Thank you, Jennifer, for this. It is, unfortunately, very depressing to be reminded of the difference between men and women of character, experience and judiciousness and where we are headed now.
That “values-based foreign policy” will be one of the first things to die, in the absence of any values. And Rubio will be ignored by foreign leaders. They know that no one can truly speak for our incoming Maximum Leader, who might go in a completely different direction on a whim tomorrow.
Truth, and Bible verse spewing Rubio is no heavy hitter as he has caved in his Senatorial role to succor to the elixir of DJT/gop type corrupt power over competence.
Had to look him up. Wow, Rubio - a seat warmer for the billionaire. And with that the gears fall into place of the machinery in Miami. Had thought the Cuban population was his bench support.
I loved this. I have long admired Antony Blinkin and his amazing perseverance and wisdom in the face of many obstacles. Thank you for this, Ms. Rubin. A good start to the day to wake up to your writing in my mailbox.
Rubin's moral blindness on display once again -- in neon. She won't even deal with the issue of the Biden's State Department and Gaza. And that will become increasingly embarrassing because more is going to come out about how the US enabled Israel's scorched earth policy. Pro Publica recently posted a story on "How the State Department Let Israel Get Away with Horrors in Gaza." https://www.propublica.org/article/biden-blinken-state-department-israel-gaza-human-rights-horrors . Blinken's legacy is stained -- how does the Contrarian remain safely contrary? Sink your head in the sand, just the kind of cowardice authoritarians and right-wing thugs in Israel and elsewhere like.
No one would have handled the situation differently, not saying it's right, but let's be real here. Both parties are beholden to Israel and the defense industry. You expecting a different outcome is naive. At least with Blinken and Biden we got humanitarian aid flowing and a efforts were underway constantly to push for a ceasefire.
Secondly, you ignore all the good accomplishments that have happened under the Biden administration. I can guarantee you none of that would have happened under a second Trump administration and we would have lost many of our allies and our country and citizens would be in a more dangerous situation with even more dictators on the rise.
Not to mention we'd likely still be in a recession from covid and even more of our citizens would have died from the Trump administration's utter incompetent.
You raise salient points. If more pressure had been applied might things have been different. Who knows? I and others would have respected the effort -- instead, we looked like enabling puppets for the Israeli right wing. As for humanitarian aid -- let's see what those efforts amounted to. The death toll has yet to be calculated. I guess we can be proud that we averted famine? I was not talking about all the accomplishments of the State Dept -- but the exclusion in the column of what happened in Gaza -- the banished bloody elephant. Finally, saying Trump is (would) have been worse is going to be become very old very fast as a rationalization for immoral behavior.
I would agree in hindsight there could always be a what if this and that. And I too would have liked to see more pressing applied. But we also have no idea what was going on behind the scenes of the administration and we are obviously not in every meeting or conversation. It's entirely possible these things happen in a closed door meeting that wasn't public.
All I know is that publicly the administration has been pushing hard for a ceasefire for over a year and they also sent over $1.2 billion in aid since Oct 2023. There's always more we could have done, but I don't believe that this no win scenario fully defines an administration that tried undo all the damage Trump caused international.
1.2 billion in humanitarian aid since October 2023 -- 310 billion in military aid during the same period. (https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts) Need I say more? No win? For who, the slaughtered women and children? The kids with the bullets in their heads? For what has been turned into a wasteland by the self-proclaimed "most moral army in the world"? I am not arguing the Gaza tragedy undercuts all the admin did internationally. Only insisting that it is a moral stain that will not wash off, no matter how hard Biden supporters try. Sort of like Lady Macbeth initially telling Macbeth "that a little water clears us of this deed." The Mississippi isn't enough ....
No -- that was an error. I was writing too fast, a problem when you are trying to juggle doing too much at one time. I will take the time to come up with the proper figure. I do know that Biden gave Israel 8 billion on his way out. I will stand by my statement -- this is not a matter of "who could have done better" or "Trump would have been worse" -- it is not a "narrative" but an assertion of a moral judgment, something rare in today's discourse. We aided and abetted mass slaughter, an atrocity. If one of our foes had done this America would have heartily condemned it. Because it is an ally, we look the other way as we supply the means to commit crimes against humanity. We are not fooling anyone ...
I wanted to round back to this because it raises an interesting issue. The idea of "let's be real here" amounting to accepting the decisions of entrenched powers (Israel, the US defense industry). Assuming anything otherwise is deemed naive. But if the purpose of the Contrarian is to fight for democracy (and I am all in) then aren't they just the powers we will have to tangle with? Lobbyists, oligarchs, powerful, moneyed military interests (international and national), purveyors of fear, denigrators of the individual and community on both sides of the aisle. We aren't going to get different outcomes unless we battle for them .. if that is naive, so be it.
dictators on the rise, like bibi and our own felon dictator taking over in a few days. I very much doubt any cease fire will hold for a nano second or that Gaza will be done with Isreali's control, djt will make sure of that. I bet he spoke with bibi and got him to agree for now but with the tacit knowledge, all bets are off once djt is back in office.
It is amazing to me how people can approve of Biden or Blinken in relationship to the Gaza genocide. Trump would have and will do worse but genocide is genocide regardless of the party that engages in this behavior.
