Laugh because I do not think a productive, honest conversation can be had when the premise is that convicted felon Trump and Biden are the same or “equally bad” Israel-Gaza foreign policy.
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Serious The Politics Thread
- Thread starter Oglemi
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Laugh because I do not think a productive, honest conversation can be had when the premise is that convicted felon Trump and Biden are the same or “equally bad” Israel-Gaza foreign policy.
Yes but this in and of itself is a stupid hill to die on when Biden's policy is objectively bad. Trump's may be worse but it doesn't excuse that Biden has been awful wrt to allowing a genocide to occur under his administration. It's dumb to play whataboutism here. Just acknowledge that Netanyahu is walking all over the Biden administration.
Who is dying on a hill? Biden has been bad on this issue, no question. Still doesn’t change the fact that it will be either convicted felon Trump or Joe Biden to determine US foreign policy with respect to Gaza come November.
If the choices for President were George Bush and David Duke, as a black person I think it is stupid to say they are the same. Despite being staunchly opposed to the GOP, given the choice yes I would vote and vote for fucking George Bush.
You're not reading what people are saying if you think people are saying they are the same as "President." The argument is that they are the same with regard to foreign policy, which is true. That's been true long before we were born.
They're not exactly the same, to be fair. Trump would almost certainly be worse than Biden in this regard.
That worked so well for Hillary...
To be fair, it legitimately did work for Biden in 2020. I'm skeptical that it'll work again with COVID being far less of a factor, but it worked before. In my estimation, the biggest mistake of Hillary and the other establishment Democrats in 2016 was assuming that Trump's abrasiveness and general buffoonery precluded him from being a serious candidate. They treated him like a joke right up until he was declared the winner. They could botch this campaign in innumerable ways, but I strongly doubt that they'll make that particular error again.
Hillary Clinton ran on a policy-focused platform just as many in here are suggesting is the best way to defeat convicted felon Trump. She did not ruthlessly attack his character. I posted in previous iterations of this thread that there was post-election analysis that in 2016, voters perceived convicted felon Trump to be more “moderate” on all issues, and Clinton as being “too liberal” on policy.
Also, that election was stolen. Not even an opinion- 34 felony convictions of falsifying business records with intent to violate federal campaign finance limits and unlawfully influencing the 2016 election. He’s literally about to go to jail over this.
You see, that was a good play back then.
Biden was a challenger, and Trump got elected on anti-establishment hate. Proving that he really was no better than the other candidates and that he fumbled the pandemic was the right course of action.
Now Biden is the one in charge. His campaign shouldn't be down in the political trenches flinging mud at Trump. He wanted a shot to prove he was better. He got it.
It's always up to whoever is trying to get reelected to anything to showcase the results of their job.
This is the kind of amateur hour campaign strategies that make the Dems so much of a political circus.
The only reason they're even remotely successful is that the other party in your system might as well be led by fucking Palpatine.
How in particular will Trump be worse on Israel than Biden? Not trying to grill you, I'm genuinely curious
Biden is, from what I can gather, at least trying to broker some sort of ceasefire ahead of the election. I expect that Trump will make no such effort.
Biden: Has ideological commitment to Israel, but also has significant coalitions and political pressures/constituents on him to moderate Israel and protect Human Rights (American Left, Muslim voters, youth and probably more importantly the institutions of liberal world order, especially UN, Allied nations siding with Palestine— Japan, Korea, most of Europe, Brazil, much of the global south).
Trump: Has no ideological commitment to Israel but has every, every, EVERY transactional incentive to give Netanyahu everything he wants, and gives no shits, maybe half a shit if any, about the above mentioned pressures/parties/allies that concern Biden.
Trump: Has no ideological commitment to Israel but has every, every, EVERY transactional incentive to give Netanyahu everything he wants, and gives no shits, maybe half a shit if any, about the above mentioned pressures/parties/allies that concern Biden.
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I don't think the difference between biden in 2020 and hillary in 2016 was much more other than perceived likability, plus the year they were running in.
4 years ago Biden's favorables were much higher. He hadn't done anything in office that made people mad yet, and with trumps handling of covid i think the 'elder statesman who won't be using his knees to handle the wheel' was a genuine selling point. hillary's campaign was bad, in part because of the lack of seriousness they took it. She is also both unlikeable as a human being, and one of the main villains of the Fox News Cinematic Universe.
