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Wrote this before and I'll write it again. People need to understand the broader context here:
Tough for Biden to balance between:
Leaning too heavily into Israel and siding with genocide.
Leaning too heavily against, and being accused of being pro-Hamas.
Worse, if Biden withdraws all aid to Israel and then Israel is hit with another terrorist attack, manufactured or not, that's the end of Biden. I think we can all agree that right-wing media propaganda is very effective and the ads would write themselves.
Within the electorate resides Jewish Americans who still largely support Israel by the polling, and the progressives and Palestinian Americans (a far smaller voting bloc).
The best Biden is going to manage in toeing the line is singling out Netanyahu (who himself is unpopular in Israel) instead of Israel itself and actions like this.
The risk obviously being that if Biden loses this election, the guy who wouldn't just indirectly but likely directly commit genocide against Palestinians would come in and you certainly wouldn't hear the words, "indiscriminate bombing" from Trump's facial sphincter.
Leaning too heavily into Israel and siding with genocide.
Leaning too heavily against, and being accused of being pro-Hamas.
So the choices are siding with genocide, and merely being accused of being pro-Hamas?
Seems like a clear choice, since accusations of being pro-Hamas get flung around for merely wanting to genocide Palestinians just more slowly.
The caveat being missed here is that aid to Israel is also contingent on their defense. If the long-time precedent for aid to Israel is withdrawn and more Jews die, how do you think that is going to bode for the votes of — let me check — 7.6 million Jewish Americans? Trump gets in, and then what? Biden fails the purity test and everyone critical of Biden pats themselves on the backs as Trump steamrolls Palestinians not just indirectly but directly?
Vote for genocide, because if you don’t there’s gonna be more genocide. Y’all doing backflips to cover your violent beliefs.
Ah yes, that's a completely accurate and fair description of the choice at hand and totally 100% not an obvious straw-man fallacy, leaving aside the cute little purity pyrrhic victory you're setting yourself up for.
It’s very easy for me to be against genocide. Seems hard for you. 🤷🏼♂️
I'm completely for being against genocide!
I'm just forward-thinking and very much against it for the next 4 years, let alone next 8 months. Some people see a few more chess-moves ahead than others, I guess. Seems hard for you.
actually,there wouldn't be anymore genocide had the 2 state solution been accepted.
i mean to hamas, peace is shit but death is an honor.
It shouldn’t be this difficult for an actual leader to stop politicking and do the right thing. This is like Bill Clinton ignoring the Rwandan genocide. Or Reagan collaborating with the Guatemalan genocide. Or Nixon ignoring the Bengali genocide and directing the Cambodian genocide that enabled the Khmer Rouge genocide. On second thought, Biden’s an exemplary United States President. /s
Whenever you give me a data-driven solution to the problem I proposed with the 7.6 million Jewish Americans who are sympathetic to Israel and Biden definitely needing their vote more so than the 160,000 Palestinian Americans, you let me know.
Oh so then genocide is okay as long as it let's you win an election?
Way to completely miss the point. Impressive, really.
There wasn't a point. It was a denial that anything need to be done because the data says electoral politics are more important than stopping another genocide.
They also seem to think all jews in the United States are pro Isreal based on saying 8 million would be angered enough to vote republican if anything happened to Israel, which is also ridiculous to say while asking for data driven anything.
Even if Biden withdrew all aid to Israel, the genocide persists. So, now what?
There you go again with the straw-man fallacies. What's heavily ironic about this is I've heard ad nauseum about the 160,000 Palestinian Americans and what they might do should Biden not change his position. I already gave the PEW data indicating a sizable chunk of those 8 million are indeed supportive of Israel and no matter how you cut it, there's a greater risk to Biden's reelection.
But moreover think about just how short-sighted your thinking is here. Even if Biden stops the aid now and it backfires for Biden's reelection, then Trump gets in — where will you be? Will you be celebrating and patting yourself on the back because Biden shot himself in the foot while Trump steamrolls Palestinians?
