[Baltimore Sun] Maryland progressives should hold Biden accountable for Gaza | GUEST COMMENTARY
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On university campuses across the nation, protests are building momentum as a generation of Americans watch the unspeakable horrors unfolding in Gaza. From Columbia University to the University of Maryland, students are doing what they have done time and time again — using their voices to express the collective outrage of millions.
People everywhere heard President Joe Biden’s call for an “immediate ceasefire to last six weeks” at the State of the Union nearly two months ago. This public plea, however, has been ignored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has only ratcheted up his horrific bombing campaign.
Now, as the Israeli military continues to use American-made boCopy From Printmbs to level civilian homes and hospitals in Gaza, and as Netanyahu inches closer to outright war with Iran, Biden just last week signed into law a massive foreign aid package that includes a whopping $26.4 billion for Israel. He did so despite staunch opposition from Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland and nearly 40 other progressive Democrats in Congress.
Enough is enough. Young voters, progressives, voters of color and just plain old voters of conscience have borne witness to the unspeakable suffering in Gaza — tragedy after tragedy that is being met with performative rhetoric from an American president who has shown an unwillingness to leverage his power to stop it.
To all the student protesters and other Maryland Democrats who are outraged with Biden’s lack of leadership but can’t stomach the thought of a second Trump victory, we urge you to show up on May 14th and vote “uncommitted” in the presidential primary. Even though Maryland is a solidly blue state that delivered a resounding victory to Biden in 2020, progressive voters now have the rare opportunity to use their primary ballot to pressure the leader of their party to do better — and also make himself more electable.
The reality is, President Biden has to reforge the coalition that elected him in 2020 to win in November. However, if his reported outrage behind closed doors does not translate to real policy shifts that hold Netanyahu accountable, he will continue to disenfranchise the Democratic base and risk a return of Trump to the White House.
Maryland progressives have the opportunity to join the more than 600,000 Americans who have voted uncommitted in Democratic presidential primaries in state after state. This is the largest and most coordinated protest vote campaign in modern American history — and the Biden campaign has started taking notice.
They know that the 2024 protest vote tally in swing states is rivaling or outpacing the narrow margins the president won by in 2020 — and the even slimmer margins Hillary Clinton lost by in 2016. Nearly 50,000 people made a point to pull the lever for “uninstructed” in the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary, a state Biden won by a mere 20,000 votes in 2020. And in Michigan, considered a must-win state for Democrats, uncommitted received more than 100,000 votes, far outpacing the roughly 11,000 vote margin Trump won the state by during his first run for office.
The vast majority of these 2024 uncommitted voters cheered on Biden’s victory in 2020. They desperately do not want four more years of Donald Trump. They are showing up at the ballot box and protesting in the streets because they are being ignored by the president and his campaign.
That’s why Our Revolution, the largest grassroots progressive political action group in the country, has joined the Listen To Maryland Coalition, a group of peace-focused organizations urging progressive voters to vote in protest of Biden’s handling of the ongoing war. To date, the coalition has sent nearly 300,000 emails, texts and direct mailer postcards to voters across the state.
We are doing this because the stakes could not be higher. President Biden is closing his own path to victory in a general election — against a twice-impeached con man facing 91 felony counts. Continued rhetoric without results pushes more voters away who see the mismatch between Biden’s words and actions in stark relief. There are many voters who may yet come back to Biden if action is taken to effect a ceasefire, end U.S. complicity in the atrocities in Gaza, and use real leverage to demand restraint in the wake of rapidly escalating direct military conflict.
Action, not words, is needed now to end the suffering, silence the beating of war drums, and cobble back together the fragile coalition Biden needs to remain in power.
Joseph Geevarghese (X: @JosephGeev) is executive director of Our Revolution and a resident of Hyattsville, Maryland.
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