We can stop arguing about the term (as we should have done long ago): Israel is committing genocide, with the enthusiastic aid of the United States.
Donald Trump has suggested large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip, after ordering the US military to restart shipments of 2,000lb bombs to Israel.
“Cleaning out” a whole people, driving them from their homes, and moving them into camps in another country is genocide. It’s that simple.
Couple that to the fact that he’s not sending a fleet of moving vans and a lot of prefab homes and trailers to their destination, but is instead sending 2000 pound bombs, is a huge hint that we’re not talking about a peaceful, voluntary relocation. It’s hard to get 2.3 million people to all give up their homes, much easier if we whittle the numbers down a bit. A lot.
Combine this with his hatred of DEI, his denial that trans people exist, and his inability to recognize women’s autonomy, I think it’s clear that we have a psychopath in the White House, one who has no sense of empathy and is unable to recognize the rights of other people to exist.
Well, yes. And…?
Trump has a more specific plan that just “cleaning out” Gaza.
He wants to move them to Jordan and Egypt.
Ironically, Gaza was part of Egypt until 1967. During that war, Israel took over Gaza by conquest during a war they won.
Needless to say, there are a lot of problems with Trump’s idea.
Egypt doesn’t want Gaza or the Gaza Palestinians any more than Israel does. To the Egyptians, the Gaza people are just 2.1 million more problems to deal with. Egypt has a huge number of their own problems right now that they aren’t dealing with very well either. Adding another set of problems isn’t anything they will accept.
Butbutbut Crooked Hillary! Cackling Kamala! Genocide Joe!!!!1111!!! Democrats are just the same as Republicans, no difference whatsoever! Decent people cannot vote for them, surely it was better for Palestinians to let Trump win than to soil one’s pure leftist conscience by voting for the lesser evil!11
/spits with rage/
My original simple idea to solve the Gaza war problem was to just give it back to the Egyptians, who controlled it until they lost a war in 1967.
Israel loses a small amount of territory they aren’t using anyway, since Gaza is small at 365 km 2 (141 sq mi).
They lose their world’s largest prison which costs them money to operate badly and they end up with reoccurring prison riots.
They lose 2.1 million Gazaians, who don’t want to live in an Israeli prison anyway.
A lot of people quickly pointed out that this won’t work.
The Egyptians have zero interest in getting Gaza back.
To them it is just a big problem that they were glad to get rid of.
As a war trophy, Gaza is the one you don’t want to win.
I don’t know.
Maybe if we pay the Egyptians enough, they might take Gaza back.
Think $100 billion would work?
So those 77.3 million who voted for him (34% of the adult citizen population of the US) must also lack empathy or at least judgment.
Reportedly, Arab Muslims in Michigan voted mostly for Trump.
Because, “Abouali says the results show how angry Dearborn was at the Biden-Harris White House, mostly over its support for Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. The community voted for Trump, despite the president’s past action in banning travel from some majority Muslim countries and worries about his proposal to deport millions of immigrants.”
OK, Arab Muslim voters in Michigan.
How is your idea that Trump was going to offer you a better deal than the Democrats and Kamala Harris working out now?
Hmmm, all I hear are crickets.
Also, most likely the muslim community is also as socially conservative as their Christian counterparts so they most likely don’t feel very good for voting for a liberal woman.
Sorry, it’s been decreed by God himself that Canaan belongs to the Jews. It’s in the bible, look it up. We won’t stop aiding Israel ever, because we’re dumbshit god-fearin’ people. And we ride Harleys too, which make a lot of noise. So fuck off.
Yep, once again Palestinians get shafted by the people claiming to be their staunchest allies.
Don’t be at all surprised if we find out that Israeli diplomacy and propagandists had a hand in Dearborn’s turnaround. They’ve been extremely good at exploiting divisions among their adversaries, and at creating such divisions when they feel they need to.
I’m all for free speech and robust debates, but how do all those outraged university students who protested against Israel and the Biden Admin’s policies feel now? Will they occupy their campuses and take up the chants of “Genocide Don” and “Free Palestine From The River To The Sea?” School’s in session. Where are they? I hope this is a learning moment for them. Did they actually believe that any president was ever going to cut Israel loose? Many people seem to have forgotten that our national policies vis-à-vis Israel have less to do with the Jews than with big power maneuvering in the Middle East. I’ve been saying this for years: if Israel ceased to exist and the Jews were tossed out, Palestine would become Iran on the Mediterranean.
https://unosat.org/products/4047
Some estimates of damaged or destroyed houses put the percentage at 90%. 90% of the population is displaced. This is not difficult to figure out.
I’m getting so tired of people blaming voters for the shortcomings of the Democrat platform. I voted for Harris, but it is not at all hard to understand the people who did not.
The voters were very clear from the beginning of the primaries here. In Michigan, the “No Confidence” vote was a bigger margin than Biden’s win in 2020. The reason for that turnout was also clear, Biden was supporting a genocide in Israel.
Did the Democrats adjust their strategy? No, if anything they doubled down.
Did they platform Palestinian Americans? No, they explicitly did not let them speak.
“But Trump is worse,” is a deflection. These people were engaging in democracy, calling on their representatives to take on the policies they cared about, and were being ignored. For you to be angry at them for following through on their convictions and not the people who were supposed to represent them. Honestly, shame on you. All this talk about saving democracy and clearly y’all didn’t believe in it to begin with.
Also, yes, the student protests are ongoing. That you are no longer paying attention now that they no longer directly criticize the Democrats says more about you than the students.
Also, to anyone who’ll try to “lesser of two evils” argument at me. 1) I voted for Harris, and 2) this argument has existed for a long, long time now and the greater evil still wins all the time. Maybe, just maybe, the argument doesn’t work on a systemic level, and the people arguing for pragmatism should focus their efforts less on blaming the voters and more towards something more productive.
@ksiondag
Hard disagree. You can absolutely blame the voters because a lot of them voted for Trump.
Many people seem to have forgotten that our national policies vis-à-vis Israel have less to do with the Jews than with big power maneuvering in the Middle East.
Are you fucking kidding me?! How does our support for Israel help us in any sort of “big power maneuvering?” We’ve consistently done our national and geopolitical self-interest far more harm than good by supporting a country that’s been making enemies all around it since its founding, and causing nothing but discord, division and conflict in the entire region. That’s gotta be the most incompetent “big power maneuvering” since the British Empire left the region.
I’ve been saying this for years: if Israel ceased to exist and the Jews were tossed out, Palestine would become Iran on the Mediterranean.
What the fuck does that even mean?
Also, I’m in total agreement with ksiondag: the Democrats had PLENTY of time and opportunity to take a sensible, coherent stand on the Gaza war, and they tossed it all away because they’d been conditioned to always cave to Republican hysteria whenever it arose.
@12
Thank you so much for this comment. It’s beyond abhorrent to see so many people here look at everything that’s happened and reserve their worst ire for the people who were upset at a fucking genocide that has killed hundreds of thousands of people rather than the Democrats who, while IN POWER, refused to stop supporting it. Even IF they would have lost more votes by changing their policy, and that’s a HUGE “if”, why the fuck is there not any ire directed towards those they who they would have lost votes from? Why is it, no matter what, ALWAYS directed at those upset that people they cared about were being subject to state-sanctioned extermination?
