Summary
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta warned that Trump’s return to the White House could embolden Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, giving him a “blank check” in the Middle East and increasing the risk of war with Iran.
Panetta expressed concern that Trump would support Netanyahu’s aggressive stance against Iran without restraint, potentially worsening regional instability.
Panetta also predicted Trump might allow Russia to retain parts of Ukraine if he returns to office, though he doubted Trump’s negotiation skills.
He criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy, suggesting Trump would be inclined to “capitulate” to authoritarian leaders, which may not sit well with some Republicans.
What is fucked is that no matter what happens. They will insist that it was all the Democrat’s fault and all the fault of communists and socialists. They will be believed both despite the absurdity of it all and because of the absurdity of it.
in reality it was the 20 million voters that abstained from voting this election.
I like how you flipped the script by blaming the group (the voters) and not the individual responsible (the DNC) for making the horrible decisions resulting in an ongoing genocide.
The voter voted in a guy that attempted an insurrection, so yup I think they hold some responsibility here.
And what useful action does this information enable us to take? Next election, should we nominate better voters?
We have the voters we have. We need Democrats that can reach those voters. Blaming them wins us nothing.
Prepare for the likeliness that there won’t be another election. Whining about it and blaming people solves nothing. Organize your community, and prepare for the worst. It’s time to refocus.
“If I win, you’ll never have to vote again,” he says as if voting is a burden.
Being real for a moment, the way that the next election cycle begins immediately once the previous one ends is a bit of a burden. I’m already tired of hearing about ‘Decision 2028’.
We’ll never get election 2028.
Organize my community to do what? Refocus on what? Revolution?
Until the next election is cancelled, I plan on trying to win it. That means understanding how the Democrats failed.
Good luck with that. Organize for defense. Buy a gun, take some defense classes. Meet other lefties with guns.
That’s good advice no matter what the political situation is. However, it’s pretty irrelevant in facing a Trump presidency. It does nothing for economic turmoil, crumbling infrastructure, etc. It’s also irrelevant to facing down federal or state force. If the cops want into your house and have legal cover, you aren’t going to stop them by force of arms.
Go on then chap, layout what that looks like with the voter we have.
It’s not like progressives haven’t been shouting the answer to this for the past 20 years, but here it is again from an apparently recent convert from within the Democratic establishment camp.
Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?
What it doesn’t look like is campaigning with Liz Cheney. It doesn’t look like sending Bill Clinton to Michigan to lecture Muslims on how important it is to fund Israel’s genocide. It doesn’t look like Biden’s garbage gaff. It sure as hell doesn’t look like Harris having no answer to the question of how she would break with the Biden administration. All of these failures might have been irrelevant were it not for 50 years of Democrats looking down their nose at working Americans. A lot of it is policy, but a lot is just a failure of messaging.
That wasn’t my question. It’s obvious what they did went wrong by the result. What should it look like next time?
It’s certainly not obvious to many within the Democratic establishment sphere. historic_flawlessly_run_campaign
Exactly what it should look like next time is hard to say because it will to a large extent depend on the candidate and what issues have the public’s attention. There certainly should be a lot more engagement with independent media. Progressives had an early lead in that area, but that was mostly quashed by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats threatening regulation to get social media companies to dis-empower independent news in favor of corporate controlled sources. Republicans then spent a fortune promoting right wing channels while Democrats did nothing. This goes to the root issue that Republicans seek out engagement with their base, while Democrats avoid it as much as possible.
Another thing would be for Democrats to drop messaging with technocratic measures that don’t sync up with how voters feel about the economy. While the economy is technically in good shape, a lot of voters in any economy will be suffering. The message received becomes “we don’t plan to change our approach regardless of how the economy is working for you.” When interest rates skyrocket, the impact doesn’t go away once they are back under control. When inflation skyrocketed, Democrats tried to minimize the issue when they should have mirrored the outrage and focused on how Trump policies created it.
