On Gaza Protest Voters, Dem Pundits Don’t Need to Rally the Troops 8 Months Before Election

This careerist media posture only serves one functional purpose.

Sarah and I will be reporting from the DNC in August, and one thing that keeps nagging at me is the preemptive revulsion at the spectacle of it all: the cheerleading, the Friendly Uncle Joe branding, the ostensibly pro-labor play for progressives, the accurate-but-increasingly-bad-faith evocations of Trump’s fascism. I know it’s coming because, in many ways, it’s already here. Whether or not the US will still be backing genocide in Gaza or some variation of its aftermath five months out is, of course, unknown. But the looming image of all the partisan troop-rallying for Biden—who clearly has no intention to meaningfully change course on Gaza—is a symptom of broader disease infecting our body politic.

None of this has to do with my own personal feelings. Or, at least it shouldn’t. My own moral outrage over Biden’s backing of ethnic cleansing in Gaza is irrelevant. All politics is about making imperfect decisions. I’m aware of this, as any adult should be. But this cynical formulation has its limits—or it ought to—lest we give our leaders license to cross any and all moral lines. And this can’t be okay. This political calculation cannot be unconditional. 

So a standoff is emerging: a standoff between voters of conscience and Democratic leadership, and one I believe media hanger-ons will attempt to end as soon as possible. Firstly, as I laid out seven weeks ago, this whole situation is entirely the president’s fault, and remains so. At any point, Biden can wake up and end the mass killing and starvation in Gaza, or at least begin to wind it down, but he chooses not to. Anyone who argues that Biden is somehow powerless is lying to you and is not a morally serious person. This convenient out is a dishonest partisan talking point that no one familiar with the dynamics at work takes seriously. But Biden refuses to change course. 

Nor will I attempt to electioneer one way or another. I will not tell readers to withhold their vote, nor will I tell readers they must vote for Biden eventually, or if some conditions are met. What I am concerned with in this essay is the media discourse around this dynamic—the pomp and spectacle of pundits and media personalities beginning the scolding process eight months before the election, and why this makes little moral sense. Alas, for a combination of ideological reasons, racist beliefs, and routine stubbornness, Biden refuses to end the horror and believes the upwards of 20,000 dead Palestinian children is worth some abstract military aim of “eliminating Hamas” despite the fact that his own Secretary of State admits, behind closed doors, this goal is impossible.  

This leaves voters who are disgusted and outraged over Biden’s support for genocide with two remaining choices: deliberately and conspicuously not voting for Biden in protest, or holding their noses and doing so. But this is not a choice that will manifest for eight months, and—I can’t stress this enough—it shouldn’t. 

This isn’t to say I would judge anyone who says they would not vote for Biden under any circumstances, given the massive death toll he’s already signed off on. I get that, and would never find fault with anyone for not being able to endorse someone responsible for this much carnage. I’m only noting that, from an outward messaging standpoint, if those in power believe all of these anti-Biden Gaza voters are locked in any way, then all pressure is gone, just as it would be if they all pledged their fidelity to Biden like the MSNBC types keep scolding them to.

If one commits to either course they lose all their leverage. If enough voters openly say they will never vote for Biden at all, then this removes all leverage. And if enough voters commit their fidelity to his reelection, this removes all leverage. And the leverage—even if largely abstract and difficult to quantify at the moment—is all there is. 

Only by existing in a quantum superposition of both withholding their vote, and voting for Biden if Biden changes course tomorrow, does the voter have any leverage at all—any power at all. This is where the group psychology of vote-withholding comes into play. As a recent NBC News report makes clear, behind closed doors, Biden is outraged and flustered over the uncommitted movement and the much greater underlying anger among voters it represents. The only thing that has moved the needle at all among Democratic Party elites is the threat of losing votes. Biden may not care about losing to Trump in November (or, for that matter, his own legacy), but those around them probably do. Without a credible threat of not voting, especially in some collective way like that of the Uncommitted Movement, all leverage is lost and, just like that, any effort to pressure Biden to end the genocide fizzles away. 

This is why the timing is important, and liberal, progressive, and left-adjacent types attempting to rally the troops—or downplay the power of Uncommitted Movement—right now are so vulgar and careerist. What purpose does this rallying serve other than to undermine leverage pressuring Biden to change course?  Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of powerless voters’ control, the only leverage they have is a credible threat of mass vote-withholding. To concede this eight months out serves no functional purpose other than giving the White House the signal that it will suffer no consequences for crossing a clear red line of supporting the mass killing and starvation of a civilian population. 

Assuming one simultaneously holds the two morally sound positions of wanting to stop and genocide and make sure Trump doesn’t have a second term, they are effectively resigned to a game of chicken with the DNC and White House. Who will flinch first matters, and for morally self-evident reasons, it’s best for humanity—and for the goal of stopping Trump—if the President does so first. But it’s a game of chicken that must exist; indeed, Biden has left voters of conscience no choice.

“But what about Trump!” the savvy political mind retorts. “On Gaza, he’ll have the same policies or worse than Biden.” Yes, this is mostly true, but the point is that voters who are disgusted by Gaza, overwhelmingly belonging to historically Democratic voting bases to begin with, have no leverage over Trump. There is no realistic path to influencing his decision making. Just as one can only truly influence their own government's policies, members of a party can only hope to influence their own party and those who claim to represent them. Providing negative pressure to someone who wasn’t counting on your vote anyway doesn’t make any sense. People, especially institutionally powerless people, can only exercise pressure where they can. Everything else is posturing and moral preening. And again, this cannot be stressed enough: Outraged Democratic voters threatening to withhold support for Biden are only doing so because Biden has given them no choice. Their demand is extremely clear, morally obvious, and actionable. Biden’s refusal to heed it, and the messy political outcomes resulting from this stubborn refusal, are ultimately his moral burden, not theirs.

And therein lies the power of the vote-withholding strategy, albeit a desperate and limited power. Its utility is its inscrutability, in its uncertainty, in its ability to be both a pissed off non-voter and a reluctant voter who can be won over with a single policy pivot. Like with quantum particles, to measure it is to change its position, and to change its position is to prevent it from being measured. Until the wave function is forced to collapse on November 5 2024, there is no moral reason to do so. Otherwise, what other leverage do voters of conscience have? None. 

Assuming Biden’s support remains steadfast over the coming months, the parallel media narratives attempting to herd angry voters into the D column will grow more desperate, manipulative, and dishonest. This will involve emotionally extorting holdouts by evoking the very real threats of Project 2025, a national abortion ban, gutting labor protections, or a host of legitimate fears inherent in a Trump 2.0, rather than taking all that energy and anger and frustration and directing at the one person who can end the standoff: the President of the United States. This is why—barring a radical policy change—the DNC this August in Chicago must be protested with vigor and focus and resolve long before and during the actual event. It’s the last chance the anti-Gaza genocide constituency has to have any meaningful leverage over the President. Because after the troops are rallied, Bernie Sanders gives approving speeches, and the balloons fall, the narrative—and reelection strategy—are baked in, and all that’s left is falling in line. And certainly this can’t be how it plays out, can it: desperate, weak capitulation followed by a rah rah moment in prime time, all over the dead bodies of tens of thousands of Palestinians?