There was literally just a huge anti-Trump, pro-Palestine rally/protest in my city yesterday. There have been ongoing protests at major universities and crackdowns on students over the last several months. Some people here are just willfully ignorant
It’s clear that a lot of you just want marginalized people to fall in line with parties that support policies that are killing them because you consider our lives not as important as “regular” people’s (aka cis hetero white men). If they lose elections we’re always to blame, never the people who cling to “acceptable” bigotries. It’s literally the logic of “there’s more of them than you, so even if you’re right, we expect you to make concessions (including the lives of your loved ones) rather than upset those who are wrong and contributing to your oppression”. I voted for Harris as a lesser of two evils, most people I know who were also involved in protests did as well, and I would wager that was true overall, but of course, that doesn’t matter—people see that “enough” people who didn’t might have swung a state or two (we don’t even know if those people would have even voted regardless) and then rush to blame anyone who was critical at all of those who supported one of the most visible, obvious cases of systemic eradication of human beings en masse in the last 50 years.
It’s no wonder that fascism is having a resurgence with “allies” like these.
@3: Exactly. We FUCKING TOLD YOU.
All of what PZ reports along with other responsible news article (sources avail. upon polite request, if you can’t expend the effort to factually educate yourself) points to the fact that with a few exceptions, human beings are destructive, murderous, deceitful lower life forms.
The death and destruction that has accelerated in the past couple of weeks confirms that:
MAGA = Maggots Are Governing America
Martha and the Vandellas were right: Nowhere to Run to baby, nowhere to hide!
Didn’t some (in)famous person talk about this country being in some sort of a spiral???
And once again the members of the fascist-enabling useless American left fail to take responsibiliy for their actions and blame everyone else for them making things worse through their laziness and general stupidity.
A common internet meme, seen on Bluesky sums it up.
The January 20th inauguration was the start of 4 years of…”I/we told you this would happen.”
While obvious, this doesn’t help very much.
We need to also remember to not let it happen again.
@20 AugustusVerger wrote: And once again the members of the fascist-enabling useless American left fail to take responsibiliy for their actions
I reply: YOUR STATEMENT JUST POINTS OUT HOW IGNORANT YOU ARE. My organization has, since the mid-1960s, been involved in community benefit activities and causes. WE ARE NOT ALONE IN BEING RESPONSIBLE SECULAR PROGRESSIVES WHO CARE ABOUT PEOPLE AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR DOING SOMETHING TO IMPROVE SOCIETY. STFU!
(end of shouting)
@21: Truth.
@22: Doubt he meant you. Probably referring to those that abstained from voting because “Genocide Joe” and “Evil Kamala”. They’re sitting in their morals, thinking their shit don’t stink while we’re shoveling the feces.
@22: Doubt he meant you. Probably referring to those that abstained from voting because “Genocide Joe” and “Evil Kamala”. They’re sitting in their morals, thinking their shit don’t stink while we’re shoveling the feces.
shermanj @22: What Autobot said. The ‘fascist-enabling useless American left’ is The Vicar and his purity-above-all ilk.
It’s quite possible to blame both the Democrats for their vile support for genocide, and everyone who voted for Trump or otherwise helped him to victory.
Can’t blame the the Democrats for what Trump does.
See let’s recap Trump’s week on Gaza.
[1] Trump says we should “clean out Gaza” and forcibly resettle all Palestinians to Egypt.
[2] Trump froze all international aid…except for military aid to Israel and Egypt.
[3] Trump approved the delivery of 2000-lb bombs to Israel that the Biden admin had blocked out of concern for civilian casualties.
[4] Trump lifted all US sanctions against violent Israeli settler groups in the West Bank.
Hey, Vicar. Any thoughts?
@ 29
Knowing him, he’d just say Harris would do all the same things on a longer timetable.
@ ^ Akira MacKenzie & #29. chrislawson : Brave Sir Vcars run away..boldy ran away, away..
Leaving one last point missing, question dodging, tanty rant on his way out – see :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/22/tearing-stuff-down-is-easier-than-building-them-up/#comment-2251373
Beholder seems to have disappeared too. Of course they got their way now haven’t they?
Predictable, predicted, proven.
@12. ksiondag :
No. It is the reality. Reality we are now experiencing first hand.
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/26/palestinians-condemn-trumps-proposal-to-clean-out-gaza
Sure didn’t take long to be proven right about Trump’s policies towards Palestinians. I predict that soon now Egypt and Jordan will be urged to take Palestinians out of the former West Bank too as Israel proceeds to officially annex that as likely promised to Miriam Adelson and quite likely privately promised to Netanyahu too. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Adelson#Support_for_Donald_Trump )
I wonder how many Arab-Americans and pro-Palestinians who thought it was a good idea to punish Kamala for what Biden and Netanyahu decided to do are already suffering buyer’s remorse. Some of us did try very hard to warn them but they didn’t listen or choose wisely enough and now Trump is about to make Biden look like a saint in comparison.
There was a chance of protests convincing the Democratic party to shift its position. There’s no chance of them affecting the Trump cultists regime. Trump has already hinted at deporting students who support Palestinians and cracking down brutally hard on those protests. They’re likely to be attacked, outlawed and stopped. Certainly going to make it much harder and riskier to protest. Not just for Palestinians and action against the genocide but likely for all forms of peaceful protests – recall Trump’s response to BLM?
Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/news/trumps-plan-quell-protests-deport-hamas-radicals-rcna166168
Yes, there’ll be legal challenges. Do you really think that those challenges will succeed given the Repugs & Federalist Society control over the courts and Trump clearly being above and outside the law?
Yes, they can’t deport Americans citizens – or can they? But they very likely will imprison and punitively fine and do all they can to stop protests and hurt protesters. So, prepare for that and think ahead.
Like what? The Trump cult has been handed control of the Presidency, Congress and long ago rigged and took control of the Courts. What action now will be “productive” in stopping them? From what I can see the options are very few and very ugly and probly shouldn’t be discussed on this blog or in public.
Oh and as lotharloo (26 January 2025 at 12:31 pm) correctly said; the voters do indeed deserve the blame. Anyone who didn’t vote for Kamala Harris and thus against Fascism and Trumpism needs to face the fact that they chose horribly badly. They cannot say they weren’t warned or couldn’t have known.
PS. if any legal challenges do somehow suceed the Trumpists will probly make new laws over-riding them. Yes, even to the Constitution.
@31
Alas, StevoR, I am still here. It’s been a rough week, I’ve been busy — and in the particular case of this thread I feel most of my points were best stated by @12 ksiondag, Hex, and @27 KG — so I took a breather, at least until you mentioned me by name. Now I’m obliged to respond.
Well, considering I did not vote for Trump, this is not what I would describe as “my way”. Rather the opposite.
A general strike.
Well, considering I did not vote for Trump…
Who DID you vote for?
