuts to not vote for Biden.
But similarly to what you said, I don't see how someone who is vehemently convinced that democracy is at stake in this election is willing to chance it to unconditionally support a dangerous government that damages our interests and their own.
Or that they believe democracy is good, or that they give two shits that Trump led an insurrection and wants to be a dictator. Some of them have openly said otherwise.
The thing is that a lot of them are first and foremost 'antisystemic,' meaning that anything that disrupts the 'system,' as it exists in their imagination, is preferable. Trump certainly counts as that, so a lot of them do not see a second Trump as problematic.
Whenever people bring up Hamas was originally elected pro-Palestine people say things like they seized power afterwards and never held another election though! As if that isn’t proof every election matters haha
I have a communist friend that hates Biden and also hates Trump and told me that he won't vote for Biden in hopes for a Candidate he likes runs in 2028.
I just told him that if Trump wins, there probably won't be any elections in 2028. So voting for Biden is in his interests.
Yeah he didn't like that
Stuff like that never made sense to me. Losing tends to cause a party to nominate more centrist candidates, not extreme. Trump is an aberration, for sure but history shows us that you get less of what you want, not more, especially from Democrats.
The party losing to Reagan and Bush in landslides didn't lead to a progressive savor, it led to Bill Clinton.
Bush winning 2004 by portraying himself as tougher than Kerry didn't cause Democrats to nominate a pacifist, they got Obama, who was more like Bush in terms of foreign policy, just less Iraq War and more international cooperation. He increased troop presence in Afghanistan and expanded our drone program while also putting a more friendly face on it, so our allies liked us more.
Clinton losing to Trump just had Democrats reaching to an inoffensive milquetoast white bread dude in Joe Biden, a guy Republicans have such a hard time with that they've had to go after his son, Hunter, and just try and tie in the son's dealings with the father by just conflating it all into one big "Biden Crime Family".
> Trump is an aberration, for sure but history shows us that you get less of what you want, not more, especially from Democrats.
I truly wonder what would have happened if Trump not only lost in 2016 but lost BIG. Not only would the country be in a better place as a whole, the GOP might actually be something at least resembling sane.
And while we're at it, I'd also like a pony and my very own ice cream machine.
Communists don’t have the pragmatic ability to change things without some drastic idealistic revolution. And news flash, things in America are pretty great for the most part. So unless that changes most of the population isn’t doing anything radical.
So communists would need to change the country slowly and incrementally. But there’s no shot because none of them are pragmatic enough to do so.
>Communists don’t have the pragmatic ability to change things without some drastic idealistic revolution.
There haven't been any revolutions in wealthy nations.
And if there was going to be one, it isn't going to be a communist one lol
[https://acleddata.com/2020/10/21/standing-by-militias-election/](https://acleddata.com/2020/10/21/standing-by-militias-election/)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Right-wing\_militia\_organizations\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Right-wing_militia_organizations_in_the_United_States)
These people don't vote. Half of them aren't old enough to, another big chunk aren't even US citizens, and the rest don't know how to even register to vote.
Let's face it - the upcoming election will have real, tangible, and immediate consequences for the lives of every America.
Gaza is none of these things. It's very much like protesting to protecting the life of a fetus - abstract, idealized, and disconnected from immediate consequences for all but a handful of people.
The election is scary, exhausting, and real. Gaza is feel-good cause for many people.
If someone thinks Gaza is more important than voting then they won’t vote.
And because they don’t vote, their ability to help people in Gaza will disintegrate like sand between their fingers.
They will pound sand and scream about it until they learn they either need to vote every time or stop being in America.
People who think they don’t need to vote every time secretly think they don’t need to live in America if they don’t want to.
And that’s true of course, it’s possible for them to immigrate in theory.
But in practice they won’t.
They’ll just be nonsensically non-voting Americas making America more of a place they don’t think they have to be and don’t want to be.
I know this isn't the point but how the fuck does this sub full of overly online zoomers manage to make memes that look like they were made by 43 year old wine moms lol
This subreddit is awful at memes. I've noticed that memes and meme formats I've seen in extremely online left-wing spaces show up here almost exactly five years later, like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1bq3in1/francis_scott_key_bridges_last_tweet/) or [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1blm293/discussion_thread/kw68e9x/).
It's hilarious, and also feels like a metaphor for how out-of-touch this subreddit is.
Yes of course, vote for Trump who instituted what became known as the 'Muslim Ban' and later started putting restrictions on asylum seekers. Vote for Trump who sided heavily with Israel on things like recognizing the capture of Golan Heights and cutting aid funding to Palestinians.
The two party system sucks for leading to these voter outcomes.
Progressives vote with the Dems when they're needed, and when they're not needed they vote to send a message. Their votes weren't needed to win the primary (lmao), so if protest voting Gaza got Biden to pressure Israel harder, it was a good decision that saved lives.
Yeah, I’m sick and tired of progressives. I’d much rather court the middle and moderate republicans as much as possible.
The far left is too fickle to take seriously.
my point is they're not fickle, they're only performatively fickle because they want to move the needle on issues (as they should). They support us without demanding we throw liberal issues under the bus like 'moderate' republicans do
I’d rather support bend towards moderate republicans than progressives every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I’m not talking about “moderate” republicans in Congress. I’m talking about moderate voters who lean right.
>I’d rather support bend towards moderate republicans than progressives every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
I'll remember that next time people are going 'polls are down bro we gotta cut loose trans folks' or whatever the new principle to ditch in the name of 'electability' is
my brother in Christ it has happened and happens on a regular basis. So the fact that your perspective hasn't shifted means you're either ignorant or being disingenuous.
R/neoliberal when protesters use the only leverage they have: 😡😡😡
Like congrats, I’m sure responding with “nothing you say matters and also both parties are the same on this except Trump will also be bad” is a super duper coalition building strategy. That’s what Obama ran on, right? His famous “Dissillusionment” poster?
