Israel Hamas War, West Bank, Etc. | Hostilities resume

[RaiGuy]

Biden's response was greatly, greatly hemmed in by both what Republicans and a few pro-Israel Dems in Congress would allow him to do and by what was at all possible to get Israel to agree to do. Within those parameters, I think that Biden did about as much as he could do and certainly prevented far more pro-Israel folks from being able to turn US policy in a completely pro-Israel direction.

You can probably reasonably say that Biden's actions toward the Palestinian issue was a "finger in the dike" response, but Biden's finger kept the dike from failing altogether. We're now about to see what it's like when Trump bulldozes the dike and the Palestinians are caught in a full on flood against them.

Yeah, I agree. But whatever the reasons, the outcome wasn’t looking out for the Palestinians.

 

[nycfan]

 

[heelslegup]

Trump is not dumb enough to follow through with this and lose his Saudi Sugar Daddies. This whole horrific idea is just a long-held Gaza/WB ethnic cleansing wet dream of a small but well-connected group of extremist Israeli elected officials and settkers. Aside from Israel, no country in the Middle East will back somthing this outrageous. Neither will the majority of Israelis.

 

[Duke Mu]

Those people did not affect the outcome nor were they the reason she lost. Even if all of them voted for Harris, she would have still lost.

Sure. There was clear evidence of undervote with young people and the far left. All Harris needed was about another 1.5-2% in critical states.

 

[Duke Mu]

The undervote was real and devastating. This was in part a product of an inability of Harris to separate herself from Biden after the first few weeks of the campaign.

Biden's former campaign manager Jen O'Malley took over Kamala's campaign and put the brakes on. Harris and Walz started with populist momentum...then lost it.

She should have hired her own independent team.

'Damning' New Poll Shows Price Kamala Harris Paid for Backing Israeli Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

Vice President Kamala Harris' refusal to break with the Biden administration's support for Israel's assault on Gaza cost her millions of potential Democratic voters. Will the Democratic Party learn from this and listen to its voters who want leaders to oppose sending more weapons to Israel...

www.commondreams.org

 

[Duke Mu]

Trump is not dumb enough to follow through with this and lose his Saudi Sugar Daddies. This whole horrific idea is just a long-held Gaza/WB ethnic cleansing wet dream of a small but well-connected group of extremist Israeli elected officials and settkers. Aside from Israel, no country in the Middle East will back somthing this outrageous. Neither will the majority of Israelis.

Gaza will be seen as a major grifting opportunity for Trump.

 

[Duke Mu]

Yeah man, the Gaza protests are the “left in the U.S. fucking up their operations.” Get a grip. There is no operation. There is no left leadership in this country. There are disparate groups that perform disparate actions due to a lack of agency within our political system.

Vietnam protestors weren’t the reason Humphrey lost. It was the war.

Yeah - The situations couldn't be much more different. Biden and Blinken were negotiating for many months and had a clear peace plan.

 

[SmilingJack]

Is Trump going to give his Gaza plan naming rights?

 

[Calheel]

Sure. There was clear evidence of undervote with young people and the far left. All Harris needed was about another 1.5-2% in critical states.

Some truth to this.

Looking at the exit polling hosted on the Roper site:

2020: 18-29 demo was 17% of the vote and went 60-36 for Biden
2024: 18-29 demo was only 14% of the vote and went 54-43 for Harris

Doing the math, if the young people matched their turnout in 2024 with the same vote percentage, that would have been 4.5 million more votes, with 2.7 million for Harris and 1.6 million for Trump, a pickup of 1 .1 million votes, or .73% more total votes for Kamala. That would not have been enough to make up her 1.5% deficit in the national popular vote, and likely would not have been able to swing enough states to win the electoral college. It is a bit harder to know how the loss of the far left vote impacted the election.

How Groups Voted in 2020 | Roper Center for Public Opinion Research

TypeDemographicGroupBidenTrumpSEXMen484553Women525742RACEWhite674158African-American138712Hispanic

ropercenter.cornell.edu

How Groups Voted in 2024 | Roper Center for Public Opinion Research

TypeDemographicGroupHarrisTrumpSEXMen474355Women535345RACEWhite714257African-American118613Hispanic

ropercenter.cornell.edu

 

[Patb78]

Yup, and Kushner has been talking with developers to build beachfront resorts in Gaza for months.
This was Israel’s goal from the start. Demolish and depopulate Gaza to build settlements and access the natural gas underneath it. I’ve been saying this from the start that it was never about eliminating Hamas.

I think Trump’s own words prove it Rai.
The Palestinians remind me of our Native Americans. They were allowed to live on a land until the white man decided it was valuable. Then, they were forced off.

