Politics/History Archives

Is Paying Attention Enough?

What About Protests? Are They an Adequate Response?

This Monday, two days after the second murder of an American citizen by ICE in Minnesota, the weather is big news—a massive snowstorm hit half the country. Also making headlines: we now know who will play in the Super Bowl (New England and Seattle).

The killing of Alex Pretti remains an important story, but it is no longer the story. The earlier murder of Renee Good receives less attention each day.

Alex Pretti with a camera. Photo: dangjessie, via Instagram, via New York Times. — Alex Pretti, left, with a camera. Photo: dangjessie, via Instagram, via New York Times.

There have been some decent articles and editorials over the past few days which focus on Alex Pretti’s death in Minneapolis. For example, three columnists at the New York Times (Lydia Polgreen, David French and Michelle Goldberg) have stepped up their rhetoric. Ms. Goldberg made the strongest statement, saying (“if I could vote in a referendum tomorrow for a national divorce from MAGA strongholds, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”). Bravo, Michelle—I’m with you on secession. Though it won’t be easy or clean, at this point it’s the likeliest outcome.

Unfortunately, the other two columnists still aren’t there quite yet. Polgreen is “heartened” by the community response in Minnesota. French, who in 2020 published a book on the possibility of secession (Divided We Fall), said he didn’t think secession was imminent but he found it difficult to be hopeful nonetheless. Both he and Goldberg agreed with Polgreen that the citizens of Minnesota are an inspiration. And all three columnists support reducing the power of ICE, by removing their masks and their immunities, limiting their jurisdiction and restraining their tactics, all of which can be accomplished through legislation, they say. If you did a double take reading that last bit, I don’t blame you—legislation hasn’t accomplished anything so far. Despite that fact, the Times itself, in an editorial which ran yesterday, is calling on Congress to help “re-establish public faith in the agencies and officers who are carrying out Mr. Trump’s crackdown on immigration.” The editorial was titled “The Trump Administration is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act.”

So, the net result of the Times’s coverage of the latest ICE murder is to summon Congress to pass legislation to fix it. No wonder David French finds it difficult to be hopeful.

As we move forward into the week, coverage of the Pretti killing will begin to fade (unless, God forbid, ICE kills someone else over the next few days). Our attention will likely wander, too.

That is why the best commentary I’ve seen on the Pretti murder comes from Francine Prose in the Guardian. Ms. Prose is an accomplished novelist as well as a columnist, which may be why she has a better grasp of how and where things are moving.

So let me break it down, Prose writes. There is one story: our country is on the brink of an authoritarian takeover. In Minneapolis an innocent poet and an ER nurse at a VA hospital were both killed in cold blood by federal agents. It is happening now. Toddlers are being sent to detention centers; videos of their gyms for kids recall the youth choruses that the Nazis so proudly showed off at the Terezín concentration camp. Intimidation and violence are being weaponized against the citizens of Minneapolis, some of whom are afraid to leave their houses for fear of being beaten, arrested and shackled, regardless of whether they are US citizens or asylum seekers or people from another country peacefully living and working here for decades.

It should also be noted that Ms. Prose does not call on Congress to magically fix the situation, or indeed to do anything at all for the moment, a more realistic expectation. She does call on the rest of us to initiate a national strike, saying that despite the difficulty in doing this, if we don’t act quickly and collectively throughout the entire country now, it may soon be too late. Please think about those words.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Minnesota will hear arguments today on whether to end the current ICE operation in that state. I wish her luck.

Helluva Holiday

I don’t want to dump on your Xmas or whatever, but I’m tired of being slammed about the head by the news every morning, and I’m even more tired of being shown once again that no one has done anything to stop Trump.

The spirit of Christmas. Image: Stable Diffusion.

There have been plenty of times during this tumultuous year when Trump & Co.’s savage assaults on our laws, our historical precedents and our collective idea of common decency (to the extent there is one) seemed to be unprecedented, even though those assaults were following the well-known script of Project 2025. To give the devil his due, the Republicans’ coordinated attacks based on that take-no-prisoners game plan have been well-nigh flawless.

But is the cruelty of Trump’s second term really something out of the ordinary? Well, yes and no.

