An Open Letter to the Left: Joe Biden Must Be Re-Elected

What's Happening in Gaza is Illegal. Punishing Biden For It Will Bring Fascism Home.

This essay began as a series of posts on Threads. To read those posts, click here.

I am a former human rights lawyer, and one of the organizers of the largest mass mobilization against Trump's migrant detention camps in 800 cities worldwide, a scant four years ago.

I also favor a ceasefire in Gaza, and oppose crimes agains humanity everywhere-- I've litigated on behalf of victims of some of the worse ones in history, including genocide cases (the Holocaust slave labor cases, the "comfort women" mass kidnapping and sexual enslavement case).

So hear me when I say this:

Refusing to vote for Biden in 2024 because he can't control Netanyahu/the IDF (but is engaging in diplomacy toward a ceasefire while not saying so publicly), and/or because US funding always goes for war, is a recipe for horrors HERE AT HOME that are unimaginable.

There is no question that Netanyahu is engaged in actions that constitute genocide under international law.

AND: if Biden is not re-elected, genocide will be in the offing HERE.

It's time for some big picture perspective.

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• Trump is ON RECORD that he will put immigrants, protestors (including pro-Palestinian protestors), and political opponents in *concentration camps* if reelected.

  

• The anti-LGBTQ+ agenda that has been tested in the states will be carried out at the national level if Trump wins. Gender affirming care will be banned nationwide. "Teachers or school officials who "suggest to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body" would face "severe consequences," Trump added." Trump will put trans folks and LGBTQ+ supporters/allies in camps as well if he gets the chance.

• Trump has urged his supporters to kill teachers who teach about systemic racism and civil rights. "“Getting critical race theory out of our schools is not just a matter of values, it’s also a matter of national survival. We have no choice, the fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down and they must do this, lay down their very lives to defend their country.”

• He has stated that he will round up those who oppose him and engage in extrajudicial arrest and incarceration (which by the way is a fancy way of saying detention in camps or prisons without due process).

• He has celebrated the extrajudicial killing of migrants on site at the border.

• He has historically suggested that those who obtain abortions should be subject to imprisonment.

• His advisors have an extremely detailed roadmap for how they are going to end the independence of the Department of Justice and invoke the Insurrection Act immediately to arrest and detain those who disagree with anything he wants to do.

  "“This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” Trump said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire in October. “And that means I can do that, too.”"

• Indeed, there is an already-drafted plan to put the entire federal government under his personal control, called Project 2025, that he will put into play on day one.

  

  This will allow him to do whatever he wants, to anyone-- including mass murder civilians and commit genocide, NOTABLY exactly what folks are rightfully opposed to in Gaza-- and he will never leave power voluntarily again once he is back in control.

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So let's be very clear about this.

The role of all of us in a participatory democracy is to elect the best available candidate, and then to push that candidate-- through protest, direct action, and advocacy-- to advance freedom, justice and liberation for all people.

We must call for a return of hostages and call for a ceasefire and work in whatever way we can for peace.

We must end hate, islamphobia, anti-semitism, transphobia, xenophobia, ALL OF IT, and as soon as possible.

The only way to do that in the near future is to re-elect Joe Biden.

Whatever you believe, and whatever you want for this nation and the planet, that is the only current way forward.

Anything else will, quite literally, be the death of us.

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CODA:

You should be paying very close attention to any posts on social media or anywhere else that claim that you don't have any say in this. Block those folks immediately, because YOU DO.

The vast majority of Americans oppose what Trump stands for.

Your mobilization and work toward the 2024 election, and our turnout, is what will allow things to change.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

We already have it, at least for now.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying (or posting from somewhere else with an ulterior agenda).

/fin