The war on Gaza not only devastated a besieged strip of land, murdered tens of thousands of people, and was called insignificant in the process; it reshaped the world as we know it. It made the far-right more extreme, the left more united and entrenched, and the average person more politically aware. It was an extensively documented genocide, in fact, the most documented genocide in human history.

This brings us to a majorly important point, which is that said genocide caused major political rifts that reverberated around the globe, and most importantly, impacted the United States. The left in the United States is now supporting more centrist candidates rather than liberals disguised as socialists, the likes of AOC, Ro Khana, and Jamaal Bowman, who support certain leftist ideals yet also support the Israeli colonial occupation's "right to exist" and "right to defend itself". 

The entire Democrat clique in the United States either completely supports the Israeli regime's continued waging of wars in the region without restraint or checks and balances, and that is on the more traditional side of the blue party, or criticize the Israeli regime's war and constant indiscriminate murder of civilians and bombing of civilian infrastruture while continuing to support its right to exist, which ignores the fact that it is an apartheid colonial entity built on the occupation of Arab lands and ethnic cleansing, and thus cannot co-exist in West Asia in peace. It is important to note, however, that peace is not the sole criterion to build upon in this case. 

Lasting peace with the existence of "Israel" for the average Levantine is unattainable, as long as there is a colonial entity, there will always be war, since its only relations with the region are built on the use of force and subjugation. Even if said lasting peace was achieved, it would have been built upon the expropriation of land and the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Arabs. Morally, one cannot accept that, for it is against any and all humanitarian values.

There is no peace with the usurping entity. Peace is made between equals, not between the oppressed and the oppressor. What was taken by force can only be restored by force.

- Sayyed Musa al-Sadr

What is the Left anymore?

The political spectrum in the United States is all over the place, as it is difficult to discern at the moment. The pro-Israeli lobby chooses one person to pick on, and they make them public enemy number one just because they are on the fence on "Israel", or because they do not condone the murder of children. This demonization of otherwise moderate, according to US politics standards, individuals raises their value in the eyes of the left, and the fact that their voter or popular base has become all leftists, they alter their campaign and vision to pander more to said leftists.

For example, the talk of the town this week is Zohran Mamdani's win as mayor of New York, despite both traditional Democrats and Republicans alike opposing him due to his so-called socialist ideals and the policies he campaigned on, which in reality are social democratic policies at best, such as his policies on housing, which mirror Austria's habitation policy, and his pursuit of making transport more accessible for the disatvantaged. He is not talking about the proletariat seizing the means of production, nor establishing a vanguard that would lead New York in fulfillment of Leninist ideals; yet, he is being painted as this staunch Marxist (and also a radical Muslim, somehow) that will be the downfall of the US empire.

The MAGA Republicans are leading yet another Red Scare™ whose subjects are not even red in the slightest, unless they are talking about the red rose that symbolizes social democracy. 

Mamdani is barely on the left, to begin with. He is for the continuation of the occupation of Palestinian lands by the Israeli entity, i.e., says "Israel" has a "right to exist" as well as a "right to defend itself". He, however, opposes the genocide in Gaza and has spoken out against it. He even condemned Hamas' Operation al-Aqsa Flood, but the pro-Israelis did not relent.

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The pro-Israeli lobby in the United States lacks the slightest bit of nuance, as they perceive any slightest tinge of criticism as all-out opposition and rush to label it as "anti-Semitic" and warp the image of people in a way that makes their "Stop the Genocide" become "Free Palestine", essentially, as aforementioned, making them more popular among leftists. This can be seen as an overreaction and a panicked response to their total and complete defeat in the public relations, media, and image domains.

The process sees the pro-Israeli lobby picking someone to smear and bully for their opposition to genocide, which makes their supporters among conservatives, especially the evangelicals, and the pro-Israeli liberals attack them. This leads them to seek refuge among other groups because they are no longer welcome by their supporters, and they receive that welcoming energy from the left, which makes them more radical, even if slightly. Here, they can no longer be labeled liberal, and they become leftists just because the right decided to demonize and shun them for critiquing the Israeli colonial regime's genocide. 

Where is the right?

The right wing is also falling apart due to the misplaced efforts of said lobby. People like Tucker Carlson, who were moderate-to-populist right-wingers, were also painted by the pro-Israeli lobby as these staunch anti-Zionists due solely to their opposition to the US sending tens of billions of tax dollars to the Israeli occupation; they recognize the Israeli occupation, they support its "right" to "self-defense" and exist, but in reality, they are just opposed to tax dollars fueling wars abroad.

These campaigns targeting right-wingers pushed them to adopt a more anti-Israeli standpoint, becoming more vocal about their opposition to sending weapons abroad, as well as to the pro-Israeli lobby, due to its demonizing of them. 

