The White House Really Is This Arrogant and Stupid, Huh?

It's responding to the critics of its Gaza policy in the most contemptuous way possible. Idiots!

David McNew/Getty Images

On Sunday, Politico’s Jonathan Martin quoted a House Democrat saying what is clear to everyone with a brain in their head: that Joe Biden’s decision to offer unyielding support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza is a calamity.

One House Democrat told me of a dinner last month with about eight other colleagues, a cross-section of the caucus ideologically and generationally. “It was unanimous that this Israel-Gaza war needed to end now and that Biden needed to stand up to Bibi,” this lawmaker told me, before offering his own view.

“This is a disaster politically,” said this House Democrat, who rarely criticizes Israel. “The base is really pissed — and it’s not just the leftists. I have never seen such a depth of anguish as I’ve seen over this Gaza issue. Bibi is toxic among many Democratic voters and Biden must distance himself from him — yesterday.”

Setting aside the fact that complaining anonymously about this situation—rather than, say, publicly pressuring Biden to call for a permanent ceasefire—is cowardly and of relatively little use, what this person is saying is obviously true. Try as the Nancy Pelosis of the universe might to portray the opposition to Israel’s campaign of mass murder as some fringe concern of Russian-backed crazies, more and more evidence piles up by the day showing that wanting this slaughter to end is a thoroughly mainstream position.

An AP poll on Friday showed 50 percent of Americans saying Israel has “gone too far,” a figure driven, according to the organization, “by growing disapproval among Republicans and political independents.” Biden’s overall approval rating is in the toilet. An NBC poll on Sunday found just 29 percent of respondents backing his handling of the war on Gaza; among voters under 35, that number is an even more minuscule 15 percent, with 70 percent disapproving. That figure is backed up by the AP’s poll, which also reported that “about 6 in 10 non-white Democrats disapprove of how Biden is approaching the conflict.”

Taken together, these figures show the obvious: Biden has helped to carry out one of the biggest moral obscenities in modern world history, and all he’s gotten in return is an ever-spiraling quagmire in the Middle East; a close partnership with a fascist Israeli government that keeps spitting in his face and isn’t even winning the war on its own stated terms; and the growing revulsion of the people he desperately needs to win reelection.

It’s surely not helping that Biden keeps making impromptu comments that underscore the futility and hypocrisy of his policy. There was his instantly infamous response to a question about whether his attacks on the Houthis were actually doing anything—“When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes”—and his equally revealing statement that he holds Iran responsible for the attack on a U.S. military base in Jordan because “they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.” (If that’s the threshold for responsibility, then Israel isn’t the only country that should be staring down charges at The Hague.) That last comment is now being shown on the side of “Genocide Joe” trucks driving through Arab American strongholds in Michigan, as can be seen in this CNN clip.

One big problem Biden faces in responding to all of this is that he very obviously does not want to give his millions of critics the thing they are asking for the most—a permanent ceasefire. He has had months and months to take real steps to end this carnage, and he has declined. So instead, he’s had to resort to things like imposing sanctions on some particularly evil West Bank settlers (a good but limited action) and saying that he doesn’t like anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia (the world’s lowest bar to clear).

But, if the Politico piece is anything to go by, an even bigger problem is that the White House really is as arrogant and stupid as it seems. Why do I say that? Take a look (emphasis mine):

The White House, in a reflection of their public confidence (hubris?) regarding the politics of Biden’s positioning on Israel, arranged a call with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).

Fetterman, who has delighted in trolling left-wing critics by resolutely standing with Israel since Oct. 7, told me young voters should consider the implications of enabling a candidate who would likely given Netanyahu even more of a free hand.

“If you sit this out, or throw your vote away, you now are effectively empowering Bibi, and you’re definitely going to be empowering Trump,” he said.

And, Fetterman added, don’t forget the lessons of Hillary Clinton: “I said the same thing in 2016 to voters, I said: ‘Hey, you know what, you don’t like Clinton, you know what, fuck around and find out what Trump is going to be about and, hey guess what, how’d you like it?’”

You must be joking. The White House knew that Politico was doing a big piece about the left-wing critics of its Israel policy, and it decided to respond to that by putting forth John Fetterman, whose contemptuousness for the pro-Palestinian movement has destroyed whatever reputation he once had as a progressive? And, far from saying anything conciliatory, Fetterman was as smug and deliberately inflammatory as possible? (Also, I’m not sure how much more someone could be “empowering Bibi” than Biden is doing right now, so these people need a better argument than that.)

They might as well have had Biden come out and say “fuck off” instead because the message being sent here is the same: your concerns are ridiculous to us and we don’t have to take them seriously. All we have to do is wave the Trump monster at you and you’ll shut up like you should.

Well, look around, Joe. That’s not going to fly. I’m sure these people want to win the election, but ask yourself: what would people who didn’t want to win the election be doing differently right now? Good luck in November.