cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17237851
Abigail Disney, the granddaughter to Roy O. Disney, who cofounded The Walt Disney Company, told CNBC on Thursday that she plans to withhold donations to the party she has funded for years until Biden drops out. The president has said he has no plans to withdraw from the race, despite calls for him to do so.
“I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket. This is realism, not disrespect. Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high,” Abigail Disney said in a lengthy statement to CNBC. “If Biden does not step down the Democrats will lose. Of that I am absolutely certain. The consequences for the loss will be genuinely dire.”
The people who aren’t guarunteed to vote democrat not matter what fall into two major categories 1) anti-genocide center left. These people want to be able to vote democrat, but simply can’t compromise so far to the right as Biden has gone. Pressing the brakes on Israel support is not a super high bar, this group is looking for any sign that the Democrats are capable of listening 2) people who saw the debate performance and think Biden is too old.
Neither of these groups are hard to capture, and the reason most people aren’t strongly calling for any specific candidate is probably because everyone understands it would foster divisiveness and be pointless. The most logical choice would be Harris; she would get access to Biden campaign funds, she’s been in the whitehouse, she’s a woman when abortion is on the ballot, she’s responsible for Biden’s support by black voters and she has distanced herself from Biden’s braindead support of Israel. And, of course, she’s not ancient.
So if I was speculating I would say it would be her who would quickly move to the front of whatever convention process might happen if Biden stepped down, but more importantly I think people are being unspecific because they don’t need a specific person, they need “Not Biden” because at this point Biden is a surrogate for a Trump win. So think of it as “Not Trump”.
Biden and the Democrats are not waging a genocidal war, that is Israel. The USA is not the only country that continues to provide aid and weapons to Israel.
Funding a genocide and providing the literal bombs and bullets to carry it out is complicity. Other countries doing it is utterly irrelevant.
My point is that Biden isn’t explicitly funding it, or supporting it. He just didn’t cease already established aid to Israel when they crossed the line against the Hamas, just like most of their other allies didn’t either. Representing Biden as directly responsible for the genocide against Palestine is a major and ongoing propaganda campaign by the far-right, because it potentially stops people from voting for Biden, which helps trump. He has not taken severe action against Israel, that’s true, but that’s not the same as committing genocide. There are many other considerations the USA has to weigh in that decision. Biden isn’t the only politician involved in that decision.
Group 1 unfortunately has a tremendous amount of overlap with groups who typically are unlikely to vote, I think it’s why the concern there hasn’t even escalated beyond stern words when the cameras are on. Some of the strongest swing groups also tend to be a bit biased against Harris, I think that’s why they’re hesitant to choose her.
tl;dr: Democrats have decided that young people are going to continue to find a reason to not vote and swing voters trend towards being at least mildly racist/sexist old people.
The first group there is exceptionally stupid because of how Trump would be far and away more supportive of Israel. So letting him in goes against their purported goals.
I disagree, being complicit in genocide and pretending you can still stand for something is exceptionally stupid.
Regardless, you can’t win an election without the anti-genocide contingent, so you should instead focus your criticisms on those committing the genocide and trying to extort voters into supporting it.
Luckily the anti-genocide demographic of the party hasn’t backed down and the pressure they helped create might actually get Biden to step down at this point. It wouldn’t have been a possibility if people caved on genocide like you think they should’ve. Democratic conservatives know they’ve over-extended themselves thinking theu could still do the same old “lesser evil” schtick and now they’re scrambling to do their job.
Continuing to supply and cover for the genocide hurts support. Why must people “get over” supporting genocide to protect supposed american democracy. Why can’t the party who claim to support democracy, stop providing weapons to countries that are found to likely be committing war crimes.
One ask seems easier than the other.