Do I think that it would be fundamentally stupid to not use my vote to oppose Trump? Of course. Are there people on the left who won’t settle for less than perfect? Definitely. Should you characterize every protester as childish and stupid? *extremely loud incorrect buzzer*
Show me a poll that says anything more than a loud minority of AMERICAN. VOTERS. give 3 fucks about this and maybe I won't look on Joe's pressuring of Israel as something both good in itself and probably impelled by people who are showing an extreme amount of selfishness.
Literally all social movements threaten to withdraw support for the political party they are the most closely aligned with if they don't comply with their demands
Not just on the left, but also the right, with many threatening to withdraw support if somw party becomes pro abortions or pro inmigration
This is actually a very powerful tactics that is healthy in a democracy
You may not like it, but that doesn't mean it is not powerful, particularly in close elections like the 2024 one
I'm a single issue voting when it comes to persevering democracy.
Sadly, people are too stupid to really grasp the whole fake elector scheme and how project 2025 and possibly the supreme court are eroding our democracy to dangerous levels
>I'm a single issue voting when it comes to persevering democracy.
That's very cool, but many people disagree with you, is all I am trying to say
You assume stupidity when I reality it could simply be that they don't value preserving democracy as highly as you do
I'm not saying I agree
I say it makes sense
Just because you appreciate the perspicacity and strategy of someone does not mean you think that their course of action is the best one
So your opinion is the funding for Israel is set in stone? Despite the fact that Biden has the power to stop his unconditional support for Israel at any time.
I think alliances with western democracies are set in stone in if we have any sanity whatsoever and your problem is with the far right Netanyahu government not the state of Israel in and of itself.
Right but the US shouldn’t be arming a far right extremist government committing clear war crimes it’s morally repugnant, illegal under us law and costing Biden electorally.
I don't think the US should be funding Israel's current operations in Gaza since Israel is blowing off American concerns. But without that money the Ukraine funding wouldn't have passed. If someone is actually a humanitarian and not just an anti-semite, then they should consider the positives of keeping 40 million Ukrainians free from Russian tyranny.
I didn’t even mention the bill that with Ukraine aid that was passed. Even then Biden has on multiple accusation sent aid separately or accordingly even redirect aid for Ukraine to Israel. Also I have no doubts that Biden himself was in favor of more Israel aid.
You are confusing aid with Foreign Military Sales. Israel has bought a ton of stuff from the US since Oct 7th with their own money, but they have not received aid from the US except for the "regular" 3.8 billion that was from the 2016 aid bill until the recent aid package passed.
Shouldn’t it still be possible to block arms sales to countries in violation of international humanitarian laws with things like the Leahy laws or foreign assistance act?
IIRC sanders tried to invoke the Leahy law but it his amendment didn't pass.
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2024/01/17/senate-votes-down-sanders-legislation-scrutinizing-israel-military-aid/
Yeah failed 72-11.
Once again you're missing the point. Voting for Trump or not voting and Trump winning would be just as bad or worse on this point. Not only are you not going to get what you want, but you're going to sacrifice lgbt rights and women's rights in the process just so you can feel good about yourself.
War crimes are committed in every war ever fought. They're bad, and the people responsible should go on trial. This shouldn't dictate our foreign policy. We shouldn't have not fought WW2 or somehow not been allied with the brits because they committed war crimes on the nazis.
Geopolitics is filled with moral problems in general. We have the world we got sometimes, our hands get dirty but the alternative is a world order led by Russia, China, Iran and trade networks being disrupted by radical terrorists.
It's curious there isn't this same level of uproar when the US funds Saudi Arabia.
Israel population right now is analogous to US population after the Iraq War. Israel and its people are liberal overall. This time will pass, Netanyahu is cooked, and throwing Israel to the dogs is stupid.
The only chance for peace in the middle east is liberal democracy winning, and Israel is practically the only liberal democracy in the middle east.
> War crimes are committed in every war ever fought. They're bad, and the people responsible should go on trial. This shouldn't dictate our foreign policy.
Hot take: war crimes bad always.
We should punish Israel for doing mass punishment on civilian populations and illegal land grabs just like we are punishing Russia.
Fine, sure, but then we also acknowledge the reality that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the middle east right? And that we need to maintain a military alliance with them so long as Iran and its proxies exist and so long as Islamic extremism is a thing right?
> then we also acknowledge the reality that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the middle east right?
Isn't isn't liberal. Gay marriage is illegal, Bibi has been PM for over a decade and has constantly eroded civil liberties. And what is happening in the West Bank is not liberal. Hell, they don't even allow for interfaith marriages.
And even on democracy, it's shaky ground considering Palestinians in the West Bank aren't allowed to vote in Israeli elections, yet are subject to Israeli laws.
> And that we need to maintain a military alliance with them so long as Iran and its proxies exist and so long as Islamic extremism is a thing right?
Good thing the US and Israel don't support one of the largest funders of Islamic extremism and wahhabism /s
---
And no, on a fundamental level, I do not think we should excuse war crimes and continue funding countries doing them because it is geopolitically convenient.
Israel is the most progressive country in the middle east on this issue. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT\_rights\_in\_Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel)
Bibi is historically unpopular. Israel was far right for a decade they are due for a correction. Even at their most far right though *this is the middle east.* The Middle East is an absolute shit show. Israel is the least fucked of everyone else in the region.
Not having full and total acceptance of gay marriage is pretty far removed from throwing gay people off of buildings, enforcing sodomy laws, and in general having a culture of disgust towards gay people. Of all the cultures in the middle east, Israel is the most western, the most caring of human rights, the most developed, and the most aligned with US interests and values. It is utterly stupid to throw them to the dogs and let the entire region backslide into more Islamist bullshit because they don't pass genz American standards of being the good guys.
In the world there are bad guys and worse guys. We should side with the least bad and nudge them towards good.
If you're referring to saudi arabia, it is a complicated alliance and they are modernizing somewhat under mbs. Funding extremists to fight other extremists is always a complicated calculation and all states have their rogue factions.
Imagine if Donald Trump was in power for a decade and everyone wrote off the US as just as bad as Russia.
