Oh I agree, but that’s was a whole other can of worms I wasn’t trying to get into at the moment since I’ve got a busy and long work day that’s still not over unfortunately lol

I didn’t ignore what you said. My retort to

No. If 5% of my voting base sits out over a single issue, I’m going to lose my interest in trying to triangulate their support and move in another direction to identify a more persuadable bloc of voters. That goes more if the abandonment is repetitive, and if the issues constantly change, or if the issue is something I can’t bend on for electoral reasons. If one bloc of voters is easier to please than another, then I’m moving in their direction, even if it’s rightward. Unfortunately it’s winner-take-all, and you’re either in power or you’re not. There are no half-wins.

Was that if it’s a clear issue like the genocide Israel is carrying out that has a lot of strong opposition to the Democrats current position it really isn’t all that hard to triangulate what the cause is.

It’s been known it’s THE issue the democrats are losing support for given the coverage of the non committed movement. As for how tough it is to It’s literally not support a genocide that’s how you please that group. It’s literally following our current laws to not supply and fund a country committing a genocide.

the importance of Gaza

Literally from your own link “though some questioned whether it would push them not to vote at all.” In a thread where people are complaining about a small amount of people voting third party could lose the election for democrats in swing states I guess it is an important issue if it’s driving even some people in swing states to not vote.

Also when the non committed movement has more support in some states than the margin of victory in 2020 I would say it’s pretty important.

the “ease” of withdrawing support

So genocide is alright as long as they’re an enemy of Iran, that’s your argument? Israel is literally the one escalating the situation in the area, pulling their support or at least threatening to do so until the genocide is stopped would actually deescalate the situation in the region.

how much Democrats have moved rightward

I don’t disagree they’ve moved left on most social issues when looking at at that long of a time span that’s in the article you linked. I’m talking this election cycle Kamala has clearly shifted right from the policies she ran on in 2016.

how many centrist Republicans vote for Democrats.

In 1 election, that’s the sample size. That’s not a trend and it’s against Trump who is an historically awful candidate for moderates to try and stomach. They’ll be back voting R once he’s gone so it’s not a good long term strategy when you’re alienating what should be your base to the point their considering not voting or voting third party.

Moreover, you seem to be valuing the strongly-held opinions of voters in non-swing states (what you’re calling “deep blue states” or “areas that effectively don’t matter”) more highly than the maybe-less-strongly held opinions of voters in swing states. If 5% of Democratic voters in California want sushi, and 5% of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania want steak, I’m picking steak and telling the California voters to take a hike. Their opinion doesn’t even register on my radar thanks to the electoral consequences of pissing off the Pennsylvanians who wanted steak.

You completely misunderstood what my example was trying to get across. I’m not valuing non swing state voters opinions more than swing state voters.

I understand that the swing state voters are going to have an outsized role in what each party pushes. Tactically I would be saying the voters in swing states especially should be witholding their vote unless the democrats stop supporting Israel’s genocide since it would be more leverage but obviously trump getting elected isn’t a great alternative which is why I didn’t mention that since that’s a risk.

What I was saying is that given that non swing states you can safely vote third party to show your displeasure in the genocide we’re supporting and possibly shed light that it’s got a large amount of importance to voters.

Edit: formatting since I’m on mobile and at work.

Not funding and supplying a genocide seems to be a pretty clear and easy issue to change especially when 60%+ of democrats are in favor of it. We’re already violating our own laws by continuing to do so.

The democrats are already moving to the right even with the left continuing to vote for them. They think they can win over some centrists republicans (even though they can’t in a meaningful number) by adopting right wing policies while not losing the left because at the moment they know votes are guaranteed because “republicans worse”.

Having voters in areas that effectively don’t matter this cycle show there displeasure in the genocide we’re enabling is the least we can do to counter it.

You’re looking at things through there lens of 1 election cycle.

If a third party that’s against the genocide Israel is carrying out gets say 5% of voters in deep blue or deep red states would that not be a signal to the democrats that they should change their stance before the next election?

It definitely isn’t the only time I care about third parties. Continued direct action in the community is the most important way to affect change. The election is just a useful event for publicity and gaining support for groups.

