The alienation of the Jewish vote by Vivek trumps by a thousand miles the biggest gaffe Iâve ever witnessed from a candidate, probably far greater than the sum of Palinâs entire catalogue.
Is it? Jews overwhelmingly vote for the Democrats anyway and the majority of Jews are in Democratic-voting states. Trump has been a raving anti-Semite and it hasnât affected him. Going full anti-Semite could even boost your vote. Trump boosted his vote from 62 million to 74 million and few thought he could do that. A LOT of Americans like celebrity fascism. Plus he can always pretend to walk it back while not walking it back.
Americans, especially those who would consider voting Republican, are obsessed with celebrity and money and spectacle. They WORSHIP celebrity and money and spectacle. This is why youâre going to hear a lot more about this Ramaswamy fella, whether he wins the nomination or not, which he wonât, bar Trump being dead. Heâs a celebrity, a very confident charlatan.
The Jewish vote can be swung, or at least it was open to swinging pending a presidential candidateâs commitments to aid to the state of Israel. A huge swathe of Jewish voters bought second homes and retirement properties in Florida for their snowbird years to such an extent that they could swing florida, one of the most vital states along with Iowa and New Hampshire. However, things are shifting amongst young jewish voters in the U.S. with a growing number opposed to Israelâs behavior, and methods in the expansion of settlements, and as a result not mimicking the blind support shown by their parents and grandparents to military and financial aid being thrown hand over fist to aid the perceived oppression.
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If you look around at what the far right internationally are doing, they have strategies to split voting blocks.
Take non-Jewish pro-Palestine people. These voters will naturally tend to be broadly left. One technique the far right uses to try and peel them off to the far right is by using Ukraine. They say, âwhy is Ukraine getting all this aid when Palestine isnâtâ. And instead of saying, âwell it makes sense that Ukraine is getting all this aid but why is Palestine being treated like shit?â, a lot of pro-Palestine people will say, âwhy is Ukraine getting all this aid when Palestine isnât? Stop the aid to Ukraine!â And this pushes them into a position of disliking Ukraine. After that itâs a very short hop to supporting Russia. Russia is now the spiritual leader of American âconservatismâ. Russia pushes anti-Semitism in the west.
Another technique they use is by exploiting genuine anti-Semitism which does exist within sections of the non-Jewish support for Palestine and tying it up with other stuff which appeals to the nuttier parts of the left like anti-vaccine sentiment and the belief that banking is a Jewish conspiracy to rob the world. This is an inevitable road to supporting the far right.
Among Jewish people who express support for Palestine and who will not vote Republican (or Tory in the UK), a tactic by the anti-Semitic far right is to get them to not vote at all by painting the likes of Biden or Keir Starmer and the whole US Democratic and UK Labour parties as slavishly pro-Israel. There is some degree of truth in this but in the binary political systems the US and UK have the Democratic party are the only hope for the US and the Labour party is the only hope for Britain so not voting for them is only going to make things worse.
Ramaswamy is smart enough to know that what heâs saying about Ukraine - ie. cut aid - is no different to what heâs saying about Israel. Heâs not being openly anti-Semitic by saying that about Israel. If he gets in trouble he can just obfuscate and deny that he said it. He can bullshit. Thatâs the Trump game and itâs also what Ramaswamy does as a way of life. Heâs a professional bullshitter. What he says about Israel will appeal to a surprisingly large amount of people across the political spectrum. It will appeal to actual anti-Semites and actual Nazis and it will appeal to sections of the disaffected left. If he could manage to end up as the candidate, which, though unlikely, is not a 0% chance, he is unlikely to lose enough votes among the existing Republican voter base because that is a cult which will vote R whoever is on the ticket. The Jewish Republican vote is so small that losing any of them is unlikely to make any difference.
Great points!
Ramaswamyâs purported plan which will never eventuate is raising the voting age to 25, therefore removing the under 25 demographic which would mostly vote for democratic candidates. Both sides, but moreso the Republicans have been guilty of removing the voting rights of americans from at least the Bush Jr era to eliminate opposition voters from having an impact. Incarcerated people or convicted felons, which of course would mostly be black or hispanic people, who are most likely to vote blue.
The Republicans are 100% the problem. If the Republicans employ shameless gerrymandering of constituencies in states they control in order that they will control the House in Washington, the Democrats have no option, or should have no option, but to hit back in kind in areas they control. Going high while they go low doesnât work. But even using their tactics is not near enough.
The Republicans control more states so the Democrats are behind the 8 ball. National elections for president, the US senate and the US house are all loaded in the Republicansâ favour despite them continually having less support nationwide.
In terms of actually stopping people from voting, again thatâs 100% a Republican thing.
Again, it cannot be stated enough what a massive danger to the world the Republican party is. There is zero intellectual underpinning. What they are is a group of the most insanely rapacious people in the world backed by a cult of screaming maniacs who wouldnât have been out of place at the Salem witch trials. Theyâre almost medieval.
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Trump gave Israel everything it wanted. Allowed them to move the capital to Jerusalem and everything. Iâd say they couldnât believe their luck.
They had a direct line to the white house through Kushner and he did what he was asked
He did of course but he still went full anti-Semite. These are entirely different concepts.
Trump loves Netanyahu because heâs a crook. He loves Israel because Israel uses a jackboot on those who oppose them.
