Democratic National Convention Megathread! Day 1 - Monday 8/19

@jordanlund · edit-2 24 days ago

Democratic National Convention Megathread! Day 1 - Monday 8/19

@lennybird · edit-2 23 days ago

You make my point.

Democracy is a reflection of the will of the people.
Most leaders don’t lead from ahead, but rather lead from behind where the current polling is — especially true in an election year. Too much risk otherwise.
So the BEST way to change policy direction is to change where the electorate is at.
Otherwise, you again make my point: Protest all you want, it will do nothing until public position changes.
So spend your time not arguing with me who fucking sympathizes with Palestinians and detests Netanyahu and also stop putting the cart before the horse and divert your attention to American Pro-Israeli crowds who DO support what Israel is doing and actually do the hard work of convincing THEM and the undecided. This is so obviously step fucking number one.
By the way, Sympathy != Expressing approval for what Israel is doing in Gaza, necessarily, or which there has been change. If you don’t believe me, here’s another Gallup source from March.
Your source is woefully out of date, as well. That link is from March (itself out of date), but the data is from February…

@Cypher · 23 days ago

If I take your argument at face value, given the apparent swing in polling (and I do appreciate more up to date data, I didn’t properly check that), then the sheer lack of change in the Democratic line proves you wrong.

Polls have swung and still the Democrats won’t stop supplying and supporting Israel.

That points to Democracy not being a reflection of the will of the people… or at least the current US democracy not being representative.

@lennybird · 23 days ago

Well for me that begs the question — has there been a lack of change in Democratic lines and action? Hear me out:

In the week following October 7th, Biden literally went to Bibi and hugged him on the tarmac, said they’re lockstep with Israel: “The United States has Israel’s back. We’re with Israel. Let’s make no mistake.”
The administration went from vetoing in the UN dropping their and pushing aid into Gaza.
Biden held up shipment of bombs to Israel following his line in the sand on invading Rafah.
The administration went from giving Israel carte blanche on how they responded to Hamas, to now saying they needed to practice restraint and take effort to minimize casualties.
Behind the scenes there are clear reports that Biden is extremely pissed off at Netanyahu.
Meanwhile Harris made some of the most publicly-vocal comments on Bibi and Israel following her own meeting with Netanyahu, demanding that Israel follow through with the ceasefire.

These may sound like small things, but this is a monumental shift in US-Israeli diplomacy that we haven’t seen in decades. This of course follows a reflection of the polls I noted earlier.

To me this all signals that following the election and scrutinizing different political groups (namely weighing Muslim communities in the mid-west versus the 7 million Jewish-Americans, some of whom in key battleground states like Pennsylvania and more sympathetic to Israel), then I think it’s likely a Harris administration would immediately change its tune in regard to Israel. Hence why the likes of Netanyahu (and Putin) are doing everything they can to get Trump elected.

@Cypher · 23 days ago

I absolutely agree that Putin and Netanyahu want Trump elected, there is no arguing facts.

None of these ‘steps’ actually stopped Israel.

Biden held up shipment of bombs to Israel following his line in the sand on invading Rafah.

Tell me what happened to Rafah next?

At no point have a majority, or even notable minority of Democrats stated clearly that a genocide is occurring, which is both reality and a growing sentiment amonst voters in swing states based on more recent polls.

the 7 million Jewish-Americans, some of whom in key battleground states like Pennsylvania and more sympathetic to Israel)

Interestingly based on what I can find, US Jews disapprove of Netanyahu and his administration, so that might be an own-goal on the Democrats part.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/24/middleeast/us-jews-israel-smotrich-mime-intl/index.html

demanding that Israel follow through with the ceasefire.

Until the US stops supplying bombs that is a ridiculous demand. Want a ceasefire and Israel won’t agree? Well it’s hard to bomb people without the bombs.

The administration went from giving Israel carte blanche on how they responded to Hamas

Tacit approval of the genocide from the start says everything really. The Democrats are on board, they just don’t like that their own voters are against it and the Republicans voters are for it. Again, pointing towards a failure of representative democracy.

@lennybird · edit-2 23 days ago

I’m hard-pressed to believe that Biden and Harris actively support genociding Gazans. They are not psychopaths like Trump.

I believe the issue is far more complex than most give credit, and if it were that simple, I’m pretty sure Biden and Harris would rather not be associated in any capacity to the actions of Bibi in Gaza. But naturally, they have more granular internal polling that probably details subsets of these populations and in critical states that they need to be wary of.

Moreover AIPAC is one of the strongest lobbyists in Washington. You said yourself have powerful lobbying is. You saw how much money was poured into tiny primaries just to get rid of Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman to successfully derail their campaign, right?

Israel has both an online misinformation troll farm akin to Russia’s IRA troll farm. There’s a fine line to play to keep Israel from deploying all its resources to derail the Harris reelection effort.

I agree that most of the “slight” resistance to Israel as of late has largely been ineffective. I just think that’s a product of how critical this election is unfortunately and truly don’t believe that Biden and Harris want anything to do with being indirectly or directly linked to Netanyahu’s actions if they weren’t caught between a rock and a hard place in this election. Which is why I am trying to find common-ground with those most vocal advocates for Palestinians in saying that you need to join me in going to the lion’s den of places like r/IsraelPalestine subreddits and arguing with any pro-Israeli on Facebook and so forth until one-by-one we influence the polls, because if it was a complete slam-dunk, then there would be no choice but for the administration to respond. After all, no administration is going to go against something that has 90%+ consensus in an election year. I mean shit, I got banned form r/news and r/worldnews for spreading the word on Israeli atrocities before it became a bit more mainstream on reddit. Nevertheless my voice among many others can make a difference. But I focused on influencing my fellow Americans instead of shooting myself in the foot by possibly undermining the election success of the only administration who may actually change — for you and I both know certain as shit that Trump will not change.