In 2024 I think Biden is probably comparable to Hillary (his unfavorability at this moment might be even worse than hillary ever was tbh). a lot of the dings on biden are kinda bs, but with all of those things (economy, israel/palestine, immigration, whatever you want to throw in there) he's ancient as fuck and has struggled largely with messaging. and his admin does not appear to be taking that seriously at all. Every account I hear about the biden admin makes it seem like a room full of yes man who plunge their heads into the sand anytime they hear any feedback or criticism of their decisions, regardless of how good of faith those are made. I think we were witnessing the democratic nominee making the same exact mistakes they made in 2016.
on the other hand, trump is also a significantly weaker candidate than he was 8 years ago. Whatever outsider status he had back then with him completely remaking the republican party in his image. In 2016 he was calling the other candidates morons for supporting the iraq war (not that trump is actually in any way antiwar, ofc) whereas now everything he says and does is right wing grievance politics. He's also a convicted felon, and his campaign message is "me losing the 2020 election is the most unfair thing that ever happened to anyone". I think it's certainly possible trumps polling gets worse as the election gets closer and voters who haven't been really paying attention notice trump and think "ah man this fucking guy again.
Either way both candidates here are really weak. And its a pretty damning indictment of the biden administration, that they are locked in a coughing baby fight with the same guy they intended to defeat once and for all. Pretty much every policy, every component of his style of his politics that trump stands for, will be here for the foreseeable future.
it still blows my mind that people really do not get that under Trump, Netanyahu would be given free reign to literally purge Gaza of Arabs with Ben Gvir coordinating it all. It takes a special combination of ignorance on American politics, Israeli politics, IR, and authoritarianism to even approach that conclusion
Honestly, I think that Biden's biggest problem going into this election is his failure to communicate his successes to the American public. In 2020, one of Biden's biggest selling points was that he was boring. He was mild, centrist, and not in the news every other day for some clownish nonsense. After four years of near-constant buffoonery under Trump, a lot of moderates and softer liberals were just happy to have a guy that they could easily ignore.
In this regard, Biden has been true to the promise of his campaign: He's much more escapable than his predecessor. However, an unforeseen consequence of this is that many Americans simply never heard about the greatest successes of his term. His infrastructure bill has been a huge triumph; his protections for queer people are historic; his student loan forgiveness hasn't been as expansive as people hoped, but it's a start; and his shrewd economic maneuvering may well have saved America from a post-COVID recession. How many Americans simply don't know about or appreciate these things? It's a major failure of communication on his part, and it might cost him.
speaking of Ben Gvir, the douchebag who runs the Jay-Dee-Ehl in Canada (which he rebranded) interviewed one of the primary suspects of the Alex Odeh bomb plot, who just so happens to be Ben Gvir's mentor and one of the guys coordinating groups to hold up aid trucks to Gaza. I'm not going to mince words, these are truly fucking evil people who deserve everything bad that goes their way.
Israel has abused and slaughtered the Palestinian populace and thumbed it's nose at the international community under this presidency with little if any pushback. Yes, Biden is probably worried about his margins with youth voters and the Muslim votes in places like Michigan.. yet at the same time he contributes to smearing young protestors as violent and antisemitic, keeps funding Israel with weapons, and deligitamizes the charges brought on Netanyahu by the ICC. He comes off as wholeheartedly ineffective at best and probably doesn't view Palestinians as fully people, or at least people on the same level of consideration he gives to the Israelis.
What free reign would Israel be given that they haven't been already doing? I'm not denying Trump, Kushner, and their ilk awful on Israel nor would they be an improvement, but I have no clue how it can get any worse than what's been happening under Biden.
Honestly, it feels dirty to me to even try and compare who would oversee an major ally executing an ethnic cleansing better. Just an awful discussion
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I mean this is a 6+ month urban war. Compared to almost any other house to house combat in human history the death toll has been fairly low. Israel isn't doing nearly enough to protect civilians but it's obvious they aren't doing nothing. They could do much less.
If Trump shows up and just says "do what fucking ever"... well currently Israel controls Gaza's water so I imagine they could stop that from happening. They could completely shut off all food aid. Israel has been using US precision weapons but they could switch to Russian style creeping barrages and just flatten Gaza. Maybe if they feel they have nothing left to lose they could annex Gaza and expel anyone still living there.
What I'm getting at is if people think Israel is doing bad things in Gaza now if Trump truly just doesn't give a shit things could be so much worse.
Argee. No one really liked Hillary, she was just not Trump. And that was big reason contributing to her loss.
Compare to Obama, he was was and still is wildly popular and the most beloved democratic alive. He appealed to many independents as well. He probably would have beat Trump if 3rd terms were allowed.
In 2020 the first thing people thought of when you mentioned Biden was Obama VP. That association gave democratics a return to familiarity and was a big boost to Biden.
4 years later Biden is preceived differently than he was and not in a good way. I think he finds himself in a similar place Hillary was in 2016 but with the additional burden of being really old.
