Republicans are using a narrative of chaos and ‘philosophical divisions on Israel’ among Democrats to sink Biden’s campaign
Republicans have identified recent college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza as the core of an election campaign narrative of chaos that they hope can be used to sink Joe Biden’s presidency.
The approach was bluntly crystallised by Tom Cotton, the Republican senator Arkansas, in a recent television interview when he mocked the encampments that have sprung up in recent weeks as “little Gazas” and lambasted the president for a perceived failure to unequivocally denounce instances of antisemitism.
“Everyone that disagrees with me is a shill”
Listen, I’m going to hold my nose and vote for Biden in November because a Trump victory risks the end of democracy in the US, but I’m so tired of this idea that all criticism of him, and anyone who disagrees with us about whether to vote for him, is a victim of some kind of conspiracy.
That isn’t to say that people don’t want to exploit those divisions and will try to spread misinformation to do so, but that isn’t an excuse to dismiss everyone you disagree with either.
In a normal media environment I’d agree with you completely, the problem is that we have a media apparatus that is set up as a propaganda arm of a political party and mainstream media thinks that balance is that any negative news story must be balanced by a negative news story in the other direction (“Trump incites riot and Biden mispronounced his granddaughters name, why both could mean the collapse of their campaigns” type coverage), instead of being balanced in standards of reporting.
I don’t know what the solution is. My strategy though is to work down ballot to get better people in positions to push Biden and get him more flexibility to make better choices and changes.