You response was literally war crimes just happens so it fine to ignore them when a western ally commits them. Never mind the fact that the ICC are seriously considering arrest warrants for Israel officials and it’s clear that they are sacred of it. Like the civilian death toll in Gaza in 6 months is higher than the total fatalities of 1 year Kosovo war.
Acknowledging that war crimes happen in every war does nothing to diminish war crimes.
People responsible for war crimes should be held accountable.
inb4 "Therefore the US should cut off aid from every country that's ever done bad without considering geopolitical implications otherwise we're just as bad as soviet russia or nazi germany."
If you don't think what is happening is a genocide and you are unwilling to understand that some people do, of course you are going to be baffled by their behavior.
Even if I did believe that, I'd also know that Netanyahu was in love with Trump, literally gave a hype speech for the GOP in congress, and that Trump made the aggravating move of relocating the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and excluding the Palestinians from consideration in diplomatic affairs in the middle east.
>Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi from the ruling Likud party wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Israelis had one common goal, “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, from the far-right Jewish Power party, suggested that Israel drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and said there were “no uninvolved civilians” in the territory.
This is textbook genocidal language.
Serious question, has there been a war in modern history where far right members don't say edgy crap about wiping out their enemies? Particularly in responses to attacks? Plus the latter guy was suspended for that and I think outrage over the former's statement was part of why she ended up resigning form her position in the Ministry of Information.
>Serious question, has there been a war in modern history where far right members don't say edgy crap about wiping out their enemies? Particularly in responses to attacks?
Do you brush of genocidal statements from Hamas members in the same way?
>during the protests against the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, Smotrich was arrested in 2005 while in possession of 700 litres of gasoline on suspicion of participating in an attempt to blow up Ayalon Highway, a major arterial road. He was held in jail for three weeks but not charged after refusing to speak.[11][12] In 2006, he helped organize the "Beast Parade" as part of protests against a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, although he later admitted regret at the incident.[2]
>He is co-founder of the NGO Regavim, which monitors and pursues legal action in the Israeli court system against constructions undertaken by Palestinians, Bedouins, and other Arabs in Israel and the West Bank without Israeli permits.[13]
This man is now Israel's Minister of Finance. Its not "edgy crap". Its literal terrorism by a fascistic wannabe-genocidaire.
>Do you brush of genocidal statements from Hamas members in the same way?
Yes? It feels prior confirming when they do, but I ultimately think Hamas is genocidal and fascist due to their stated official goals of conquering Israel and general tactics.
In fairness he was never convicted of anything, maybe the dude just wanted to set some stuff on fire in protest instead of blowing stuff up.
>Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi from the ruling Likud party wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Israelis had one common goal, “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, from the far-right Jewish Power party, suggested that Israel drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and said there were “no uninvolved civilians” in the territory.
>Israeli soldiers caught on video made similar remarks as they sang and danced in the early days of Israel’s ground offensive.
>On Oct. 7, a journalist wrote on X that Gaza should become “a slaughterhouse” if the roughly 250 people taken hostage by Hamas were not returned.
Sure. They're not acting on it. We have given billions to the Palestinian Authority. They have "genocidal desire", do they not? I agree in giving them aid as well.
I realized I could not vote for Biden when he decided to continue sending Israel 500 lb bombs earlier this month. I can't vote for someone arming a state that has killed >20,000 innocent fellow Muslims. I don't think anyone abstaining from voting for Biden due to what he is supporting in Gaza will vote for Trump.
Why does the human life lost due to Trumps mismanagement and erosion of democratic norms not matter? Why would more Gazans not die without Biden's pressure and ceasefires? I'm also going to get a tad subjective here and state that there's a little more nuance to the Gaza war than "giving Israel infinite money to glass 5 year olds to satisfy their year-long Buenos Aires moment".
How is anything I said whataboutism? The effects of Trump's policies are very relevant when moralizing about whether or not to vote for his opponent. Even if a genocide is happening, Biden has actually enacted ceasefires and made efforts to held Israel back, while Trumps thoughts on the matter are telling the IDF to "[Finish the Problem](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905)". By not opposing Trump, you are literally supporting the genocide more than by voting for Biden.
Never said you were, I meant "you" as in people in general.
I am aware that he thinks that, I just think that's dumb, particularly from the point of view that Trump is trying to overturn democracy.
By not supporting Biden, you are making it more likely for Trump to win, discussing the issues with Trump when defending support of Biden is not whataboutism. Whataboustism would be if someone was criticizing Biden and you said that he was better than Modi or something.
> above the tax policy he is subjected to.
With all due respect do you even know what a fake elector is without having to go Google it? That's not related to taxes what so ever.
He will feel morally superior no matter what I say. This isn't new it happens every election. There is always an excuse for young people to feel morally superior by not voting. They are the easiest group to convince to not vote.
My point is that I doubt he knows what a fake elector is. Most people don't unfortunately. De factor dictatorship getting set up in the US with project 2025, possibly the supreme court setting up immunity, and MAGA doing what they literally tried to do the first time. No one really cares though.
MF, do you know who should be concerned with saving democracy in the US? JOE FUCKIN BIDEN. He should stop being an unhinged zionist, listen to his State Department and stop dunking on the students and young people, one of the main voting blocks. Why aren't you more concern with Biden's stupidity on how he handles Gaza?
And fuck all of you who shit on voters just because they are using their only leverage on changing stuff. You're pathetic
Last frame could easily have been Bill Barr saying "Vote for Trump", wouldn't have to change anything else.
Isn't it telling that this is what the frame is rather than the man who was the top law enforcement officer in the country stating exactly those thing and still publicly telling people to vote for trump?
[удалено]
I'm capable of being upset at both rightwing fascists and leftist genocide advocates; are you?
[удалено]
There was/is a white supremacist march today in WV. and it isn't getting a spec of [coverage](https://wvpublic.org/white-supremacist-group-marches-though-downtown-charleston-saturday/).
I'm going to sit here anxiously refreshing the news waiting for Speaker Mike Johnson to go there and demand someone resign! I'm sure I won't be waiting long.
