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I didn't vote for Trump, though considering I live in one of the least-swing states in the country, I didn't vote at all because I didn't think it would be worth the gas I would expend driving to the polling place.
In any case, Trump is president now.
When I was a kid at the time of Obama v McCain my nice teacher Miss Collins gave us a very simplified and seven-year-old friendly explanation of politics. In some countries, one guy got to be in charge and nobody else got any say. But America was different because we got to have elections every four years, which let the people choose who we wanted to be in charge. Everybody went into a booth and chose who they wanted to be president, and whoever got picked by the most people automatically won.
When I got a little older I started spending a bunch of time on various forums and image boards where I learned that actually democracy is fake and gay. It's all a sham. We live under the system/the Cathedral/the regime/whatever. Voting doesn't matter because no matter who wins, The Regime will never allow a true based right-winger to come to power.
This skepticism continued through the Trump years, with the explanation for his 2016 victory being that They were caught off guard. And of course his loss in 2020 was because the System was no longer off guard, and had fortified itself against the possibility of another Trump victory through means of gross election fraud. "There's no voting your way out of this." In the lead up to 2024, various RW voices, including many on this forum, insisted that Trump would never be allowed to take office again. Mysterious votes would be hauled out at 3:00 AM to ensure a Harris win. Or else he would be assassinated. Or once in office, he would not be permitted to actually do anything Based™ by the Deep State.
Well, despite the universal opprobrium and opposition of every single group of people I've been assured are really running the show, variously journalists, left-wing billionaires, the CIA, other unelected federal bureaucrats, college professors, the Jews, NGOs, liberal white women, or some combination thereof, Trump won. "They were caught off guard" no longer remotely works as an explanation.
Trump doing mass firings of federal employees, mass deportations, and dismantling DEI, just like he promised. The libs are coping and seething, but they can't do anything more than that, and the reason they can't do anything more than that is because more people pressed the "Trump" button than the "Harris" button in the voting booth, and according to the magic piece of paper, this means Trump is in charge now. Democracy worked exactly like Miss Collins said it would. This literally happened, just replace Hitler with "woke DEI". As soon as it the results of the election were clear, the libs immediately acted in accordance with the magic piece of paper and handed over power, without any attempt at military coups, riots, Hail Mary legal endeavors, or even a lib January 6th. And no Deep State has stepped forward to prevent him from doing exactly what he said he would do on the campaign trail. The Magic Piece of Paper has spoken.
While this is a massive L for the libs, it's also a massive L for many reactionary theory of politics which have proven so popular in what can broadly be called the "dissident right."
Like what is the cope for this? Trump isn't a real right-winger, the System would never allow the election of a real right-winger who would restore seigneurial dues and reverse the industrial revolution? The System is just biding its time until it can do a reverse QAnon Storm?
All the based esoteric schizos gibbering about the Cathedral and ZOG and how everybody is a communist were wrong. Turns, they were the fake and gay ones all along, and my sweet normie liberal second grade teacher was right the whole time. Democracy is Real and Straight. Sorry Miss Collins.
He hasn't even been in power for a single month. Let's wait and see what happens. You can't judge a presidency from the first two weeks.
Also Trump has to be one of the most Zionist presidents the US has ever had. He was grand marshal of the salute to Israel, he just passed an executive order on antisemitism.
He just froze aid to everyone except Israel and Egypt (which gets aid due for the sake of Israel). The remaining Adelson is still getting her money's worth. And then there was all the stuff he did in his last term for Israel - exiting the Iran deal, moving diplomatic recognition to Jerusalem...
I don't know how it's possible for the word ZOG to be problematized like it's some crazy, loopy theory when in the case of the US, it's literally true. The US is surely the most Zionist state in the world besides Israel, they send billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, they defend Israel directly with airpower, intel, diplomatic support, buying off Israel's neighbours and pursuing regime change in Israel's enemies.
BDS against Israel is legally penalized in most US states. It's not just Zionism but active anti-anti-Zionism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in_the_United_States
If the theory is that the US government is "owned" by a shadowy group of people actively prioritising Israeli concerns over those of the US, that is Elders of Zion level crazy. You can certainly argue that certain policy decisions in actuality have favoured Israel over the US, but in almost all cases those carrying them out thought they were the best for the US.
This is sensationalist. Supporting Israel with modest amounts of airpower (they helped shoot some missiles out of the sky, which I'm sure the Israelis appreciated, but it's not as if the USAF was carrying out airstrikes on Beirut), diplomacy and intel (which the US gets massive amounts of from Israel in return) falls under the general category of the sort of thing you do for a close ally. I'm also not sure what you're getting at by suggesting they're defending Israel by buying off their neighbors. Do you think Jordan or Egypt would attack Israel if not for US aid? And do you think the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan (as the only examples of regime change I can think of) were done primarily for Israel's sake?
Iraq absolutely, Afghanistan no, Syria partially. There is an entire chorus of ex-US officials and politicians who privately and publicly admit that Iraq posed no threat to America (geographically this is quite straightforward) but did pose a threat to Israel. I've posted about this in the past: https://www.themotte.org/post/56/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/5090?context=8#context
And then there is the Israeli 'intel' that spiced up Iraq's WMD program and made the case for an invasion. It's the same kind of intel that Israel constantly produces. Iran has been six months away from nuclear weapons for the last 30 years according to them. This is not useful intelligence!
