Doing what you feel necessary or useful at a local scale is still empowering. Understanding that the effects will be mostly local as well is a good thing, but choosing your battles is perfectly healthy.

Cause people unaware of those events vote to cause those events.

Large groups of people all contributing small amounts towards a goal none of them could accomplish on their own is the only way any of those things ever get done.

Israel Palestine single-voterism is particularly frustrating to me because of the weird way it has to infect completely irrelevant topics. As a particularly crazy example, I remember people arguing about Israel Palestine in the context of the Australian Aboriginal Voice to Parliament debate, a debate about an internal representation mechanism for Australian Aboriginal people, incredibly few of which have any ties to either Israel or Palestine, and a group which I considerably doubt represent a single soldier on either side.

If I lived in 1930 I would definitely care about a city candidate's stances on Germany/Judaism. Even though that candidate couldn't do anything to affect the Germany/Judaism situation, it would still tell me a lot about that candidate.

We have the same problem in the UK. Local councils went all in on the Palestine thing when their job is basically collecting trash, roadworks, planning and education.

I can’t realistically vote a candidate in who doesn’t talk about trash collection but does talk about Middle Eastern politics.

In my ideal world, explaining this stance would be a part of democracy.

It’s an uphill battle vs a tribal mentality, though.

It has nothing to do with Israel or Palestine really. That’s because many Jewish people in the US have had it hammered into their heads, usually through political messaging delivered adjacent to religious practice, that this type of activity is essential to the survival of Israel and of themselves.

It’s the same playbook successfully used with evangelical Christian groups and now even some Catholics. Latinos literally vote for people whose stated aim is to round them up. The technique is fear endorsed by a trusted leader or in a sacred place.

If the political person says the thing they are supposed to say, they’re safe. Otherwise, they want to destroy your way of life.

If there’s no way to know the truth, how do you know you’ve come to the right conclusion?

Did you know Hitler was the president of Germany for about ten years before he started the holocaust?

Was he a fascist during that time?

Fascism is a way overused term. Personally I tend to avoid it unless we're seeing paramilitary forces shooting civilians in the face. Other people may have lower thresholds.

> how are all the people who insult Trump on social media still alive or not locked up

I think you'll find that some of them actually are locked up, and a few of them are dead.

So it can't be fascism or be close it it until we have fully operational death camps?