There’s 0% chance my comment is going to convince enough people this election cycle that it effects a non swing states election. It’s about slowly building support for groups.

But at the same time why vote for a party that won’t win?

Building support for change has to start somewhere, while they won’t win this election the more support they get the more visibility socialism gets as well as showing that people aren’t willing to vote for genocide. At the very least it shows the amount of people unhappy the democrats aren’t taking a harder stance on Israel.

As for the PSL specifically, they’re the best option on the ballot in my state. Thank you for the link though I’ll take a deeper look when I have a chance.

If enough people are voting third party that it’s a threat then maybe the other parties should take notice and change to support the popular policies and win back support.

Also we can do more than 1 thing at a time. We should be pushing things like ranked choice voting while also showing our displeasure with the current parties where it makes sense to do so.

Giving support to third parties gives them and the issues they’re promoting more visibility to the general public.

If you live outside the ~5 swing states that decide the election you can go ahead and ignore stuff like this saying you can’t vote third party.

Shoutout PSL

Yup and add Apartheid South Africa to the list too.

At the time of German reunification, both the U.S. and Germany repeatedly promised Gorbachev and then promised Yeltsin that the West would not take advantage of German reunification and the end of the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet Union’s military alliance) by expanding the NATO military alliance eastward. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin reiterated the importance of this U.S.-NATO pledge. Yet within just a few years, Clinton completely reneged on the Western commitment and began the process of NATO enlargement. Leading U.S. diplomats, led by the great statesman-scholar George Kennan, warned at the time that the NATO enlargement would lead to disaster: “The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” So, it has proved.  Here is not the place to revisit all of the foreign policy disasters that have resulted from U.S. arrogance towards Russia, but it suffices here to mention a brief and partial chronology of key events.

In 1999, NATO bombed Belgrade for 78 days with the goal of breaking Serbia apart and giving rise to an independent Kosovo, now home to a major NATO base in the Balkans. In 2002, the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty over Russia’s strenuous objections. In 2003, the U.S. and NATO allies repudiated the United Nations Security Council by going to war in Iraq on false pretenses. In 2004, the U.S. continued with NATO enlargement, this time to the Baltic states and countries in the Black Sea region (Bulgaria and Romania) and the Balkans. In 2008, over Russia’s urgent and strenuous objections, the U.S. pledged to expand NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. In 2011, the U.S. tasked the Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Russia. In 2011, NATO bombed Libya in order to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. In 2014, the U.S. conspired with Ukrainian nationalist forces to overthrow Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. In 2015, the U.S. began to place Aegis anti-ballistic missiles in Romania, a short distance from Russia. From 2016 to 2020, the U.S. supported Ukraine in undermining the Minsk II agreement, despite its unanimous backing by the UN Security Council. In 2021, the new Biden administration refused to negotiate with Russia over the question of NATO enlargement to Ukraine. In April 2022, the U.S. called on Ukraine to withdraw from peace negotiations with Russia.

He covers very well how this all has led up to the current war. Doesn’t mean Russia is the good side by any means they’re definitely not, but the US clearly does not care for peace and it shows our word/agreements mean nothing.

Looks like it’s a CreepyPasta, here’s a Wikipedia article on it.

Disgusting.

They were protesting the removal of a family from their home in the West Bank.

I’ll be sure not to give a shit if you ever get dropped and present the award at your funeral though.

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Never said I don’t believe that’s Hamas goal, what I’m saying is it’s largely irrelevant when Israel has been running an apartheid state and killing Palestinians decades before Hamas was even a thing.

Hamas wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Israel’s decades of cruel actions and more recently allowing of funding.

Think you need to ask why Israel allowed direct funding of Hamas with the clear objective of preventing a Palestinian state. Since like you pointed out they are an extremist organization that won’t help with long term peace in the area. That’s not “anti-semetic” propaganda that was literally from the Times of Israel.

Trying to deflect criticism of Israel as support for Hamas is bs. No US politician that’s spoken out against Israel or myself in any comment here has ever said Hamas “should be in charge” or “Hamas is a shining example” of what we want in the region. Stopping Israel’s genocide doesn’t mean the end goal is Hamas in charge.

We want a unified state where all citizens are treated fairly and equally. Israel has taken clear actions to prevent that.