Yes, if only on the basis of its sweep and scope: multiple murders executed by the American military on people aboard Caribbean fishing boats, U.S. military excursions into American cities, ruthless elimination of federal government agencies and personnel, blatant defiance of judicial orders, the dismantling of green energy, the dissolving of longstanding diplomatic relationships, indiscriminate and frequently illegal arrests and deportations, rampant corruption, a stunningly inept cadre of sycophants (but sycophants who have successfully helped Trump “flood the zone” since the inauguration), et al. Plus a determined effort underlying all of Project 2025 to move everything backward in order to benefit the powers that be.

No, in that our current blue-state horror at all of the above and more was shared in the past by decent Americans’ abhorrence of slavery and then by their revulsion at the longstanding reign of Jim Crow and KKK hangings well into the 20th century. Plus, decent Americans’ retrospective disgust with the genocide perpetuated against native Americans, remnants of which persist today. (Something not even hinted at in our schools until relatively recently, and about to expunged from the classroom once more, along with much else.) Not to mention the enormous disparities of income and well-being throughout America’s history, never really addressed until FDR made an attempt (an effort which has been vilified by Republicans ever since).

True, we’re about to have a socialist mayor of New York City. The political currents abroad in the population are in obvious conflict, but except for aberrations like Zohan Mamdani, that conflict has been almost entirely suppressed. (Do you think rallies matter? They don’t.) This, even though (and maybe because) destructive change throughout the country is spreading so rapidly.

Our disagreements over matters of live and death, and the motivations behind those disagreements, are nothing new. But the instant dissemination of those disagreements via today’s technology is new. The onslaught of Project 2025 feels like something that has never happened before.

The statement that Trump made to his supporters on January 6, 2021, suggesting that unless they acted immediately they “would not have a country any more,” applies even more to blue America today. Yet most of us keep our heads down and go about our business. We go to “No Kings” rallies and pretend we are doing our part. We read the New York Times, America’s “paper of record,” despite the increasing amount of sheer trivia, shopping tips and distracting games it offers up each day. We tell ourselves that somehow everything will be OK in the end.

What if, instead of fighting in the courts (which has proved largely ineffective), we actually brought some power to bear on protecting our rights as Americans? What if progressive, left-leaning voters actually did what Trump has longed claimed we do, and took up arms? I’m not referring to AR-15s, but to the use of strong political and financial defiance and pressure to change what’s happening to our government. Blue states and their citizens are powerful. California is the world’s fifth largest economy all by itself. New York is the world’s financial and cultural capital. We could use secession as a lever to try to force true reform and generate a more equal distribution of power, e.g., get rid of the Senate and expand and impose term limits on the Supreme Court. If we can’t manage that, then secession itself would be better than what we’re experiencing now. Does voicing this possibility make me eligible for immediate rendition? Probably.

I’m not suggesting that we start planning assassinations, or ready a blue army to invade Texas. But I am suggesting that unless we figure out a way to achieve some decisive, concrete wins against the heartless bastards implementing Project 2025, and do so soon, America will devolve into Trump’s ultimate shithole country. One with a gigantic, gold-plated White House State Ballroom.

Here’s hoping we will be a better people in 2026.

America, Wake the Fuck Up!

The headline above (and the photograph below) represent a call to arms that’s not being heeded. We Americans are indeed asleep at the wheels of our lives; sooner or later we will crash. Why can’t we wake up?

Only one in six of us chooses to exercise our mind by regularly reading for pleasure these days.1 Reading the news certainly does not qualify as reading for pleasure, but that’s declining as well: there were somewhat more than eight million unique monthly visitors to the top 50 U.S. news websites each month in 2022, down 20% from the previous year, which itself was down 20% from 2020.2 In 2025, the number is likely smaller still.

How long does one of these unique visitors spend on a major news website? Just under 1 minute and 30 seconds.3 Talk about your well-informed citizenry.

A woman in a green dress holds up a sign, which reads "America, Wake the Fuck Up!" — We’re running out of time. Photo: Thomas Pletcher.

Well, let’s say you are one of our remaining well-informed citizens. You read books for pleasure, and you read the New York Times, the closest thing we have to a national newspaper, each morning. How is that going for you?

