I never thought Democrats had a chance in Florida.
Two special elections for Congress were held in Florida, both being strong Republican seats. One was the seat vacated by Michael Waltz who left to join the Trump administration where he could leak classified information on Signal group chats with other morons.
Democrats thought the seat was competitive, but Republican Randy Fines won last night by 14 points.
In the other district, vacated by Matt Giggity Gaetz, Democrats outspent Republican Jimmy Patronis yet still lost by 14.6 points. What were they thinking running a candidate named Gay in Florida, in Matt Gaetz’s old district, nonetheless?
This gives Republicans and Trump a House advantage of 220 to 213.
As I said, I didn’t believe Democrats had a shot in Florida. One indicator was that Elon Musk didn’t campaign and drop millions of dollars into those races…like he did in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is supposed to be non-partisan, so it’s not Democrats versus Republicans. It’s Liberal versus Conservative. The court had a 4-3 Liberal majority last night, and today, it’s still a 4-3 liberal majority.
This race was the most expensive judicial contest in US history, with $90 million invested in the race, with $25 million of that coming from Elon Musk alone. That’s probably just claw machine money for him, but he still didn’t get to snatch a state supreme court seat and probably spent $25 million to catch a plushie saying, “Keep on truckin’.”
Liberal Susan Crawford defeated Conservative Brad Schimel by ten points last night. It wasn’t even close. How did Elon in a cheesy cheesehead not work?
Why is the Democratic win in Wisconsin significant and the GOP win in Florida not?
The two districts in Florida were already Republican, and one of them is the most conservative fucknut district in the nation. How are Democrats supposed to win where voters are racist and stupid enough to send Matt Gaetz to Congress five times? They might be more racist and stupid than Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert’s voters. If anything, Democrats can take comfort in that the Republicans’ margins of victories were 15 percent lower in those districts than last November.
This is bad news for Republicans in the midterms because when Trump isn’t on the ballot, fewer MAGAts vote. Republicans should enjoy that 220-213 House majority while it lasts because it won’t. We’re not going to talk about the Senate today.
Wisconsin is significantly different. Trump won the state last November…barely. The friends I made last July in Milwaukee told me they were afraid he’d win the state, and he did by less than one percent.
Special elections usually have lower voter turnout, and last night’s in Wisconsin was predicted to be tight. That was another failed prediction because the Liberal won 55-45. That’s a 10-point Democratic win in a state that has been decided by less than one point in each of the past three presidential races.
When I heard Elon was spending big money in Wisconsin on a state supreme court race, I knew Republicans were scared. And when I heard Elon was going to personally campaign in Wisconsin for a state supreme court race, I knew Republicans were stupid. Has no one shown Elon his polls?
A new Harvard/Harris poll shows that 49 percent hate Elon while 39 like him. But maybe Elon didn’t see the poll and only listened to Trump, who posted to Shit Social after the poll results were released, “Wow!!! People are loving Elon, a GREAT PATRIOT. Nice to see!!! DJT.”
If that’s what convinced Elon to go to Wisconsin to take a giant dump, thank you, DJT, you shit-fire smoldering dumbass. Speaking of the walking orange turd, his polls are down too. In fact, the only newly elected president to have polls worse than Trump’s is Donald Trump.
The only president worse than Trump is Trump. We didn’t need a second Trump administration to remind us how fucking horrible and rancid the first one was. Seriously, America, what’s wrong with you?
The good news here is that none of this bodes well for Trump winning a third term if he’s somehow able to destroy the Constitution first. The other good news is, he’s going to lose the House in 2026. The bad news for us is that he’s still going to “legislate” through executive orders for the next four years.
I can’t make predictions about the 2028 presidential election because I’m not confident we’ll have an election or at least a fair one in 2028. Do you think Trump is going to serve his term without engaging in fuckery with the elections? He has already issued an illegal executive order changing rules on national elections. Since when can a president single-handedly change election laws?
Our future elections will have the same integrity as the elections in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. By the way, I predict that over the next four years, some government structure or land will be named after Donald Trump. He may do it himself with an EO. They may create a monument identical to the Washington Monument and name it the Trump Monument, except it’ll have to be a lot smaller.
by Matthew B. Flynn, Professor of International Studies and Sociology, Georgia Southern University
Jacek Lubecki, Professor of International Studies, Georgia Southern University
Since the Hamas brutal attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, including civilians and members of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), there has been a lot of biased commentary that selectively chooses facts to defend a one-sided narrative. There has been less objective analysis to address wholesale distortions and uphold fundamental rights that point towards the shared humanity of both Palestinians and Israelis.