You sure did not vote against Trump.
(You could have, the election is a zero-sum affair)
Two candidates, one winner.
You either voted against Trump, or you did not.
You did not.
@ ^ Bekenstein Bound : A good suggestion. Yes. I agree that’s worth trying.
@35. beholder : I’m pretty sure I recall you saying you voted third party which in practice and reality was a vote for Trump. Is this wrong? Did you vote for Kamala Harris? Because in the very shitty and badly needing drastic reforms binary USA-ite political system anything other than a vote for Kamala Harris was de facto a vote for Trump and the ONLY way of stopping Trump and all the Fascism we’re already seeing was to vote for Kamala Harris & the Democratic party.
Also I think you need to answer the questions posed by #29. Chrislawson specifically your thoughts on what we’re seeing Trump do and say here because of you helping impose him in power by arguing against, voting against and undermining the only alternative?
Plus #6 raven’s question “How is your idea that Trump was going to offer you a better deal than the Democrats and Kamala Harris working out now?”
Oh and question from me what’s Jill Stein up to now and how is she opposing Trump’s fascism or has she disappeared for the next four years having done of her regular job of helping Trump gain supreme power by deceiving gullible, worse than useless, poor at thinking self-proclaimed progressives? ? How do feel about that?
This rancid inability of the Useless American Left to take responsibility for their actions is why so many of them just flip over to full-blown right-wing fascism (see the The Young Turks as a prime example of that). Not growing up and retaining the mentality of a spoiled, immature teenager is after all the one true right-wing ideal that all of them want to make reality.
As I’ve already pointed out on another thread, US support for Israel has not prevented most of the nearby states sucking up to Uncle Sam. And it’s very useful to the USA to have a dependant ally which can attack states and non-state forces hostile to the US (Iran, Syria until Assad’s overthrow, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis), and test out new American weapons systems, rather than having to do so itself.
it seems time to me for everyone to face the facts and the realty that the middle east and Israel is not a simple problem and no order from outside is going to nor has ever had beneficial effect in the long run nor the short term. it has been a problem for a millennium or two. Yes trump is doing the wrong kind of stuff no surprise there. Bebe is an asshole only out for himself like staying in power and out of jail like Rump. the Palestinians, poor and powerless are desperate and resist any way they can.
all sides in this are not in the habit of doing what anyone advises them to do especially not foreign countries.
Add never forget the roll of religion has in this stupid situation, nor the history, ancient, colonial era, The Holocaust. European racism and the ever present greed of human beings.
There is no one who does not have some guilt and some responsibility in the current situation and no one can admit it without at the same time pointing the finger at everyone else
I would try to pull the words out of this but I am beginning to think like this!
I will continue to do my part but I hope I can keep my illusions under control.
I can envy the Amish of rejecting the modern world and all but I could not do that since there ain’t no gods nor churches nor preachers just the same fallible humans and I ain’t much of a follower nor a faith based person.
Think I noted this on another thread before but via Occupy Democrats the final election figures were :
Now add that third party vote to the Harris vote and we get a total of 31.9. Which for beholders sake I’ll note is more than 31.8 %. So. YES the third parties cost Kamala Harris the Presidency.
Maths how does it work?
Also, yes, we did see this coming and warned them and no they chose NOT to do the only right thing which was to drop out and fully one hundred percent support Kamala and tell their followers and voters to do likewise.
If only Jill Stein and Cornell West – for whom same applies as I asked in #39 of Stein – had had the integrity, decency and basic understanding of maths and the role third parties, eg Nader, Perot have ALWAYS played in American politics and dropped out.
RFK Jr did. He was polling at levels that could’ve denied Trump by splitting the tinfoil hat vote.
Are Jill Stein and Cornell West less intelligent than RFK Jr? Seems so – and a lot less ethical too.
Now he’s going to be Health Secretary FSM help us all and Stein and West are.. what? Useless fucking traitors to the progressive values and side they supposedly believe in and people who gave us Trump’s second POTUS-cy is what.
To sum this up, if I understand this correctly, “Genocide Joe” stopped deliveries of a type of 2000-pound bomb because said bombs had no practical purpose for fighting terrorists and would only lead to higher civilian casualties.Further, “Genocide Joe” continually tried to convince Netanyahu to stop the fighting and try to reach a ceasefire and an agreement, proposing the only real solution to the problem, the two-state solution.
To people like beholder this was the reason to call him “Genocide Joe”, he tried to stop the genocide, but he was not effective at doing so because he tried to juggle multiple political positions in order to not piss off too many influential political factions at once.
Therefore “leftists” like beholder decided to vote for Jill Stein, fully knowing that she had no realistic chance of winning and that this only increased the odds for Trump. Or they chose to not vote at all, with the same effect, because Trump has a very solid base of fanatics who actually did vote for him even after he told them “I don’t care for you, I just want your vote”.
Logic, how does it work?
I continue to be convinced that these people are not actually leftists because they do not care about real-life outcomes of their actions and they are not actively working towards a better world. They are narcissists who like to masturbate their ego over their perceived moral superiority. Feeling morally superior is more important to them than doing something useful, like running for local elections, for example.
Because the one they insisted on calling “Genocide Joe” did at least try some things to stop said genocide, however ineffectual those things were. Whereas Trump, exactly as he promised and exactly as expected is doing his best to accelerate it. And they cheered when he won, because their goal was to hurt the Democrats, not to help the Palestinians.
Apropos, Jill Stein of course disappeared into her own pocket dimension again she only ever crawls out of if there’s a left-wing vote to spoil. The perfect representative of thr Useless American Left.
@StevoR
I’m not USian, but I don’t think it works like that, thanks to your electoral college and extreme gerrymandering. It’s not a simple question of overall percentages. Didn’t Hillary Clinton win the overall vote last time? As with the UK, the final results of first-past-the-post systems are frequently bizarre – like the landslides in our last two general elections, which both concealed a deeply divided and disillusioned electorate.
And for all those berating voters for not wanting Biden, here is one of the MANY warnings about this, published A YEAR BEFORE your election, from the excellent How Things Work blog: https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/it-would-be-a-shame-if-you-sacrificed
—-“Is sending weapons to Israel that it can use to decimate and kill a civilian population more important than Biden’s industrial policy? Is it more important than the Supreme Court, and abortion rights? Is it more important that all of the hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment? Is it more important than having a government that takes on corporate power concentration? Is it more important than the revival of organized labor? The person who is answering “yes” to all of those questions right now is Joe Biden himself. Because he is placing all of those things in legitimate danger by publicly aligning himself with a rain of bombs that is killing thousands of children. For this—for this!—Joe Biden could very well fuck around and lose the election.”—
and
—“The only real response from the political establishment that I have seen to this discussion so far has been to lecture the voters. “Biden is better than Trump.” No shit. That is an utterly useless and backwards reaction. Voters are not employees of politicians. Voters do not have to vote. (Every time you find yourself tempted to lecture “the voters” about something, stop and reset and think about how to lecture the politicians and the parties and the institutions that support and influence them, instead. Otherwise you are just hollering into the void.) Emotion drives politics more than reason does. Biden is sickening people. Biden is making people who voted for him in the last election despise him. For good reason. Thousands of innocent civilians, dead, thanks to us. That is a substantive reason. The feeling of disgust that that provokes will, I assure you, cause some number of people to resolve never to cast a ballot for Joe Biden again. If the Democratic Party’s plan for this is “lecture voters more,” they will lose the election.”—
@44 StevoR
They would’ve costed Kamala Harris the Presidency, were the Presidency decided by popular vote. And that’s assuming that all 3rd-party votes would’ve gone to Kamala Harris and not split in roughly equal measures between the other 3 options.
