How the right is weaponizing pro-Palestinian campus protests in the US

Republicans are using a narrative of chaos and ‘philosophical divisions on Israel’ among Democrats to sink Biden’s campaign

Republicans have identified recent college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza as the core of an election campaign narrative of chaos that they hope can be used to sink Joe Biden’s presidency.

The approach was bluntly crystallised by Tom Cotton, the Republican senator Arkansas, in a recent television interview when he mocked the encampments that have sprung up in recent weeks as “little Gazas” and lambasted the president for a perceived failure to unequivocally denounce instances of antisemitism.

Mastengwe,

Remember this when certain bad actors here try and tell you that both sides are the same. They’re not- they never were, and they probably never will be:

VOTE LIKE LIVES DEPEND ON IT.

motherjones.com/…/washington-post-report-donald-t…

www.usatoday.com/story/news/…/73625195007/

thedailybeast.com/conservative-plan-calls-for-doz…

advocate.com/…/trump-revoke-trans-protections

SulaymanF,

What a bizarre fantasy these Republicans live in. Biden flew to Israel immediately to meet Israeli victims. He still hosts their families at the White House even this month. He has never comforted a single Palestinian family despite Palestinian Americans being killed in hate crimes since October. Instead, he thought it was helpful to go on TV and say he has zero trust Palestinians aren’t lying. (It’s reported he privately said he meant Hamas and not all Palestinians but he never apologized publicly). He bypasses Congress to ship more weapons to Israel despite the laws requiring him to stop shipments in the event of war crimes being committed, which his own state department is aware of.

Despite doing more for Israel than anyone, even undermining Obama’s Palestine policies, they’re still trying to paint him as some raging anti-Semite?

LodeMike,

Yes

Passerby6497,

Since when have facts ever mattered to republicans?

Rottcodd,
Rottcodd avatar

When Tom Cotton says "little Gazas," what he means is "little communities of people I reflexively hate and want to see die, and you should hate them and want to see them die too."

Jafoo,

Progressives rammed an ice pick through their own skulls several times over, by failing to endorse free expression. The same arguments they used(“Your words make us FEEL like this isn’t a Safe Space”) are now being employed by Tucker Carlson’s and some other loser named Prager’s congregations of cocksuckers

disguy_ovahea, (edited )

“The Democrats have deep philosophical divisions on Israel,” Cotton told ABC’s This Week programme. “That’s why you see all those little Gazas out there on campuses where you see people chanting vile antisemitic slogans … For two weeks, Joe Biden refused to come out and denounce it. That is the 2024 election.”

Do any of the people who picked apart Biden’s concern about disorder with MLK quotes want a crack at decrypting this enigma?

Republicans have vilified protesters for close to a century. Maybe it’s time to stop complaining about imperfect messages and start looking the outright lies in the face.

NoneOfUrBusiness,

Both are outright lies; one is just more outrageous.

rayyy,

So what’s new? The right inserted provocateurs into BLM demonstrations to create violence and bad press. This time their provocateurs prime aim is to alienate Biden voters. It is so easy to lead people.

FenrirIII,
@FenrirIII@lemmy.world avatar

Just look at Lemmy. There’s tons of anti-Biden posters who twist everything with misinformation and deception

Valmond,

Yeah the “gEnOcIdE jOe” are the worst simpletons.

Tinidril,

That’s what happens when the establishment uses their stranglehold over mainstream media to strong arm a primary. The right wing is going to right wing, and misinformation is their whole game. Democrats can learn to be a party that can win in that environment, or they can let institutional inertia destroy the country. They seem to be leaning to the latter.

TheUncannyObserver,

Are we at the point where Democrats start blaming progressives for Biden losing? Remember, this time we’re calling them commies, not Bernie Bros.

Wes4Humanity,

antisemitic commies*

TheUncannyObserver,

Oh! What about homophobic antisemitic commies? You know, because Israel does the absolute minimum of not lining gays up against a wall. For now.

Viking_Hippie,

Are we at the point where Democrats start blaming progressives for Biden losing

That would be every point since the party went all in on neoliberalism in 1992. The leadership and its lickspittles are still convinced that the policy stances, strategies and tactics that worked back then (including acting like the increasingly rare “independent centrist” is 100% of persuadable voters) are perfect, so everyone who disagrees in either direction must be wrong with malicious intent.