One of the startling voices comes from avowed atheist Zionists. For example, David Anderson, lawyer and self-proclaimed Middle East expert, dismisses Palestinian nationalism by arguing
that the concept of an Arab “Palestine” is relatively recent, emerging in the 1960s, and that their identity has been devoted to replacing the Jews and Israel. No other country is based on this type of exterminative ideology.”
Sam Harriss, philosopher and neuroscientist, claims that there is a “moral disparity between Israel and her enemies” and that one must “side with Israel here”. Harris portrays Israel as a nation that “would simply live peacefully with its neighbors” if it could achieve its aims, while describing Hamas as seeking to “implement a seventh century theocracy in the Holy Land”.
We evaluate claims related to national identity and political ideologies in light of the historical record as well as the internal contradictions and biases offered by these accounts.
Nationalism as Modern-Created “Imagined Communities”
First is the notion that there is no true Palestinian identity. One version of this claim is that the land of modern-day Israel was barely populated and/or that Palestinians are “really Arabs from other countries who arrived from surrounding states to work on British and Zionist infrastructure projects in the 1930s and 1940s. Many after Jewish arrivals.”
Such claims of “a land without a people” in the 19th century are not supported by historical evidence and are considered inaccurate by modern historians. According to Ottoman records and other historical sources, Palestine was indeed inhabited during the 19th century. Alexander Scholch’s research indicates
that by 1850, Palestine had approximately 350,000 inhabitants, with about 85% Muslims, 11% Christians, and 4% Jews.
It is true that Palestinian identity is a recent creation, but all modern nationalisms are “imagined communities,”
according to Benedict Anderson (no known relation to David). However, that such an identity did not exist before the 1960s, as Anderson claims, is not born out of the historical record.
According to Rashid Khalidi’s book Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, modern Palestinian national identity did not emerge at a single specific date or time. Instead, Khalidi argues that it developed gradually, with roots in nationalist discourses that emerged among the peoples of the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century.
This process of identity formation sharpened following World War I, particularly after the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries in the Middle East. Khalidi emphasizes that while the challenge posed by Zionism played a role in shaping this identity, it is a “serious mistake to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to Zionism.”
It is important to note that Zionism is also a modern creation.
Before the late 1800s, there was no “Israeli” or Jewish “nation”. Jewishness was an ethnic and religious identity. While the target of pogroms, in part, derived from the growth of other nationalisms developing at the time, the evolution of modern Jewish nationalism is similar in its novel quality and complexity to the evolution of Palestinian nationalism.
The Myth of the Voluntary Arab Exit
A similar historical blindness occurs with the stories of what Palestinians call the “Nakba,” and Israeli Jews refer to as the founding of the state of Isreal. According to Anderson:
The “Nakba” catastrophe myth describes Palestinians “kicked off their lands” when thousands left voluntarily “temporarily”, believing Arab governments’ propaganda that once the Jews were “thrown into the sea” (their words) the entirety of the area would be theirs.
.
That “No Arabs were expelled ever” is an outright lie. Benny Morris,
challenging both Zionist and Arab narratives, describes the expulsion in detail in his books but sees it as contingent. He does not explicitly describe Israeli actions as “ethnic cleansing,” but he acknowledges that expulsions, atrocities, and fear played significant roles in the displacement of approximately 700,000 Palestinians.
Others sources
have recounted first-hand testimonies of Jewish militias and stories of massacres carried out by Jewish forces, such as Deir-Yassin, confirmed by several sources and are beyond any doubt. The Jewish military commander Moshe Dayan’s admitted that Jewish villages were built on the sites of destroyed Arab villages, and the erasure of those villages from memory. His justification of shooting at hungry Arabs crossing the border to collect grain and setting mines for them is a direct admission of violent acts against civilians.
Similarly, there were numerous atrocities committed against Jews. During the Kfar Etzion Massacre (May 13, 1948), around 120–150 Jewish residents and defenders of Kfar Etzion were killed by Arab irregulars, reportedly with the participation of soldiers from the Arab Legion.
During such existential wars, there is plenty of blame to go around. But there are also stories of hope.
