Could Gaza cost Kamala Harris the White House? Not really.
The genocide in Gaza is getting worse with more than 43,000 Palestinians killed in the strip since Hamas’ October 7 attack in Israel last year. (the figure could have exceeded 186,000 according to The Lancet medical journal).
Israel has assured the world that it would not stop its genocide campaign despite having killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar - the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack - and his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh two months ago.
And now the Zionist regime has extended its brutal military campaign to Lebanon with relentless bombings of civilian areas even after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27.
Israel is on track to drag the entire Middle East into war, and it can do so thanks to the backing of the United States and the rest of the Western world.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s fascist government would never be able to pull this genocide if not for the material, moral and political support given by US President Joe Biden, whose staunch belief in Zionism is shaping his administration’s approach in Gaza, and Palestine as a whole.
To date, his administration has provided US$ 17.9 billion in military aid to Israel, lied to Congress about Israel’s blockade of aid into the besieged Gaza (despite being presented with evidence on the latter’s war crime tactic), and is actively gaslighting the press and the public about Israeli’s atrocity - thanks to the dishonest ghouls that are the spokespersons of the US State Department.
Biden’s role - not as the enabler, but as an active participant in the genocide - is posing serious trouble for his vice-president, Kamala Harris who is running as the Democrats’ presidential candidate in the 2024 elections.
Kamala is not doing okay at the moment
When Kamala swooped in July to replace the geriatric genocider from Scranton on the Democratic ticket, the former US Senator from California energised the Democratic voter base, which had become demoralised and scared after watching Biden’s disastrous performance in the July 10 debate with Donald Trump.
Despite being a last-minute one, her presidential campaign gathered a lot of energy, with money, high-profile endorsements (even from the evil Cheneys), and volunteers pouring in. To date, her campaign has raked in US$1 billion in donations.
However, the energy surrounding her campaign is fizzling out, predictably, as Kamala is failing on the Gaza issue by not pushing Biden to demand an immediate ceasefire and halting arms supply to Israel as well as not committing to calling for an arms embargo on the Zionist regime should she be elected as the next US president.
Her failure to commit towards ending the Gaza genocide has cost her Muslim American voters - especially those in swing states - who are embracing Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Butch Ware.
Additionally, her campaign is also struggling to make inroads in the Latino community, male voters in general (who are warming up to Trump), and progressives who are angry with the Biden administration’s role in the Gaza genocide. (they too are backing Stein or sitting out the election).
She is leading in polls against Trump with less than five points. In some polls, she is even neck-on-neck with the Republican presidential hopeful. Her condescending handling of pro-Gaza protesters and hecklers at her campaign rallies (which often go viral), does not help much.
With everything that is currently going on with her campaign, it is not wrong for anyone to deduce that Kamala is in a rough spot at the moment.
Voters might not punish her on Gaza
I believe that many (including myself) who are angry about the carnage that they are seeing in Gaza want Kamala and the Democrats to lose as they need to pay the ultimate price for not having the moral courage to stand up against Israel and part way from Biden on the genocide.
However, we also need to acknowledge the possibility that Kamala - for all her flaws - could still win the election.
And it would be hard to blame the voters that decided to back her, since a lot is at stake come November 5 as the conservative and the far right elements of America’s political establishment aim to upend whatever progress the country has made on multiple fronts with their manifesto - Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a 900-plus page policy manifesto prepared by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation for the next Republican president in January 2025. The document details what the president needs to do in his first 100 days, which many parties have pointed out succinctly.
Here is the list of some policy gestures the Project 2025 wants a Republican president to undertake in his first 100 days in the Oval Office:
- Fire 50,000 federal workers and replace them with political appointees beholden to a Republican president’s agenda
- Granting the president the sole authority over the executive branch based on the unitary executive theory
- Restrict abortion rights nationwide
- Ban gay marriage, gender-affirming care for the trans community and repealing anti-discrimination laws meant for the LGBTQ+ community
- Gutting labour rights by calling for the abolishment of public sector unions and cutting the pay of millions of workers by making overtime pay available to fewer workers
- Gutting health and safety protections in the workplace and protections against child labour, thus allowing teenagers to work
- Dismantling the Department of Education and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- Eliminating government policies on climate change and allowing more oil drilling
- Reducing regulations on clean air and water and prioritising the needs of businesses and private property owners.
- Cracking down on immigration, both legal and otherwise
- Using federal law enforcement to target journalists and protestors, thus violating their free speech.
………… and many more. This manifesto, to put it bluntly, is an American fascist’s wet dream of how the United States should exist - in their mould.
Trump has distanced himself from the manifesto by calling its proposal too absurd and radical to adopt. However, it is hard to believe his word given his reputation as a prolific liar, and that many Republicans who previously served in his administration, worked on the blueprint.
The former president is currently going on a more fascist streak in his big for a second term in the White House.
He threatens to arrest and imprison his political opponents, he has pledged to initiate mass deportation of immigrants which would cripple the country’s economy.
Additionally, he has pledged to ban teachings about racism in schools, ban gender-affirming care for minors (which is a stepping stone for a healthcare ban for trans adults), and pardon the fascist insurrectionists that took part in the Jan 6 riot on the US Capitol building.
On the Gaza genocide, Trump has proven himself to be just another genocide-enabler like Biden, except for the fact that he has openly called for Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish the job in Gaza” - which means to commit more mass killings of Palestinians.
For Americans who are still traumatised by Trump’s administration, they simply could not afford another term of this man’s presidency which is expected to be worse. For them, another term for Trump would mean further loss of civil rights and liberties, the rule of law, and democracy itself.
~American women fear losing whatever remains of their reproductive rights following the overturning of Roe vs Wade in 2022 by Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices.
~American LGBT folks fear further erosion of their rights in education, employment and healthcare under a second Trump term.
~Asylum seekers and refugees in the country are afraid that they could be deported back to the hostile countries that they came from.
~American workers are afraid of losing labour rights and healthcare as Trump wants to repeal Barack Obama’s signature healthcare plan - the Affordable Care Act - should he get enough votes in Congress to repeal the law.
~Non-white American liberals and progressives fear that a white supremacist like Trump would be given a second term in the White House.
Their fears are warranted and valid. This is why I believe that come November 5, liberals and even some progressives will flock to the polling centres to vote for Kamala as their next president.
They would vote for her, not because of their support of her stances on the Gaza genocide, but simply to avoid the fascist disaster that is a second term for Trump.
I know that many would instantly label Kamala’s voters as genocide enablers, but they can't be accused as such when the two-party system continues to fail the country by offering them limited political choices that only gave them two viable choices of candidates for the Oval Office.
They can’t be accused of turning a blind eye to what is happening in Gaza when the alternatives are Trump and the Green Party’s candidate Jill Stein, who has absolutely zero chance of winning the presidency.
Their legitimate fear of Trump and his fascism would help elevate Kamala to the Oval Office.
While a vast majority of Muslim American voters and other anti-Harris voters on the left (especially those in swing states) would be voting for Stein, Cornel West, or sit out the election, I predict that liberal voters would turn out to vote in droves for Harris - and their numbers would exceed those voters that Kamala has already lost.
This is why I say that regardless of how badly the Biden administration is handling the genocide, Kamala would never lose this election.
And this is an unpleasant reality that anti-Kamala folks like myself need to brace for.
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