There are two strands that are distinct but increasingly inextricably intertwined. I want to reemphasize the distinct issues while not being blind that it probably is hopeless to disentangle them now.
The first:
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday went so far as to warn that Biden’s Israel policy...
I agree with President Biden's Israel policy! As I wrote just a few days ago, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be Israeli."
The second:
...and response to students’ anti-war protests...
I DISAGREE with President Biden's response, "Order must prevail", to the pro-Palestinian protests. I vehemently disagree with the pro-Palestinian protests but as one our Founding Fathers said, "I will defend to the death" the right of pro-Palestinian protesters to vehemently disagree with me.
There is a real distinction there! It's not a wise, clever, or elegantly parsed position. It's real, it's clear. It's not a deep point if one our FF's came up with it.
Senator Sanders weaves the two distinct strands together to make a cogent, realistic, perhaps inescable political point:
...“may be Biden’s Vietnam.”
Rep. Jim Clyburn who, more than any other single person, is most responsible for Joe Biden being president, and defeating the American Hitler, puts it similarly:
“...I was around during President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs that brought on voting rights. He was vice president [he was fucking president] when we got the Civil Rights Act of ’64, he brought on Medicare, Medicaid — all those things that made us a great society, he was the engineer of, and all that went down the drain because of Vietnam.”
Does that make sense? Of course not. But that is politics and that happened! And the result? Richard Nixon! The Vietnam student protesters were violent as well as non-violent, they rioted at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (this year's convention: Chicago), the police rioted back on them and the Democrats were done. And we got Dick Nixon. And with him a continuation of the war. Nice, huh?
It may be hopeless to disentangle the strands, Sanders says it is, Clyburn says it is, and the consequence is that President Biden "may" lose his presidency because of the tight weave. May be a hopeless task for me but does everyone see the reductio ad absurdum reached when you join two different things together? How many American young people have been drafted into the War in Gaza? Zero. How many Americans have died in the fighting in Gaza? Zero. How many young American men died drafted, fighting in Vietnam? Over 50,000. THERE ARE NO SIMILARITIES FOR AMERICAN LIVES BETWEEN VIETNAM AND GAZA! NONE!
So how is it rational that another country's, Israel's, war, precipitated by another people's, the Palestinians', sneak, barbaric, butchery, murder, rape, dismemberment and kidnapping attack against the other country, could reasonably cost an American president his job? Of course it is irrational, but politics is not always rational. Of course it is doubly irrational that an "alienated" Democratic base," "not just young people" may sit out the November election or vote for a third party candidate and hand the presidency to a man, even worse than Dick Nixon, who would not hesitate to bomb what is left of Gaza back into the Stone Age, and sic the cops on the student protesters. TRUMP WILL KILL THE PROTESTING STUDENTS! (unless of course they're pro-Israeli)
Clyburn: “I am where I am today because of protests,” but emphasized, “We did it nonviolently.”
And now you see the kids' frustration and why they lump Biden and Trump, LBJ and Nixon, together in one untrustworthy group of Old Men. THE PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTERS ARE BEING NON-VIOLENT, CONGRESSMAN CLYBURN! IT'S THE PRO-ISRAELI PROTESTERS WHO ARE BEING VIOLENT! Clyburn implicitly lumps peaceful, misdemeanant trespassers together with violent misdemeanants and felons. And we all get our lumps.
See, just writing this out logically gets me all pissed off. Bernie Sanders is not wrong on the practical politics of it all, ditto Jim Clyburn; the peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters are not wrong. The only sensible approach to the protests occurred at the University of Michigan commencement.
In Ann Arbor, the protest happened at the beginning of the event at Michigan Stadium. About 75 people, many wearing traditional Arabic kaffiyehs along with their graduation caps, marched up the main aisle toward the graduation stage.
They chanted “Regents, regents, you can’t hide! You are funding genocide!” while holding signs, including one that read: “No universities left in Gaza.”
Overhead, planes flew banners with competing messages. “Divest from Israel now! Free Palestine!” and “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.”
Officials said no one was arrested, and the protest didn’t seriously interrupt the nearly two-hour event, which was attended by tens of thousands of people, some of them waving Israeli flags.
State police prevented the demonstrators from reaching the stage and university spokesperson Colleen Mastony said…
“Peaceful protests like this have taken place at U-M commencement ceremonies for decades.” (AP)
Largely, only the violent pro-Israel protesters are wrong, and only they will get what they want: autocratic, dictator on Day One, violent, pro-Israel, Trump. It may be "Biden's Vietnam." Absurd, but very plausible realpolitik.
The only hopes really are two: 1) that President Biden attend the pro-Palestinian protests and tell them face to face that he disagrees with them, that his policy will not change, but that he defends to the death their right to peacefully protest against him. T'ain't gonna happen. 2) That the president successfully brokers the current Cairo talks, which bear fruit of a cease fire and use that as breathing space -slash- momentum to end the war. Cease fire may happen.