Occasionally, Jewish community leaders defended their Palestinian neighbors against IDF militias. On occasions, Jewish militias committed no atrocities against Palestinian Arabs or even protected them – subject to the discretion of local commanders and particular local circumstances. That was especially the case in Western and Lower Galilee, where most Arab communities survived the war..
Part of the elimination of Palestinian identity includes roughly 20% who are current citizens of Israel. Instead of classifying them as “Palestinian Israelis,” they are denominated as “Arab Israelis.” Anderson is correct that they enjoy more rights and opportunities relative to Arabs living in neighboring countries. However, in Israel, they are treated as second-class citizens
, facing housing discrimination, voter suppression, restriction, and communal violence.
Eliminationist Ideology as a Shared Trait
Anderson and Harris are correct in their characterization of Hamas as an Islamofascist organization focused on the elimination of Israel. Its 1988 Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews. Despite revising its charter in 2017 to state that its fight was not with Jews based on their religious identity or beliefs but with the Zionist project, continued antisemitic language and the October 7 attack that included the death of hundreds of civilians belies the new professed position.
What Anderson and others fail to acknowledge is that the same eliminationist ideology is articulated by the Israeli far right. After detailing Hamas as a “fundamentalist Islamic movement” and not merely fighting for Palestinian self-determination, Hillel Schenker
writes:
There is no doubt that the messianic religious fundamentalists represented by Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich and his National Religious Party, and the racist followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane—National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Jewish Power Party—are Jewish fundamentalist mirror images of the Palestinian religious fundamentalist Hamas in Israel. Smotrich’s 2017 “Decisive Plan”
is the Israeli version of the exclusivist Hamas approach to the future of Israel/Palestine. Many Knesset members of Netanyahu’s Likud party also have the same approach.
Where we disagree with Anderson and others is their conflation of Palestinians with Hamas. Anderson argues that Gaza became “a terrorist state” run by Hamas, where the population largely supports “the Zionist elimination project” and that “every ounce of effort, work, and Palestinian culture has been devoted to replacing the Jews and Israel. No other country is based on this type of exterminative ideology.”
Accordingly, the logic is that Hamas is a terrorist organization that needs to be destroyed; Palestinians support Hamas; so Palestinians also need to be eliminated. Part of the evidence to support this line of thinking is that Palestinians voted 44.5% and the ruling Fatah received 41.5% of the vote during the 2006 Palestinian legislative election against the more secular Fatah movement. Part of the reason for its electoral victory stems from Hamas’ perceived incorruptibility and social assistance programs. After an intense civil war with its rival, Hamas has ruled Gaza with an intense iron fist, without political freedoms or democratic elections. Still, it should be seen as a complex political actor
seen also as an armed resistance group and provider of social welfare.
Additional evidence cited to conflate Palestinians with Hamas is the survey data
showing that 68% of the population supported suicide bombings in a 2011 poll. Different surveys reveal that support varies across time from a high of 77% during the Intifada to a low of 29% soon after. Comparable levels of support for violence can be found amongst Jewish Israelis, with polls
showing 81% responding that the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population should not be taken into account during the current military action in Gaza.
The use of survey data, already riddled with significant methodological limitations, without other data collection techniques, fails to capture the nuance, complexity, and context of the current circumstances, much less the variegated aspirations a people project onto their leaders — whether national liberation, dystopic security, or merely the cost of eggs. Needless to say, public opinion on both sides discounts the violence against civilians, children, and other “innocents” perpetrated either by Hamas or the IDF, suggesting that each side tends to live in their respective information silos.
The Misplaced Clash of Civilizations
Conflating all Palestinians with Hamas’ Islamofascism against the liberal modernity embodied by Israel allows for facile depictions of a clash of civilizations. Harris characterizes the conflict as a battle between “savagery and civilization”.
As Edward Said in “The Clash of Ignorance”
reminds us in his critique of Samuel Huntington’s thesis, simplistic dichotomies such as between “the West” and “Islam” seek to “make bellicose statements to mobilize collective passions” for political purposes—often towards violent ends—and merely result in a “great deal of demagogy and downright ignorance.” Instead of demonizing outgroups, serious commentary should seek to unveil the interconnections and common humanity between cultures as well as unravel the discussions and contests internal to civilizations.
Anderson emphasizes, “Historically if you start a war and you lose that war, you lose your land… human history is one long example of it.” Fortunately, after descending into the ignominy of two World Wars, Western Civilization created new standards, ideals, and norms. The liberal international order is premised on self-determination, universal human rights, prohibitions against genocidal violence, and the illegality of acquiring territory using force.
