Demanding A Better Choice Than Biden
Pundit Alon Pinkas echoes 2016 by attacking young voters Biden is alienating rather than a Democratic Party that has failed to learn from both its failures and its successes
Once again, I want to begin by reminding you all about an important new report I wrote with Prof. Sahar Aziz that was released by Rutgers University Center for Security Race and Rights. It is called Presumptively Antisemitic: Islamophobic Tropes in the Palestine–Israel Discourse. It traces the influence of Islamophobia on US policy and goes a long way toward explaining why the United States is behaving as it is right now. You can find the report here.
There will also be some public events coming soon with Sahar and myself and some interesting guests promoting the report. Follow my Twitter or Facebook (information at the bottom of this newsletter) to make sure you are informed about them.
Now on to today’s newsletter…
As disgust with President Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel and its genocidal campaign in Gaza grows, Americans who support Palestinian rights—indeed, who support universal values and human rights in general—are being forced into a very difficult position. Many younger voters, especially young Arab and Muslim Americans, find that they cannot possibly bring themselves to vote for Biden in the election next November.
The problem, of course, is that the likely alternative is the reelection of Donald Trump. Indeed, as things stand now, polls show that Biden would lose to Trump, and even in the unlikely scenario where Trump’s legal troubles eliminate him from the race, it’s a good bet that Nikki Haley, who has secured major financial backing already, would defeat Biden as well.
This really speaks to Biden’s boundless selfishness and foolhardiness in insisting on running for re-election even though a very clear majority of Democrats do not want him to do so. A poll in September showed a huge majority of 67% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters calling on the octogenarian and often-confused president to step away from the 2024 race. That’s an even greater figure than a poll from last February which showed only 37% of Democrats supporting Biden’s bid for a second term.
All of that was before Gaza, which has smashed Biden’s support among young voters, whose participation or lack thereof is very often what swings election results. High voter turnout usually favors Democrats and young voters are usually the most variable in showing up. Perhaps just as importantly, young voters are also the ones who do much of the legwork in campaigns, canvassing, petitioning, knocking on doors and providing a lot of the grassroots, basic labor that a successful campaign requires. Young voters were a huge factor in Biden’s success in 2020 and the Democrats’ surprising performance in the 2022 midterms.
But 70% of young Democratic voters oppose Biden’s policy on Gaza, and, far from giving the president a boost as military actions usually do, at least in the beginning, Biden’s approval rating has hit a new low. While Muslim and Arab voters may represent a small percentage of the American populace, they are key Democratic demographics in crucial swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Ohio and Virginia, which also have large Arab and Muslim populations, may also hang in the balance, depending on how the election goes.
That bodes ill for Biden, as many Muslim and Arab Americans are declaring that they will not vote for him next November. You would think Democrats would learn from their mistakes in 2016 and try to win them back. But instead, they’re doing the same thing that gave us Trump before.
Back in 2016, there were many things that made Hillary Clinton a less than ideal candidate. Some were legitimate, such as her neoliberal economic policies and hawkish foreign policy history as Secretary of State. Others were less so, such as year after year of ad hominem and often disingenuous attacks from the Republicans. Some were even bigoted, including a massive amount of misogyny. But Democrats, when faced with a surprising challenge from Bernie Sanders, resorted to dirty tricks to counter the progressive wave and defend the conservative Clinton. Some of those tactics were exposed by leaks, and they damaged Clinton’s credibility and candidacy.
Yet instead of reaching out to the progressive community, the Democrats, led by Clinton, thought it better to try to shame them into voting for her. Sanders’ supporters were caricaturized, with the most extreme of the so-called “Bernie Bros,” a tiny number of people, used to paint all of the progressive movement that was trying to pull the party toward much more popular positions than those espoused by the mainstream. They also called anyone who dared question Clinton’s candidacy or policies misogynistic and supporters of Trump’s bigotry, which, of course, focused a great deal on his legendary misogyny.
In 2020, the Biden campaign seemed to learn from this error, and, after overcoming another Sanders challenge, did what Clinton would not: Biden worked with Sanders, offering some key concessions and winning significant progressive support by doing so. While some of the promises he made were broken, some key victories, particularly at the National Labor Relations Board, were won that made a real difference.
But now, Biden has reverted to 2016 tactics and is badly alienating the progressive Democratic base, and he is again being backed by Democratic pundits trying to cajole and shame progressives into voting for Biden despite his genocidal policies rather than recognizing that Biden is not where Democratic voters are and he needs to move toward them. We saw a perfect example of this phenomenon recently. In an unexpected twist, the example came from an Israeli former diplomat, Alon Pinkas. As far as I know, and I could be wrong, Pinkas is a U.S. resident but not a citizen. Either way, his op-ed in Haaretz was a master class in how to ensure that Biden’s policy choices not only mean the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of innocents but also will hand the White House back to the GOP and, very likely, Donald Trump.
