There are easy solutions, just depends on what you’re trying to solve for. If the student protests are the problem, do nothing and wait like 2 weeks until exams and the end of the semester and they will peter out on their own.
If he has to solve Israel/Palestine peace…yeah that’s famously a sticky wicket and there was never going to be an easy solution.
Jesus tapdancing christ there’s a TRIVIAL fucking solution right the fuck in front of us. Stop giving explodey shit to the people committing genocide, and also stop giving them any diplomatic cover whatsoever.
You can demonize the current president over one issue that is overseas, or you can not vote or vote for the other guy who will not accomplish anything but Israel support and worse.
Weigh what has been accomplished vs your issue vs the alternatives and vote accordingly.
Sounds like people should be protesting for electoral reform so they can vote for the candidate that represents them best, while still counting their vote against the republicans.
I was actually joking about people throwing their vote away on RFK. Because with FPTP our choices are assisting with genocide or committing genocide and the murder of political rivals.
I’m not defending anyone. I think what’s happening is fucking reprehensible. The alternative happens to be way fucking worse. And until we can get ranked choice, STAR, or some other voting method that better reflects the will of the people that’s how it’s going to be. All the name calling and progressive purity tests in the world won’t change that.
Our voting method is just one of the many myriad problems with how we elect government officials. Even if that was fixed we’d still be ruled by low-population states, and the president can be elected with 20% of the vote.
Not only that, he said recently that these protests wouldn’t be happening if he was in the White House. His positions on Palestine and left-leaning protests have not exactly been subtle.
So that’s American tax dollars that could go to funding things that actually impact Americans directly.
Maintaining peace in the Middle East is important- and the one of the most egregious arguments before all this happened is to provide leverage to keep Israel…. From doing … this.
The reality is that argument is a lie. The war in gaza has set back the goal of peace in the Middle East by decades. Maybe even centuries, while bringing us inexorably closer to WW3.
If Biden reverse course now… he has a chance. If he stays the angry old Zionist, though… he’s going to lose in November.
It always amazes me how many people suddenly give a shit about Palestine when less than a year ago, most couldn’t find it on a map.
But predictably… every election year to no one’s surprise, a group of people find something to use as a reason to suggest to everyone listening- that not voting is a good idea.
My guess is these same people- the people that couldn’t point to Palestine on a map less than a year ago…. WILL be voting this year.
We should all vote for Biden. Biden should stop supporting genocide.
And I get that you want to paint everyone who doesn’t support Netanyahu’s genocide as ignorant children, but it’s just not so. Abuse is not a substitute for defensible positions.
That’s just one of the things you call people who don’t support genocide. You sure shut me down by countering nothing I had to say and lobbing insults instead.
He can keep supporting Israel and lose the support of the younger voters he so desperately needs.
OR:
He can reverse course, let Bibi twist in the wind, causing him to lose all support from the pro-Israel lobby, and be met with “yeah, but you didn’t do it soon enough” from the younger voters.
They aren’t though. See the complaints about the economy. The youth vote is very vocal, but they don’t have the money to make up for lost donations from the Pro-Israel PAC.
I mean what can the AIPAC do here? For better or worse, Biden's opponent is Trump. Nobody's gonna be switching sides here for anything less than literal genocide.
It’s this mentality that will give the US another Trump presidency. If you are worried about losing money from a Pro-Israel PAC because you won’t stop aiding an active genocide, you aren’t fit to make decisions for a major country. Not aiding genocide is kinda important. And yes, the economy sucks for students and the working class. That’s why they don’t want to send bombs (with their tax dollars) to Israel, when the people here need the funding more.
The students can barely live, they can’t afford to contribute at this level.
So, yeah, despite all of Israel’s bad behavior, going back decades now, US support will continue going to them, because politicians can’t afford otherwise.
Well, when the students are actively complaining about not being able to afford rent or food, that’s the big indicator that they don’t have money for political donations:
Well it sounds like the current government is not providing a path forward for them to support themselves, so I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise when they don’t come out to support the current government. Especially one that is involved in active genocide and shutting down their peaceful protests.
