I’m not counting on Trump for anything. I’m expecting other member states of the UN and especially the EU to act as the actual hard line for Israel, as they have for the past five decades. It’s already starting to happen, and once sanctions are in place Bibi will finally start to become unpopular and can finally be replaced.

It’d be very nice if those sanctions started with the U.S., but it was never going to happen under either party. The number of lives lost will be the same. The U.S. has never been what has stopped Israel, it has always been global perception.

You know there’s an entire rest of the world that exists right? A rest of the world that has already started preparing sanctions against Israel if the conflict continues to escalate?

Realistically, we’ve seen this all beat for beat before. Israel treats Palestine as an apartheid state, eventually a group forms to try and resist Israel, Israel crushes that group’s bones into dust for a few years, and then once they can offer no more resistance, Israel returns Palestine to an apartheid state. The pattern has repeated itself several times now.

To start, we have to understand that the genocide of Palestine started before the October 7th attacks. Israel’s rampant illegal settlements in the Gaza strip may have been the final straw that provoked Hamas to make a move, but Palestinians have been abused, forced into ghettos, and murdered by private citizens for decades. All of this, and nobody in the West ever really batted an eye at the suffering except for a handful of informed leftists.

If Harris had won, the most likely outcome is that the immediate conflict would eventually be paused, just like it paused after the second intifadas. No land would be returned, no settlements removed, but Hamas’ forces would be decimated to the point they could not fight back and Israel would return to their quiet slow genocide until the stars align to renew their attack once more.

Now that Trump has won, the most likely outcome is…that the immediate conflict will eventually pause, just like it paused after the second intifadas. Israel isn’t an island, if they ramp up their aggression ever further, eventually other parts of the world will push for sanctions on Israel. A Trump win doesn’t suddenly give Israel carte blanch to build the gas chambers, they still have to pay lip service to international law. Israel will inflict a grievous wound on Hamas, deep enough that it will take another generation before conflict resumes, and go back to expanding their settlements.

This genocide has been happening since before I was born, and multiple Democrat presidents have had an opportunity to say something or work towards curbing Israeli aggression. They’ve all vaguely promised to work towards a two-state solution, knowing that the current two states are what they want. If Kamala Harris couldn’t even call it a genocide, then she was no different, and it would be foolish to think she would actually take any steps towards meaningfully stopping Israel.

So why was Harris’ answer to adopt a strong anti-immigration stance?

Everything the right was harping on about was a lie, but the Dems response was to amplify those lies and say “We hear you and will crack down on illegal immigration,” fully knowing there was nothing to crack down on.

Not that you’re wrong with your conclusion, but you picked a bad issue to go on. Democrats won’t solve immigration because there’s nothing to solve. Immigrants are not committing crimes at a higher rate than the rest of the population, and while America gets a lot of migrants, we also have a collapsing birthrate and need a growing populace for infinite shareholder growth.

The problem is that Republicans keep making up lies about immigration, even nonsensical lies like “they’re eating the dogs,” and the Democrats do nothing to dispel these lies. They don’t sit down with the charts that verifiably disprove the Republican bullshit. Instead, they pick it up, and promise they’ll be tougher on immigration next time, giving legitimacy to the lies.

I’d never take that bet, they already started today You can find them in threads across the fediverse.

It was such an easy lay-up to fumble. Hell, she raised millions in personal donations compared to a Trump campaign that ended up stiffing locations on payment because they’re so broke, it was the rare election where the Dems didn’t need their corporate donors. They could have accepted some long-term financial losses in the face of potential greater long-term gains if they could maintain similar levels of personal donations from energized progressives. I remember the energy in the air when Harris/Walz was revealed, it seemed like a progressive ticket could seriously exist.

And then it all vanished. Thanks for taking my $20, assholes. Wouldn’t have bothered if I knew they’d just dance to their owners demands anyway.

between this and the enshittification of big tech and gaming, it feels like 2024 has been one big argument in support of gatekeeping.

Because the Democrats picked it up and used it as an issue as well. Instead of dispelling the myths of “Bigrant Crime,” as if that would be a challenge, they took an anti-immigration stance as well. Honestly, Trump had a rare master class attack on the Dems with the whole “they’ve been in power for four years, why haven’t they already done everything,” because it called out just how shallow the Dems bending to conservative anti-immigrant policy was. It was almost certainly an accident on his part, especially since his party was the reason Dems couldn’t be as hard on immigration as they wanted, but it turned into effective messaging.

Feels really disingenous to call out Halloween but not Christmas, which is already pushing Halloween merch out of stores.

If you ask a friend to help you bury a body and they agree, that person is definitely a good friend. They’re a bad person for assisting you in murder, but you can be a good friend and a bad person.

Nah it’s fine, see I don’t live in a swing-state, so nobody cares about my vote at all!

How would you even collect? Better yet, can you collect both this bounty and the $150,000 “posted” by his would-be assassin?

It’s a shame that I’m a quivering pussy, because I think the combat against the replicants in FEAR fucking rules. The shooting feels awesome, slow-mo karate is awesome, the game feels awesome to play.

…and then the game goes quiet after the shooting stops, and it delivers some of the spookiest atmosphere I’ve experienced even after two decades of age. A single light fixture moves suddenly, showing the shadow of something just behind me, and I jump out of my skin and have to take a break from playing.

The kids are not alright. They’re starting to trade sex, drugs and rock and roll for anxiety, depression and crushing expectations.

I think it’s actually a reference to Hatsune Miku?

Now this is shitposting!

why the hate towards a tool that nobody forces you to use?

Right here is the problem, because many companies like Adobe and Microsoft have made obtrusive AI that I would really like to not interact with, but don’t have a choice at my job. I’d really like to not have to deal with AI chatbots when I need support, or find AI written articles when I’m looking for a how-to guide, but companies do not offer that as an option.

I think the record still goes to Amazon’s Crucible, which was cancelled before release after a closed-beta that nobody played.

I don’t have any inherent disagreement, but I feel like I’m gonna need you to show your work. Can’t you have beef pepperoni? that feels very close to milk, and only a step away from cream.