I try not to be “a person on the Internet who has to post an opinion about everything” but humans only have so much self-control. Three weeks ago I thought Joe Biden would eke out a tepid victory based on his drama-free record because he’s “better than the other guy.” The “other guy” is still Trump, thanks to how much Ron DeSantis sucks (which by the way thank god).
I agree about Netanyahu. He's been a disaster for Israel and for peace in the region.
I'm an alum of UPenn and I also agree with you that the donor revolt there is misguided and childish. The :Palestine Writes conference did include a few anti-Semites, but I think making a big deal about it is ridiculous.
My priority as a Jew is to continue to have a safe and secure Jewish homeland. The long term record of persecutions and expulsions is part of our heritage and October 7th was a terrible reminder that there are groups who have the desire and means to kill as many Jews as possible.
The Hamas atrocities were clearly meant to provoke a response that would discredit Israel with as much of the world as possible. But how can Israel not respond?
In a political way, Biden's in a similar trap. If he doesn't back Israel strongly, he will lose credibility with the American Jewish population. If he backs Israel, he loses credibility with the progressives and the American Muslim population.
The attack on Oct 7 had far less to do with Israel being Jewish than it did with the Israeli government treating Palestinians with brutality. The Israeli government doesn’t speak or act for me, and it doesn’t care about you either. Why continue to defend them and ship them billions of dollars of weapons? The Israeli occupation has made Jews everywhere less safe, not more.
None of that responds to anything I said, but I will note: America should have done nothing after 9/11, if we had the world would be an infinitely better place today
Israel is not committing genocide and none of the numbers coming out of Gaza's Health Ministry can be trusted because it is an entity controlled by Hamas.
Please did deeper into this story, Tana. Please don't just regurgitate the BS that the far left is spewing up. Please be very, very skeptical of any information that Hamas puts out.
Oh yes my friend used this argument as well, so I asked her if she would be fine with another country bombing our hospitals because the white Incels that shoot up elementary school are using the rest of us as “human shields”.
So are you supporting that?
I also explained to her that if I did something to her family and then she came and burnt down this entire apartment building because I live here, she would be WRONG and she would face legal consequences.
We live in a society, we are supposed to be more advanced than lizard brain animals. If you can’t control yourself, maybe you shouldn’t have kids.
I begged my Democratic friends and interlocutors to reconsider settling on Biden - a disaster in the making. He was always this way: alternating between endless dithering, and recklessness, not to mention a psychopathic indifference to the suffering of poor people, esp. let's face it, poor people of color. Making him the Oval One was a huge risk, for that and other reasons, including sheer political incompetence. There were good reasons his other two pres campaigns did not get off the ground, and his third didn't either until he was bailed out. Thanks Obama, for everything.
The awful thing now is that Trump looks a little less scary foreign policy-wise than Biden, just because Trump barely knew what he was doing. He was scary, but THIS is both similar to Trump and worse. Even a fool like Biden learns a few things after 50 years in DC. He can fuck up in a profounder way. I would never vote for Trump or any Republican - neither of these two morons should be president. But Biden's strategy of trying to out-Trump Trump on FP is about the most idiotic and scary thing he could do. So of course that's what he did. Here we are, pointlessly walking into a blunder possibly as big as the Iraq war, and the WH doesn't even seem to fully realize it.
*This* is the kind of thing you should impeach presidents for - ignoring the public will, endangering the country and world with bumbling incompetence, a lizardish indifference to the most basic decency, and frankly, plain stupidity. Democrats are insane not to replace Biden for '24. I thought that before, but now - hell, they might even do it.
Yeah it’s interesting that after a few years of Biden I’m less terrified of Trump. I’m thinking that if Trump wins maybe the Dems will stop spreading Covid for the economy, which would be a huge win for me. I can’t vote against my own survival so I’m not voting for either of these old white men. It looks like my third choice party choices are the woo woo lady or a guy who doesn’t pay taxes or child support, but most of those dudes don’t pay that stuff so I won’t punish a black man for doing it.
FWIW I'm not less scared of Trump. I'm less scared of Trump's first term compared to Biden's, which is how Trump can frame it, and you know he will. Trump would surely be worse his second time, because he would have experience.
Biden's negligence on covid is something he in retrospect telegraphed in the campaign, when his camp pushed people to go out and vote in primaries during the first big nationwide wave, and risk their lives just to make Biden look good - he was already going to win, and Sanders told his voters to stay home and not risk their health. Biden is callous.
They're just centrist dipshits and they take care of their class, which is not our class. I'd say the administration as a whole reflects Biden's personality extremely well, and that's the problem.