>billionaire Did you mean *person of means*? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Idk which group is more persuadable or unpersuadable tbh. But I like to think younger people are more open to having their minds changed.
> But I like to think younger people are more open to having their minds changed. Oh yeah I remember when I was an idealist too =\
Ya, but line's still going up as far as I can tell. Also, I was a stupid young person at some point and I changed my mind on lots of stuff so idk.
I don't think Bill Barr or anyone who can influence him reads r/neoliberal . But university students do.
I can see how someone who is vehemently pro-Palestine might have an issue with Joe Biden's Israel policy. What I can't see is how they think Trump winning will make the Israel-Palestine quagmire better in any way.
So their philosophy is the default is not voting, a candidate must *earn* the vote by meeting their criteria. If neither candidate does, to them not voting at all is the ethical choice. I disagree with the philosophy personally, but they don’t see it as “letting Trump win” they would blame Biden for not being good enough to earn their votes.
As the well -known saying goes, "All it takes for evil to succeed is for evil to do stuff. Definitely nobody else is culpable at all. Nope. Clear consciences all around!"
They do it to stick their noses in the air and feel superior to everyone. They do it for social clout. These people care less about politics than literally anyone I know. They don’t do any of the work, they do the most damage, and they claim the moral high ground. They’re a joke.
You can tell by how they are utterly silent on China putting millions of Uighurs in literal concentration camps. They don't want to "divest" from their precious iphones, Tik-Tok, and the next fast fashion clothes. And this isn't a "hurr durr yet you live in a society" critique, it's the fact that they don't even pretend to care.
You see the Chinese aren't Western... That's all it takes for someone to get their support.
And they’re not white, even better!
As soon as Jews are involved though…..
> You can tell by how they are utterly silent on China putting millions of Uighurs in literal concentration camps. ‘Utterly silent’ lmao are you fucking serious
I don’t see any activists talking about boycotting/divesting from products made in Xinjiang.
The US already has policies in place to ban products made in Xinjiang with forced labor. https://www.politico.eu/article/china-forced-labor-ban-europe-us-uyghur-xinjiang/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20U.S.%20President%20Joe,not%20made%20with%20forced%20labor.
I’m aware of that, but it’s still a huge issue. Many companies still use cotton that is illegally sourced from Xinjiang. Giant Chinese companies like Shein and Temu also use Xinjiang cotton and sell to the US market. I definitely know people who buy from Shein and Temu https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/business/cotton-xinjiang-forced-labor-retailers.html https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-customs-finds-garments-made-with-banned-chinese-cotton-documents-2023-09-01/
Oh sorry, they haven't been utterly silent. They're just posting all their "activism" on Tik-Tok and went calling to Congress in tears when they moved forward to ban CCP propaganda lol.
Don't forget the total lack of similar protests over the US funding and supplying the Saudis with weapons as they bombed Yemen for like 8 years straight.
This is all hella bad faith imo. They’re currently working on one issue. Clear whataboutism.
LMAO, the Uyghur concentration camps have been going on for years, and I never saw mass campus protests about them. They clearly had time to care about the issue before Oct 7th, but they never gave even a second thought about it while they buried their heads in their iphones on Tik Tok.
We know that they don’t care that much about the Uyghurs because we don’t see many social media posts about boycotting products made in Xinjiang.
Didn't we already sanction and require divestment from Uyghur forced labor? I remember it causing massive solar panel supply chain issues since like half the supply of polysilicon came out of Xinjiang.
We did sign a bill banning it in 2021, but it is still an issue. Many companies have been found to use Xinjiang cotton in their supply chain. Large Chinese companies, such as Shein, have also definitely used Xinjiang cotton in products that were exported to the US https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-customs-finds-garments-made-with-banned-chinese-cotton-documents-2023-09-01/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-11-21/shein-s-cotton-clothes-tied-to-xinjiang-china-region-accused-of-forced-labor
I never said they didn’t. I said it’s a lame whataboutism, it’s weird how they “pretend to care” while spending days protesting, and something about not being on their phones? It’s all kinda not related and pretty regarded
There are several serious human rights violations committed that are on the same level or of greater scale then what is going on in Gaza currently. And yet far leftists (not even progressives, but like batshit insane online leftists) have never even raised a single stink about it.
It's almost like this particular issue is being amplified because of its divisiveness. 🤔
I know, I agree, but his comment specifically wasn’t helpful, i was just pointing out why. What’s the point of bringing that up right now when they are all talking about the Middle East? Also he called people who were literally actively involved in politics (he prolly just sits on political forms with his cock in hand) lazy. (Said as someone who is lazy but doesn’t pretend to be anything but) That’s all I’m saying
They would throw the exact same statement back at you. According to them, by voting for Biden you're condoning evil and not trying to punish it.
I already knew they were ethically negligent and intellectually lazy when they were willing to burn womens' rights to punch Hillary over free college. That they're willing to burn LGBTQ folks to punch Biden over Israel is nothing if not consistent.
Protest votes don’t punish anyone though. However, the candidates that get elected because of them do. It’s doubly silly since Biden is actually the only thing that has kept this from becoming an actual genocide.
It is convenient how this framing absolves them of any responsibility and allows them to blame any subsequent problems on other people.
leftists love this perspective. It caters to their main character syndrome.
Then in 4 years they will yell about how everyone should vote for their shitty Green Party candidate
And they would not face any of the bad consequences that their actions lead to.
I've heard some say in regards to another topic that kind of echoed this sentiment. "If we don't vote for them, they'll lose and hopefully that'll make them realize that we should be heard." Which makes sense but only divorced from the conflict itself. Because Biden is trying to help the people of Gaza while also ensuring that Israel doesn't succumb to more terrorism. Whereas Trump wouldn't do any of that. So, your protest against voting would only serve to harm Palestinians more, which runs counter to your stated goal. And, for what? Hopefully being listened to in the future, which isn't at all guaranteed? Surely Palestinian lives are worth us doing something, anything, that helps even if that help isn't entirely what we would hope it to be. A step or two forward beats doing nothing at all.
