Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
That's a good point. I'm inclined to view that as counterproductive, as it can only galvanize disgust at them. But then I go back to my earlier point. They don't care. They want total war. And publicizing it as they have puts them across the Rubicon.
|
What they want isn't exactly total "war," because they're not a state actor. It's asymmetric conflict. They do things like taking hostages (including everyone in Gaza, among whom they are hiding). They understand that they are going to provoke a massive response from Israel -- you have to see that as part of their plan, a feature not a bug from their perspective.
If the current status quo is stacked against you, one strategy is to totally disrupt the status quo. And now people are worried about a much wider conflict across the region.
Quote:
It's refusal to deal with reality. Reality dictates that one must compromise. The US cannot be run or controlled by MAGA policies. It is not possible. There must be compromise. Hamas cannot push Israel into the sea. It has just signed its own death warrant in attempting to do so.
And yet, here it appears Trump will nevertheless be the candidate, or the third party spoiler with 30 million votes of hardcore dead enders in his pocket. And Hamas will be all but obliterated.
The lack of compromise in Israel/Palestine accrues largely from geography, which cannot be reconciled, and goes back a long way. But the refusal to deal with others that is appearing here and in right wing movements in Europe is part of a global trend. People write it off as a passing fad of nationalism. But it seems more than that. There's an "I want my reality and I'll have it, actual reality be damned" attitude that persists. It's like a large chunk of humanity has decided its their way or the highway, and being reasonable and horse trading to have functional societies is anathema.
|
Look, I agree with you, but a huge part of the US population likes the idea that although they are a minority, they do not need to compromise, and can do things like gerrymander, strike people from the voter rolls, subvert elections, and otherwise maintain disproportionate power. If you think it doesn't work, take another look at the Wisconsin legislature, the redistricting plan that North Carolina passed this week, the composition of the US Senate, the election-denying background of the man just elected Speaker of the House, and so on. Again, I agree with you about how problematic this is, but the task of the majority, politically, is to make the minority pay for these tactics, and I wish Democrats were more successful at that. Part of the problem is so-called centrists who will bemoan fringe Republicans without supporting the alternative to them, not that I am pointing any fingers.
Quote:
|
Everything's a zero sum game.
|
No, the point you're making is that it doesn't need to be a zero-sum game. When people cooperate through politics, they can make deals that make everyone better off. When there is trust in the political system, it's not just a zero-sum game. (There are many places in the world where the political system doesn't work that way -- e.g., oil-rich countries where the leadership keeps the gains from resource-extraction. But Western democracies have mostly escaped that trap.) When MAGA conservatives try to maintain their own power at the expense of others and the system itself, they turn it into a zero-sum game, or worse.