It’s probably not going all that well for you, elite reader. Let’s use some of today’s (August 23, 2025) Times headlines as an example:

—”In Trump’s Second Term, Far-Right Agenda Enters the Mainstream”

—”Pentagon Fires the Defense Intelligence Agency Chief”

—”As Trump Targets the Smithsonian, Museums Across the U.S. Feel a Chill”

—”After Gaza Famine Report, U.S. Is Mostly Silent and Israel Defiant”

—”How Redistricting Wars Could Give the G.O.P. Up to 7 Seats”

—”Trump Gets His Revenge on John Bolton. Who’s Next?”

Is this not depressing? And notice that none of these stories even references the recent, farcical Putin-Trump “Summit.” John Bolton referenced it, though, on Thursday evening: he said Putin had “rolled” Trump. On Friday morning, the F.B.I. rolled Bolton’s house.

Take a look at that last piece referenced above, which is actually a Times editorial. The paper does a good job of outlining Trump’s hypocrisy and mendacity, closing with this line: “The president has given all Americans reason to believe that justice is now applied selectively and unfairly.”

Well, d’uh. I think we already knew that. The question is, what are we going to do about it? The Times offers no suggestions. Chances are excellent that your local Democratic Party leader has nothing to offer either. And the DSA, which I reported on favorably in my last post, is too far removed from power to help much (even if Mamdani does become mayor of New York).

No wonder so many Americans have stopped reading.

It would be nice if the Democrats were bold enough to play hardball like their right-wing counterparts—for example, by fake-persecuting, fake-prosecuting Republican leaders based in Democratic-led states. That would most likely accelerate the country’s division and escalate the political stakes, but score some wins for the blue side in the process.

E pluribus unum is likely dead anyway. The only way the U.S. will ever become a united country again is if those of us currently sleeping through its ongoing dismemberment never wake up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/well/reading-pleasure-decline-study.html

https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers/

Some Bright Spots

For anyone with a functioning intellect, a sense of America’s stumbling, start-and-stop forward momentum, and a conscience, last week was yet another depressing episode in the Trump/Republican determined march backward. The EPA writing its own death warrant? Business as usual these days.

Yet we shouldn’t miss promising developments when they occur. The first of these was the emergence of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the NYC Democratic Party’s mayoral primary, and his likely victory in this fall’s election. Ignore the party label—Mamdani is a Democratic Socialist, and his win reflects the growing influence of socialist voters nationwide, especially among the young.

This is a good thing. If you doubt that, then you have to question the importance of Social Security and Medicare in your own life. Socialist influence was instrumental in making both programs a reality, and if you’re like most Americans, you wouldn’t want to be without them. In fact, socialist ideas and actions have a long and interesting history in the United States, and the Democratic Socialists of America are enjoying new growth and support as Trump continues to wipe out our past progress. There is still hope, and DSA will be instrumental in realizing it.

Another promising development: last week, French President Emmanuel Macron endorsed a Palestinian state. He is the first head of state among the “Group of 7” to do so. We hope the UK’s Keir Starmer soon joins him.

Macron became fed up with America’s continued blind support of Israel as the ongoing genocide’s atrocities keep growing. Over 1,000 people shot dead since May as they trekked to the misbegotten Israel-U.S. food delivery sites. Starvation in Gaza growing by the day, as a deliberate policy. Netanyahu’s far-right government proposing the expulsion of all Palestinians, so Gaza can be turned into a luxury resort.

Thank God for Macron’s intellect, his sense of history, and his conscience. Israel’s war crimes must be stopped. The new French support for a Palestinian state won’t accomplish this alone, but it is an important step forward. It is also a step very much in tune with DSA’s anti-Zionist stance.

Mamdani hasn’t been elected yet and Israel is still a massive violator of fundamental human rights, but it’s still possible to find bright spots now and then.

Murderous Idiocy

Have a quick look at the video still below. In it, you will see that President Trump’s mouth is open (this is generally true of almost every photo or video in which the man appears) and, to Trump’s right, Vice President Vance assuming a studied, statesman-like pose. On Trump’s left appear the comedy team of Rubio and Hegseth: Li’l Marco assumes his rightful place behind our Supreme Leader while displacing Whiskey Leaks to the perimeter.

Trump, Vance, Rubio & Hegseth. Video still: C-SPAN. — Video still: C-SPAN.

Why were these important U.S. officials in front of the camera?

They were there to announce that the United States had bombed Iran’s nuclear sites in the middle of the night, just as war criminal Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu had urged them to do.

