France’s far-right National Rally party, alongside conservative centrists, had spent weeks painting the left’s support of Palestine as an electoral poisoned pill. In attacks all too familiar in the U.S., they conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism, slamming Israel’s critics as antisemites. Israeli officials explicitly backed the far-right party. In this last election, at least, it didn’t work to prevent left-wing success.

In Britain, too, the centrist Labour Party’s landslide victory was tempered in five constituencies, where independent candidates with pro-Palestinian platforms defeated Labour candidates. Labour’s former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, won his North Islington, London, seat with ease; Corbyn was famously ousted from Labour when the party’s conservative wing and British media weaponized charges of antisemitism against the party’s left flank.

If there’s a lesson to be learned in the U.S. from the success of pro-Palestinian candidates in France and Britain, we can be grimly sure that no Democrat in November’s presidential election will learn it. President Joe Biden’s unfettered support of Israel and its genocidal Gaza war is not only a gross moral failure but also an electoral risk, particularly in crucial swing-state Michigan and for young voters in general. But his campaign refuses to change course on the issue. Even if the senescent president is replaced as the Democratic nominee, there’s scant chance that any successor will embrace a platform of Palestinian solidarity or even robust ceasefire demands. This, despite the fact that 77 percent of Democratic voters and two-thirds of voters in the U.S. support a permanent ceasefire.

Relatedly, a new book by Medea Benjamin and David Swanson » NATO: What You Need To Know (Truthdig book review)

[Edit: Seems like this idea wasn't a good idea eventually. Thank you for participating.😄]

I've noticed that low turnout (about half) is very common in elections. A good practice would be to make it easier to vote through various means. Another good one, but harder, is to educate people about the importance of voting and generally being an active citizen. I think my idea should be used either if the previous attempts to encourage voting don't work or it could be used in parallel with them.

The idea I had, though I don't know if it's a good one:

If the turnout is less than

100% - "percentage of ruling party"

then elections would be invalidated and they'd have to happen again.

If they get invalidated again, the term of the parliament is extended as-is by a year (this part could be changed, it could be replaced by what the consitution of each country dictates in case elections get invalidated for other reasons). This way it "punishes" people who don't vote (though everyone gets collateral damage..), so eventually people might get fed up and be pushed to vote. Plus, it prevents parties to get power without people actually supporting them.

Even if those "extra" people who will be pushed vote happen to vote the "bad" guys, they will at least know they are actively part of the problem (provided they understand the problem😬) and might change their vote (to something better or worse).

I think it's very important to have more engagement. In Greece we had a ~50% turnout last year. That's extremely low.. And I see similar percentages in many other countries. Apathy is very damaging to democracy, those two ~don't really get along (though I don't know if it's worse than voting "bad" people).

The reason why I'm excluding the percentage of the ruling party from the whole percentage of the population is because the ruling party may try to "rig" the system by advising all their supporters not to vote, thus, extending their power.

If you could pinpoint any issues to my idea and any way of fixing them would be nice. If you find it a good/bad idea, you're encouraged to share why. It's just something I though of (I think) yesterday.🙃

I recently watched videos of Bernie Sanders, who americans call left-wing, and maybe compared to other american politicians he is, but compared to russian opposition he is very like Boris Nemtsov and Alexey Navalny. First is literal founder of Union of Right Forces, second is considered to be center-right.

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