The strength of the uncommitted campaign “surprised” Biden’s campaign, the Times added, noting that the movement is now likely to spread to other states.
The White House contrition in Dearborn, where more than half of residents are Arab American, did not appear to quell criticism. “Uncommitted” beat Biden 56-40 in the city, winning 47 of the city’s 48 precincts with most of the votes counted, according to the Detroit Free Press.
“That’s a wow,” CNN’s John King exclaimed while the votes were still being counted Tuesday night.
“This is a place President Biden carried big time in 2020. This is key to his chances of defeating Donald Trump in Michigan,” he said, adding that the concentration of votes signals that Biden’s “big problem” is that “Muslim Americans who were critical, absolutely critical to his big margin in Michigan in 2020, are telling the president tonight that they are mad.”
Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?
US support for Israel goes back decades. America has been in bed with all sorts of dictators commiting heinous crimes and still is. Not to forget the illegal invasion of Iraq with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties or the long list of US war crimes revealed by WikiLeaks and largely indiscriminate drone strikes across the globe. Most of these seemed to elicit much harsher condemnation overseas while the US public appeared generally uninterested. So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn’t even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?
There were marches like, every other weekend about the invasion of Iraq even before the news came out that we were there over a lie. But Bush was president and it was like, “aww… look at the hippies… they think they’re helping… lol!”
It was honestly hard to protest when Obama was in office because there were so many frothing racists about that any public protests against the actions of the president would be joined by literal KKK members. But we wrote letters… oh boy did we ever write letters. Letter writing parties, phone banking about writing letters, sending out mailers with contact info for all of the local reps and higher ups to send letters to, including pre stamped envelopes and form letters to add your name to.
Nobody cared because Obama was so popular that there wasn’t really a question of his reelection. Biden is not that popular, the rare opportunity to use a major issue as leverage to threaten a reelection campaign, even if the result of his loss would be dire is why there is so much news about public opinion on Israel/Palestine.
Mainly just due to the recency and severity of the conflict in Gaza, and the fact that it’s an election year. Americans never cared when Israeli soldiers routinely dehumanized, murdered, and raped Palestinians in small numbers here and there, but the widespread media coverage of the conflict in Palestine has helped shape public opinion to recognize the incredibly disproportionate response on the part of Israel to the Oct. 7 attacks.
Biden is reaffirming the US’s long-held stance on Israel, but it is a stance that is becoming less popular with many who disagree with what Israel is doing. Michigan in particular has a high population of Muslims who turned out in large numbers to oppose Biden, which is why this managed to become newsworthy.
I would also wager a good chunk of this narrative (certainly not all or even the majority, but a good chunk) is likely promoted by Republican-aligned groups who are using this momentum to discourage people on the fence from voting for Biden in the general to help secure a Trump win. Notably a lot of news coverage I’ve seen lately featured people confirming their plan to vote for Trump, rather than vote for no one, because of Biden’s stance on Israel.
Trump himself is remaining relatively tight-lipped about his stance on Israel during this election cycle, despite being a vocal ally of Netanyahu during his previous term, to try to keep the dialog focused on Biden. But it is expected he will continue support for Israel, or even escalate it, due to his previous amicable relationship with Israel and based on how much his voter base likes to dehumanize Muslims (blocking all Muslims from entering the US was an early campaign promise of his in 2016).
No. We cared. It’s just really hard to get anyone to look at the issue when the standard media line was, lol brown people terrorists.
Progressives who pay attention to international politics have been yelling from the rooftops about Israel’s Apartheid tactics for at least 2 decades.
Potential narrative or sentiment shift driven by bots in the wake of the upcoming election?
There’s definitely a lot of sentiment against him for what he’s done in regards to this of course but it’s seemed to have accelerated in an unnatural fashion.
“Everyone I disagree with is a bot and it is only I, the one with the correct opinions, who is a thinking human being who is also immune to propaganda”
- Younger generations are less pro Israel.
- There’s a segment of liberals that view any victimized or oppressed group as morally superior regardless of context.
- Michigan specifically has a very high population of Muslim/middle eastern descent.