 

[Paine]

It's hilarious that you blame everyone but the left for the left not being able to put forth and carry out a coherent plan to spread their message that the public will follow.

In your world, the left is NC State and the public is John Swofford, forever holding them down from their just rewards.

The Democrats always seem to blame the left for their own failures as well. Guess it’s par for the course.

You’re literally doing it now by blaming powerless college protestors for the Democratic Party’s massive failure in 2024. In 2016, it was Jill Stein. In 2000 it was Nader.

Anyways, nowhere in my posts do I blame “the public” for holding the left down. Nice straw man though. In fact, I’ve been one of the only posters here to not blame the public for Trump’s victory. To say that I blame everyone but the left for the left’s failures is just a complete fabrication that’s divorced from anything approaching my politics, which you never actually engage with.

 

[Geisterfahrer]

Trump is not dumb enough to follow through with this and lose his Saudi Sugar Daddies. This whole horrific idea is just a long-held Gaza/WB ethnic cleansing wet dream of a small but well-connected group of extremist Israeli elected officials and settkers. Aside from Israel, no country in the Middle East will back somthing this outrageous. Neither will the majority of Israelis.

And yet Trump’s statements clearly kick the tires on annexation.

 

[SnoopRob]

The undervote was real and devastating. This was in part a product of an inability of Harris to separate herself from Biden after the first few weeks of the campaign.

Biden's former campaign manager Jen O'Malley took over Kamala's campaign and put the brakes on. Harris and Walz started with populist momentum...then lost it.

She should have hired her own independent team.

'Damning' New Poll Shows Price Kamala Harris Paid for Backing Israeli Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

Vice President Kamala Harris' refusal to break with the Biden administration's support for Israel's assault on Gaza cost her millions of potential Democratic voters. Will the Democratic Party learn from this and listen to its voters who want leaders to oppose sending more weapons to Israel...

www.commondreams.org

So the solution is a Trump-like "lie about what you'll do" to get elected and then just do something else anyway?

There was no way that Kamala was going to stop arms transfers to Israel given the support for Israel in Congress. It simply wasn't going to happen. The only things Kamala could have done there is either told the truth that she would try to balance Palestinian and Israeli interests, aka "continue Biden's plan", or she could have lied and said that she'd lead the US to stop arms transfers to Israel, aka "lie just to get elected".

There's no realistic chance in 2025 that the US stops arms transfers or general support for Israel and any idea otherwise is silly.

 

[SnoopRob]

The Democrats always seem to blame the left for their own failures as well. Guess it’s par for the course.

You’re literally doing it now by blaming powerless college protestors for the Democratic Party’s massive failure in 2024. In 2016, it was Jill Stein. In 2000 it was Nader.

Anyways, nowhere in my posts do I blame “the public” for holding the left down. Nice straw man though. In fact, I’ve been one of the only posters here to not blame the public for Trump’s victory. To say that I blame everyone but the left for the left’s failures is just a complete fabrication that’s divorced from anything approaching my politics, which you never actually engage with.

The left has a tradition, as you show very well, of abandoning the Democratic Party and then wondering whey the Democratic Party doesn't take it seriously as a partner.

You don't blame the public for holding the left down, but I never said you did. What you misinterpreted is the role the public plays in not supporting the left. The left doesn't gain any traction in American politics because it doesn't put forth any plans that appeal to the public on a significant scale. But instead of realizing that is the issue, the left just keeps blaming moderate Dems for the failures of the left.

 

[Paine]

The left has a tradition, as you show very well, of abandoning the Democratic Party and then wondering whey the Democratic Party doesn't take it seriously as a partner.

You don't blame the public for holding the left down, but I never said you did. What you misinterpreted is the role the public plays in not supporting the left. The left doesn't gain any traction in American politics because it doesn't put forth any plans that appeal to the public on a significant scale. But instead of realizing that is the issue, the left just keeps blaming moderate Dems for the failures of the left.

You say that I show very well the tradition of leftists abandoning the Democratic Party without knowing anything about me. That’s telling. You’re mapping on your feelings about other leftists to me without critically engaging with my positions.

Here’s exactly what you said: “In your world, the left is NC State and the public is John Swofford, forever holding them down from their just rewards.”

How am I misinterpreting this statement? It pretty clearly shows that you think I blame the public for holding the left down. Just like State fans blame Swofford for holding them down. Don’t run away from your statement now.

To say that the left gains no traction because they don’t present plans that appeal to Americans is a gross oversimplification of American political history that isn’t even worth responding to. You’re smart enough to know that isn’t true.

 

[SnoopRob]

You say that I show very well the tradition of leftists abandoning the Democratic Party without knowing anything about me. That’s telling. You’re mapping on your feelings about other leftists to me without critically engaging with my positions.