Yeah, theyâre truly frightening times and characters and I get this sense which makes me think of drug dealer Larry Dunne famously remarking, âif you think weâre bad, wait till you see whatâs coming after usâ. I predict a flurry of copycat actors when Trump exits the political stage to capitalise on what will appear to be a winning template but adding more rigour to the hate and vitriol with the result of sowing further division within the country. When people remark that the country is close to a civil war, I donât doubt today that theyâre currently slow-marching towards one.
It might be good for them it would put and end to the lunatics for another few generations.
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Fascism works on a simple premise. Get people to lose trust and be cynical about EVERYTHING. There is no good in ANYTHING. EVERYTHING is wrong. Create chaos. Break people down psychologically.
But human beings have a deep psychological need to trust and believe in something. You canât kill that need. If you break people down enough, they will turn to the confident charlatan and believe them unconditionally. The confident charlatan gets his followers to LOOK OVER THERE. Heâll make his followers feel they are entirely innocent victims of THEM (the âwokeâ, the non-white, the immigrants, the Jews, the Muslims, the trans people), the fake enemies. The confident, charismatic charlatan becomes Superman.
Itâs so like heroin in the way it works.
That said, most Republican supporters are comfortably off bigots who have no excuse for falling into this cult trap. Itâs been grimly hilarious seeing these convoys of boats full of Trump supporters pretending theyâre âthe plain peopleâ of America. Yis have fucking boats, youâre rich, youâre not the least bit downtrodden, you miserable racist cunts.
In one respect, the Dems must must be salivating at the sight of this as the MAGA brigade canât solely win you an election and heâs turned off most of the rest. Ramaswamy could, if he had some decent advisors and stuck to rehearsed soundbites could probably manage getting enough ânever trumpersâ to join the MAGAs to elect him, but I feel he needs criminally little rope to hang himself and heâll be given plenty of that between now and nomination time.
I wouldnât be salivating at all. The MAGA brigade can win you an election. I think Trump has a good chance of winning in 2024, at least 45%. Turnout for Biden is unlikely to be as motivated as in 2020 and a small drop off in turnout or more effective voter suppression could be fatal. Itâs also possible Biden could hold or even increase his margin in the national popular vote but lose in the electoral college, depending on the precise way the votes fall in a few states.
The Republicans will have to rely on Trump style candidates in presidential elections going forward though, itâs very difficult to see how they ever put up anybody sane as a candidate in the foreseeable future, so deep is the brain rot in their membership. Doing what Trump does is very difficult. Everything depends on who you are. You have to be a particularly gifted charlatan and probably a celebrity. Thatâs why De Santis, or the likes of Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton were and never will be never serious candidates. Theyâre not gifted charlatans in the way Trump is and they donât have that celebrity name recognition.
Ramaswamy is probably more likely to fit into the US right wing eco-system in the long run as sort of hybrid of Elon Musk, Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson. A celebrity, a âpersonalityâ. But he could go again in future years if he develops his celebrity brand. Shameless self promoters do well in America, especially now.
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The reason the US has been so sussessful and can continue to be is it encourages and rewards entrepreneurs. That creates a lot of billionaires but where would the country and itâs economy be without the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Zuch, Musk, Bezos, etc? There are literally no barriers to entry, and massive wealth to invest in start ups. And yes over 90% of them fail, especially in BioTech, but thatâs the nature of the beast, the ones that succeed go on the become Genentech. If Ramaswamy had made his money illegally, as has been suggested (by a comedian), he would be in jail with Elizabeth Holmes.
Democrats improve the country? The decline in the US is primarily the largest cities, and those are literally 100% run by Democrats. I live in the Bay area and in the past 20 years SF has gone from being one of the most desirable cities in the world to live in and visit to a complete shithole. All due to batshit policies like prop 47 which means a lad can walk into a store and walk out with $900 worth of merchandise knowing that he will not be prosecuted. When you tolerate that level of crime donât be surporised when it leads to an increase in crime in general.
Investment in education? The US spends 2X any other western country in public education, standards are not slipping because of lack of investment but again batshit policies like getting rid of testing and entry requirements to universities. It;s still the #1 choice for a lot of international students especially Asian who dominate the STEM sector. 15 of the top 20 universtities in he world in terms of research are in the US.
The Republican party needs massive reform post Trump, they are experts at shooting themselves in the foot as a sensible center right party would clean up in the current enviromnment. The country prospered in the 1990s and 2000s when both parties were sensible centrist parties, Democrats left leaning and Republicans right leaning, The political system has gone to shit because the Democratic party has lurched to the left and the Republican party to the right. The electorate hasnât changed that much, other than the minority of the very loud who spend all their time on social media. Increasingly that cohort are being ignored and ridiculed which is what needs to happen to move forward.
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Great post. Im sure everyone here can take great exception to something within it.
Whereâs your empathy, man.
To summarise: There is no longer any middle ground, you are either with the loony left or loony right. Too true.
Literal insanity.
Yeah
Always seem to be governed by this love we have
For useless twisting of our new technology
That choice is why most now have zero interest in politics, and see it for what it is, a political class who are in it solely for the perks. Even though the economy isnât really bad, other than high prices, over 70% think the country is headed in the wrong dorection, including 50% of Democrats.
The 2024 election vista is appalling, a 77 year old manchild who believes heâs God, and an 80 year old who canât find the exit door. Itâs so depressing.
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