- It’s not that sudden, there’s been growing criticism and calling Israel an apartheid state for years. The recent escalation in hostilities just made it more newsworthy.
OK but republicans demanded help to Israel to help Ukraine, until they changed it up.
So it seems that although Biden may be bad, the only alternative is worse.If you’re being punched in the gut, it’s not reassuring that the other option is going to use a bat instead.
But why clear the way for the worse guy to get to you?
Ya, Trump bad and all, but maybe it’s Biden who should do more to get the anti-genocide vote. Isn’t getting votes part of his job?
No, the president gets our votes automatically because he’s got the job already and can beat the mean fascist man without tying! All we have to do is verbally abuse anyone criticizing Biden and we’ll surely have him as president again and there’ll be no problems come 2028 or anything!
there’ll be no problems come 2028 or anything!
Downvote them all you want, it’s a very poignant point that’s left at the wayside of defeating Trump right now. Joe wins in ‘24? The threat of a second Trump presidency is deferred, but he has fundamentally transformed American politics regardless
Glad someone else is talking about this, fascism is not going away.
Progressives in a nutshell. They will be upset with the status quo no matter what.
Even if Bernie was nominated and elected, progressives would have turned on him within a year, because he wouldn’t have been able to get policy passed without major concessions, which would then alienate the progressive base for not being perfect.
You are correct. People expect big sweeping changes and are upset when it doesn’t. What people need to realise is that it’s like a rudder on a giant ship. If you keep voting left then you slowly move left. Which also means any time the right wins we stay on course or move further right.
People need to take a long term view.
Until you actually look at the rudder and realize it’s not connected to the electoral system at all.
“If you don’t like our hellscape status quo then you’re just looking for perfection” - out of touch democrat stans
So you support genocide, but you’re mad that progressives don’t?
Really? You believe that’s a good talking point?
Wow.
Even if Bernie was nominated and elected, progressives would have turned on him within a year, because he wouldn’t have been able to get policy passed without major concessions, which would then alienate the progressive base for not being perfect.
I’m gonna borrow this, very succinct.
I’m starting to believe the worse guy isn’t much worse after all. I wanted Biden to win because of promised immigration reform. He promised to halt the expansion of the wall. Give a pathway to all the people under DACA suffering in eternal immigration limbo.
What does he do instead? Continues the Trump administration’s policies of using COVID loopholes to deny people at the border seeking asylum. Then he expands construction of the wall he promised to halt, and meanwhile does a couple photoshoots at the border with CBP officers.
Of course, absolutely squat was said about DACA or the millions of people who were filled with hope in 2020 after Biden won. Now we know the hope was a scam. It was all an illusion. A mirage.
My main reason I don’t want Trump is because he is racist and xenophobic against Latin Americans. But if Biden is following in his footsteps virtually exactly…
Why should I give a shit who becomes president? I don’t like Trump but there’s no way I’m voting for Biden. I want him to lose. I want the Democrats to realize they can’t just do this forever. I want them to change their strategy. If I vote for Biden and he wins, they learn nothing. They will continue lying and being hypocrites forever.
If Trump wins, you may never get a chance to vote for another president.
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath, to even try to compare the 2 on the level of evil they are capable of, is extremely naive. Also Trump is a traitor who is willing to sell out American interests to Putin.
You may be disappointed with Biden, but there is zero doubt he is the lesser of 2 evils by far. Especially if you are not a billionaire.If Trump wins, you may never get a chance to vote for another president.
what is the difference between not being able to vote and being forced into voting for one candidate you hate?
Trump is a narcissistic sociopath, to even try to compare the 2 on the level of evil they are capable of, is extremely naive
i think you are the one being naive. trump cannot be the eternal boogeyman that justifies giving the democrats a blank check to do whatever they want. they are both equally shit. trump’s a xenophobic racist who was aspirations to be another mussolini, biden actively supports genocide and does not give a single fuck about the people who put him in power.
there is no lesser evil here. just two different types of evil
I would also add that social media showing real-time atrocities happening has also played a role.
Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?
He proactively circumvented congress to sell Netanyahu weapons that he knew would be used for genocide.
