Saxoboneless
Israel ≠ Jews. What is happening in Gaza is the fault of the fascist government of Israel, not "the Jews" - that is an actual neonazi talking point.
Nah plenty of rich people have been deepfaked, this is probably getting addressed because of her massive and obsessive fanbase.
I'm currently nonreligious, but there are hundreds of people that have influenced my personal philosophies. But despite the things I believe having come from or been influenced by other people, I still consider my beliefs to be my own. Why should the beliefs of religious or spiritual people be viewed any differently?
Surviving in a "hard situation" resembles suffering much more closely than it does strength.
That flower is not surviving pinned under rubble for the sake of inspiring the flowers that are not, nor for the sake of "becoming stronger" - it is surviving because until someone bothers to remove the boulders that are crushing it, its options are to survive or to die. And plenty of flowers in that same situation would die, and its actually not out of the question that this flower's eventual death will be due to these conditions that it is forced to endure.
Knowing that, would you still compliment the flower on its strength, on the fact that it has not yet been killed, before considering that maybe, just maybe, you and the other flowers might want to find a way to do something about those boulders that would have already killed any weaker flower?
One should not prioritize complimenting the systematically abused for surviving their undue suffering above working to prevent that undue suffering from continuing. Their suffering and tragedy should not be repurposed as inspiration porn.
Why would that work? At this point, the majority of people comfortable continuing to vote Republican after an attempted coup, the repeal of Roe, and an avalanche of explicitly harmful and bigoted legislation are die-hard reactionaries and Trump supporters, and the Republican primaries seem to be reflecting that. Nikki Haley is the closest thing we have to a center-right candidate, and her odds of beating Trump right now are pretty slim. The political right has been bleeding public support for a while now, and Trump is the only thing that's been giving them momentum and wins - dropping him is desirable to at least some of the party, but it probably isn't an actual option.
And even if they did drop Trump, like... they're probably not going to course correct at this point. Enacting christofascism and appealing to reactionaries is looking more and more like the only hope for a future the party has left, and they'll likely continue down that path with or without Trump. "Bringing Trump to justice" is still worthwhile, but on a number of levels, it will not suddenly make the party of the southern strategy electable.
Pretty sure there's an ocean of difference between Jesus Christ rebuking the literal devil and a politician traveling across state borders to illegally deface a statue as a publicity stunt to fundraise and get an interview on Fox about how he totally "decapitated Satan." Even if his conviction was somehow driven by religion and not pure vanity (it wasn't), any form of religious supremacy has no place in society at large, let alone a government building. The law recognizes this, "freedom of religion" is the backbone of this in the US, and I'd hope people understand why it might be a worthwhile and important protection to have and uphold.
Additionally, I have a suspicion that anyone who favorably compares a person who postures as a Christian supremacist to Christ is less the sort of person with an understanding of their religion and more the sort of person who knows how to search for the word "Satan" in their YouVersion Bible app.
Just edited the followup reply to clarify what I was trying to say- I don't think it's what you thought it was, and I can see how it was unclear
I feel like I might've gotten a little off topic with this, but I just see this sentiment of "both parties are the same (so let's completely abandon electoralism)" so often online right now and I find it so exhausting and unconstructive.
Well, people did stop this in Ohio, specifically. Local organizers recently successfully petitioned to put abortion rights (which Republican representatives had been threatening) on the ballot statewide - voters got it passed, alongside marijuana legalization, all while facing (and continuing to face) significant antagonism and legal backlash from "elected" Republicans in the 2nd most gerrymandered state in the union.
Both parties suck, I'd go so far as to say both parties frequently do outright evil shit, but they are not the fucking same, and even if they were, that has yet stop people from coming together to get involved and improve their communities themselves. Observing politics near exclusively at the federal level tends to obscure that reality. I accept that this sort of doomerism can come from a place of ignorance, so I offer you suggestion: if you want things to get better, go help. Go find out what groups are actively working to induce local- or state-level government reform, or who are working to directly improve the lives of marginalized people in your community, and go help them. You can't exactly stop fed-level Dems from being useless hypocrites, but you can get involved with groups in your community to help with the work of bringing about positive change - and while that is harder than stewing about the state of things, it actually gets results.
I mean if her rallying for Biden means campaigning for him, I honestly think that she particularly has every good reason not to do that. Tlaib is a Palestinian American, and Biden has openly contributed billions directly to Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gaza, going so far as to bypass congress to do so, all while he and nearly every other Dem continue to refuse to acknowledge that Israel's actions constitute anything "messed up," much less full-on genocide.
I cannot stress enough that if, in the face of Biden's continuing contributions to the genocide of her family's country of origin, it is an ethical impossibility for her to publically endorse him for a second term, that is completely on him, not on her.