Herein lies the crux of the cultural clash within, as opposed to between, Hamas and Israel. The former employs savagery to achieve the goal of a sovereign state and be a part of the interstate system—a creation of Western civilization. The latter uses the power of its state, which is itself a United Nations creation
, with savage consequences.
Not surprisingly, the International Criminal Court—perhaps the best representation of Western values—has issued arrest warrants
for both the leaders of Hamas (now assassinated) as well as Israel’s leaders. The October 7th attack resulted in war crimes for the mass killing of 815 civilians, kidnapping hundreds, and rape; includes indictments
against Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and leader of the IDF Gallant’s include “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
Gaza’s current death toll
surpasses 50,000, of which about 80% are civilians. To account for indirect deaths
due to infectious diseases, exposure, and lack of water and food, the official body count should be multiplied, conservatively, by a factor of four—or 200,000 people. Moreover, life expectancy
in the Strip has fallen from 75.5 years in 2023 to 40.6 years. The International Court of Justice ruled
yhat Israel has committed “plausible” genocide. The violence is not just in Gaza: some 40,000 Palestinians have fled their homes due to settler violence and IDF military operations in the West Bank.
Out-of-the-Box Thinking for a Lasting Peace?
There is plenty of blame on both sides for failing to achieve a peace agreement. We agree with Anderson that Palestinians could have accepted the 1998-2000 settlement. The basis for such peace would be following international law, including UN Security Council Resolution 242 and General Assembly Resolution 194. They call for a withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories, the end of hostilities by all parties, and mutual recognition of state sovereignty.
One of the most difficult issues to resolve concerns the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or receive compensation. Here, Trump’s Plan to build luxury resorts along the Gaza Strip may point in the right direction—but not as a form of ethnic cleansing as he and Anderson suggest. Had the billions the United States provided Israel to bomb its enemies and the resources used by Hamas to build tunnels under the rubble been used to make Gaza into a country club for Palestinians, the current conflict (and perhaps even the creation of Hamas) would likely have been averted.
In the meantime, the voices and efforts of peace movements on both sides should be emphasized. These include the Great March of Return
—an initially peaceful demonstration in Gaza led by independent activists until usurped by Hamas and violently repressed by the IDF. There are also binational peace movements advocating non-violence and rights of both Palestinians and Israelis, including the Combatants for Peace, Alliance for Middle East Peace
, and Standing Together
to name a few.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict also represents a case where Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts—loathed by both Anderson and Harriss—should be pursued. Such efforts would include learning the complexities and commonalities of Islam and Judaism by reading the Sons of Abraham
rather than drawing from the biased accounts by the Middle_East_Media_Research_Institute
that would not pass the CRAAP test.
*The views expressed in this article belong to the authors and do not reflect those of Georgia Southern University.
Marine Le Pen, figurehead of France’s Rassemblement National (RN), one of the most established far-right parties in Europe, has been found guilty of embezzling funds from the European parliament.
During her time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017, Le Pen and her team paid party staff with funds that should have gone to European parliamentary aides. The ruling estimates that a total of €2.9 million (£2.4 million) in European parliament funds
were involved in the crimes and that Le Pen personally embezzled €474,000 of that total.
She has been sentenced to four years in prison, two of which would be electronic monitoring. She is also unlikely to see the inside of a cell for the other two years as she is appealing her conviction.
More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that she has been banned from holding public office for five years. Crucially, the ban is to start immediately, meaning that even with an appeal, Le Pen is highly unlikely to be able to stand as a candidate in the next presidential election in 2027.
For many in the RN, the court’s decision will be a major blow. The party appears to have lost the candidate they believed was on course for victory in 2027. However, others will no doubt see this as a chance to distance the party further from the Le Pen name, following the death of Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen
earlier this year.
This process has been in motion for some time. Jordan Bardella took over from Le Pen as president of the party in 2022 and has clearly been waiting and preparing for this eventuality. Allegations were first levelled at Le Pen many years ago and her crimes relate to her time as an MEP between 2004 and 2017. He has been the plan B option throughout her trial.
Bardella led the RN to victory in the 2024 European election in France. He also managed to send a record number of parliamentarians to the National Assembly after French president Emmanuel Macron called a snap election
just weeks later.