At the moment, the approach seems to be to ignore the issue on the mainstream left -- rev up against Trump and the catastrophe to come. But more and more about the horrors in Gaza is going to come out. (Despite the record number of journalists killed covering the war.) What interests me is whether the democracy-loving contrarians will join with the authoritarians in undercutting international laws regarding human rights. Russia or Israel committed war crimes? Perhaps genocide? Who decides? No one. Might makes right ...which is just the way Trump and the soft authoritarians like it.
How about Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday? Gaza has been going on for a while -- and Biden set down at least one red line (Rafah), which he retreated from ...
I find comments like that unhelpful. He oversaw my tax paying dollars being used in a genocide. Can the bar not be high enough to expect our leaders will not knowingly fund genocide?
I highly doubt you read my comment. Your attitude is exactly why we have a hamster dictator.
Everyone who refused to vote for Kamala over Gaza (which she has no control over as VP btw) is 100% at fault for this disaster about to happen.
You all told women they are less of a person than men. You all told minorities and immigrants they are less of a person than others. You all told the world that Americans are selfish and ignorant. You all told the poor and middle class that you don't care if our country is bought and sold to the highest billionaire. You all told the world you're ok with a rapist and felon being president.
So I will watch for the next 4 years and when you finally come to your senses that you massively fucked up by refusing to vote for a qualified woman to lead the country, I'll be there in the background reminding you that you are to blame.
Kamala had no control over Gaza but her attitude was -- let's say incoherent -- or less than forceful, to be charitable.
And I hear you about what not voting for Kamala meant. (I supported her, with my vote and money, because I saw the danger of electing a fascist).
But, for the sake of honesty, let's keep in mind what Biden's savage treatment of Gaza told the world about us -- that we saw the Palestinians to be less than human beings, that we chose might over right in a lopsided war in which we supported, despite ample evidence, an army that used the latest technology (including AI) and arms, the latter supplied by us, to slaughter innocent people and decimate a country. (One that the hamster dictator and his goons see as a real estate opportunity, now that the animals have been moved off or killed.) The world saw a country that talks about human rights undercut international courts and organizations charged with maintaining standards set after the Nuremberg trials.
I will be in the background, as will many others, to remind you that the "nobody could have done any better" excuse does not mitigate the monstrousness that was done. There will be voices who will speak for the dead ...
I hear you as well and would have loved to see more action from Biden and his administration because the atrocities in Gaza are unforgivable. But I am also too pissed off about the current threat who is the devil himself to remain solely focused on that when it all could have been prevented.
I saw a bigger picture like you and it doesn't excuse the actions of Biden, but I don't think it fully eradicates everything good that he's done.
We're now in hell and it's going to be a long a tortuous 4 years if we're lucky. I just wish everyone who refused to vote also looked at the bigger picture because we will all suffer now as a result.
I'm delighted with The Contrarian idea, and thank you for taking this risk. However, please stop sending so many editions daily. One or two will suffice and ensure thorough reading by subscribers.
And I signed up for the Contrarian primarily so that I could get Jennifer Rubin’s daily incisive assessment of what’s going on in our democracy. And I’m not even getting that!
I quit The Washington Post, since I'm tired of having billionaires control what I read. That has left me with extra time to read The Contrarian. So I don't mind more editions.
I think it's just multiple authors per day, similar to other publications. There is probably a way to turn off some notifications for some of them if you want
I'm sure you're figuring things out but I'd prefer a daily or twice daily email with a list of the articles and a link to them. I'd also like to see a compilation of whee things stand as of inuaguration day so the narcissists dont' make claims to successes they don't deserve. Well, they will make claims but we need a list to refute them. For instance, the border is very quiet recenly thanks to Biden.
We were well served by this man. Rubio may be the least injurious of tRump's picks, but he doesn't have the experience or wisdom that Blinken has. And he will be executing tRump's (and Vlad's) vision for the US on the world stage.
And now he is gone, and an administration that emulates Russia's is taking over our government with the intention of destroying the Constitution. No country valuing freedom will take the U.S. in their confidence, and they cannot be blamed for that. The last election unleashed a traitor into the White House who values nothing except his own money and power. He will let freedom, as well as people, die in his quest for it, and there is no one left to come to our aid as France has in the past. We are on our own to fight this scourge.
I am so saddened by this. But, can't devolve into becoming his serf either. The "Lords and Serfs" model is well on its way but we are not yoked to accept this. I will not obey in advance.
We've fought too hard to get to the 21st century and almost 250 years of democracy and Constitutional rights for ALL progress to simply bend the knee.
I am so glad Ms. Rubin has walked away from the appeaser's paper. Thank you for this space and great writing Jennifer.
Martha, I'm glad you're able to do those things without living in dread of threatened Social Security and Medicare cuts. (I mean this sincerely, not as a rebuke.) Many older people are dependent upon those programs, and praying too.
