Nothing but his own internal monologue and no interaction with the rest of the world? That’s basically a campaign rally for him. He’d love it.

The only way this gig is ethically justifiable is if the support act is a guillotine.

Obviously there’s a proxy war between russia and the west in ukraine, but I don’t think the US wants a long attritional war.

They could have done more to not end up in one, but I think escalation management really is driving a lot of decisions in washington.

In parliamentry systems you can dissolve parliament, requiring an election. It’s usually a way to bypass deadlock. Imagine if, when republicans are fucking around with the debt ceiling and pissing off the country, you could threaten to call a snap election and let them answer to voters then and there.

So if this passes it would basically force a national referendum on netanyahu’s leadership.

If gantz is pushing this, probably he thinks he can win. That could mean netanyahu’s many financial and political crimes being looked into again. Maybe.

It could mean more of a focus on getting hostages back, but it might not lead to much change in gaza:

Gantz’ centrism is not equivalent to Western centrism: Natenyahu’s Likud party and other Israeli nationalists have “gone so right-wing that the center in Israel has changed,” a Middle East Institute think tank fellow told Al Jazeera. Previously serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Israeli Defense Forces, Gantz has overseen two military offensives in Gaza and labeled several Palestinian NGOs terrorist organizations, indicating it is “unlikely” he would improve the conditions for Palestinians living in Gaza

A fair point.

The popular vote matters, proof that we’re not a democracy matters. Not a lot, probably not at all but maybe in the future it might form part of an argument for making things better.

Given the stakes I’m still going to put in the small effort for a likely doomed longshot. That’s about the most we can hope to achieve with electoral politics, but I still think it’s worth doing.

I’ve seen a number of polls that reiterate how strongly youth and democrats oppose israel’s actions and call it genocide. I don’t think it’s an echo chamber effect.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx

This poll from March shows 55/36 disapprove/approve.

Moreover, democrats disapprove at 75% vs 18% approve and independents disapprove at 60% to 29% approve. Sure, republicans approve at 64%, but ain’t no republicans switching to biden over gaza.

Those numbers are brutal for democrats, and getting worse. More obvious genocide from the israelis and feeble lies from biden isn’t going to reverse that trend.

I personally don’t think that fear of assassination is what’s driving biden and the democrats policy on this.

Given that netanyahu and gvir were almost certainly involved in killing yitzhak rabin I’m sure they’re capable, I just think the risk/reward is off. They can affect US policy without the risks inherent in killing an allied head of state.

I didn’t downvote. I don’t see you having any down votes. I don’t disagree with you, I just don’t feel that your comment addressed the specific point I was making.

I don’t disagree that states are devoid of any ethical capabilities, but they’re not cartoon supervillains. When states are cruel, it’s for specific reasons to achieve specific aims.

I don’t understand what the democrats think they are getting or avoiding with this. To me it looks lose/lose for them.

States just aren’t moral entities - there’s no reasonable moral ground for most anything an imperial power does. It’s almost always just about securing more power.

But I don’t understand how this makes sense for the democrats from even a realpolitik perspective.

When the genocide is this obvious, and the ongoing consequences for the democrats and democracy this serious, it really makes me wonder what’s the political calculus behind it.

Is AIPAC really that big of a threat? Is netanyahu that important to our imperial interests in the middle east? Why choose full on putinesque post-truth politics over this?

I’ve never had much faith in the democrats, but I honestly just don’t understand what’s driving such terrible decision making.

That would be the structural issue. The candidate who won the election by a light but comfortable margin (48 v 46) didn’t win power.

Possibly timing played a role, sure. But both those candidates are men, so it could just be more proof of her point.

It looks like it’s supposed to be more greek, since the romans weren’t known for fighting naked, whereas we think ‘greek’ and we think shirtless. Also romans weren’t involved in egypt in any serious way till much later. Whereas the ‘sea peoples’ seem to come from roughly the sphere of mycenean influence, even if they don’t all seem ‘greek’.

Not in the late bronze age.

The Mycenian Greeks probably wrestled control of Crete from the Minoans ~300 before the late bronze age collapse of greek and hittite power structures.

Cultural elements and settlements of these “Eteocretans” remained, but I don’t think the Minoans were in any place to halt anything at that point. During the period we call collapse they seem to have been doing a lot of fleeing into the mountains.

That’s not true at all though. Plenty of lefties talk about the left. Like all the time.

Is there a trolling angle I’m missing or something?

The d&d game summoning the devil was always my favorite. Always love a d&d episode.

Also any one where the pope is shown in league with someone unlikely - communists, jews, muslims, etc.

Curl up in a ball and weep a salty creek.

Reading beyond the headline, I kind of agree that she faced a sexist double standard where she suffered electorally for things that wouldn’t have impacted a male candidate as strongly.

Being a slimy, self-entitled political creature is pretty acceptable for a male politician.

Then again she did win the election by 2 percentage points. So as much as I dislike her, it’s probably more of a structural issue than either sexism or candidate quality.