This was, nevertheless, a somewhat disappointing outcome as many on the far right had started to imagine Bardella as prime minister. Since failing to meet this expectation, his leadership has come under more scrutiny. His reaction to Le Pen’s sidelining will be watched carefully.
Playing the victim
Overall, it is good news to see corruption being taken seriously and justice being served. However, Le Pen’s conviction comes after years of embezzlement which has allowed the far right to build its strength. All this has come on the back of a system it has vowed to destroy. As such, it feels like too little too late.
Furthermore, this decision, and the fact that it is tied to the European Union, is likely to feed into typical far-right propaganda on the domestic stage. Le Pen and the party will play the victim, blaming Le Pen’s fate on a wide conspiracy organised by something akin to the deep state
operating via Brussels.
The deep levels of distrust in public institutions and mainstream politics are likely to play a role here. Le Pen will aim to paint the decision of an independent court as the political assassination of the “champion of the people”.
She could become a martyr, turning her cause into a revolt against “the system”. Bardella has already said that Le Pen’s conviction amounted to the “execution” of democracy.
Crucially, though, this outcome isn’t inevitable. Whether such a narrative takes hold is a choice that is very much in the hands of mainstream elite actors. Those who have a privileged access to shaping public discourse, such as journalists, politicians and experts will therefore play a key role.
Instead of giving pride of place to Le Pen and the far right in a tempting sensationalising coverage, the mainstream media must turn to serious analysis. This would involve removing the focus from individuals and putting it on the wider issues at hand. That would lessen the potential for a narrative of victimisation to take hold.
Beyond providing an accurate picture of the case itself, good coverage should predominantly focus on politics rather than on the spectacle the RN will inevitably try to construct as a diversion tactic. This would mean engaging seriously with what the RN actually proposes as a model of society: one that is not against the “elite” and for the people, but merely in favour of a different elite taking control at the head of a top-down authoritarian state.
This would then allow voters to understand that the far right is not on their side, but on the side of power, wealth and hierarchies. Those who oppose such a takeover could go some way to fix the damage that has been done with carelessly associating these parties with “populism”
.
Finally, good coverage would also mean shifting the agenda away from the far right and its pet issues. Had politicians – left, right and centre – not continuously used the far right as a diversion from their own failures to tackle the many crises their countries face, the far right would not be as powerful as it seems.
As opinion polls show, when people are asked what are their biggest concerns personally, issues core to the far right such as immigration are low
. Instead, it is issues that would require radical measures to tackle economic and social insecurity which are prioritised.
The far right offers nothing to address these – only division to make citizens powerless to fight back. Now that Le Pen is out of the picture, it is a good time to shift the agenda back to democracy and hope.
For 25 hours and five minutes, Senator Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor to give what is now the longest speech in the history of that body. He didn’t eat, he didn’t use the bathroom, he just kept on talking. When it was over, he had surpassed the record set in 1957 by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina that was intended to thwart efforts to pass civil rights legislation
Senator Booker’s goal was to get something going
amongst those who are looking for leadership, looking for a way to challenge the shockingly anti-democratic measures taken by President Trump in his first two months in office. The list is well known: the deportation of international students; threats to institutions of higher learning; threats to private law firms; shutting down entire federal agencies; firing thousands of federal workers; tariffs on foreign goods based on bogus claims; and executive orders on any number of initiatives that by-pass legislative authority, and on and on.
Without majorities in the House and Senate, without conventional legislative tools, Democrats everywhere have been wondering what can be done. Certainly AOC and Bernie Sanders have been doing their part, but beyond that that there is little sense that other elected Democrats have much understanding of or taste for the fight ahead.
Enter Senator Booker.
Who knows ultimately what impact his speech will have, but coming on the same day that Democrats cut the margin of victory in half in two deep red Florida congressional districts in special elections and Democrats won a hotly contested Wisconsin Supreme Court
seat we can only wonder if a tide is turning.
I think we know by now that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not the guy to show the way in the Senate and beyond, and though it’s too early to say that Senator Booker is the guy, he has certainly put himself in the mix. He also has done no damage to any presidential aspirations he may have in 2028.
Many of the headlines today about Booker’s speech hit on the same theme which is in effect that it may have been a stunt but it was a pretty effective stunt. Why is that, we may ask? Perhaps precisely because he showed what has been so lacking in the opposition: passion, stamina, and focus. He gave so many what they have been looking for.
No single speech is going to be the answer, but let it begin here.