By Charles C. W. Cooke
Thursday, November 02, 2023
Noah asks:
So, what is the point of Biden’s
endorsement of a cease-fire by another name in such a highly conspicuous venue?
Was it really all just politics? Is the Democratic Party’s coalition so tenuous
that Israel’s just response to the 10/7 massacre must be sacrificed lest the
party come apart at the seams? Joe Biden’s capitulation to the loud minority on
his party’s extreme-left flank should certainly make us wonder.
I’d say: Politics. Yes. And: Yes.
What’s so interesting about all this, though, is that
while this is, indeed, the product of politics, it’s the product of bad politics.
I’m often asked these days who is “really” running the White House. Is it
Barack Obama? Jill Biden? Kamala Harris? I think the answer is far more
straightforward: The White House is being run by the broader progressive blob.
(This, by the way, is one reason why people who live within the progressive
blob think he’s doing such a lovely job, and everyone else thinks he’s a
disaster.) Why did Joe Biden run for president insisting that Twitter isn’t
real life, and then become wholly captive to its undulations? Why did he open
up the border? Why, having beaten Bernie Sanders to the nomination, did he try
to spend six trillion dollars on Sanders’s preposterous fever dreams? Why did
he lean in so hard on illegal student-loan “forgiveness” — heck, why is
he still leaning in so hard on illegal student-loan
“forgiveness”? Why did he indulge Cori Bush’s ridiculous eviction-moratorium
play, despite having said that he had no legal authority? Why, at this moment,
is he launching a
bizarre “National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Related Forms
of Hate,” when everyone with eyes can see that we are in the midst of the worst
bout of antisemitism in recent memory? Because the people around him want that
stuff, that’s why. His staff want it. His donors want it. The loudest voices on
the internet want it. The people his aides see in the school parking lot want
it. He’s been captured, and he’s too old and too craven to resist.
It’s not really about voters in Michigan. It’s not really
about voters at all. Polls show that only 13 percent of American voters blame Israel for
“civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.” And, insofar as Biden is being
criticized by the public for his stance on Israel, he’s being criticized for
being insufficiently supportive. Fifty percent think that
he’s shown “about the right amount” of support for Israel; 22 percent of
Americans think that Biden has shown “too much support for Israel”; and 28
percent think he’s shown “not enough.” That’s 78–22 to the pro-Israel side. Among
Democrats, 74 percent think he’s shown either the right amount or not enough,
with just 26 percent thinking he’s shown “too much.” This isn’t about the
electorate. It’s not even about the Democratic Party. It’s about the
imperatives of progressivism, which holds a fringe position on this topic, but
which is massively overrepresented in academia, entertainment, corporate
America, and the U.S. government. Were Joe Biden making cynical political
choices here, he’d be worried about alienating the majority of the country.
He’s not, because it’s not about that. This has happened because the president
lives in a ridiculous bubble, as do most of the people around him. By those
fruits shall he be known. I doubt they’ll taste good in the long run.
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