In the big picture, Democrats need to get serious about going after wealth inequality. This improved somewhat with Biden, but Biden was incapable of selling it, and Harris barely tried. She let Trump take the lead on working class economics and had to chase the “no tax on tips” and “no tax on Social Security”. Playing catch-up just made her look insincere. (Yes, ironic given Trump)
The American middle class has been under siege for decades, and they know it. It’s human nature that they need someone to blame. Republicans hand them immigrants, LGBTQ+ and DEI. Democrats step in on the defense, but they offer no competing villain. They could tell the truth and show how corporate money and Billionaires have bought legislation to give themselves an advantage over consumers, but Democrats don’t want to do that (for reasons you can speculate on). Democrats won’t even go after clear cases of Republican corruption with any level of conviction.
The town hall meeting Bernie did on Fox was a great example of how Democrats can reach a right wing audience with left wing rhetoric. Running to the center never works, but speaking to their struggles and frustration in a real way can.
This comment is terrible for a boatload of reasons but one of the funnier ones is that you’re talking about shifting blame from a group to an individual and then name two groups (last I checked the DNC isn’t one person).
Im sure if you think on it you’ll eventually figure it out.
So you’re admitting that you just vote for whoever you were told to vote for?
You just follow along and do whatever the crowd does?
You’re admitting that you don’t have the mental capacity to identify the threat toward democracy and make the decision to vote for a candidate that isn’t a direct threat to global stability?
Let me explain it in a way that a simple-minded individual could understand.
Votes, elect candidates. Votes are given by voters, not political parties.
These arguments are so straw man that they give me hay fever.
Voting is done. Do something to protect your community. Organize a defense or stfu about it.
The left has been warning you nonstop for the past year that this would happen. Democrats didn’t listen and instead decided that genocide and Cheneys would get Republicans to vote for them. That was stupid as fuck. It didn’t work.
I voted for Harris.
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This was not the election for a protest. This election was to protect democracy from a traitorois Nazi. Anyone who didn’t voters a protest is a sympathizer.
It never is. Democrats keep taking advantage of that. It finally failed.
I voted for Harris.
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And now they’ll never get to vote agajn.
They literally stood off to the side and allowed in the man who will facilitate the complete annihilation of Palestine, so in truth they really never gave a shit about Palestinians, it was all bullshit. With Harris you at least had someone reacted to criticism and you could work with but Trump doesn’t give a single fuck about criticism or what people want
Have you seen pictures of gaza? It has been completely annihilated by Biden and Harris who finished the job that Trump talked about.
Oh Harris is the president of Israel now? Odd
She’s helping send money and weapons so she may as well be the PM
Americans live in a whole other planet
Without US money and weapons, Israel would not have been able to destroy Gaza like it has.
Are you very very young or just new to this whole conflict?
Yeah, that happened. Now suck it up and get ready for the fight. Who’s to blame doesn’t matter. Be prepared to fight for your life, or just shut the fuck up about it.
I’m not American, I’m just watching you idiots burn and I’m glad it’s gonna hurt, I just wish it hurt only you idiots, not the rest of the world. And please don’t move to our cuvettes, stay there and deal with your own mess, don’t come here and fuck up our country too
This is awesome. You just absolutely nailed the exact cause. Now all we have to do is what? Eliminate the voters? That sounds like the Republican plan to me.
Or maybe your plan is to convince the voters to do otherwise? Don’t you think the politicians have a tiny little bit of responsibility in that area?
Neoliberalism leads to fascism via a well understood pattern that’s currently repeating all around the globe. If you want better voters, then you need better Democrats.
You aren’t looking for solutions, you’re looking for someone to blame. Quit removed and start working towards something better, or you’re as useless as the Democratic establishment.
That’s the thing. Centrists believe that there is nothing wrong with Democratic establishment, and that they were failed by the stupid voters they hate.
Stop. Just stop. Quit blaming people and get ready for what’s coming. Organize a defense. Your life depends more on what you do now, than who voted for what.
Yeah, because DNC didn’t do a spectacularly bad job of fucking up the campaign.