There was a pretty energetic push to get primary voters in the state of Washington to vote “uncommitted” to protest the administration’s Israel policy. It got 7.5% of the vote representing 48,600 votes which is quite a few. It’s not a state with a large Arab American population but there are a lot of lefties there and they made their voices heard. Still, it’s not a battleground state so perhaps it’s not as relevant as it was in Michigan.
Dave Weigel reported on the project for Semafor:
Next week, they’ll try again in Kansas. Next month, they’ll do it in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin — all states where “uncommitted” efforts have come together quickly, inspired by campaigns in Michigan, Minnesota, and Hawaii that have denied Biden 20 delegates so far.
“We’re focused on ensuring that President Biden and his campaign listen to us,” said Rami Al-Kabra, the 47-year-old deputy mayor of Bothell, a city in Seattle’s suburbs. “What happens in November? Hopefully we will not be having the same conversation again.”
The activists organizing “uncommitted” votes don’t expect to defeat Biden, or even carry a state; they did best last week in Hawaii, where an ad hoc coalition of progressives and pro-Palestinian groups won 29% of the vote in a low-turnout caucus. They agree on some demands — a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to military aid to Israel without human rights conditions — and don’t fight about the others.
So far, they’re also meeting little resistance from the Biden campaign or state Democratic parties. After a brief frenzy in Michigan, where Biden surrogates barnstormed the state to turn out more votes for the president, Democrats are taking a light touch.
Al-Kabra got involved in the “uncommitted” campaign after he learned that a friend had thrown out his mail ballot instead of casting a protest vote. He and local Democratic leaders agreed: Keeping voters active, even if they’re temporarily undermining the president, was preferable to watching them drift away and sit out the November election.
“We welcome the discussion,” said Shasti Conrad, the chair of the Washington State Democrats. “We want people to feel as though this party is a space that they can participate in, where they can hold opinions that are different than the majority. That’s why we’re not a cult. That’s why we’re different than the Republican Party.”
This is important. The protest is legitimate and important and I have to think it’s having an effect on the Biden administration, along with the obvious facts on the ground and the disapprobation growing around the world toward Israel’s siege, as they face the general election. But it’s also vitally important not to miss the forest for the trees and young people especially are idealists and have a tendency to put blinders on and it could be disastrous for them and the world. It’s good to have national leaders like Ilhan Omar and locals like Al-Kabra making that clear.
The Democrats are respecting that which is very smart:
There is no serious organized Democratic Party effort to stop these campaigns, which highlight an issue that separates the president from most of his voters. (The Hawaii Democratic Party voted to endorse a permanent ceasefire in December.) State party chairs who talked with Semafor about the campaigns agreed on two points — that the president was trying to get a ceasefire that nearly all critics should be able to support, and that they’d rather those critics cast ballots than throw them out.
“We don’t censure our members for disagreements on policies,” said Nancy DiNardo, the chair of the Connecticut Democratic Party. “We have that all the time. We just hope that, later, we can talk to them and convince them why it’s important that they do vote Democratic in November.”
Weigel added these comments, however, and I expect he’s right. Now that the primaries are over, this is going to become the story for the media which doesn’t have much else to report and we know how that’s going to go:
The end of the competitive phase of the primary is a boon to protest-voters and organizers, who have flooded the zone that Nikki Haley and Dean Phillips just abandoned. These primaries are going to happen anyway, and a press corps hungry for a story — this is me, breaking the fourth wall — will have one until the war ends.
At least this story will have some substance to it instead of Biden’s age and Trump’s nicknames. Weigel goes on to point out that the big thing that’s changed is that the Democrats have decided to be philosophical about this and aren’t doing any kind of organized pushback. The Biden campaign said this:
“The President believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans,” a Biden campaign spokesman said in a statement. “He shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East. He’s working tirelessly to that end.”
I think the vast majority of non-MAGA voters are beginning to see the stakes in this election and they will act accordingly. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt if some combination of the Americans, other leaders in the region and around the world and, most of all, Israelis themselves would topple that monster Netanayahu and his government and put an end to this siege.
By the way: I heard from someone the other day that in Israel, the public is still in the midst of the trauma of October 7th, overwhelmed with the images of terror and fear still being shown on their TVs every day and they aren’t really seeing what’s happening in Gaza. I have to imagine that is having a terrible effect on the people and on their ability to clearly see that they are making themselves more vulnerable not safer with this over-the-top response. We did that after 9/11 and we all know it resulted in more death and destruction over the course of many years because the terror and blood lust blinded our government and a good part of the population. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were bad enough, just imagine if 9/11 had happened here when Donald Trump was president. That’s what they have with Netanyahu, a desperate man trying to stay in power in order to stay out of jail.
