So, what Israel is doing is hurting him and that he is sticking to the line that he has to support them. I think though, most times Americans are most concerned with what is happening in the US. So, the Gaza part of it probably ranks third on many people's lists.  I don't really know why someone would vote for Trump over Biden, I can't see that they would do that because of what is happening in Gaza. I mean Trump would not prevent killing people in Gaza, he is much more likely to encourage it, hence making that situation worse. So, if Gaza is your biggest concern, why vote for Trump?

I have a hard time calculating Trump's appeal to people here. It often seems like it based on the idea that he will do and say horrible things and they think that makes him strong, because he is willing to say horrible things and/or break laws. I've seen it called "Jesse James" appeal. He's a criminal, and they understand that, but they like that he is breaking laws and threatening people. 

What is going to happen here in 2024, is hard, at least for me, to predict. We have a sort of perfect storm brewing. Both of the big party candidates are not well liked by probably 65% of the country. We have at least one third party candidate in RFK Jr. that probably is going to syphon away a good size chunk of voters. That makes the race between the Democrat and Republican much, much closer. Now we may have another third party candidate in Joe Manchin that could also grab a bunch of votes.  As a country, I think we are well primed to vote for third party candidates right now, but I think none of them can pull enough to beat the two big parties. They will play spoiler.

It's not that I am against more choices, I just don't see how RFK Jr. or Manchin can win. Doing their absolute best, they may get close to a third of the vote, but Republican voters will vote for Republicans, Democrats for Democrats and many independents will choose one of those two. So, one of the major parties will win. 

The way I see it is, our system is not so much fucked up by our choices as it is the fact that about 6 states determine our presidential elections. Sure, we have 50 states, but only 6 of them matter in deciding things. So, that means that most of us, the vast majority of the population, is sidelined for these elections. We all sit around waiting for the results from the 6 states that will decide who won.

I think that makes people feel some indifference to the whole process or makes them feel like it is rigged.  As long as Trump is around, basically the thing that makes sense is to do what it takes to get him out of the picture. The division he has inspired and the anger has really decimated our political system...but that was the point.

We need to try to move back away from that and then we can address other issues and solve some problems. It can be done, but step one really is removing Trump from the political landscape. As long as he is around, we have a huge and potentially very violent problem.