Wes4Humanity,

This is exactly right… They keep chasing an ever shrinking “center”, moving further and further to the right to try and scrape a few soft Rs over to their side, while ignoring basically the majority of the next 2 generations (progressives)… Or worse, spitting in our faces and telling us to shut up and take it. If they’d just embrace progressives they’d still get all those centrist liberal votes (those are the people telling us to vote blue no matter who after all) AND they’d get most of the next generations… The Republican party would be gone in 3 generations… But of course they’d have to give up their cushy retirement gigs giving speeches to their corporate sugar daddies

Neato,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

Biden does anything good: “Oooh where was all this for the last 4 years?”

Gets tiring to see.

MrVilliam,

I think Biden is far from perfect. I straight up disagree with him on a few things. I’d say he actually kinda sucks in some ways. But at the end of the day, he’s gotten a lot more done in closer to the right direction than I ever would’ve expected, and the other viable option to vote for will undo that and steer things in the wrong direction if elected.

We just can’t let good be the enemy of perfect. Biden is the only option for any hope of a positive future. A lot of the posters you’re talking about are bad faith actors, and their whole goal is convincing some people to stay home in November. 2020 went to Biden by only like 30k people across a handful of states, so it’s pretty clear that they want to dissuade people who are somewhat on the fence to chip away at that difference. They know that trump is polarizing af and even with the electoral college tilting in their favor, they need to pretend that Biden is polarizing too.

zerog_bandit,

I don’t think you understand that these Gazans would see America burn to the ground before they acknowledge that Biden might be the best option.

MrVilliam,

Gazans? I’m missing something here.

Passerby6497,

I’m guessing they’re using the shit stain politician’s nomenclature to describe the protesters.

MrVilliam,

I can’t keep up with all the dumb lore in the right wing fandom. There’s better fiction out there, guys.

Oofnik,

"Everyone that disagrees with me is a shill"

Listen, I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Biden in November because a Trump victory risks the end of democracy in the US, but I'm so tired of this idea that all criticism of him, and anyone who disagrees with us about whether to vote for him, is a victim of some kind of conspiracy.

That isn't to say that people don't want to exploit those divisions and will try to spread misinformation to do so, but that isn't an excuse to dismiss everyone you disagree with either.

JaymesRS,

In a normal media environment I’d agree with you completely, the problem is that we have a media apparatus that is set up as a propaganda arm of a political party and mainstream media thinks that balance is that any negative news story must be balanced by a negative news story in the other direction (“Trump incites riot and Biden mispronounced his granddaughters name, why both could mean the collapse of their campaigns” type coverage), instead of being balanced in standards of reporting.

I don’t know what the solution is. My strategy though is to work down ballot to get better people in positions to push Biden and get him more flexibility to make better choices and changes.

disguy_ovahea, (edited )

Yup. They’re using the same voter disengagement strategies that Republicans have used for decades. It’s never about how great Trump is. It’s always about how you should just stay home in November because Biden sucks too.

Abstaining from voting will lead to Trump’s second term. Inaction is action.

Edit: The downvotes without rebuttal are proof of this statement.

MrVilliam,

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice

– Rush

disguy_ovahea,

Perfect. RIP Neil.

Passerby6497,

Abstaining from voting will lead to Trump’s second term. Inaction is action

And boy do they get butthurt when you point out that there are only two choices that are realistically possible, and not voting or voting third party inherently favors republicans.

Let’s not forget that the left abandoning the democrats in the 70s and 80s didn’t make the party move left, they moved right and we got 3rd way dems.

disguy_ovahea,

That’s exactly what we should expect to happen. Inversely, if Democrats maintained control for extended periods of time, all candidates would be forced to adopt more progressive platforms in order to capture more of the vote. Every time liberals and progressives abstain and Republicans take office, the impact is twofold.

Passerby6497,

Agreed. It’s really sad how many people are unwilling or unable to think about 2nd and 3rd order consequences to actions.

zerog_bandit,

Just like January 6th was really Antifa right? This whole episode has shown me that the left is just as susceptible to wielding misinformation as the right.

NoSpiritAnimal,
@NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world avatar

No, not like that at all, because that is not real. This whole episode hasn’t shown you shit, quit lying.

abcnews.go.com/amp/US/…/story?id=72051536

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