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Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday
Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.
Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.
As an outsider looking in, it feels really odd that this could even be a firm issue for any voter. Like that high horse sailed so long ago, how can you possibly blame the current president for what has been a national policy for 75 years?
Sure, push for a candidate that doesn’t support Israel and dissent as much as you can. But every time I read a comment about “Genocide Joe” it screams Russian propaganda farm.
I feel like this is just another division tactic to split the vote to favor Republicans.
I have friends who were rabidly for Democrats and their agenda for decades, decrying single issue conservative voters, now acting the same way toward Biden over Gaza as if he single handedly orchestrated this and didn’t inherit years of foreign policy.
I fucking hate what’s happening there and don’t want to support it in any way, but my vote doesn’t change what’s already established and the alternative is so much worse.
I keep asking for a viable alternative and all I get is vote third party or stay home which solves exactly nothing.
The viable alternative is you continue voting Democrat but you write all your congresspeople and tell them that they need to stop supporting Israel.
At the end of the day, though, if they know this “party loyalty even when I abhor the party’s behavior” sentiment exists then they’ll have less reason to listen to you.
But even if you aren’t playing hardball with them, you can tell them what you think and feel. Humans are swayed by social proof, and if they get enough letters encouraging them to stop supporting the thing, it will sway them.
Assuming they’re human. If they’re not, the only thing they’ll respect is your leverage over them and if you aren’t willing to swing your vote then that’s gone.
But I think most of them are human. Probably not more than a small fraction are psychopaths.
LOL your representatives know that there is no way you break through all the noise loud enough to actually affect their election and will be well funded enough to run their ads enough to get elected no matter what by voter apathy and confusion.
If you had the influence already you wouldn’t be sending an email.
I have sent so many and called so many rep lines and at best you get an aid who apologizes and you know they will be ignored too.
That’s a bad idea. If the US stops supporting Israel, Hamas and their financial backers will immediately invade to wipe them off the planet. I don’t know if the rhetoric I hear is mostly Russian propaganda, or people don’t really understand the conflict. Israel didn’t just decide to invade Gaza, there was an 9/11-esk terrorist attack by Hamas that triggered his retaliation. Despite being the defacto governors of Gaza, Hamas is a terrorist organization and operates like one. There is no attacking Hamas without attacking Gaza. They are essentially one in the same, and there is no peaceful solution when Hamas goal is to wipe Israel off the planet. It would be a kin to the US not going after Osama Bin Laden after 9/11. Do you think he would have stopped? I don’t think I’ve heard anyone seriously suggest the US should have done nothing after 9/11. Going into Afghanistan was pretty well supported (Ignoring Iraq, because that’s where the Bush Admin fucked it up). The only solution to 9/11 was a time machine going back and not getting involved in the Middle East in the first place, but now where talking a reverse butterfly effect of who knows what happens. The Israel-Hamas conflict is older than Hamas, and it quite literally one of, if not the most complex Geo-political issues in history.
Personally I think the best Idea would be the pressure Israel into larger oversight by the UN, or whomever. I don’t see any true peace while Hamas or any other Islamist extremist organization exists in that region. The time for that was twenty plus years ago.
I have a better idea, US soldiers are employed within Israel border to cut the settlers off from having resources until they surrender and turn themselves into Palestine with support on placing them on trial, along with searching former and current soldiers that supports the settlers. I don’t think I can trust Israel to give up on supporting their settlers. And then, force a 2-state solution via bargaining peace, any trouble, they lose territory and soldiers. That way, Israel ends up being forced to stop supporting settlers and Palestine stop making trouble.
US troops on the ground means another occupation where Hamas would gladly attack them too. I’m not sure the general public wants another Iraq or Afghanistan where Americans get killed and the outcome likely ends up no different. Hamas doesn’t want Israel to exist at all. A two state solution still needs to deal with them.
Then, how do you solve the issue of Israel-Palestine never-ending conflict? Israel has the settlers problem, and no one likes them including Israelis while Israel government still sponsors them, while Palestine has the antisemitism problem.
