Satirising the awful 2024 US presidential election race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, poet Saul Williams suggested a new slogan for the US:
We can’t let genocide get in the way of democracy.
— Saul Williams (@SaulWilliams) November 3, 2024
Harris Trump: genocide should be a red line
Genocide absolutely should be a red line for US voters. They should say ‘no more’ to the empty corporate horror show of an election cycle where elites treat voting for the lesser evil as if it’s democracy.
There are, however, many pundits who say the US should vote for the lesser evil just one more time, just because of the awfulness of Donald Trump. Below are just a few reasons why voters absolutely shouldn’t give Democratic elites the satisfaction of winning yet another mass anti-Trump vote without giving anything meaningful in return.
No empty promise or bigwig speech makes supporting genocide acceptable
Kamala Harris has promised to ‘do everything in her power’ to end the bloodshed in Gaza. But that seems to be an empty promise on an issue she knows may cost her the election. Because she doesn’t only continue to deny it’s a genocide; she also has no interest in stopping the flow of US arms to Israel (despite an arms embargo being a vote winner). At the same time, she has treated Israeli deaths as ‘more tragic‘ than Palestinian deaths, while smearing people protesting against the genocide. Oh, and she’s received over $5m from pro-Israel lobbyists.
Aware that Harris will struggle to beat Trump, Democratic elites have brought in big names like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and even Bernie Sanders. Obama sought to downplay the genocide or argue (fairly) that Trump would be worse. But he didn’t promise an end to US support for Israeli crimes. Clinton, meanwhile, bumbled in to insultingly insist that Hamas was making Israel kill Palestinian civilians (and that he ‘wasn’t keeping score‘ on how many Palestinian deaths would justify ending the genocide). For the record, there’s more evidence of Israel using human shields than Hamas. And as an Israeli genocide scholar has previously stressed, shifting blame for your crimes onto your enemy is reminiscent of Nazi soldiers’ logic in World War Two.
Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, has been weak on the Gaza genocide. And he continued this poor form recently, promising that “we will have in my view a much better chance of changing US policy with Kamala than with Trump” and emphasising that “as important as Gaza is, and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue in this election”. Harris, however, has made it crystal clear that she will mirror Biden’s stance if she wins.
Continuity Biden is bad for the US and bad for the left
While there’s maybe a slightly bigger gap between the Democratic and Republican candidates than in 2020, the Democratic Party remains, as Political Compass points out, “to the right of many European conservative parties”. Maybe that explains why Harris has so many Republican backers. She is the continuity candidate, and the rich and powerful know it.
Bernie Sanders and many on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have entered the trap of simply pushing Biden from within, which essentially means cheerleading for someone else’s team. Because while there have been some small achievements, Biden didn’t improve living standards for most people. In fact, over 40% of likely voters claim to be worse off financially than before Biden became president. And young voters, many of whom Sanders inspired previously, have seen little hope arise, with only a tenth seeing any benefit under Biden’s administration.
On the international scene, as Middle East Eye outlines, the US has “fast-tracked weapons and armaments to Israel’s military and provided a diplomatic shield for Israel at the United Nations” during the genocide, all while giving Israel “$3.8bn in military aid each year”. Elsewhere, Biden refused to reverse Trump-era policies like leaving the Iran nuclear deal and adding Cuba to the US terror list.
In short, Sanders submitted to the elite Democratic coup against him, but got little in return. And the party has been even bolder this time in suppressing democracy. Because after decades of elites hollowing the party out, they topped it off in 2024 by undemocratically anointing Kamala Harris as their candidate. She had previously demonstrated malleability and a tendency for power-seeking and authoritarian behaviour, and that sat comfortably with the Democratic establishment.
People are tired of voting for the lesser evil, especially when that evil is genocide
Voters dislike both Harris and Trump. 60% are unhappy about having to choose between those two options. And Harris supporters arguing that the Trumpist threat to democracy should make people vote for her means little. Because economic concerns are the biggest issue for 44% of people, while democracy is the main concern for only 3%. Indeed, why would people care about the current system if it has delivered them a worsening standard of life in recent years?
Progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib is a lone voice in refusing to endorse Harris. She insists that “this election didn’t have to be close”, and that it’s “the Biden admin’s unconditional support for genocide is what got us here”. And she’s right. Because backing a genocide should have an impact on a government’s popularity, and it has. Among Muslim American voters in particular, 43% will support vocal genocide critic Jill Stein in the election.
Some voters, meanwhile, are so intent on sending a clear message to Democratic elites that they’re planning to vote for Trump. The genocide, after all, has happened on Biden’s watch, not Trump’s. And Trump has cynically tried to court angry voters by promising peace, hoping they’ll forget his long history of Islamophobic comments and racist dog-whistling.
Harris Trump: shun them both
Trump and Harris are not the same. Harris is bad, but not as bad as Trump. However, the two-party corporate system will keep putting bad candidates forwards if voters keep allowing them to. A Harris loss would be the responsibility of the party elite, not voters. Because as Stein insists, the Democrats could make a small change with a big impact, but:
they would rather lose the election than end the genocide
If that’s not a good reason to shun both Trump and Harris this election, what is?
Featured image via the Canary