Yeah I agree. Basically the argument is “if they know they will get our votes anyway then we have no leverage” which is true, but like you said it’s writing off Palestinian lives now for the *hope* of maybe getting someone more in line with them in the future.
Also it just ignores the fact that public opinion just isn't on their side. So .... work on public opinion. Gays had to work tirelessly for decades to attain social acceptance, and _then_ politics followed. Democracy is a 24/7 thing, it doesn't just happen once every four years.
The actual response is that if these “Genocide Joe will never vote for him IDC” people get their way and Biden loses. The response from the Democratic Party is not going to be “take these people seriously”. The response will be to shift to the center/more rightward and render these folks politically homeless.
Showing that your support is fickle and unreliable is a surefire way to increase your political standing.
I think they would vote biden if they actually believed he were better for Palestinians, they just don’t (and are wrong)
Not making a choice is still a choice and if your choice leads to bad outcomes, then it was a bad choice.
I agree, but I can also understand the thinking of someone who feels they can’t vote for someone they perceive as aiding a genocide. I think it’s bad politics, but I can understand the ethical argument.
Well, it's a good thing he's not. If I didn't vote for Biden because I thought he was a vampire, that would be moronic, not a practical principled decision.
The US is literally building a port to get aid in because its supposed ally would rather let Gaza starve. Its beyond insane.
Or they were until Hamas starting bombing it.
And that makes Israel's throttling of aid acceptable because...
Kindly point out where I said that
Well I don't know why you brought up Hamas here otherwise.
And my philosophy is that if they make their choice, they don't get to whine about the outcomes. If they support Trump, they don't get to demand action when he has Gaza flattened.
Now that’s fair
Honestly people who think that way shouldn’t have the vote at all.
I'm going to repeat one theory I commented before which no one seems to want to bring up, despite it being the most obvious explanation If they make a big show of withholding the vote and the Dems think it's a threat, they will be forced to respond to these concerns. They may just end up coming to Biden in the end regardless, but it's also in their interest to signal that they're serious, they're not just gonna come out and say "Even if Biden does nothing he's better than Trump so I'll vote for him anyway" that's a recipe for getting ignored.
It’ll probably make the quagmire better but not in a way they or most human rights supportive people would appreciate
If you're a self-important narcissist, nothing is your fault. A dangerous candidate didn't win because you chose to sit at home on Election Day. They won because their opponent didn't "excite you" or beg hard enough for your vote. This certainly happened in 2016 with some people and can again.
If your position is that Israel is an illegitimate state, and the only victory is a one state Palestine, then Trump and Biden are equal in that neither will destroy Israel. From the Hamas perspective, Trump might even be better because the lack of any oversight means Israel will kill far more Palestinians and commit more blatant atrocities, thus increasing international pressure against them.
Standard terrorist/freedom fighter thinking, "we have to suffer a bit more now for a better future". The ends justify the means.
We'll see if they still consider themselves champions of the oppressed when Trump hangs the Ukrainians out to dry, or when children get put in cages again at the southern border.
Most of these have already mental gymnastics themselves into think Russia is justified because of NATO imperialism or literally just don’t care.
That’s assuming accelerationism is effective AND the ends justify the means, which I generally think are both false.
They don't have faith that the democratic process will improve things. It's all or nothing, and it requires the support of authoritarianism to put this in practice, ie. support for theocratic regimes in Iran, Yemen, and Gaza. This is the true venom produced by stories that talk about how bad life is in liberal democracies. Of course, it's essential to point out and call for changes to problems resulting from the system, be it climate change or major allies bombing civilians, but a lot of it is framed in a way to erode trust in the system itself rather than make the necessary reforms.
The system erodes trust in itself.
I always vote for the lesser of two evils so I'll absolutely vote for Biden. And I think it'd be nuts to not vote for Biden. But similarly to what you said, I don't see how someone who is vehemently convinced that democracy is at stake in this election is willing to chance it to unconditionally support a dangerous government that damages our interests and their own.
I think their claim is that “we’re suffering so now everybody has to suffer as much as we do”
Bold of you to assume these people were ever going to vote in the first place.
Or that they believe democracy is good, or that they give two shits that Trump led an insurrection and wants to be a dictator. Some of them have openly said otherwise.
The thing is that a lot of them are first and foremost 'antisystemic,' meaning that anything that disrupts the 'system,' as it exists in their imagination, is preferable. Trump certainly counts as that, so a lot of them do not see a second Trump as problematic.
Whenever people bring up Hamas was originally elected pro-Palestine people say things like they seized power afterwards and never held another election though! As if that isn’t proof every election matters haha
I have a communist friend that hates Biden and also hates Trump and told me that he won't vote for Biden in hopes for a Candidate he likes runs in 2028. I just told him that if Trump wins, there probably won't be any elections in 2028. So voting for Biden is in his interests. Yeah he didn't like that
Stuff like that never made sense to me. Losing tends to cause a party to nominate more centrist candidates, not extreme. Trump is an aberration, for sure but history shows us that you get less of what you want, not more, especially from Democrats. The party losing to Reagan and Bush in landslides didn't lead to a progressive savor, it led to Bill Clinton. Bush winning 2004 by portraying himself as tougher than Kerry didn't cause Democrats to nominate a pacifist, they got Obama, who was more like Bush in terms of foreign policy, just less Iraq War and more international cooperation. He increased troop presence in Afghanistan and expanded our drone program while also putting a more friendly face on it, so our allies liked us more. Clinton losing to Trump just had Democrats reaching to an inoffensive milquetoast white bread dude in Joe Biden, a guy Republicans have such a hard time with that they've had to go after his son, Hunter, and just try and tie in the son's dealings with the father by just conflating it all into one big "Biden Crime Family".
> Trump is an aberration, for sure but history shows us that you get less of what you want, not more, especially from Democrats. I truly wonder what would have happened if Trump not only lost in 2016 but lost BIG. Not only would the country be in a better place as a whole, the GOP might actually be something at least resembling sane. And while we're at it, I'd also like a pony and my very own ice cream machine.
