The president’s shedding key constituencies. If morality won’t move him to end his support of this war, will self-interest?
Many voters believe, with good reason, that none of this would have happened without Biden’s assent. Biden has continued to speak of Israel’s attack on Palestinian civilians using the absurd language of “self-defense”. He has insulted Jewish Americans and the memory of the Holocaust by invoking them to justify the slaughter. And though his White House repeatedly leaks that he is “privately” dismayed by Israel’s conduct of the war, he has done little to stop the flow of US money and guns that support it.
Even after the US state department issued a vexed and mealy-mouthed report on Israel’s conduct, which nevertheless concluded that it was reasonable to assess that Israel was in violation of international humanitarian law, the Biden administration has continued to fund these violations. That state department report was published on 10 May. The Biden administration told Congress that it intends to move forward with a $1bn arms sale to Israel. “OK, [Israel] likely broke the law, but not enough to change policy,” is how one reporter summarized the administration’s judgment. “So, what is the point of the report? I mean, in the simplest terms, what’s the point?”
Meanwhile, Biden has expressed public disdain for the Americans – many of whom he needs to vote for him – who have taken to protest on behalf of Palestinian lives. Speaking with evident approval of the violent police crackdowns against anti-genocide student demonstrations, he said coolly: “Dissent must never lead to disorder.”
He's out of touch with young/idealistic voters who don't understand that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting your conscience.
The choice is fascism or neo liberalism. Hopefully someday we'll have a better choice. Not voting now makes that less likely. As does Biden doubling down on zionism.
If that was my position, I wouldn't have faulted Biden his Zionism.
But ultimately, like Bernie who I admire, I've learned to be a pragmatist as I've gotten older.
Don't shut up. By all means, speak your mind. Biden should do better and should be pressured to do better. People need to keep protesting and drawing attention to the injustice.
And also vote. If you can't vote for Biden, swallow your pride and vote against Trump. Because we're not going to see any progress by defecting and giving the fascists the nukes.
I wonder if this isn't overblown propaganda. Personally, and I know this is just my experience, but I've never met a person who isn't a Trump supporter who isn't voting for Biden. I'm sure they exist, and I want to keep seeing stories like this to encourage Biden to do better, and scare moderates to make sure they show up in November.
It's not propaganda. Look through the replies to my comment already someone came out with black and white thinking concerning evil (no such thing as the lesser of two).
I remember being this idealistic when I was younger. I met a lot of young minorities during 2020 who didn't vote because they didn't feel represented by either old white guy.
Now we have young white people feeling the same because they're seeing the horrors of neo liberalism playing out and they don't understand what fascism is (it's what Israel is doing, so yeah, voting for Trump is a vote for more genocide but whatever...).
And, the DNC is going to blame voter apathy if they lose. And honestly, this could be a repeat of 2016. Democrats ignoring the will of the people and handing Trump the presidency.
Neoliberalism is fascism and there is no lesser evil, only evil. He should not be rewarded with reelection if he won't listen to the demands of the public. That's how we got to the point where the only option is which senile pedo rapist to choose from.
“We have to let Israel complete their war on terror. It’s a horrible thing, but they have to do it.” Trump added that Israel must “clean out the cancer.”
The winner of the Presidential election in 2024 will either be Biden or Trump. Full stop.
Trump feels Israel isn't being aggressive ENOUGH.
So you vote for Biden, who is maintaining the same Israeli policy as every other President for the last 76 years, or you throw away your vote and help elect Trump who thinks Gaza is a cancer that needs to be cleared out fast.
The lesser evil campaign strategy isn't going to work anymore. It's ran its course. Biden needs to offer something meaningful otherwise Trump will win.
Yeah, way too many so-called "progressives" don't seem to really understand the actual choice here. They can stamp their feet and wish for someone better than Biden, but the choices are: 1) Biden 2) Ronald McDonald - and everything that entails. That's it.
The time for them to work for something better as a candidate was the primaries.
This is funny because "it's sad but they have to do it" is basically what Biden has been saying
Biden has chosen to tank his own presidency by supporting Israel. It makes it worse that he's choosing to do it while he's telling us that the alternative is fascism
He's choosing fascism over giving up support for genocide
The reason Republicans become president is low turnout
So Dems running a candidate that voters don't want to vote for, is a bad thing.
What works better, is running a candidate like Bill Clinton or Obama. Someone who is under 40in their 40s says progressive things, and is charismatic.
Regardless of how they govern, that's how you prevent Republican president.
With the current state of Dem primaries, it's hard to blame voters for who makes it to the general.