Democrats can always find a lame procedural excuse when there’s something they ran on but don’t want to do, but when it’s something they want to do like enable genocide (and oh lordy do they ever), procedure and decorum evaporate in a puff of hypocrisy and convenience.
Guess you missed the huge anti Iraq war protests in the early 2000s. And the fact that we’ve been making Internet jokes about that and George Bush junior since forever.
propaganda and division bots mostly.
So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn’t even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?
Because the US is by all means an active party. The US is selling Israel weapons (including weapons Biden has been bypassing Congress to sell), defending them on the international stage and literally sent them aircraft carriers to prevent anyone in the region from taking action. People have been found guilty in the Numenberg trials for less and people aren’t liking the man who’s supposed to represent them doing these things.
Because the genocide in Gaza is currently at an all time high? Israel is actively in the process of invading them, supported and defended fully by the US to the detriment of the international community?
America isn’t currently arming death squads in South America or where right now at the moment or you’d be hearing about that instead.
It’s like asking why are Americans talking so much more about trans rights lately when they’ve always been bad.
I need to know more about these South American death squads. Can you point me in the right direction?
The American left is furious at Biden for the same reason we’re angry at pretty much any President’s foreign policy. We’ve opposed most of the interventions and support for dictators that presidents in the latter half of the twentieth century up to today have engaged in. But we have never been the majority, and haven’t had the power to stop them. It’s important to remember that about a third of the US is composed or pretty reasonable, pro-peace social democrats. The problem is that another third are “moderates” that are okay with empire as long as we pretend we’re being nice, and the last third are maniacal religious fascists.
It’s one of the chosen flavor of the month hot topics of manufactured outrage they all jump on every election year.
In 2016 and 2020 it was the Bernie Bros. This year it’s this mess. Most of them didn’t have two shits to give about Palestine six months ago, and probably couldn’t have pointed to it on a map- and now they’re all experts on the Palestinian/Israeli war.
They’ll all disappear after the election not giving a shit over who won- and they’ll be indistinguishable from the rest of the people complaining about whoever wins.
I wasn’t on Lemmy for the 2021 bombing campaign. Trying to look at people’s comment history on a new platform to see if they cared about it in the past is hilarious.
Yeah, genocide sure is manufactured outage. I’m sure you’re one of those people who think you would’ve stood up to the nazis. In reality you stan the democrat party, which insists we work with republicans and which also loves funding genocide.
I “stan” for democracy. And yes- your accusation of Biden committing genocide is absolutely manufactured outrage. It reads like the type of right-wing rhetoric that the rest of us aren’t ignorant enough to fall for.
And if we’re labeling, it’s only fair-
I’m sure you’re one of those people that didn’t give a shit about Palestine six months ago, nor was able to point to it on a map.
In the early 2000’s we weren’t as connected as we are now and people relied a lot more on cable/network news.
But also, and this is really important to understand, the civilian casualties from the Iraq war were over much larger areas, populations, and time. In the same time frame the rate of casualties was far lower. Coalition forces also did their best to avoid civilian casualties by not targeting hospitals, not kettling civilians, and certainly not doing a concerted bombing campaign with large bombs into highly populated areas.
A lot of what’s happening with the rate of civilian casualties is because the IDF has thrown all of those protections out the window. They’re specifically destroying the food, water, and medical infrastructure of Gaza. When people inevitably try to evacuate they can only do so further into Gaza. The IDF doesn’t allow them to evacuate through their lines into cleared areas. This means people can never actually get away from the fighting. Those are all large scale war crimes designed to increase the number of civilian casualties. But they aren’t removing troops credibly accused of war crimes from the area either. In fact they’ve shown no willingness to prosecute tactical level warcrimes such as shooting clearly marked journalists in a quiet area in broad daylight.
Just today the report landed on NPR radio that the IDF opened fire into a crowd waiting for food aid. The IDF is of course claiming the crowd was threatening. But we’ve known how to securely disperse food aid for decades. Those soldiers may very well have been threatened, but their officers set that situation up. Also of note is just how fast this gets out to the world in the era of social media.
And we haven’t even talked about the immense amount of war weariness in the US.
I don’t suppose the Congressman remembers that they did the same thing to Obama before he was reelected.
