the far right and their liberal opposition are collaborating
While the war against Iran is clearly not going as planned for the governments of the U.S. and Israel, and while calling Trump and Netanyahu deranged is accurate and somewhat enjoyable, it's not that simple. I suspect that there may still be a method to their madness. And I don't just mean the personal, short-term goal of each of them avoiding criminal prosecution by staying in power.
If you were a class of people who owned and controlled most of the world, and knew you couldn't hold onto to it without wars, genocides, crackdowns, and other crimes, you would have to find a way to justify the crimes. An obvious strategy would be to pretend to split yourself into two "rival" factions, one deliberately as horrible as possible, the other claiming to be reasonable by comparison.
Narcissists like Trump and Netanyahu are happy to play the scary monster role in return for the spotlight and legal immunity, which is exactly what they get from their so-called "liberal opposition." The illusion of a lively discourse between opposing philosophies is maintained, with the opposition even permitting a handful of token anti-imperialists to win, playing on voters' hopes that this faction will eventually become anti-imperialist if we just vote harder. Meanwhile the actual wars, genocides, crackdowns, and other crimes necessary for the ownership class to stay in power still get passed either way, often by "magically" just enough votes.
In this way, Trump and Netanyahu do an enormous favor to their "liberal opposition" who get to look reasonable by "saying" they oppose the wars, genocides, crackdowns, autocracy, crimes against humanity and other "insanity," while in fact this system makes absolutely sure that the wars, genocides, crackdowns, autocracy and crimes against humanity happen either way, and in fact keep escalating.
The longer gullible Americans can be tricked into voting for politicians who are "a little less extreme" or "a little less obvious" in their war crimes, the more criminal the country's policies are forced to become. And each time Schumer, Jeffries, Biden, Harris or Walz are allowed to push the Dems a little deeper into war crimes and ICE funding, the further right Trump, Vance, Miller ot Hegseth have to move to look even more "insane" to keep the strategy working.
The only way this diabolical strategy can succeed is for this ownership class to have a propaganda arm ("the media"), a bribery/blackmailing arm ("lobbying"), a militarized police state ("law enforcement," "ICE"), cannon fodder ("the armed forces"), and apologists (legions of cheerleaders sentimentally devoted to one faction or the other, who are allowed to make memes insulting each other for the price of collaborating to delegitimize third parties and independent candidates).
In the U.S., in Israel, in France, in the UK, in Germany, this strategy has managed to successfully trick millions of self-described liberals into literally voting for genocide, not to mention their own bankruptcy and oppression. But the strategy is unsustainable on several levels and is falling apart.
You can't keep escalating wars, genocides and crackdowns without eventually destroying your customer base, your voting base, your own military, your own economy, and ultimately wiping out most life on Earth with a nuclear war.
As the entire world can easily see, the U.S. and Israel are losing against Iran. It's not because they've shown mercy. They've bombed elementary schools. They've poisoned the air for over 10 million human beings. But it's not working. And it's obvious they will continue to lose, unless they either quit, or deploy ground troops and/or nuclear weapons.
Their war aims can't be achieved without "escalation" -- an increase in the number people who must die. This means ground troops and/or nuclear weapons. Any politician or TV personality still failing to loudly and clearly oppose funding the war in Iran, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, or the Israeli military, is telling you straight up that they are in favor of global mass murder, and increasing the chances of nuclear war with few if any survivors.
The responsibility for this great and perhaps final crime against humanity rests on any lawmakers and influential media personalities who make the policy, fund the policy, fail to oppose funding the policy, fail report on current events accurately, take the AIPAC money, increase the Pentagon budget, villainize innocent Palestinians, Iranians, or Lebanese, or give the tax breaks to Big Tech companies helping to carry out the crimes. Unfortunately that's almost every sitting national lawmaker or corporate news personality, both "liberal" and "conservative."
The human race has had enough, although many don't know what to do. The manufacturing of hopelessness is the last strategy the ownership class has left. What survival requires is a massive movement away from imperialism, war crime, and nuclear bombs as the uncontested national policy of wealthy states and their biggest corporations. Indeed the UK people appear to be doing just that, by abandoning the Labour Party altogether, in favor of the Green Party.
In the U.S. there are powerful, historic movements afoot that the media arm of the ownership class deliberately chooses to ignore if possible, or vilify if necessary. These movements include third parties. They include movements for historical and media literacy. They include boycotts and strikes targeting Israel as well as the arms dealers, oil companies, Big Tech, and the two capitalist political parties now making such a fortune from wars, genocides, crackdowns and crimes against humanity.
The movements for peace, justice, survival, and skepticism about ruling class narratives are obviously scaring those who stand to lose their wealth and power as a result. When the ownership class feels threatened, that's when they start their crackdowns, which is what we've increasingly been seeing since the War On Terror began under Bush. In other words, these anti-imperialist movements are creating a real crisis. That's why they need our support.
It's less about individual candidates or personalities than it is about a change in the value system of policymaking. The average American has next to nothing in common with this class of people who now own and control most of the world. At this point we would have a better chance as a species if the U.S. President, U.S. Congress and corporate executives were chosen at random, as we do with jury duty. The election process and corporate ladder are a complete waste of money and time, totally corrupted, anti-democratic, and bringing the planet to utter ruin.