Is this the end of 'Lesser evil?' politics? Hope it was worth it, boomers.

I try not to be “a person on the Internet who has to post an opinion about everything” but humans only have so much self-control.

Three weeks ago I thought Joe Biden would eke out a tepid victory based on his drama-free record because he’s “better than the other guy.” The “other guy” is still Trump, thanks to how much Ron DeSantis sucks (which by the way thank god).

“There’s no way Trump will win,” I dumbly told a friend a few months back. “After 2016 there’s nothing that’s too stupid to happen,” he sagely retorted.

And here we are. After weeks of the US embracing genocide in Gaza, it looks like Biden is poised to lose a generation of young voters—as well as the entire Arab and Muslim population of Michigan and other key swing states. As Elie Mystal notes in the Nation, Black people and other people of color are also not historically primed to be fans of massacres.

“How can I tell somebody who’s watching these atrocities on live TV, today, to vote for President Biden?” a civic leader in Dearborn told the New York Times. “The pulse of the community is overwhelmingly not supportive of Biden now. They feel betrayed.”

As the Times reports, Muslims were integral to Biden’s victory in 2020.

Ms. Al-Hanooti said Muslims turned out in large numbers for Mr. Biden mainly because they were motivated to help defeat President Trump. As a candidate for president, Mr. Trump called for a shutdown of Muslim immigration and referred to “radical Islam” infiltrating American communities; while in office, he issued an executive order that imposed restrictions on refugees and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

What do you expect? America has been low-grade telling Muslims and Arabs that their lives don’t matter in thousands of ways, big and small, especially since 9/11. They’ve still thrived, with higher education levels than average and far lower crime rates. But holy shit did this war bring the message home about whose life matters (interestingly, radio silence from the “All Lives Matter” folk 🤔) and whose doesn’t, in a highly specific mathematical ratio that leaves little room for doubt.

When he was asked about the more than 3,000 children, Biden replied by disputing the accuracy of the numbers reported by the Health Ministry. In mainstream coverage, the reaction unleashed by his response is sterilized. Take The Washington Post: “Biden’s remarks, which the administration later reiterated in formal statements, were interpreted by many as calling Palestinians liars, or as equating Gaza’s beleaguered medical professionals with Hamas.” That’s probably a part of it. But I imagine it’s more visceral. To a question about thousands of dead children“Mr. Empathy” and “America’s Grandpa”gave a cold (and false) numerical response.

Asked about the hundreds of deaths at Al-Ahli hospital after an explosion on October 17, Biden made a glib sports metaphor. “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.” Later he added “I’m not suggesting that Hamas deliberately did it. It’s that old thing: gotta learn how to shoot straight.” Don’t wanna miss that mid-court shot! Imagine that lack of solemnity about the Israeli deaths and kidnappings? Actually I don’t have to imagine it. You saw it in the dreadful immediate reactions of a minority of pro-Palestine U.S. activists, and for that, they’ve been universally denounced, doxed, fired and/or rendered unemployable.

Aid to Israel is a complex machinery and a hundred-year-old isn’t going to blow it up — but did Biden have to envelop Netanyahu in warm embraces on TV? Obama, for all his faults, often looked like he was gritting his teeth into dust in his meetings with Netanyahu, who’s only gotten more unhinged and extreme, as well as incompetent: the greatest mystery will be how Israel, outfitted with the surveillance equipment of an advanced future civilization, didn’t predict the attack.

The B-side news cycle of attacks on US universities and free speech also drives the point home that Palestinians are less, if at all, human. Consider the University of Pennsylvania boycott.

Wealthy donors, including the purveyor of copaganda Law and Order, Dick Wolfe, denounced the school’s leadership and said they’d pull funding. Is it because the president, Liz Magill, hoisted a Hamas flag above the august institution? As it turns out, no, she did not. Weeks before the Hamas attacks the school had allowed Palestine Writes, a literary fair, to take place at the school, with no institutional support or endorsement. As more billionaires signed on to the “movement” started by private equity ghoul Marc Rowan, Bari Weiss crowed cheerily, “That’s true courage!”

The courage part evades me. But more to the point, what is the message? That Palestinians shouldn’t be allowed to write literature and assemble to talk about it, like actual human beings?

In response to Arab and Muslim rage, the White House organized an insultingly rote “damage control” session with Muslim leaders like the non-Palestinian Keith Ellison. Officials also held a session with close to 70 Muslim and Arab federal government workers. Many know people in Gaza and almost all have had family members pressuring them to quit in protest. Many of them cried. The Washington Post reports that officials’ response, as summed up by an attendee, was: “We hear you. We’re with you. It’s hard. It’s challenging.” Apparently Doug Emhoff stopped by (“briefly” according to the Post).

We’re with you. We had Doug Emhoff pop in but he remembered that he had to move his car.

Another 4 years of Trump would be hell. But it would be a hell entirely of Democrats’ own making.