Now, let me say a couple of things before I go on. One, I like Alon Pinkas. I always find him an interesting read, even when I disagree with him, and in our brief exchanges on social media, he has always been courteous and congenial with me. But I’ve never disagreed with him more vehemently than I do on this, as you will see shortly.
Second, I very much share the feelings of those who find Joe Biden too reprehensible to vote for. That will come as no surprise to anyone who follows my writing closely or follows me on social media. I have the good fortune to live in Maryland, so it’s easy for me to refrain from voting for Biden (just for the record, I voted for Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, holding my nose and barely able to contain my revulsion at doing so in both cases). He’ll win my state anyway. But I cannot honestly say what I would do if I lived in a battleground state. Of course, Trump is worse in so many ways, but we cannot allow that to be our barometer. Because if we do, we find ourselves voting for a man who doesn’t just permit and enable, but actively facilitates and supports genocide of the worst kind. That should not be the choice we have before us. The lesser of two evils should be a lot lesser than that.
Pinkas seems to understand the thinking of those who won’t vote for Biden, but he dismisses it with contempt. He wrote, “Any American who voted for Biden in 2020 who chooses not to vote for Biden in 2024 because of Gaza deserves to live in a Trumpian America. It’s that simple.”
But it isn’t that simple. If Trump wins, many of us, myself included, fear very much that even the broken, illusory democracy we have in the U.S. will be lost to a man who wants to be a fascist dictator and makes no secret of it. Pinkas is not wrong when he says, “Stay home because of Gaza and you’ll enjoy the full package deal: all abortions made illegal; same-sex marriage possibly reversed; freedom of speech and the media curtailed; the judiciary stripped of independent powers; checks and balances violently dismantled; the United States maybe withdrawing from NATO; immigrants put in internment camps; corruption rampant.”
Some of those specifics may not be accurate, but there are others—such as the complete dissolution of the welfare state, abolition of unions and worker protections, mass incarceration, and an unprecedented resurgence of racism, misogyny, homo- and transphobia, xenophobia and any other bit of white nationalist bigotry you can name, among other potential nightmares—that Pinkas doesn’t name that are even more likely.
And we should be clear that the demonization of Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. will zoom off the charts, actively promoted by the President. Trump will also resume his place as a focal point and promoter of the global extreme right. That means support for not just Netanyahu, but his rightward flank, as well as, very likely Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, and the most brutal dictators in the Global South as well.
It’s a nightmare scenario, and we should all do what we can and more to avoid it. Yet, it is the responsibility of the Democratic party to give the American people a real alternative, one who doesn’t just talk about human rights and then betray every such principle for bizarre ideological gains, as Biden did with Israel, or just for oil, as he most shamefully did with Saudi Arabia.
Democrats are responsible for providing Americans with an alternative to Trump who does not ignore ethnic cleansing by our allies, as Biden did in Nagorno-Karabakh. Even more, they must offer an alternative that does not facilitate genocide and protect and defend the country that is carrying out that despicable act in Gaza, as Biden has done with Israel.
Instead of offering that alternative, the Democratic party has actively and energetically discouraged any potential primary challenge to Biden and refused to set up any forum for debate. The primaries will be a mere exercise. In other words, in their attempt to ostensibly defend democracy from a fascist, Republican takeover, they have zealously smothered democracy within their own party’s ranks in order to nominate an incumbent who would very likely lose a primary if there were serious challengers.
Votes are not owed to a candidate or a party. They must be earned.
Here, I look at Pinkas’ words, so much like the moderates and liberals in 2016 who thought shaming people into voting was the way to go. It failed then, and it will fail now.
Pinkas mocks young voters in the most condescending tone imaginable, writing: “But hey, we are pure, we are righteously indignant and we are so smart – we showed Biden how much we disapprove of his pro-Israel stance. Now we can happily go back to TikTok and share more pizza videos.”
This is wrong both ethically and politically.
Ethically, Pinkas denigrates young voters, which is both factually and morally incorrect. This generation of young voters is far more politically aware than any I have seen in my lifetime, which is just five years shorter than Pinkas’. They have revolutionized our culture in a way not seen in at least half a century and they’ve done it with a political consciousness that encompasses not only protest but also participation in the political process. They’ve done it with a moral compass that may not always appreciate every nuance of an issue but is always striving to be on the right side of history and stays strong despite some of the most vicious attacks on young people one can imagine from the right. Pinkas should be admiring, not denigrating them.