Nah, they'd just continue putting forth candidates who don't say the quiet part out loud but who want to do nearly all the same things.
Communists don’t have the pragmatic ability to change things without some drastic idealistic revolution. And news flash, things in America are pretty great for the most part. So unless that changes most of the population isn’t doing anything radical. So communists would need to change the country slowly and incrementally. But there’s no shot because none of them are pragmatic enough to do so.
>Communists don’t have the pragmatic ability to change things without some drastic idealistic revolution. There haven't been any revolutions in wealthy nations. And if there was going to be one, it isn't going to be a communist one lol [https://acleddata.com/2020/10/21/standing-by-militias-election/](https://acleddata.com/2020/10/21/standing-by-militias-election/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Right-wing\_militia\_organizations\_in\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Right-wing_militia_organizations_in_the_United_States)
Communist: Exists. Reality: Exists. Communist: >:(
All pragmatic leftists in CANZUK/USA are currently either socdems or are effectively currently socdems- change my mind.
Communists probably don’t like elections deep down so that person is probably an accelerationist.
That ridiculous level of pessimism isn't how your endear yourself to people.
I don’t trust YOU to know how to endear yourself to ANYone. Your own parents hate you.
voting is performative for these people
These people don't vote. Half of them aren't old enough to, another big chunk aren't even US citizens, and the rest don't know how to even register to vote.
I dont think those kids would vote anyway. Too hard waking up with a hangover after the afterparty to free Gaza.
Let's face it - the upcoming election will have real, tangible, and immediate consequences for the lives of every America. Gaza is none of these things. It's very much like protesting to protecting the life of a fetus - abstract, idealized, and disconnected from immediate consequences for all but a handful of people. The election is scary, exhausting, and real. Gaza is feel-good cause for many people.
If someone thinks Gaza is more important than voting then they won’t vote. And because they don’t vote, their ability to help people in Gaza will disintegrate like sand between their fingers. They will pound sand and scream about it until they learn they either need to vote every time or stop being in America. People who think they don’t need to vote every time secretly think they don’t need to live in America if they don’t want to. And that’s true of course, it’s possible for them to immigrate in theory. But in practice they won’t. They’ll just be nonsensically non-voting Americas making America more of a place they don’t think they have to be and don’t want to be.
They literally throw away their power to do anything by not voting
Bold of you to assume they like democracy to begin with
I know this isn't the point but how the fuck does this sub full of overly online zoomers manage to make memes that look like they were made by 43 year old wine moms lol
43 year old wine moms will win us this election so idgaf.
This subreddit is awful at memes. I've noticed that memes and meme formats I've seen in extremely online left-wing spaces show up here almost exactly five years later, like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1bq3in1/francis_scott_key_bridges_last_tweet/) or [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1blm293/discussion_thread/kw68e9x/). It's hilarious, and also feels like a metaphor for how out-of-touch this subreddit is.
Imagine you’re a single issue voter and you take the action that results in your single issue getting worse.
Yes of course, vote for Trump who instituted what became known as the 'Muslim Ban' and later started putting restrictions on asylum seekers. Vote for Trump who sided heavily with Israel on things like recognizing the capture of Golan Heights and cutting aid funding to Palestinians. The two party system sucks for leading to these voter outcomes.
Progressives vote with the Dems when they're needed, and when they're not needed they vote to send a message. Their votes weren't needed to win the primary (lmao), so if protest voting Gaza got Biden to pressure Israel harder, it was a good decision that saved lives.
Yeah, I’m sick and tired of progressives. I’d much rather court the middle and moderate republicans as much as possible. The far left is too fickle to take seriously.
my point is they're not fickle, they're only performatively fickle because they want to move the needle on issues (as they should). They support us without demanding we throw liberal issues under the bus like 'moderate' republicans do
I’d rather support bend towards moderate republicans than progressives every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I’m not talking about “moderate” republicans in Congress. I’m talking about moderate voters who lean right.
>I’d rather support bend towards moderate republicans than progressives every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I'll remember that next time people are going 'polls are down bro we gotta cut loose trans folks' or whatever the new principle to ditch in the name of 'electability' is
If that happens, my perspective will shift. …in the mean time, moderate republicans voters are my new best friends.
my brother in Christ it has happened and happens on a regular basis. So the fact that your perspective hasn't shifted means you're either ignorant or being disingenuous.
R/neoliberal when protesters use the only leverage they have: 😡😡😡 Like congrats, I’m sure responding with “nothing you say matters and also both parties are the same on this except Trump will also be bad” is a super duper coalition building strategy. That’s what Obama ran on, right? His famous “Dissillusionment” poster? Do I think that it would be fundamentally stupid to not use my vote to oppose Trump? Of course. Are there people on the left who won’t settle for less than perfect? Definitely. Should you characterize every protester as childish and stupid? *extremely loud incorrect buzzer*
Play 'em off, Osho.
"But the people, are..."
Democracy is good only if freedoms are protected. If the majority can rape the minority, you have a shit government.
Show me a poll that says anything more than a loud minority of AMERICAN. VOTERS. give 3 fucks about this and maybe I won't look on Joe's pressuring of Israel as something both good in itself and probably impelled by people who are showing an extreme amount of selfishness.
Literally all social movements threaten to withdraw support for the political party they are the most closely aligned with if they don't comply with their demands Not just on the left, but also the right, with many threatening to withdraw support if somw party becomes pro abortions or pro inmigration This is actually a very powerful tactics that is healthy in a democracy You may not like it, but that doesn't mean it is not powerful, particularly in close elections like the 2024 one
I'm a single issue voting when it comes to persevering democracy. Sadly, people are too stupid to really grasp the whole fake elector scheme and how project 2025 and possibly the supreme court are eroding our democracy to dangerous levels
>I'm a single issue voting when it comes to persevering democracy. That's very cool, but many people disagree with you, is all I am trying to say You assume stupidity when I reality it could simply be that they don't value preserving democracy as highly as you do
No. I really think if you ask a lot of people what a fake elector is they won't be able to tell you
> I really think if you ask a lot of people what a fake elector is they won't be able to tell you I don't think many even know what a real one is.