Not to worry, though. According to a post from Trump, “A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”

The more important BOMBS in question were GBU-57s, or Massive Ordnance Penetrators, which weigh 30,000 pounds each. They were used to attack Iran’s subterranean Fordo (according to the Times) or Fordow (according to the Guardian) nuclear enrichment facility, and delivered by B-2 stealth bombers. Either 12 or 14 BOMBS were dropped.

Whatever the number, our Commander in Chief assured us that “Fordow is gone.”

This morning, Pete Hegseth, a.k.a. the Pentagon Princess and looking sharp in a tatt-concealing navy suit, held a news briefing of his own to reaffirm Trump’s steam of superlatives. All of Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites were obliterated, he said, and the attacks were “an incredible and overwhelming success.” BTW, the strikes were codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer. Gotta love our military nomenclature.

Pete Hegseth. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images. — Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.

That Hammer might have missed some nails, though. After Hegseth spoke, top Pentagon officials said that it was too soon to say whether Iran still retains some nuclear ability.

Many commentators believe the American attacks will likely lead to seriously adverse consequences for the world at large, regardless of the BOMBS’ efficacy. Check this out, for example.

Once more, I must ask you not to worry unduly. In the conclusion of his Saturday night address to the nation, Donald Trump had this to say:

“And I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God, and we love our great military, protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.”

We’ll conclude with the optimistic image below, from Dr. Strangelove: it shows Slim Pickens enthusiastically riding his BOMB to earth, completely confident in the blessings it will bestow. God was no doubt pleased.

Slim Pickens riding the bomb. Film still: Wikimedia Commons. — Film still: Wikimedia Commons.

Why Is This Happening?

Many of us have been stunned into silence the first part of this year, as Trump’s new administration rolls toward implementing the authoritarian U.S. government that had been predicted. We’re warned almost daily not to be complacent, not to be the frog in the pot of boiling water. Yet the majority of us continue to go about our daily lives, trying to suppress the great unease we now feel.

Nor is America the only place witnessing the ascendancy of the far right. It is a worldwide phenomenon now, and it frequently seems there is no stopping it from growing even more pronounced.

Why is this happening?

Disaster Nationalism by Richard Seymour, book cover. — The best explanation to date for Trump’s rise and the appeal of “strong men” around the world.

The Northern Irish writer Richard Seymour provides the best set of answers we’ve yet seen in his book Disaster Nationalism.

And what is disaster nationalism? According to our search engine’s AI assistant, “Disaster nationalism refers to a political phenomenon where far-right movements exploit crises, such as environmental disasters or economic turmoil, to promote nationalist agendas and rally support. This concept highlights how these movements thrive on societal fears and insecurities, often offering a sense of identity and belonging in times of chaos.”

That is a high-level view, and also something of an understatement. Disaster Nationalism is an adroit manipulation of the resentment and anger that everyone feels from time to time—it can harness the latent fascist tendencies lurking within many citizens, and it is doing so at an alarming rate today.

Seymour is a strong writer and his exegesis is compelling. If you’re concerned about what’s happening today, in America and around the world, you should read this book.

Please note: this will be the last Writeside.com-issued newsletter for the foreseeable future. As an experiment, Writeside is transitioning to Substack. Our newsletter will continue to appear there, and will continue to be free, albeit with occasional paid options. We hope you’ll join us.

End-Stage America

Recently, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock. It is now 89 seconds until midnight. We are, in the opinion of these scientists, closer than ever to the end of human civilization.

It’s not just nuclear weapons that determine this estimate—climate change, bioterrorism and artificial intelligence play major roles as well. Suffice it to say the future does not look bright.

The Doomsday Clock. Source: the bulletin.org.

Science and scientists are not in vogue in today’s dumbed-down and duplicitous America, but that hardly matters. Nothing lasts forever, and the United States certainly won’t.

America’s unwinding has been visible for a long time now. George Packer’s The Unwinding was published in 2013, and there were many warning signs prior to that. Over the last 12 years, the country’s disintegration has accelerated rapidly. Donald Trump has been elected twice.

Today’s U.S. citizens are more widely divergent in their beliefs and their acuity than ever. Half of all households, maybe somewhat more, own no books. The American educational system has been in serious decline for years, as have students’ reading abilities.

