For example, a vote for anyone is always a vote Israel and Israel's apartheid and wars. Sure, you can disagree with what they're doing there, but isn't it funny that we ALWAYS support them no matter what?
So, no, we can't just decide what we see, consume, or do.
That said these sorts of issues were way down the list in these elections and people have to compromise on some issues and vote on the aggregate. I do think that it's pretty clear the Republicans were and are a lot more understanding and publicly supportive of Israel vs. the Democrats. They didn't try to do a "both sides here" but clearly communicated who they consider to be the aggressor and who they consider to be defending themselves. That doesn't mean that every single republican voter feels that way but a lot of them do.
The US also supported and brokered quite a few peace initiatives in the middle east. It's not fair to say it only acts to support wars.
If you look into the data, you'll generally find that they don't.
"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
I think it's an interesting area of research. However on many fundamental issues, let's say illegal immigration, foreign policy, or abortions, it's not immediately obvious that business interests hold power most of the time. If that was true then it really wouldn't matter if you have democrats or republicans in power but you see definite shift in policy when that happens.
This is provably false. The Green Party explicitly ran on support for Palestine and voters in parts of Michigan voted for the party in decently large numbers to split the Democrat vote.
Not enough voters saw the issue as big enough to switch their votes on a national scale but that’s not a failure of lack of choice, the people spoke with their votes that they don’t care about Israel and Palestine nearly as much as other issues.
Chinese social media is pretty vibrant with the exception that you can’t agitate for the fall of the government.
Or Pooh Bear.
Or South Park entirely after one episode of joking about China influencing Disney about Pooh Bear.
Or failures of the central government.
There are a lot of things banned online in China; this is so not true.
I frequently see it mentioned in Chinese social media.
You just can’t use it as a coded way to agitate against the government.
Just because one criticizes or expresses anger at the central government does not mean that they want to induce mobs that will topple it like in Ukraine. I sincerely doubt China's future history books will talk about the Pooh Bear mobs that brought down Xi's government. More likely to complain about housing or jobs.
The fact of the matter is that Americans do have the ability to change the policies and actions of the US government. It's hard to do, requires collective action, and can fail, but it's possible, and there are quite a few example of it happening.
No American can do anything at all, ever, about whatever the Chinese government has decided to do.
Because governments are adversarial to their general population in many cases. People live in reality, not in imagination land where the salt-of-the-earth type of people's voices are at all considered.
In a theoretical direct democracy that would be true. But we’re talking about Canada and the US here.
I think it has been so long since the Pax-Americana West has dealt with an overtly hostile major power that we’ve collectively lost the concept that there can be real enemies with goals that run explicitly counter to our own.