THIS is how you protest vote. Bravo Michigan Democrats. I hope they still vote for him in the general, but I’m still glad they’re making the DNC sweat.
Wake up and what? Their demands are not achievable by Biden. He cannot as so many of the threads claim, just call up bibi and tell him to stop. Doing so would likely eliminate what little leverage a Democratic President has over the extremist right wing of Israel. It certainly would not have any desirable outcome.
He could not bypass congress to sell weapons to israel. He could not promote bills pledging billions more to israel. He could not proudly proclaim himself a zionist on a late night talk show in support of israel while they’re carrying out genocide. He could direct the UN representative to not veto resolutions on israel.
There’s plenty that could be done, but democrats are mighty fond of the word “can’t” unless it’s for causes that their billionaire sugar daddies want.
Misrepresentation is still a lie. Not how any of this works. President has authority only to do as the Constitution or Congress allows, in which case there is no bypass. And following your advise would lose far more Votes than it would gain. And as the loons that have fallen for this bit of Pootie’s division propaganda are going to hold their breath until they turn blue while stamping their feet regardless of reality, unlikely to gain any significant Votes regardless.
But please, tell us more of the very new and never heard before, “bOtHsIdEs!!11!!!”.
Who should Biden worry about more? Getting the left wing of his party to nominate him, or getting the general electorate to the polls in November? It’s a no brainer calculation.
Who should Biden worry about more?
I think those 726k Trump voters are still winnable if Biden can just move a liiiiittle bit farther to the right.
Please no. The Overton window has already shifted so far right
I mean, the Democrats have been screwing the actually Left for decades now so…
If y’all actually voted, Democrats would care about you more. The Left is fickle and the DNC knows it.
The issue is the left is simply not large enough to win a primary. The reason Bernie wasn’t nominated is simple: not enough votes.
Our system is one of coalition building. You either join the least bad coalition for your interests or you have no influence at all.
the left is simply not large enough to win a primary
Quite a bit of what left-leaning voters advocate for is initially very popular. Medicare-for-All has a broad base of support. Rent control is very popular. Increasing Social Security payouts is an untapped political goldmine. The anti-war movement remains a large and largely neglected constituency.
What left-leaning candidates traditionally lack isn’t popularity, but money. What made Sanders such a powerful primary opponent in 2016 and 2020 was his prodigious fundraising abilities. He wasn’t wildly out of line with Mike Gravel or Ralph Nader on the issues, but he commanded 100x their war chests thanks to the outpouring of social media coordinated campaign funding.
Compared to guys like Steve Forbes or Ron Paul or Michael Bloomberg - who also brought enormous volumes of cash to the table - Sanders was able to offer a platform constituents in his own party were quick and eager to rally around.
Our system is one of coalition building.
A coalition requires seats at the table. Which leftists are getting a seat at the Biden table? Not Rashida Talib. Not Cori Bush. Not even Elizabeth fucking Warren.
Coalitions imply equity. What Democrats are demanding isn’t a coalition, its a coronation. Biden wants his voters to bend the knee. (Trump, too). And the folks who buck his commandments aren’t enticed back into the fold with concessions. They’re treated as pariahs and scapegoats and fifth columnists, to explain his plummeting poll numbers.
If y’all actually voted
Didn’t Bernie Sanders win the California primary in 2020? Seems like he’d need a lot of leftist voters to pull that off.
The Left is fickle
Once bitten, twice shy
Meanwhile, on the Right: “once bitten, BITE HARDER”. So they win elections while you run away.
So they win elections
There’s a couple of levels to this. On one level, I think conservatives do - in fact - deliver some promises. If you like twelve lane highways and ranch style suburban homes and ground beef that’s cheaper by the pound than broccoli? Good news. When Republicans take office, you can consistently bank on getting a couple hundred dollars worth of tax cuts, as part of their multi-billion dollar tax cut package. If you’re in a religious organization the party favors, you can expect all sorts of kickbacks via Faith Based Initiatives and
ParochialCharter School Vouchers. If you’re a bigot, your governor will inflict all sorts of misery on minorities and the LGBT community. Police will parade through the streets in giant military convoys, showing off all their latest gear paid for with inflated budgets.On another level, I think they get a certain amount of psychic agony inflicted on them while Democrats are in office. Right-wing news functionally terrorizes their own viewers until their guys win, and this creates a kind of pavlovian response. If you don’t want to see wave after wave of disturbing images on the TV, elect Republicans.
