Holding people accountable for their actions that affect you is an entirely just and necessary thing to do.

Another contributor to low turnout was massive voter suppression. It’d be interesting to see that quantified. Hundreds of thousands of voters were being purged in each of several states. The single-issue Gaza vote was lost in the noise of those gross examples of electoral manipulation.

Gaza was also a big issue for Gen Z

It was a convenient excuse for their apathy.

asking the relatives of genocide victims to vote for someone

There are 160,000 Palestinian-Americans. Most of them originate in the West Bank (especially Ramallah) and Jerusalem. Almost none of them are in Michigan. Michigan’s Arab-Americans are mostly Lebanese-descended.

People with family ties to Gaza were a vanishingly small percentage of the electorate. They’re vastly outnumbered by the people who were suckered by the “Dems = Genocide” concern-trolling.

It’ll be a genocide soon enough.

Turnout is down by at least 10 million from 2020.

A left that isn’t popular with the lower classes is doing something wrong

There are always lumpen elements that are too bought-in to serving the ruling class to be capable of class consciousness, and the US system has made sure that they have proliferated.

First and foremost, I blame the racist shits who voted for Trump.

It hasn’t been a cold war in Ukraine.

Taking a broader perspective, social media and those who manipulate it played a huge role in Trump’s win. And Lemmy’s part of that, like it or not.

Yeah, they’re gloating now. But who knows, maybe Trump will backstab Putin like he backstabs everyone else. Though it’s unlikely, since he seems to cower whenever he’s near his Daddy Vladdy.

Not all early Christians followed Paul. The church in Jerusalem under James was at odds with Paul on a number of subjects. There were also more radical groups outside Jerusalem that combined Christianity with Greek philosophy, having women preaching and leading congregations, and incorporating various mystical beliefs that didn’t originate in Judaism or the teachings of Jesus.

The Muslims have never had a big, convoluted End Times mythos like the Christians, at least not in the Qur’an. At some point in the indefinite future, there will be Judgement Day, and everybody living or dead will get hauled in front of Allah and the recording angel will play back your scorecard. Then it’s Jinnah (heaven) or Jehenna (hell).

There are quite a number of hadiths (extra-scriptural reports of things Muhammad said or did) that talk about the end times. Hadiths are assessed by Islamic scholars based on their provenance and general credibility. Those originating from people close to the Prophet are ranked higher; those that contradict the Qur’an are downgraded. Most of the non-Qur’anic end times narratives sound very similar to Christian eschatology, except that the Mahdi, the successor prophet to Muhammad, appears. Jesus (Issa) returns (and maybe he’s the same guy as the Mahdi?), there’s the Antichrist (the Dajjal) stirring up mischief, there are signs and portents, the giants Gog and Magog running amok, the stars fall from the sky as meteors, etc, etc.

It’s not as entertaining as Ragnarök, but it’s more coherent than the Christian fundies’ fanfic.

According to mainstream Christianity, that’s trying to force God to do something. And the Bible is clear that nobody, not even the faithful, will know when the end times will come.

Not that I care, being an atheist. But these people make shit up without even bothering to see if it’s consistent with the shit that’s already been made up.