As things stand, the election is decided by electoral college votes. And looking at results by state over on Wikipedia, only two states would’ve flipped if all 3rd-party votes went to Harris — Michigan and Wisconsin, with combined EC votes of 25 which would not be enough to flip the overall result. And that “if all 3rd-party votes went to Harris” is a big IF, considering that in both states not an insignificant number of votes went to the Kennedy ticket.
However, the fact that even if all Jill Stein voters had voted for Harris wouldn’t prevent Trump presidency equally means that if all Harris voters had voted Jill Stein the result would have been the same.
Sorry for unproductive nitpicking.
I’m in the same situation as ksiondag @12. I voted Harris, but I also supported the protests against the genocide. I just find it infinitely disturbing that people like me are publicly shamed for taking anti-genocide action while an active genocide is going on. Honestly, with all the persistence, I’m starting to wonder if it was never actually about the election for some of the people complaining about the result.
By all means, blame those who absurdly turned to Trump, but I’d also blame the Democratic leaders who didn’t adjust course or at least message in face of such an important issue.
Here’s a crazy thought: Stop obsessing over who is to blame and work on fixing the divide AND stopping the genocide.
@ ^ ondrbak : No need to apologise. You are correct. Those are all fair points. I’m Aussie & keep thinking the USoA system is fair & reasonable and 1 person = 1 vote when it is absolutely NOT any of those things.
Of course, if Stein and West and others hadn’t run or had dropped out and encouraged their supporters to back Kamala Harris. If more USoA voters had bothered to turn up and vote against Fascism.. Well, if only. We’ll never know.
The third party vote was relatively tiny – but that also doesn’t mean it wasn’t significant and didn’t change things – vastly for the worse.
@45. Charly : Spot on & seconding for truth. Very well put.
@ mooskaya #47 & #48 :
I’m NOT USican either and so yeah, I keep forgetting just how utterly fouled up their shitty system is. Yeah, Talking popular or, y’know, accurate Will of the People vote here not the Electoral College deliberately rigged rubbish that the USoa still fucking has. Which always works against the more decent, compassionate, scientifically and logically literate and reasonable side of American politics becoz ofc it does.
Yes, indeed she did -then there was Al Gore versus Bush Dubya the Lesser George II and the 2000 election. Which you’d think more folks might remeber but, fuck, 25 years ago now!? Ouch. Also consequences. Fucking Nader!
Can you fools please recall that Biden wasn’t the actual fucking candidate?! Its not enough that Kamala lost, you have to erase her as the actual nominee too?
If she’d won, well, how awesome and historic and epic and world-changing that would’ve been. Instead the fuckers over there voted – narrowly – for Trump and his kult’s total unchecked power and victory instead. Now we’re all fucked globe-wide becoz of that.
They do here in Oz. mandatory voting & all – okay, actually mandatory getting your name crossed of and the roll and you can spoil your ballot, scrawl obscenities over it and whatever and have it not count if you choose but yeah.
By definition a voter is someone who votes. Maybe voting should be restricted to those who pass a basic test of science, logic, civic s and maths? I dunno.
What I’ve learned with this debacle is that an awful lot of democrats are pro genocide. A disturbing discovery.
For people asking how things are working out right now for the Palestinians: there’s a ceasefire in Gaza and they’re able to return to their destroyed homes. Whereas in Jenin, Fatah and the IDF are fighting Hamas-aligned groups. So it’s not great, but it’s a lot better than two months ago.
@ 50. Recursive Rabbit : “I just find it infinitely disturbing that people like me are publicly shamed for taking anti-genocide action while an active genocide is going on. “
NO.
ONE.
IS.
SHAMING.
YOU.
FOR.
THAT!
FFS! No one.
What people are being shamed – or called out for – is using the genocide in Gaza to excuse voting for Trump over Kamala given that Trump is far worse on that as well as pretty much everything else. Plus for those who undermined the ONLY alternative to Trump as POTUS using that excuse and ignoring the bigger more realistic, actual “picture” – and by “picture” I mean reality. . Issues other than just Gaza like consequences for Climate, Ukraine and Democracy in the USoA and Human Rights beyond that inflamed, murderous splinter of SW Asia.
Yeesh.
Sure. Go ahead. Yeah, I’ll even agree with you there. What does that do about the shitty binary choice American voters had and the obvs and predicted and, we’re now seeing happen, consequences of that choice when they chose so very poorly and illogically and messed up so badly?
Yes, if you voted Trump – even and esp Trump via Stein or West et al .. then you choose poorly. That’s just fact and ain’t gunna pretend it ain’t.
Okay, sure. What are your suggestions on how we go ’bout doing that exactly?
Give me your ideas and if they make sense and could work, well, I’ll be delighted and very keen to try doing them.
For clarity that last line in #53 was completely sincere and NOT sarcasm. If you (Recursive Rabbit- ed) – or anyone else for that matter – have serious suggestions and thoughts on how we can achieve that – then please do let us all and me especially know becoz I will try to help when I can & do what I can..
Fuck defeatism. Not giving up.
@52. numerobis : “What I’ve learned with this debacle is that an awful lot of democrats are pro genocide. A disturbing discovery.”
Wait, what? really? I don’t think so.
Who exactly? Why exactly? I do NOT think any of us here are actually “pro-genocide.” I’m certainly not.
temporailrly right now maybe and , well, you did read the OP right?
Do you think it’ll last?
Do you think there’ll be a reasonable resolution that provides everyone in that blood stained, brutally contested, nasty, little piece of the Asian-African boundary area peace, security and opportunity to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness soon and sustainedly -if that last words a word?
@16 Hex
I suspect there is a bit of, “If no one reports it, it never happened.”, going on. The mainstream media is all kissing Trumps ass, and reporting on protests is not going to engender good feelings toward them by the Fuhrer. I am also not seeing much mention of it on Medias Touch, if any, since they are almost entirely focused on the legal challenges against what Trump is doing, and the rapid implosion of his plans do to infighting and the like. Maybe TYT is? But I wouldn’t know because I got seriously fed up with some of the stupid BS they where aligning themselves with in many cases, and their own leader trying to one up Trump by running for office as “not” a naturally born citizen, possible on the theory that, “if a known insurrectionist can get by with it, then I can too!”, was kind of the last straw for me. I suppose Ground News might have some coverage of ongoing protests… but, again, its not something popping up on the “big new items you get for free” page. So.. yeah, I can kind of see where some people might think that protests have dropped off. Again – if no one reports it, then on a national level of awareness, is it even happening? Which sucks, and we might wish isn’t true, but also… how likely do you think it is, unless you are specifically following it on an “alternative” social media that, again, Fakebook, Twits-are-us, or any of the other “major” ones are even allowing posts about it now, never mind feeding them to anyone who needs to know about it?
