Every time I write about why Dem presidential nominee Kamala Harris should work to end the genocide in Gaza by promising an immediate arms embargo on Israel if she's elected, some random bootlicker shows up in my mentions to explain why it's a "delicate political situation" and she can't afford to risk the "most important election in history" by doing so. And every time I point out that this doesn't make sense because a broad spectrum of polling shows that *Democrat* voters are opposed to the genocide, and want the Biden administration to do everything in its power to end it, up to and including an arms embargo; so clearly we can extrapolate that an arms embargo wouldn't cost Harris the election, but might in fact be the exact thing that pushes her over Trump emphatically.
Naturally, this convinces precisely none of the apologists in my mentions, because they don't really care and "electability" is just a canned excuse to insist nobody should ever criticize Harris no matter what, even if she's promising to continue enabling Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza, and their escalating military actions in the West Bank. Despite this however, the data is the data and thanks to a recent poll we now have data that suggests an arms embargo on Israel may definitively be the difference between winning and losing the 2024 election to Donald Trump for the Harris campaign.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-arms-embargo-israel
Poll Shows Voter Support for Harris Would Grow If She Backed Arms Embargo on Israel
"Commissioned by the Arab American Institute (AAI), the online poll of 2,505 American voters conducted between July 31 and August 1 found that 44% of U.S. voters would back Harris, 40% would support Republican nominee Donald Trump, and 11% would vote third party "if the election for president of the United States were held today."
But if Harris were to endorse a suspension of U.S. arms shipments and diplomatic support for Israel "until there was a cease-fire and withdrawal of forces from Gaza," her national support would grow from 44% to 49%.
A majority of Democratic voters say the Gaza crisis is either very or somewhat important in determining how they vote in November, according to the AAI poll.
The new survey, which has a margin of error of 2 percentage points, is consistent with an earlier poll commissioned by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding Policy Project, which found that Harris would bolster her chances in key battleground states if she backed an arms embargo."
Folks, I don't know how much you know about polling and the effects American electoral college has on presidential elections, but even neoliberal ghouls like James Carville agree that it's not merely enough for Harris to edge Trump out at the ballot box because the system is rigged for the right, rural districts, and red states with tiny populations. Most observers think the Democrat candidate has to win the race by at least 3 points nationally and the further you can get past that number the less likely it is the electoral college will produce a Republican president who doesn't win the popular vote, which is how the last two GOP presidents, Trump and Bush, took power. As such the difference between a race that's 44 to 40 Harris over Trump, and a race that's 49 to 40 is absolutely the difference between a race that can be stolen by a system rigged for fascist, and an election that will require a literal coup to overturn. Trump may well attempt that coup regardless, but the likelihood of it succeeding goes way up if the margins are close, and way down if Harris can win convincingly.
Furthermore, while polling is not prophecy, the likelihood that the polls are correct increases significantly when you've got a whole bunch of polls showing the same thing, and in the case of "should Harris promise an arms embargo to stop Israel's genocide in Gaza" the polls consistently show it would significantly *improve* her chances of winning "the most important election in American history." I'm fully aware that our leaders are prepared to ignore the moral reality that supporting a genocide and crimes against humanity is foundationally wrong and monstrous; we wouldn't be in this situation if they weren't. But if you think Trump is an existential threat to what passes for American democracy and the folks behind him are serious about installing a permanent hyper-capitalist, Christian nationalist political and social order in the United States, there can be no question that promising an arms embargo on Israel is politically and tactically the the correct decision for Harris. Given the numbers in this poll and a variety of other polls, failing to do so is unnecessarily risking a Trump presidency and the installation of an overt fascist order to a degree that I'm comfortable calling criminally negligent; even aside from the fact that enabling crimes against humanity is morally repugnant and wrong.
#USPol #Harris #Trump #2024Election #Gaza #Israel #Genocide #ArmsEmbargo #Polling