I agree that you cannot dispute the power PACs and the Pro-Israel lobby has. It is unfortunate that money runs the US government. It is even more unfortunate that people apologize for it
It’s crazy how people come out and paint this dismal picture and then complain about voter apathy. Like, literally after they just got done telling people the things they will vote for will never, ever happen.
We finally agree on something. I still don’t know why you allow so much disinformation and false accusations in your community, but at least we can agree on this.
It’s not the opinions that are the problem. We all should be free to speak them. It’s the bullshit propaganda and flat-out accusations that are. I’ve been accused time after time of supporting genocide, simply for trying to explain nuance… and none of you remove said accusations, yet time after time, you remove the comments of people that call out the bullshit.
I’ve even had one of the mods here bait me for two days tiptoeing around the issue until I just gave up trying.
He’s selling them weapons that he knows will be used for genocide, with no strings attached. He’s running interference for Netanyahu at the UN.
That looks like support from where I’m sitting.
just like every other President since the start, and Bibi is misaporopriating that support.
“That’s the way we’ve always done it” is a lousy justification, since the way we’ve always done it got us here, with the US selling weapons for genocide.
You wouldn’t say Reagan or Clinton supported war crimes when Israel illegally attacked Lebanon during their administrations. Same deal here.
Didn’t Reagan threaten to withhold weapons when Israel illegally attacked Lebanon?
In any event, the article’s about protests from a generation that weren’t even alive for Reagan and were children during Clinton’s administration.
I don’t “support” Biden, but there is a 100% chance I will be voting for him in November, simply due to the vagaries of the American electoral system.
not voting for Biden is leaning in to the electoral system being intentionally skewed to the right through various sketchy tactics
not combating that rightward skew will likely lead to Trump winning the election
trump winning the election will likely lead to Trump doing something absolutely heinous in naked support of Israel’s genocidal actions, like carpet bombing parts of Gaza with a few squadrons of B-52s like it was the Vietnam War (amongst a shitload of other terrible things both related to Israel and not)
As always, context kinda fucking matters a lot.
Edit: all that said: I’m pretty sure the downvotes are due to how dismissive you are being of “poor college students”
There are two viable candidates, Biden and Trump. Taking votes away from Biden only helps Trump. So not voting, voting Stein, Kennedy, West, all of that only helps Trump.
So, yeah, when the alternative is maximizing negative impact, the only voting solution is to vote for the one person who can defeat that agenda… and that’s Biden.
Let me ask you a hypothetical, given the choice between continuing to ship weapons to Israel or Biden winning the 2024 election which would you choose?
I’m sorry, no, that’s an absolutely idiotically framed question, to the extent that I’m quite confident you’re just trying to push agitprop.
To be clear:
Biden winning might eventually decrease or cut off weapon shipments to Israel, because though it’s often glacial, Biden DOES sometimes react to public sentiment (though often it’s politically delayed/timed, which is infuriating for people waiting for The Appointed Time where the announcement of some policy will have the greatest political impact)
Trump winning will likely mean that the USAF may be ordered to just help Israel carpet bomb Gaza into dust with a few squadrons of B-52s.
You’re presenting a dichotomy where there is none.
Edit:
Ok, let’s try this another way: which of the two presidential candidates that are advancing to the general election do you believe will actually stop shipping weapons to Israel, or at least has the possibility of being convinced of stopping the shipments?
I just want to point out the latter has been a narrative for decades and “younger voters” just keep getting older with it. It’s also completely hypothetical because listening to anyone younger than Boomers hasn’t been tried.
I’m in my 40s, I vote reliably, I voted for Biden in 2020 to give him a chance. As long as Biden is continuing to ship weapons to Israel I won’t be voting for him again.
Taking the money out of politics would go a long way to neutering the pro-Israel lobby, the problem is there’s too much money interested in keeping things the way they are.
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