If more people had made more noise when Biden continually violated the Leahy Law and circumvented Congress to provide arms to an ongoing genocide… We had a chance to fix the system. To hold him accountable and make sure no matter who was the next president, they’d also be able to be held accountable.
Citizens did make noise, citizens did point out that he violated Leahy Law, and the way to hold politicians accountable in a democracy is getting them out of office and away from the levers of power. Well here we are, Biden and Dems are going out of office and the genocide is going to be actively being accelerated by the Trump administration gleefully flooding Israel with more weapons “cleanse” Gaza so they can build their gaudy hotels and fulfill some Book of Revelations prophesy because the republican party is absolutely flooded with Dominionists.
And the real irony is that of the two candidates, which one is most likely to respond to post-election pressure to adjust the policies?
Sure sure sure, Trump can be influenced by money and flattery, but the people that are going to pay and flatter him are not exactly the ones arguing to save the lives of innocent civilians.
So the irony remains, of the two candidates to choose from, the people complaining about what is happening in Gaza picked the one least likely to do anything helpful once elected (“do” as opposed to what they said to get elected).
And there is no political leverage the proletariat has to push for policy change after the election. The pressure came from “do what we say or at election time we vote for someone else”
Well, every fucking election when it comes time to follow through after they again failed to hold up their end of the bargain the majority gets cold feet and caves to familiarity because risking change is scary.
At this point, we get to make a lengthy explanation about First Past the Post always leading to a 2 party system because of the spoiler effect, we get to a lengthy history explanation about how the (at the time) progressive republican party won the election with Abraham Lincoln because the (at the time) conservative Democrat party split into Dixiecrats in favor of slavery and northern Democrats who didn’t care either way and the Whig party just up and died in 1850 and that’s the only way a 3rd party becomes viable in FPTP. And then we just argue back and forth of “well if people just spontaneously saw things the way I do they would vote third party too!” to “That’s not how reality works.”
Correction, that’s not how reality works in terms of voting systems, you’d be surprised just how few people actually understand how voting systems work and why different voting systems break down in various ways and the greatest mathematicians for the last 150+ years have not devised a perfect voting system.
But at this point, you took my conclusion about how the reality of voting systems break down and strawmanned it implying people already know government is corrupt.
That’s not a straw man. You left your response open-ended for someone else to draw conclusions and inferences from. In no way was that response out of context or a mischaracterization of the initial idea you layed out. stop trying to straw man the concept of a straw man.
I didn’t ask which has the different policy now (ignoring my opinion about the truth of your assertion) but which is most likely to be responsive to public opinion; and I’d add, which one actually cares about the plight of others and which is an unofficially diagnosed narcissist.
But I’m fairly certain we won’t agree and sadly we’ll never know what Kamala coulda/woulda done. But with trump we’re about to Find Out. I hope we’re both wrong about him.
which is most likely to be responsive to public opinion
Neither. There were states that voted 11% undecided in the Democratic primaries with the explicit public purpose of trying to force Dems to stop sending WMD’s to Israel. That was a fairly significant public statement on administration policy.
The Dems ignored them and sent more WMD’s anyway.
Whether you agree with me or not is immaterial. On the issue of Israel’s genocide, both parties are exactly the same.
I don’t agree that 11% undecided in the primary is a “fairly significant public statement”, I mean, literally 11% is like, you know, small. Nor does a lack of policy change during the election cycle (which has a lot more factors than just Gaza to consider) immediately mean Kamala wouldn’t be open to changing tactics post election. But we’ll never know because, like I said, Trump won and now we get to find out if voting for him was net good or net bad for the Gaza cause.
But I can appreciate the emotional investment you have in “both sides-ing” this and ignoring the material differences between a narcissist that is already talking about lifting arms restrictions to Israel and Kamala.
Weather you agree with me or not is immaterial. On the issue of both parties being the same, you’re wrong. See how easy that is to say and it means nothing to an actual debate?
Not an apples to apples comparison of primary elections and general election. Regardless that isn’t an argument against my point that an 11% undecided vote is hardly a “fairly significant public statement”. The point you’re addressing is if I said 11% hardly made a difference. Which I didn’t.
Well apparently it is significant enough, isn’t it? How close was Michigan? You’re just arguing semantics in order to ignore the fact that Kamala shot herself, and all of us, in the foot by ignoring the uncommitted movement.
Well, they were significant enough, clearly. Probably wish you had those votes now.
See how easy that is to say and it means nothing to an actual debate?
It’s easy to say because I’m right. It doesn’t matter what Democrats say they’re going to do when they have exactly the same position as the other party.
Sure I wish we had those votes, though I don’t think “the gaza protest vote” would have won the election for Kamala if it went the other way. Way too many other reasons she lost.
I also hope you don’t find yourself wishing you had those votes go to Kamala as well. Which is to say, I hope you don’t realize the leopard has eaten your face, because that would mean the incoming administration actually enacting policy that moves the needle in the direction of less violence in Gaza.
We’ll both find out the answer in the coming months if it was really worth it or not.
