In a letter published Wednesday on Medium, an anonymous group of Biden’s campaign staffers demanded the president call for a ceasefire in Gaza, citing concerns that not shifting his policy on the issue could hurt his 2024 chances.
“Biden for President staff have seen volunteers quit in droves, and people who have voted blue for decades feel uncertain about doing so for the first time ever, because of this conflict,” the Medium letter read.
“It is not enough to merely be the alternative to Donald Trump,” the campaigners continued. “The campaign has to shift the feeling in the pits of voters’ stomachs, the same feeling that weighs on us every day as we fight for your reelection. The only way to do that is to call for a ceasefire.”
It’s good to see that people are putting pressure on Biden to do the right thing vis-a-vis Israel and Gaza. I think it’s the right thing to do and I’ve been so disillusioned to see American democracy reduced to a booster contest between soulless ghouls that must never be challenged or questioned™.
It’s not at all surprising to see toxic, bad-faith rhetoric deployed in his defense, tho. If there’s one thing I can count on from the Dem establishment is that when faced with unsolicited input from young people, out comes the reductionist rhetoric about how anything that isn’t ball-slobbering of their candidate and whatever the party has handed down as its agenda is a vote for fascism.
As it did in 2016, the Democrats are going through energetic disagreements over their future direction as a party- and as it did in 2016, the establishment is going to have to decide whether it can afford to alienate its younger/leftier constituency in order to chase votes to the center
The problem is that younger people often don’t vote. So chasing their votes is a losing strat. Younger citizens need to actually get out there and make sure that they are casting votes, otherwise they will continue to not be taken seriously
I’m sure if younger people were given a reason to give a shit they’d come out and vote. Even the candidates that are supposed to be more relatable to younger voters(Dems) have tone deaf talking points that revolve around the stock market, unemployment, gas prices, and inflation, none of which are an accurate metric that would define economic opportunity for the youth. Kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
You’re correct but I see you’ve been downvoted by people who think young people “just don’t vote” and this defeatist attitude is prevalent in the democrat fanbase. It’s always “the president can’t do that” when it comes to helping people where obama and biden can only offer breadcrumbs in 12 years, but somehow trump can turn the entire country into a fascist hellhole in just 4 years.
Give young people a reason to vote and they will: https://www.pewresearch.org/2008/11/13/young-voters-in-the-2008-election/
But nah, it’s instead either “they don’t vote so we don’t need to care about them” or “if we shame them hard enough then they must vote for us!” Then when the democrats inevitably lose an election, it’s somehow the voters’ fault as if democrats are owed votes.