Though I would not be as harsh as the previous commenter, I concur that Blinken's primary legacy is that he presided over a genocide in Gaza. While I realize he was only doing his boss's bidding, had he a conscience he would have resigned rather then countenance the slaughter
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I wrote it. As someone who can look at the bigger picture and realize what's at play. I would suggest you look at the entire 4 year administration to see what happened
Israel was attacked. We still haven't gotten word about American hostages. We were not asked to bargain for them. To this day, there really has not been a mediation. Qatar is not an honest broker. Not a "mediator."
Israel had the right to respond, not to kill tens of thousands of non-combatants. Netanyahu and BenGivr are responsible, and courts will decide. Biden was a facilitator. I thought Blinken would resign a year ago. Instead he became complicit
Obviously, it went very badly for Hamas, and on Oct 8 I said it would, that Netanyahoo would come down on them like a ton of bricks because that's who he is. So yeah, they miscalculated. And so did Netanyahu by failing to believe Israel had to defend against an Oct 7. A sin of omission.
This eye for an eye behavior is primitive, and I would've thought beneath Israel. But Israel decided to take the terrorists' bait and commit probable war crimes, which is never ever justifiable. The entire Gaza Strip has become one big concentration camp with starvation and worse intentionally engineered by Israeli government. That's a war crime, in my opinion. We'll see what the courts say.
The Israel of my youth no longer exists. It was swallowed by anger and vengeance. Very sad.
Victim blaming works for both sides in this debate. Israelis, beset from all sides since their founding, were already victimized by local Arab hostility and complicity in the Nazi attempt at exterminating European Jewry. Three further wars, ongoing terror attacks and 75 years later, the October 7 attacks woke up a complacent citizenry to the reality that their security was not all that secure.
The “Free Palestine” narrative views Israel as a just another European colonial project, out of step with the historical decolonization of former African and Asian vassal states. While Apartheid fell in South Africa, it thrives in Palestine, they say. An entire people are being displaced from their native lands in large grabs and bit by bit, they say, justifying resistance and reviving the truism…”one man’s terrorists is another’s freedom fighter”.
As an American resident (in land formerly held by the Massachusett tribe), whose expansive country was built by displacing populations from their native lands…I am not so quick to judge the victimhood of the parties involved. I do know that Israel is not going to dis-establish itself, and is still beset by enemies intent on eliminating a Jewish presence in the Middle East and establishing Muslim dominion throughout the region. They have succeeded in redefining the “legitimate defense” by the Israeli military as genocide, with the help of an army of propagandists on social media and in academia.
President Biden and Secretary Blinken have refused to withhold military support for our ally while using public rhetoric and private diplomacy to position themselves as being for an end to the punishment of non-combatants in Gaza. This is Realpolitik worthy of Kissinger, and I am not sure they deserve accolades like this piece, which glosses over the essential fact…the US supports a continuation of Israel as a Jewish state, and opposes an Islamic State of Palestine, which is what it would be, and what this war is about.
My perspective is that Israel’s “right to exist” is no different than ours. Neither they nor we are going to unravel our histories and go back. Just as I, being a liberal guy, want equal rights and greater opportunity for black and native Americans, I want the same for Arab people living in Israel…and those that accept citizenship in Israel have more of both than Arabs anywhere else in the ME.
That's a straw man argument. No one here is saying Israel has to surrender. What Israel is required to do is follow international law. Starving civilians is a war crime and does nothing to provide security for Israelis. Hamas killed 1200 in Israel. Israel has killed 10s of thousands, many of them civilians. That's an immoral response. Many Jewish Israelis feel this way. Many Jews all over the world feel this way. Read Haaretz if you don't believe it.
Anyone else feel like we are like an innocent man taking his last steps before entering the gas chamber? All the competent people in DC are about to flee the scene and the scavengers are being unshackled.
They could never get a real job and need this man's grift to achieve their own grift and are loyal to a fault. never seen such sycophancy in my life. I need to read "All the President's Men" again as I was young during Nixon. DJT has been and will always be = Nixon corruption x 1000.
I do have a sense of waiting, with foreboding, not knowing, and the opposite of optimistic. Trump is hos own malignancy, but Musk is another type, equally poisonous, and each of those billionaires competing for power have their own...idiosyncracies. They have too much money, especially for the self-centered weirdness in their heads. Too much money. It should never have gotten to this. The GOP and late stage capitalism have driven us here.
A mess of truth here in these comments. However, I don't want to lose Jennifer's main thread, that Blinken stands up for democracy--and from inside a very small boat surrounded by an ocean full of hungry sharks. Also, it seems to me important to keep in mind that the fundamental source of the no-win for the U.S. situation on the international scene is neither Blinken nor Biden. On that, I think it's a good idea to identify the obvious courage
I'd build on your statement by adding that Rubin's column rightly notes that Blinken's courageous choices were accomplished with rare grace.
That graceful courage also extended to continuous efforts to persuade Netanyahu's administration to change direction. The continued effort demonstrated Blinken's respect for diplomacy, as well as for national sovereignty (even when that sovereign nation is behaving terribly). It (the continued effort) also has given us a promise of hostage rescue and ceasefire.
Yes, I'm aware that the incoming president already has claimed credit for the positive results of State's intelligent and persistent efforts. And, sadly, our muzzled mainstream media is amplifying his claims.
And, yes, I'm aware that Netanyahu is fully capable of backing out of the agreement. Ironically, the change in U S. administration enables that eventuality.
