Is it? Were the dems about to stop supplying bombs to Israel? Boy, news to me, I would've been pretty energized to work to help the dems win if I had known! You can see my confusion, given that Biden gave them an extra 18 billion and kamala told anti-genocide protesters to shut up. Is there like...any reason to think that things would have been different for palestinians, or is it just like...a vibes thing? ...like the cheering?

What do you mean "of course they did"!? How is that not insane? How is that simply acceptable? Deportation is a civil process, there is absolutely no excuse for using armed goons to kidnap people at gunpoint and put them in concentration camps until their civil, non-criminal proceedings can be handled. That is fucking insane.

And YES Obama and biden packed them full. At the end of trump 1 there were 14k people in ice detention; at the end of biden there were 40k. The democrats don't have the aesthetic of cruelty that you seem to object to so much, and I admit that it offends my aesthetic sensibilities as well, but comparing Obama 2, Trump 1, and Biden...apart from the aesthetic they're all the same...actually Biden's a lot worse. Trump 2 is obviously a crazy escalation (which the Democrats enabled by playing ball with this completely insane way of talking about and treating other human beings).

Obama was the deporter in chief. trump is still trying to catch up

alligator alcatraz is ron desantis. he's a governor.

I agree the democrats are splintered internally. i think they need to experience a crisis and hopefully some decent people can come out on top. I honestly couldn't believe Trump 1 wasn't a sufficient crisis...the ghouls at the top are resilient I guess...

Again, I'm not trying to be a jerk, and poo-poo your decision (or...hypothetical decision I guess, given that you don't vote in teh US) to vote for democrats, but I think asking this may help you see what I'm talking about if you don't: you wish the government would do something about palestine but will vote for them even if they don't do something...so what good are your wishes?

I think it's a bit silly to imagine Kamala wouldn't have invaded Iran, she was vocally hawkish about Iran; she was always going on about how Iran was America's greatest adversary and must be stopped at all costs and it would be her top priority. Oh she's singing a different tune now, of course, but look for what she was saying in 2024.

Okay, I slept on it, and I think this may help explain why I think it's ludicrous to blame individual voters for not choosing the "lesser of two evils" when each of the "evils" is itself a moral agent. I'm sure you'll find this analogy doesn't fit your mental model, but it fits mine very well so if you're trying to understand where folks like me are coming from (and I think you are), see if you can try it on for size.

Sophie has two children, Eva (8) and Jan (11), with the same life-expectancy. Eva is a sweet child, very kind. Jan's a brat...a bit of a jerk, with a cruel streak. Anyway, two Nazis with guns are arguing "I am Ralph and I wish to kill your younger daughter. This is Dirk and he wishes to kill your older boy. You may choose!" Sophie chooses for Ralph to kill Eva, or Sophie refuses to choose and Ralph loses patience before Dirk and, kills Eva. Later, the hand-wringing liberals berate Sophie for not choosing to have the older daughter killed "Jan is a worse person and has five fewer years left to live, Sophie! It's OBVIOUSLY the worse choice. Why would you choose R? How COULD you? I hope you live with that for the rest of your days! If you had chosen D instead, things would have been better."

Does that illustrate my point? It's obviously the nazis that are to blame. If either of them was decent they'd die trying to kill as many on their own side as possible, or at the very least fuck off and leave everyone alone. Blaming Sophie is absurd whether she chose or didn't choose. The hand-wringing liberals are probably right, Jan is probably a shithead (hearing his mom acquiesce to the murder of his sister probably won't have helped), and voting D probably would have been a bit better. But like...shut the fuck up, hand-wringing liberals? Maybe no children needed to be murdered, actually, and maybe Sophie's choice is not something to focus on here?

(we'll leave aside for a minute the extra 18 billion that biden did hand over unprompted. The preexisting trade deals were for something on the order of 3.8 billion)

No it's not more complicated. Don't arm a genocide.

