Thousands of Michigan Democrats are expected to vote “irresponsible” in Tuesday’s presidential primary to show their opposition to Biden’s support for Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Democrats, who are strongly aligned with the president, will attack voters who are “uncommitted” for such a public rebuke of Biden, which hurts the president and therefore automatically puts former President Donald Trump’s They will argue that it will help the election campaign.Some Biden supporters has already made that claim. And the charge, “You’re helping Trump,” has been used against left-leaning writers by Democrats saying, “You’re helping Trump.” You should reconsider endorsing Biden. As the party’s nominee, he ran against liberal talk show host Jon Stewart, who suggested the president’s age was a legitimate issue. (To his credit, Biden himself never makes these “shut up and go along” type of arguments.)
“If you don’t feel like supporting the president right now, you might as well buy a MAGA hat,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) said in an interview on MSNBC last week. is supporting Trump right now,” he said in an interview on MSNBC last week. .
Democrats certainly have a strong case for pushing back against any criticism of Biden. They argue that everything must be done to prevent a second term for the radical and anti-democratic Trump, and even to discourage legitimate criticism of the president. And it could help Biden’s election that his fellow Democrats say he is older, unpopular, afraid of being questioned by the media and afraid of derailing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. is hard to imagine. (We should not automatically assume that these criticisms will have a negative impact on Biden in November.) Hillary Clinton’s extension of her primary race in the spring of 2008 has seriously damaged Obama’s general election prospects. Despite claims by his supporters, Barack Obama won the 2008 election by a landslide.)
Leftists who criticize Biden are in a complicated position.criticize biden now The result could be a Trump victory, turning the United States into a dictatorship, and making it much harder to criticize a sitting president in the future.
But even if Democrats’ criticism of Biden increases President Trump’s chances of victory, I still support those who voice their concerns. Biden’s critics are engaging in essential acts of democracy, such as showing up and protesting political leaders’ events. condemned him in writing. I voted against him in the primary to show my frustration. What many of us on the left claim we are fighting to protect from Trump is democracy. People should not oppose democratic acts just because they are inconvenient for elections.
If we have to suspend democratic action every time an election approaches to prevent the rise of authoritarian leaders, we are already living in an environment that is not fully democratic. Become.
Yes, some may say that because of the radicalism of today’s Republicans, America is a quasi-democracy and that it is essential for Biden to win in order to maintain the “quasi” part. . But in a democracy, the right way to win elections is not to try to suppress different opinions, but to convince people that your side of the argument is better.
For Democrats, it’s better to defend Biden’s Gaza policy on its merits (very tough) or encourage a change of course (easier) than to tell critics they shouldn’t publicly voice their concerns. It’s a much more democratic option. Arguing that Biden is a capable president is a much better way to go than suggesting that people shouldn’t bring up his age.
I am very afraid of Trump’s victory. But as part of democracy, sometimes terrible candidates win. It would be an even bigger subversion of democracy if tens of millions of people who are likely to vote for Biden this fall were intimidated before the election to never publicly oppose him. “In order to protect democracy, people should not criticize the sitting president, the most powerful person in this country,” is a ridiculous and highly contradictory argument. Democrats like Fetterman should stop speaking out.