I think Democrats are mastering the latter, while neglecting the former. And that’s why you’ve got folks on Lemmy shitting themselves in horror over a future Trump administration, without really having anything tangible to look forward to under a second Biden term.
Democrats deliver plenty but messaging is awful. Biden has canceled $138 billion in student loan debt. Billion. That’s with him using whatever executive resources he can after Supreme Court obstruction. Where’s the news articles on that? You see people on this very site saying he promised to forgive student loans and then abandoned that promise (while gleefully laughing and twirling his moustache, because he just loves being evil).
Democrats deliver a lot more than Republicans. Republicans scuttled their own border security deal because they didn’t want to give Dems a win.
Biden has canceled $138 billion in student loan debt.
Biden is administering a policy going back to the Reagan Era of 20-year sunsets on student loan debts. The new debts he’s cancelled are in the billions, not the hundreds-of-billions. And this, in a pool of over $1.6T. I know a few people carrying student debts. None of them are applauding Biden right now. None of them are seeing their debts cancelled.
Democrats deliver a lot more than Republicans.
Democrats will tell you they delivered $800B in Medicare spending in 2023, when they just signed bills to cut physician pay by 2%/year. They publish walls of tiny-text claiming credit for everything from the Civil Rights Act to the latest private uptick in new clean energy infrastructure and get angry when you notice how the former has been gutted and the latter has nothing to do with their latest round of legislative/executive policies.
Trump put his fucking name on the stimulus checks he sent out in 2020.
Biden put his name on sunsets to the Child Tax Credit three years later, with some campaign promises to renew them (if Dems can retake the House AND the Senate AND Joe Manchin/Kristen Sinema don’t block anything) maybe some time in 2025.
That’s not the reason democrats are barely leftist in 2024- lobbyists funding both wings of the government are. Socialist policies take away power from the corpocracy, so companies put tons of money into making sure that’s only a remote possibility -i’d argue there’s even been a consistent effort across the aisle to keep discussion as limited as possible to two specific issues: gun control and abortion. Look into the ratchet effect it perfectly describes the situation as I see it.
It’s a confluence of several issues. Lobbyists are only one of them. Fickleness, purity testing, apathy, all play a part too, and those are completely within your control.
Plus Leftists just aren’t the majority. Most people are moderates. Y’all refuse to believe that.
So leftists are just suppose to omit they’re own political philosophies and fall in line because moderates are the majority?
Fickleness, purity testing, apathy, all play a part too, and those are completely within your control.
No thats the DNC’s fault. You don’t get to complain about voter turn out because ppl don’t want to vote for a war criminal or that they have no faith in a system that actively fucks them and their way of life
I’m complaining right now, so I think I do.
You’re all a bunch of spoiled children. It would be sad if it weren’t for the fact that it’s dooming our democracy.
Don’t you see the democracy is already doomed? Being forced to vote for a candidate is not a voluntary choice. Your voice is mute - it’s not a democracy.
The left actually demands politicians earn their vote. Politics isn’t supposed to be a team sport in the US. The entire reason we have elections so often is to make sure the voters approve of their representatives. That means voting out of team loyalty is a subversion of the system. And the charge of being fickle and lazy is undemocratic propaganda.
Democracy is about compromise. By refusing to compromise you’re ceding power to the worst option.
Why is the compromise always to be a good little voter and vote for us regardless of the heinous shit we’re up to cuz the other option is Hitler wins? That isn’t a compromise. A compromise is when both sides give up something they want. What have the dems given up? Said that Israel has maybe gone a little bit too far? Whoopty-fucking-do.
Why is the compromise always to be a good little voter and vote for us regardless of the heinous shit we’re up to cuz the other option is Hitler wins?
I mean you laid it out right there
Compromise requires both sides. And supplying a genocide isn’t compromise.
