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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   25162 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 26, 2024

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More ignorant uninformed questions about the American presidential election!

So - Gaza? Palestine? Palestinians? Israel? Will this affect the Democratic vote, or is this just more journalists trying to spin straw into gold?:

In Michigan, home to a large Arab-American constituency, Democratic voters had been urged to mark their primary ballots as "uncommitted" in protest at Mr Biden's Gaza policy.

With almost half of Democratic votes counted, the number of "uncommitted" voters was more than 58,000, according to Edison Research, far exceeding the target of 10,000 that protest organisers had hoped for.

Many in Michigan's Arab-American community who backed Mr Biden in 2020 are angry, as are some progressive Democrats, over Mr Biden's support for Israel's offensive in Hamas-ruled Gaza where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.

...Campaign organisers vowed to take what they called their anti-war agenda to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

... With nearly half the estimated Democratic vote counted, Mr Biden had 80% support, with "uncommitted" getting 13%.

...When former president Barack Obama, a Democrat, ran for re-election in 2012, he faced about 21,000 "uncommitted" voters in Michigan's primary that year. Mr Biden faced substantially more.

Michigan is expected to play a decisive role in the head-to-head 5 November US presidential election, a likely rematch between Mr Biden and Mr Trump.

Whatever about Michigan, on a national level is there a bunch of undecided/uncommitted voters who won't vote for Biden in the election (not going to vote for Trump or third party, but not voting as a protest on this one issue)?

If there are, are there enough to make a difference?

Or is it that it doesn't matter, the usual Democrat voters will turn out in enough numbers for a drop off in voting by a single-issue minority not to matter?

Will Gaza even be a live issue by the time the real election finally rolls round?

Presidential primaries are not just about who wins the nomination and general election. They're also about policy. While it's obfuscated, the primary selects actual people to attend the nominating convention which both selects the candidate and negotiates exactly what appears on the party platform.

I doubt most of the pro-Gaza agitators honestly think they are going get Biden off the ballot, but they might think they can put enough pressure on him and the Democratic Party to change their official position on Gaza. They're probably wrong, but I'm sure there's people inside Biden's campaign watching this and considering what threshold of protest votes would make them consider what changes in policy. I suspect that threshold is much higher than we're seeing, but I'm really not sure.

I suspect that threshold is much higher than we're seeing, but I'm really not sure.

I think the threshold is so high that it effectively does not exist. From everything I understand about the operation of hte US government, the combination of the Israel lobby/AIPAC, the MIC and the CIA exert far more power and influence over government policy than any number of voters.

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