None of this should be misconstrued as an attempt to minimize the horrendous suffering in Gaza. Doing so is a dangerous distraction from Rubin's point; one we can ill afford.
People ignore the fact that the Biden administration was pushing from a full ceasefire after a very short time and it took a long time. They ignore it because it ruins their narrative that Biden is solely responsible for the Gaza war rather than Israel's Trump-like president Bibi. They ignore it because they don't have the capacity to look at other issues of the bigger picture. They are as bad as single issue voters who only vote Republican because of abortion.
That's always the problem - how do you tell whether It's a lack of capacity to look at other issues or the fact that recognizing those other issues wouuld conflict with their agenda?
Garrett Mengel: To your good question, in my experience, the context of other communications can reveal a "lack of capacity to look at other issues," which is about a person's basic lack of development; but the "agenda" question can be the same, but commonly it's less about a lesser moment in one's development than it is a calcification of a reached view where the attitude of dogmatism has set in. Also, the first can be accompanied by an openness to new thinking, while the latter, by definition, carries the rather obvious clues to a closure of mind. Raising the question to them might not get you your answer, but you would be doing a service to do so. As you probably know, questions are like poison arrows of truth to both a lack of development and a dogmatic attitude.
"...questions are like poison arrows of truth to both a lack of development and a dogmatic attitude." Brilliant. We need to get this mindset into the schools. There is too much focus on having answers which leads to wrongly placed feelings of achievment. We need to have courses in, and a culture of, asking good questions, from day one.
Kim: About education--it has seemed to me for a long time that, though I have much good to say about teachers, especially in K-12, there has been for decades (at least) a huge set of oversights in their training about one's own and one's students' interior field and the developments that can and do occur there, though many teachers seem intuitive about it. Some good movements occur (like SEL) but seem only haphazard at this point and not systematic as they should be. It's a serious philosophical issue that is just now coming to consciousness (in my limited view of it).
I cannot read this without trembling in fear at what's to come for our country and the world. Remember that Trump's first Secretary of State called him a "fucking moron" and that was at the beginning of his awful tenure, not the end. Of all Trump's nominees, Rubio is probably the least objectionable, yet I cannot imagine our enemies taking him seriously, much less the Felon-Elect he will report to.
Look, Gaza is a disaster. But you seem to be nothing but a one trick self-righteous pony. I knew far too many of the same ilk back in the 70s. Their obsessions helped elected Nixon and Reagan. Yours helped bring us Trump 2.0.
Wrong. The racist misogynist voters didn't want a black woman for President. Biden's unconditional support of Israel will be seen as a huge mistake in the future. If we don't stand by the Geneva Conventions our troops will be in greater peril.
Blinken is a complete phony. He has zero capacity for compassion. He has zero sense of the Palestinians as human beings. I don’t think he is fit to be a garbage man. Take another look Jennifer and try reading Peter Beinart. You might learn something.
And just what are we doing to keep Trump et al's "feet to the fire" regarding Jennifer's superb piece? I write my N.C. Senators every 10 days and yet I suspect their aides "sanitize" my messages. Trump is the enraged, crazy uncle in the attic who's destined to be another Nebuchadnezzer II of Babylon! And then there's Vance! Question: What part does the fact that 50% of Americans read at the 6th or below grade level have play in this conundrum? And to what degree does the FOX/Murdoch cabal (and like, twisted media) effect this 50%?
Thank you, Jennifer, for this. It is, unfortunately, very depressing to be reminded of the difference between men and women of character, experience and judiciousness and where we are headed now.
Hear, hear.
That “values-based foreign policy” will be one of the first things to die, in the absence of any values. And Rubio will be ignored by foreign leaders. They know that no one can truly speak for our incoming Maximum Leader, who might go in a completely different direction on a whim tomorrow.
Truth, and Bible verse spewing Rubio is no heavy hitter as he has caved in his Senatorial role to succor to the elixir of DJT/gop type corrupt power over competence.
Well, when he bothers to show up for work.
By Norman Braman shall you know him.
Had to look him up. Wow, Rubio - a seat warmer for the billionaire. And with that the gears fall into place of the machinery in Miami. Had thought the Cuban population was his bench support.
You can learn 99% of all you need to know about Rubio in a 3 minutes song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsJ-OURETOE
If you remember ABBA, you'll even get a smile out of it!
Yeah and Lil Marco rolled off the Mini lot.
I loved this. I have long admired Antony Blinkin and his amazing perseverance and wisdom in the face of many obstacles. Thank you for this, Ms. Rubin. A good start to the day to wake up to your writing in my mailbox.
Ditto!
Rubin's moral blindness on display once again -- in neon. She won't even deal with the issue of the Biden's State Department and Gaza. And that will become increasingly embarrassing because more is going to come out about how the US enabled Israel's scorched earth policy. Pro Publica recently posted a story on "How the State Department Let Israel Get Away with Horrors in Gaza." https://www.propublica.org/article/biden-blinken-state-department-israel-gaza-human-rights-horrors . Blinken's legacy is stained -- how does the Contrarian remain safely contrary? Sink your head in the sand, just the kind of cowardice authoritarians and right-wing thugs in Israel and elsewhere like.
