Ephoron
I think the hypocrisy is yours.
Hamas no more "initiated" Israel's genocide than Russia were "provoked" into invading Ukraine.
You don't have to commit genocide to deal with an act of terrorism. You don't have to commit genocide to deal with security concerns in your perceived sphere of influence. Neither act had justification, neither act was "initiated" by anyone but the accused governments.
So just doubling down on blind assertions? The lack of intellectual integrity is astounding.
To win, Harris does not need to take votes from Trump. She can win by taking votes from Independents and currently non-voters.
The evidence is that this group would vote for her if she changed policy on arms sales to Israel.
There is no evidence of a similar sized group of currently committed Democrats who would not vote for her if she changed policy on arms sales to Israel.
As such, there is no evidence for your claim that she needs to keep this policy to win and what evidence there is suggests the opposite.
That's how evidence works, your theory is supposed to respond to it.
Trump's voters want Gaza gone
No they don't. The polls suggest they are about 50/50 on the matter. Again, evidence helps us here rather than just spewing whatever we reckon.
For Harris to come out now to support Gaza over Israel would mean two things. Those who might have been leaning away from Trump for other reasons will have cause to go ahead and vote for him.
No. Again, there's no evidence from polling of a significant group who would do this.
Harris will lose votes from those who support Israel. Believe it or not, there are plenty of Democrats who also wouldn't mind if Gaza would just go ahead and die, already
No. Again the actual evidence shows over 60% of Democrats want arms sales to Israel banned, and only a tiny percentage actually want them maintained (the rest undecided). The figures are even higher in Michigan, as an example of a key swing state.
Harris would be stupid to alienate Jewish voters going into the election.
On what evidence do you believe this. All the evidence provided thus far shows the opposite to be the case. The overwhelming majority of Democrats want to end arms sales to Israel. By what twisted mathematics does gaining a majority of supporters risk losing the vote?
The evidence in question, to save trawling through posts
To do this Harris needs to take away voters from Trump
You've provided no evidence at all for this, and all the available evidence demonstrates the contrary.
Just declaring things to be the case isn't an argument. You have to bring evidence to bear.
Harris coming out against Israel will give voters to Trump, not take them away from Trump
Again. No evidence, and all the available evidence is to the contrary.
Harris must not come out against Israel before elected or she won't get elected
Again, all the evidence given shows the opposite.
The vast majority of Democrat voters and a smaller group of Republican voters want to stop arms sale to Israel.
A huge proportion of key voters in swing states want to stop arms sales to Israel.
Voters angry at the Democrats for not stopping arms sales to Israel are actively saying they will abstain or vote Trump.
No group, poll, or campaign has come out to claim they'll vote Trump if the Democrats stop arms sales to Israel.
All this evidence supports the view that stopping arms sales to Israel will gain Democrats a massive number of additional votes, some of which will be from otherwise Trump voters.
You've provided no evidence to the contrary.
I don't agree that the Dems need to change policy to win. Sure they could pick up some votes from the left but would sacrifice votes from other areas to achieve that.
What makes you think that, given the evidence to the contrary?
At the end of the day, those protesting will need to decide, Trump or not Trump.
Again, why are thousand of voters responsible for keeping Trump out, but not the Democrats?
Or, a slightly different question, why do you pin your hopes on these thousands and not on the Democrats? Do you think they're more likely to change their minds? Do you think people are actually going to vote in favour of a party committed to facilitating genocide, often of their distant relations, than the Democrats are to change policy.
Don't you think that's an absolutely devastating indictment of democracy? That no amount of voting block pressure can actually get a party to change policy.
work from the inside on changing policy.
I don't understand what this means. Voters vote. They don't control party policy "from the inside", they just vote on stuff.
If they don't, and they help Trump get elected, things will be infinitely worse for the Palestinians.
And again, blaming the electorate for being moral, not blaming the Democrats for refusing to listen.
The clarity of your plan was not in question.
I asked a very simple question about that plan. Why do you think you can change the minds of all these people who currently are not going to vote, but you don't think you can change the minds of the Democrat strategists?
You seem to be implying that getting Democrats to actually change policy to help them win is a lost cause, but then have this tremendous optimism toward changing the minds of thousands of people, many of whom are withholding their vote in protest against genocide. I asked why.
I did not ask "could you repeat your plan". This is a discussion forum, it should have been obvious you might expect some scrunity of an argument put forth on it. If your intention is to ignore "naysayers" then might I suggest a discussion forum is not the best place for you to be posting. Maybe a blog, or Substack?
That's a good point. There may a reason in that.
a vice president can't just change policy against the wishes of the president. Nor do they regularly deviate in public opinion.
Apologies for my lack of clarity. I was using 'Harris' as shorthand for 'the Harris campaign'. I mean to ask why they wouldn't change policy... The campaign team.
I'm not arguing that she will or won't... only that she can't right now regardless of her actual stance.
You're not 'arguing' anything at all. You're just declaring it to be the case with so much as a scrap of evidence offered.
All the evidence provided indicates a sizeable demographic of ex-Democrat voters who would readily vote Democrat again if they changed policy on arms sales.
No polling data from anywhere indicates that keeping arms sales is the key to the swing states.
All polling data that's been provided indicates that banning arms sales is the key to the swing states.
So what is tying Harris's hands exactly? Spell it out.
a ideal world GOP eats itself when Trump loses again and the DNC is now effectively replacing the GOP as the conservative party.
Best answer I've had yet. I'm not convinced, but at least it's a plan with an actual mechanism that isn't contrary to reality.
The reason I'm not convinced is that it would require politics to be far less Machiavellian than it is. All the while it's in their best interests to have Trump-the-devil as their opponent, they'll push that narrative, true or not. I think the Democrats will be too scared to push too far to the centre for the very reasons you've given, they might loose support to an actual left-wing and their donors simply won't risk that. The Democrat's job is to suck energy from actual left-wing campaigns. To do they they need to stay left, but not too left.
And, of course, they need to convince millions of people more progressive than they are, to vote for them regardless because "the other guy...".
But still, I respect your plan. Hope I'm wrong, and it works.
I think that not really feeling it viscerally about it is part of the problem, yeah.
But my take, for what it's worh, is that ever since Covid people have just got a good feeling of righteousness by simply repeating the standard mainstream messaging. There was a very strong narrative that the mainstream was right and questioning it amounted to dangerous conspiracy theory (which, to be fair, it often did). So now a certain class of people (slightly left of centre, middle class urbanites) have this Pavlovian response to any questioning of the mainstream narrative, that they simply must repeat it because of that good feeling they got supporting it during Covid.
Unfortunately, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and a couple of coincidental conspiracy-bashings doesn't change the fact that the mainstream media are fundamentally bought and paid for by their corporate advertisers and CEOs of their hedge-fund owners on the board.
The American press's reporting on Gaza has been nothing short of actively complicit. And that's not even a rhetorical flourish, it's the view of no small number of international human rights lawyers.