{"id":37499,"date":"2024-11-07T12:24:59","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T20:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=37499"},"modified":"2024-11-07T12:25:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T20:25:00","slug":"democrats-chose-backing-a-genocide-over-defeating-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/11\/07\/democrats-chose-backing-a-genocide-over-defeating-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"DEMOCRATS CHOSE BACKING A GENOCIDE OVER DEFEATING TRUMP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"US<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

POSTED IN POLITICS AND MOVEMENTS: US<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By refusing to budge on Palestine, Harris and the Democrats surrendered their moral advantage, forcing them to track right and alienate their base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY\u00a0ADAM JOHNSON<\/a><\/strong> NOVEMBER 6, 2024 (therealnews.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus, Michigan, Aug. 7, 2024. Jeff Kowalsky\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The exact cause of the Democrats\u2019 catastrophic loss last night was, of course, no one thing. The leader of the incumbent party, Joe Biden, was deeply unpopular, with disapproval ratings of 56% on the eve of the election<\/a>. The public felt inflation had eaten away at modest income gains. And, of course, shadowy billionaires spread false narratives<\/a> and juiced social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone is going to have their own reasons in the coming days\u2014no doubt many based on their own priors and grievances. But one reason why the Harris campaign was bogged down from the outset, I will argue, was its moral and strategic refusal to break from the White House\u2019s deeply unpopular position<\/a> on arming and funding an ongoing genocide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not because the issue itself was dispositive, but because it played a central role in alienating the democratic base and compelling Harris to find votes elsewhere\u2013a disastrous choice which appears to have lowered turnout and sowed cynicism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As much as the pollsters and consultants in charge of Democratic campaigns may dislike the so-called \u201cbase,\u201d the base remains an important part of social media reach, campaign volunteers, and canvassers\u2014the evangelical core of any campaign. For Biden, when his campaign was terminal last summer, this element was<\/a> almost entirely<\/a> gone<\/a>, and indeed, this fact was one of the motivating factors pushing to drive him out. But Harris\u2014at least initially<\/a>\u2014made up a lot of ground in this regard, mostly through better vibes and slightly more sophisticated HR empathy-speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But feigned concern and vibes can only go so far. As the honeymoon of \u201cbrat summer\u201d gave way to a codified campaign theme, it was clear not only was Gaza going to be ignored entirely as an issue\u2014and the death machine would churn on without pause\u2014but Team Harris would be leaning into a strategy of attempting to woo so-called \u201cdisaffected Republicans.\u201d She made the centerpiece of her campaign<\/a> Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, the former vice president of George W Bush. To the Savvy Commentators this made sense\u2014obviously, winning over fence-sitting Republicans was the right call. And few in our media questioned whether this strategy had any downsides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Feigned concern and vibes can only go so far.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But, of course, it did. Going to the center has costs; it\u2019s not a perpetual vote-getting machine. A campaign that embraces conservative themes and personalities, even while throwing out progressive policies here<\/a> and there<\/a>, is bound to alienate voters for whom politics isn\u2019t just a platform for endless triangulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear: The costs could have been worth it<\/em>. The votes gained from sounding like 2012 Mitt Romney may be greater than those lost to non-voting or third-party voting among the base. But this calculus was never shown. The campaign and its major PAC allies driving the strategy<\/a>, namely Anita Dunn and pollster David Shor, never had to show the math on how this gambit made sense. It was simply assumed to be true, obvious, and inevitable.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until there were two weeks left in the election that the New York Times<\/em> even entertained the idea<\/a> that, perhaps, a campaign theme built around the progeny of a deeply unpopular war criminal who, herself, had negative favorables<\/a>, was not the free real estate Dunn & Co. made it out to be. \u201cAs Vice President Kamala Harris makes a broad play to the political center,\u201d the Times<\/em> would hand-wring, \u201csome Democrats worry that she is going too far in her bid to win over moderates who are skeptical of former President Donald J. Trump. In private\u2014and increasingly in public as Election Day fast approaches\u2014they say she risks chilling Democratic enthusiasm by alienating progressives and working-class voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be very convenient for me if what I ideologically supported\u2014in this case, ending a genocide\u2014also happened to be what was electorally advantageous for the campaign. The moral thing and the politically useful thing are not, of course, inherently aligned. But the inverse is also true: There\u2019s no law of nature that says tacking right, and doubling down on a deeply unpopular and morally ruinous Gaza strategy, is the smart and savvy thing to do. The burden ought to have been on those running a $1.8 billion campaign<\/a> to show how their approach made sense, but they never bothered doing this. It was just dogma\u2014dogma few ever questioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One