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People didn't flip to red so much as blue voters in swing states sitting on their hands and abstaining from voting. Now they're looking down the barrel of auth

People didn't flip to red so much as blue voters in swing states sitting on their hands and abstaining from voting. Now they're looking down the barrel of authoritarianism and they're still unwilling to vote unless Gaza is a fully solved problem. The cruel irony is that this behavior is worsening the situation in Gaza.

deleted 1y ago
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roenxi 1y ago
If only the blue representatives would resolve this tension by pulling support for a now internationally-recognised genocide! :( I suppose that option is just too radical to put on the table.
- hypeatei 1y ago
  You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight? I'm not sure why "less bad" on your pet issue isn't enough, especially when you're up against Trump, who has made posts suggesting resorts and golden statues of himself in Gaza.
  - mandeepj 1y ago
    > You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight? I don’t think many people are thinking through now especially the one at the top of power chain, otherwise we’d not have witnessed child charades like invade Canada, Greenland, and Panama, as well as overnight gutting of USAID.
  - vasco 1y ago
    What are the implications? Israel isn't going to align with Russia or China, so probably they'll have to stand on their own and rely more on their nuclear deterrent. It'd be easier if they weren't bombing every single neighbor they have though.
    - throwaway3060 1y ago
      Russia and China would love to get their hands on Israeli tech. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
    - nebula8804 1y ago
      Actually I think thats exactly the plan. They will milk the US as long as they can and once they have gotten everything they can from that dead corpse, they will do what any other nation would do: Align themselves with whatever partner that can help them the most. They have a lot of talent and investment (thanks to the US) and can offer other future superpowers plenty in exchange for partnerships.
      - vasco 1y ago
        Yeah I was just curious what the commenter thought because to me it's not obvious what would happen, there's many possibilities, what you listed is certainly plausible but it doesn't seem inevitable, depends on so much.
    - klipt 1y ago
      > bombing every single neighbor they have The neighbors who signed peace treaties (Egypt, Jordan) seem to be maintaining peace fine. It's the ones who've refused to normalize relations since 1949 and keep launching rockets over the border at civilians who get hit back.
      - LorenPechtel 1y ago
        Exactly. Israel isn't exactly the nicest country but they're a porcupine. You leave them alone, they leave you alone. You keep poking them, you get hammered. And, yes, the settlers are not a good thing--but the problem exists because the government knows they are not the actual cause of the problem, Israel would gain nothing from curtailing them. And note that the violence is wildly misreported, much of it is defensive in nature (look at how often you see one person get shot who is facing the settlers when supposedly they were fleeing--awfully hard to shoot a fleeing person in the front) and plenty of it is purely fake.
  - roenxi 1y ago
    I doubt any foreign policy aid would get pulled from Israel. Israel doesn't need to be taking actions perceived as genocidal. If the US wasn't offering full and unconditional support they'd just have to go about their foreign policy aims in a more palatable way. Isreal's approach to foreign policy doesn't do them any favours, I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've taken out this year. The US would be helping them by forcing them to conform a bit more to global norms, if they upset less people and try some more cooperative strategies we might see progress on peace in the region. The fact that the Democrats failed to find a frame like that to prevent what appears, superficially, to be a genocide really goes to the heart of what GoatInGrey was pointing at.
- nick_ 1y ago
  Yep. It really is that simple. https://jewishcurrents.org/chuck-schumer-cannot-meet-the-moment#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMy%20job%2C%E2%80%9D%20Schumer%20recently%20told%20Times%20columnist%20Bret%20Stephens%2C%20%E2%80%9Cis%20to%20keep%20the%20left%20pro%2DIsrael.%E2%80%9D https://jewishcurrents.org/chuck-schumer-cannot-meet-the-mom...
- Aunche 1y ago
  The Biden administration brokered and pressured Israel into a ceasefire that asymmetrically disfavored them. Israel exchanged 30 Hamas militants per Israeli hostage. The ceasefire outlined a permanent resolution to the conflict, including Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza. They also pressured Israel to keep aid channels open during the war, which is exceptionally obvious now given significantly longer blockades and that famine broke out under Trump. The 2006 withdrawal from Gaza and Oslo Accords were also brokered by America. Israel would not have agreed to any of this without any security reassurances in the form of military aid. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans. While it's possible there would be fewer civilian casualties, it's also possible there would be more if Israel switched to from precision strikes to ground invasions and dumb weapons.
  - isr 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    Like this whole thing has gone for 70 years in Israel. We already know what comes of the same strategy that was followed for all that time. Doubling down on it now isn’t going to change anything.
