In American politics, we have legalized bribery under a very specific framework called “lobbying”. These days, this is largely accomplished through “Political Action Committees”. Basically, it’s a group that gets together to push and advertise for a candidate, specific or related collections of isssues, and so on. The funding for these groups is, shall we say, not looked at too hard, and that’s by design (of the politicians, to be clear).
So, we quickly get into a position where Israel creates a behemoth of a PAC to push their interests in US elections: this is AIPAC. AIPAC has a shitload of connections to TONS of funding and influence across the political spectrum, and uses it very aggressively to support US politicians who are friendly to the current Israeli regime’s interests. Incidentally, they threw in with Trump in both 16 and 20, because as pro-Israel as Biden is, Trump is far more willing to just straight up ignore the concerns of Palestinians and their voters, since he does not care about them due to the fact that a) he is overtly racist, and b) almost no Palestinians or even Muslims are going to be voting for Trump, for obvious reasons, so there’s no quid pro quo for him to exploit.
Anyways: PACs can and do inundate the internet and airwaves with political advertising, and most of it is straight up propaganda of one form or another. And of course, media orgs lean into anything can be spun as controversial (because that drives engagement, which drives ad sales, which is profitable).
Also, I need to be clear at this point: this is not some oblique screed that’s descending into old antisemitic tropes. This is an indictment of an obviously corrupt political mechanism, and one of the particular entities that takes massive advantage of that corrupt system on a regular basis, often to our detriment (and, paradoxically, their detriment as well, in a long-term, strategic, and demographic sense).
In American politics, we have legalized bribery under a very specific framework called “lobbying”. These days, this is largely accomplished through “Political Action Committees”. Basically, it’s a group that gets together to push and advertise for a candidate, specific or related collections of isssues, and so on. The funding for these groups is, shall we say, not looked at too hard, and that’s by design (of the politicians, to be clear).
So, we quickly get into a position where Israel creates a behemoth of a PAC to push their interests in US elections: this is AIPAC. AIPAC has a shitload of connections to TONS of funding and influence across the political spectrum, and uses it very aggressively to support US politicians who are friendly to the current Israeli regime’s interests. Incidentally, they threw in with Trump in both 16 and 20, because as pro-Israel as Biden is, Trump is far more willing to just straight up ignore the concerns of Palestinians and their voters, since he does not care about them due to the fact that a) he is overtly racist, and b) almost no Palestinians or even Muslims are going to be voting for Trump, for obvious reasons, so there’s no quid pro quo for him to exploit.
Anyways: PACs can and do inundate the internet and airwaves with political advertising, and most of it is straight up propaganda of one form or another. And of course, media orgs lean into anything can be spun as controversial (because that drives engagement, which drives ad sales, which is profitable).
Also, I need to be clear at this point: this is not some oblique screed that’s descending into old antisemitic tropes. This is an indictment of an obviously corrupt political mechanism, and one of the particular entities that takes massive advantage of that corrupt system on a regular basis, often to our detriment (and, paradoxically, their detriment as well, in a long-term, strategic, and demographic sense).