exactly right. what’s the point of winning elections to have the power to legislate, when you don’t even enforce the laws you have. people forget why we elect governments.

Agreed. And that’s why the US and Biden look terrible in their continued defiance of ICJ rulings and their hypocritical response the ICC. Both international courts that carry some real weight and legitimacy in the global community. Is this a case that some are above the law when it’s convenient? Is it that the lives of brown people matter less than white people so justice is applied differently?

Is there a reason why Biden is being given a pass on his ongoing support of war crimes and what the ICJ has called plausible genocide?

Nate Silver had what I thought was a good take on this in a newsletter he sent out immediately after the verdict. (may be paywalled–I can never tell with substacks I subscribe to, but happy to forward it if you want). Essentially that we don’t know what this will do to the polls, but it’s a high-variance event and those are good for Biden right now.

He does lean towards this being good for Biden since low-information voters are who Biden struggles with right now. “Trump Guilty!” headlines should reach even the lowest-information voters. While we don’t know that a guilty verdict will be bad for Trump, best guess is that it will be.

(and yes, I feel ridiculous saying that we don’t know whether or not being a convicted felon is viewed unfavorably, but here we are)

How much will Trump’s conviction harm him? Watch low-information voters.

@Denny The war is more complicated than falsifying business records. I actually think the ICJ ruling on Rafah is fairly consistent with what Biden has told Israel: don’t go in, don’t risk innocent lives. But yes, if there are war crimes then there should be accountability.

polls don’t matter. it’s meta news.

@jordon Low-information voters is a great point. I’ve been thinking for months that the election will be decided by people who (slight exaggeration) don’t know anything. The verdict is the same across news bubbles.

I’ve been reading around and seeing that only a little might be enough.

totally agree and I think the data we have backs this up. It’s why I’m not completely discouraged with polling right now: we’re still very early in this election cycle. I’ll be more worried when some of these low-information voters start paying more attention. But to be clear: Biden needs to be doing more to reach these low-information voters–he can’t just sit back and let them figure it out on their own.

It’s going to be interesting because of how early the first debate is: we’re less than a month away! I’m going to be much more encouraged/discouraged in mid-July when we have the first post-debate polling results.

(also for what it’s worth: my guess is Biden’s team thinks this way too. It’s part of the reason he wanted to move the first debate so early: it gives him much more time to course correct if the debate goes very wrong)

@KimberlyHirsh Yep, with a close election it doesn’t take much movement to have an impact.