Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's ill-fated 2024 presidential campaign was much criticized for being "too online." But Democrats are no less prone to fall into that same trap. Now-Vice President Kamala Harris's 2020 presidential campaign, which generated considerable initial buzz before it abruptly sputtered, was infamous for listening too much to left-wing TV hosts and social media blue checkmarks—not actual Democratic primary voters. Indeed, that a loud political minority—either within a party or across the broader electorate—can drown out a less vocal political majority is now a fixture of our politics, helpfully explained by public choice theory.
President Joe Biden, now seeking a second term with the worst approval ratings for an incumbent since the 1950s, is once again committing the same mistake. The doddering dolt from Delaware has been on a monthslong crusade to mollycoddle Hamas, a U.S. State Department-recognized Foreign Terrorist Organization that slaughtered dozens of American citizens last October and still holds many hostage today in Gaza. The senile octogenarian, a mere puppet of his addlebrained ventriloquists, is now all in for Hamas.
By acceding to his young and hyper-online campaign staffers who have imbibed the woke catechism and thus view Hamas jihadists as "oppressed" victims of Israeli "oppressors," the president—or "Dr." Jill Biden, or whoever else controls Uncle Joe—is setting himself up for failure. By making such a strong play for states like Michigan, Biden is strapping on a political suicide vest and positioning himself to be a shahid for radicals in Dearborn, Michigan, who will never be appeased and who will continue to protest "genocide Joe" through election day. Meanwhile, Democrats' pampering of an Islamist death cult abroad and failure to crack down on supportive, fifth-column anarchists at home only alienate the vast majority of swing-state voters who are not virulently anti-Israel or antisemitic.
Biden's initial rhetorical support for Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom is now a distant memory. He has since taken countless, often unprecedented steps to throw Israel under the bus—during an hour of great wartime need, no less. Biden and his loathsome Secretary of State Antony Blinken have continuously sought to impose premature ceasefires, hamstringing the Jewish state's righteous attempt to eradicate the Hamas cancer. They have constantly threatened to withhold weapons shipments unless more "humanitarian aid"—inevitably gobbled up by Hamas—is delivered to Gaza. Biden has imposed sanctions on Israeli "settlers" in Judea and Samaria. He has even used U.S. taxpayer dollars to build an emergency pier off Gaza.
And most recently, his administration has just stood by and shrugged its collective shoulders while America's "leading" university campuses have been completely overrun by an infestation of riotous, anarchic Hamas sympathizers. Jewish students and faculty on campus are suffering the worst antisemitism in the history of the American republic, and all Biden can bring himself to do is meekly assert—as he did on Thursday—that protests must not lead to "disorder." But he has simultaneously rejected the possibility of sending in the National Guard to restore order and is openly contemplating the possibility of bringing in a new wave of Palestinian-Arab migrants.
What could possibly go wrong?
There is increasing evidence that the president is paying a political price for his jihad apologia. A recent CNN poll showed Trump leading Biden 49% to 43%—well outside the statistical margin of error—in a head-to-head matchup. In an incisive tweet, commentator Guy Benson took a deeper dive at the poll's crosstab data on the Israel-Hamas war: "Biden is at a dreadful (28/71) on his handling of the Israel/Hamas war. Media will focus on him being deep underwater (19/81) on the issue among young voters, pushing the narrative that he's still seen as too pro-Israel. But he's relatively strong on the issue among partisan Democrats (46/53). Among Republicans and independents, who are much more pro-Israel than the Democratic base at this point, he's at (13/87) and (27/73) respectively."
In other words, while no one really approves of Biden's handling of the war, those outside the anti-Western/pro-jihad left-wing echo chamber are far likelier to disapprove of Biden's Hamas sycophancy. Maybe Joe can win over a few more Arab voters in Michigan or Minnesota, if he steers the course. But he definitely isn't setting himself up to win over white working-class or middle-class voters across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, or Nevada—the vast majority of whom would prefer a clearer campaign focus on our southern border crisis and stubborn inflation metrics, and virtually none of whom prefer Hamas-style Islamofascism over Israel.
Biden's political calculus, in short, is just as misguided as his moral calculus. The would-be shahid of Dearborn is in for a hard slog unless he recovers enough cognitive ability and common sense to overrule his woke staffers and change course immediately.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek senior editor-at-large, host of "The Josh Hammer Show" and "America on Trial with Josh Hammer," a syndicated columnist, and senior counsel for the Article III Project. Subscribe here for "The Josh Hammer Report," a Newsweek newsletter, as well as Josh Hammer's Subtext text message group. X: @josh_hammer.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large and host, "The Josh Hammer Show"
