Both sides ARE the same...
Both sides ARE the same...
So many 'both sides are the same' memes by Blue MAGA trying to voter shame like they do ever election year. We don't live in a democracy, we haven't in awhile. Another example of the plutocracy surfaced today...
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It's a good point - the very nature of Democratic politics, where a modest level of rebellion against Biden's bad Israel policies can result in genuine change (although pretty tepid in comparison to what needs to happen). Things like pausing weapons shipments, sanctions on settlers, and setting up aid for Gaza does represent a significant structural difference between them and the Republicans, who are composed at this point pretty much of only "unquestioning followers" in your pretty accurate phrasing, would never have done anything like that, would have openly supported Netanyahu's genocide instead of simply failing to prevent it, and are subject to only isolated hotspots of resistance even in the face of openly fascist or treasonous behavior.
For example, no Republicans resigned from the executive branch because of family separation, or moving the embassy to Jerusalem, or the catastrophic mismanagement of the Iran nuclear deal and the resulting suffering of the Iranian people. It's a good reminder that even when Biden is doing terrible things (like supporting Israel), he's still open to some level of influence from the non-terrible people, while Trump is not.
It's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up.
At this point after letting Israel run wild it's hard to give them much credit for finally dialing it back. They could have simply not continued to send weapons, but they chose to do so. Now they show up with 'aid' like that somehow makes them not complicit in all the killing that's already been happening.
Recall what brash thing Trump did that really tanked the JCPOA? it was assassinating Suleimani with a drone strike. Here you've got American weapons being used to murder entire families, and are acting like you're on higher ground than these other guys because the murder is being done by colonial proxies rather than obviously American hands.
Can you see why people are a little bit annoyed by that and not consoled by your lectures about how because Biden is 'less bad' in debatable ways than Trump he is somehow worth empowering? When your only defense of the slaughter he allowed/insisted on is to expound on how in your imagination Trump is worse.
You realize that not everybody else resides in the realm of your imagination?
You're right -- spending time debating with someone who's unclear on what Trump did to the nuclear deal and the sanctions regime and the resulting impact on the Iranian people and the stability of the region in general, and assumes that assassinating Soleimani was what I was talking about just because that's all they know about what happened in Iran under Trump because that was the most prominent story in the papers, betraying a lack of detailed understanding of US policy in the middle east and its impacts, might not be a good use of time, because at this point I think the point is pretty much made. It's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up.
Although, there's still time to talk about adding 700,000 manufacturing jobs and strengthening unions in a way that hasn't happened yet under any president post-Reagan, and why that might be a relevant good thing. Did we talk about that yet?
Or family separation? That's actually kind of a hard one to talk about because I tend to get genuinely upset about it, but it's a good window into the different levels of brown people friendliness the two presidents had, if we're not wanting to examine Biden's tepid resistance and compare it with Trump's "finish the job" solution for Gaza?
Oh, also, you absolutely did say Trump was better than Biden in particular significant ways -- here and here.
You're talking like an LLM
in link 1 I said that at least Trump can be bullied, because the outcome of the CARES act and other pandemic relief was actually good.
in link 2 I said that Trump is better because at least with him in charge even complete drones like you can understand the state he's a part of is worth opposing.
The fact that you opted to gloss over that from my previous statements, and boil it down to "Trump better than Biden", does not indicate to me you are actually picking up on anything I'm saying beyond looking for an opportunity to regurgitate something about how you view your team as slightly better than the other team.
Yeah, so family separation. Trump took an already barbaric system, and made it absolutely catastrophically more barbaric. There are still little kids -- and not a small number of them -- who will never see their families again because they got taken away because their parents committed a misdemeanor, through desperation and from no desire other than just a better life or a chance to live somewhere free from gang violence or poverty, and even when they were following the rules about how to cross over and then request asylum, the best that they were able.
One of Biden's first acts in office was to start a task force to try to find the families for the missing kids, who were at that point still in custody, and reunite them. It wasn't completely successful, because the systems of bureaucracy in their home countries were often chaotic or nonexistent, and the bureaucracy on our end was carelessly disorganized and cruel. But, at least he fuckin' tried.
Immigration in this country is still fairly bad, because it's run by an explicitly racist agency staffed with explicit racists. But, every single proposal Biden's put forth has included some sensible things that objectively need to happen (such as adding judges to the system to help clear the backlog so people aren't sitting waiting to get into the country, or in custody, for absurdly long lengths of time, which is where a lot of the suffering in the current system comes from, when it's not coming from simple racism).
Anyway, the point is that Biden's at least trying to do good things, and then he gets shit for it from Republicans because the system's not cruel enough, and then also shit from "leftists" because the system is still somewhat cruel, ignoring the fact that every single action he's taken has been attempting to make it better than it was, and that all that "leftist" inaction just strengthens the people who are deliberately trying to return it to the "cage full of orphaned and un-cared-for children, people of all ages freezing to death or regularly dying in custody" regime that it was under Trump.
"Somewhat cruel" is an incredible spin to put on the first genocide being broadcast around the clock like this.
Those are our weapons being supplied to do terrible things and people have a right to be upset.
Honestly it's incredible that you are trying to do a lesser-evil kids in cages routine with me in the face of the tens of thousands of dead kids and their families in Gaza. Biden was desperately sending weapons to Israel while everyone could see what was happening with it. That is why people are upset and trying to paint it as 'single issue voters' being blind to the bigger evil is kind of ringing hollow.
If one candidate for mayor was friends with a murderer, and it was pretty obvious to everyone that he'd been protecting his friend the murderer and even sold him the gun, and kept talking about how he was a good guy -- BUT, the other candidate was torturing cats in his basement and also talking about once he's mayor and he has control of the town's police force he needs to start killing or torturing everyone's cats, and also some of the people, I think I would vote for the murderer's friend. If those were the only two options. It's nothing to do with cats versus people. It's what one person does versus what a different person's ally does.
I realize that analogy is not a real ringing endorsement for Biden, but yeah, it's fair; Gaza and Biden's support for Israel aren't real ringing good things about him. But, I do feel it's still very relevant the difference between what Trump did on purpose himself, and plans to continue to do and accelerate the perpetration of, and what Biden's not doing enough to prevent some different person from doing.
You keep characterizing the role Biden is playing in this genocide as "not doing enough to prevent some different person from doing" and while garbled, it belies a tremendous dishonesty.
Biden has bypassed congress to get weapons to Israel numerous times, he had it bundled with must-pass legislation and this entire situation was made non-negotiable by his own hands.
By trying to apologize for his complicity to the point of badgering people to vote your party you implicate yourself in these crimes.
I suggest you do some introspection on how you write off the lives of tens of thousands of people because in my opinion you're making it very clear that ultimately you see some lives as expendable. As a potential coalition partner in your voting block that doesn't give me hope that if protecting my rights became politically inconvenient that we also wouldn't be written off in such a way.
Let me put it this way: If there was a candidate in this election who didn't want to give weapons to Israel (I mean, if voting for them wouldn't just be functionally a vote for Trump), I'd be on 'em in a heartbeat. In the primary I wrote in Bernie Sanders.
That's what I mean, you've written them off as "going to die by our hand anyways" and expect me to want to be complicit too, it's not a great motivator, nor does it inspire loyalty.
I don't think I would recommend loyalty to any American politician. Even for the ones I like, that's just not how I look at it.
In any case though, cheers + all the best