Senator Bernie Sanders has offered support to students protesting across United States college campuses in opposition to Israel’s offensive against Hamas and is warning that Joe Biden’s support for the Israelis could cost him the election in November.
“I worry very much that President Biden is putting himself in a position where he has alienated not just young people, but a lot of the Democratic base in terms of his views on Israel and this war,” Sanders said. Younger voters and Muslim voters, particularly important in the swing state of Michigan, are both trending away from Biden in recent polling.
“In terms of his [reelection] campaign, I am thinking back… this may be Biden’s Vietnam,” Sanders suggested, noting how opposition to Lyndon B. Johnson’s foreign policy killed his presidency.
Our Revolution, a progressive political action organization kickstarted by Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign, previously led efforts to have Democrats decline to commit to Biden as their 2024 candidate. Intended to send a message to Biden that many leftists are unhappy with his position on Gaza, the initiative could not stop Biden from being declared the Democratic nominee, but it reeled in over 13 percent of the vote in Michigan.
The campaign to vote for “uncommitted” instead of Biden in Michigan reportedly caused his campaign to “freak out,” as a relatively small number of leftists staying home in November could cost him Michigan and other key states.
Biden has attempted to chart a middle path through the campus crisis, suggesting there are fine people on both sides. However, he may simply be alienating both sides, with protestors and counter-protestors having united in chants of “F*** Joe Biden” at a recent demonstration in Alabama.
“They are out there for the right reasons… they are out there not because they are ‘pro-Hamas.' They are out there because they are outraged by what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza.”@SenSanders discusses the student anti-war protests sweeping colleges in America.… pic.twitter.com/bUThiWoqUt
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) May 2, 2024