@49 There is some argument being made that there was also some “successful” voter suppression that didn’t help things either. I suspect that those trying to blame that as the cause are also overhyping it as an excuse for lack of self examination, or examining the party’s own mistakes, but I also think that its not entirely incorrect either – its rather a combination of all of the things being listed by various groups, with the biggest one being the utter refusal of some Democrats to realize there is a serious damn problem with how they are running their campaigns, and their platform.
StevoR @ 55: you, specifically, are so blinded by hatred for Trump (which hatred is entirely rational, by the way) that you refuse to allow any criticism of the Democrats. Which means you argue in favour of policies that enabled genocide. So, clearly, genocide is not a real problem for you.
numerobis@58,
I vehemently disagree with StevoR’s defences of Biden, but note that he’s not a Democrat – because he’s not an American.
However, you wrote “democrat” @52 (unlike @58), so maybe you just meant a supporter of democracy.
numerobis: StevoR asked you to flesh out your claim that “an awful lot of democrats are pro genocide,” and so far at least, you have failed to answer the question. How is any part of his comment “arguing in favour of policies that enabled genocide?” How is he “refusing to allow any criticism of the Democrats?” It sounds like you’re just using Israel-Lobby lying-points (“everyone who disagrees with us is pro-genocide!!!”), with the names changed — which is nowhere near as clever, or as helpful, as you might think it is.
And as for (unspecified) Democrats being “pro-genocide,” I’d argue that Harris’s defeat last year kinda proved the opposite: lots of people otherwise leaning to Democrats were ANTI-genocide, and got discouraged because Biden and Harris weren’t taking a sufficiently strong public stand against the genocide.
@numerobis:
Go fuck yourself, shit head. Nobody here is pro genocide, fucking dipshit troll.
StevoR@#51:
The problem with that, of course, is that historically in the U.S. voting tests like that have been very deliberately set up and used to disenfranchise ‘undesirable’ voters like blacks, or anybody for whom English wasn’t their first language, and that’s before you get to the people giving the tests often being actively in on it and deliberately biasing the results to refuse anybody they don’t think should be voting. Tests like that are legally considered a form of ‘poll tax’ in the U.S., as they were used for the same basic purpose: prevent anybody who hadn’t been allowed to get an education from voting.
Also, with the people in charge of the government right now, you just know that any test like this set up now would be checking for who can regurgitate the ‘proper, God-given’ answers as opposed to the scientifically correct ones.
As far as the voters go, there’s this, too: https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/locked-out-2024-four-million-denied-voting-rights-due-to-a-felony-conviction/
Interestingly, there are more than 48 US states.
(In contrast, existing Federal law in Australia allows prisoners on remand or incarcerated for less than three years to vote in Federal elections)
@58. numerobis
Numbers added for ease of reference.
(1) No I don’t! That’s just wrong. I’m happy to have the Democratic party criticised – although there are times and places and undermining them during a key election when the alternative is Trump’s Fascism is tactically, politically wrong given the consequences. Also its a bit of a tell when people only and obsessively criticise the Democratic party to the exclusion of noting the Repugs and esp Trump are vastly worse. But I’ve NEVER said people cannot criticism them. It is, of course, also not my blog and the only “power” I have here is to comment and express my views & argue my case.
(2) Nonsense. Literally that makes no sense. It is a non-sequiteur if I recall my basic logic right. I am NOT arguing in favour of policies favouring genocide. I condemn genocide. I do note that one side means far more and worse genocide than the other. Unfortunately, the USoA is -or was – a two party system and when both parties support Israel and its genocide in Gaza, there really isn’t the ideal choice we’d like. It is a binary choice of either what the Democratic platform is and will be or what the Trump platform is or will be.
(3) Given the circumstances outlined in (2) where the choices are as outlined what do you suggest? The best hope for the Gazans and other Palestinians was voting in a Democratic party that actually wanted a real ceasefire and peace and was potentially realistically persuadable rather than, y’know, actual genocide happy nazis that wouldn’t just genocide Gaza but also Ukraine, other eastern European nations and very likely all the Palestinians of the West bank too. Failing to choose or voting third party in reality means helping Trump win. So, again, what is the right course of action ethically or politically and for those who are pro-Palestinian there? Do tell us all numerobis really do. If I am mistaken in this assessment of things, then please explain where. Seriously.
PS. Yes, the whole USA-ite system and choices here stinks. But it’s the reality. I have stated that it stinks and I think there need to be major reforms esp abolishing the EC and having some equivalent of preferential voting repeatedly. So, why do you think I’m the “bad guy” here, numerobis?
@ 59. KG : .. note that he’s (Stevo-R- ed) not a Democrat – because he’s not an American.
Oddly enough, the first election(s) I ever voted in back in the late 1980′-s – early 90’s I voted for the Australian Democrats – a very different party to the USA ones tho! See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Democrats
I subsequently switched to voting for the (Australian obvs) Greens which we can do here because our political system has preferential voting so I can then preference other leftwing parties, the centrist ALP and put the LNP and other fascists last.
remember, voters, you’re responsible for your political footprint.
dems are in full-on capitulation. if only the presidency was different, what would it look like in 4 years? 8? it’s all coming apart, but not really because some people decided to shrug and stay home on election day. i’m not saying it’s right, i’m saying that i can’t really imagine the democrats doing much better in the near future while desperately trying to cling to half the pie. if we have free and fair elections in 2029 i want to see a completely revitalized party, not the shambling wreck we got.
like it’s so easy to place your blame on millions whose names and reasons and inner life you can’t know. maybe it was a pigheaded decision made on the basis of privilege and spite. maybe it was just complete hopelessness and a type of symbolic suicide. i’ve been feeling that since the moment harris gave her keynote address at the DNC, that she was going to be emblematic of everything wrong with the democratic party and that they were going to lose the election. i’m not claiming to be prophetic; i’m saying that i remember 2016.
it’s so sickening to me to see all the blame being passed around to the “fascism enablers” while we witness right now the people whose names and faces we do know, and whose lies and failures of imagination and leadership we can recount vividly are saying they’re gonna make it ok, just get to go back in like it’s another day at work? they should be fucking trembling in fear, because i sure am.
FUCK. OFF.
also, my vote counted in new york, so yay. imagine me in my sick-ass starship troopers armor saying i did my part.
LoL. Ada is demonstrating aptly that the Useless American Left will only ever be the Useless American Left. Or now more accurately, the Brainless Fascisim-Enabling Left.
See, if you never-ever accept responsibility for your actions, how can you ever hope to improve? Someone who is incapable of acknowledging their wrongdoings will always repeat those wrongdoings, that’s where the American left and right have near 100% overlap and why so many “leftists” just become full-blown fascists who claim that the “left” left them.
