The essential feature of changing policy in a democratic polity is the hard, arduous, thankless fucking task of fighting an apathetic or actively hostile majority.

The TikTok ban flew through. The '08 bank bailouts passed practically overnight. War bills for rammed through in a matter of months. Weapons deals are routine and tax cuts happen under every presidency.

The corrupt legislation doesn't need to walk this arduous road. And corporate lobbyists regularly tout their jetset cocaine and hooker lifestyle.

This is the real face of American democracy. Not an army of petitioners fighting bad weather and apathetic crowds to scrap out civil rights from a clumsy bureaucracy. It's dudes in $10k suits wooing senators in wine caves and beach resorts. And those same senators denouncing their constituents as greedy, lazy, ignorant slobs when a protest over the latest turd of a legislative package comes through.

The US has a representative democracy. We elect people by voting so that those people can represent our beliefs in the action of government without us being there to make sure our voice is heard and considered.

While I agree that everyone should be more involved in civics, especially at a local level, it's not really efficient for a society to implement a vanilla democracy. There are lots of other jobs like generating food/removing waste, generating energy/removing pollution, constructing/maintaining housing, transporting people including democratic representatives to and fro based on their obligations and desires, entertaining people so they can offset the pain in their lives and continue on with the struggle that is life, defend citizens from others or ourselves, etc.

Having a group of people act out government on our behalf is a good thing because we can specialize in other things to allow them to do so.

This all being said, there has been a disconnect with our representatives and with reality in general, so there is a giant need to reconnect with civic life in the US at all ages and at all levels for that matter.

I think @rayyy is right, unfortunately. If the West severs ties with Israel overnight (and suddenly stopping arms shipments would essentially be the same thing as severing ties), it'll just create a power vacuum where Russia or China will cosy up to Israel instead. Israel has a lot of influence in the region - partially because it's been propped up by US support, of course - and other countries would absolutely try to prop up Israel and capitalise on their influence in the US' place if they had the opportunity. Which would perhaps slow down the genocide for a little while, but it would inevitably pick back up, but this time without the US/West having any influence at all.

Not to mention the fact that the US losing its influence over Israel would almost certainly destabilise the region. Iran would be emboldened, as you alluded to. Hamas would be emboldened, and while I take the side of the Palestinian people in this whole ordeal, I don't think Hamas being emboldened would be a good idea - it would likely lead to further conflict and even worse suffering for the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey would all likely try to expand their influences, too.

Biden is trying to slowly reel Israel in while still maintaining US influence there. Partially because the US just wants to keep its power, of course, but also because it's perhaps the best way to have some control over the genocide and over the region rather than just being an observer. I don't like all the blood on our collective hands but I think that, at this point, the genocide would continue without us.

I absolutely think the fact that Israel has been put in the position it's in represents decades of shortsightedness and foreign policy failure, though. Israel should never have been in the position to do this.

I don't think this is true, except insofar as "Waving a stick at Iran every now and again" is concerned.

You're almost in danger of deviating from neoliberal orthodoxy here.