Israel/Palestine post 10/7 - follow-on events/thoughts as relate to other countries

xxp yeah, I don't mean to be dismissive... it's just that a lot of college students don't always update registration to be able to vote in fall elections, more of a technical failing than one of motivation

I don't know about the rest of America or even Florida, but the students I address in South Florida as a local activist care most about (in order): affordable housing, legal weed, sea level rise, Gaza, abortion access. We have amendments on the ballot in November re legal weed and abortion.

Typically you'd say that a candidate who needs voters under 25 and/or Muslim voters to win isn't going to win anyway, since they're such small parts of the electorate. But we've had back to back elections decided by small numbers of votes in a handful of states, so either/both could hurt in key places (thinking about Dearborn and Madison).

Of course Trump would be worse on everything that people are mad at Biden for, but y'know.

What’s the point in voting if the end results are the same?

Well the end results aren't the same on a lot of fronts. For those of us living in Republican-occupied territories already, having a Democratic administration in Washington vs. a Republican one makes a pretty big difference! We already live under aspiring autocracies/theocracies, having an autocracy/theocracy-friendly administration in DC makes lots of things worse for lots of people, especially every single class of marginalized/vulnerable people. But this isn't the thread for that anyway.

I still have strong feelings about (in theory) voting for the lesser of two evils - even if there's one issue that the evil isn't lesser on, there are plenty of others. However, I live in NY so it doesn't matter who I vote for, and I also don't think browbeating others to do so is effective. People have the right to be one-issue voters, and, in fact, it's probably one of the more effective ways of using voting power to get concessions when done well.

as far as turnout, maybe the abortion rights thing can somewhat negate the Gaza mistrust? IDK

Eighteen hours ago Florida illegalized access to abortion, and it's pretty clear who's responsible.

its just a shit situation for Dems, like yes Biden needs to be a lot better on this and has a lot of blood on his hands but I feel like a lot of actions he *could* take to retain youth/Muslim voters would wind up pissing a different faction off, which is what happens when you're forced to be a "big tent" party because the other one is so uniformly committed to being pure evil.

even if there's one issue that the evil isn't lesser on, there are plenty of others

And you're not just voting for a single person - you're voting for an administration, cabinet secretaries and appointees, ambassadors, the whole crew

"Hope they stop caring about genocide and their peers being beaten by cops in defense of genocide because of X" is definitely a strategy.

I think people attach way too much moral weight to their vote. It's just a strategic decision, and one that only goes so far. It's completely independent of whether you continue to protest or take other actions. I get that some people feel like checking a box next to Joe Biden feels like they are personally sanctioning what Biden does, but I don't see it that way, I feel pretty dispassionate about it.

^^^spoken like a Biden voter

Trump voters feel like they're voting for God in a battle against Absolute Evil

I'm voting for a flawed hack in q battle against Absolute Evil.

That cuts both ways - if you're a stoic (potential) voter and realistic about the value your individual vote actually carries relative to millions of other votes (if you cast for Joe Biden you didn't make him sell missiles to Israel) but you feel no strong commitment to Joe Biden or the Democrats ... then why bother?

Convincing people that their votes do matter, that they do have moral weight because their individual decision helps determine the path of the entire country is pretty important. You can't rely on millions of people making the jerkoff motion with one hand and voting for your candidate with the other. (If there wasn't some moral weight attached to a vote, would people shame non-voters or those who vote incorrectly?)

Meanwhile Republicans and too many Democrats voted for this repugnant thing

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-campus-protests-columbia-congress-df4ba95dae844b3a8559b4b3ad7e058a

Making it a violation of federal civil rights law to criticize the actions of a foreign government, just batshit stuff. I'm tempted to say it's clearly a 1st Amendment violation, but as with so many things related to free speech these days who the hell knows. Infuriating regardless.

yeah, that's one of those safe knee-jerk votes that absolutely violates 1st Amendment rights

thread is moving too fast for me

What’s the point in voting if the end results are the same?

Gaza/Israel aside, I don't believe that the end results are the same. That Time magazine interview with Trump makes the stakes very clear. (I'll try to make this a gift article, but I'm not sure how it works):

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/us/politics/trump-time-migrants-election.html?unlocked_article_code=1.o00.TgLa.8ACA6rwnAaHS&smid=url-share

As man alive said, if you want any say in the matter of elections, it's just strategy and you vote accordingly. Milo, I don't believe it's about a moral imperative at all, unless you don't really care about the outcome but just your own voice

If you think it's important to vote in accordance with your strategy to achieve a desired outcome, that is a moral imperative!

Yes, but what is the strategy? "If Biden is no longer the president, then Biden will no longer be sending weapons and money to Israel"?

Or is it a longer-term strategy? "If Trump is re-elected to the presidency, the United States will collapse, and eventually be unable to continue sending weapons and money to Israel — victory!"