In what universe is giving Israel free weapons they use to bomb their neighbours good for the US? Make them pay ridiculously high prices like everyone else! Consider the Arab Oil Embargo - helping Israel can be very, very costly. The US economy suffered enormous damage. No level-headed analysis of the pros and cons would come out in favour of giving Israel a huge amount of military aid to replace their losses in a war with the Arabs where the Israelis had basically already come out on top, considering the Arabs have a tonne of oil/leverage and the Israelis have none.
If forcing regime change were evidence of the ZOG being "literally true", we'd have more examples than Iraq (i.e. Lebanon, Iran, Yemen etc). The US wasn't the only country enthusiastically invading Iraq btw - was Tony Blair's government also owned by Zionists?
Israel also buys weapons at high prices from the US. Much of the pressure that Joe Biden was applying to Israel came in the form of withholding deliveries of weapons Israel had already paid for. Like, it's fair to argue the US should provide no aid at all, but this isn't the ZOG.
The US started supporting Israel after their victory in the six-day war showcased their value as a military power in a region broadly aligned with the Soviets. By the time of the oil embargo keeping Israel on their side during the cold war felt like the right bet to decision makers in the US. You may think they were wrong, but that they thought this was the correct choice seems more plausible than that they were being controlled by a shadowy cabal who had between 67 and 73 achieved total control of the government.
How many wars are you asking for? Manipulating a country into invading another country on the other side of the world is just about the biggest show of control you can imagine. It's followed closely by manipulating a country into harassing countries on the other side of the world, which we see with Syria and Iran. And manipulating a country into aiding another country's invasion (in the case of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon). The US doesn't do this for anyone else, America suppressed Britain and France in 1956 while Israel got away scot-free.
The US allies that joined America were there to look like they're contributing (Poland was eager to earn US favour) and there's certainly some Zionist influence too via Murdoch media. It is basically impossible to read a flagship Australian newspaper without hearing about how awful it is that we're not favouring Israel enough. Day in and day out.
There is nothing shadowy about the cabal, it's blatant. Kissinger was right out there in the open sending weapons to Israel. The USS Liberty was immediately swept under the carpet in '67 despite being a very serious military incident. You have all these US officials boasting about how their number one goal is to work with Israel. Pelosi talks about how even if the Capitol were razed, there would still be cooperation with Israel. Trump complains about how Israel used to totally control the US congress and now that control has withered away.
Why did the Arab states turn to the Soviet cause in the first place? Because they wanted weapons to attack Israel with and the US was unwilling to provide them, while the Soviets would.
Yes US politicians seem to think that favouring Israel is the 'correct choice'. Somali-descended US politicians might favour Somalia. Politicians paid by China might find their views on the South China Sea maturing and developing in a certain direction. Islamic politicians might seek more protections for Islam. It doesn't follow that favouring Somalia or China or Islam is good for US interests. AIPAC boasting about 95% of its candidates winning their elections is not necessarily good for US interests.
More than one? (Which I'm very dubious was done primarily, let alone entirely, for Israel's sake, but whatever). If the ZOG was "literally true" (and blatant about it, as you claim later on), then Israel wouldn't have 5-10 hostile regimes surrounding it that haven't been overturned.
If this were the case, they'd do it for Iran, Lebanon etc. Like, if your argument were that the ZOG was in power 2003-2009 the claim that Israel orchestrated the Iraq war would at least be in service of your position, but if they've been pulling the strings since and before, you'd expect them to use that control to deal with their current threats.
So is the claim that the US only has issues with Syria and Iran (which overthrew the US-backed Shah) because Israel keeps dragging them in? But then why would the US not have kept the Israel-friendly Shah in power (the revolution fits comfortably into the supposed ZOG window)? Why would Obama not intervene in Syria after chemical weapons were used? Why would Obama and Biden have been so pro Iran-rapprochement? Etc.
I mean, maybe I'm being autistic and interpreting too literally your earlier claim that
but again, if the position is that all US interests are subordinate to Israeli interests and have been since the mid 20th century, then Israel wouldn't face any threats at all (or at the very least, far fewer). Is what I just described your position, or have I misinterpreted it?
I'll take your word for it. I'd suggest trying a flagship newspaper in the US or UK, where leftist/centrist publications (so most of them) usually consider it awful that the US/UK/whoever isn't favouring Palestine enough.
A blatant cabal would be politicians saying right there in the open that Israel's interests take precedence over the US'. No one says that (Trump's statements sort of come close, but he says all sorts of exaggerated bs). The rest of the stuff you described is mostly standard for allies. If Japan accidentally sank a US warship there wouldn't be an immediate cessation of the alliance. If you asked Pelosi about whether the US would still be allies with the UK if the capital was razed she'd probably say yes.
The Arabs turned to the Soviets for a whole host of reasons, including Arab nationalism/Socialism, anti-colonialism etc. As I understand it the first Soviet arms delivery to Egypt happened in 1955, several years before and orders of magnitude higher in value than the first US military aid to Israel in 1959. So the US wasn't giving military aid to Israel either at the time the Arabs turned to the Soviets.
Yeah that's a fair position, as is debating the value of the Israeli alliance generally (fwiw I think Republicans over-value Israel and Democrats under-value, but that's another discussion) but this seems like the Motte to the Bailey of "everything we do is determined by Israeli interests", which is Israel-derangement-syndrome.
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