The voters are to blame. They were the ones who could have done otherwise, but they didn’t. Left-wingers always looking for excuses to not vote are to blame. Ever since Reagan opened the door to the fascists, it took them 40 years to get wha they wanted. Imagine if left-wingers had consequently voted against the Republican party since then. No Bush, No Trump One. No Democratic President hampered by right-wing house/senate majorities. Imagine where the country would be today if the extrme right-wing voters had proved to be a liability rather than a boon.
But alas, the dumb left decided that not voting was the way to go and so they helped shifting the overton window to the right and then used that as justification to keep not voting.
YOU are to blame. There’s no one to deflect it now. YOU did this, YOU helped making this happen. YOU have to get your shit together, no one else.
I did vote, motherfucker. I hold my nose and vote democrat every time, and you know what happens? worse than nothing: we get dragged backwards by the supreme court and the senate. And I’m so sick of my political leanings being treated as a fringe minority within the democratic party. I’ve heard again and again that it’s trans rights and the loony left that cost the democrats the presidency, and it’s sickening that you can sit there and chide me for a failure that i did not cause. I told my friends in swing states that they should vote democrat. I did my part and it didn’t fucking matter. You have all this condemnation for the brainless-fascism-enabling-left but none for the actual fascism enablers who are at the top of the DNC and calling the shots. It’s them that failed the voters, not the voters who failed them. You’re so full of shit.
So where are those top democrats in acknowledging their wrongdoing, their fascism-enabling, for failing to do what it took to get the votes? WHERE ARE THEY? I don’t see them admitting failure and resolving to do better. I don’t see you calling for them to do it. Rank fucking hypocrisy. I’ve come to expect nothing less from this political party and system that holds me and my needs as a human hostage with the threat of fascism if i don’t once again eat the shit sandwich. god fucking damn you make me sick.
[meta]
Hey, it really was the electorate this time.
You both (Ada, Augustus) are on the same side.
Ada codes female, Augustus codes male, you both have the same aspiration.
(But only one has the system right on them, right now. I think)
—
So, shit on me as much as you want, but I reckon you’re both on the same side.
“Why won’t others help me?”
I get it.
(Piteous helplessness, that’s you. O Woe!)
How am I supposed to feel more than helpless when the totality of acceptable action that’s available to me, that I have done, makes no difference whatsoever? You want to call me a crybaby bitch out loud?
How am I supposed to feel more than piteous helplessness when all of the acceptable political acts available to me, that I have engaged with, end up not helping? How am I supposed to engage in good faith with people who have decided it’s my fault?
I get it, Ada. But Augustus ain’t the enemy. Nor am I.
Maybe wrong, maybe stupid, maybe clueless.
But not inimical.
You’re the most gently condescending person I know, John. Thank you.
The voters are to blame. They were the ones who could have done otherwise, but they didn’t. Left-wingers always looking for excuses to not vote are to blame.
Even if I agreed with that opinion, it wouldn’t do us a damn bit of good to publicly say it. “Hi, we’re the next generation of Democrats and we think those tens of millions of voters who didn’t support Harris are total assholes and everything bad that’s happened under Trump is their fault! Vote for us next time!” That’s not a good way to win votes or respect, even if it’s demonstrably true. The only people who would stand by such childish rhetoric are Retrumplitarians using it to make Democrats look like out-of-touch elitist snobs. Again.
And do you really think “left-wingers” were the ones refusing to vote last year? What leads you to that claim?
It’s a claim designed to terminate the thought that the Democratic party owes something to voters; that the top-down model is right, proper and we should uphold it and never get our panties in bunch if we feel somehow excluded from or diminished by the process. Especially so if that process repeatedly demonstrates itself to be adversarial-at-best to the interests of justice.
I want some kind of accountability from the leadership of the DNC, or admission of failure, or anything that indicates that there’s a real plan to move forward in the midst of this catastrophe.
Ada: I agree with you. The major sticking-point here is that the Democrats’ failures, as I see them at least, are mostly strategic; so the discussion and accountability they need to show is mostly about Democratic strategy, which is not something one should discuss within earshot of one’s enemies. We need to be part of this discussion, but it’s a discussion that — in the early phases at least — won’t be happening on social-media or public forums.
@Ada Christine #66, 67, 68, 69,70, 71.
(Huh, & to think people accuse me of being incoherent & posting too many times consecutively.)
Yes. That’s true if you vote for and argue for a certain course of action then, yeah, you have at least a degree of responsibility I agree.
Because of voter suppression and also, yes, because too many who could’ve have voted chose not to and because too many who did vote chose poorly voting Trump either directly or via third party spoilers. I mean that’s just the reality. I don’t like it and wish it hadn’t been true but those were undeniably all factors in Trump becoming POTUS again.
We won’t. Arguably we didn’t this time. Voter Suppression, Electoral College, gerrymandering , Trump even being allowed to run at all.. ad nauseam.
Agreed at least in future tense. I think Kamala did pretty well given how far behind she was starting. She did end up making it very close when I don’t think that would’ve been true for Biden had he continued. I do wish Biden had stepped aside gracefully a year and a half say into his term. In fact, he should’ve arguably stepped aside as POTUS after the first debate making Kamala the incumbent and even if only briefly the first woman President for the USoA. Too late now .
Can’t now why any given individual voted for Trump – directly or indirectly but I reckon we can and should blame them for doing so. Choosing to do anything other than voting for Kamala Harris and the Democratic party in the last USA-ican election as the wrong decision. A wrong decision with deadly global consequences.
Really? Why? I thought she was very impressive there and with a few exceptions throughout her campaign. I hoped and really expected her to win.
Are you saying those who enable and help fascists take power shouldn’t be blamed for it? Why not? I think they need to be held accountable for it if at all possible.
Contextless that’s confusing. Who should FO & why here? is that aimed at anyone in particular? Context of the last post, well, I presume you’re not directing that at yourself..
Thankyou. Seriously. Respect for that, you chose right.in my view
@73. Ada Christine :
That’s fair enough. Understandable and agreed. It wasn’t trans rights that cost us the election and the Left are NOT looney” – that term better fits the science-denying reichwing.
Who exactly is doing that? Not me. Sorry if it seems that way.
You’re = ??? Me? (StevoR?)
I’m not chiding you personally and I don’t agree that the top DNC leadership are “fascism enablers” – the mere fact that they failed to beat it doesn’t make them enablers of fascism.
As this thread is continuing, I must add what I consider, after years of research, to be a more basic and more important factor. The DNC (the democratic party) are corporate owned crapitallist funded whores. They keep thwarting any efforts to reform them and make them more responsible to voters. THAT is a huge factor in why so many abandon them and vote for 3rd parties or not at all. Their corporate money makes them so immune to taking any responsibility, they don’t even care that they are shooting themselves (and society) in the foot.
My organization members wanted to find an honest, progressive candidate to vote for. But, there was none. We, disgustedly, voted against tRUMP by voting for Harris. However, she is a corporate whore, too. Now, we all, here in the untied states, are compelled to ride the tRUMP/muskrat death spiral, why doing whatever we can to thwart its destruction of what’s left of society.