By contrast I don't think the way people preceive Trump now is any different than they did in 2016
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There are literally discussions in Israeli politics about entirely removing Arabs from Gaza from the same far-right elements that see Trump as an ally to their cause. The idea that "both sides are the same" because you're mad that Joe Biden isn't the Prime Minister of Israel is not a serious position, nor does it do much to further Palestinian welfare. Under Biden, there is considerable pressure on Netanyahu to plan for the future governance of Gaza and to maintain the TSS. Under Trump, we saw every effort to undermine the possibility to establish a TSS, including the declaration of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. It's also absurd to say there has been no pushback when we've seen Biden go even further than Reagan did, even going so far as to sanction settlers AND preparing to sanction military units accused of war crimes in the West Bank if Israel fails to comply with investigations and remedies. That is unheard of in the entirety of the American relationship with Israel. No, what you're upset about is a lack of leverage on Israel despite undoubtedly being told that Israel is simply an American proxy in the MENA.
US allies commit genocide all the fucking time. The idea that anyone should be apathetic towards the potential for further genocide in the States or elsewhere over a single conflict is insane. No one's going to sit here and demand the US throw away everything if they don't sanction Canada, India, Morocco, Bolsonarista Brazil, or Saudi Arabia. All of which have been accused of being engaged in acts of genocide in the past 10 years.
What pressure? What TSS? The 2-state solution is dead, the majority of Israelis are opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state at this point. You know this already but Netanyahu is not some unique singularly evil figure, he is a consensus leader for an increasingly right wing and bellicose Israeli population.
Recognizing the Israeli capital as Jerusalem is not some Trump-exclusive policy. This has been suggested and supported by multiple presidents over the years, Trump pulled the trigger. Also he sanctioned a handful of settlers, it's almost nothing while trying to desperately appeal to elements of his base that are rightly pissed off with him.
Yes, leverage is not being exercised because to do so would be tantamount to the US shooting itself in the foot in the region. I don't get how these two things are incompatible? I'm not getting this, maybe it's just me being low IQ and I didn't read this properly.
Who said anything about apathy? Also I don't think anyone is making excuses for US-backing of SA's crime in Yemen or Modi's treatment of Muslims. I/P is covered far more in media than basically any of those regions. What creases people is that Israel has largely been framed as "the only democracy in the Middle East", a piece of the secular liberal West in a place traditionally framed as hostile and chaotic. A lot of people are seeing for the first time the sheer brutality of this country against a population that's been dealt a rough hand and people are having trouble squaring the circle. This isn't even getting into the completely indefensible behavior in the West Bank
Yeah it's obvious to me that you don't know much at all about Israeli politics if you think the TSS is dead with the Kachists out of power. The consensus is that Gantz should be PM and that National Unity and Yesh Atid would secure a coalition government. The secular right-wing has abandoned Netanyahu for 5 years already and would crush him if elections were held today.
And no, the US doesn't really have any real leverage. Arms embargos are meaningless and wouldn't do anything to actually stop Israeli operations, they would only give Netanyahu room to cleanse Gaza entirely. The idea that something like this is something people are just discovering is also really ignorant. Most of us still remember Protective Edge, remember all the Westerners who were (rightfully) upset about that, and then saw many of those same Westerners completely ignore (or in many cases, support) bombing Palestinians. And you're right, these aren't covered as much in media, and part of that has to do with the fact that a lot of interest is less fuelled by concerns of genocide and more by political interests.
Sure, agreed. But—
You haven’t seen ANYTHING compared to what Trump would do. Trump’s base HATES the UN, NAFTA, think Europe is ripping them off.
Biden admin tut tut the ICC/ICJ but are continuing to try to negotiate a 2 state solution and a way out of international embarrassment.
Trump would be happy to just INVADE the Hague.
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It's pretty insane to be giving the benefit of the doubt to the army that has killed over 35,0000 people in 8 months. If you compare that to the deaths in Iraq from America's 2003-2023 presence, estimates put that number around 300,000, averaging out to 15,000 a year. The only way Israel could be doing worse is if they blew up aid workers, had full control over the Gaza infrastructure, and and were allowed to investigate themselves. Oh wait.
Yes.
Also, polling has been suspect. Crosstabs this cycle have been suggesting the Latino vote is tied and that convicted felon Trump will pull 25% of the black vote. Vote Latino just release a poll that had Biden +20 among Latinx voters (2020 result Biden +28). Republicans have gotten no more than 13% of black vote nationally since 1992. The polls are telling us convicted felon Trump is historically popular among minorities, despite his last two elections saying otherwise. Yeah.. about that.
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