Gaza cost Democrats the White House:

But to them, the price of sponsoring genocide was worth it

As of November 15, with only 0.86 million votes remaining to be counted in California (the only state with a significant number of uncounted votes), it looks very probable that Kamala Harris will receive a bit over 74 million votes. That’s 7 million fewer votes than Joe Biden did in 2020. Donald Trump will receive just under 77 million votes, about 2.5 million more votes than he did in 2020. [1] 

Electoral punishment foretold

Pre-election polls showed that there were tens of millions of Democrat-leaning voters who might punish the party over Gaza. Given how close US presidential elections tend to be (notwithstanding the distortions imposed by the Electoral College) it would easily be decisive if only a small percentage of those voters opted to punish the Democrats in some way over Gaza.      

At the end of February, a Yougov poll commissioned by the pro-Democrat think tank CEPR (the Center for Economic and Policy Research) found that  

…62 percent of respondents who voted for President Biden in 2020 agree with the statement, ‘The US should stop weapons shipments to Israel until Israel discontinues its attacks on the people of Gaza,’ while just 14 percent disagree. Twenty-four percent of self-identified Biden voters remain unsure.

By contrast, only 30 percent of Trump voters support halting US weapons shipments…

The poll showed that Biden (later Harris, when Biden dropped out of the campaign) would likely pay a far heavier electoral price for supporting the Israelis than would Trump. Exit polls also showed that Harris voters were vastly more likely than Trump’s to say that US support for the Isaelis was “too strong”.   

A few months later another YouGov poll found that 36% of likely voters considered the genocide in Gaza to be a “major factor” in how they would vote. Yes, there are other issues on the list below, but all of them were also issues during the 2020 election. That’s not the case for the live-streamed genocide that has been taking place since October of 2023. By sponsoring the genocide in Gaza, Democrats were practically daring their electoral base to punish them during a tight election. [2]

The ways to electorally punish

There were three ways to punish the Democrats electorally for the genocide they’ve sponsored in Gaza: 

1. Not vote at all

This is obviously the easiest way for voters to punish Democrats: staying home. For what it’s worth, if I were a US citizen this is what I would have done unless the Party for Socialism and Liberation was on the ballot where I lived. I would not have voted for Jill Stein. 

In 2020, the final results showed that 158.4 million votes were cast. In 2024, about 154 million votes will ultimately be tallied, over 4 million fewer than in 2020. 

2. Vote for an alternative candidate

In 2020, 2.9 million voted for alternative candidates, very close to the 2.7 million who voted for alternatives in 2024. Given the conformity of the higher profile alternative candidates like RFK Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West, I personally find it unsurprising that they were unable to convince many more people that voting for them was a better way to punish Democrats than just staying home. 

3. Vote for Trump.

Sadly, despite his total support for western imperialism, and for Zionism, the Biden-Harris crowd’s support for genocide made many Arab Americans conclude that Trump was in fact the lesser evil: as the stunning result in Dearborn Michigan showed. 

Empire and concessions to workers do not mix easily

If the Democrats had supported progressive enough policies at home, support for genocide abroad might have been overcome. The anti-poverty programs put in place to deal with the COVID pandemic offered a potential path to victory. Biden let them expire. 

As I explained in another piece, Biden also intervened ruthlessly to ensure that labor unions remained weak. In defiance of the facts, Biden’s apologists tried to portray him as having remarkably progressive domestic policies. They failed to convince enough voters who continued to suffer under the bi-partisan attack on workers bargaining power that has been ongoing for decades. That assault became very blatant under Ronald Reagan, but it was earlier, during the 1970s, that the US elite realized that maintaining an Empire while making significant  concessions to workers was not feasible. 

“Losing” ain't so bad

The way US elections work, it is as if Democrats and Republicans were guaranteed a silver medal in an Olympic event no matter how badly they perform. Do we call silver medalists losers? And in one way, the Democrats won this year: raising money.

Big donors know that if Republicans falter, then the Democrats are already paid for, and ready to serve the Empire

NOTES:

[1] The California count is shown below as of November 15, 10:06 pm EST

[2] Check out Ali Abunimah’s analysis for Electronic Intifada where I found some of this information.