Red states are growing much faster than blue states, and they are rich in resentment and vindictiveness toward the blue elites (i.e., ordinary people who have a college education and a conscience). Now the far right has assumed power.

“Assumed” is the right word, because Trump & Co. are not limiting themselves to constitutionally authorized authority. Elon Musk, the adolescent genius elected by no one, has assembled a callow wrecking crew to dismantle entire U.S. government agencies, and as of now no one is stopping him.

The Democratic Party, as has been widely noted, doesn’t have a clue. Their attempts to protect the crumbling, fumbling Biden were disastrous, and their attempts to organize and communicate have failed as well. Even if, against the odds, they managed to retake the White House in four years, it wouldn’t matter. The country’s divide is not going away and the far right has seized, and will retain, the upper hand.

If you want to keep the best of America, and American Democracy, then try to do so. Do whatever you can. But keep your eyes wide open, and watch your back. Things are not likely to get better.

Today’s Israel Should Not Exist

At least, not in its present form.

Before we go any further, please note that this post is most definitely not antisemitic. We have many Jewish friends, both here in the U.S. and overseas, and we treasure them. We salute Jewish achievements in the sciences and the arts, particularly those in literature and music. We would like all Jewish people to live in peace, unthreatened and in harmony with others everywhere. Sadly, though, this does not seem possible.

Antisemitism is very real, of course, and it—especially its horrendous manifestation in the Holocaust—underlies Israel’s foundation. It is also why well-meaning people continue to believe in and support Israel, even today. Yet we would argue that supporting Israel at the close of 2024 is in itself antisemitic. Israel today is antithetical to true Jewish values, and to any value system that incorporates empathy and fair treatment of others. A country run by criminals, and war criminals at that? Its current government and military policies are a blight on the Jewish people. Israel has become a criminal enterprise which imposes apartheid on many of its citizens and war crimes and genocide on the Palestinians within its territory. In the latter part of this year, the American-funded IDF has expanded its genocidal campaign to Lebanon and Syria as well.

Amnesty International concluded, after a nine-month study, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The Nakba of 1948, when many Palestinians were forced from their land and/or murdered for it, provided a preview of what was to come. Yet the death of some six million Jews in World War II was still uppermost in world leaders’ minds and it was generally believed the Jewish people deserved a haven, a safe refuge to help atone for all they had suffered. Israel was not established in the most ethical or humane manner, but there was a need for a Jewish homeland, it was felt.

In hindsight, this was obviously the wrong approach. How many peace talks have there been? How many proposed two-state solutions? How many wars? The Zionist project has led to where we are today.

A further effect of Israel’s steady descent into the monster state it is today has been the complicity it has imposed on its supporters, the U.S. foremost among them. Joe Biden’s legacy will be forever smeared by his total embrace of Israel’s actions, much more so than by his inept loss of political power.

Even at this writing, though, strong criticism of Israel is censored or downplayed. Students voicing their consciences are punished. Mainstream media are mostly silent. To the extent Israel’s atrocities are reported, they are muted to a point where they become background noise. Israel bombed a hospital/refugee camp today, and X people were killed. Ho-hum. The story is buried deep within a section or quickly mouthed in one sentence during broadcasts. “Settlers” murder Palestinians with impunity in the West Bank, and that seems to go completely unreported.

Just today (December 20), the New York Times reported on yet another Israeli bombing on a hospital in northern Gaza. The headline was “‘We Just Want Mercy’: A Gaza Hospital Pleads for a Respite.” Fair enough, as far as it goes. But the story was nowhere to be found on the paper’s home page. It’s become old news, you see.

Kamal Adwan Hospital this month. Credit: Agence France-Press—Getty Images.

America’s involvement with and complicity in Israel’s inhuman behavior will only grow stronger with the incoming administration. This will harm both countries, and many others in the world as well. After all, neither nation is particularly stable these days.

The atrocities Israel continues to perpetrate will eventually lead to its destruction, regardless of how long this may take. Decent Israel citizens should be planning now to seek improved lives elsewhere. Given current circumstances in the United States, there may be better options than here.

No Good Outcome

The dreaded 2024 U.S. Presidential Election is nearly upon us, and many Americans report heightened anxiety. U.S. voters are right to be anxious, but perhaps not for the reasons they think.