The right wing is being pushed to the far end of their place on the spectrum, becoming borderline or fully anti-Semitic, which can be seen in Tucker Carlson hosting white nationalist Nick Fuentes; the gap between them and the remainder of the right, The Atlantic said, "is narrower than it has ever been."

"Prime" Tucker Carlson was among the most vocal supporters of the Israeli occupation, with his years at Fox News being marked by his support of US-Israeli relations, his hosting of Israeli officials, and his criticism of democrats for their "insufficient support" of the Israeli regime. However, he fell out of favor once he made the slightest criticism of the Israeli regime due to the US prioritizing it over its own citizens.

As soon as he advocated for the America First foreign policy and declared his opposition to copious amounts of foreign aid being poured into the pockets of the Israelis, as well as Israeli interventionism in US domestic affairs, he fell out of favor and started getting criticized. His being almost bigger than Fox News itself turned into a curse instead of a blessing. Instead of seeing him as one of the biggest reasons behind their success, Fox saw him as a liability, mostly due to his divergence from their politics and his independence. 

And now, someone who was on the Israeli occupation's side and who merely criticized some aspects of its existence was demonized to the point where he hosted a white nationalist anti-Semite, whom he had no business collaborating with in the slightest, which he actually mentions during the interview, saying he couldn't agree with some of Fuentes' ideals due to his Christian faith. 

This is not about Tucker Carlson, but his journey serves as a blueprint for the average right-winger figure if he even thinks about criticizing the Israeli occupation. The Israeli regime is built on the support of American conservatives, mostly, and it is acting with extreme self-entitlement and arrogance by biting the hand that feeds it by not accepting what could be labeled as 'constructive criticism'. Instead of pandering to these people and molding themselves based on their humble demands, such as don't commit war crimes, to keep a popular base, the Israeli occupation is driving away people who were otherwise supportive of them.

Such Israeli actions can also be described as a panicked and unmeasured response that is backfiring horribly, as the pro-Israeli lobby continues to hemorrhage support among younger US conservatives. The pro-Israeli lobby seems to have burned all the excess fat it accumulated over the years, and is now consuming its own bones and muscles to survive, and there can be one end to such phenomena.

And the center?

The centrists are more lost than ever, as while they were typically more Democrat-leaning, they now want to distance themselves from a party that is, just as the GOP, sponsoring genocide and prioritizing foreign interests over those of US citizens. Needless to say, that has always been the case; whenever there is a war and losses, human or material, this rift widens, just like it did during the Vietnam War, the invasion of Iraq, and now the genocide in Gaza. 

At the end of the day, the failures of the political system in the United States boil down to the fact that the flawed system upon which the empire is built, imperialism, a.k.a the last stage of capitalism, which seeks an unsustainable exploitation model in a changing world. That system, economically and financially, requires DC to resort to the use of raw violence periodically and ultimately genocide to quell the inherent but growing contradictions in the world, and in its own society, when liberalism and soft power fail.

Corporations regained total power, wealth disparity soared, there are fewer reforms or they have become weaker, democratic institutions have eroded, and the working class is at an all-time low. Liberal democracy may have been a decent short-term solution in the imperial center, especially at first, when it oversaw the implementation of social security,  public education, protective labor laws, and civil rights reforms. But over time, it is extremely unsustainable, especially since it is built on exploiting the periphery. And while it had stabilized the center's society to some extent, liberalism cannot succeed without having an oppressor and an oppressed, which requires wars to subjugate any possible competitor, thus asserting dominance through the denial of development and growth, as Ali Kadri theorized. Such wars are waged at the expense of working-class and "third-world" or periphery peoples. 

The liberals have been snake oil salesmen, and while such a merchant might be able to fool every new town he'd go to, word will spread, and his actions will catch up to him. This is what happened to the liberals; they kept promising endless growth, although this is unattainable, at least not without war. Meanwhile, the average human, by clinging to his humanity and empathy, adheres to humane values and opposes such crimes. Therefore, these liberals now went from selling capitalism as the best system to committing the most heinous of acts to feed it and ensure its continuity, but while also trying to convince the public that these two issues are not connected. 

The conflicting nature of this entire debacle exposes the polarization and extremism that the classic bipartisan big centre in US politics is suffering from. This polarisation has been exacerbated by the panicked pro-Israeli lobby, where they seek to paint any "other" or anyone with slightly critical views as public enemy number one, and this allows anyone with any nuance at all, and eventually labels the cry "do not kill babies" as anti-Semitic. 

The genocide in Gaza was incredibly costly, but at the same time, it exposed the rigid extremism both Americans and Israelis possess. It also hastened the inevitable downfall of one of the most brutal empires in history, which seeks to sow nothing but destruction and death in the name of endless profits and its own "American Way of Life", wrapped in shiny labels made in sweatshops, reading liberty and democracy for me but not for thee.