I think you just might.
It's intentional. Best guess is these are either wedge-driving trolls, or very young and naive sub-20-year-olds full of idealism but lacking a particular degree of foresight.
Yes anyone who disagrees must be young or a troll. Great rebuttal there
Sometimes doing the right thing is more important than an election. If LBJ had taken your advice, Civil Rights would never have happened in America.
Apples and oranges in my view; for Is there any law that Biden can sign right now?
Is there anything Biden can do right now that won't be immediately reversed by Trump and orders-of-magnitude worse?
Hence why under these circumstances, in my opinion, following the polling data and ensuring election is paramount.
In the meantime we should all be focused not on criticizing Biden but targeting the pro-Israeli voters and trying to sway them. If you change them, the polling changes, and so too will Biden's position.
And ultimately that's exactly what we've seen over the last couple of months.
You’d sell your mother into slavery to get Biden elected, that much is obvious. You have no moral framework for any of your so-called “principles,” your only concern is winning. Which is precisely how we got to this point after the third-way Democrats compromised with neoliberalism by allowing corporate donations to dominate their party. Compromising your humanity by settling with the lesser evil is still evil.
Hahaha I'm sorry, what? Now you're just going off the deep end.
I'd rather ensure my mother doesn't live with Trump as president for another 4 years. It's not good for her blood pressure.
Unfortunately you just seem far too short-sighted to comprehend the big picture, here. You'd rather manufacture purity tests for the Democrats even if that means holding the door open for literal evil. Classic pyrrhic victory.
Lambast Democrats all you want. Yet Every Single progressive advancement we've had in this country has come through the Democratic party.
This is false, they are split and it's much fewer votes to be lost. Maybe none, maybe even some gained.
Just scream "vote blue no matter who" at the pro-Israel Biden supporters.
I'm sick of people not saying the quiet part out loud: If every time there is a choice between doing the things progressives and leftists want the threat of moderate and liberal voters abandoning the party then we're fucked anyway. Even if you're optimistic and say "No no, the number of progressives and leftists is growing! We just have to be patient!" Guess what happens when progressives and leftists finally start winning primaries? That's right, moderates and liberals will abandon the party.
There no point in delaying any longer. If the moderates and liberals will abandon the party if Biden stopped sending weapons to Israel then let's get it over with.
That phrase was never meant for center right democrats, it was only there to sheepdog those who demand candidates not beholden to the billionaire class. You can't "vote blue no matter who" those types, they'll vote republican because at the end of the day most of them belong to social classes not threatened by conservatism, 4 years is no skin off their back, they may even see their IRAs grow. We're nothing but a voting bloc to them, and that's why things like Malcolm X's quote on white moderates is so relatable to many non black progressives, both groups know what it's like to be only included in appearance and only spoken to when votes are needed. How many more black elected officials do we have now, and yet the Democrats still fail Black voters perennially. I would have to ignore 60 year of history to think the progressive cause would do better if (and that's a big if) we can get more of them elected. If there's a path forward through the democratic party, it's eluded the black community for long enough to see cop lynchings increase and I don't think 'progressive issues' like 'stop killing the environment before we all die' have the time necessary to go the same route that's been taken from Malcolm X to now.
Entropy is a thing.
What I mean by that is it's far, far easier to smash a puzzle than to put it back together, let alone to incorporate new pieces. The damage done by Trump in merely 4 years could not be reversed if you got AOC with Bernie in there in 8 years let alone possibly 4. At this juncture, with the fragility of our system and the courts already stacked, maintaining some semblance of stability is overwhelmingly more crucial than expecting massive leaps.
I'm all for going full anti-Israel; but that doesn't change the fact that every single political advisor is pointing Biden to precarious polling data; that blindly withdrawing all aid to Israel is simply NOT a popular position going into the election — at least yet.
Nothing you said negates the uncomfortable reality: If moderates and liberals refuse to compromise with leftists and progressives then fascism can't be avoided. Do you want it now or later?
