In this hypothetical situation you only get to choose one.
Sending weapons to Israel.
Joe Biden wins the 2024 election.
Refusing to answer, coming up with a third option or saying the question is stupid defaults to option 1. Weapons are shipped to Israel and Biden loses the 2024 election.
I think this is the new shill strategy to just introduce nonsense into the conversation to pollute and confuse. Maybe I am wrong and this person just had some kind of mental break, but I talked to them at some length and they seem absolutely committed to the idea that there are lots of Israel-supporters on Lemmy. Like I love Israel, but I also like Biden, and oh no what will I do if someone ever made me choose between them.
The grey guy on the left is all the shills on Lemmy pretending that not voting for Biden is helping the Palestinians, and saying they care so much about Gaza that they don't want to vote for Biden
And the guy on the right is pointing out that not voting for Biden will make things ten times worse for the Palestinians (as it will for many other people the world over)
Right?
Based on who OP is, I don't think that's what they meant, but that is for real the only semicoherent interpretation of this meme I can come up with
I edited it down to 90%. I think there's about 10% who misunderstand Biden's domestic policies enough that they think he's been destructive to unions or something, and so they feel reluctant to say they want him to win even against a clear catastrophe.
Do you honestly think there are a bunch of people (40% or 4% or 0.4%) on Lemmy who like weapons shipments to Israel? What are you basing this on? I've seen one person on Mastodon who seemed like they'd bought into a lot of the propaganda that discredits news about what's happening to the Palestinians, and honestly believed the IDF was fighting a normal lawful war against armed opponents. That one person represents probably about 0.1% or less of the accounts I've interacted with; I have not seen any other person who I think would be in favor of aid to Israel.
But that is my experience; maybe I am missing something.
Check my comment history where I’ve asked this question. You’ll see several examples of people:
Dipping out and never answering.
Making up a third choice.
Telling me that real life doesn’t have such binary choices.
Honestly I think because it’s just a sort of disorienting question. Ask “Do you want aid to Israel?” and I think you’ll see more of a unanimous consensus than you could achieve on almost any other issue.
Fair enough that may be true. I’ll keep toying with the language and see if it makes a noticeable difference.
I mean, it is a counterfactual question in a way that makes people want to take a step back from it instead of just buying into the premise and giving a straight answer. The likely outcomes are Biden + aid for Israel, or Trump + aid for Israel, so separating Biden from aid to Israel sort of comes across like a non sequitur.
I'll keep toying with the language and see if it makes a noticeable difference.
Why not just ask, "Do you support aid to Israel?" What is the point of constructing this counterfactual and confusing choice? It's not a language issue, it's a "why is that the question you're asking" issue.
It's like, do you want Biden but with the support for Israel taken out of the equation? You're gonna get a whole lot of people who keep slamming the "yes" button until it breaks if you ask that. Why do you think that would be a difficult question or a gotcha or something?
It’s establishing a priority. Their answer demonstrates if sending weapons to Israel is more important to them than Biden winning the 2024 election.
Some people cannot answer this question. Prioritizing Israel opens them up to the same accusations of supporting Trump they’ve thrown at others. Prioritizing Biden winning means they’d have to vote for someone who isn’t doing what they want. Either way it casts doubt on their perceived self image.
Who is it that you think wants to prioritize sending weapons to Israel?
It's like "Do you want this scone, or for me to shit on your carpet?" The number of people outside of niche communities who have uncertainty about the choice is not gonna be real significant (although some may answer it by expressing confusion about the question in the first place instead of just saying, the scone.)
I don't know why I spent this amount of time on this bizarre conversation, but on the off chance that you sincerely hold these beliefs and think this is a relevant question, I hope you find the enlightenment about it that you seek.
Who is it that you think wants to prioritize sending weapons to Israel?
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Most Republicans (except MAGA) I’m sure. And a good percentage of Democrat voters. I suspect lots of those Democrat voters voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries.
After some extended conversation we've arrived at why you want to ask the question in this particular convoluted way: Because you want to imply a particular narrative, where having a more direct version of the conversation would instantly expose that what you're trying to imply is a bunch of crap.
I asked the straightforward version of your question, the answer to which you can check out, in the unlikely-to-me event that you seriously believe what you're saying here.
Maybe we’re talking about different things. I’m defining a narrative as the way someone describes how they perceive something. If I tell you how I think the world works that’s a narrative. And in a political conversation most people engage in the hopes of either finding someone who agrees with their narrative or hopes to convince someone of their narrative.
Do you disagree with that?
By the way, your comments are getting a bit more aggressive and it’s unwarranted. I haven’t called you any names so there’s no need to call me any. If you do it again we can just end the conversation.
the way someone describes how they perceive something
I don't think you actually think that lots of people on Lemmy support Israel. I think you know that the general opinion is wildly anti-Israel (as it should be), and you're deliberately linking "Biden" to "Israel" by pretending to misunderstand what you're seeing, in the hope that the anti-Israel sentiment will translate to anti-Biden sentiment by pure word association.
That's what I meant by "a narrative" -- maybe it would have been more accurate for me to say "a dishonest propaganda narrative" instead, to distinguish it from the simple factual description of a narrative that you gave.
If it is actually something that you think is happening, I think you want to take a step back and reexamine whatever it was that led you to think that in the first place.
Not just worse for the Palestinians, but worse here at home as well.
“I don’t want genocide!”
Your choices are Biden - who supports Israel despite their bad actions, and Trump - who supports Israels bad actions, wants them to be EVEN WORSE, and wants to enact those same policies in the US.
By refusing one of the options you have chosen to keep shipping weapons to Israel and Biden loses the 2024 election in this purely hypothetical situation.
It’s 2024, you should know by now that means an inclusive or, where I agreed to both things.
Whether that’s my real opinion or not, does not matter. What does matter though is that you accused me of refusing an option, when I literally said yes to both options.
“Yes” isn’t “on the ballot” so to speak. In this hypothetical situation you only get to choose one.
Sending weapons to Israel.
Joe Biden wins the 2024 election.
Refusing to answer, coming up with a third option or saying the question is stupid defaults to option 1. Weapons are shipped to Israel and Biden loses the 2024 election.
Now that I’ve expanded my explanation of the rules would you like to change your answer?
JFK made the peace corps, we can make the you-fucked-up-this-part-of-the-world-through-your-decisions-well-guess-what-comes-next corps. I like this idea.
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