@ ^shermanj : Again there’s the major problem of the alternative- the Trump kult party ex GOP – being far worse and MORE corporatist – and beholden to extremist theocrats & toxic deluded billionaires too and the whole USoA political system being totally broken and messed up.
Said before will repeat yet again. Huge political reforms are needed.
But how will they come?
Which is what now? What options are there and what do you recommend people do? Serious question. Don’t want to give in to despair here and defeatism gets us worse than nowhere but right now, well, increasingly hard not to..
@80. Raging Bee : “do you really think “left-wingers” were the ones refusing to vote last year? What leads you to that claim?”
Well, for starters the people like Vicar and beholder who flat out said they voted third party or stayed home to punish Kamala Harris for Biden’s support for Israel in Gaza.
There were whole organisations like the Abandon Harris one which..
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_war_protest_vote_movements
Well, they succeeded. They punished Kamala for the policies of Biden and the genocide committed by Netanyahu and now they’ve got Trump to deal with who is rewarding them by, let’s see, putting together the most pro-Israel regime ever and is openly stating that he will see Gaza’s population ethnically cleansed (not that he used those exact words but well, see OP here) and will almost certainly allow Israel to annex and genocide or ethnically cleanse all the Palestinians in the West bank too. As people like me warned before the election only to be ignored..
Well, good job you stupid stupid, stupid, self-destructive, delusional, irrational, illogical, unthinking, suicidal to your own supposed cause, klowns. Why yes, that does make me absolutely fucking furious.
(Adjectives listed for emphasis and yet insufficient to convey real scope of the GLOBAL damage these utter fools have done.)
Because they have indeed doomed us all around the planet to the damage that Trump will do which is going to extend far beyond just Gaza and the rest of Palestine.
See also POLL: HUGE REASON WHY DEMS LOST (clip has and quotes other sources there – under 15 mins long) & then the consequences of this on the one issue (out of so many) that they supposedly chose to do that for here Owne Jones – Trump: We Will EXPEL Gaza’s ENTIRE POPULATION! (9 minutes long.).
Caps original YT’s titles.
@ Stevo
Not voting for someone in not a “punishment”.
Have you ever thought of directing your rage toward, y’know, people who actually voted for Trump. Just for a change. There’s like 77 million of them.
@ ^ Silentbob : “@ Stevo – Not voting for someone in not a “punishment”.
Yes it is -especially when they specifically say that and make it clear that they aren’t voting for you becoz of X. Even more so when the alternatiev si so much worse on everything incl X. In this case Gaza. Haven’t you listened to what people here and elsewhere have been saying including in the linked Kyle Kulinski clip in #86 and the quoiet there : Okay, again for clarityadn this time bolded for emphasis
Not only that they took credit for defeating harris and later in same wikipage :
Take II for clarityand readability – blockquotes should work and appear as intended this time. Sure wish I could edit here. Did put through word & spellcheck but of course that doesn’t catch everything, sigh.
.***
@ ^ Silentbob : “@ Stevo – Not voting for someone in not a “punishment”.
Yes it is – especially when they specifically say that and make it clear that they aren’t voting for you becoz of X. Even more so when the alternative is so much worse on everything incl X. In this case Gaza. Haven’t you listened to what people here and elsewhere have been saying including in the linked Kyle Kulinski clip in #86 and the quote there : Okay, again for clarity and this time bolded for emphasis
Not only that they took credit for defeating Harris and later in same wikipage :
Yeah, the fools expected Trump to show gratitude just like he did for fucking Wikileaks and Assange in 2016..How willfully ignorant and self-deluded is that eh?
.* Yeesh, the very name is a bit of a clue as to what they are – unjustly in my view – advocating ain’t it?
.** Then when he wasn’t running anymore they went after Kamala Harris despite her being more sympathetic to Palestinians calling what was happening to Gazans “heart-breaking”+ for .. reasons?
.*** Which do I really need to go through basic maths and logic yet again for the umpteenth time and point out either of those things supports Trump de facto becoz the ONLY way to stop Trump and Fascism was to vote for Kamala.
See :
Source : https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/23/politics/gaza-israel-harris-convention-speech/index.html
But the Abandon Harris movement decided they wanted Trump – who reminder – scroll up to the OP and note he’s doubled down on moving all Gazans out of Gaza and cracking down on pro-Palestinian protesters to boot. Again, good fucking job you self-destructive, counter-productive klowns. The Arab-Americans who opposed & voted against Kamala not only metaphorically shot themselves in both feet but then shot themselves in the kneecaps and guts repeatedly. Which, was their choice but they also shot the rest of the world in the guts repeatedly too. For which I will never forgive them.
@87. Silentbob :“Have you ever thought of directing your rage toward, y’know, people who actually voted for Trump. Just for a change. There’s like 77 million of them.”
Don’t worry I do. You think I don’t?
There’s plenty of blame to go around. Setting aside the fact as pointed out in #89 above they did actually vote for Trump either directly or indirectly.
There’s Voter suppression which really robbed Kamala most of all, there’s Biden not stepping aside half way thru his term which he shoulda done, and Jill Stein & Cornell Wests’ utterly toxic and virtually criminal vanity Presidential runs as spoilers and their really quite suspicious lack of any shred of integrity and intelligence and ethics in NOT stepping aside and throwing their support 100% behind Kamala to stop Trump. There’s RFK Jr conveniently deciding to help Trump by doing exactly what Stein & West didn’t instead of splitting the tinfoil hat mob as polling showed he was doing and Trump was attacking him for last year.
There’s the sheer willfully ignorant, willfully cruel deplorableness of American voters. The failure of education, rationality and decency of too many American voters and people which has long since made them a global laughingstock and tarred the ret of them by association.
There’s the contemptible uselessness of Merrick Garland and other legal figures whose refusal to do the right thing and allow Justice Delayed to become Justice Denied rather than throwing the legal book at Trump from the evening of Jan 6th onwards. It still staggers me that Trump wasn’t jailed that very fucking night.
There’s the weakness that Biden showed in NOT immediately using his SCOTUS given divine reich of kings to wipe out the Trumpists as brutally as they allowed him to do with their ruling which Trump will now benefit from and do. If I was Biden, the second I heard that ruling there’d have been the immediate arrests of Trump, his main henchmen and the treason SCOTUS Justices imposed by Trump himself. Oh, you give me unlimited executive power huh? Well, right, I ain’t holding back.
Then I’d use my power to say no one should have such power or be above the law and I’d step down after giving the whole appalling, fouled up mess of a US political system founded by fucking slave-owners a very hard reboot with very different and much more rational laws starting with no Electoral College and preferential voting and an independent national commission setting political boundaries to end gerrymandering Oz style. Fuck it, just change the whole US system over to the Aussie one, we’re flawed but nowhere near as bad as the USoA is. (Minus the hereditary monarch on the other side of the planet natch. Make the GG just a figurehead as ours but without that. Anyhow.)