If your friend strapped on a swastika arm band and started goose-stepping around, you wouldn't slap them? Slap them! Shame them! Stop them! (I'm not sure how to work into the analogy that your friend has already killed tens of thousands of children) In the analogy i guess you had a pre-existing arrangement to give the guy some of your old guns. But now he's a genocidal maniac...you still give him the guns? Just don't instead. Let him sue you or whatever. Like...obviously.

You’re acting as though Biden was just handing Netanyahu a loaded gun unprompted. This is not the case; there were preexisting trade deals and treaties with Israel that were being honored.

The Leahy Law means nothing to genocide apologists.

lol, you’re very sweet. When have the democrats moved left while in power (want to compare the new deal lol)? When have they pushed back on Israel? I wish you the best with your wishing that giving the democrats what they want will make them change for the better.

They are chasing donors right, not votes. That’s very well established, they get more votes when they move left.

Are the democrats not responsible for the genocide in Palestine? For providing the bombs and bullets that slaughter Palestinians? Does their responsibility not dwarf the responsibility of us on the left? And if not…how could they possibly be so stupid as to not do exactly as we wish, given how powerful we are? By the logic of “you’re responsible for the world as you find it and cannot wish for anyone to change, particularly if they’re more powerful than you” it is still their fault if we are so powerful, no? And why, in your mind, do they get to be unchangingly uncompromisingly pro genocide, but little old me, I must compromise my ludicrous anti genocide position?

Gaza is not worse off than if the democrats changed, because if the democrats changed they'd win, as you point out yourself. And then things would be better for Gaza. I know you're saying it's worse off under Republicans than under Democrats...I'm skeptical it would be any different, but whatever, sure, maybe it's 10% worse, idk. None of my business. I'm not voting for 10% less demonic when they could just stop being demons instead.

We're not fucked because we didn't vote for the Democrats, we're fucked because the Democrats decided that continuing to support a genocide was more important than winning. No one should be asked to hold their nose that hard. Getting killed by Nazis would be better than actively helping and legitimizing the diet-nazis. The domestic horror is a rounding error. Feel free to throw in other points if you want too, medicare for all, meaningful environmental regulation, or whatever you want, maybe those would have been enough to make a difference, but I think Palestine is a pretty goddamn huge one. The point is they were not trying to be minimally palatable. I'm sure you know, but in case you didn't, 2020 biden would have beaten 2024 trump...trump didn't win (he did worse than he did in 2020), the democrats lost hard.

The party doesn't cease to exist when it's not in power; they don't need to be in office to change. In fact, I'd say when they're in office they're impossible to change...why change when they're winning? The party platform could say "Israel is conducting a genocide in Palestine and if you vote for us we'll put a stop to US support for it." They could announce that first thing in the morning if they gave a shit. I'd be banging on doors for them tomorrow afternoon, and I don't think that's an unusual position. Since they don't give a shit about the genocide they have to carefully weigh whether it's worthwhile, from the perspective of electoral success, to alienate zionists in order to win the support of people who do give a shit. Fine, I can't control that. But I can control whether I vote for them or not; whether they actually have to consider that or not. Let them decide, but don't look at me askance for not wanting to vote for more support for genocide.

If you voted for Harris, she was explicit, you were voting for continued support for genocide in Palestine. Maybe you can hold your nose and say "relative to trump, some slight reduction in horror there and significant reduction in horror here is enough for me to vote for continued horror there," good for you, I 'aint judging, I don't care. I can't do that.

Not a damn thing.

Your party only cared about netanyahu and ignored every single warning. They preferred netanyahu over your family.

The people who wanted genocide got their genocide. At home and abroad.

So mom should refuse to answer and they kill both? That's your solution?

This is where simple logic and math collide with some weird emotional notion. Non-votes don't stop the worse candidate - that helps them win. Sort of like the trolly problem. You are arguing that the act of not pulling the lever vs pulling the lever is relevant. Whether it's an action or a non-action that implements your decision is irrelevant.