It was President Joe Biden’s first big campaign rally of the year, a chance to spotlight the issue of protecting abortion rights. Instead, at least a dozen times during Biden’s 22-minute speech, demonstrators scattered throughout the audience rose to shout out demands for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Demonstrators disrupted Biden’s speech at Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina earlier this month as the president spoke out against racism, and they turned up at a United Auto Workers gathering this past week in Washington where Biden accepted the powerful union’s endorsement, and at a political event in Columbia, South Carolina on Saturday.
“For most people, you get very few chances in this life to confront the president of the United States,” said Niki Thomas, a 29-year-old UAW member who yelled for a cease-fire and was dragged from the room during Biden’s speech to the union. “There was no way that we weren’t going to take that opportunity to speak up for for ourselves, for our members, to get a chance to let the president know how we feel.”
During a visit to Tel Aviv, Biden warned the Israelis not to be “consumed by rage.” But Biden has also said he believes Israel has the right to defend itself and he has asked Congress for billions to help Israel in its war effort.
The “whatever” means not letting an election be decided by a misunderstanding of an incredibly complicated situation that risks alienating the noble cause of supporting Palestine from the party that is likeliest to support Palestine in the first place. Based on the reaction of the crowd, I don’t think this stunt earned them many supporters. Just the opposite, really.
And anyone who is saying that Americans shouldn’t vote for Biden just because of his stance on Gaza is abetting fascism, plain and simple. Because that is the only alternative on the table right now.
So only the people without power need to change their ways because fascism the the alternative, not the people actually leading the country and running for reelection.
Literally at any point Biden could just back off the nearly unconditional support of a genocide. It’s just not that complicated. He may or may not have the ability to actually stop it, but he doesn’t need to be finding innovative ways to send them weapons. You talk about how important this election is, how dire the alternative is, and I agree, but for some reason you don’t seem to think the political leadership holds any responsibility in squaring the circle on this issue. It’s a hell of a lot easier for them to get back in line with the majority of the party than to try to tell people genocide is ok.
Because the reality is that there are more voters in the US against Palestine than there are in favor. It’s a shitty situation, but it is the truth. And it is at the whims of these voters that the next election will be decided, where we have a choice between an administration that makes overtures in favor of Israel but has been advising restraint, and another that explicitly wants to wipe Palestine off the fucking map.
Among Biden’s likely voters, no, there aren’t more in favor of the war than against. And I’m willing to bet the people who are viewing it as a “genocide” are much more likely to be influenced by that stance than those that just generically stand with Israel.
https://www.businessinsider.com/half-biden-voters-israel-genocide-palestinians-gaza-poll-2024-1?op=1
Then it’s great that elections are decided by core voters and not just a handful of states populated by picky, single issue voters.
Oh wait.
You mean like say, the Arab population in Michigan…? The words you’re saying are directly illustrating the seriousness of the problem, but you’re acting like you made a rhetorical slam dunk for some reason.