the current US president really going all in on supporting the extermination in gaza during an election year really seems mystifying to me. as if deliberately trying to alienate his progressive base.
is it some sort of loyalty test? pushing democrat voters to support war crimes because "the other guy is worse"? do the democrat establishment think they are invincible? are they high on their own kool-aid? I don't get it. every day trump looks more likely.
@hugo It is nearly impossible to explain the immense weirdness of the coalitions and history behind these decisions, but I think my best shot would be that he's maintaining near-perfect continuity with the political world of the past 40 years and there is an enormous rift here about whether we still live in that world or not. (And the rift is so hot and terrifying because both ~sides know that reality is up for grabs.)
@kissane nice! thank you. that seems eminently plausible too. I guess I was interpreting it as a deliberate, agentive or strategic stance, whereas maybe it just boils down to inertia, denial, coagulated worldviews.
@hugo
It's also... There has been an incredibly deep strategic alignment between the US and Israel. Backing out from that means recalibrating American force projection globally and a significant chunk of the structure of the DoD, which is already being turned upside down dealing with China. It would leave the US with no functionally aligned partners between Greece and Singapore. Which isn't to say it can't happen, but it can't happen quickly unless it really really has to, and this genocide basically doesn't rise to that level, from inside the perspective. @kissane
@kissane
Yup. This is probably one of the death gasps of the Atlantic consensus and the end of the end of history. And likely also where the church of the American civic religion finally founders. @hugo