Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday
Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.
Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.
The viable alternative is you continue voting Democrat but you write all your congresspeople and tell them that they need to stop supporting Israel.
At the end of the day, though, if they know this “party loyalty even when I abhor the party’s behavior” sentiment exists then they’ll have less reason to listen to you.
But even if you aren’t playing hardball with them, you can tell them what you think and feel. Humans are swayed by social proof, and if they get enough letters encouraging them to stop supporting the thing, it will sway them.
Assuming they’re human. If they’re not, the only thing they’ll respect is your leverage over them and if you aren’t willing to swing your vote then that’s gone.
But I think most of them are human. Probably not more than a small fraction are psychopaths.
That’s a bad idea. If the US stops supporting Israel, Hamas and their financial backers will immediately invade to wipe them off the planet. I don’t know if the rhetoric I hear is mostly Russian propaganda, or people don’t really understand the conflict. Israel didn’t just decide to invade Gaza, there was an 9/11-esk terrorist attack by Hamas that triggered his retaliation. Despite being the defacto governors of Gaza, Hamas is a terrorist organization and operates like one. There is no attacking Hamas without attacking Gaza. They are essentially one in the same, and there is no peaceful solution when Hamas goal is to wipe Israel off the planet. It would be a kin to the US not going after Osama Bin Laden after 9/11. Do you think he would have stopped? I don’t think I’ve heard anyone seriously suggest the US should have done nothing after 9/11. Going into Afghanistan was pretty well supported (Ignoring Iraq, because that’s where the Bush Admin fucked it up). The only solution to 9/11 was a time machine going back and not getting involved in the Middle East in the first place, but now where talking a reverse butterfly effect of who knows what happens. The Israel-Hamas conflict is older than Hamas, and it quite literally one of, if not the most complex Geo-political issues in history.
Personally I think the best Idea would be the pressure Israel into larger oversight by the UN, or whomever. I don’t see any true peace while Hamas or any other Islamist extremist organization exists in that region. The time for that was twenty plus years ago.
There may not be a peaceful solution, but the correct violent solution would be for Israel to stop the weapons blockade on Gaza, so that non-Hamas Gazans can arm themselves, and so they have a chance to overthrow Hamas on their own.
Hamas rules without elections, hence do not have the consent of those governed.
The weapons embargo is failing, obviously. As gun control opponents in the USA often point out, gun laws basically ensure the rule followers are disarmed; it doesn’t do much to disarm the criminals.
All this weapons blockade is doing is making Gazans helpless.
And because they are helpless, they are not responsible for Hamas.
I’m NOT trying to say here that arming average Gazans would make it okay to carpet bomb Gaza, but it would at least open the door for Gazans to take a side.
If I were running Israel, my policy would be:
With the Gazan people being actively prevented from arming themselves by the Israeli military, there is no way in hell that Gazans could ever be responsible for Hamas. They are in a state of helpless victimhood that is continually enforced by the actions of Israel.
Stop the weapons blockade. It is a violation of human rights. I mean naturally the food and medicine blockades are fucked too. But keeping the Gazan population unarmed is also a serious violation of their rights, and it makes Israel’s current actions immoral.
Support for Hamas is Growing
I don’t believe adding more guns solves any problem, so that’s a non starter for me.
However just today, Palestinian prime minister submitted the government’s resignation, so we will see what’s next.
Which has fuckall to do with Hamas. The Palestinian Authority has no presence in Gaza.
I’ve said before that there is no resolution without getting rid of Hamas. Outside of that, there are measures like this. If these are meaningless, then all out war is the only answer and that’s what Israel is doing.