    - Aunche 1y ago
      What are you talking about? The Camp David Accords and Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty were resounding successes. The Oslo Accords achieved mixed results but was still a major improvement. If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that requiring for Israel to unilaterally withdrawal was hopelessly naive.
      - aprilthird2021 1y ago
        Oslo was not an improvement. Palestine (the PLO/PA) gave up deterrence and renounced violence and the West Bank is now being annexed by far right Israelis. What did Israel give up in Oslo? Nothing
deanCommie 1y ago
And that was always known to have been a counter-productive protest. There's nothing ironic about this. They were told. They didn't care. It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse. If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been. It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...
- therobots927 1y ago
  The trolley problem is an oversimplification. What we have is actually a repeated trolley problem, where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests. The “less evil” party is in effect holding the people tied to the tracks hostage in your trolley problem. Because “less evil” is still evil, society decays no matter which way you flip the switch which leads to a population prone to fascism. The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
  - jjk166 1y ago
    > where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests. The less evil party commands no loyalty at all, you vote for it only so long as there are no better options. If we're presupposing that there will never be any other option but the greater evil, then the lesser evil very much should be voted for consistently. Why can't the other side be the one that needs to reform to better appeal to the voters interests? What is to stop the lesser evil from becoming more evil, catering to voters who actually show up? If people voted for a third party, that would be one thing. Sure the odds of winning the election are slim, but a third party candidate needs only 5% of the vote for the party to get federal campaign funds, to say nothing of the increased legitimacy in upcoming elections. It's happened in my lifetime, it can happen again. A strong showing by a third party forces the major parties to adjust to avoid splitting the vote. Jill Stein of the Green Party was openly opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza, they could have voted for her. And while there they could have voted for down ballot candidates so one party doesn't get control of all branches of government. But they didn't; third parties had their worst election since 2012. Of the 6 million democrat votes lost from 2020 to 2024, 400,000 were picked up by the green party. You can't simultaneously accept that the two party system is the be all end all and that you don't have an obligation to vote for the better of the two parties. It's understandable that people unenthusiastic with the current political situation just want to disengage, but don't act like it's a noble act of protest. Staying home isn't playing the long game, it's just throwing away your vote. > The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now. That they could have done better doesn't reduce at all the blame of those who specifically worked towards creating the current situation, and those who saw what was happening and chose to do nothing.
deleted 1y ago
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scarecrowbob 1y ago
Couldn't the Democrats change their positions so that they align with and accommodate popular positions and win elections. I don't think most of the (rather large block) of folks I know who abstained wanted a fully solved problem, they wanted the US to stop funding Israel and that is a position that the Democratic party could have taken if they had chosen to do so.
- ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - some_guy_nobel 1y ago
    Well, blaming the voter for abstention still conveniently sidesteps blame towards the Dem party for trying to platform Biden again. And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?"
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
      >Well, blaming the voter for abstention still conveniently sidesteps blame towards the Dem party for trying to platform Biden again. Non-sequitur much? >And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?" My party? Which party are you talking about? Don't be shy. Just pointing out second order consequences. As for you, what exactly are you trying to say? It's not clear to me what you hope to contribute to the discussion other than satisfying your imagined superiority to other Americans. Or is just those with an excess of melanin?
    - UmGuys 1y ago
      The GOP actually platformed orange man after he did the coup. That's infinitely worse than being old and hiding it.
happycube 1y ago
Agreed, it along with claiming victory on that certain thing that started five years ago and didn't end yet, realllly annoyed the left. And now, matters are worse. (It also made the statements about "radical left" candidates very ironic.)
naijaboiler 1y ago
wrong. There is a study that surveyed those that didn't. The conclusion was that if turnout had been better, Trump wins by an even larger margin. There definitely was a shift right.
- timcobb 1y ago
  > There is a study Where is the study?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

roenxi 1y ago

If only the blue representatives would resolve this tension by pulling support for a now internationally-recognised genocide! :( I suppose that option is just too radical to put on the table.

