The Delusions of the Uncommitted Bloc
Biden should ignore the left’s bad politics and even worse policy demands.
Nearly 300,000 Michigan residents voted against Donald Trump in last week’s Republican primary, while 100,000 residents voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary. Yet, according to the activist class, President Biden and his administration now need to bow down to the demands of this much smaller and more extreme bloc or risk losing their support in November.
That’d be both bad politics and even worse policy.
The uncommitted bloc’s leadership is explicit about its goals and demands: derail or defeat President Biden unless he agrees to a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and stops all military aid to Israel.
As Khalid Turanni of the Abandon Biden movement told The New York Times: “I and my community need to punish Joe Biden by making him a one-term president.” The slightly less strident Listen to Michigan group claims that Biden is supporting genocide and similarly demands that he stop the war in Gaza and halt all American funding for Israel.
It seems obvious that these groups have no intention whatsoever of helping Biden and Democrats more broadly, and they’re apparently happy to help pave the way for Donald Trump’s return to the presidency if they don’t get their way—regardless of the consequences.
With these demands, the uncommitted bloc has made clear that they aren’t anti-war—they’re anti-peace. A permanent ceasefire in Gaza prior to the dismantling and elimination of the security threat posed by Hamas is merely a call for Israel to accept defeat in its war against the terrorists that attacked its people on October 7. Ordinary Israelis will never agree to this outcome, and America cannot impose it on them. Even more extreme, these same groups also want the U.S. to abandon its military support for Israel at a time when both the United States and Israel face myriad threats from groups backed by Iran including Yemen’s Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and a collection of militias in Syria and Iraq.
Acceding to these demands would leave Hamas in power with hostages unjustly detained in Gaza and take away Israel’s ability to defend itself, putting the Middle East even further away from peace than it is now. That’s quite a set of demands, one that President Biden should reject outright.
Instead of chasing 100,000 voters in Michigan who want to see Biden and Israel lose, the president ought to go after the hundreds of thousands of proven anti-Trump voters who backed Haley in the state—and critically, support our democratic partner, Israel. Trying to appease the uncommitted bloc (only 13 percent of the Democratic primary vote in MI anyway, not much larger than the showing in 2012) will only turn away more mainstream Democrats, independents, and anti-Trump Republicans. Their demands are so impractical and unwise that they should not be pursued by Biden in any case. Voices that praise an unwell young man’s self-immolation in front of the Israeli embassy last month offer a road to nowhere.
As the president courts voters who genuinely care for America’s and Israel’s interests, Biden should also advance five sensible policies:
Get the remaining American and Israeli hostages home.
Disarm and remove Hamas as a security threat.
Surge aid to Palestinians facing humanitarian challenges including a possible famine.
Inoculate against the threats posed by Iran and its proxy networks.
Advance a two-state solution with our Arab partners over the next few years.
The Biden administration has correctly sought to put in place a temporary six-week ceasefire linked to a hostage release and Palestinian prisoner exchange. Since Hamas broke the first ceasefire of the war in early December, Biden and top members of his team have made achieving another ceasefire a priority—but they rightly insist that any ceasefire agreement eliminates the security threats that sparked this latest war and does not simply give in to terrorists’ demands, as echoed by those on the extreme left.
When faced with complicated international challenges like the Israel-Hamas war, the best course of action is to lead with the best policy—the one that gives the best chance for long-term peace and stability. Biden should use part of this Thursday night’s State of the Union address to reiterate America’s leadership role in advancing peace and security in the Middle East. That includes making the case for the additional funding he asked for last October to support his policies in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Asia. Biden also needs to reaffirm the message he delivered on his trip to the Middle East in the summer 2022: that he was ignoring the isolationist voices on the left and right calling for America to retreat from the world and instead was setting America on a path of continued and more sustainable engagement in the Middle East.
As President Biden fights an uphill battle for reelection, he can ill afford to pursue questionable political strategies and extreme policy demands from left-wing agitators. The path to reelection for Biden goes through the vital center—and this will require an agenda that goes well beyond foreign policy to focus on the economic and social needs of normal, moderate, working-class Americans.
On the immediate global front though, President Biden needs to keep a steady hand to support the effort to dismantle Hamas as a security threat and work with partners in the region to help build a more peaceful future for all, including Palestinians and Israelis.