can\u2019t really bank on activist energy, youth turnout, and base-mobilizing when those involved\u2014while canvassing together, or running phone banks at each others apartments, or getting drinks afterwards\u2014have to awkwardly address the fact of genocide and their candidate\u2019s support for it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s a cruel reality behind the decision to track right: The campaign, once it hitched its wagon to Biden\u2019s policy of unqualified support for genocide in Gaza, really had no other choice. In 2020, the Biden campaign tentatively rode the progressive wave<\/a> of the George Floyd protests, anger about Trump\u2019s racist border policies, COVID activism, and anti-war protests against Saudi Arabia\u2019s destruction of Yemen to energize the Democratic Party base to defeat Trump. It was, in retrospect, mostly lip service, and certainly no one at the time thought Biden a firebrand progressive. But the broader theme of the campaign was that everyone would have a seat at the table, even if the plate would most likely end up being empty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris made no such pretensions, because any strategy that played to similar themes would have had to address the elephant in the room: the Democratic Party\u2019s \u201cironclad\u201d support for Israel\u2019s elimination of a people in whole or in part. And this simply would not have worked. One can\u2019t really bank on activist energy, youth turnout, and base-mobilizing when those involved\u2014while canvassing together, or running phone banks at each others apartments, or getting drinks afterwards\u2014have to awkwardly address the fact of genocide and their candidate\u2019s support for it. This isn\u2019t to say there was no activist or youth energy in the campaign\u2014clearly there was. But those in charge quickly decided against making this their central theme and vote-gathering strategy, given the uncomfortable questions that would naturally arise from campaigning in these spaces. So Liz Cheney and her negative-2 favorables it was.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Countless pro-Democratic Party pundits tried to warn Harris<\/a>. Polls were commissioned<\/a>. The Uncommitted Movement very politely, and well within the bounds of loyal party politics, begged Harris to change course<\/a>. But she refused. The risk, to her, was worth sticking to the unshakable commitment to \u201celiminating Hamas\u201d no matter how many dead Palestinian children it required, or the degree to which images and reports of these dead children would fuel cynicism and create an opening for Trump to win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the extent grassroots energy was maintained, and the awkward fact of Gaza didn\u2019t ruin the vibes more than it ought to have, this was made possible by an elaborate responsibility-avoidance PR regime<\/a> of compartmentalization built up over months by the Biden campaign and a compliant media. Key to this compartmentalization were supposed \u201cceasefire talks\u201d that the White House and campaign were allegedly \u201cworking tirelessly to secure,\u201d<\/a> but could never, alas, get across the finish line. Liberals were also soothed by the vaguely true-sounding refrain that Trump \u201cwould be worse for Gaza.\u201d Turning every party advocate into a dead-eyed trolley problem expert triaging which genocide was morally preferable may have made cold logical sense, but it was hardly an inspiring message. Making it less compelling was that, by and large, it was not a position emanating from Palestinians themselves, as virtually every major Palestinian organization and the sole Palestinian-American in Congress, Rashida Tlaib, refused to endorse Harris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to an unmovable contingent of liberals\u2014motivated by a combination of self-delusion and genuine and understandable fear of a second Trump term\u2014it didn\u2019t matter. They just wanted not to think about Gaza. It didn\u2019t matter that the White House could simply assert a ceasefire whenever it wished, and the whole basis for the supposed \u201cnegotiations\u201d was equal parts fictitious and internally inconsistent<\/a>. These pat lines mostly worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mostly<\/em>. Aside from foreclosing on a progressive track that tapped into the base and emphasized turnout over converting fence-sitting Republicans, the fact of genocide in Gaza continued angering and alienating many voters not fooled by the \u201cworking tirelessly to secure a ceasefire\u201d PR regime and patronizing I See You, I Hear You rhetoric from Harris. Further research is needed to measure the exact extent this bitterness, this enthusiasm-suppressing support for genocide played a role in losing potential Demcoratic voters, but one thing is clear: It rotted the campaign from the beginning, made going right more or less inevitable, and loomed over every brat summer selfie, phone bank interaction, and water cooler conversation. In late July when Harris took over the Biden campaign, she could have chosen to break from the White House, she could have chosen to follow international and US law, she could have chosen progressive energy and greater support from the base, she could have chosen life. Instead she chose genocide. And this was the inevitable outcome.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADAM JOHNSON<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Adam Johnson hosts the Citations Needed<\/a> podcast and writes at The Column<\/a> on Substack. Follow him @adamjohnsonCHI<\/a>.More by Adam Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

POSTED IN POLITICS AND MOVEMENTS: US By refusing to budge on Palestine, Harris and the Democrats surrendered their moral advantage, forcing them to track right and alienate their base. BY\u00a0ADAM JOHNSON NOVEMBER 6, 2024 (therealnews.com) US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37500,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37499\/revisions\/37500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}