I will apologise for my aggressive response. I conflated your position with direct support for the underlying. That was a mistake and I apologize.
Re the ‘punish’ comment, I remain completely disgusted with Uncommitted due to their stated goals ’ a protest campaign aimed mainly to pressure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to achieve a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war and impose an arms embargo on Israel’
No such political pressure towards the Trump campaign? I recognize that he isn’t the sitting president but even a casual observer can see that his presidency would likely be significantly worse for Palestine.
However, re third party or ‘none of the above’ voters, including any teamsters that did not vote for Harris because she didn’t beg, fuck em. I believe their fence sitting (at least partially) enabled this right wing smorgasbord.
There was also pressure on the Trump campaign too. And what did he do? Went to Dearborn and met with Arab-American leaders and lied about how he wants peace. Biden/Harris couldn’t even do that minimum. Biden detoured his campaign to avoid the area completely. Harris got a lot of the community back on board but then couldn’t bring herself to say that she would have done a single thing differently than Biden. She couldn’t even walk back Biden’s anti-Palestinian comments.
And you seem to miss the reason that the Arab and Muslim-American communities struggled this year; it’s the Trolley problem. You’re asking me to vote for someone who is actively helping murder people in your community, when asked about it he has no remorse and said he would do it all again and not even claim he will do better next time, and I’d better fall in line because the other person is worse. You’re asking me to actively vote to kill people in my community and threatening me with more deaths if I don’t. Can you see why this is such an unappealing choice? Obama killed innocent people in drone strikes but he at least tried to claim it was an accident and was doing better and supported us against the active bigots in the other party trying to ban our existence. Biden stubbornly ignored a solid YEAR of pressure, falsely promised he heard us after the primaries and then refused to hear anyone out. Well he lost by an even greater margin than our community and he has only himself to blame. He’s not even wallowing, he’s reportedly complaining that he could have beaten Trump if that awful Pelosi didn’t real his internal polling and make him stand aside.
Well, I get what you’re saying, but I think Harris’ failure to negotiate with these groups is entirely on her. The Uncommitted movement’s goals were very lofty, but their demands were small. They wanted State Rep. Ruwa Romman to give a speech at the DNC, and a leaked draft showed it was a very mild speech that didn’t even condemn Israel. It just called for an end to the war. After the DNC declined, they asked her to meet with families who’d lost loved ones in Gaza, and she ignored the request. Finally, they gave her until September 15th to hold a meeting with them, and she again ignored them, so they decided not to endorse her.
The Uncommitted movement didn’t create the problems Harris had with the Muslim community; Biden’s handling of Gaza did that. The Uncommitted movement just took that anger, organized it, and put it towards productive action. That’s what activist leaders are supposed to do. The Uncommitted leadership was clearly looking for any gesture towards the Palestinian community that they could take to their supporters, and Harris just wouldn’t do it. You have to do something to win an activist groups’ support. Endorsing her after she snubbed them wouldn’t have convinced the Uncommitted members to vote for Harris, if would have convinced them their leaders were pushovers.
And that sentiment, writ across the country, handed the election on a platter to the Republican party. Who will be arguably worse for Palestine that the Democrats.
Ultimately none of the Uncommitted arguments are wrong - I would go so far to say they are reasonable - but they presume that the alternative is better than the incumbent. Which I believe is manifestly misplaced in the 2024 election. All well and good to withhold support because you’ve been ignored, but this is a prime example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Anyway. I respect that you’re clarifying and I appreciate that.
No, they presumed Harris would be reasonable and make concessions to the will of the people. The fact that she didnt isnt on the people, its on her. She did nothing but try to appeal to the center-right which clearly didnt work, but she didn’t learn andbthe Democratic party still isnt gonna learn. Nobody assumes Trump is better either, they just refused to cave to the Democrat’s clear manipulation of the situation and disdain for the average person.
I will apologise for my aggressive response. I conflated your position with direct support for the underlying. That was a mistake and I apologize.
Re the ‘punish’ comment, I remain completely disgusted with Uncommitted due to their stated goals ’ a protest campaign aimed mainly to pressure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to achieve a ceasefire in the Israel–Hamas war and impose an arms embargo on Israel’
No such political pressure towards the Trump campaign? I recognize that he isn’t the sitting president but even a casual observer can see that his presidency would likely be significantly worse for Palestine.
However, re third party or ‘none of the above’ voters, including any teamsters that did not vote for Harris because she didn’t beg, fuck em. I believe their fence sitting (at least partially) enabled this right wing smorgasbord.
There was also pressure on the Trump campaign too. And what did he do? Went to Dearborn and met with Arab-American leaders and lied about how he wants peace. Biden/Harris couldn’t even do that minimum. Biden detoured his campaign to avoid the area completely. Harris got a lot of the community back on board but then couldn’t bring herself to say that she would have done a single thing differently than Biden. She couldn’t even walk back Biden’s anti-Palestinian comments.
And you seem to miss the reason that the Arab and Muslim-American communities struggled this year; it’s the Trolley problem. You’re asking me to vote for someone who is actively helping murder people in your community, when asked about it he has no remorse and said he would do it all again and not even claim he will do better next time, and I’d better fall in line because the other person is worse. You’re asking me to actively vote to kill people in my community and threatening me with more deaths if I don’t. Can you see why this is such an unappealing choice? Obama killed innocent people in drone strikes but he at least tried to claim it was an accident and was doing better and supported us against the active bigots in the other party trying to ban our existence. Biden stubbornly ignored a solid YEAR of pressure, falsely promised he heard us after the primaries and then refused to hear anyone out. Well he lost by an even greater margin than our community and he has only himself to blame. He’s not even wallowing, he’s reportedly complaining that he could have beaten Trump if that awful Pelosi didn’t real his internal polling and make him stand aside.
Well, I get what you’re saying, but I think Harris’ failure to negotiate with these groups is entirely on her. The Uncommitted movement’s goals were very lofty, but their demands were small. They wanted State Rep. Ruwa Romman to give a speech at the DNC, and a leaked draft showed it was a very mild speech that didn’t even condemn Israel. It just called for an end to the war. After the DNC declined, they asked her to meet with families who’d lost loved ones in Gaza, and she ignored the request. Finally, they gave her until September 15th to hold a meeting with them, and she again ignored them, so they decided not to endorse her.
The Uncommitted movement didn’t create the problems Harris had with the Muslim community; Biden’s handling of Gaza did that. The Uncommitted movement just took that anger, organized it, and put it towards productive action. That’s what activist leaders are supposed to do. The Uncommitted leadership was clearly looking for any gesture towards the Palestinian community that they could take to their supporters, and Harris just wouldn’t do it. You have to do something to win an activist groups’ support. Endorsing her after she snubbed them wouldn’t have convinced the Uncommitted members to vote for Harris, if would have convinced them their leaders were pushovers.
And that sentiment, writ across the country, handed the election on a platter to the Republican party. Who will be arguably worse for Palestine that the Democrats.
Ultimately none of the Uncommitted arguments are wrong - I would go so far to say they are reasonable - but they presume that the alternative is better than the incumbent. Which I believe is manifestly misplaced in the 2024 election. All well and good to withhold support because you’ve been ignored, but this is a prime example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Anyway. I respect that you’re clarifying and I appreciate that.
No, they presumed Harris would be reasonable and make concessions to the will of the people. The fact that she didnt isnt on the people, its on her. She did nothing but try to appeal to the center-right which clearly didnt work, but she didn’t learn andbthe Democratic party still isnt gonna learn. Nobody assumes Trump is better either, they just refused to cave to the Democrat’s clear manipulation of the situation and disdain for the average person.