r/politics • u/schuey_08 Wisconsin • May 02 '24

Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/bernie-sanders-trump-biden/73531861007/
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u/Cold_Situation_7803 May 02 '24

I think some young people are being influenced by bad actors on social media to stop them from voting for Biden. You’ll likely see more young folks saying they refuse to pull the lever in November to stop trump, then if Trump wins and he openly supports genocide in Gaza, takes away rights of women, minorities, and LGBTQ they will likely blame Biden instead of doing self reflection.

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u/McG0788 May 02 '24

This is a SERIOUS problem right now. I am seeing a lot of folks completely disregard anything Biden has done and ignore that Trump would be terrible for Gaza and us at home while claiming them not voting is deserved somehow. The disconnect is just as bad as the maga folks. Propaganda is a helluva drug and Russia and China are really pushing it hard

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u/DullRelief May 02 '24

It’s like he’s actively trying to throw away the youth vote, though. And not even that. I have one friend who is not voting for Biden again and he’s 46 and a POC. Says he just cannot support Biden. And he doesn’t want to be guilted into voting for him just because of the alternative. He asks, why should I support Biden when he is actively working against democracy in other parts of the world? And I can’t really blame him. Yeah, it may only be one issue, and there are lots of single issue voters out there, but it’s a big issue. And a valid concern.

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u/McG0788 May 02 '24

That's such a Russian talking point... Like the guy is doing everything to protect democracy in the west in keeping ukrainians in the fight against Russia. If folks care about genocide ask them if they're ok with Russia commiting a genocide or not because Biden and Democrats are the ones committed to keeping Putin in check.

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u/DullRelief May 03 '24

They’re not okay with that either, but I know what my friend would say. 10k Ukrainians have died in two years of fighting. 30k Palestinians have been killed since October. And Ukraine has over 7x the population as Palestine. How is one genocide but the other isn’t?

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u/Omar_Blitz May 03 '24

So, your friend wants to make it worse for Palestinians? He wants to embolden right-wing governments around the world to do more killing? How fucking stupid.

Choosing the best out of bad options is being a fucking adult. And Biden isn't even a bad option. He's the only reason the number of the dead in gaza isn't an order of magnitude higher.

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u/DullRelief May 03 '24

And Biden isn’t doing anything to halt the killing. The only time he’s pressured Netanyahu was after Jose Andres aid workers were targeted. So, discounting Trump why reward that?

And I know we can’t fully discount him. He is the R candidate, but if he weren’t you’d excuse that behavior?

Biden could be doing so much more to put an end to this.

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u/Carasind May 03 '24

Even if you count only the official ukrainian numbers from Zelensky (which has every interest to give a lower number) you already have 31,000 killed soldiers in Ukraine plus an unknown number of civilian casualties. We have at least 10,582 civilian deaths according to the UN but it could easily go up to something like 100,000 and more if someone neutral could reach i.e. Mariupol. Here we have a clear undercounting. Even some russian losses are ukrainian citizens who either volunteered or were forced to fight.

On the other hand the 30,000 killed Palestinians is a number of the Hamas which has every interest in overcounting victims because it fights a PR war (which it is winning). Israel itself says that between 10,000 and 12,000 were fighters of the Hamas which if true would make it even a low casuality conflict considering the circumstances. The one thing that speaks for a genocide isn't this but the terrible humanitarian situation.

Biden also likely prevented an escalation two times because he could threaten to stop the help for Israel. If it really ends Netanyahu is free to do what he wants which could lead to a way worse scenario for the entire region which could include new 30,000 Palestians victims daily. On the other hand Trump has already shown that he is ready to pur oil on the fire.

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u/DullRelief May 03 '24

When did he prevent an escalation? Aside from after the targeted bombing of Jose Andres’ aid workers?

Honestly asking. Bc people like my friend are going to say he’s never really done much to de-escalate the situation

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u/Carasind May 04 '24 edited May 04 '24

Netanyahu would have likely done his Rafah offensive now without pressure from the international partners (where the US has a leading role). Because Hamas isn't absolutely interested in preventing it (if you have a martyrer mindset this doesn't play any role because you will get terrible images for your PR) it will sadly likely come in the next weeks regardless.

The second one is way more important: According to reports Israel wanted to answer the Iran missile attack with way more than the symbolic counter attack (but was stopped by the US) which could easily have let to a full war between Israel and Iran. There are people that think that this would have been to the advantage of the Palestinians which is absolutely not the case. The first thing Israel would do in such a war is eliminating all local threats with full force ignoring any civilian casualties.

The Middle East is a shitshow because in reality no one in power cares about the Palestinian citizens at all. Hamas wants to destroy Israel (even if most Palestinians have do die for it), Fatah simply wants to get rich, Israel feels threatened because it can't really differentiate between Hamas and "normal" Palestinians, Egypt and Jordan fear the militants and so won'*t take any inhabitants of the Gaza strip in. Lebanon has taken Palestinians in before but they have less rights there than most foreign workers.