No one would have handled the situation differently, not saying it's right, but let's be real here. Both parties are beholden to Israel and the defense industry. You expecting a different outcome is naive. At least with Blinken and Biden we got humanitarian aid flowing and a efforts were underway constantly to push for a ceasefire.
Secondly, you ignore all the good accomplishments that have happened under the Biden administration. I can guarantee you none of that would have happened under a second Trump administration and we would have lost many of our allies and our country and citizens would be in a more dangerous situation with even more dictators on the rise.
Not to mention we'd likely still be in a recession from covid and even more of our citizens would have died from the Trump administration's utter incompetent.
You raise salient points. If more pressure had been applied might things have been different. Who knows? I and others would have respected the effort -- instead, we looked like enabling puppets for the Israeli right wing. As for humanitarian aid -- let's see what those efforts amounted to. The death toll has yet to be calculated. I guess we can be proud that we averted famine? I was not talking about all the accomplishments of the State Dept -- but the exclusion in the column of what happened in Gaza -- the banished bloody elephant. Finally, saying Trump is (would) have been worse is going to be become very old very fast as a rationalization for immoral behavior.
I would agree in hindsight there could always be a what if this and that. And I too would have liked to see more pressing applied. But we also have no idea what was going on behind the scenes of the administration and we are obviously not in every meeting or conversation. It's entirely possible these things happen in a closed door meeting that wasn't public.
All I know is that publicly the administration has been pushing hard for a ceasefire for over a year and they also sent over $1.2 billion in aid since Oct 2023. There's always more we could have done, but I don't believe that this no win scenario fully defines an administration that tried undo all the damage Trump caused international.
1.2 billion in humanitarian aid since October 2023 -- 310 billion in military aid during the same period. (https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts) Need I say more? No win? For who, the slaughtered women and children? The kids with the bullets in their heads? For what has been turned into a wasteland by the self-proclaimed "most moral army in the world"? I am not arguing the Gaza tragedy undercuts all the admin did internationally. Only insisting that it is a moral stain that will not wash off, no matter how hard Biden supporters try. Sort of like Lady Macbeth initially telling Macbeth "that a little water clears us of this deed." The Mississippi isn't enough ....
The article and the graph referenced in the article clearly states that the $310 billion in aid is from the 1960s-2024, not since 2023 like you said.
Are you purposely ignoring that data to fit your narrative?
No -- that was an error. I was writing too fast, a problem when you are trying to juggle doing too much at one time. I will take the time to come up with the proper figure. I do know that Biden gave Israel 8 billion on his way out. I will stand by my statement -- this is not a matter of "who could have done better" or "Trump would have been worse" -- it is not a "narrative" but an assertion of a moral judgment, something rare in today's discourse. We aided and abetted mass slaughter, an atrocity. If one of our foes had done this America would have heartily condemned it. Because it is an ally, we look the other way as we supply the means to commit crimes against humanity. We are not fooling anyone ...
damn typo -- "is going to become very old very fast .."
I wanted to round back to this because it raises an interesting issue. The idea of "let's be real here" amounting to accepting the decisions of entrenched powers (Israel, the US defense industry). Assuming anything otherwise is deemed naive. But if the purpose of the Contrarian is to fight for democracy (and I am all in) then aren't they just the powers we will have to tangle with? Lobbyists, oligarchs, powerful, moneyed military interests (international and national), purveyors of fear, denigrators of the individual and community on both sides of the aisle. We aren't going to get different outcomes unless we battle for them .. if that is naive, so be it.
dictators on the rise, like bibi and our own felon dictator taking over in a few days. I very much doubt any cease fire will hold for a nano second or that Gaza will be done with Isreali's control, djt will make sure of that. I bet he spoke with bibi and got him to agree for now but with the tacit knowledge, all bets are off once djt is back in office.
It is amazing to me how people can approve of Biden or Blinken in relationship to the Gaza genocide. Trump would have and will do worse but genocide is genocide regardless of the party that engages in this behavior.
At the moment, the approach seems to be to ignore the issue on the mainstream left -- rev up against Trump and the catastrophe to come. But more and more about the horrors in Gaza is going to come out. (Despite the record number of journalists killed covering the war.) What interests me is whether the democracy-loving contrarians will join with the authoritarians in undercutting international laws regarding human rights. Russia or Israel committed war crimes? Perhaps genocide? Who decides? No one. Might makes right ...which is just the way Trump and the soft authoritarians like it.
Monday morning quarterbacking is always the easiest.
How about Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday? Gaza has been going on for a while -- and Biden set down at least one red line (Rafah), which he retreated from ...
Thank you..how can this be balanced reporting?
Please name the morally perfect statesman you most admire.
…he just died.
I'll take "who is Keri Russell?" for 100
You mean diplomat. A statesman is very different.
I find comments like that unhelpful. He oversaw my tax paying dollars being used in a genocide. Can the bar not be high enough to expect our leaders will not knowingly fund genocide?
Let's wait to shoot ourselves in the foot until we see how Trump fixes this.
Hear hear...thanks for speaking out.
I highly doubt you read my comment. Your attitude is exactly why we have a hamster dictator.