Oh I’m plenty angry at plenty of people but those who made that key difference who could’ve stopped Trump and his fascism and didn’t well, are you okay with what they did and the consequences our whole planet will face now because of it?
Fucks sake. Italics fail, sorry. Its been along hot day here and I’m tired.
Another consecutive comment here I know but timezones and times people participate here and all and I’ve only just now seen this To all of the 2024 “protest voters”, you own this ( just 3 mins 54 secs long) YT message by Tom Powell Jr which I second and illustrates that I’m certainly NOT alone in my thinking here. He puts it well and states it very clearly I reckon..
Outcomes. Results. Conseqeunces. What are they eh?
@88 StevoR
Very interesting. I’ll assume that was the answer to my question in the other thread.
StevoR, you’ve had a problematic history with pro-Israel screeds in the past that often veered into vicious anti-Arab racism. Getting you to change your script seems to be a lost cause, so I’m not surprised to see glimmers of your old ways.
@ StevoR
Nah, can’t take seriously anyone who records a video as a mirror image selfie and doesn’t even flip it the right way around. What an idiot.
Take your rage out on people who voted for Trump, not people who wouldn’t have voted for Trump if you paid them.
…I must add what I consider, after years of research, to be a more basic and more important factor. The DNC (the democratic party) are corporate owned crapitallist funded whores.
“Years of research” led you to an old, stupid phrase that’s too vague to be useful or descriptive, and doesn’t even cover half of the Democratic Party’s longstanding problems? Seriously? You need to research better.
Oh, and the DNC is not “the democratic party.” National political parties are a LOT bigger and more complex than that. For better or worse, Democrats aren’t ruled by an all-powerful “Central Committee” like certain Communist parties have been.
StevoR: Are you sure the people who abandoned Harris are “leftists?” I’m not sure, but I suspect they’re mostly in that vague “independent/uncommitted voter” category, and gave up on Harris precisely because they didn’t really have any ideological affiliation beyond disgust over Biden’s support of Israel, combined with fence-sitting “moderate” refusal to commit to anything else.
Then again, it’s kinda hard to say who’s a “leftist” in America, given that we’ve been letting Republican liars define what’s “left” since 1980…
Sorry, I hit “Post” too soon, and forgot to add that IIRC a lot of the abandonment was by (non)voters in areas populated by Muslim immigrant families — not who I’d call “leftist” on any issue except opposition to Israel.
@93. beholder : “Very interesting. I’ll assume that was the answer to my question in the other thread.””
You’ll assume wrong then. It wasn’t. What other question on what other thread exactly?
Attacking the messenger and not engaging or addressing the actual points raised as usual I notice oh Trump enabling, Putin apologist troll. You have “problematic history” here in attacking he only alternative to Trump and fascism and failing to vote in the only way that could have stopped Trump as most of us here know.
@94. Silentbob :
Huh. I didn’t notice that. I was focusing on the actual substance of the video and what Tom Powell Jr was saying there rather than the mirror image background. I don’t think a superficial detail of presentation / style over-rides the point(s) being made. You do?
Again, I do and those people I mentioned in #89 and previous comments in this thread, people including beholder and Vicar here, are Trump voters – some direct and some indirectly through voting for rotten spoilers or not bothering to get out and vote against fascism inthe only way that would actually stop it taking power.
“Wouldn’t have voted for Trump if you paid them” huh? Yet they de facto did vote for Trump.
@ 96. Raging Bee
Good points although some of them certainly are or at least call themselves “Leftists” and “progressives.” Whether their self- labelling is honest is another question entirely frex beholder here again.
@95 Raging Bee :
Quoiting for truth and seconded.
Stevo, their is no such thing as “de facto” voting for Trump. The number of “de facto” votes counted for Trump was nil. There were 77,284,118 actual votes, and zero “de facto” votes. Get a grip.
The election was between Trump and his opponent. Third parties were not in it.
The election is determined by the difference in votes between those two candidates.
Any vote that could have but did not go to Trump’s opponent was one more net vote for Trump.
Fact.
Mathy as shit.
POTUS(σ(t), σ(h)) = {1 if σ(t) > σ(h), 0 otherwise}
—
Could hardly be simpler, really.
One more net vote for trump, in your estimable estimation, is not a “de facto” vote for Trump.
(I just gave you the mathiness for the Trumpotous criterical constraint)
—
Perhaps you’d grok it more if it were termed ‘functional’? ‘Effectively’? Something like that?
(And you have literally dozens of times called me hyperliteral!)
And you call me arrogant!
A vote that was not cast, but which might have been cast, is still a vote.
The proportion of the eligible electorate that bothered to vote was barely a majority, and of that lot, the majority voted for Trump.
Each vote not cast, when it might have been cast, when it was legal to cast, for whatever reason, would otherwise count.
Anyway. I can already tell I’ve lost you in the weeds.
(You don’t even understand the concept you are feebly attempting to criticise!)
Another thing I should emphasize, which I’ve said in at least two earlier Pharyngula threads, is that Democrats didn’t just lose support over Gaza; they lost support because they consistently failed (in the public perception at least) to lead when they could have. Specifically, among other things, they didn’t do shit to prosecute Trump for inciting an insurrection and trying to overthrow our government; and they simply sat back and let Trump and his party flood our media with endless lies, about everything, all the time, with no serious concerted attempt to give the people a clear picture of the truth. I’m sure most of the people who abandoned Harris knew how bad Trump would be — but they also saw Democrats not doing shit about him when they were in power; so they probably just thought “Yes, we know Trump is bad, but why should we do anything to fight him if you won’t?” When leaders aren’t leading, you can’t exactly blame followers for not following.
I know this may sound fascist or authoritarian to some, but people need leadership to do the right thing effectively; and they won’t support someone who doesn’t speak to them clearly and honestly, or show will, effort or results. This isn’t a leftist or rightist thing, it’s a HUMAN thing, and lack of leadership, even on just one issue, will discourage more than just those who care about that issue.
@100. Silentbob : Oh there absolutley Is such a thing as de facto voting for Trump.
Are you for fucking real?
Do you really not get that seriously? Do you not know what it actually means and how how that works after this long being American as I gather you are? After Nader robbed Al Gore in 2000 and Stein et al robbed HRC in 2016 – and people thought Stein & West wouldn’t rob Kamala this time given that history?
Fer fucks sake! Its pretty simple. In the horrible binary system the United States had – where they lack preferential or run off voting so you can only vote for one candidate rather than listing candidates in order like you do in a rational political system then the third party spoilers effectively mean making the ideal the enemy of the good. I.e. three candidates and supposedly at leats insome minds utopian best candidate which has zero chance of actually winning, a good candidate whoactually could win and a terrible one who you avoslutley need to stopand could very wellwin , well, here we go, Stein, Kamala, Trump. A vote for Stein who cannot win is a de facto a vote for Trump.
Kamala could’ve and should’ve won. Despite everything being already tilted against her. One key factor was the third party spoiler vote which really did NOT help as people warned about.
I disagree. I blame both, and will never forgive either.
No, they didn’t: Trump received approximately 49.8% of the vote, which is not a majority.