You think because a small minority tried to hold Biden to a higher standard…
That it’s their fault Kamala lost when people who aren’t politically engaged didn’t want to vote for someone who said she agreed with (literally) everything Biden had done and wouldn’t have changed anything?
You’re saying that since Biden wasnt held accountable and Dems lost, the lesson is for no one to ever try to hold a Dem accountable?
Like, I’ve heard that before, usually I just block people with those opinions because I’d just never have a productive exchange with them…
But you kind of beat around the bush there.
Are you really blaming the voters and not the candidate?
I think Dems lost because a some of missteps along the way and some external factors. I think Biden should have said he wasn’t running again sooner, there should have been a proper primary, there needed to be even more of a focus on economic populism and making actual progress, not just trying to maintain the status quo. There were a lot of people who just didn’t vote. And then Republicans
At the end of the day, the only people who have an opinion about Palestine are politically engaged leftists who want to see the genocide stop and anyone watching Fox News who wants Israel to win. For the rest of America unfortunately, it doesn’t matter to them. That’s a fight happening halfway around the world between 2 nations that aren’t us.
I would have loved to see a peaceful end to the conflict, but that’s wasn’t going to realistically happen either way, but I would much preferred to see as little escalation as possible, and trump is nothing but escalation.
So again, we punished democrats in the way democracy punishes people who actually believe in democratic processes and let republicans who don’t give 2 shits about democratic processes get to run rampant in the government. Good. Fucking. Job.
At the end of the day, the only people who have an opinion about Palestine are politically engaged leftists who want to see the genocide stop and anyone watching Fox News who wants Israel to win. For the rest of America unfortunately, it doesn’t matter to them. That’s a fight happening halfway around the world between 2 nations that aren’t us.
If Kamala had got the “genocide is bad and we shouldn’t fund it” voters, she’d have won and trump would be getting sentenced soon for his crimes…
You can argue that most don’t care. And while I disagree I’m not going to bother looking for a survey.
Because it’s a moot point.
It doesn’t matter if a majority of voters care. It’s the right thing to do, and for a Dem candidate “doing the right thing” still translates to an increase in votes regardless of if people care about the specific victims of this genocide.
So again, we punished democrats in the way democracy punishes people who actually believe in democratic processes and let republicans who don’t give 2 shits about democratic processes get to run rampant in the governmen
You’re still blaming voters…
Kamala, her campaign team, and the DNC lost their election.
Their job is to convince voters to vote for them. Instead every “compromise” they tried to steal republican voters gained zero votes and lost people who were trying to hold their nose for her
Thanks for responding though to clarify. I just don’t think anything we tell each other will be productive
One point of clarification after I say there were people who just didn’t vote, I also intended to say add Republicans launched several purges of voter registrations that tended to hit anyone further to the left of them and employed every voter suppression tactic in the book to depress Democrat voter turnout.
Citizens did make noise, citizens did point out that he violated Leahy Law, and the way to hold politicians accountable in a democracy is getting them out of office and away from the levers of power. Well here we are, Biden and Dems are going out of office and the genocide is going to be actively being accelerated by the Trump administration gleefully flooding Israel with more weapons “cleanse” Gaza so they can build their gaudy hotels and fulfill some Book of Revelations prophesy because the republican party is absolutely flooded with Dominionists.
Good. Fucking. Job.
Exactly.
And the real irony is that of the two candidates, which one is most likely to respond to post-election pressure to adjust the policies?
Sure sure sure, Trump can be influenced by money and flattery, but the people that are going to pay and flatter him are not exactly the ones arguing to save the lives of innocent civilians.
So the irony remains, of the two candidates to choose from, the people complaining about what is happening in Gaza picked the one least likely to do anything helpful once elected (“do” as opposed to what they said to get elected).
On the issue of Israel, neither. They have exactly the same policies.
And there is no political leverage the proletariat has to push for policy change after the election. The pressure came from “do what we say or at election time we vote for someone else”
Well, every fucking election when it comes time to follow through after they again failed to hold up their end of the bargain the majority gets cold feet and caves to familiarity because risking change is scary.
You’re not wrong.
That’s why 99% of voters pick the same two shitty parties that are driving them to the brink of homelessness.
At this point, we get to make a lengthy explanation about First Past the Post always leading to a 2 party system because of the spoiler effect, we get to a lengthy history explanation about how the (at the time) progressive republican party won the election with Abraham Lincoln because the (at the time) conservative Democrat party split into Dixiecrats in favor of slavery and northern Democrats who didn’t care either way and the Whig party just up and died in 1850 and that’s the only way a 3rd party becomes viable in FPTP. And then we just argue back and forth of “well if people just spontaneously saw things the way I do they would vote third party too!” to “That’s not how reality works.”
People know how reality works. That’s why 10,000,000 fewer people voted this election.
Correction, that’s not how reality works in terms of voting systems, you’d be surprised just how few people actually understand how voting systems work and why different voting systems break down in various ways and the greatest mathematicians for the last 150+ years have not devised a perfect voting system.
But at this point, you took my conclusion about how the reality of voting systems break down and strawmanned it implying people already know government is corrupt.
