“I’ve been doing foreign policy for a long, long time,” Biden told the congregation at Brookland Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, at the weekend.
“I know every one of those heads of state, and I’ve known them for a while. And every meeting I go to internationally, as they’re walking out, this is the God’s truth […] virtually every one of them pull me aside and says, ‘You’ve got to win. We can’t let that happen again. You can’t let that happen again. You can’t let that happen again.’”
That’s the quote. No need to give clickbait sites like huffington an extra click.
“I know every one of those heads of state, and I’ve known them for a while. And every meeting I go to internationally, as they’re walking out, this is the God’s truth […] virtually every one of them pull me aside and says, ‘You’ve got to win. We can’t let that happen again. You can’t let that happen again. You can’t let that happen again.’”
So yeah, I don’t know, maybe fucking act like it instead of alienating exceptionally key demographics in battleground states. To be clear, that’s far from the only reason Biden should stop giving Israel military aid over how they’re handling Gaza, but it is a very good reason in terms of our domestic politics.
This blackmailing of Biden by threatening to facilitate another Trump presidency is such bullshit. As Biden has rightly said, democracy in America is on the ballot, and that is a far, far, FAR more important issue than a temporary flare-up in a decades-long conflict in the Middle East. Biden has to appease moderates if he is to prevent Trump from winning. He, therefore, doesn’t want to engage in a MAJOR foreign policy shift that would scare moderates and distract from Trump’s legal woes. You don’t have to love Biden or the Democratoc Party, but Biden has been doing politics practically forever, which, if nothing else, means that he knows better than anyone on Lemmy how to beat Trump. Don’t make perfect the enemy of good.
I am just as frustrated by the Michigan + Midwest Palestinian/Muslim/Arab community picking this as the moment to die on that hill, particularly since, you know, Trump’s liable to ban Muslims from entering the country if he gets in again. Like, if he had gotten reelected, I’d bet a year’s salary that he’d be ordering the USAF to carpet bomb Gaza with B-52s like it was the Tet Offensive.
But the fact remains that those critical demographics have picked that as their line in the sand, and you can’t just flip a switch and change that entire community’s opinion. So the options have become:
berate them for that choice, and likely further alienate them, which will likely suppress their turnout in the general election
come up with a more coherent and less asinine and hypocritical policy to apply to the clusterfuck of a situation that is Gaza these days, and actually drive some voter turnout in some really important regions.
I’m on the same page, for what it’s worth. Trump must be stopped. I’m just consistently frustrated by the constant unforced errors and clumsy messaging that the Democratic Party is so good at.
you guys gotta give these administrations a break over palestine and israel. this middle east policy has been ingrained into american politics since the end of WWII. it's really hard for one president to come in and undo shit that eisenhower and roosevelt engineered as a CENTURIES LONG STRATEGY. believe it or not, there are some big picture things at play here.
disclaimer: i do not support israel and think that palestinians are being treated in an inhumane way.
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