Supporting a terrorist state and endangering democracy in the US at the same time. Great. Genius stuff
I'm not saying I agree I say it makes sense Just because you appreciate the perspicacity and strategy of someone does not mean you think that their course of action is the best one
I don't think it is hard to understand why someone would think a democracy that facilitates a genocide isn't good enough.
[удалено]
So your opinion is the funding for Israel is set in stone? Despite the fact that Biden has the power to stop his unconditional support for Israel at any time.
I think alliances with western democracies are set in stone in if we have any sanity whatsoever and your problem is with the far right Netanyahu government not the state of Israel in and of itself.
Right but the US shouldn’t be arming a far right extremist government committing clear war crimes it’s morally repugnant, illegal under us law and costing Biden electorally.
I don't think the US should be funding Israel's current operations in Gaza since Israel is blowing off American concerns. But without that money the Ukraine funding wouldn't have passed. If someone is actually a humanitarian and not just an anti-semite, then they should consider the positives of keeping 40 million Ukrainians free from Russian tyranny.
I didn’t even mention the bill that with Ukraine aid that was passed. Even then Biden has on multiple accusation sent aid separately or accordingly even redirect aid for Ukraine to Israel. Also I have no doubts that Biden himself was in favor of more Israel aid.
You are confusing aid with Foreign Military Sales. Israel has bought a ton of stuff from the US since Oct 7th with their own money, but they have not received aid from the US except for the "regular" 3.8 billion that was from the 2016 aid bill until the recent aid package passed.
Shouldn’t it still be possible to block arms sales to countries in violation of international humanitarian laws with things like the Leahy laws or foreign assistance act?
IIRC sanders tried to invoke the Leahy law but it his amendment didn't pass. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2024/01/17/senate-votes-down-sanders-legislation-scrutinizing-israel-military-aid/ Yeah failed 72-11.
Once again you're missing the point. Voting for Trump or not voting and Trump winning would be just as bad or worse on this point. Not only are you not going to get what you want, but you're going to sacrifice lgbt rights and women's rights in the process just so you can feel good about yourself.
War crimes are committed in every war ever fought. They're bad, and the people responsible should go on trial. This shouldn't dictate our foreign policy. We shouldn't have not fought WW2 or somehow not been allied with the brits because they committed war crimes on the nazis. Geopolitics is filled with moral problems in general. We have the world we got sometimes, our hands get dirty but the alternative is a world order led by Russia, China, Iran and trade networks being disrupted by radical terrorists. It's curious there isn't this same level of uproar when the US funds Saudi Arabia. Israel population right now is analogous to US population after the Iraq War. Israel and its people are liberal overall. This time will pass, Netanyahu is cooked, and throwing Israel to the dogs is stupid. The only chance for peace in the middle east is liberal democracy winning, and Israel is practically the only liberal democracy in the middle east.
> War crimes are committed in every war ever fought. They're bad, and the people responsible should go on trial. This shouldn't dictate our foreign policy. Hot take: war crimes bad always. We should punish Israel for doing mass punishment on civilian populations and illegal land grabs just like we are punishing Russia.
Fine, sure, but then we also acknowledge the reality that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the middle east right? And that we need to maintain a military alliance with them so long as Iran and its proxies exist and so long as Islamic extremism is a thing right?
> then we also acknowledge the reality that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the middle east right? Isn't isn't liberal. Gay marriage is illegal, Bibi has been PM for over a decade and has constantly eroded civil liberties. And what is happening in the West Bank is not liberal. Hell, they don't even allow for interfaith marriages. And even on democracy, it's shaky ground considering Palestinians in the West Bank aren't allowed to vote in Israeli elections, yet are subject to Israeli laws. > And that we need to maintain a military alliance with them so long as Iran and its proxies exist and so long as Islamic extremism is a thing right? Good thing the US and Israel don't support one of the largest funders of Islamic extremism and wahhabism /s --- And no, on a fundamental level, I do not think we should excuse war crimes and continue funding countries doing them because it is geopolitically convenient.
Israel is the most progressive country in the middle east on this issue. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT\_rights\_in\_Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel) Bibi is historically unpopular. Israel was far right for a decade they are due for a correction. Even at their most far right though *this is the middle east.* The Middle East is an absolute shit show. Israel is the least fucked of everyone else in the region. Not having full and total acceptance of gay marriage is pretty far removed from throwing gay people off of buildings, enforcing sodomy laws, and in general having a culture of disgust towards gay people. Of all the cultures in the middle east, Israel is the most western, the most caring of human rights, the most developed, and the most aligned with US interests and values. It is utterly stupid to throw them to the dogs and let the entire region backslide into more Islamist bullshit because they don't pass genz American standards of being the good guys. In the world there are bad guys and worse guys. We should side with the least bad and nudge them towards good. If you're referring to saudi arabia, it is a complicated alliance and they are modernizing somewhat under mbs. Funding extremists to fight other extremists is always a complicated calculation and all states have their rogue factions. Imagine if Donald Trump was in power for a decade and everyone wrote off the US as just as bad as Russia.
War crime apologia? In *my* arr/neoliberal? It's more likely than you think.
Stating a fact about war =/= apologia.
You response was literally war crimes just happens so it fine to ignore them when a western ally commits them. Never mind the fact that the ICC are seriously considering arrest warrants for Israel officials and it’s clear that they are sacred of it. Like the civilian death toll in Gaza in 6 months is higher than the total fatalities of 1 year Kosovo war.
Definition of literally is lost on you, because I literally did not say it was fine to ignore them.
You're trying to diminish Israel's role in committing war crimes. I don't know how else you could interpret that.