That’s not a straw man. You left your response open-ended for someone else to draw conclusions and inferences from. In no way was that response out of context or a mischaracterization of the initial idea you layed out. stop trying to straw man the concept of a straw man.
I didn’t ask which has the different policy now (ignoring my opinion about the truth of your assertion) but which is most likely to be responsive to public opinion; and I’d add, which one actually cares about the plight of others and which is an unofficially diagnosed narcissist.
But I’m fairly certain we won’t agree and sadly we’ll never know what Kamala coulda/woulda done. But with trump we’re about to Find Out. I hope we’re both wrong about him.
Neither. There were states that voted 11% undecided in the Democratic primaries with the explicit public purpose of trying to force Dems to stop sending WMD’s to Israel. That was a fairly significant public statement on administration policy.
The Dems ignored them and sent more WMD’s anyway.
Whether you agree with me or not is immaterial. On the issue of Israel’s genocide, both parties are exactly the same.
I don’t agree that 11% undecided in the primary is a “fairly significant public statement”, I mean, literally 11% is like, you know, small. Nor does a lack of policy change during the election cycle (which has a lot more factors than just Gaza to consider) immediately mean Kamala wouldn’t be open to changing tactics post election. But we’ll never know because, like I said, Trump won and now we get to find out if voting for him was net good or net bad for the Gaza cause.
But I can appreciate the emotional investment you have in “both sides-ing” this and ignoring the material differences between a narcissist that is already talking about lifting arms restrictions to Israel and Kamala.
Weather you agree with me or not is immaterial. On the issue of both parties being the same, you’re wrong. See how easy that is to say and it means nothing to an actual debate?
-Cheers
How many swing states lost by 11%?
Not an apples to apples comparison of primary elections and general election. Regardless that isn’t an argument against my point that an 11% undecided vote is hardly a “fairly significant public statement”. The point you’re addressing is if I said 11% hardly made a difference. Which I didn’t.
Well apparently it is significant enough, isn’t it? How close was Michigan? You’re just arguing semantics in order to ignore the fact that Kamala shot herself, and all of us, in the foot by ignoring the uncommitted movement.
Well, they were significant enough, clearly. Probably wish you had those votes now.
It’s easy to say because I’m right. It doesn’t matter what Democrats say they’re going to do when they have exactly the same position as the other party.
Sure I wish we had those votes, though I don’t think “the gaza protest vote” would have won the election for Kamala if it went the other way. Way too many other reasons she lost.
I also hope you don’t find yourself wishing you had those votes go to Kamala as well. Which is to say, I hope you don’t realize the leopard has eaten your face, because that would mean the incoming administration actually enacting policy that moves the needle in the direction of less violence in Gaza.
We’ll both find out the answer in the coming months if it was really worth it or not.
So…
You think because a small minority tried to hold Biden to a higher standard…
That it’s their fault Kamala lost when people who aren’t politically engaged didn’t want to vote for someone who said she agreed with (literally) everything Biden had done and wouldn’t have changed anything?
You’re saying that since Biden wasnt held accountable and Dems lost, the lesson is for no one to ever try to hold a Dem accountable?
Like, I’ve heard that before, usually I just block people with those opinions because I’d just never have a productive exchange with them…
But you kind of beat around the bush there.
Are you really blaming the voters and not the candidate?
I think Dems lost because a some of missteps along the way and some external factors. I think Biden should have said he wasn’t running again sooner, there should have been a proper primary, there needed to be even more of a focus on economic populism and making actual progress, not just trying to maintain the status quo. There were a lot of people who just didn’t vote. And then Republicans
At the end of the day, the only people who have an opinion about Palestine are politically engaged leftists who want to see the genocide stop and anyone watching Fox News who wants Israel to win. For the rest of America unfortunately, it doesn’t matter to them. That’s a fight happening halfway around the world between 2 nations that aren’t us.
I would have loved to see a peaceful end to the conflict, but that’s wasn’t going to realistically happen either way, but I would much preferred to see as little escalation as possible, and trump is nothing but escalation.
So again, we punished democrats in the way democracy punishes people who actually believe in democratic processes and let republicans who don’t give 2 shits about democratic processes get to run rampant in the government. Good. Fucking. Job.
If Kamala had got the “genocide is bad and we shouldn’t fund it” voters, she’d have won and trump would be getting sentenced soon for his crimes…
You can argue that most don’t care. And while I disagree I’m not going to bother looking for a survey.
Because it’s a moot point.
It doesn’t matter if a majority of voters care. It’s the right thing to do, and for a Dem candidate “doing the right thing” still translates to an increase in votes regardless of if people care about the specific victims of this genocide.
You’re still blaming voters…
Kamala, her campaign team, and the DNC lost their election.
Their job is to convince voters to vote for them. Instead every “compromise” they tried to steal republican voters gained zero votes and lost people who were trying to hold their nose for her
Thanks for responding though to clarify. I just don’t think anything we tell each other will be productive
One point of clarification after I say there were people who just didn’t vote, I also intended to say add Republicans launched several purges of voter registrations that tended to hit anyone further to the left of them and employed every voter suppression tactic in the book to depress Democrat voter turnout.