Then they're shit at their jobs. This is public research polling, which usually lags behind internal private research.
Gallup Link
Good advisors would have been telling him support is trending down for months at this point. If you're going to govern by polls, you should be getting ahead of them. Not throwing out bullshit self certification stuff for military aid to cover for the genocidal regime you're illegally sending arms to.
Isn't that exactly what Biden is doing? Biden is shifting his stance inline with the polls and it's working. While I do appreciate a leader who is willing to be bold and lead from the front regardless of public opinion because they can be very influential — I can see why they would be very nervous about getting ahead of the polls.
For as I said: If he does something drastic like withdrawing aid to Israel and Israel gets hit with another October 7th-level attack — manufactured or legitimate — he'd be done for. There's no suddenly stopping the inertia we've had for Israel as a foreign policy position for decades that has largely shared bipartisan support.
And I mean come on, really? Do you really think you genuinely know better than his advisors and strategists and that they're "shit at their jobs"? It's a cute, confident thing to say... But if you're really doubling down on that, perhaps you should contact them or look for a job opportunity. What's more is that while your polling shows people disapprove of Israel's actions, what we should do in response is the obvious follow-up, and withdrawing aid to them likely doesn't share the same popularity. I wouldn't want to be in Biden's position or his strategists.
It would not be the end for Biden. That's hyperbole. Also why are we pressuring anti genocide people to come out and vote regardless, but taking it for granted that pro genocide people can't be pressured at all.
You know who you're never going to get to vote for Biden again? The Muslim communities that are actually in mourning right now because they know people dying in Gaza. The same ones that are key voting groups in the Rust Belt. Which is the same area that Trump used to win in 2016.
The Republicans are already calling him terrorist pedophile. Doing something to stop the GOP from running baseless attack ads is useless.
The only one trying to lose this election is Biden. There are legions of progressives ready to hold their noses and vote for him. But he keeps running to the right. And we'll keep staying home.
You're saying he'd be fine if a terrorist attack occurred after withdrawing aid to Israel? Sorry I just can't agree with that. He'd be toast and the 7 million Jewish Americans would turn on him in a second, amplified all the more by right-wing propaganda that doesn't just influence Republicans but the centrists and even many Democrats.
He's doing quite the opposite from running to the right. He's completely shifted his position from lockstep support for Israel to letting ceasefire votes go through and publicly calling out Netanyahu.
Biden already signaled he'd be harder on Israel than Trump. There really isn't any more that needs to be said. It's holding the nose and supporting Biden now for the next 8 months or suffer 4 years of the far, far worse guy.
Oh no, he will be accused of being pro-Hamas. Just like when you criritize him you are accused of being pro-Trump, or if you critize evil NATO countries are doing, you are called pro-Russian. If people are that stupid to not see this clear tactic that everyone who critiques me must support my enemies, then you should maybe they shouldn't use the same tactic when it suits them.
It's a waste of time — Especially in an election year with so much on the line and post-primaries — to criticize Biden and instead better to criticize the groups who continue to support Israel. When the polls shift, the administration will shift... As has already occurred.
I don't give a fuck if you do, so long as you vote and support Biden in November. Palestinians and Ukrainians are counting on us, and the guaranteed-alternative is significantly-worse. I just had some other fool tell me they're voting 3rd-party, so they are clearly supporting the enemies. I hope you're smarter.
Trump is a candidate that was placed there by the democrats so they can have a better chance in the elections.
Either vote third party or don’t waste your time voting.
Except that the voting uncommitted has actually worked to move Biden on the issue (Dems calling for an election in Israel).
These are his 'only' choices only because identifying the broader issue of Israeli occupation and settlement (the core complaints of Palestinians and the reason why Hamas exists) puts at risk US interests in the region - namely Israel's projection of strength throughout the middle east.
The protection of US neo-colonial and imperial interests is the reason why Biden is in a tough position, and the reason why leftists will never be satisfied by stern words by Biden.