That’s a pretty good summation, imo. Democrats really don’t want to hear anything about the ethics of sending US arms to Israel while it conducts a genocide right now. Their mentality is something like, “let’s get Kamala elected, and don’t point to any negatives until afterwards”. But the fact is, once Harris is elected (if she wins), she will have very little incentive to change her policy on this issue. This small pre-election window is really the only opportunity available for leftists to campaign for her to change her stance. The activists still “harping on” about this issue recognize that and are doing their best to put pressure on her campaign. Arguably, they are running an ethically principled campaign, assuming their motives are good (i.e., stop the genocide). I get the whole “lesser of two evils” concept and have some sympathy for it, but I also understand why this single important issue is a complete dealbreaker for many leftists.

Having said all that, your disclaimer note about Linkerbaan’s checks out. They are problematic because they do repeat a lot of Russian disinfo talking points, and in classic tankie fashion don’t seem to have any issues with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while at the same time condemning US support of Israel’s genocide. Personally, I feel that a principled person should be against genocide and war crimes no matter who is conducting them, otherwise they are just a partisan propagandist. But it seems most MLs on lemmy just can’t bring themselves to level any sort of criticism against Russia, China, North Korea or Iran (to name a few), even when it is entirely justified, because of their “critical support” groupthink towards any anti-US/anti-Western state.

If any poster seems to be totally ignoring or justifying genocide and war crimes committed by AES countries, but campaigning relentlessly against “US funded genocide” then personally I think it’s justified to ban them as they are clearly engaging in partisan propaganda. While it’s hard to know 100% for sure what linkerbaan’s true motivations are, I’d agree there are a number of red flags in their post history.

nobody wants to believe they are involved In a genocide. Evil isn’t deciding one day your going to kick puppies in the street. Evil is banal. Evil is a series of small choices to not rock the boat, or it isn’t so bad, or they didn’t mean it this time, or they won’t do it again. Evil is deciding you don’t need to get involved right now.

evil is subtle, slow, sticky… Deniable.

I wasn’t evil, I wasn’t involved, it wasn’t my choice. All very compelling emotional reactions. This is how genocides happen at scale.

The answer(s) to your questions are sometimes subtle and require a lot of explanation if one is truly interested in the answer and its necessary context.

A very, very, short version of “why do people not want to criticize the Democratic President eight weeks away from another election against trump” is partly answered by this article:

In May of last year, two groups of demonstrators faced off outside the Islamic Center in Houston Texas. On one side stood people [in a] group called Heart of Texas. It had 250,000 followers. The group’s tagline was folksy - homeland of guns, barbecue and your heart. They were there to demonstrate against the purported Islamization of Texas.

On the other side were people who were also drawn by a [] group - United Muslims of America. It had 328,000 followers. Tagline - I’m a Muslim, and I’m proud. They were on the streets to save Islamic knowledge.

In this scene two groups are pitted against each other, over the rights, expectations, and limitations of - ostensibly - “spreading Islamic information” for lack of a better description. On the face of it, I think a lot of us might know which side we’d argue for or against, depending, but the catch to all of it is: “Russian operatives had established both Facebook groups. They did so, as Burr said, to fuel divisions among Americans. The price tag on all this - it set Russia back a grand total of around $200.”

That’s one example of many but it illustrates the conundrum of arguing about politics on social media - there’s no certainty as to who is positioning anything, and the purpose is likely unknown.

I say all that to say this: a tactic many people feel was inspired or influenced by the same russian agencies that are still active and working diligently on the 2024 election was to promote Joe Biden as an agent of genocide. You may have seen the “Genocide Joe” comments that were briefly very plentiful.

Many somewhat social-media-savvy Americans are not only wary of these kinds of discussions in the heat of an election season, but they very forcefully push back on it for that reason. That does not mean they don’t agree with some things (or not), my point is that it’s sort of an overarching component to discusing Presidential performance at this time.

Anyway, I hope that helps.