Everyone who refused to vote for Kamala over Gaza (which she has no control over as VP btw) is 100% at fault for this disaster about to happen.
You all told women they are less of a person than men. You all told minorities and immigrants they are less of a person than others. You all told the world that Americans are selfish and ignorant. You all told the poor and middle class that you don't care if our country is bought and sold to the highest billionaire. You all told the world you're ok with a rapist and felon being president.
So I will watch for the next 4 years and when you finally come to your senses that you massively fucked up by refusing to vote for a qualified woman to lead the country, I'll be there in the background reminding you that you are to blame.
Kamala had no control over Gaza but her attitude was -- let's say incoherent -- or less than forceful, to be charitable.
And I hear you about what not voting for Kamala meant. (I supported her, with my vote and money, because I saw the danger of electing a fascist).
But, for the sake of honesty, let's keep in mind what Biden's savage treatment of Gaza told the world about us -- that we saw the Palestinians to be less than human beings, that we chose might over right in a lopsided war in which we supported, despite ample evidence, an army that used the latest technology (including AI) and arms, the latter supplied by us, to slaughter innocent people and decimate a country. (One that the hamster dictator and his goons see as a real estate opportunity, now that the animals have been moved off or killed.) The world saw a country that talks about human rights undercut international courts and organizations charged with maintaining standards set after the Nuremberg trials.
I will be in the background, as will many others, to remind you that the "nobody could have done any better" excuse does not mitigate the monstrousness that was done. There will be voices who will speak for the dead ...
I hear you as well and would have loved to see more action from Biden and his administration because the atrocities in Gaza are unforgivable. But I am also too pissed off about the current threat who is the devil himself to remain solely focused on that when it all could have been prevented.
I saw a bigger picture like you and it doesn't excuse the actions of Biden, but I don't think it fully eradicates everything good that he's done.
We're now in hell and it's going to be a long a tortuous 4 years if we're lucky. I just wish everyone who refused to vote also looked at the bigger picture because we will all suffer now as a result.
Why don't you bother reading it? LOL.
I'm delighted with The Contrarian idea, and thank you for taking this risk. However, please stop sending so many editions daily. One or two will suffice and ensure thorough reading by subscribers.
I agree with this. I am being inundated.
And I signed up for the Contrarian primarily so that I could get Jennifer Rubin’s daily incisive assessment of what’s going on in our democracy. And I’m not even getting that!
There is another Substack entitled "What Joe Biden Did Today" and they will switch over to Trump on Monday.
I quit The Washington Post, since I'm tired of having billionaires control what I read. That has left me with extra time to read The Contrarian. So I don't mind more editions.
I think it's just multiple authors per day, similar to other publications. There is probably a way to turn off some notifications for some of them if you want
Easy, just file them, come back if you want, delete if you don't.
Agreed. One or two a day. I end up deleting articles because there are so many.
We didn't read the entire Post every day.
I'm sure you're figuring things out but I'd prefer a daily or twice daily email with a list of the articles and a link to them. I'd also like to see a compilation of whee things stand as of inuaguration day so the narcissists dont' make claims to successes they don't deserve. Well, they will make claims but we need a list to refute them. For instance, the border is very quiet recenly thanks to Biden.
Yes! Just wrote same!
We were well served by this man. Rubio may be the least injurious of tRump's picks, but he doesn't have the experience or wisdom that Blinken has. And he will be executing tRump's (and Vlad's) vision for the US on the world stage.
And now he is gone, and an administration that emulates Russia's is taking over our government with the intention of destroying the Constitution. No country valuing freedom will take the U.S. in their confidence, and they cannot be blamed for that. The last election unleashed a traitor into the White House who values nothing except his own money and power. He will let freedom, as well as people, die in his quest for it, and there is no one left to come to our aid as France has in the past. We are on our own to fight this scourge.
I am so saddened by this. But, can't devolve into becoming his serf either. The "Lords and Serfs" model is well on its way but we are not yoked to accept this. I will not obey in advance.
We've fought too hard to get to the 21st century and almost 250 years of democracy and Constitutional rights for ALL progress to simply bend the knee.
I am so glad Ms. Rubin has walked away from the appeaser's paper. Thank you for this space and great writing Jennifer.
s/
USMC veteran
So sad and so prescient. I’m glad I’m old and can read books every day. And go to exercise class. And pray.
Martha, I'm glad you're able to do those things without living in dread of threatened Social Security and Medicare cuts. (I mean this sincerely, not as a rebuke.) Many older people are dependent upon those programs, and praying too.
Exercise class is the greatest of these three. Skip that, and the rest will fall away.
Though I would not be as harsh as the previous commenter, I concur that Blinken's primary legacy is that he presided over a genocide in Gaza. While I realize he was only doing his boss's bidding, had he a conscience he would have resigned rather then countenance the slaughter
I highly disagree. His legacy is restoring American leadership to the world after Trump destroyed it.
Sounds like AIPAC wrote this.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I wrote it. As someone who can look at the bigger picture and realize what's at play. I would suggest you look at the entire 4 year administration to see what happened
I don't listen to AIPAC fans.
turned your name around huh ?
good bot move...I like it
read a little civil war history did we
Hamas could have stopped it on day one.
isreal could have stopped it before it happened.
