This week, the Washington Post reported that the United States has sent $6.5 billion in military aid to Israel since October, a mind-boggling amount of help for a state that is committing a genocidal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza. The previously undisclosed sum includes $3 billion alone in May of this year, the same month that Israel began attacking Rafah, an area densely packed with civilians who had been told it was safe.

Despite the majority of Americans disapproving of Israel’s extermination campaign, the US government remains firmly on the side of the Israeli state, willing to shred the long-standing pretense of a rules-based international order and even allow Israel to expand the war into Lebanon for the sake of maintaining its strong ties with its key ally in the Middle East.

It’s a demoralizing reality, and one that was boldly on display in this week’s presidential debate. The proof of this elite consensus on Israel came before either Donald Trump or Joe Biden uttered a word, evidenced in the choice of moderators: CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.