Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

I for one will be holding my representatives responsible who continue to vote for the US to enable a genocide. The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.

> The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.

Ironically, that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red. We all know what happened.

Wait what happened? Was it that people who typically vote blue voted against those who supported Israel? As a Muslim and staunch supporter of Palestine, I didn't think that many people turned red because of this, at least not enough to swing the election. Wayne County, which has Dearborn Michigan (the city with the largest population proportionally of Muslims), stayed blue. I figured if Dearborn couldn't tip the scales any which way then the issue was probably not something worth campaigning on in terms of demographics

The bigger factor was people staying home because they refused any compromise on the issue. For races that swing depending on turnout, this was enough to tip those races red. Hard to say whether this impacted the Presidential election, but it probably did affect some House and Senate races.

Ah, that's a good point. Indeed, I voted Stein over Harris, which is basically the same as staying home (much to my chagrin).

This is shocking to me tbh. Everyone I know who wants peace in Palestine also knew Trump would be a disaster and that Stein or whoever had 0 chance of winning...

Yes, we did know Trump is a disaster. Perhaps Democrats should have met their voterbase somewhere in the middle to reduce the risk of losing to Trump? Of course, they didn’t, so to me the Harris campaign is to blame more than the third-party voters.

Frankly, my reading was that Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency to making any concessions whatsoever on the Palestine issue.

Democrats are constantly trying to please whatever portion of their voter base they think they need to win the election. In this case they were trying harder to court the maybe-Trumpers than the never-Trumpers because the never-Trumpers don't need as much convincing. Unfortunately, when these two groups become at odds over a single-issue vote, it fucks the Democrats no matter what they do. In the end, people who refused to vote for Harris over Palestine fucked everyone, especially Palestine.

And yes, a large contingent of Democratic lawmakers inexplicably believe staying on Israel's good side is the most important issue facing our country. That doesn't make letting Trump win the smart move.

I don’t see it as “letting Trump win”. I see it as “not supporting the Democrats because they don’t want my vote”. If you want to blame someone for Trump winning, blame the Democrats.

Of course, on paper, yes, if these were automatons with no feelings, they would use their vote against Trump.

It is easy to claim objectivity in the face of a moral quandary that doesn’t impact you or your loved ones personally. But it is not easy to make a decision to not give your vote away when the alternative is also terrible.

I explained how Democrats were going to alienate one part of their voter base no matter what they did. Do you have an alternate pathway for how the Democrats could have magically chosen both options at once?

And there was no alternative. It was "no explicit political support for Palestine" regardless, the only choice being made was "fucked by Trump" or "not fucked by Trump". Anyone with any sense of political strategy would have seen this. I have no sympathy for people who feel the need to vote for "their feelings" instead of the reality we actually live in, because they fucked me. I can't understand how someone would have more emotional connection to the fantasy their vote on paper represents than to the reality their actions will create.

Okay, so you have rationalized to yourself why there was “no alternative” by essentially saying that Democrats were absolutely helpless to do anything - an act of God was in their way, so to speak.

Now, you ask what could Democrats have done differently? How about holding a Democratic primary? Or maybe acknowledging the Gaza genocide instead of ignoring it even exists (no need to even use the g-word since it angers some of their base)? Perhaps offering a fig leaf to internal dissenters within the party? Maybe inviting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices to speak at rallies? Heck, maybe not explicitly vetting and banning any suspected pro-Palestine attendees at said rallies? Or how about making a strong, unambiguous campaign promise to do something (however vague) about a ceasefire in Gaza?

This is all the bare fucking minimum, mind you, but it may have likely pushed the needle.

I also don’t see how any of this would have significantly alienated their pro-Israel base enough to shift votes away. But if it did, I think siding ever so slightly with those calling for a ceasefire over warmongers might be the moral thing to do, don’t you think?

Next time around, when the Democrats ignore your issue, I would love to hear how you “objectively” rationalize your vote then.