Oh yeah the narratives are all performative bullshit. The DoD is absolutely evil, but in the sense that they won't hesitate to use evil means to accomplish what they'd call "good" (i.e. self-interested) ends. Also their list of "good" ends is ludicrously expansive, but I just happen to agree with them in this instance that averting nuclear war is incontrovertibly "good." It's the politicians' job to figure out how to walk out of a classified meeting and sell their decisions to the public, and that requires a lot of contorted pandering when the stakes are so high and the information so secretive and potentially catastrophic. If these weren't two nuclear powers who wanted to erase one another from the surface of the planet, I might be more judgmental of the US government's motives, but whether we like it or not (and thanks to the orange dipshit and his stupid fucking advisors) Iran is likely already a nuclear power. This is absolutely not a 20th century middle east conflict. This is a whole new ballgame that potentially threatens the survival of all of humanity.
I'm 100% with you. It's easy for us to judge their decision making from the outside, but if I were sitting in a classified meeting and my SoS told me, "if you turn on Israel, Netanyahu's government will nuke Iran", I would do everything I could do not to piss off Bibi's government, because I'd be preventing nuclear war. If they also told me, "if you tell anyone you're thinking about turning on Israel, Iran will nuke them because they already have a weapon", I would do everything I could do not to reveal a hint of reservation about supporting Israel, because I'd be preventing nuclear war. I sincerely think they've been backed into a corner because any alternate course of action risks actual nuclear Armageddon. I think they're less concerned with how criticism of Israel would play politically than they are about how what happens next would play politically. Maybe I'm wrong, but that situation perfectly explains a LOT of the weird posturing.
If it were a binary choice between allowing genocide and nuclear Armageddon, then I would do absolutely nothing to intervene. I would simultaneously explore EVERY diplomatic channel at my disposal to try to come up with a third option, even if it meant tens of thousands of Gazans are going to die in the process. It's sad but true.
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
That's what the bipartisan border bill tried to do. Trump killed it.
Isn't that what the bipartisan bill that Trump killed was intended to do?
From what I know it included more money for detention beds, immigration judges+staff, asylum officers, lawyers for unaccompanied minors, and border cities, plus expedited work permits for folks already in the system, allowance for asylum officers to close out a claim rather than going through immigration courts, 250,000 new work visas, work authorization to the children and spouses of people who have H-1B visas, and also work eligibility for immigrants awaiting visas if they have a U.S. citizen spouse or fiancé or if their parent is the spouse or fiancé of a U.S. citizen, as well as workers who have claimed asylum but who have not yet had a hearing.
Evidence should be easy to find if the effect is as obvious as you suggest, no?
edit: Look, as charming as this back-and-forth is, I'd like to present evidence to the contrary. This kind of gesture doesn't register at all with voters, and makes zero difference in their motivation to vote, because Democrats tried to codify abortion rights into federal law in 1989, 1993, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 and folks like you are still clamoring for them to "just do something". If they open the floor for another inevitably doomed bill and do more "something", people will still bitch and moan that they're not doing anything, just like they always have.
You...you think Democratic voters need Republicans to vote against abortion rights to justify going to the polls? What kind of half-baked logic is that?
Also I asked for evidence it works that way. Got any?
You literally just moved the goalposts. First it's about putting the GOP on the record, and now it's about motivating voters? Who exactly are you catering to with that tactic? And do you have proof it does either? I've never seen any.
I'm highly skeptical that anyone in the GOP would a) have trouble crafting a campaign message that trashes an ostensibly "clean" bill or b) lose any support over a vote either way. Anyone who cares about abortion or voting rights is already voting blue, and anyone who's voting red at this point won't care about this procedural tactic. We've been hammering Dems to get GOP votes "on the record" for decades, and it hasn't really been the factor that moved the needle in any meaningful way.
The media still haven't realized that they're a bunch of highly educated puppies. They write well and can form a compelling story, but at the end of the day they get distracted by, and tend to focus on, any flashy or squeaky object in their periphery.
...I should add, all of which makes me reeeeeeaaaallllllly frustrated with the folks who just say "Biden/Harris could stop this but they choose not to." Like, nofuckingshit they could. But they'd be absolute morons if they ignored the potentially humanity-erasing consequences of doing so. This conflict doesn't exist in a fucking vacuum.
/rant