Congressman warns Biden to “wake up” after over 100K Michigan Democrats vote “uncommitted”
Congressman warns Biden to “wake up” after over 100K Michigan Democrats vote “uncommitted”
“None of us want Trump to win, which is exactly why we’re doing this,” Detroit city council Democrat says.
Can someone explain to me why Americans seem so hostile towards Biden over Gaza all of a sudden?
US support for Israel goes back decades. America has been in bed with all sorts of dictators commiting heinous crimes and still is. Not to forget the illegal invasion of Iraq with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties or the long list of US war crimes revealed by WikiLeaks and largely indiscriminate drone strikes across the globe. Most of these seemed to elicit much harsher condemnation overseas while the US public appeared generally uninterested. So why does this conflict in Palestine in which the US isn't even an active party suddenly evoke such an emotional response?
Worth mentioning that in 2008 the total for "uncommitted" in the Democratic primary was 238,168 (39.6%), largely because the DNC stripped Michigan of all their delegates for holding their primary before Super Tuesday, and Obama withdrew his name from the ballot (Clinton didn't and won). Then in 2012 the total for "uncommitted" was 20,833 (10.7%), in 2016 it was 21,601 (1.79%), in 2020 it was 19,106 (1.2%). Seems like the percentage is heavily dependent on turnout, but totals seem to hover around 20k pretty consistently. That means there's about a 4x increase in uncommitted sentiment above baseline, which surely will increase the pressure to do something different with respect to Gaza between now and November.
The strength of the uncommitted campaign “surprised” Biden’s campaign, the Times added, noting that the movement is now likely to spread to other states.
The White House contrition in Dearborn, where more than half of residents are Arab American, did not appear to quell criticism. “Uncommitted” beat Biden 56-40 in the city, winning 47 of the city’s 48 precincts with most of the votes counted, according to the Detroit Free Press.
“That’s a wow,” CNN’s John King exclaimed while the votes were still being counted Tuesday night.
“This is a place President Biden carried big time in 2020. This is key to his chances of defeating Donald Trump in Michigan,” he said, adding that the concentration of votes signals that Biden’s “big problem” is that “Muslim Americans who were critical, absolutely critical to his big margin in Michigan in 2020, are telling the president tonight that they are mad.”
If you're wondering why anyone who claims to be a Democrat would lend their support to Trump; considering he will be much more hostile towards Hamas than Biden has been in his support for Isreal. It's because Americans have a fundamental misunderstanding of how our democracy works. It's not their fault either. Political science teaches us that voting is our voice and we should use our vote to express ourself. After seeing this dynamic play out every election cycle these type of issues always come up as a concerted effort to spoil the results. The idea that we can use the general election to express our opinion in this political climate is flawed since no one considers the candidates fit for office. No rational person. In the case of the presidency we need to use our vote as damage control because down ballot is much more crucial.
A couple figures to aid the discussion. Hot off the presses from todays polling:
Biden versus Trump (up to date as of today):
Biden versus Trump and Clinton versus Trump (X axis is days out from the election):
For edification, Clinton versus Trump 2016 (keep in mind that Trump and Clintons polling numbers in the early parts of this figure represent being in contested primaries):
Another version comparing 2016 to 2024 (but more focused on the period of time before the election):
I don't suppose the Congressman remembers that they did the same thing to Obama before he was reelected.
Wake up and what? Their demands are not achievable by Biden. He cannot as so many of the threads claim, just call up bibi and tell him to stop. Doing so would likely eliminate what little leverage a Democratic President has over the extremist right wing of Israel. It certainly would not have any desirable outcome.
Over 80% of Michigan Democratic primary voters just registered their support for Biden and his policies while 20% registered their disapproval. About two thirds of those 20% are now demanding that their concerns be made paramount.
About 100,000 people, representing less than 2% of Michigan voters from the 2020 election, are now demanding that they be allowed to wag the dog and decide national policy based on a crushing election defeat.
Considering it was Hamas who just today rejected a ceasefire agreement that could have gone into effect by the end of the week, maybe people should start voting "uncommitted" against them instead of Biden.
This entire fucking fiasco is between Palestine and Israel, who have been fighting constantly since Biden was born and will probably continue to fight long after Biden is dead and gone. Neither side is going magically "go away" and nor should they. Both groups of people have a legitimate historical and cultural claim to live in this land and the choice was made to split this land long before most any of them were even born. The Israeli Jew and the Palestinian Arab Muslims simply have to learn to coexist peacefully and reject extremism or there will only ever be more war and violence.
There is a "simple" solution: free the hostages immediately, turn over people who committed war crimes (on either side) for prosecution, return borders to 1949, create an internationally enforced DMZ, stop illegal settlements, and stop the damn fighting. NONE of that is on Biden, nor is it the singular responsibility of the United States to manage.
Even if you cynically believe that all of this is just some kind of America-backed proxy war (which, if you look at the history of the region spanning thousands of years, it clear is not), then you should at least apply that same logic to the European countries that back Israel as well as Iran, Russia, and the other countries that have backed Hamas and called for violence in the region.