“Not genocide” is not an option.
It is. Biden can stop providing arms to Israel.
I’m tired of compromising with people who won’t compromise. We just lurch to the right over and over whenever there’s a fight. They never worry about compromising with me ever.
That’s democracy. When a large portion of voters want fascism, you have to compromise with fascists.
That’s bullshit. Leftists vote, the problem is that liberals aren’t leftists and only care about serving Capital.
So there’s more liberals than leftists. That’s democracy.
Your point is wrong, though. Leftists voting for dems will only encourage more liberal policy, not leftist policy. You’re advocating for leftists voting third party and spoiling their vote.
I’m advocating for leftists voting for the most left Dem they can get in any given race. Not for splitting the vote.
Liberal is better than fascist, correct?
The most “left” dem is right wing and wants to implement right wing solutions. The dems are not left.
A 100k means Michigan goes red. He’s playing chicken with the country at this point.
It’s a proven strategy for the Democrats. That’s how they got Trump, and that got them tons of funding and dropped the bar all the way to the floor. Why would they give up now?
Worth mentioning that in 2008 the total for “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary was 238,168 (39.6%), largely because the DNC stripped Michigan of all their delegates for holding their primary before Super Tuesday, and Obama withdrew his name from the ballot (Clinton didn’t and won). Then in 2012 the total for “uncommitted” was 20,833 (10.7%), in 2016 it was 21,601 (1.79%), in 2020 it was 19,106 (1.2%). Seems like the percentage is heavily dependent on turnout, but totals seem to hover around 20k pretty consistently. That means there’s about a 4x increase in uncommitted sentiment above baseline, which surely will increase the pressure to do something different with respect to Gaza between now and November.
Context for lazy bones who didn’t check the article
Biden got more than 617,000 votes, or 81%, easily winning the primary but the number of uncommitted votes rose to more than 100,000, or 13%, with 98% of expected votes reported.
I reregistered as independent after voting for Obama twice, Hillary, and then Biden.
Far left and far right are absolute lunatics, and the left will demonize you for trying to be centrist. So voting for Trump or uncommitted we go.
Pet the damn dog!
The centrists have their basic needs met and aren’t part of a social group that is threatened so they see both sides as a waste.
To add on to this, centrists realize neither side can actually change the things their extremists are looking for which feeds into the idea they’re a waste.
More people need to get off the internet and interact with people, or do what I’m doing and jump into the leftists lion den for conversations like this.
And please, don’t fool yourself. Lemmy is even more left leaning than Reddit.
You’re a vile piece of shit judging from your post history, you’re fooling yourself if you think you’re converting anyone who didn’t already agree with that shit.
Centrist can eat my whole asshole with the “we need to listen to both sides, including literal Nazis”. Intolerance need not to be tolerated.
I’d argue your hypothetical asshole eating centrist is more open minded and empathetic for the needs of their partner than anyone on the far left or right.
Trump calls someone a RINO like every 15 minutes, and he’s far right. What are you even talking about? You should probably go with uncommitted if you’re a single issue voter on whether people called you names for being a centrist.
Some replies have been nice, and then there are some like yours. Did you not read the part where the left demonizes more often for having nuanced political viewpoints?
You don’t have nuanced viewpoints. Based on your comment history you are just an edgelord who gets off over being downvoted into oblivion because it makes you feel intellectually superior when people you don’t identify with heavily criticize you.
I feel like you ended up here because you were most likely banned from Reddit, and are looking for a new dopamine fix. Whatever the reason happens to be, you’re still pathetically simple minded, and a great example of a useful political idiot.
You had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Then I saw your Guy Fawkes mask and realized why YOU’RE here and not on Reddit.
Oh no guys the left is DEMONIZING me because they don’t want me to vote for a Nazi enabler waaahhhhhh
I noticed that you define 99% of people as the left. Left of whom? Hitler?
The idea that you’d vote for those candidates and then Trump after seeing what a Trump term looks like is laughable. It just demonstrates that you’re either lying or have no principles whatsoever.
FYI, there are several parties with independent in the name, so unless you intended to join one you can accidentally be registered to that party. Happened to me when I first started voting and I said I was independent and received Independent Party promotional materials shortly after. I had to go in and make it clear that I was not a member of any political party.