Anyway, it's not impossible that Dems would get rid of him for 24. He was already in political trouble and now this. The guy is ancient anyway! That is a great excuse. There's also the Harris problem - do you want Harris to be president? She would almost certainly also lose to a Republican - she's as terrible a politician as Biden. I would much rather have the woo woo woman (you mean Williamson?) than either Trump or Biden, (or Harris) by far. She is really green, but - could it be a lot worse? The US empire has to learn to decline gracefully, or it will decline gracelessly, and that will be much worse and much faster. The centrist dipshit way is the second one. Heaven help us
It’s interesting that his support of THIS genocide is what is doing it, not the fact that he’s killing off all the medically vulnerable Americans. We didn’t matter as much as brunch or shopping. But whatever works. If the Palestinian genocide is what gets people to care about other people, ok then.
Did you know that disabled people are the largest group of marginalized folks in America? But the good guys are cheering for us to fall by the wayside for shopping and brunch. 🤷🏻♀️ i’m not voting against my own survival like a red hat. I’m sorry that the Republicans are trying to genocide the trans people, but the blue crew is trying to genocide people like me. And I don’t vote against my own survival
I would think the far right, with all their white supremacy on the ascendant since 2016, are feeling confused and betrayed also.
I also think there is a chasm between Zionism and what Americans think of as Israel. Zionism is a problem that has been allowed to fester. The far right in Israel has now been shown to be the abject failure it obviously was and now we are all going to pay.
Political choices are never easy. Ralph Nader got us Bush. Anti Hilary got us Trump. Has the world gotten better? Did not voting for the lesser evil make life better for the next generation?
This is wild lol, take away the word Palestine and replace it with Florida, take away the word Hamas and replace it with DeSantis.
Did you cheer DeSantis denying florida residents expanded medicaid or did you think that was wrong. Or did you go on Twitter and say “meh they can die if they can’t pay for insulin they voted for it.”?
Yeah! Bomb those civilians! Half of them kids who can't vote! Oh yeah, Hamas is so evil they don't get to vote! Bomb the crap out of them anyway! They are in your way.
Zionism is a problem? Wtf. Zionism is the belief that Israel exists as a Jewish state. Sorry it’s a problem for you. You are either stupid or antiSemitic or both
It seems to have been adopted as a philosophy that works to the detriment of the Palestinian people. It's used to expand settlements in the West Bank. It does seem to be causing Israel a lot of problems. I don't think I'm stupid and I've never been anti Jewish. I just don't get throwing music festivals next to a place such as Gaza. Tell me what to call it. I don't mean to upset you.
So it’s the Jews fault they got slaughtered at the music festival ? Palestinians had plenty of opportunity to get a state next to Israel but terror seemed to be more attractive. Like the second intifada and like now.
I know Palestinians elected Hamas in 2007? and have never been allowed by them to vote again. I don't know that I can conflate Hamas and Palestinians. I doubt they are widely loved. Think about us. If Trump wins again, we will be in the same boat. Elections a thing of the past.
Hamas appears to have gotten a large number of young Palestinian men killed. Bunches of women and kids left to fend for themselves. I'd bet my 401K they are terrorized into submission by Hamas.
Hey Tana, your observations echo my sentiments as well. I helped vote Trump out and had a lot of hope for how Democrats under Biden would seize the opportunity to actually “build back better”. In my eyes they fell short on many areas. The response from Biden during Israel’s new war only heightened my already growing skepticism of the Dem govt allowing Trump to weasel his way back to power.
I wrote an article at the onset of the Israel-Palestinian crisis, about how Trump is capitalizing on fear while the Arab world has been/was hiding behind it. The Arab world is finally showing some sense of a united front now, thanks to Biden’s relentless display of solidarity with Netanyahu.
Aside from not voting the Muslims in Michigan who dislike Biden or whoever the real president is have few other options. I don’t see them voting R.
I for one have stopped donating money to my alma mater. The administration doesn’t have the balls to condemn the Hamas butchers and do little to provide a safe environment for Jewish students.
Who said "do nothing?" Everyone serious just begged for a strategic response not involving 3K children being killed.
Hi Tana,
I agree about Netanyahu. He's been a disaster for Israel and for peace in the region.
I'm an alum of UPenn and I also agree with you that the donor revolt there is misguided and childish. The :Palestine Writes conference did include a few anti-Semites, but I think making a big deal about it is ridiculous.
My priority as a Jew is to continue to have a safe and secure Jewish homeland. The long term record of persecutions and expulsions is part of our heritage and October 7th was a terrible reminder that there are groups who have the desire and means to kill as many Jews as possible.
The Hamas atrocities were clearly meant to provoke a response that would discredit Israel with as much of the world as possible. But how can Israel not respond?
