Biden, Gaza, Trump, and the 2024 election

Running a presidential campaign in America, the beating heart of democracy worldwide, is a multi-billion dollar undertaking. Those riches are spread out amongst a multitude of consultants and thinktanks and assorted hustlers, grifters, and political opportunists of all stripes. If you recall the early days of the Biden administration, there was a whiff of euphoria in the air. They had the Jan 6 insurrection piñata to bash on the evening news every night. Court cases were piling up against Trump. A year into Biden’s term the Dem brain trust were convinced 2024 was already in the bag. Then, Ukraine. That’s where the DNC hit the first speed wobble. We would crush Russia with sanctions. The ruble would be rubble and the Russian people would rise up against their evil dictator. When those bold claims were made, the 2024 election was 33 months distant. It is now 6 months away and there’s no sign of Putin’s demise or Russia’s collapse. That’s a serious spanner in the works for the DNC strategists. And while the Ukraine dumpster fire rages, October 7 23 rolls around. Suddenly Sleepy Joe is embroiled in two headline-grabbing wars. That’s definitely not a good look heading into an election. Nobody in America, aside from the Ukrainian diaspora, much gives a shit about Ukraine, but holy thunderin’ Jesus, do they ever get their shorts in a twist over Israel! Joe does the only thing any US politician on the take from the Israel lobby (which is the vast majority of them) can do; profess America’s ironclad support for Israel no matter what. That probably seemed like a clever thing to say at the time. Just like in Ukraine, nobody seriously thought it would last more than a few weeks. Instead, we’re closing in on seven months and the optics are horrendous. It’s really hard to reference Israel’s right to defend itself to justify the murder of 14,000 Palestinian children, without coming across as an apologist for genocide, yet that is exactly what Team Biden has managed to do. The voters have noticed. There’s not a single Muslim vote anywhere for Biden in November. They see him as “genocide Joe” for that ironclad support for Israel. They were considered part of the Dem base until a few months ago. He’s also lost the progressive students over this, which is 90% of the youth vote, a reliable pillar of the Dem base until now. The antiwar movement on campuses across the country is just picking up steam, and could do a lot more damage very quickly unless Sleepy gets serious about yanking Bibi’s leash. In a little over two years, an election that seemed “in the bag,” now seems out of reach. But it’s not that simple. Where will the Biden votes go? Trump would be exponentially worse for the Palestinians. After all, he’s the guy who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and, in true Mafia Don style, offed the Muslim world’s folk hero, Iranian Revolutionary Guards General Soleimani. Will they go to RFK Jr? Not likely. He too is 100% in the tank for Israel. That leaves Jill Stein, the presumptive Green Party candidate. She was just arrested at an anti-war sit-in at Washington University in St. Louis. Ironically, this Jewish woman nailed down the pro-Palestinian vote with that gesture. What we have is a polity fractured along multiple fault lines. Will RFK bleed more votes from Trump than Jill Stein bleeds from Biden? Easily possible. I say the odds are even that Dementia Joe’s got four more years. Ponder that.