As Politico reported (2/1/24), "[Biden] has described Trump to longtime friends and close aides as a 'sick f*ck' who delights in others' misfortunes." In 2018, Trump refused to go to the Aisne-Marne cemetery in France to pay tribute to American war dead: "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers." Later, he "referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as 'suckers' for getting killed."
Trump has a well-earned reputation as a racist, bully, and pathological liar. As he incessantly complains about being treated unfairly by prosecutors, judges, and the press, he comes across as a whining 77-year-old spoilt brat. He is one of the most striking products of bad parenting among the wealthy classes.
Yet, depending on the day a poll is taken, Trump and Biden trade leads in national favorability. A large minority of Americans approve and even revel in the behavior of this self-professed sexual predator as he scorns notions of decency that used to be commonly accepted (and intermittently practiced) by the rest of us. The division he has created among voters is passionate and deep.
One of the most striking features of Trumpism is disrespect. He displays it toward everyone and every norm or institution that gets in his way. He has polluted political discourse with his constant name-calling, insults, and open disdain for expertise or scientific authority. His supporters see him as trashing the values of the ruling class Barack Obama and Joe Biden represent, a class that looks down on ordinary people and doesn't see or care about their problems. Trump's disrespect channels his supporters' outrage.
By contrast, the premise of Biden's successful 2020 presidential campaign was a belief that most Americans were sick of Trump's ignorance, immaturity, and bullying. They wanted an adult who had the experience and knowledge needed to run a government and conduct foreign policy. As CNN noted, in contrasting the characters of Trump and Biden, "Nearly every top Democrat says the same thing about former Vice President Joe Biden when they make their endorsement: He is a man defined by his decency and empathy." Biden's handlers see this as the biggest reason people will choose him over Trump in November.
Biden and Netanyahu: the indecent soul mates
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The Hamas attack was an armed breakout from what had become an oppressive open-air prison. Once Hamas consolidated its power in Gaza after winning election in 2006, Israel instituted a land, sea and air blockade limiting the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed into Gaza, making life there increasingly unlivable. As a 2018 report from the European Council on Foreign Relations explained,
"Palestinians in Gaza receive as little as four hours of electricity per day, a reality that makes the operation of vital machinery, be they lifesaving medi- cal equipment or sewage treatment plants, a luxury. Medicine supplies are running dangerously low and food continues to be managed by Israeli 'civil administrators' to allow a minimum amount in while averting starvation."
Israel's post-Oct. 7 devastation of Gaza has turned the conditions there from unlivable to "hell on earth." According to the BBC, "Across Gaza, residential areas have been left ruined, previously busy shopping streets reduced to rubble, universities destroyed and farmlands churned up, with tent cities springing up on the southern border to house many thousands of people left homeless. About 1.7 million people - more than 80% of Gaza's population - are displaced, with nearly half crammed in the far southern end of the strip."
Israel allows only a trickle of food, fuel, and medical supplies to be delivered to Gaza. It has bombed and shelled hospitals and ambulances. "In a briefing to the UN on 22 February, MSF's [Doctors Without Borders] secretary general, Christopher Lockyear, said, 'There is no health system to speak of left in Gaza. Israel's military has dismantled hospital after hospital. What remains is so little in the face of such carnage. The excuse given is that medical facilities have been used for military purposes, yet we have seen zero independently verified evidence of this.' (BMJ 2/24)" Amputations and Caesarean sections are being performed without anesthetics.
Michael Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization's health emergencies program, said recently about the people of Gaza: "This is a population that is starving to death." As Megan K. Stack said in the same NYT essay: "[Starvation] is a harsh death. Muscles weaken and shrink. The immune system falters, and infections take hold. Vital organs break down. The weakest die first -- babies, the elderly, the sick."
During his March 7 state-of-the-union address, Biden proposed, as a way to mitigate Palestinian suffering, that the U.S. build a temporary port on the Gaza coast to import food. It would take a month or two to construct, during which Israel would continue to starve Gazans. The idea quickly received the ridicule it deserved. It begged the question of why Biden doesn't simply phone Netanyahu and make ending the blockade a precondition of further aid.
In response to South Africa's Dec. 29 accusation of genocide at the International Court of Justice, Israel responded that its attack on Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people-- a claim repeatedly echoed by U.S. politicians and corporate media. This response ignores much of the history of Israel's conduct toward Gaza. Israel's current campaign is an attempt to restore its illegitimate and oppressive control over illegally occupied territory in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, in defense of an apartheid system threatened by Palestinian militant resistance.
Palestinians are entitled to a state of their own. Israel's refusal to recognize this condemns it to a future dedicated to denying the humanity of a people consigned to refugee camps after being displaced by the foundation (aka the Nakba) of Israel in 1948. Trying to secure a state based on this denial condemns Israel to unending fear and insecurity. It is a measure of Biden's moral inadequacy and political incompetence that he has embraced, literally and figuratively, Benjamin Netanyahu-- sharing with him responsibility and guilt for so much death and suffering.
So, how should a rational citizen with a conscience vote? Not voting at all, or voting for someone like RFK or Marianne Williamson helps Trump. As anyone familiar with Trump knows, he would be indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians. Therefore, Biden is the repulsive but necessary alternative. I hope that all Biden voters accept that their vote is only the beginning of their duty, and that they should write, speak out and join protests against the shameful foreign policy of Biden and the Democratic Party.
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