In a political way, Biden's in a similar trap. If he doesn't back Israel strongly, he will lose credibility with the American Jewish population. If he backs Israel, he loses credibility with the progressives and the American Muslim population.
I'm worried and confused.
I do worry a great deal about the 2024 election.
The attack on Oct 7 had far less to do with Israel being Jewish than it did with the Israeli government treating Palestinians with brutality. The Israeli government doesn’t speak or act for me, and it doesn’t care about you either. Why continue to defend them and ship them billions of dollars of weapons? The Israeli occupation has made Jews everywhere less safe, not more.
None of that responds to anything I said, but I will note: America should have done nothing after 9/11, if we had the world would be an infinitely better place today
Israel is not committing genocide and none of the numbers coming out of Gaza's Health Ministry can be trusted because it is an entity controlled by Hamas.
Please did deeper into this story, Tana. Please don't just regurgitate the BS that the far left is spewing up. Please be very, very skeptical of any information that Hamas puts out.
Yes, the massacre of Palestinian civilians is genocide. Netanyahu financed Hamas, and that did not work out well. Who knew?
Biden needs to correct his administration’s horrid policy now!
They had been no massacre of Palestinian civilians. Do you acknowledge that what Hamas did on Oct. 7 was genocidal?
Yes I do believe that.
October 7th was a massacre. But was Israeli military is doing to Palestinians is wrong. There is no way to eliminate terrorism through bombing.
Destroying Hamas will eliminate terrorism.
Oh yes my friend used this argument as well, so I asked her if she would be fine with another country bombing our hospitals because the white Incels that shoot up elementary school are using the rest of us as “human shields”.
So are you supporting that?
I also explained to her that if I did something to her family and then she came and burnt down this entire apartment building because I live here, she would be WRONG and she would face legal consequences.
We live in a society, we are supposed to be more advanced than lizard brain animals. If you can’t control yourself, maybe you shouldn’t have kids.
I begged my Democratic friends and interlocutors to reconsider settling on Biden - a disaster in the making. He was always this way: alternating between endless dithering, and recklessness, not to mention a psychopathic indifference to the suffering of poor people, esp. let's face it, poor people of color. Making him the Oval One was a huge risk, for that and other reasons, including sheer political incompetence. There were good reasons his other two pres campaigns did not get off the ground, and his third didn't either until he was bailed out. Thanks Obama, for everything.
The awful thing now is that Trump looks a little less scary foreign policy-wise than Biden, just because Trump barely knew what he was doing. He was scary, but THIS is both similar to Trump and worse. Even a fool like Biden learns a few things after 50 years in DC. He can fuck up in a profounder way. I would never vote for Trump or any Republican - neither of these two morons should be president. But Biden's strategy of trying to out-Trump Trump on FP is about the most idiotic and scary thing he could do. So of course that's what he did. Here we are, pointlessly walking into a blunder possibly as big as the Iraq war, and the WH doesn't even seem to fully realize it.
*This* is the kind of thing you should impeach presidents for - ignoring the public will, endangering the country and world with bumbling incompetence, a lizardish indifference to the most basic decency, and frankly, plain stupidity. Democrats are insane not to replace Biden for '24. I thought that before, but now - hell, they might even do it.
Yeah it’s interesting that after a few years of Biden I’m less terrified of Trump. I’m thinking that if Trump wins maybe the Dems will stop spreading Covid for the economy, which would be a huge win for me. I can’t vote against my own survival so I’m not voting for either of these old white men. It looks like my third choice party choices are the woo woo lady or a guy who doesn’t pay taxes or child support, but most of those dudes don’t pay that stuff so I won’t punish a black man for doing it.
FWIW I'm not less scared of Trump. I'm less scared of Trump's first term compared to Biden's, which is how Trump can frame it, and you know he will. Trump would surely be worse his second time, because he would have experience.
Biden's negligence on covid is something he in retrospect telegraphed in the campaign, when his camp pushed people to go out and vote in primaries during the first big nationwide wave, and risk their lives just to make Biden look good - he was already going to win, and Sanders told his voters to stay home and not risk their health. Biden is callous.
They're just centrist dipshits and they take care of their class, which is not our class. I'd say the administration as a whole reflects Biden's personality extremely well, and that's the problem.
Anyway, it's not impossible that Dems would get rid of him for 24. He was already in political trouble and now this. The guy is ancient anyway! That is a great excuse. There's also the Harris problem - do you want Harris to be president? She would almost certainly also lose to a Republican - she's as terrible a politician as Biden. I would much rather have the woo woo woman (you mean Williamson?) than either Trump or Biden, (or Harris) by far. She is really green, but - could it be a lot worse? The US empire has to learn to decline gracefully, or it will decline gracelessly, and that will be much worse and much faster. The centrist dipshit way is the second one. Heaven help us
Good luck on the covid problem.