When you change addresses in my state you can update your registration along with your License/State ID.
Over the years I have stuck with ‘not a member of any political party’ and the funniest responses have been “I’ll put you under ‘refused to answer’” and “Why are you registering if you don’t vote?”
Yes, I do vote for the Dems every election as it is the only way to vote against the Republicans. No, I don’t want to participate in their petty internal politics and primaries.
Considering it was Hamas who just today rejected a ceasefire agreement that could have gone into effect by the end of the week, maybe people should start voting “uncommitted” against them instead of Biden.
This entire fucking fiasco is between Palestine and Israel, who have been fighting constantly since Biden was born and will probably continue to fight long after Biden is dead and gone. Neither side is going magically “go away” and nor should they. Both groups of people have a legitimate historical and cultural claim to live in this land and the choice was made to split this land long before most any of them were even born. The Israeli Jew and the Palestinian Arab Muslims simply have to learn to coexist peacefully and reject extremism or there will only ever be more war and violence.
There is a “simple” solution: free the hostages immediately, turn over people who committed war crimes (on either side) for prosecution, return borders to 1949, create an internationally enforced DMZ, stop illegal settlements, and stop the damn fighting. NONE of that is on Biden, nor is it the singular responsibility of the United States to manage.
Even if you cynically believe that all of this is just some kind of America-backed proxy war (which, if you look at the history of the region spanning thousands of years, it clear is not), then you should at least apply that same logic to the European countries that back Israel as well as Iran, Russia, and the other countries that have backed Hamas and called for violence in the region.
Your comment is pretty reasonable but I don’t think you’re misinterpreting the criticism of Biden here. The US is and has been supplying Israel with virtually unlimited arms and support for decades now. This support has come with very few strings attached. Biden could easily make aid contingent on many of the things you mention, and it would put the Israeli government in a real bind, forcing them to make concessions that their right wing doesn’t want to make. Biden isn’t being blamed for the whole conflict, and isn’t expected to fix it on his own. But he’s got a lot of leverage that he refuses to use in the interests of peace. This same problem recurs with basically every president, as AIPAC’s influence on the American government is substantial.
I can agree with that. I think that’s a valid and convincing point. There should be conditions on the military equipment that we send to Israel just like their is with the stuff that we send to Ukraine. I’m not sure exactly what those conditions should be (beyond the obvious stuff like “follow international laws surrounding war crimes”), but I certainly think it’s only reasonable that we should have a say in how our weapons are used if we are sending them over.
Would that be enough to satisfy critics at home and abroad? Would that appease the people who are saying that Biden is somehow complicit in “genocide”? I’m not so sure about that, but I think it would at least send the appropriate message that there are red lines that must not be crossed, even if that is mostly a symbolic gesture. At best people are very vague about what they want Biden to do, and at worst they’re calling for a one-state solution (either that Israel should annex Gaza and the West Bank from the extreme right, or that Palestine should control the territory “from the river to the sea” from the extreme left–both of these being more representative of genocide than even what we’re seeing today).
The only reasonable, non-genocidal (as in not involving mass murder or displacement of either people) solution is for Israelis and Palestinians to coexist, hopefully peacefully, and maybe even one day (dare to dream) cooperatively.
One thing is for sure, Israel (and the US, by extension) are not going to be satisfied with any conclusion to this chapter in the [decades long] conflict that doesn’t return the hostages, strip Hamas of power and remove any chance of a future attack coming out of Gaza.
Over 80% of Michigan Democratic primary voters just registered their support for Biden and his policies while 20% registered their disapproval. About two thirds of those 20% are now demanding that their concerns be made paramount.
About 100,000 people, representing less than 2% of Michigan voters from the 2020 election, are now demanding that they be allowed to wag the dog and decide national policy based on a crushing election defeat.
Yeah it turns out that key voting demographics have an outsized say in politics. Are you going to complain about South Carolina too, or just this?
Sounds like lemmy.
Every little counts.