Here’s exactly what you said: “In your world, the left is NC State and the public is John Swofford, forever holding them down from their just rewards.”

How am I misinterpreting this statement? It pretty clearly shows that you think I blame the public for holding the left down. Just like State fans blame Swofford for holding them down. Don’t run away from your statement now.

To say that the left gains no traction because they don’t present plans that appeal to Americans is a gross oversimplification of American political history that isn’t even worth responding to. You’re smart enough to know that isn’t true.

You show the tradition in the very post I quoted...Nader in 2000, Stein in 2016, non-support in 2024. You laid out the tradition very well and I didn't need to add anything to it because you covered it well.

I wasn't being literal in that statement about State/Swofford and I know you didn't specifically blame the public. But every time these discussions come up there's always complaints from you that the left isn't given a real chance in American politics as if it is some kind of conspiracy against you. The reality is that the left makes claims that the public simply rejects. The only "conspiracy" here is that the ideas the left generates just don't motivate the public to support them at the ballot box.

 

[ChapelHillSooner]

Those people did not affect the outcome nor were they the reason she lost. Even if all of them voted for Harris, she would have still lost.

That is beside the point. They played a role in where we are today.

 

[Paine]

You show the tradition in the very post I quoted...Nader in 2000, Stein in 2016, non-support in 2024. You laid out the tradition very well and I didn't need to add anything to it because you covered it well.

I wasn't being literal in that statement about State/Swofford and I know you didn't specifically blame the public. But every time these discussions come up there's always complaints from you that the left isn't given a real chance in American politics as if it is some kind of conspiracy against you. The reality is that the left makes claims that the public simply rejects. The only "conspiracy" here is that the ideas the left generates just don't motivate the public to support them at the ballot box.

The left isn’t often given a real chance in American politics but not because of any kind of conspiracy against the left. I’ve never claimed that there is a conspiracy against the left, though other leftists certainly have claimed that. Again, please just engage with what I’m saying rather than what you think I’m saying or what other leftists have said.

My thoughts about why the left doesn’t gain traction in America are much more structural than that. Besides, there have been times in American history when the left has gained traction. It’s no coincidence that the left was it its strongest in this country when labor was at its strongest.

Leftist ideas heavily influenced the New Deal. Last time I checked, the programs that are still around from that era are pretty damn popular with the American public.

It’s just not as simple as the left making claims and then the public rejecting them. That’s not how politics in this country works. That’s not really how politics works anywhere.

Look at opinion polls of issues that would be considered “left” issues. A ton of them garner a majority of public support. It’s not a conspiracy to say that operating within the current political and economic structure of the United States puts the left at a disadvantage. I’m sure you would acknowledge that it puts the Democratic Party at a disadvantage. That is magnified x100 for people left of the Democratic mainstream.

To simplify politics to the point of accepting or rejecting an entire program or worldview based on individual election results (especially in an electoral system as skewed as ours) is asinine. Is the entire platform of the Democratic Party now rejected by the American public since Harris lost?

The wider point, going back to the origin of this discussion, is that the left-wing in the United States is utterly broken and disorganized. Not as much as it was in its nadir, but it is not anywhere close to an effective political force. Bernie was the closest thing to hammering out some kind of consistent left program, but we all know of his failures. If there was a real left force in this country, we wouldn’t be talking about college protestors as representative of the left.

 

[superrific]

The Democrats always seem to blame the left for their own failures as well. Guess it’s par for the course.

You’re literally doing it now by blaming powerless college protestors for the Democratic Party’s massive failure in 2024. In 2016, it was Jill Stein. In 2000 it was Nader.

Anyways, nowhere in my posts do I blame “the public” for holding the left down. Nice straw man though. In fact, I’ve been one of the only posters here to not blame the public for Trump’s victory. To say that I blame everyone but the left for the left’s failures is just a complete fabrication that’s divorced from anything approaching my politics, which you never actually engage with.

In fairness, Nader was responsible in 2000. He pulled a big third party share by lying, and that clearly cost Gore the election.

The others I am a little bit less firmly convinced about.

 

[Paine]

In fairness, Nader was responsible in 2000. He pulled a big third party share by lying, and that clearly cost Gore the election.

The others I am a little bit less firmly convinced about.

Even if he was, I think it’s silly to attribute all of Nader’s votes to the left, even if a big share of Nader voters held left beliefs.

Truth is, the Democratic Party must share some of the blame for their failures in the same way the leftists must share blame for our failures. I’m nothing if not critical of my fellow leftists, and the Democrats could stand to be much more critical of themselves rather than blaming the left for their losses. Certainly not college protestors.