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The question I have that never really translates to discussion irl is why that even matters. I see them talking a lot about shit like TikTok and shifting views, but when's the last time popular sentiment made the machine do anything? What the fuck does it matter if 98% of America can't stand their stinking rotten guts?
Public will doesnt matter but constituency does. If there are people in power who want to be anti- Israel and think there's an anti Israel donor base, it frees them up to take that position
The real question is if there's more mtgs in congress
Why do you think they try so hard to control public opinion if it doesn't matter?
I’ve been wondering that too. There was a lot of anti-Bush stuff online and the internet was largely against the Iraq war during that time period, but the war still happened.
The biggest protests ever in the US and worldwide to date were the anti-Iraq invasion ones, didn't do a god damn thing to stop it
Not advocating doomerism or not getting involved in protest, but clearly non-disruptive protest don't affect much by themselves
Didn't BLM 2020 take the top spot? I thought it did, it was claimed at the time and I guess I never checked
The anti-war demos had larger single day numbers, but totalling multiple days together more came out for BLM
So I guess it goes by whatever criteria you're applying to select the top
Using that example, is "the war happened because Bush was there." Popular demand did not matter.
The question then is what happens when popular demand changes and voting habits change as a result? What happens if a fairly earnest anti-imperialist is elected? Trump ran on being against wars (twice, hilariously). He correctly called Hillary a warmonger; he just sort of left out the "and I will be too." Without a political record to hold against him it was harder, before his first term, to say "he's definitely lying!"
My point in bringing up Trump (or Sanders putting aside his actual policies and stances and focusing on his "imagined rhetoric" ie how people regard him which is anti-imperialist) is there is clearly a not always subtle, though rarely directly addressed, undercurrent of anti-war from the American populace. Whatever their reasoning people kind of tend to not like wars if they can't see a justification for them (that's kind of key though obviously).
The logical next step is if people are truly against unjustifiable (to them) wars, and they elect a real anti-imperialist, and let's say the CIA doesn't day one just sort of make their head do a weird thing. Then the US has an anti-imperialist president. Or majority in congress. That president/congress, being actually earnestly anti-war, actually abide by the will of the people to avoid conflicts.
One could argue that hypothetical person will never be elected or they'll get CIA/FBI popped day one, etc. The fact is though... that could happen. That person could be elected. That's what Israel and the military industrial complex and all those who suckle on its innumerable teats fear most. They don't care about opinion right now. They're gonna do what they want popular opinion be damned. They care about in 5, 10, 25, 50 years down the line. All it theoretically takes is one election to quite literally vaporize Israel.
Most of the zionists in the US only support Isreal because they think it will trigger prophecies from the Bible. Some zionists understand Isreal is the way for US to project power over the region, but the majority think God needs help setting off the Rapture. They don't actually give a shit about Jews or Israelis. They just want a world war to start that results in the Third Temple being built.
All this to say, it really doesn't matter if 98% of Americans hate Isreal. The politicians and leaders will still support Isreal to maintain control over neighboring countries by the threat of violence. The true believer fundamentalists will still support Isreal because their plan results in Isreal's destruction either way. And a third population already hates Isreal (neo-nazis), but they hate Arabs and Muslims even more.
Pushing something against public sentiment is much more expensive and inefficient, even if they still can do it.