WORD. 🖤
Absolutely spot on. I was a Biden supporter. Now I am not. Anyone want to be President who isn't Donald Trump? Anyone?
Right? ANYONE. I'd even be psyched for someone absurd like Gavin Newsom.
If you want to understand genocidal ideation then look at Hamas. The rest is a distraction.
It’s interesting that his support of THIS genocide is what is doing it, not the fact that he’s killing off all the medically vulnerable Americans. We didn’t matter as much as brunch or shopping. But whatever works. If the Palestinian genocide is what gets people to care about other people, ok then.
Did you know that disabled people are the largest group of marginalized folks in America? But the good guys are cheering for us to fall by the wayside for shopping and brunch. 🤷🏻♀️ i’m not voting against my own survival like a red hat. I’m sorry that the Republicans are trying to genocide the trans people, but the blue crew is trying to genocide people like me. And I don’t vote against my own survival
I would think the far right, with all their white supremacy on the ascendant since 2016, are feeling confused and betrayed also.
I also think there is a chasm between Zionism and what Americans think of as Israel. Zionism is a problem that has been allowed to fester. The far right in Israel has now been shown to be the abject failure it obviously was and now we are all going to pay.
Political choices are never easy. Ralph Nader got us Bush. Anti Hilary got us Trump. Has the world gotten better? Did not voting for the lesser evil make life better for the next generation?
All Zionism means is the belief that Israel has a right to exist.
Israelis have the right to exist. But so do Palestinians who are being denied water, fuel and safety. That’s wrong!
This is wild lol, take away the word Palestine and replace it with Florida, take away the word Hamas and replace it with DeSantis.
Did you cheer DeSantis denying florida residents expanded medicaid or did you think that was wrong. Or did you go on Twitter and say “meh they can die if they can’t pay for insulin they voted for it.”?
In practice it is political. I think you know that.
Yeah! Bomb those civilians! Half of them kids who can't vote! Oh yeah, Hamas is so evil they don't get to vote! Bomb the crap out of them anyway! They are in your way.
Zionism is a problem? Wtf. Zionism is the belief that Israel exists as a Jewish state. Sorry it’s a problem for you. You are either stupid or antiSemitic or both
It seems to have been adopted as a philosophy that works to the detriment of the Palestinian people. It's used to expand settlements in the West Bank. It does seem to be causing Israel a lot of problems. I don't think I'm stupid and I've never been anti Jewish. I just don't get throwing music festivals next to a place such as Gaza. Tell me what to call it. I don't mean to upset you.
So it’s the Jews fault they got slaughtered at the music festival ? Palestinians had plenty of opportunity to get a state next to Israel but terror seemed to be more attractive. Like the second intifada and like now.
I know Palestinians elected Hamas in 2007? and have never been allowed by them to vote again. I don't know that I can conflate Hamas and Palestinians. I doubt they are widely loved. Think about us. If Trump wins again, we will be in the same boat. Elections a thing of the past.
I wish and pray that Hamas is not widely loved
Hamas appears to have gotten a large number of young Palestinian men killed. Bunches of women and kids left to fend for themselves. I'd bet my 401K they are terrorized into submission by Hamas.
Trump certainly isn't. I don't want the world thinking that I support what he stands for if he wins. He's a terrorist. IMHO.
Hahahahaha the far left hates Nazis. The far right hates anyone who isn’t a Christian Nationalist.
You think these things are the same??
Hamas amended their charter in 2017, none of these assertions are correct.
Hey Tana, your observations echo my sentiments as well. I helped vote Trump out and had a lot of hope for how Democrats under Biden would seize the opportunity to actually “build back better”. In my eyes they fell short on many areas. The response from Biden during Israel’s new war only heightened my already growing skepticism of the Dem govt allowing Trump to weasel his way back to power.
I wrote an article at the onset of the Israel-Palestinian crisis, about how Trump is capitalizing on fear while the Arab world has been/was hiding behind it. The Arab world is finally showing some sense of a united front now, thanks to Biden’s relentless display of solidarity with Netanyahu.
My article is called “War, Fear and Prejudice” here: https://rajofftherecord.substack.com/p/war-fear-and-prejudice
Appreciate you,
Raj
Aside from not voting the Muslims in Michigan who dislike Biden or whoever the real president is have few other options. I don’t see them voting R.
I for one have stopped donating money to my alma mater. The administration doesn’t have the balls to condemn the Hamas butchers and do little to provide a safe environment for Jewish students.
I predict that 50% of Jews will vote R in 24.
I read it. Thank you for sharing it. I'm so profoundly sorry for your experience. And I agree that there were heinous initial responses.