It's just framing the act in such a way that it's all positive (we beat Trump/the Republicans!) without sharing in any of the negative (they voted to criminalize criticism of Israel and actively aided genocide).

Do you ever get tired having this same argument? Do anyone’s opinions change as a result of it?

I'm voting for Biden to make sure what's going on doesn't happen.

— Sridhar Ramesh (@RadishHarmers) April 25, 2024

this is legit how all of you sound to me, fwiw

:)

cool, I'm voting for Biden to make sure what's going on doesn't get far worse

this is legit how all of you sound to me, fwiw

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table),

has he been on SNL yet?

Sridhar? No, but he is fucking hilarious

its kind of a silly argument to me, yes Biden blowing this particular issue, but even if you're a one-issue voter I still think you would prefer what's going on now over the party who is currently writing bills to allow drivers to mow down protestors if they feel inconvenienced by them. even if they are somehow "equally bad" here there are dozens of other issues in which Biden is clearly better, including "should this country be a democracy or a monarchy"

OK if we're gonna have this argument on this thread too, I'll just say that my state just sued the Biden Dept. of Education over its new rule extending Title IX protection to transgender students. I have friends in this state with transgender kids. Obviously if Trump wins he will work ASAP to reverse that rule. Even if I couldn't list another 20 things like that easily — vs. literally nothing that would somehow get better under Trump — that would be enough for me. You don't care about my friends and their kids, fine. I do.

Guys, don't bother

okay, i didn’t mean to turn this into the US politics thread with an errant remark about this issue losing young voters, so maybe let’s get back on track

I mean, it's a follow-on event in another country...

Many people aren't deeply committed to the act of voting, period. Your worry shouldn't be 'single-issue voters,' it should be people who only turn out when they're hyped for one reason or another (still very important voters in a world where every national election is tight) while your guy is serving them up reasons to not be hyped. You can be mad at them for their apathy but that doesn't put votes in your column.

I just think that if we’re going to talk about this, we need to focus on how this specific issue and its related events might influence the election. I made a hyperbolic statement, but one which does have some truth behind it, and people took it as a cue to defend Biden and their decision to vote for him. That’s fine, but I am not so sure that has to do with the thread

I don't think you're wrong, I mean if Biden loses by a slim margin (which imo is the only way he could lose) it'll be pretty easy to argue that this was the tipping point. I really hope that's not the case though, it would be one of the worst own goals in the history of American politics. I mean its not like Israel wants Biden to win.

I still think Biden’s policy could wind up being instrumental to a ceasefire given a few more proxy trial balloons and some grindingly slow pressure on Bibi

Or possibly “hope” but yknow, thinking and hoping are about the same

Anyway I’m voting for him, best president of my lifetime as I keep saying

Almost anything can influence this election, because it's going to be close. Obviously nothing that makes any group of potential Democratic voters less likely to vote for Biden is good for Biden. All of that's true. Biden himself for totally selfish reasons if nothing else no doubt wishes none of this stuff was happening, or least that it wasn't happening right now. From a strictly political standpoint, there is no obvious way for him to handle this that doesn't imperil him with one important constituency or another. Whereas it's pretty much free territory for Trump, because the GOP is just lockstep kill-the-Arabs. Sucks to be Genocide Joe, whaddya gonna do.

You could stick it to AIPAC and J-Street and do what’s right in the name of humanity but

You think the overwhelmingly Dem-voting Jewish population is going to abandon Biden if he refuses to continue arming Israel? I doubt it. But he will lose (and has already lost) a ton of younger voters who won’t vote for the guy who enabling the slaughter that they see on their screens every day

(Not trying to take Jewish voters for granted, but just acknowledging historic precedent in that comment fwiw)

Some people are young and Jewish

I teach many of them, and they are all
pro-Palestine

(at least those whom I teach, that is)

I'm not debating the morality! He should absolutely stick it to AIPAC and confront the Israeli government, force a ceasefire and a two-state dialogue.

Just from a U.S. electoral impact standpoint — since that's what we're talking about — the effects of any decision are hard to predict because the margins are small. So, sure, there are enough young voters and Muslim voters to make a difference in this election. Unusually so, really. But there also remains the older and wealthier voters who always turn out, and if you somehow risk losing some numbers of those voters, that's potentially even worse. It's a bad political situation. And those tend to paralyze decision-makers whose primary goal is winning an election. And that's where we are.

It’s not great, but then again our “democracy” is full of shit so I don’t expect much. Wish this wasn’t the case

https://x.com/MavenNavarro1/status/1785785576571994299

Both sides now chanting “F***” Joe Biden” pic.twitter.com/Jbt7TU1b9b

— Maven Navarro (@MavenNavarro1) May 1, 2024