Israel was attacked. We still haven't gotten word about American hostages. We were not asked to bargain for them. To this day, there really has not been a mediation. Qatar is not an honest broker. Not a "mediator."
Gaza was given independence by Isreal in 2005. They were given billions to develop into a country. Instead spent it on weapons, on war. Deja vu. They killed many of their own people. Note the date. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/05/gaza-palestinians-tortured-summarily-killed-by-hamas-forces-during-2014-conflict/
Israel had the right to respond, not to kill tens of thousands of non-combatants. Netanyahu and BenGivr are responsible, and courts will decide. Biden was a facilitator. I thought Blinken would resign a year ago. Instead he became complicit
State whether or not this was the result Hamas wanted!
Obviously, it went very badly for Hamas, and on Oct 8 I said it would, that Netanyahoo would come down on them like a ton of bricks because that's who he is. So yeah, they miscalculated. And so did Netanyahu by failing to believe Israel had to defend against an Oct 7. A sin of omission.
This eye for an eye behavior is primitive, and I would've thought beneath Israel. But Israel decided to take the terrorists' bait and commit probable war crimes, which is never ever justifiable. The entire Gaza Strip has become one big concentration camp with starvation and worse intentionally engineered by Israeli government. That's a war crime, in my opinion. We'll see what the courts say.
The Israel of my youth no longer exists. It was swallowed by anger and vengeance. Very sad.
Victim blaming works for both sides in this debate. Israelis, beset from all sides since their founding, were already victimized by local Arab hostility and complicity in the Nazi attempt at exterminating European Jewry. Three further wars, ongoing terror attacks and 75 years later, the October 7 attacks woke up a complacent citizenry to the reality that their security was not all that secure.
The “Free Palestine” narrative views Israel as a just another European colonial project, out of step with the historical decolonization of former African and Asian vassal states. While Apartheid fell in South Africa, it thrives in Palestine, they say. An entire people are being displaced from their native lands in large grabs and bit by bit, they say, justifying resistance and reviving the truism…”one man’s terrorists is another’s freedom fighter”.
As an American resident (in land formerly held by the Massachusett tribe), whose expansive country was built by displacing populations from their native lands…I am not so quick to judge the victimhood of the parties involved. I do know that Israel is not going to dis-establish itself, and is still beset by enemies intent on eliminating a Jewish presence in the Middle East and establishing Muslim dominion throughout the region. They have succeeded in redefining the “legitimate defense” by the Israeli military as genocide, with the help of an army of propagandists on social media and in academia.
President Biden and Secretary Blinken have refused to withhold military support for our ally while using public rhetoric and private diplomacy to position themselves as being for an end to the punishment of non-combatants in Gaza. This is Realpolitik worthy of Kissinger, and I am not sure they deserve accolades like this piece, which glosses over the essential fact…the US supports a continuation of Israel as a Jewish state, and opposes an Islamic State of Palestine, which is what it would be, and what this war is about.
I have a lot of Arab friends. Mostly Maronite. A few were Syrian Orthodox. I worked with a few Moslems. Two of my clerks were Shiite.
All agree that if they get rid of the Jews, they're next.
In essence, Gaza was an Islamic state, derived from Egypt.
religion causes a lot of problems
human nature causes the rest
My perspective is that Israel’s “right to exist” is no different than ours. Neither they nor we are going to unravel our histories and go back. Just as I, being a liberal guy, want equal rights and greater opportunity for black and native Americans, I want the same for Arab people living in Israel…and those that accept citizenship in Israel have more of both than Arabs anywhere else in the ME.
https://truthout.org/articles/americas-stamp-is-everywhere-on-bomb-shells-in-gaza-report-finds/
One evil does not justify another
That assumption is based on bull.
How so?
Don't want to get hurt? Surrender.
That's a straw man argument. No one here is saying Israel has to surrender. What Israel is required to do is follow international law. Starving civilians is a war crime and does nothing to provide security for Israelis. Hamas killed 1200 in Israel. Israel has killed 10s of thousands, many of them civilians. That's an immoral response. Many Jewish Israelis feel this way. Many Jews all over the world feel this way. Read Haaretz if you don't believe it.
That does not excuse our complicity. And Israel could have needed it by returning stolen land.
Exactly!
Primary? I think democracy comes before this. Just imagine what Trump will do.
Anyone else feel like we are like an innocent man taking his last steps before entering the gas chamber? All the competent people in DC are about to flee the scene and the scavengers are being unshackled.
"scavengers are being unshackled." Perfect.
They could never get a real job and need this man's grift to achieve their own grift and are loyal to a fault. never seen such sycophancy in my life. I need to read "All the President's Men" again as I was young during Nixon. DJT has been and will always be = Nixon corruption x 1000.
I do have a sense of waiting, with foreboding, not knowing, and the opposite of optimistic. Trump is hos own malignancy, but Musk is another type, equally poisonous, and each of those billionaires competing for power have their own...idiosyncracies. They have too much money, especially for the self-centered weirdness in their heads. Too much money. It should never have gotten to this. The GOP and late stage capitalism have driven us here.
