I couldn’t agree more.
Americans of all colors and creeds should be outraged by the sickening overkill in Gaza.
As they should be sickened by what maniacal Hamas butchers did Oct. 7.
But here’s something just as sickening: Too many young Americans, images from Gaza parading past their eyes on social media, want to strike out at a false target: Joe Biden.
This raises an alarming specter: “single-grievance” progressive voters who help elevate Donald Trump back into office, either by casting meaningless third-party votes or staying home while encouraging others to do the same.
I have but one syllable for that: dumb.
Concern about Gaza. One thing that’s really dumb about this is that Donald Trump is a dedicated Bibi boot-licker. (True, Netanyahu holds no candle to a shirtless Vlad. But based on Trump’s actions in office, Israel’s dangerous leader is a clear runner-up in Trump’s Mr. Strongman competition.)
Robert Kennedy Jr.? When last asked (he is a “check-this-space” wonder), Kennedy also supports Israel’s incursion vigorously.
Support of Israel is a generations-old U.S. commitment and as close to a consensus in Congress as any issue beyond rolling Easter eggs.
I hope and trust that smart young progressives are making note that a gutsy Biden has put conditions on how to use U.S. weapons in operations in the Gazan city of Rafah and is the loudest voice calling for humanitarian aid. The floating pier Biden ordered has just begun to deliver it.
But let’s put that aside and consider what else young progressives would be supporting indirectly with such a “protest” vote:
— A party built to the specifications of a man who faces multiple other criminal charges including the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
— A party committed to shelving Biden’s historic climate initiatives.
— A party committed to blocking Biden’s efforts to reduce student debt.
— A party committed to banning abortion nationwide.
— A party committed to ostracizing, demonizing and further marginalizing gay, lesbian and transgender individuals.
— A party that blindly looks to the gun lobby for direction when children die in school slaughters.
These are issues that have motivated young Americans of all stripes on Election Day.
What about matters that bear on Americans of color? A “protest vote” helps:
— A party devoted to curbing the political clout of black and brown voters through redistricting schemes and race-based efforts to suppress the vote.
— A party that calls Black Lives Matter a Communist plot.
— A former president who counts Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and white supremacists among his die-hard supporters and who says he’d pardon rioters who waged chaos and bloodshed Jan. 6.
— A former president who would separate children from their families at the border, many never to be reunited. He also promises the largest deportation in U.S. history if elected.
— A man for whom places that aren’t mostly white are “shithole countries.”
As for Muslim-Americans outraged over the situation in Gaza: A protest vote that undermines Biden helps none other than the man who, among his first acts as president, sought to ban Muslims from entering the country.
This is the same man who says “anti-white” discrimination is one of the great issues of our time. No wonder close-cropped marchers raise tiki torches for him.
It is easy for the uninformed when frustrated about the turtle-pace of progress, to blame the person with the most power, the president.
However, anyone with a lick of understanding realizes how a Republican-controlled House can block much of what Biden wants to do and then blame Biden for a lack of progress.
Any protest vote that hurts Biden makes it more likely that Supreme Court justices locked in a distant century will make more laws for future centuries.
So, young progressive voter: I hear you about Gaza. Do you hear me about the real stakes in the upcoming election? If you do, the only protest vote that makes sense is that which hurts the Republican Party and its front-runner.
That would be votes for Biden and Democrats.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
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