politics

I'm regularly struck by the literal insanity of politics, but this whole deal with Israel is a particularly notable example.

The fact of the matter is that we have no idea what Harris's actual opinion of the situation is. Regardless of what it might actually be, she has to support Israel, which at this point means supporting a government of literal murderous psychopaths who are simultaneously carrying out a genocide in Gaza and a violent incremental illegal land grab in the West Bank while also brazenly trying to provoke, and drag the US into, a war with Lebanon or Syria or Yemen or Iran. And why does she have to support all of that patent evil? Because if she doesn't, AIPAC will spend millions and millions of dollars trying to destroy her, like they already destroyed Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, for daring to have principles.

And what's the likely net result of that? To elect a Republican, which is to say, a member of the party of actual antisemites.

They accuse Democrats of being antisemites merely for calling genocide genocide, and meanwhile, the actual antisemites - the people who comtinue to hold to the notion of Jews as evil, money-grubbing vermin who are conspiring to take over the world, are Republicans, even including Republicans in high office, like "Jewish space lasers" Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Think about how insane that is - a politician has to publicly support a genocidal regime or face being called an antisemite and having an Israeli advocacy group spend millions and millions of dollars to destroy her and instead elect the candidate from the party of actual Jew-hating antisemites.

And as if that isn't enough, we have Jill Stein in the middle of it all, who, with zero chance of actually winning, is free to take the position that any rational person should take, and the position that the majority of the Democratic base takes - that genocide is genocide and is rightly condemned. And that then introduces the risk that she'll draw off enough Democratic voters, merely by taking the position held by the majority, so the position that the Democratic candidate should take, that it will hand the election to the Republican - the candidate of the party of actual antisemites.

The whole thing is bludgeoningly insane. I don't think anyone could've created such a grotesquely dysfunctional and actuslly counter-productive system if they'd deliberately set out to do it.

And yet that's the world we live in - the world we're forced to live in - a world warped by the literal insanity of a wealthy and powerful few.

It boggles my mind.