Good analogy, Anne.
For the future: Rubio is head and shoulders above the other Trump nominees, but in a world of midgets, that ain’t much to write home about.
A mess of truth here in these comments. However, I don't want to lose Jennifer's main thread, that Blinken stands up for democracy--and from inside a very small boat surrounded by an ocean full of hungry sharks. Also, it seems to me important to keep in mind that the fundamental source of the no-win for the U.S. situation on the international scene is neither Blinken nor Biden. On that, I think it's a good idea to identify the obvious courage
I'd build on your statement by adding that Rubin's column rightly notes that Blinken's courageous choices were accomplished with rare grace.
That graceful courage also extended to continuous efforts to persuade Netanyahu's administration to change direction. The continued effort demonstrated Blinken's respect for diplomacy, as well as for national sovereignty (even when that sovereign nation is behaving terribly). It (the continued effort) also has given us a promise of hostage rescue and ceasefire.
Yes, I'm aware that the incoming president already has claimed credit for the positive results of State's intelligent and persistent efforts. And, sadly, our muzzled mainstream media is amplifying his claims.
And, yes, I'm aware that Netanyahu is fully capable of backing out of the agreement. Ironically, the change in U S. administration enables that eventuality.
None of this should be misconstrued as an attempt to minimize the horrendous suffering in Gaza. Doing so is a dangerous distraction from Rubin's point; one we can ill afford.
People ignore the fact that the Biden administration was pushing from a full ceasefire after a very short time and it took a long time. They ignore it because it ruins their narrative that Biden is solely responsible for the Gaza war rather than Israel's Trump-like president Bibi. They ignore it because they don't have the capacity to look at other issues of the bigger picture. They are as bad as single issue voters who only vote Republican because of abortion.
That's always the problem - how do you tell whether It's a lack of capacity to look at other issues or the fact that recognizing those other issues wouuld conflict with their agenda?
Garrett Mengel: To your good question, in my experience, the context of other communications can reveal a "lack of capacity to look at other issues," which is about a person's basic lack of development; but the "agenda" question can be the same, but commonly it's less about a lesser moment in one's development than it is a calcification of a reached view where the attitude of dogmatism has set in. Also, the first can be accompanied by an openness to new thinking, while the latter, by definition, carries the rather obvious clues to a closure of mind. Raising the question to them might not get you your answer, but you would be doing a service to do so. As you probably know, questions are like poison arrows of truth to both a lack of development and a dogmatic attitude.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. -Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)
Sigh . . . .
"...questions are like poison arrows of truth to both a lack of development and a dogmatic attitude." Brilliant. We need to get this mindset into the schools. There is too much focus on having answers which leads to wrongly placed feelings of achievment. We need to have courses in, and a culture of, asking good questions, from day one.
Kim: About education--it has seemed to me for a long time that, though I have much good to say about teachers, especially in K-12, there has been for decades (at least) a huge set of oversights in their training about one's own and one's students' interior field and the developments that can and do occur there, though many teachers seem intuitive about it. Some good movements occur (like SEL) but seem only haphazard at this point and not systematic as they should be. It's a serious philosophical issue that is just now coming to consciousness (in my limited view of it).
I enjoyed your last sentence and overall thought.
Well said. I agree. There are likely no answers.
I cannot read this without trembling in fear at what's to come for our country and the world. Remember that Trump's first Secretary of State called him a "fucking moron" and that was at the beginning of his awful tenure, not the end. Of all Trump's nominees, Rubio is probably the least objectionable, yet I cannot imagine our enemies taking him seriously, much less the Felon-Elect he will report to.
What a wonderful piece. Thank you for writing.
Great idea -- each week; we'll need the uplift!!
It is wonderful to see you unfettered by column length limits, WaPo politics, etc.Thank you for the thorough analysis of Anthony Blinken.
Except for the complicity in genocide. A blind spot bad enough that I wonder if Jen should get checked for macular degeneration.
Look, Gaza is a disaster. But you seem to be nothing but a one trick self-righteous pony. I knew far too many of the same ilk back in the 70s. Their obsessions helped elected Nixon and Reagan. Yours helped bring us Trump 2.0.
Wrong. The racist misogynist voters didn't want a black woman for President. Biden's unconditional support of Israel will be seen as a huge mistake in the future. If we don't stand by the Geneva Conventions our troops will be in greater peril.
Blinken is a complete phony. He has zero capacity for compassion. He has zero sense of the Palestinians as human beings. I don’t think he is fit to be a garbage man. Take another look Jennifer and try reading Peter Beinart. You might learn something.
No, Rubin is correct. You just have a bunch of hate clouding your view of an honorable and decent man.
No, just the capacity to be honest.
And just what are we doing to keep Trump et al's "feet to the fire" regarding Jennifer's superb piece? I write my N.C. Senators every 10 days and yet I suspect their aides "sanitize" my messages. Trump is the enraged, crazy uncle in the attic who's destined to be another Nebuchadnezzer II of Babylon! And then there's Vance! Question: What part does the fact that 50% of Americans read at the 6th or below grade level have play in this conundrum? And to what degree does the FOX/Murdoch cabal (and like, twisted media) effect this 50%?