hypeatei 1y ago
You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight? I'm not sure why "less bad" on your pet issue isn't enough, especially when you're up against Trump, who has made posts suggesting resorts and golden statues of himself in Gaza.
- mandeepj 1y ago
  > You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight? I don’t think many people are thinking through now especially the one at the top of power chain, otherwise we’d not have witnessed child charades like invade Canada, Greenland, and Panama, as well as overnight gutting of USAID.
- vasco 1y ago
  What are the implications? Israel isn't going to align with Russia or China, so probably they'll have to stand on their own and rely more on their nuclear deterrent. It'd be easier if they weren't bombing every single neighbor they have though.
  - throwaway3060 1y ago
    Russia and China would love to get their hands on Israeli tech. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
  - nebula8804 1y ago
    Actually I think thats exactly the plan. They will milk the US as long as they can and once they have gotten everything they can from that dead corpse, they will do what any other nation would do: Align themselves with whatever partner that can help them the most. They have a lot of talent and investment (thanks to the US) and can offer other future superpowers plenty in exchange for partnerships.
    - vasco 1y ago
      Yeah I was just curious what the commenter thought because to me it's not obvious what would happen, there's many possibilities, what you listed is certainly plausible but it doesn't seem inevitable, depends on so much.
  - klipt 1y ago
    > bombing every single neighbor they have The neighbors who signed peace treaties (Egypt, Jordan) seem to be maintaining peace fine. It's the ones who've refused to normalize relations since 1949 and keep launching rockets over the border at civilians who get hit back.
    - LorenPechtel 1y ago
      Exactly. Israel isn't exactly the nicest country but they're a porcupine. You leave them alone, they leave you alone. You keep poking them, you get hammered. And, yes, the settlers are not a good thing--but the problem exists because the government knows they are not the actual cause of the problem, Israel would gain nothing from curtailing them. And note that the violence is wildly misreported, much of it is defensive in nature (look at how often you see one person get shot who is facing the settlers when supposedly they were fleeing--awfully hard to shoot a fleeing person in the front) and plenty of it is purely fake.
- roenxi 1y ago
  I doubt any foreign policy aid would get pulled from Israel. Israel doesn't need to be taking actions perceived as genocidal. If the US wasn't offering full and unconditional support they'd just have to go about their foreign policy aims in a more palatable way. Isreal's approach to foreign policy doesn't do them any favours, I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've taken out this year. The US would be helping them by forcing them to conform a bit more to global norms, if they upset less people and try some more cooperative strategies we might see progress on peace in the region. The fact that the Democrats failed to find a frame like that to prevent what appears, superficially, to be a genocide really goes to the heart of what GoatInGrey was pointing at.
nick_ 1y ago
Yep. It really is that simple. https://jewishcurrents.org/chuck-schumer-cannot-meet-the-moment#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMy%20job%2C%E2%80%9D%20Schumer%20recently%20told%20Times%20columnist%20Bret%20Stephens%2C%20%E2%80%9Cis%20to%20keep%20the%20left%20pro%2DIsrael.%E2%80%9D https://jewishcurrents.org/chuck-schumer-cannot-meet-the-mom...
Aunche 1y ago
The Biden administration brokered and pressured Israel into a ceasefire that asymmetrically disfavored them. Israel exchanged 30 Hamas militants per Israeli hostage. The ceasefire outlined a permanent resolution to the conflict, including Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza. They also pressured Israel to keep aid channels open during the war, which is exceptionally obvious now given significantly longer blockades and that famine broke out under Trump. The 2006 withdrawal from Gaza and Oslo Accords were also brokered by America. Israel would not have agreed to any of this without any security reassurances in the form of military aid. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans. While it's possible there would be fewer civilian casualties, it's also possible there would be more if Israel switched to from precision strikes to ground invasions and dumb weapons.
- isr 1y ago
  [flagged]
- Aeolun 1y ago
  Like this whole thing has gone for 70 years in Israel. We already know what comes of the same strategy that was followed for all that time. Doubling down on it now isn’t going to change anything.
  - Aunche 1y ago
    What are you talking about? The Camp David Accords and Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty were resounding successes. The Oslo Accords achieved mixed results but was still a major improvement. If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that requiring for Israel to unilaterally withdrawal was hopelessly naive.
    - aprilthird2021 1y ago
      Oslo was not an improvement. Palestine (the PLO/PA) gave up deterrence and renounced violence and the West Bank is now being annexed by far right Israelis. What did Israel give up in Oslo? Nothing

