Progressives acknowledging the fact of genocide is a good first step, and it’s useful that Ocasio-Cortez and others have done so — “I think [unconditional aid to Israel] enabled a genocide in Gaza,” she said in Munich — but it is not in and of itself sufficient. Before anyone in the party can move on to selling a post-Biden vision of human-rights-first foreign policy, they must address what accountability for the war criminals in the Biden administration — those who aided, armed, and funded genocide — should look like.



Oh, I thought my opposition to trump was based on concern for the world and the marginalized and underprivileged groups in the US. But if you know me better than I do, then I guess the reason I oppose trump is because I’m a self-serving narcissist? Weird. I would have thought that if that were true, I would have supported trump like all the other self-serving narcissists in America. Hmmm…
If people who decided to boycott the vote over Gaza decided instead to get over themselves and their ideological purism, then trump would have lost and the people in Gaza would be faring substantially better than they are now. You continue to gloss over that fact because you need “an analgesic to cope with the fact that you advocate for strategies” that explicitly gave the election to trump.
I included it for the sake of completeness to address the potential counterarguments that “Not every registered voter who abstained was doing so as a boycott over Gaza.” It’s basic intellectual honesty, but if that’s irrelevant to you then we know what sort of position you’re arguing from. So thanks for telling on yourself.
False. 2024 had abysmally poor turn-out relative to registered voters.
Also false. Elon Musk openly
admitted tobragged about interfering with election integrity. The 2024 elections were also never audited, unlike 2020, so if there were anomalies (which some have been identified, particularly in blue districts of swing states), they haven’t been investigated or officially reported.Interfering in western nations’ elections is standard russian foreign policy. They don’t even try to hide it.
That’s not where I get my news, but good try.
Oh yeah, no one is denying that here. Go ahead and ask yourself who Israel was spending all that money to get elected? Doesn’t exactly help your argument.
Again, you still seem to be telling on yourself.
Do you think I’m the fucking DNC or something? I have my preferences for candidates and policies, but those took a back seat in 2024 to the main effort of preventing a second trump term, which you continue to gloss over as a factor in that election. I’m capable of putting my personal preferences aside for a higher priority like that because, unlike you, I’m not a narcissist.
Nope. I told you that what I thought was important in 2024 was making sure trump didn’t get elected. You assumed everything else about my position.
Beyond my opposition to trump, I haven’t mentioned my personal opinions because those aren’t what matter. If you really want to know, I’m a leftist, but not the kind that unthinkingly follows whatever the puristic campism of your average tankie circlejerk tells you to believe.
I believe in socialist fiscal policy, as well as a legal system based on restorative justice a la Rawls and Sen, and a political system based on direct democracy, regional autonomy, and a constitutional rules-based order to preserve sovereignty while encouraging multilateral cooperation and ensuring respect for human rights. But all that is as good as the paper it’s written on. I also recognize the complexities of realpolitik and can subordinate my personal ideology to the pragmatism of a feasible political strategy in favor of incremental progress through gradual change; and at times, harm reduction and damage control. Because nothing is going to become perfect overnight, and everything depends on the changing tides of public sentiment and shifting political tailwinds.
More relevant to this conversation, I think Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank are atrocious, and world leaders need to take a hardline stance against it, but I recognize that that won’t be possible under trump.
So there. Now you no longer need to assume more than you actually know.