A couple figures to aid the discussion. Hot off the presses from todays polling:
Biden versus Trump (up to date as of today):
Biden versus Trump and Clinton versus Trump (X axis is days out from the election):
For edification, Clinton versus Trump 2016 (keep in mind that Trump and Clintons polling numbers in the early parts of this figure represent being in contested primaries):
Danger! Danger! Red alert!
You do realize Trump has lost at least 35% in every single primary, right? The guy has no chance in hell to beat Biden.
I’m not sure what you mean by having ‘lost’ 35%?
Hes won every primary so far.
I don’t find these kinds of comparisons and “latest data points” to be particularly helpful in these kinds of discussions. Voter sentiment is fickle, and how you quantify the “Uncommitted” movement will affect how the data is presented.
We don’t know how the Uncommitted will actually vote in November, though we can be certain at least some will not vote for Biden if nothing changes. It’s a political game of chicken, and it’s Biden’s move.
We don’t know how the Uncommitted will actually vote in November, though we can be certain at least some will not vote for Biden if nothing changes. It’s a political game of chicken, and it’s Biden’s move.
Clinton lost Michigan by 0.2% and it cost her the election. Her campaign opted to not focus on the rust belt and delivered us Trump in the first place.
Biden is losing this election, and I think if a Trump presidency concerns you, its especially worth considering.
Biden can’t afford to lose any voters in Michigan. His policies are working against his ability to gather support in the 2024 election. We can’t wait until after November to have this conversation. It needs to happen now.
Biden won Michigan by 154,188. All 100,000 uncommitted could stay home and it wouldn’t change the results. It would just be way tighter than necessary.
So do you think Biden can stick with his current approach to Gaza and Israel and win the general election?
The point is nobody can know that with any certainty. All these preliminary graphs are helpful to campaign strategists, but do you know the number of Uncommitted voters who will ultimately hold their nose and vote for Biden anyway? Or who will change their mind completely? I certainly don’t.
Sending a message in the primary ≠ doing the strategic thing in the general.
The point is nobody can know that with any certainty.
Well we still have to make decisions and decide strategy in the face of uncertainty. Its a yes or no question that I asked, and you can answer it with a yes or a no.
Do you think Biden can stick with his current approach to Gaza and Israel and win the general election?
There’s a third answer: I don’t know. That’s my answer.
If your plan is strategy, it doesn’t matter what my opinion is. Assume the worst outcome and work as if you can change it.
That’s 100k from the primary, or 13% of voters. Now convert those into general election numbers.
Are you forgetting Trump lost 35% in Michigan??!! He got 65% and you’re worried about 13% uncommitted? Trump lost 3x that number in the primary. My bet’s on Joe.
Republicans are more zealously loyal than Democrats. They’ll vote for Trump in the general election because as horrible Biden is he doesn’t advocate for hunting the homeless for sport.
Edit: Also in the Republican primary did Trump run uncontested? If not then the comparison in the first place has no basis in reality.
Again, if Trump can’t win more than 65% of his own base as a former president, I’m not that worried. The dude has never won the popular it’s and sure as hell won’t this time. He’s definitely lost support. I will place money that Biden will win an even larger popular and electoral vote victory this time.
I would love to have your confidence bro. I really would. I just look at the polling, I look at the messaging, I look at the fervency of the bases, and I don’t have it.
Trumps voters are excited as all hell to vote for him. He’s got evangelicals perhaps literally worshiping him.
I just dont see what you are seeing…
I’ll bet you here and now Biden wins. Save this post.
Saved. Love to gamble.
I’ll give you 1:1 on Biden winning. $20 enough to make it fun?
Also, I’d like to ask for 20:1 on Biden not being the candidate. If you want those odds, I’d also like to bet $20. (you’d be the house, so if I win, thats a $400 payout on you).
We can save this post and then venmo or paypal, whatever is preferred.
Also good with just the first bets or will hear counter odds on Biden not being the candidate.
100% Biden is the candidate. 100% Biden beats Trump.
No see you have to VBNMW, we aren’t even supposed to challenge them in the primaries.
Think of how many people got pissed about voting uncommitted in a primary, now do a vent diagram of people who say the primaries are the time to do this and not the general election.
Hint: you only have to draw one circle
