On Monday, the Democrats approved their 2024 platform, which includes no mention of the death penalty. This year’s platform marks the first time since 2004 the platform has not mentioned the death penalty (the 2008 and 2012 platforms called for making the punishment less arbitrary).
Public support for the death penalty has been gradually declining. A Gallup poll last year found that 65% of Democrats oppose the punishment.
The Democratic National Committee did not respond to an email asking if the party still supports abolishing the death penalty.
The lefty side of me thinks: “We’re nominating a former prosecutor…what did we expect?”
The practical side of me thinks: “This is like Palestine/Israel. Sure, Harris could be better on this issue…but Trump is still a hundred times worse.”
The far right movement isn’t an excuse for everyone else to shift right.
“They’re trying to make the world infinitely worse! We must oppose them by making the world a finite amount worse!”
Oh, I agree completely. I think it’s disgusting how the right has succeeded in shifting the Overton window a ridiculous amount over the past decade or so.
She hasn’t. She’s been consistently to the left of Biden on Gaza.
How so? She did the “both sides” thing during her speech, and did nothing to actually condemn Israel’s actions. She called out Hamas for the October 7 attack. It’s as if Democrats think that Palestinians are just genociding themselves. Her position on Israel-Palestine seems to be to condemn Hamas and create the most lethal military of all time.
The “both sides” thing, as you put it, is acknowledging that Hamas started this current round of violence with its horrifying actions on October 7th, which is the truth. But she also specifically called for Palestinians to have the right to self-determination and autonomy, which is further than Biden was willing to go.
Israel is currently being run by a corrupt madman. Sadly, so are its neighbors, particularly Iran. That puts the United States in the unenviable position of trying to prevent Israel’s destruction (which would be a once-in-a-century horror) while trying to pressure the corrupt madman in charge of it to end his own genocidal assault on Gaza.
Now imagine Trump in charge. Trump would be actively working to make things much, much worse.