Trump sympathizes with failsons like MBS.

Who says failsons are a US-only phenomenon?

That was my interpretation -- that the "he" is MBS and Vindman is implying that MBS made some admission in the call.

It's not issues, it's personalities. Issues are mostly baked into the views on the parties by the time campaigning starts. Democrats need a skilled and charismatic messenger, and if they find one they'll probably win, regardless of the issues.

Children of Men?

I think you're enjoying this... But I don't judge! Take pleasure and joy where you can!

But is the Holocaust the only type of genocide? Are you arguing that starving millions to death wouldn't be genocide if there's no explicit intent, but rather just a combination of inertia, incompetence, and vague, unstated malevolence?

Okay. That makes sense for then, but not now, and Josh is more than smart enough to realize this.

Not the end of the world - I still think Josh is great and I'm proud to be a long time TPM subscriber. But I'm still curious what he's thinking.

In other words, until you clearly explain your thinking about the g word, lots and lots of your fans are going to be very curious about your thinking on it.

I think you're on the right side of this (in general), but I'm interested in your thinking because I've admired your thinking and writing for so many years, so I'm very curious what we're seeing differently that's leading us to different conclusions (even if we're both mostly on the same side).

"Long battle"... Maybe. But there are tons and tons of people who never even considered the g word until very recently, and it's because of the facts on the ground. If Israel is starving Gaza, whether through malice or malicious incompetence, then it might come close to qualifying.

And also whether "attempted genocide" counts, and at what point "attempted" becomes "in progress".

Fair enough. Maybe the disconnect is just semantics - whether genocide is necessarily a planned, intended, and organized operation, or whether it can unplanned and driven by rage, incompetence, convenience, and a willingness to look they other way. And if the latter, when is the line crossed?

Fair enough. Hopefully you can accept that many really do believe it; i.e. they're not "lying", even if you think they're unreasonable.

It's also the "lie" language -- like no reasonable person could possibly think that current policy/practice in Gaza could be genocidal. I think that's way off. When they're regularly shooting civilians seeking food, among many other despicable things, it's pretty reasonable to be concerned about G.

But what does "early" genocide, or "pre-"genocide" look like? Probably a lot of different kinds of things. It seems to me that officers either giving orders or turning a blind eye to shooting civilians seeking food aid might be "pre-"genocidal, or maybe "pre-"ethnic-cleansing, at best.

Another way to restate my mild criticism - when you say "don't lie about genocide", it seems like you're saying "don't use hyperbole to fight ongoing atrocities and perhaps prevent a potential genocide", which sounds to me like a counterproductive message.

"Political needs, inertia, and rage" might be enough to lead to genocide in some circumstances. That's all I'm saying. And we really should all be very concerned about that, for obvious moral reasons but also for the future of Israel.

I don't know if it's genocide. But Gazan civilians are being killed in bunches every day while just trying to get food aid. The time to worry about a genocide is before it occurs, not while it's occurring. Something really bad is happening... how certain are you that it's not going to turn into one?