deanCommie 1y ago

And that was always known to have been a counter-productive protest. There's nothing ironic about this. They were told. They didn't care. It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse. If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been. It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...

therobots927 1y ago
The trolley problem is an oversimplification. What we have is actually a repeated trolley problem, where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests. The “less evil” party is in effect holding the people tied to the tracks hostage in your trolley problem. Because “less evil” is still evil, society decays no matter which way you flip the switch which leads to a population prone to fascism. The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
- jjk166 1y ago
  > where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests. The less evil party commands no loyalty at all, you vote for it only so long as there are no better options. If we're presupposing that there will never be any other option but the greater evil, then the lesser evil very much should be voted for consistently. Why can't the other side be the one that needs to reform to better appeal to the voters interests? What is to stop the lesser evil from becoming more evil, catering to voters who actually show up? If people voted for a third party, that would be one thing. Sure the odds of winning the election are slim, but a third party candidate needs only 5% of the vote for the party to get federal campaign funds, to say nothing of the increased legitimacy in upcoming elections. It's happened in my lifetime, it can happen again. A strong showing by a third party forces the major parties to adjust to avoid splitting the vote. Jill Stein of the Green Party was openly opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza, they could have voted for her. And while there they could have voted for down ballot candidates so one party doesn't get control of all branches of government. But they didn't; third parties had their worst election since 2012. Of the 6 million democrat votes lost from 2020 to 2024, 400,000 were picked up by the green party. You can't simultaneously accept that the two party system is the be all end all and that you don't have an obligation to vote for the better of the two parties. It's understandable that people unenthusiastic with the current political situation just want to disengage, but don't act like it's a noble act of protest. Staying home isn't playing the long game, it's just throwing away your vote. > The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now. That they could have done better doesn't reduce at all the blame of those who specifically worked towards creating the current situation, and those who saw what was happening and chose to do nothing.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

scarecrowbob 1y ago

Couldn't the Democrats change their positions so that they align with and accommodate popular positions and win elections. I don't think most of the (rather large block) of folks I know who abstained wanted a fully solved problem, they wanted the US to stop funding Israel and that is a position that the Democratic party could have taken if they had chosen to do so.

ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
[flagged]
- some_guy_nobel 1y ago
  Well, blaming the voter for abstention still conveniently sidesteps blame towards the Dem party for trying to platform Biden again. And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?"
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
    >Well, blaming the voter for abstention still conveniently sidesteps blame towards the Dem party for trying to platform Biden again. Non-sequitur much? >And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?" My party? Which party are you talking about? Don't be shy. Just pointing out second order consequences. As for you, what exactly are you trying to say? It's not clear to me what you hope to contribute to the discussion other than satisfying your imagined superiority to other Americans. Or is just those with an excess of melanin?
  - UmGuys 1y ago
    The GOP actually platformed orange man after he did the coup. That's infinitely worse than being old and hiding it.

happycube 1y ago

Agreed, it along with claiming victory on that certain thing that started five years ago and didn't end yet, realllly annoyed the left. And now, matters are worse. (It also made the statements about "radical left" candidates very ironic.)

naijaboiler 1y ago

wrong. There is a study that surveyed those that didn't. The conclusion was that if turnout had been better, Trump wins by an even larger margin. There definitely was a shift right.

timcobb 1y ago
> There is a study Where is the study?