Image is of Joseph Robinette Biden, who has stepped down and will not run against Trump in the 2024 election.
In the aftermath of Trump surviving an assassination attempt, many professional opinion-havers are now talking about the scourge of "political violence" that has overtaken, or will soon overtake America, and how we must not let chaos rule. This is, of course, patently absurd. The American government and its allies have been the greatest force of political violence on the planet since the beginning of colonialism, and the foundations of the country are made of corpses. Today, America commits political violence by forcing Ukrainians into the maw of Russian artillery instead of trying to reach a peaceful settlement, which Russia has repeatedly expressed interest in and offered Ukraine relatively favourable terms. They supply Israel with endless weaponry to destroy entire cities and populations, while Biden supporters insist that somehow things could be worse than daily massacres and mass starvation.
In May 1945, French police fired on protestors, causing retaliatory attacks on French settlers, killing about a hundred. In response, the French murdered 45,000 Algerians in a little under two months, in a frenzy of political violence called the Sétif and Guelma massacre. As the massacre was being completed, the International Court of Justice was established. It goes without saying that Algeria never benefited from the ICJ, and the War of Independence from 1954 to 1962 was made inevitable. Over a million Algerians were killed before France could bear the fighting no longer and gave up, and Algeria won itself a state. Comparisons to the ongoing war of independence and genocide in Palestine are obvious.
While the means of colonial violence have evolved over the centuries, the basic structure of it has not. As in Algeria, Vietnam, and Cuba, resistance groups in and around Palestine are fighting for a world with less political violence. The American government would drown every city in the developing world in blood to prevent peace.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Algeria! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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there's still months to go until the election. if it were held tomorrow I think he'd win, and he definitely seems more likely to win now, but I don't know if I'd say that there's "no way he can fumble this". Republicans and Democrats are both good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
his VP pick isn't very inspiring, but I don't think it'll majorly damage his campaign or anything. it's like Hillary picking Kaine - nobody (that I was aware of) was a massive Kaine supporter and showing up with his face on his shirt to rallies or anything, but he didn't lose the campaign for Hillary either. I don't follow Republican politics that strongly because gazing into that void sounds nightmarish so I don't know if there was a better candidate (as in, worse) for Trump to pick or if everybody eligible sucked in their own way, idk.
Vance is a pretty smart tactical pick for bolstering support in Ohio/Wisconsin/PA (the region that will lose democrats the election for anyone blessed to not understand US electoral politics). Vance also comes with a built-in "I was a never trumper once but look how good he was for our country and how crazy things are under Joe Biden?" aspect to him that I think will be critical for Trump turning out the neocon wing. He also comes with tons of VC connections and the Trump campaign's main problem is money right now.
I really don't think he could have picked a better running mate to be honest. If trump delivers the "it's time for unity and moderation" speech turn that's being signaled tonight I think it'd be nearly impossible for that ticket to lose.
he's also Yale-educated, though.
I've seen two types of predictions: the first is yours, and the second is "the people in those battleground states won't be fooled by Vance, he's not really one of them, he's an elite, and he was opposed to Trump at the start and so he's not a true believer"
it's basically: which way will Americans be stupid?
The Vance pick wasn't to turn out votes from the "he's not a true believer" voters. Those people are already locked in (especially after this weekend). The Vance pick is to get the turnout margin from Haley-type supporters from someone who is provably popular (he's already won in Ohio) in the most critical region and to provide additional funding to the campaign through his connections. The regional popularity is why he won over Burgem who also provided the capital injection (even more directly in his case) but was less tactically useful from the meaningful coalition electorate standpoint. If Haley had any political instincts she would have been the pick (Trump's worst performance change from 16->20 was suburban white women) but she refused to gracefully bow down and was supplanted by Vance.
The funding is likely immaterial. In addition to his VC connections (more accurately, he is an agent of VC), Vance was a darling on the Liberal media in the aftermath of Trump's first election, receiving breathless coverage for a while. This isn't a play just to sure up capital, but to sure up confidence among the big bourgeoisie.
The absolute meltdown over Trump's first election stemmed in no small part from a lack of elite confidence in his ability to hold the empire together. When Trump won the election, a large constituency of the business and geopolitical shot-callers found themselves at arms-length from power, suddenly having to work through new intermediaries to keep their influence on the levers of power. J.D. Vance is their guy. His presence will make the Republican ticket a lot more palatable to American political megadonors and corporations which aren't tied up in any hyper-specific partisan foreign policy prerogatives (i.e. Ukraine dead-endism).
As the campaign presses onward, the media will keep the temperature. If the shrill panic dies down for good, if the "existential threat to democracy" rhetoric gets buried, that will be because Trump has attained a critical mass of corporate buy-in. Not just from extractive industries, casinos, and car dealerships, but from wall street, silicon valley, and the military industrial complex more broadly. Arguably, you can already see this happening, but it is a bit too early to tell.
Agree.
“If he won me over, he can win you over.”
He could have picked RFK jr, and that would have been very funny but also objectively the wrong move for his campaign.
You have to take into account that one of Biden's biggest problems, his mental decline, is only going to get worse from now to November, potentially much worse. That could very well be enough to counter any fumbling on Trump's side.
lol. in two weeks noone will remember he was shot at.
Trump is going to work very hard to remind everyone about it every time he has access to a microphone
No, his fistpump with the US flag in the background is one for the ages, on par with Truman holding up that "Dewey beats Truman" newspaper. Soundbites are one thing, but images like that won't go away.
I think theres 85% chance Trump is going to win. I still believe theres a little chance that Biden wins on the electoral college for very narrow margin, which would be pretty funny.
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Ok waiting for his ultimate political power move any time now. Perhaps he shoulda used it before getting completely smoked
He will ruthlessly and cunningly lose badly and then die
Biden was ruthless but he doesnt have the ability to execute his will anymore. Man can't even form a proper sentence after 6pm. Now he's just a bitter angry feeble cuss.
If he loses the popular vote and somehow wins via electoral college it would be the funniest fucking chud meltdown
It still has a chance at being close with how much the media and political establishment keep lashing at Trump, but it does increase his odds. Seems like every major assassination on a president that failed has been a Republican and they went on to dominate their elections.
Trump has a lot in common with 2nd term Reagan from his older age to his snappy remarks. Biden does seem a bit like Mondale right down to his VP being an alleged diversity hire.
John Wilkes Booth really did have to kill one of the only good American presidents. Lincoln died but Reagan and Trump get to live? Really?
Only path to victory I see for the dems is to replace biden with someone unexpected but already well known who doesn't fit the "democrat insider" label. Probably a white male actor. They'd have to throw biden under the bus hard. Make standard of living promises like UBI and taxing the rich to appeal to working class people and has populist messaging to match.
"trump is a 1%er, Biden was a puppet of the super rich and trump is too. We are taking back democracy from the super rich." While in the back rooms they'd be telling the donors that it is just messaging and nothing will change.
remember andrew yang?
lmao now thats a name I haven't heard in a long time
unfortunately
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I dunno there's a chance the bourgeoisie remain too spooked by Bernie's limited success to even allow that rhetoric as kayfabe
Which is why they will lose