There may not be a peaceful solution, but the correct violent solution would be for Israel to stop the weapons blockade on Gaza, so that non-Hamas Gazans can arm themselves, and so they have a chance to overthrow Hamas on their own.
Hamas rules without elections, hence do not have the consent of those governed.
The weapons embargo is failing, obviously. As gun control opponents in the USA often point out, gun laws basically ensure the rule followers are disarmed; it doesn’t do much to disarm the criminals.
All this weapons blockade is doing is making Gazans helpless.
And because they are helpless, they are not responsible for Hamas.
I’m NOT trying to say here that arming average Gazans would make it okay to carpet bomb Gaza, but it would at least open the door for Gazans to take a side.
If I were running Israel, my policy would be:
With the Gazan people being actively prevented from arming themselves by the Israeli military, there is no way in hell that Gazans could ever be responsible for Hamas. They are in a state of helpless victimhood that is continually enforced by the actions of Israel.
Stop the weapons blockade. It is a violation of human rights. I mean naturally the food and medicine blockades are fucked too. But keeping the Gazan population unarmed is also a serious violation of their rights, and it makes Israel’s current actions immoral.
Support for Hamas is Growing
I don’t believe adding more guns solves any problem, so that’s a non starter for me.
However just today, Palestinian prime minister submitted the government’s resignation, so we will see what’s next.
Which has fuckall to do with Hamas. The Palestinian Authority has no presence in Gaza.
I’ve said before that there is no resolution without getting rid of Hamas. Outside of that, there are measures like this. If these are meaningless, then all out war is the only answer and that’s what Israel is doing.
This kind of comment is why I’m on Lemmy. I abhor the policy of the US to support Israel without question, and feel that Biden has let the world down by not calling out the crimes being committed now. But I hadn’t considered how this might be used by Republican supporters to divide Democratic support. It sure makes sense. Thanks for posting this viewpoint.
That’s wrong too. Voting for Biden keeps it the same. Voting third party or staying home makes it worse. Making it better isn’t on the ballot.
Have you ever asked the Democratic party why they don’t put other candidates up for us to vote for? Especially with so much doubt for Biden going on right now?
Votes are not owed, they are given.
Running a Primary against the President would almost certainly guarantee a Democratic loss. It’s like admitting failure and asking to try again. Furthermore there is no clear alternative waiting to run. “Votes are not owed, they are given” is kinda bunk. Someone is going to win the election whether you like it or not. If you treasure the ability to vote at all, there is only one person on the ballot that is going to ensure that moving forward. The GOP is actively talking about overturning democracy at CPAC. Especially in a topic about Israel, which the GOP has stronger support for than the DNC. If you’d rather see the US Military help Israel, by all means vote Republican, because they have been trying to find an excuse to go to war with Iran for ever, and starting another war in the middle east would be their we dream.
Citizens took bayonettes to the chest, and watched their body parts fly apart in opposite directions on foreign beaches, for our sacred right to choose who leads us. The alliegance is to the country, not any party.
Its so obvious at this point that a new candidate is needed, the “failure” is already visible. And he’s losing in the polls to Trump.
You’re making Gavin Newson cry.
No idea what you’re tying to say here. Republicans are welcoming this shit.
I don’t think he’s as universally liked as you think. There’s so weirdness with one of his exes now being involved with one of Trumps kids too, so that’s another thing that they’d hold against him.
The fact you don’t understand is a problem in and of itself. Go back and learn your (?; assuming you are a U.S. Citizen) history.
This right here. It “conveniently” gets forgotten about during every conversation regarding Biden’s stance on Israel. Ask Trump what he thinks of Israel, ask Obama, Clinton, Bush, Carter, Reagan’s ghost, Nixon’s ghost, Ford’s ghost. They’ve literally all been pro-Israel since 1948.
“That’s the way we’ve always done it”
Now is worse than any time in my adult life. Maybe the original displacement of Palestinians in 1948 is worse, but the US wasn’t a close ally then and there’s no reason a current day voter would have to think that the decisions of past voters were somehow constraining on their current beliefs.