There is a widespread narrative that casts this election as a battle between authoritarianism on the one hand, and democracy on the other. That is a superficial, black-and-white fairy tale that bears little resemblance to the truth. It would have you believe that, if the Democrats can manage to win, America will be saved and reason will prevail.

But consider: the country is intractably divided, almost 50-50. The election will not change that. Voters are divided largely on the basis of educational attainment, and the U.S. educational system has performed poorly in recent decades (hence the divide). The election will not change that, either.

Consider, too, that the world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place. Vicious, genocidal campaigns are occurring in the Mideast and Africa, and they are simply background noise in the West. Climate change is accelerating more rapidly than anticipated, and the powers that be ignore that, too. Will the 2024 election change either of those realities? Will it result in a more equitable and peaceful human society, even in the United States?

Of course not.

In this context, why should one even bother to vote?

The answer to that question summons the old hope vs. despair argument—i.e., you can either give up, or you can try to make things better in some small way.

One could argue that, over the course of millennia, humanity has made gradual advances and improvements.

One could also argue the opposite.

If you believe in incremental progress, then you should vote for Kamala Harris and the Democrats. Such a vote is less likely to result in immediate chaos or increase human rights violations and/or climate disasters. (Although all of these certainly remain possible.)

Just realize that your vote, and the election, will improve nothing by themselves. Change for the better will remain up to those willing to undertake it, after the votes have been cast.

A Sick Relationship

The anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel is rapidly approaching, so this seems an appropriate time to take stock of what, if anything, has changed in the never-ending Mideast horror show. The answer, unfortunately, is not much.

After October 7, there was a rightful condemnation of Hamas for the savagery and scale of its attacks on Israel citizens, and for the taking of Israeli hostages. Some 1,200 Israelis were killed, and around 250 were taken hostage. While some Arab and Muslim-majority countries (and some American college students) blamed Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as the root cause of the attack, most global observers described the Hamas attack as terrorism.

Enemies of peace—U.S. & Israeli burning flags. — Enemies of peace. Source: independent.co.uk.

Almost immediately, though, Israel returned to the lopsided violence it has displayed from the time of the Nakba. Roughly 41,000 Palestinians have been killed to date, of whom nearly 18,000 were women and children. The actual number is probably higher. These people, mostly innocent civilians, were not just killed, they were killed with a vengeance—2,000-lb. bombs dropped on hospitals and shelters, in a campaign of indiscriminate destruction which has virtually leveled the entire Gazan infrastructure. And now the contagion of Israeli violence has spread to the West Bank, where “settlers” are murdering Palestinians with impunity. It is an old, old story: brutal force prevails. And it is a story in which Americans are strongly complicit.

(Americans, so far, have not been identified as complicit in the exploding pagers incident in Lebanon, a particularly sadistic example of Israeli belligerence.)

There is little doubt that Benjamin Netanyahu and his corrupt, right-wing government are guilty of numerous war crimes. Netanyahu is widely viewed as perpetuating the “war” (an inappropriate term for such a one-sided conflict) to avoid criminal prosecution, with no regard for Israeli hostages (or humanity in general) whatsoever. Regular Israeli citizens have repeatedly protested his government’s actions, to no avail. Netanyahu is doing what he is doing with American-supplied materiel and support, but this is not the only instance of the sick relationship between the two countries.

It is sickening to see Secretary of State Antony Blinken shuffling ineffectually back and forth, mouthing pieties about Israel’s right to self-defense and gently tapping Netanyahu’s wrist for various atrocities. It is sickening to see the elderly President Biden refusing to modify his support of Israel or significantly modify the American flow of weapons to the country, despite growing evidence of genocide in Gaza. And it is sickening to watch U.S. college students being arrested and punished for calling attention to that same genocide.

The U.S. presidential election occurs not long after the Oct. 7 anniversary. A Trump victory would only solidify America’s blind support of Israel. A Harris victory, though, might just tilt the relationship ever so slightly in the direction of justice.

The ultimate goal, as so many have said forever, is a two-state solution, where both nations are free and equal and Israel is no longer an apartheid state and an oppressor. That is the only way that Israel will ever be truly secure. This dream scenario seems as distant as ever, though. But that’s no reason why a new American president can’t nudge things toward the goal, by taking a firmer diplomatic stance with Israel and implementing a more rational policy of support, one which hinges on Israeli behavior.