But even worse is the political foolishness of Pinkas’ attitude, one that, to be fair, he shares with a great many Democrats of the late Baby Boomer (his) and Gen X (my) generations. As I noted, the attempt to guilt people into voting for a candidate they despise backfired in 2016 and gave us Trump. Those four years under the Orange Mussolini put a scare into us all, and rightly so. As a result, Biden needed to do no more than be “Not Trump” in 2020 and he won. Still, he also recognized the need to unite with, rather than alienate, the progressive left. He did so, partially with some political favors but, unfortunately, mostly by lying about his intentions. That’s yet another reason he should not be running this time.
But at this writing, Israel has slaughtered over 17,000 people in Gaza, including over 7,000 children, and those figures are certainly low as thousands of bodies have not been recovered from under the rubble. Those deaths, overwhelmingly civilians, (Israeli claims that they have killed “only” two civilians for every Hamas fighter they’ve killed are obvious lies; that 2:1 ratio is exactly the same as the ratio of adult males killed vs the number of women and children killed, which gives away the game pretty clearly, as Hamas fighters represented only some 1.4% of the entire population of Gaza before October 7) are largely the result of the use of U.S.-made weapons. Israel’s ability to attack with impunity is reinforced not only by the Iron Dome missiles that they replenish on the American taxpayer’s dime, but by the American fleet in the Mediterranean ready to launch its planes if another Middle Eastern country should try to act to stop Israel’s murderous assault.
In short, what’s happening in Gaza is simply not possible without the United States, and thus the U.S. could stop it any time it wanted to. That’s not some minor quibble about policy. When we consider that we, as Americans and living in a place where, at least for the moment, elections, and therefore our votes, still matter, we have a responsibility to consider the effect we have on the world. The blood of those 7,000 children in Gaza is very much on our hands.
Doubtless, Pinkas would point out that Trump, with his promotion of the global right is even more dangerous. I would not disagree with him. Still, it’s worth noting that Trump, when he wanted to culminate the Abraham Accords, pressured Israel successfully to pull back on its plans to annex major chunks of the West Bank. Biden did nothing to undo Trump’s actions eroding Palestinian rights, interests, and hopes, while thoroughly ignoring the entire question of Palestine in his eagerness to double down on Trump’s policies.
That doesn’t make Biden as bad as Trump but doesn’t distinguish him much either. “Better than Trump” can still mean nightmarishly awful, as the people of Gaza are learning right now. Instead of mocking and trying to shame voters who are behaving as they should by voting their consciences even if we disagree, Pinkas should be leveling his wrath at the Democrats who are short-circuiting democracy in their own way and taking advantage of the threat of Trump to do as little as possible to change an unjust and often very harsh status quo, both domestically and internationally. Biden came in promising that he would make sure that “nothing will fundamentally change” at a time when there was, partly as a response to Trump, real momentum for progressive change. He made good on that promise, mostly by breaking many other promises on small details like the climate crisis and human rights.
Voters are right to demand that we have a better choice than two anti-democratic candidates, one which wants to be an outright fascist dictator, and the other who wants to maneuver around the political system as it exists to continue unjust policies and to facilitate genocide.
We deserve better. And Alon Pinkas should know better than to mock people demanding some basic decency and some modicum of accountability in our political leadership. Trump didn’t win in 2016, the Democrats lost because they betrayed the very principles they claimed to stand for.
Trump explicitly stands for fascism in 2024. And again, the Democrats, who are supposed to be defending democracy, human rights, and dignity for all, are betraying those principles and arguing that we should vote for them anyway because they are not as bad as Republicans.
That’s why young voters are questioning if they can stomach voting for these people. And that’s what Pinkas should be venting his wrath at. It is young voters who have a conscience and find it morally troubling to vote for Biden, an engineer of genocide, who provide the hope that counters the greedy, opportunistic, and cynical people who run the Democratic Party today and who are on the verge of handing the White House to Donald Trump, just as they did in 2016.
They shouldn’t be ridiculed for demanding a palatable option in a presidential election. If the rest of us followed their lead, we’d live in a better country and a better world.
Just one article published since the last edition of Cutting Through:
Two dangerous bills in Congress take aim at Palestine solidarity
https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/two-dangerous-bills-in-congress-take-aim-at-palestine-solidarity/
Two very dangerous bills, one passed in the House this week and another submitted. Both Republican-led, both supported by extremist, pro-Israel, anti-Jewish, and Islamophobic Democrats. Together they threaten to significantly increase the danger to anyone who criticizes Israel.
Also, follow me on Twitter @MJPlitnick; at Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MitchellPlitnick; on Bluesky @mjplitnick.bsky.social; Threads @mjplitnick; or Mastodon @MitchellPlitnick@journa.host for my latest hot takes, comments, and news updates.