And if you're looking for someone to blame when that unpopular Dem can't even beat someone like trump, blame the people who get paid millions to decide how to spend billions to convince voters that the Republican is even worse than the Dem so we have to vote for someone not as bad, but still not what we want.
We could just run popular candidates and easily beat trump, but that's just not an option apparently
What works better, is running a candidate like Bill Clinton or Obama. Someone who is under 40, says progressive things, and is charismatic.
Nitpick: Obama was 47 when he was elected. Clinton was 46. The youngest President ever was Theodore Roosevelt at 42 (when William McKinnley was assassinated), and the youngest president to ever be elected was JFK at 43. No person under the age of 40 has ever served as President.
"Under 50" would probably be more accurate for the point you're trying to make. We've had several good Presidents in the 40-50 age group.
We could just run popular candidates and easily beat trump, but that’s just not an option apparently
But.....who?
Bernie Sanders has tried and failed multiple times, and he's even older than both Trump and Biden.
Elizabeth Warren is no spring chicken herself, and would very likely end up being eaten alive by the Trump Hate Machine, who would especially capitalize on previous gaffes like claiming she's native American when she isn't.
AOC isn't old enough yet, and she's not all that popular even among centrist Democrats outside of her home state.
Forget Harris. Put her on the ticket and you might as well just write Trump's inauguration speech now.
I'd like to see someone like Jasmine Crockett or Jamie Raskin make a run for it, but I don't know if they've got the national popularity to be able to take down Trump. And with Crockett being black, Raskin being Jewish, and Trump running on a pro-racism platform and being backed by extremists like the Proud Boys, putting Trump up against a minority may end up riling up Trump's base even more (I'm not saying this is right, but the reality is that a not-insignificant portion of Trump's base is heavily racist and would turn out in droves just to make sure a black or Jewish person isn't elected again, and I'm not sure that either Raskin or Crockett would be popular enough nationally to overcome it, especially in today's political climate).
There are a bunch of people that I hope are eyeing a 2028 run, but there's really nobody I could see on the Democrat side of the aisle who's both ready and able to take down Trump this year. I understand people's dislike of Biden and all of that, but I still think he's the least shitty option available that has a realistic chance of winning.
Hey now, that's not important. What's important is making sure Biden doesn't get reelected. We don't need to mention the consequences of the bullshit propaganda people are pushing.
Yeah, if you're going to comment you would, ideally:
read the article
comprehend what it is saying
respond to it
Knee-jerk hand-waving is not useful. It's worse than just a waste of your time and ours, you are actively alienating everyone you desperately need to hold their nose and vote for Biden.
I'd start planning a move to the west coast so that your 'side' isn't outnumbered when things pop off. Assuming you haven't already made it out to Cascadia.
I'd rather let Trump win so that the Western states can finally have the motivation they need to secede and I can become a citizen of Cascadia and stop having to worry about all the nonsense in DC. And if the secession goes bad, the red states attack, and the fighting turns against us... I plan to sail up north to B.C. and request asylum.
Climate change already prevented me from ever considering having a family, so luckily I fit perfectly into the "disaffected military aged male" category that can risk it all in the hope of a better future. I pity the rest of you who would choose complacency and the path of least resistance over doing what's right.
Sometimes the best thing that can happen is for things to get worse, because that can prompt you to end your complacency and make the changes you should have made long ago. When people of good conscience are forced to support a literal genocide because of how broken our system is.... I think we've reached that point.
Young people are always dissapointing for politics , from simply not turning out, to being confused and manipulated, to voting against their own interests.
Every young voter seems to do the same nonsense regardless of generation, they have been blinded by Propaganda again.
The Biden campaign has long been shrugging at the president’s fading polls, turning down opportunities to put him in front of voters, and generally doing their best to portray an air of confident nonchalance.
A new dataset released by the New York Times on 13 May found that Biden was trailing in five key swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania – and suffering from disillusionment among young voters as well as Black and Latino ones.
“Drawing broad conclusions about the race based on results from one poll is a mistake,” Geoff Garin, a pollster for the Biden campaign, told the New York Times.
If that figure cannot shake you into moral recognition, consider that many of those children have endured their amputations without anesthesia, since medicine – like food – has largely been prohibited from being delivered to Gaza by Israeli authorities.
And though his White House repeatedly leaks that he is “privately” dismayed by Israel’s conduct of the war, he has done little to stop the flow of US money and guns that support it.
But these lesser-of-two-evils argument do not lessen the tax on the conscience that many anti-war Americans will feel when they consider whether to vote for Biden in spite of his support for the genocide in Gaza.
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