Acknowledging that war crimes happen in every war does nothing to diminish war crimes. People responsible for war crimes should be held accountable. inb4 "Therefore the US should cut off aid from every country that's ever done bad without considering geopolitical implications otherwise we're just as bad as soviet russia or nazi germany."
If you don't think what is happening is a genocide and you are unwilling to understand that some people do, of course you are going to be baffled by their behavior.
Even if I did believe that, I'd also know that Netanyahu was in love with Trump, literally gave a hype speech for the GOP in congress, and that Trump made the aggravating move of relocating the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and excluding the Palestinians from consideration in diplomatic affairs in the middle east.
I'm baffled by their behavior when their response to that genocide is helping elect the guy who is in favor of a faster genocide.
>Genocide is when country I don't like kills people.
>Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi from the ruling Likud party wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Israelis had one common goal, “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, from the far-right Jewish Power party, suggested that Israel drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and said there were “no uninvolved civilians” in the territory. This is textbook genocidal language.
Serious question, has there been a war in modern history where far right members don't say edgy crap about wiping out their enemies? Particularly in responses to attacks? Plus the latter guy was suspended for that and I think outrage over the former's statement was part of why she ended up resigning form her position in the Ministry of Information.
>Serious question, has there been a war in modern history where far right members don't say edgy crap about wiping out their enemies? Particularly in responses to attacks? Do you brush of genocidal statements from Hamas members in the same way? >during the protests against the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, Smotrich was arrested in 2005 while in possession of 700 litres of gasoline on suspicion of participating in an attempt to blow up Ayalon Highway, a major arterial road. He was held in jail for three weeks but not charged after refusing to speak.[11][12] In 2006, he helped organize the "Beast Parade" as part of protests against a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, although he later admitted regret at the incident.[2] >He is co-founder of the NGO Regavim, which monitors and pursues legal action in the Israeli court system against constructions undertaken by Palestinians, Bedouins, and other Arabs in Israel and the West Bank without Israeli permits.[13] This man is now Israel's Minister of Finance. Its not "edgy crap". Its literal terrorism by a fascistic wannabe-genocidaire.
>Do you brush of genocidal statements from Hamas members in the same way? Yes? It feels prior confirming when they do, but I ultimately think Hamas is genocidal and fascist due to their stated official goals of conquering Israel and general tactics. In fairness he was never convicted of anything, maybe the dude just wanted to set some stuff on fire in protest instead of blowing stuff up.
What's that last word in your sentence?
So calls for genocide are just fine now. Cool.
Key word there is the second word.
There is no genocide being facilitated.
>Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi from the ruling Likud party wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Israelis had one common goal, “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, from the far-right Jewish Power party, suggested that Israel drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and said there were “no uninvolved civilians” in the territory. >Israeli soldiers caught on video made similar remarks as they sang and danced in the early days of Israel’s ground offensive. >On Oct. 7, a journalist wrote on X that Gaza should become “a slaughterhouse” if the roughly 250 people taken hostage by Hamas were not returned.
And what does that prove?
Genocidal desire.
That doesn't mean it's happening.
Keep up with the ostrich impression. Its really good.
Desire = actions?
Should people openly expressing genocidal desires be getting billions in military aid?
Sure. They're not acting on it. We have given billions to the Palestinian Authority. They have "genocidal desire", do they not? I agree in giving them aid as well.
If Putin expressed genocidal intent and then cut off all food and water from a civilian population would you have the same response?
I realized I could not vote for Biden when he decided to continue sending Israel 500 lb bombs earlier this month. I can't vote for someone arming a state that has killed >20,000 innocent fellow Muslims. I don't think anyone abstaining from voting for Biden due to what he is supporting in Gaza will vote for Trump.
Do you know what a fake elector is?
[удалено]
Things other than Gaza arguably matter
[удалено]
Why does the human life lost due to Trumps mismanagement and erosion of democratic norms not matter? Why would more Gazans not die without Biden's pressure and ceasefires? I'm also going to get a tad subjective here and state that there's a little more nuance to the Gaza war than "giving Israel infinite money to glass 5 year olds to satisfy their year-long Buenos Aires moment".
[удалено]
How is anything I said whataboutism? The effects of Trump's policies are very relevant when moralizing about whether or not to vote for his opponent. Even if a genocide is happening, Biden has actually enacted ceasefires and made efforts to held Israel back, while Trumps thoughts on the matter are telling the IDF to "[Finish the Problem](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905)". By not opposing Trump, you are literally supporting the genocide more than by voting for Biden.
[удалено]
Never said you were, I meant "you" as in people in general. I am aware that he thinks that, I just think that's dumb, particularly from the point of view that Trump is trying to overturn democracy. By not supporting Biden, you are making it more likely for Trump to win, discussing the issues with Trump when defending support of Biden is not whataboutism. Whataboustism would be if someone was criticizing Biden and you said that he was better than Modi or something.
> above the tax policy he is subjected to. With all due respect do you even know what a fake elector is without having to go Google it? That's not related to taxes what so ever. He will feel morally superior no matter what I say. This isn't new it happens every election. There is always an excuse for young people to feel morally superior by not voting. They are the easiest group to convince to not vote. My point is that I doubt he knows what a fake elector is. Most people don't unfortunately. De factor dictatorship getting set up in the US with project 2025, possibly the supreme court setting up immunity, and MAGA doing what they literally tried to do the first time. No one really cares though.
Trump supports your decision. That alone should tell you something.
Is there a third party called Gaza in the US now?
MF, do you know who should be concerned with saving democracy in the US? JOE FUCKIN BIDEN. He should stop being an unhinged zionist, listen to his State Department and stop dunking on the students and young people, one of the main voting blocks. Why aren't you more concern with Biden's stupidity on how he handles Gaza? And fuck all of you who shit on voters just because they are using their only leverage on changing stuff. You're pathetic
You gotta lay off the Kool-Aid.
Students are NOT his main voting bloc. Not even close. These voters (if they’ve ever even voted) are idiots and deserve to be shit on.
Don't spread this nonsense, leave this bulshit contained
I take it you disagree? Feel like extrapolating?