Lol you’re clearly just going to continue to believe Israel’s propaganda that it uses to justify an ongoing Apartheid state and genocide. I actually go out and organize in my community and am extensively read up on this subject but instead of countering any of my last points you want to tap out and try to use some cliche’s to end the conversation.

What does any of that have to do with Israel’s genocide? No US politician is “Pro-Hamas” they’re at best against the funding and supplying of weapons to Israel due to the ongoing genocide.

Hamas was elected nearly 20 years ago at this point and there hasn’t been one since due to Israel’s occupation. Nearly half of Gazas population is children so wouldn’t have even been alive during that election. How are any of them responsible for Hamas actions?

When I say history didn’t start on Oct 7th I’m saying that this has been happening since the Nakba well before Hamas. Decades of apartheid and genocide are going to bread anger against the purpetrators. Especially when peaceful protests have been met with violance by Israel.

Any support Hamas has is largely because it’s one of the few organizations able to fight against Israel since Israel has been helping prop up Hamas.

Another source

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

So Israel, after running an apartheid state for decades and trying to slowly wipe out the Palestinian people, started to fund Hamas to prevent a Palestinian state from forming because as you clearly pointed out Hamas is an extremist group it blew up in their faces but that’s somehow the fault of the innocent children?

Maybe Israel should have been pushing for a unified state that guaranteed rights to all groups.

What genocide is happening due to Hamas?

Last I checked it’s Israel that has been occupying both the West Bank and Gaza for decades.

It’s Israel that’s been declared by the ICC to be committing acts of genocide.

Israel is the one that’s running an apartheid state for decades.

History did not start on Oct 7th.

Cori Bush was one of only six Democrats who partnered with 200 Republicans to vote against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Anyone who has driven in St. Louis lately understands , and how desperately we needed that investment.

IIRC this was because they split the bill with the social programs part that was originally all supposed to be 1 package. She was originally for the combined package.

Nope, not for Cori Bush, who’s repeatedly voted against defense spending.

Is this supposed to be bad…?

Despite the fact that Defund the Police was never effective, is wildly unpopular , and is overwhelmingly unpopular with Black voters, Cori Bush stubbornly continues to support the cause. She did in 2022, and she’s not backing away in 2024.

But here’s the kicker: Bush spends more on private security than just about any other member of Congress, having spent close to $500,000 on private security in the 2022 cycle. Just to be clear, this is highly aberrant. Combined, the rest of Missouri’s House delegation has spent a grand total of $0 on private security.

Without getting into a whole separate thing on defund the police I will say the spending is eye raising, she has said:

“I’m going to make sure I have security because I know I have had attempts on my life and I have too much work to do,” she said.

I would agree the spending is a bit much but I don’t know the number of threats either. He does later mention she employed her now husband as security as well which is being investigated.

With a national platform, she fails to take even basic steps to help St. Louisans

This whole section feels like it’s reaching. Like maybe she felt the best route was to push to give her constituents more time? Why aren’t other state reps also getting heat for the unused funds?

To a fault, Cori Bush is uncompromisingly partisan

Like this is meaningless in a vacuum, reaching across the aisle isn’t some automatic good.

Take her “no” vote on sanctions against Russia

There are leftists that believe sanctions primarily hurt the working class of countries and not the people in power and so are against them. They haven’t removed Putin from power so far and trying to sanction a third of the countries in the world also has other downsides.

US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said she is concerned about the strength of the US dollar going forwards, after widespread implementation of sanctions by the country has pushed other financial institutions to seek trades in other currencies.

Overall not a lot in there outside of the security spending/investigation which I’ll agree should be looked at.

Edit:

Also before any tries to frame voting No on H.R.6679 as problematic look at the actual bill:

The bill also expands an existing admissions bar against officers, representatives, and spokespersons of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Under this bill, all PLO members are barred from admission into the United States.

Per Wikipedia:

the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty with the Oslo I Accord, and now only seeks Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.

It’s almost as if money has a huge influence on elections and allowing legal bribery of politicians and judges probably isn’t the best route to improving conditions for disadvantaged members in any society.

And I don’t see how pushing to continue to fund and supply their genocide is “pro-Palestinian”.